Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 October 5

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From today's featured article

SMS Dresden was a German light cruiser, armed with ten 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns and two torpedo tubes, launched in October 1907. Dresden visited the United States in 1909 during the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, before serving in the High Seas Fleet. In 1913, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Division, then sent to the Caribbean. At the onset of World War I, Dresden operated as a commerce raider in South American waters in the Atlantic, then moved to the Pacific Ocean and joined the German East Asia Squadron. Dresden saw action in the Battle of Coronel in November 1914, and at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December, where she was the only German warship to elude the British. In March 1915, when she was almost out of coal and her engines were worn out, her captain attempted to have the ship interned by Chile at Robinson Crusoe Island. British cruisers violated Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship in the Battle of Más a Tierra and the Germans scuttled Dresden. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Tiling of hyperbolic space by ideal octahedra

... that unlike their Euclidean equivalents, the ideal regular tetrahedron, octahedron, and dodecahedron can all tile hyperbolic space (pictured)?
... that the 1936 film Hearts in Bondage is a rare example of a Hollywood film depicting naval battles of the Civil War?
... that Gerhard Weber signed tennis player Steffi Graf, at age 17 and before her international success, as an ambassador for the fashion brand Gerry Weber that he co-founded?
... that the Soviet Union called The Plot to Kill Stalin "filthy slander" and retaliated by closing the CBS news bureau in Moscow?
... that Hans Ustrud was the first native-born South Dakotan to be elected to statewide office?
... that all that can be seen of Thyone roscovita is often a plume of branching tentacles?
... that aerobics pioneer Jacki Sorensen was voted the best dancer in the 1962 Miss California pageant?
... that the British Board of Film Classification was forced to watch paint dry?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Shura (left) and Kosgei (right)

Shura Kitata and Brigid Kosgei (both pictured) win the London Marathon men's and women's races.
Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah becomes Emir of Kuwait after the death of his half-brother, Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.
In ice hockey, the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Dallas Stars to win the Stanley Cup.

On this day

October 5

R101

610 – Heraclius was crowned Byzantine emperor, having personally beheaded his predecessor, Phocas.
1789 – French Revolution: Upset about the high price and scarcity of bread, thousands of Parisian women and various allies marched on the royal palace at Versailles.
1930 – The British airship R101 (pictured) crashed in France en route to India on its maiden overseas flight, killing 48 passengers and crew.
1975 – Dirty War: The Argentine guerrilla group Montoneros carried out Operation Primicia, a terrorist attack in which they hijacked an Aerolíneas Argentinas flight, captured Formosa International Airport, and attacked a military regiment.

Catherine Cooper Hopley (b. 1817)
Guido von List (b. 1848)
Kate Winslet (b. 1975)

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From today's featured list

Sigourney Weaver

American actor Sigourney Weaver first began acting in plays in the early 1970s. Throughout her career, she has acted in nearly 40 stage productions. She made her film debut with a minor role in the Woody Allen–directed Annie Hall (1977). Her breakthrough role was as Ellen Ripley in the Ridley Scott–directed Alien (1979). She reprised the role in Aliens (1986), this time helmed by director James Cameron. Her performance netted her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She would reprise the role in two more sequels: Alien 3 (1992) and Alien Resurrection (1997), both of which were not as well received. Although originally written as a man, Ripley is now regarded as one of the most significant female protagonists in cinema history, and consequently, Weaver is considered to be a pioneer of action heroines in science-fiction films. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Tortoise Trainer is an oil-on-canvas painting created by the Turkish artist Osman Hamdi Bey between 1906 and 1907. It depicts a dervish contemplating several tortoises roaming the floor of an upper-storey room in what may be the Green Mosque in Bursa. He wears a skullcap wrapped round with a sash, and a long, red robe with embroidered border. In his left hand he holds a ney and on his back hangs a small kettledrum; he is attempting to train the animals with these musical instruments rather than by the use of force. In the painting, Hamdi satirises the slow and ineffective attempts at reform in the Ottoman Empire. The work is now located in the Pera Museum in Istanbul.

Painting credit: Osman Hamdi Bey

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