Wikipedia:Main Page history/2011 April 3

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Today's featured article
Umbriel is a moon of Uranus discovered together with Ariel on October 24, 1851, by William Lassell. It was named after a character in Alexander Pope's poem The Rape of the Lock. Umbriel consists mainly of ice with a substantial fraction of rock, and may be differentiated into a rocky core and an icy mantle. The surface is the darkest among Uranian moons, and appears to have been shaped primarily by impacts. However, the presence of canyons suggests early endogenic processes, and the moon may have undergone an early endogenically driven resurfacing event that obliterated its older surface. Covered by numerous impact craters reaching 210 km (130 mi) in diameter, Umbriel is the second most heavily cratered satellite of Uranus after Oberon. The most prominent surface feature on it is a ring of bright material on the floor of Wunda crater. This moon, like all moons of Uranus, probably formed from an accretion disk that surrounded the planet just after its formation. The Uranian system has been studied up close only once: by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in January 1986. It took several images of Umbriel, which allowed mapping of about 40% of the moon’s surface. (more...) Recently featured: Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas – Cock Lane ghost – Sir Richard Williams Archive – By email – More featured articles...
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From Wikipedia's newest articles: ... that Leonardo da Vinci's student Salaì painted a nude version of the Mona Lisa called Monna Vanna (pictured)? ... that places of worship in the English district of Horsham include a mosque in a former Baptist chapel? ... that the Danmark served as a training ship for the United States Coast Guard after it was trapped in the United States by the outbreak of World War II, leading to the acquisition of the USCGC Eagle? ... that in 1999 the sea flooded the Blayais Nuclear Power Plant in France, knocking out the power supply and safety systems and resulting in a Level 2 event on the International Nuclear Event Scale? ... that frustration in mixing all of the microphones in a musical production of Hair was what sparked Dan Dugan's invention of the automixer? ... that Ohio's Paulding County Carnegie Library was the first Carnegie library in the United States to serve an entire county rather than an individual city? ... that Michigan baseball coach Frank Sexton was confronted with a knife, a cane and an arrest warrant after declaring a forfeit when Indiana refused to continue play due to darkness? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Arturo Chávez The Cricket World Cup concludes with India defeating Sri Lanka in the final match. Arturo Chávez (pictured) resigns as Mexico's Attorney General amid the ongoing Drug War. At least fourteen people are killed in an attack by demonstrators on a UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. Mayotte officially becomes France's 101st department, as approved by 95% of the population in a 2009 referendum. Forces loyal to Alassane Ouattara begin to besiege Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire's former capital and largest city. Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa resigns amid ongoing civil war. Earthquake in Japan · Middle East and North Africa protests Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
April 3: Laetare Sunday (Western Christianity, 2011); Mothering Sunday (United Kingdom and Ireland, 2011) 1860 – The Pony Express, a mail service that became the most direct means of long distance communication to the American West, began operation. 1888 – The first of eleven unsolved brutal murders of women committed in or near the impoverished Whitechapel district in the East End of London, occurred. 1922 – Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. 1948 – An uprising began on Jeju Island, eventually leading to the deaths of between 14,000 and 30,000 individuals due to fighting between its various factions, and the violent suppression of the rebellion by the South Korean army. 1973 – On a New York City street, Motorola researcher Martin Cooper (pictured) made the first public call on a handheld mobile phone. More anniversaries: April 2 – April 3 – April 4 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now April 3, 2011 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

The frontispiece to a c. 1825 edition of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, a lengthy narrative poem by Lord Byron. The poem describes the travels and reflections of a world-weary young man who, disillusioned with a life of pleasure and revelry, looks for distraction in foreign lands; in a wider sense, it is an expression of the melancholy and disillusionment felt by a generation weary of the wars of the post-Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras. This poem proved to be quite popular upon its publication in 1812. Byron himself said of this, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

Engraving: I. H. Jones; Restoration: Adam Cuerden

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