Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 April 4

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From today's featured article

Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against African-Americans, Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, in opposition to President Andrew Johnson. After serving in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Stevens was elected to Congress in 1848 as a Whig. His activities in opposition to slavery cost him votes and he did not seek reelection in 1852. Stevens joined the newly formed Republican Party, and was elected to Congress again in 1858. Stevens argued that slavery should not survive the American Civil War; he was frustrated by the slowness of President Abraham Lincoln to support his position. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the war, he played a major part in the war's financing. After Lincoln's assassination in April 1865, Stevens came into conflict with the new president, Johnson. Stevens's last great battle was to secure articles of impeachment in the House against Johnson, though the Senate did not convict the President. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Mom & Me & Mom, the seventh autobiography by Maya Angelou (pictured with U.S. President Barack Obama), appeared shortly before Mother's Day last year?
... that, during the 1929–30 English football season, at a point when only one other Watford F.C. player had scored more than one goal, Frank McPherson had already scored 22 of Watford's 29 total goals?
... that La Storta has a chapel, a piazza, and an annual feast day dedicated to the vision that Saint Ignatius is said to have experienced there in 1537?
... that Romanian linguist Sextil Pușcariu spent three years in Berlin during World War II, leading a propaganda effort against Hungary's hold on Northern Transylvania?
... that the plot of Inside No. 9 episode "The Understudy" both revolved around and was based upon Shakespeare's Macbeth?
... that it was Monique Loudières's doctor who recommended she should take up ballet, given her rather fragile constitution?

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In the news

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile causes six deaths and prompts a tsunami warning.
The International Court of Justice rules that Japan's whale hunt in the Southern Ocean is not for scientific purposes and must be halted.
More than 80 people are killed in an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The North Atlantic Council appoints Jens Stoltenberg (pictured) as the next Secretary General of NATO.
Russian–American mathematician Yakov Sinai wins the Abel Prize "for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics".
Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate, is freed and granted a retrial after 48 years in prison.

Recent deaths: Frankie Knuckles

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On this day...

April 4: Children's Day in Hong Kong and Taiwan

1768 – Philip Astley set up the first modern amphitheatre (pictured) for the display of horse riding tricks in Lambeth, London, the origin of the modern circus.
1796 – French naturalist Georges Cuvier delivered a lecture at the National Museum of Natural History on living and fossil remains of elephants and related species, founding the science of paleontology.
1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the popular American song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface minstrel show.
1968 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
1990 – The current flag of Hong Kong was adopted for post-colonial use during the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress.

More anniversaries: April 3 – April 4 – April 5

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From today's featured list

Poker hands are constructed of playing cards according to predetermined rules, which vary according to which variant of poker is being played. These hands are compared using a hand ranking system that is standard across all variants of poker, the player with the highest-ranking hand winning that particular deal in most variants of poker. In some variants, the lowest-ranking hand can win or tie. These hand rankings are also used in some other card games, and in poker dice. The ranking of a particular hand is increased by including multiple cards of the same card rank, by all five cards being from the same suit, or by the five cards forming a consecutive series. The relative ranking of the various hand categories is based on the probability of being randomly dealt such a hand from a well-shuffled deck. The hand category with the highest ranking is the straight flush, which consists of hands that contain five cards in sequence, all of the same suit. An ace-high straight flush is known as a royal flush (example pictured), and is the highest-ranking standard poker hand. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

An illustration for the Gilbert and Sullivan play Princess Ida, completed by William Russell Flint (1880–1969) for the 1909 printing of Savoy Operas, a compilation of four Gilbert and Sullivan works. Flint began illustrating at age 14, working as an apprentice lithographer while studying at the Royal Institute of Art, Edinburgh. After a time as a medical illustrator, Flint found work with The Illustrated London News. He produced several literary illustrations, including for the Savoy Operas and a 1912 edition of Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales.

This illustration presents the beginning of the luncheon at the end of Act II, in which drunken shenanigans accidentally reveal the gender of the disguised men. "Enter the 'Daughters of the Plough', bearing Luncheon."

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Illustration: William Russell Flint; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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