Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 February 6

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From today's featured article

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia (1882–1960) was the youngest child of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and younger sister of Emperor Nicholas II. Her father died when she was 12, and her brother Nicholas became emperor. At 19 she married Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg; their marriage was unconsummated and was annulled by the Emperor in October 1916. The following month Olga married cavalry officer Nikolai Kulikovsky, with whom she had fallen in love several years before. During the First World War, the Grand Duchess served as an army nurse at the front and was awarded a medal for personal gallantry. At the downfall of the Romanovs in the Russian Revolution of 1917, she fled to the Crimea with her husband and children, where they lived under the threat of assassination. After her brother and his family were shot by revolutionaries, she and her family escaped to Denmark in February 1920. In exile, she was often sought out by Romanov impostors who claimed to be her dead relatives. In 1948, feeling threatened by Joseph Stalin's regime, she emigrated with her immediate family to Ontario, Canada. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

The nine sheets of the Treaty of Waitangi

... that New Zealand's founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi (pictured), barely escaped burning in a fire, was lost for decades, and then was found in a damp basement heavily water damaged and chewed by rodents?
... that German author Natalie Grams set out to write a scientific defense of homeopathy, but instead discontinued her homeopathic practice and wrote a book called Homeopathy Reconsidered?
... that four years ago today, 2,000 passengers stranded in China's Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport during a snowstorm rioted over delayed flights, destroying check-in desks and assaulting staff?
... that the M60 and Q70 bus routes in New York City were upgraded because LaGuardia Airport had no other rapid transit options?
... that the Republic SD-4 and Fairchild SD-5 reconnaissance drones were designed to provide targeting data for tactical ballistic missiles?
... that General Sir Brian Robertson said: "General Montgomery does not cheat – whether that is due to his innate honesty or the fact that I watch him like a cat does not matter"?
... that though the Saleh Kamboh Mosque of Lahore was built during Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's reign, it has architectural features of the Shah Jahani era?
... that the New Zealand Māori folk song "Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi" was hijacked by British and Irish Lions rugby fans?

In the news

Nick Foles

In American football, the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII (MVP Nick Foles pictured).
Archaeologists announce the discovery using LiDAR of approximately 60,000 Mayan structures in the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala.
A total lunar eclipse occurs, close to perigee and also the second full moon in a month, a coincidence of events not seen for 35 years.
A new genus of lithostrotian sauropod, Mansourasaurus, is discovered in Egypt.
In Yemen, separatists from the Southern Transitional Council seize government buildings in Aden from President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi's forces.

On this day...

February 6: Sami National Day (Sami people); Ronald Reagan Day in most U.S. states

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

1778 – France and the United States signed the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, establishing military and commercial ties respectively between the two nations.
1819 – British official Stamford Raffles (pictured) signed a treaty with Sultan Hussein Shah of Johor, establishing Singapore as a trading post for the British East India Company.
1840 – The British and the Māori signed the Treaty of Waitangi, considered as the founding document of New Zealand.
1958 – The aircraft carrying the Manchester United football team crashed while attempting to take off from Munich-Riem Airport in West Germany, killing 8 players and 15 others.
1987 – Mary Gaudron was appointed as the first female Justice of the High Court of Australia.

Joseph Priestley (d. 1804) · Isabella Beeton (d. 1865) · Eva Braun (b. 1912)

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Today's featured picture

Dancing Fairies is an oil painting on canvas by the Swedish painter August Malmström (1829–1901). Completed in 1866 and drawing on Swedish folk tradition, it depicts fairies dancing above the water in a moonlit landscape. The painting is held at the Swedish National Museum in Stockholm.

Painting: August Malmström

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