Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 June 10

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From today's featured article

The Great Mosque of Kufa, site of Mukhtar's grave

Mukhtar al-Thaqafi (c. 622 – 687) was an early Islamic revolutionary based in Kufa who led a rebellion against the Umayyads during the Second Islamic Civil War and ruled over most of Iraq for eighteen months. Mukhtar had allied with the Mecca-based rival caliph Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr following Husayn ibn Ali's death at the Battle of Karbala, but returned to Kufa after caliph Yazid's death. He declared Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah, a son of Ali, to be the Mahdi, and took power in his name in 685. Hostile relations with Ibn al-Zubayr ultimately led to Mukhtar's death at the hands of the Zubayrid governor of Basra, Mus'ab ibn al-Zubayr, following a four-month siege. Mukhtar's followers formed a radical Shia sect; later called Kaysanites, they developed novel doctrines and played a significant role in the Abbasid Revolution. Mukhtar is a controversial figure among Muslims, revered by Shia but condemned by many others as a false prophet. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Kitty O'Brien Joyner at
NACA Langley in 1952

... that Kitty O'Brien Joyner (pictured) was the first woman engineer at NACA, the predecessor to NASA?
... that Horst Rosenthal's 1942 comic Mickey au Camp de Gurs is "perhaps the earliest sequential art narrative dealing with the Holocaust"?
... that the medical historian Noël Poynter catalogued the Wellcome Library's incunabula?
... that the International Day Against DRM, organized by the Defective by Design initiative, has been observed since 2006?
... that Huang Weilu was the chief designer of China's first submarine-launched ballistic missile?
... that the pea crab Calyptraeotheres garthi effectively castrates its slipper limpet host, but breeding resumes if the crab is removed?
... that in 1959 the baritone Ernst Gutstein appeared as Ernesto in Haydn's Il mondo della luna, a role originally written for a castrato?
... that if two Austrians say they are "playing Cossack", they are likely to be enjoying the Tarot game of Kosakeln?

In the news

Mette Frederiksen

More than 1 million people in Hong Kong participate in protests against a proposed amendment regarding extradition.
In the Danish general election, centre-left and left-wing parties win a majority, with Mette Frederiksen (pictured) expected to become prime minister.
In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Liverpool defeating Tottenham Hotspur in the final.
Brigitte Bierlein is named interim chancellor of Austria, after a parliamentary motion of no confidence dismisses the government of Sebastian Kurz.

On this day

June 10

Mount Tarawera eruption

1190 – Third Crusade: Frederick Barbarossa drowned in the Saleph River in Anatolia.
1786 – Ten days after it was created during an earthquake, a landslide dam on the Dadu River in China was destroyed by an aftershock, causing a flood that killed an estimated 100,000 people.
1886 – Mount Tarawera, a volcano in the North Island of New Zealand, erupted (depicted), killing around 120 people and creating the Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley.
1925 – The United Church of Canada, the country's largest Protestant church, held its inaugural service in Toronto's Mutual Street Arena.
1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard was kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she remained a captive until 2009.

Gustave Courbet (b. 1819) · Ninian Comper (b. 1864) · Christina Grimmie (d. 2016)

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From today's featured list

American actor Denzel Washington made his feature film debut in Carbon Copy (1981). In 1982, Washington made his first appearance in the medical drama St. Elsewhere as Dr. Philip Chandler. The role proved to be the breakthrough in his career. In 1987, he played Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist in the Richard Attenborough-directed drama Cry Freedom, for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Two years later, Washington won the award for playing Trip, a former slave-turned-soldier in the Civil War film Glory (1989). Washington received the Silver Bear for Best Actor at the Berlin International Film Festival for playing the eponymous civil rights activist in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992). He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama, as well as his second Silver Bear for Best Actor, for playing wrongly-convicted boxer Rubin Carter in the biographical film The Hurricane (1999). For his next role as corrupt cop Detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller Training Day (2001), Washington received the Academy Award for Best Actor. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Alba Madonna is an oil painting by the Italian High Renaissance artist Raphael, produced around 1510. A circular piece, it depicts the Virgin Mary, the Christ Child and a young John the Baptist in a typical Italian countryside. John is holding up a cross to Jesus, which the latter is grasping. All three figures are staring at the cross. They are grouped to the left of the round design, but Mary's outstretched arm and billowing cloak balance the image. Originally painted on a circular wooden panel, the painting was transferred to a square canvas in the early nineteenth century, while in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. Through analysis of the painting, it has been determined that the original panel was severely splitting down the center and on the right side. The landscape on the far right of the work was damaged during the transfer process. The painting is now in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

Painting credit: Raphael

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