Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 November 17

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From today's featured article

HMS Royal Oak was one of five British Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. Launched on 17 November 1914, the ship first saw combat at the Battle of Jutland. On 14 October 1939, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-47 while anchored at Scapa Flow in Orkney, Scotland; 835 were killed that night or died later of their wounds. The loss of the outdated ship—the first of the five Royal Navy battleships and battlecruisers sunk in the Second World War—did little to affect the numerical superiority enjoyed by the British navy and its allies, but the sinking had a considerable effect on wartime morale. Günther Prien, the U-boat commander, became the first German submarine officer to be awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. Demonstrating that the German navy was capable of bringing the war to British home waters, the raid resulted in rapid changes to dockland security and the construction of the Churchill Barriers around Scapa Flow. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Female black-capped tanager

... that the female black-capped tanager (pictured) moulds her nest by vibrating in it?
... that after having to leave her World War I posting in Greece upon contracting dysentery, Canadian nurse Mabel Clint later re-enlisted to serve out the war in England and France?
... that more than 100 interviews were conducted for the 2019 documentary Queer Japan?
... that Frank Philipp Schlößmann designed the stage for Wagner's Ring cycle in Bayreuth in 2006, and more recently created a large illuminated ring framing the stage for the same work in Minden?
... that a scheme for declaring ten public and ten private institutions as Institutes of Eminence has been approved in India?
... that Chen Zhongyi, an engineer born in Taiwan and educated in the U.S., taught the future Chinese president Hu Jintao?
... that the stories in Chestnut Street by Maeve Binchy, published posthumously in 2014, had been written over a period of decades and filed away in a drawer?
... that Carla Lalli Music, the food director of Bon Appétit magazine, was the first general manager at Shake Shack?

In the news

Cyclone Bulbul

Cyclone Bulbul (satellite image shown) hits the Indian and Bangladeshi coasts of the Bay of Bengal, killing at least 24 people.
After weeks of protests over electoral fraud, Bolivian president Evo Morales and other high-ranking politicians are forced to resign, and opposition senator Jeanine Áñez becomes interim president.
The Supreme Court of India delivers a unanimous verdict in favour of the construction of a Hindu temple at a disputed holy site in Ayodhya.
A border corridor is opened between Pakistan and India, allowing Indian Sikh pilgrims visa-free access to Kartarpur Sahib for the first time since the partition.

On this day

November 17

H. H. Holmes

1839 – Giuseppe Verdi's first opera, Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, premiered at La Scala in Milan.
1894 – H. H. Holmes (pictured), one of the first modern serial killers, was arrested in Boston after having killed at least nine people.
1978 – The television show Star Wars Holiday Special was broadcast in the United States and became notorious for its extremely negative reception.
2009 – Administrators at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit discovered that their servers had been hacked and thousands of emails and files on climate change had been stolen.

Maria Antonia Ferdinanda of Spain (b. 1729) · Grace Abbott (b. 1878) · Rikard Wolff (d. 2017)

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Today's featured picture

"William" is the nickname of a faience hippopotamus statuette from the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it serves as an informal mascot of the museum. Found in a shaft associated with the Upper Egyptian tomb chapel of "The Steward, Senbi", in what is now Meir, William dates from c. 1961 BC – c. 1878 BC during the reigns of Senusret I and Senusret II. This small figurine in Egyptian faience, a clay-less material, has become popular not only for his endearing appearance but also because his defining characteristics illustrate many of the most salient facets of craft production in ancient Egypt during this time.

Sculpture credit: unknown; photographed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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