Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 April 24b

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USS Vandalia

James Wood Bush (c. 1844 – 1906) was an American Union Navy sailor of British and Native Hawaiian descent. He was among a group of more than one hundred Native Hawaiian and Hawaii-born combatants in the Civil War, at a time when the Kingdom of Hawaii was still an independent nation. Enlisting in the Union Navy in 1864, Bush served as a sailor aboard the USS Vandalia (depiction shown) and the captured Confederate vessel USS Beauregard, which maintained the blockade of the ports of the Confederacy. He was discharged from service in 1865 after an injury, which developed into a chronic condition in later life. Returning to Hawaii in 1877, he worked as a government tax collector and road supervisor for the island of Kauai, where he settled down. After the annexation of Hawaii to the United States, Bush was recognized for his military service, and in 1905 was granted a government pension for the injuries he received in the Navy. (Full article...)

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Hoche

... that the French ironclad Hoche (pictured) had such a large superstructure that she was nicknamed "le Grand Hôtel"?
... that Hong Kong politician Cheng Lai-king has represented her constituency in the Central and Western District Council since its creation in 1994?
... that if completed, the coal-fired Afşin-Elbistan C power station would emit more than a tenth of Turkey's greenhouse gas emissions?
... that ice hockey player Akil Thomas runs a clothing company that embraces his Barbadian heritage?
... that Oklahoma station KRMC dropped its all-news radio format in part because its management felt that it did not work well on a daytime-only station?
... that Heinz Imdahl, a baritone at the Bavarian State Opera, appeared as Beethoven's Pizarro at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma and as Wagner's Hans Sachs at the Philadelphia Opera?
... that despite being the third edition of the tournament, the 1982 Women's Cricket World Cup featured the first final held in the tournament's history?
... that actress Laia Manzanares played a cheerleader who is seduced by a gorilla mascot in a Tame Impala music video?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Netanyahu (left) and Gantz (right)

After seventeen months of stalemate, the Likud and Blue and White parties reach an agreement for Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (pictured) to share power in Israel.
A mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves twenty-two victims dead.
In the South Korean legislative election, the ruling Democratic Party and their allies increase their majority in the National Assembly.

On this day

April 24: First day of Ramadan (Islam, 2020); Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day (1915)

Hubble Space Telescope

1479 BC – Thutmose III became the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, with his aunt and stepmother Hatshepsut as coregent.
1866 – German composer Max Bruch conducted the premiere of his first violin concerto, which later became his most famous work.
1913 – The Woolworth Building in New York City officially opened; at the time, it was the tallest building in the world, with a height of 792 ft (241 m).
1965 – Cold War: The Dominican Civil War broke out due to tensions following a military coup of the democratically elected government of President Juan Bosch two years earlier.
1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard STS-31 by Space Shuttle Discovery.

Xu Guangqi (b. 1562)
Anthony Trollope (b. 1815)
Sathya Sai Baba (d. 2011)

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From today's featured list

Loch Leven Castle Island

The freshwater islands in Scotland include those within freshwater lochs and rivers – including tidal areas, so the islands may not always be surrounded by freshwater. It has been estimated that there are at least 31,460 freshwater lochs in Scotland and that 1.9 per cent of the land surface is covered by freshwater. The distribution has a north-west to south-east gradient, with the highest concentrations occurring on the islands of the Outer Hebrides. The more notable freshwater islands include Lochindorb Castle Island, Loch Leven Castle Island (pictured), St Serf's Inch, and Inchmahome, each of which has had a role to play in Scottish history. Inchmurrin, the largest freshwater island in the British Isles, is in Loch Lomond, which contains thirty or more other islands. Various names are used repeatedly. "Inch" or Innis is a Scots word that can mean 'island' (although it is also used for terra firma surrounded by marsh). Similarly, Eilean is the Gaelic for 'island'. A common suffix for offshore islands in the north of Scotland is "-holm", derived from the Old Norse holmr, meaning a 'small and rounded islet'. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Federal Reserve Bank Notes were banknotes issued by the United States Federal Reserve between 1915 and 1934, differing from Federal Reserve Notes in that they were backed by one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks, rather than by all of them collectively. They were first issued in 1915 in denominations of $5, $10 and $20, using a design that shared elements with both the National Bank Notes and the Federal Reserve Notes of the time. Additional denominations of $1, $2 and $50 were issued in 1918, a $100 note was designed but not issued, and a series of small-size notes was issued in 1933.

This picture shows a five-dollar note issued in 1918 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, depicting President Abraham Lincoln on the obverse, and vignettes of Christopher Columbus sighting land and the Pilgrims' landing on the reverse. This banknote is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

Other denominations:

Banknote design credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; photographed by Andrew Shiva

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