Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 19

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From today's featured article

Junius Brutus Stearns's Life of George Washington: The Farmer

George Washington was a slaveowner and Founding Father who became uneasy with the institution of slavery but provided for the emancipation of his slaves only after his death. Most of his slaves worked on his Mount Vernon estate. They built their own community around marriage and family, and resisted the system by various means, from feigning illness to absconding. As a young planter, Washington demonstrated no qualms about slavery. His first doubts about the institution were economic, prompted when the transition from tobacco to grain crops in the 1760s left him with a costly surplus of slaves. After the American Revolution, he privately expressed support for the abolition of slavery by a gradual legislative process but never spoke publicly on the issue. In the mid-1790s, he considered plans to free his slaves, but his business remained dependent on slave labor. He stipulated in his will that his slaves were to be freed on the death of his wife. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Crown House in 2015

... that the local council voted against listing Crown House (pictured), the first building in St Leonards-on-Sea, criticising its "out-of-date design" and "fake Greek architecture"?
... that professional Super Smash Bros. player Maister went from being unranked to being considered the sixth-best Super Smash Bros. Ultimate player in only six months?
... that Barracuda is home to the longest-running bar show in New York City, which may have inspired RuPaul's Drag Race?
... that Jem Bendell's paper Deep Adaptation argues that neither a complete halt in emissions nor geoengineering can prevent what he sees as an impending climate apocalypse?
... that Brad Ashford described the film Forrest Gump as "a travelogue of my early life"?
... that the Space Shuttle used autogenous pressurization to keep its external fuel tank pressurized after engine ignition?
... that Polish philosopher Bronisław Bandrowski was trapped in the Tatra Mountains for days, but had already hurled himself into an abyss when rescuers arrived?
... that NATO has its own anthem?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

U.S. Supreme Court Building

At least twenty soldiers are killed during skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control between China and India.
The U.S. Supreme Court (building pictured) rules that gay and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza dies in office at the age of 55.

On this day

June 19: Juneteenth in parts of the United States (1865)

Maximilian I of Mexico

1846 – The first officially recorded baseball game in U.S. history using modern rules was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, with the "New York Nine" defeating the New York Knickerbockers 23–1.
1867 – Second French intervention in Mexico: Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico (pictured) was executed by firing squad in Querétaro City.
1970 – The international Patent Cooperation Treaty was signed, providing a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its contracting states.
1978 – Garfield, created by Jim Davis, debuted in American newspapers nationwide, eventually becoming one of the world's most widely syndicated comic strips.
2010 – The royal wedding of Victoria, Crown Princess of Sweden, and Daniel Westling took place in Stockholm Cathedral.

Guru Hargobind (b. 1595)
Aage Bohr (b. 1922)
Len Bias (d. 1986)

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From today's featured list

Gautam Gambhir

Sixty-three players captained their Champions League Twenty20 (CLT20) team in at least one match. In cricket, a captain is a player who leads the team and has additional roles and responsibilities. The CLT20 was an international professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league, which featured the best performing teams from the domestic T20 cricket leagues of major cricketing nations, such as the Indian Premier League and Australia's Big Bash League. MS Dhoni played the highest number of matches as a captain, leading the Chennai Super Kings in 23 matches with a win–loss percentage of 63.04. Among those who captained in more than ten matches, Trinidad and Tobago's Daren Ganga had the best win–loss percentage: 79.16. Only three players each captained two teams in the CLT20: Gautam Gambhir (pictured) led the Delhi Daredevils and the Kolkata Knight Riders, Simon Katich led the New South Wales Blues and the Perth Scorchers, and Jehan Mubarak led the Wayamba Elevens and the Southern Express. (Full list...)

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Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – 1883) was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Born into slavery in Swartekill, New York, she escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son in 1828, she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man. Her original name was Isabella Baumfree; she changed her name to Sojourner Truth when she became a Methodist on Pentecost Sunday, 1843. She chose this name because she heard the Spirit of God calling on her to preach the truth, telling her friends: "The Spirit calls me, and I must go", and left to make her way through the land, preaching about the abolition of slavery. During the Civil War, she helped recruit black troops for the Union Army, and after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.

This photograph of Truth was taken around 1870, accompanied by the caption "I sell the shadow to support the substance", emphasizing her financial acumen. The image is now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Photograph credit: Randall Studio; restored by Coffeeandcrumbs

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