Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 September 25

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Mercantile Marine War Memorial

The Tower Hill Memorial is a pair of Commonwealth War Graves Commission memorials in Trinity Square, on Tower Hill in London, England. The memorials, one for the First World War and one for the Second, commemorate more than 36,000 men and women of the Merchant Navy and fishing fleets who were killed as a result of enemy action and have no known grave. The dead are named on bronze panels ordered by the ships they served on. The first memorial, the Mercantile Marine War Memorial (pictured), was commissioned following the heavy losses sustained by merchant shipping in the First World War. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and unveiled by Queen Mary in 1928. The second, the Merchant Seamen's Memorial, is a semi-circular sunken garden designed by Sir Edward Maufe and unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in November 1955. A third memorial, commemorating merchant sailors who were killed in the 1982 Falklands War, was added to the site in 2005. The memorials to the world wars are listed buildings. (Full article...)

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Mary Schenck Woolman

... that early vocational-education advocate Mary Schenck Woolman (pictured) obtained her first teaching position as a result of her "harsh" review of a sewing manual?
... that the seeds of Guilandina bonduc, commonly known as nickernuts, are buoyant and remain viable while being dispersed by ocean currents?
... that Nihonga artist Yumeji Takehisa was arrested in connection with a plot to assassinate Emperor Meiji of Japan?
... that India has 66 chess grandmasters?
... that James Edwin Campbell, the first president of West Virginia State University, was among the first African-American poets to write poems in the African-American vernacular dialect?
... that the Third Punic War between Rome and Carthage ended in the complete destruction of Carthage and the death or enslavement of all of its citizens?
... that Jane Fonda paid for her political activism with the profits of her Workout videos?
... that during the Falklands War, a fishing trawler served in the Royal Navy as HMS Junella?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Cyclone Ianos

Cyclone Ianos (satellite image shown) stalls over Greece, killing four people and flooding several cities.
At the Primetime Emmy Awards, Schitt's Creek wins in seven comedy categories and Succession wins in four drama categories.
In golf, Bryson DeChambeau wins the U.S. Open.
United States Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at the age of 87.

On this day

September 25

Bayezid I

1066 – Harold Godwinson defeated King Harald III of Norway and his English ally Tostig Godwinson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, ending the last Norse invasion of the British Isles.
1396 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I (pictured) defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
1977 – About 4,200 people took part in the first modern Chicago Marathon.
1990 – The Ram Rath Yatra, a political–religious rally organised to erect a temple to the Hindu deity Rama on the site of the Babri Masjid, began in the Indian state of Gujarat.

Robert Brackman (b. 1898)
Jacqueline Audry (b. 1908)
John Bonham (d. 1980)

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Brian O'Driscoll

Irish rugby-union player Brian O'Driscoll had 47 tries during his international career. He is a former captain of Ireland and also captained the British and Irish Lions. O'Driscoll, who spent the majority of his career playing at centre, made 133 appearances for Ireland, and his 46 tries set an Irish record. In addition to this, he made eight appearances for the Lions and scored one try, which occurred during the Lions' victory over Australia on the 2001 tour. O'Driscoll sits eighth on the all-time try-scorers record list, and is also top of the all-time try-scoring list for the Six Nations, with 26. He scored his first try for Ireland during his fourth match, against the United States in the 1999 Rugby World Cup at Lansdowne Road. O'Driscoll scored multiple tries in a single international on six occasions; included in these were two hat-tricks. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Although Mars is smaller than the Earth and 50 percent farther from the Sun, its climate has important similarities with the Earth, such as the presence of polar ice caps, seasonal changes and observable weather patterns. This image shows layered deposits in Planum Boreum, in the north polar region of Mars, which formed from a 3-kilometre-thick (2 mi) stack of dusty water-ice layers about 1,000 km (600 mi) across. The layers record information about the climate of the planet stretching back several million years. Erosion has created scarps and troughs that expose the layering. The tan-colored layers are the dusty water ice of the polar layered deposits, however a section of bluish layers is visible below them. These bluish layers contain sand-sized rock fragments that likely formed a large polar dunefield before the overlying dusty ice was deposited. This photograph, depicting an area approximately 1.3 km (0.8 mi) across, was captured by the HiRISE camera on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Photograph credit: NASA / JPL–Caltech / University of Arizona

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