Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 June 26

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From today's featured article

Hertford College

C. R. M. F. Cruttwell (1887–1941) was a British historian and academic who served as principal of Hertford College, Oxford (pictured). The author of A History of the Great War, 1914–18, he specialised in modern European history. In 1912 he became a lecturer in history at Hertford. His academic career was interrupted by war service during which he suffered severe wounds. He became dean of Hertford in 1919, and its principal in 1930. He served as a Justice of the Peace in Hampshire, where he had a country home, and stood unsuccessfully for the university's parliamentary seat in the 1935 general election, representing the Conservative Party. The novelist Evelyn Waugh showed his distaste for Cruttwell, his former tutor, by repeatedly using the name in his early novels and stories to depict a sequence of unsavoury or ridiculous characters. This vendetta may have contributed to Cruttwell's eventual mental breakdown. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Flensing a whale at Neah Bay, Washington, 1910

... that the Icelandic word for "drift whale" translates as "windfall", since the washed-up carcass provides meat, blubber, fat, and other benefits to the finders (pictured)?
... that Cao Tianqin, the discoverer of the myosin light chain, was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution because of his association with Joseph Needham, who was accused of being a spy?
... that a phallic sculpture at Lakewood station attracted controversy because the area around the station had once been home to sex businesses?
... that Gujarati theatre actor Bapulal Nayak started his stage career at the age of eleven for a salary of three rupees per month?
... that "starfish soup" made from Stichaster striatus is said to have been fed to workers in South America to discourage alcohol consumption?
... that 19 years after Will P. Brady prosecuted the "legal lynching" of a 15-year-old murder suspect, Brady's brother, a judge, himself became the defendant in a death penalty trial?
... that in 1966, John Steinbeck visited the remnants of Mount Hope, a farm near Jaffa that had been founded by his grandparents?
... that Marye fought for both the United States Army and the Confederate States during the American Civil War?

In the news

Lake Toba

The ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia is officially lifted.
Canada legalizes the recreational use of cannabis with effect from October 2018, making it the second country to do so.
An overloaded tourist ferry capsizes in Lake Toba (pictured), Indonesia, killing at least 3 people and leaving 193 others missing.
In golf, Brooks Koepka wins the U.S. Open at the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

On this day

June 26: Day of the National Flag in Romania

June Days uprising

1295 – Przemysł II was crowned King of Poland, the first coronation of a Polish ruler in 219 years.
1848 – French authorities suppressed the June Days uprising (pictured), in which workers rioted in response to plans to close the National Workshops.
1918 – World War I: The 26-day Battle of Belleau Wood near the Marne River in France ended with American forces finally clearing that forest of German troops.
1945 – At a conference in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations signed a charter establishing the United Nations.
2015 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that the right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by the 14th Amendment.

Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin (b. 1699) · Daoud Corm (b. 1852) · Richie Powell (d. 1956)

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Today's featured picture

Sagittarius (Latin for the archer) is one of the 88 modern constellations. Commonly represented as a centaur drawing a bow, it lies between Scorpius and Ophiuchus to the west and Capricornus to the east. Among its features are Epsilon Sagittarii, the brightest star in the constellation, and the center of the Milky Way, lying in its westernmost. Sagittarius has been recognized since the time of the ancient Babylonians and Greeks, and today constitutes one of the twelve constellations of the zodiac.

Here, Sagittarius is shown together with Corona Australis, Microscopium, and Telescopium. This illustration by Sidney Hall was included in Urania's Mirror, a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards first published in 1824.

Illustration: Sidney Hall; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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