Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 June 30

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Fantastic Novels was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published by the Munsey Company of New York from 1940 to 1941, and by Popular Publications from 1948 to 1951. It was launched as a bimonthly companion magazine to Famous Fantastic Mysteries in response to heavy demand for book-length reprints of stories from pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Argosy. It ran science fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades, including novels by A. Merritt, George Allan England, Victor Rousseau and others, and occasionally published reprints of more recent work, such as Earth's Last Citadel by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore. There were five issues in the magazine's first incarnation and another twenty in the revived version from Popular Publications, along with seventeen Canadian and two British reprints. Mary Gnaedinger edited both series; her interest in reprinting Merritt's work helped make him one of the better-known fantasy writers of the era. (Full article...)

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In the news

SpaceX CRS-7, an unmanned resupply mission to the International Space Station, fails when the Falcon 9 launch vehicle disintegrates (pictured) shortly after liftoff.
A dust explosion at a theme park in New Taipei City, Taiwan, injures at least 498 people.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of recognizing same-sex marriage nationwide.
At least 40 people are killed in attacks on two hotels in Sousse, Tunisia.
A bombing at a mosque in Kuwait City kills at least 27 people.
ISIL forces attack the Syrian city of Kobanî, killing more than 140 civilians.
Scientists announce the discovery of an early turtle ancestor that lived 240 million years ago.

Ongoing events:
- FIFA Women's World Cup
Recent deaths:
- Chris Squire
- Yevgeny Primakov

On this day...

June 30: Independence Day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960)

1559 – During a jousting match, Gabriel Montgomery of the Garde Écossaise mortally wounded King Henry II of France (pictured), piercing him in the eye with his lance.
1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, turning him into one of the world's most famous tightrope walkers.
1894 – London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames, opened.
1960 - The Belgian Congo received its independence from colonial rule, beginning a period of instability that ended with the installation of a dictatorship under Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in 1965.
1987 – The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the Canadian one-dollar coin, commonly known as the Loonie.

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Today's featured picture

Theatrical poster for a 1901 production of Ben-Hur, a theatrical adaptation of Lew Wallace's novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880). Written by William W. Young and produced by Marc Klaw and A. L. Erlanger, the Broadway show, which first premiered in 1899, made elaborate use of spectacle over its six acts. As with the novel before it, it told the story of Judah Ben-Hur, a fictional Jewish prince from Jerusalem who is enslaved by the Romans at the beginning of the 1st century and becomes a charioteer and a Christian.

Lithograph: Strobridge Lith. Co; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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