Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 December 27

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Dili heliport

The logistical support of INTERFET (International Force East Timor), a multinational peacekeeping mission in 1999 and 2000, involved 11,693 personnel from 23 countries. Led by Australia, it was the largest deployment of Australian forces overseas since the Vietnam War. INTERFET deployed to East Timor in September 1999. A base was established in Darwin, with supplies, equipment, stores and personnel stockpiled or staged there. East Timor possessed only one deepwater port, Dili, with a limited quayside depth, and only three airfields (heliport pictured). Troops were initially landed with a minimum of vehicles and supplies. Effective logistical support enabled INTERFET to carry out its mission without severe limitations, although there were some shortages. Over 90 per cent of the cargo and most of the passengers travelled by sea. Eleven nations contributed transport aircraft, which flew 3,400 sorties, carried 9,500 tonnes of cargo and transported more than 30,000 passengers. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Temple and Robinson in the staircase tap dance from The Little Colonel (1935)

... that Shirley Temple said of her relationship with her favorite dance partner Bill "Bojangles" Robinson (both pictured): "It was kind of a magic between us"?
... that the Wallace rule of nines to calculate the area of a burn was introduced by A. B. Wallace of Bangour General Hospital?
... that Wisconsin was the leading producer of dairy products in the United States from 1915 to 1993?
... that New Zealand mountaineer Marmaduke Dixon came within 100 ft (30 m) of the summit in his attempt to make the first ascent of the country's highest mountain, Aoraki / Mount Cook?
... that the life cycle of the Neptune-grass bryozoan is synchronized with the growth cycle of the seagrass on which it lives and the availability of the phytoplankton on which it feeds?
... that academic and philanthropist Guido Goldman convinced West German chancellor Willy Brandt to set up and endow the German Marshall Fund on the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Plan?
... that the Cistercian monastic order created an early competitor to Hindu–Arabic numerals with which they wrote years as a single character?
... that American football player Harry Field married a Hawaiian princess and is a 2021 finalist for induction into the Polynesian Football Hall of Fame?

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Chang'e 5

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On this day

December 27

Japanese aircraft carrier Hōshō

1521 – A period of unrest in Wittenberg, Saxony, following the arrival of the Zwickau prophets, was quelled after the release of Martin Luther from custody.
1657 – Citizens of New Netherland presented the Flushing Remonstrance to Peter Stuyvesant, the director general, requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship.
1831 – HMS Beagle departed Plymouth, England, on a voyage to South America that would make a name for Charles Darwin as a naturalist.
1922 – The Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned Hōshō (pictured), the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier.
1985 – The body of murdered American primatologist Dian Fossey was discovered inside her cabin in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda.
2007 – Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while leaving a Pakistan Peoples Party political rally at Liaqat National Bagh in Rawalpindi.

Sviatoslav II of Kiev (d. 1076)
George Cayley (b. 1773)
Hayley Williams (b. 1988)

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Today's featured picture

The Adoration of the Shepherds is a theme in depictions of the Nativity in which shepherds are near witnesses to the birth of Jesus; the scene is based on the biblical account in Luke 2 and has inspired many artists over the years. The nativity scene typically shows shepherds and animals in the stable at Bethlehem, surrounding Mary and the Christ Child. In this 1662 oil painting of the Adoration by the Dutch Golden Age painter Gerard van Honthorst, Jesus is the centre of attention; the infant seems to glow, illuminating the surrounding figures. The work is in the collection of the Pomeranian State Museum in Germany.

Painting credit: Gerard van Honthorst

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