Wikipedia:Main Page history/2011 October 16

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Today's featured article
Hermann Detzner (1882–1970) was an officer in the German colonial security force in Kamerun and German New Guinea, as well as a surveyor, an engineer, an adventurer, and a writer. In early 1914, the German government sent Detzner to explore and chart the interior of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland, the imperial protectorate on the island of New Guinea. When World War I broke out in Europe, he was well into the interior, without radio contact. He refused to surrender to Australian troops when they occupied German New Guinea, concealing himself in the jungle with a band of approximately 20 soldiers. For four years, Detzner and his troops provocatively marched through the bush. He explored areas of the Guinean interior formerly unseen by Europeans and surrendered in full dress uniform, flying the Imperial flag, to Australian forces in January 1919. He wrote a book about his adventures that achieved notoriety in Great Britain and Germany, entered three printings, and was translated into French, English, Finnish and Swedish. He received a position in the Imperial Colonial Archives, and appeared frequently on the lecture circuit throughout the 1920s. In the late 1920s, scientific portions of his book were discredited. In 1932, he admitted that he had mixed fact and fiction and, after that time, eschewed public life. (more...) Recently featured: 1964 Brinks Hotel bombing – "Mother and Child Reunion" – "Indian Camp" Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Did you know...
From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that one of the oldest camellia trees in Europe was planted in the garden of Pillnitz Castle (pictured) in 1801? ... that after securing its first-ever bowl victory in the 1955 Gator Bowl, Vanderbilt did not win its second until the 2008 Music City Bowl? ... that Miró's The Caress of a Bird uses a turtle shell to show that the sculpture represents a woman? ... that American engineer Edward J. Wasp received the Elmer A. Sperry Award in 1981 for his work developing long distance slurry pipelines? ... that on his first day filming "Pot of Gold", Glee newcomer and The Glee Project winner Damian McGinty was shoved into a locker 25 times? ... that Vic Flowers is considered as the unofficial leader of the Barmy Army? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck (pictured) and Jetsun Pema, a commoner, marry in Bhutan. American hedge trader Raj Rajaratnam receives an eleven-year prison sentence, the longest ever imposed for insider trading. Dennis Ritchie, creator of Unix and designer of the C programming language, dies at the age of 70. The U.S. reports that it has foiled an allegedly Iran-backed plot to assassinate Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir and bomb two embassies in Washington, D.C. Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radičová's government falls after failing a vote of no confidence over the European Financial Stability Facility. Scientists reconstruct the genome of the bacterium believed responsible for the Black Death in the 14th century. Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
October 16 456 – Magister militum Ricimer defeated Emperor Avitus at Piacenza and became master of the Western Roman Empire. 1793 – Marie Antoinette, queen consort of Louis XVI, was guillotined at the Place de la Révolution in Paris at the height of the French Revolution. 1834 – Most of the Palace of Westminster in London was destroyed in a fire. 1916 – Margaret Sanger (pictured) established the United States' first family planning clinic in Brooklyn, New York. 1934 – Long March: Surrounded by Kuomintang troops, Zhou Enlai, Bo Gu, and Otto Braun led a breakout of 130,000 Red Army soldiers and civilians from Jiangxi. 1986 – Italian mountaineer Reinhold Messner made his ascent of Lhotse, making him the first person to climb all fourteen "eight-thousanders". More anniversaries: October 15 – October 16 – October 17 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now October 16, 2011 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

The dwarf yellow-headed gecko (Lygodactylus luteopicturatus) is a small gecko species native to the rocky areas of southern Kenya, eastern Tanzania, and Zanzibar. This individual's tail, which had been shed through autotomy, is regenerating.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

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