Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 April 5

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From today's featured article

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (1863–1950) was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and his first wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg, her father's first cousin and an officer in the UK's Royal Navy, in a love match and lived most of her married life in various parts of Europe at her husband's naval posts and visiting her many royal relations. She was perceived by her family as liberal in outlook, straightforward, practical and bright. During World War I, two of her sisters who had married into the Russian imperial family were murdered by communist revolutionaries, and she and her husband abandoned their German titles and adopted the British-sounding surname of Mountbatten, which was simply a translation into English of the German "Battenberg". She was the maternal grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort of Queen Elizabeth II. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest content:

... that in the chancel wall of Holy Trinity Church, Holdgate, Shropshire, is a sheela na gig?

... that Lord Pitfour used a trick to save many Jacobite rebels from execution?

... that Circassians in Syria occupied many villages, including Murayj al-Durr, having been relocated to the country by the Ottoman authorities in an effort to combat rising local dissent during the nineteenth century?

... that Norwegian footballer Espen Hægeland scored more than 50 goals for Lyngdal IL in 2012?

... that Mir Hazar Khan Khoso is the current caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan?

... that independent South African online newspaper Daily Maverick was influenced by defunct South African business magazine Maverick and American news websites The Daily Beast and The Huffington Post?

... that Robert of Ghent, a 12th-century Lord Chancellor of England, once tried to prevent an Archbishop of York from entering the city of York?

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In the news

Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert (pictured in 1970) dies at age 70.

More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Amid rising tensions, North Korea closes off entry to the Kaesŏng Industrial Region and restarts a plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.

The United Nations General Assembly adopts the Arms Trade Treaty to limit the international trade of weapons.

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On this day...

April 5: Feast Day of Vincent Ferrer

1081 – The Komnenian dynasty came to full power when Alexios I Komnenos was crowned Byzantine Emperor.

1609 – Forces of the Japanese feudal domain of Satsuma captured the castle on Ryukyu Island, beginning the process that turned the Ryukyu Kingdom into a vassal state under Satsuma.

1847 – Britain's first civic public park, Birkenhead Park (pictured) in Birkenhead, Merseyside, opened.

1900 – Archaeologists led by Arthur Evans in Knossos, Crete, discovered a large cache of clay tablets with a script used for writing Mycenaean Greek now known as Linear B.

2009 – The North Korean satellite Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 was launched from the Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground and passed over Japan, sparking concerns by other nations that it may have been a trial run of technology that could be used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles.

More anniversaries: April 4 – April 5 – April 6

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Today's featured picture

Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. The oldest, man-hauled railways date to the 6th century B.C.; the method grew more popular after the introduction of steam locomotives in the 19th century. Here we can see four BNSF GE C44-9W diesel locomotives hauling a mixed freight train along the Columbia river in the US.

Photograph: David Gubler

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