Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 July 17

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Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (1901–18) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife Alexandra Fyodorovna. Anastasia had three older sisters (Olga, Tatiana, and Maria), and a younger brother (Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia). She was executed with her family in an extrajudicial killing by members of Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police, on 17 July 1918. Persistent rumors of her possible escape circulated, fueled by the fact that the location of her burial was unknown during Communist rule. Several women falsely claimed to have been Anastasia, the most notorious of whom was Anna Anderson; DNA testing after Anderson's death showed no link between her and the Imperial family. Anastasia's possible survival has been conclusively disproved. The mass grave near Yekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three daughters was revealed in 1991, but the bodies of Alexei Nikolaevich and one of his sisters—either Anastasia or Maria—were not discovered there. However, the charred bodies of the two missing siblings were found in 2007 and identified using DNA testing. (Full article...)

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Astrophysicist Jean Swank

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  • In the news

    Brétigny-sur-Orge derailment aftermath
  • Zetas leader Miguel Treviño Morales is arrested by the Mexican Navy.
  • S/2004 N 1, a previously unknown moon of Neptune, is discovered.
  • Typhoon Soulik kills at least nine people and affects more than 160 million in East China and Taiwan.
  • Six people are killed in a passenger train derailment (aftermath pictured) in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, outside Paris.
  • A Canadian team wins the Sikorsky Prize for creating a human-powered helicopter.
  • In Luxembourg, the government of Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker falls following a secret service scandal.

    Recent deaths: Cory MonteithAlan Whicker

  • On this day...

    July 17: Feast day of the Scillitan Martyrs (Roman Catholic Church); Constitution Day in South Korea (1948)

    Damage caused by the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse

  • 1453 – The Battle of Castillon, the last conflict of the Hundred Years' War, ended with the English losing all landholdings in France, except Calais.
  • 1771Dene men, acting as a guide to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about 20 Copper Inuit.
  • 1936 – Nationalist rebels attempted a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, sparking the Spanish Civil War.
  • 1973Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last King of Afghanistan, was ousted in a coup by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan while in Italy undergoing eye surgery.
  • 1981 – A structural failure caused a walkway at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, US, to collapse (damage pictured), killing 114 people and injuring 216 others.

    More anniversaries: July 16 July 17 July 18

    It is now July 17, 2013 (UTC) – Reload this page
  • Today's featured picture

    A Wheat Field with Cypresses

    Wheat Field with Cypresses is the title of three similar 1889 paintings by Vincent van Gogh. This one, painted in July, can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was painted at the Saint-Rémy mental asylum near Arles, France, where Van Gogh was a patient.

    Painting: Vincent van Gogh

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