Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 March 12

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From today's featured article

Mitt Romney (born 1947) is an American businessman who was Governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and the Republican nominee for President of the United States in the 2012 election. He was raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by his parents Lenore and George Romney, and spent two years in France as a Mormon missionary. He married Ann Davies in 1969, with whom he has had five children. After studying at Brigham Young and Harvard universities, he joined the management consultancy Bain & Company before co-founding the spin-off investment firm Bain Capital. He unsuccessfully ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 Massachusetts election for Senate against Ted Kennedy. He relaunched his political career after successfully running the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, he helped enact state health care reform legislation, the first of its kind in America. Romney won the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. He was the first Mormon to be a major party presidential nominee. Romney lost to Barack Obama by 332–206 electoral votes and by 51–47 percent of the popular vote. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Laura Knight's Ruby Loftus Screwing a Breech Ring (detail pictured) was compared to Rosie the Riveter and brought its subject instant fame?
... that during the 1806 Great Coastal hurricane, an estimated 36 inches (91 cm) of rain fell on Edgartown, Massachusetts?
... that Rajani Pandit, regarded as Maharashtra's first female private detective, reportedly worked undercover as domestic help for six months while solving a case?
... that British broadcasters prevented television listings website TVGuide.co.uk from deep linking to their video content?
... that Marie Meurdrac's 1656 book on Useful and Easy Chemistry, for the Benefit of Ladies had ten editions in three languages?
... that the Una-class submarines were midgets?

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In the news

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 (aircraft pictured), en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board, goes missing over the Gulf of Thailand.
The International Criminal Court finds former Congolese militia leader Germain Katanga guilty of war crimes committed during the Ituri conflict.
The 2014 Winter Paralympics open in Sochi, Russia.
The Supreme Council of Crimea votes to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation and announces a referendum on secession.
Scientists discover a viable Pithovirus specimen, the largest giant virus yet found, in 30,000-year-old samples of frozen tundra.

Recent deaths: Bob Crow – Frank Jobe

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On this day...

March 12: Independence Day in Mauritius (1968)

538 – Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths, ended his siege of Rome, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Roman general, Belisarius.
1864 – American Civil War: The Union Army began the ill-fated Red River Campaign, in which not a single objective was fully accomplished.
1921 – The Turkish Grand National Assembly adopted the İstiklâl Marşı as the national anthem, with lyrics written by poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy and music by Zeki Üngör.
1930 – Gandhi (pictured with Sarojini Naidu) began the Salt March, a 24-day walk to defy the British tax on salt in colonial India.
1934 – Supported by the Estonian Army, Konstantin Päts staged a coup d'état, beginning the Era of Silence.

More anniversaries: March 11 – March 12 – March 13

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It is now March 12, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

An 1873 print promoting the Grange, the oldest U.S. agricultural advocacy group with a national scope. In 2005 it had 160,000 members.

The central scene shows a farmer with one foot on his shovel, captioned "I Pay for All". From left to right, the top insets show a farmer's fireside and the Grange in session; the bottom ones show a harvest dance, a broken-down cabin signposted "Ignorance" and "Sloth", and a Biblical scene of the gleaners Ruth and Boaz.

Poster: J. Hale Powers & Co. Fraternity & Fine Art Publishers; restoration: Trialsanderrors

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