Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 March 14

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From today's featured article

Aeneas Mackintosh (1879–1916) was a British Antarctic explorer who commanded the Ross Sea party within Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. The party's mission was to support Shackleton's proposed transcontinental march by laying supply depots along the latter stages of the march's intended route. Confusing orders meant Mackintosh was uncertain of the timing of Shackleton's proposed march. Matters worsened when the Ross Sea party's ship, SY Aurora, was swept from its moorings during a gale, taking away much of the party's supplies and equipment. Despite these setbacks and further practical difficulties, Mackintosh's stranded party managed to carry out its depot-laying task to the full. Having reached safety, he and a companion lost their lives while attempting to return to the expedition's base camp by walking across unstable sea ice. Shackleton later commended the work of Mackintosh and his comrades, and equated the sacrifice of their lives to those given in the trenches during the First World War. However, his competence and leadership skills have been questioned by some polar historians. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Tilkka (pictured) is a former military hospital in Helsinki that now hosts a nursing home?
... that U. Penn. denied Ezra Pound's PhD twice: once for wasting time and again 12 years later when he tried to use The Spirit of Romance, a collection of literary criticism, as his dissertation?
... that more than 90 species of birds breed within the watershed of Briar Creek?
... that in 1942, S.K. Limaye was expelled from the Communist Party of India for having refused to support the British war effort?
... that the oak tree under which Goethe allegedly wrote Faust's Walpurgis Night scene stood inside Buchenwald concentration camp and was sketched by French Volontaires de la Liberté member and camp inmate Léon Delarbre?
... that Tobias Arlt and Tobias Wendl, who won four Olympic golds between them, are nicknamed "The Two Tobis"?

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In the news

Chiquita and Fyffes agree to a merger that would create the world's largest banana producer.
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.

Recent deaths: Tony Benn – Bob Crow – Frank Jobe

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On this day...

March 14: New Year's Day (Sikhs); White Day in East Asia; Pi Day

1757 – British Royal Navy Admiral John Byng was court-martialled and executed by firing squad when he failed to "do his utmost" during the Battle of Minorca at the start of the Seven Years' War.
1885 – The Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan's most frequently performed Savoy opera, debuted at the Savoy Theatre in London.
1910 – Oil prospectors in Kern County, California, drilled into a pressurized oil deposit, resulting in the largest accidental oil spill (pictured) in history.
1945 – The British Royal Air Force first used the Grand Slam, a 22,000 lb (9.98 t) earthquake bomb, on a strategic railroad viaduct in Bielefeld, Germany.
1988 – China defeated Vietnam in a naval battle as the former attempted to establish oceanographic observation posts on the Spratly Islands.

More anniversaries: March 13 – March 14 – March 15

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It is now March 14, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

From today's featured list

A Tudor man in a large coat and hat, possibly of fur, sitting at a desk

The Master of the Rolls is the second most senior judge in England and Wales after the Lord Chief Justice, and serves as the presiding officer of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal. The position dates from at least 1286 as a clerk responsible for keeping the records of the Court of Chancery and it developed into a judicial office by 1520. With the Judicature Act 1873, the Master of the Rolls transferred from the now-defunct Court of Chancery to the Court of Appeal, retaining his clerical functions as the nominal head of the Public Record Office until the Public Records Act 1958 transferred responsibility for it to the Lord Chancellor. One of the most prominent people to hold the position of Master of the Rolls was Thomas Cromwell (pictured), a highly influential figure during the reign of Henry VIII. The present Master of the Rolls is Lord Dyson, who succeeded Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury on 1 October 2012. (Full list...)

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The villages of Ambleside and Waterhead, Cumbria, North West England, as viewed from Loughrigg Fell; Ambleside is centre-left, and Waterhead is the smaller village on the right at the edge of Windermere.

Photograph: David Iliff

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