Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 8

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From today's featured article

John Hay (1838–1905) was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over almost half a century. After graduation from Brown University in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, Illinois, adjacent to that of Abraham Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign, and became his assistant private secretary at the White House. Through the years of the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln, and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In 1897, President William McKinley, for whom he had been a major backer, made him Ambassador to the United Kingdom. The following year, Hay became United States Secretary of State. He served almost seven years, under McKinley, and after his assassination, under Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was responsible for the Open Door Policy in China, and negotiated the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty (1901) with the UK, as well as the Hay–Herrán Treaty (1903) with Colombia, and the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty (1903) that cleared the way for the building of the Panama Canal. Hay was also an author and biographer, and wrote poetry and other literature through much of his life. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Margaret McLean (pictured) was president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria for almost a decade, and was appointed an honorary vice-president after her retirement?
... that the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad's Merchants Limited was the last all-parlor car passenger train in the United States?
... that David A. Randall obtained the typescripts of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels for the Lilly Library?
... that during dry weather, the Texas toad remains dormant?
... that when the Transcendentalist poet and banker Samuel Gray Ward became a merchant rather than a painter, it deeply disappointed his friends Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson?
... that despite the upper reaches of the Crooked Run being acidic due to acid rain, the creek is still considered Class A Wild Trout Waters?
... that the Kray twins allegedly extorted Esmeralda's Barn from Peter Rachman?

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In the news

Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes used in energy-saving lights.
John O'Keefe (pictured), May-Britt Moser, and Edvard Moser are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of cells that constitute a positioning system in the brain.
In rugby league, the South Sydney Rabbitohs win Australia's NRL Grand Final.
In rugby union, the Rugby Championship concludes with New Zealand as the winning team.
Researchers trace the origin of the AIDS pandemic to the Congolese city of Kinshasa in the 1920s.
Physicists report the discovery of a new quasiparticle, the Majorana fermion, which is its own antiparticle.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Jean-Claude Duvalier

On this day...

October 8: Sukkot begins at sunset (Judaism, 2014); Independence Day in Croatia (1991)

451 – The Council of Chalcedon, a Christian ecumenical council in Christianity that repudiated the Eutychian doctrine of monophysitism, and set forth the Chalcedonian Creed, opened.
1862 – American Civil War: The Battle of Perryville, one of the bloodiest battles of the war, was fought in the Chaplin Hills west of Perryville, Kentucky.
1904 – The Canadian cities of Edmonton, Alberta (Downtown Edmonton pictured), and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, were both incorporated.
1969 – Demonstrations organized by the Weather Underground known as the Days of Rage began in Chicago.
1998 – Gardermoen Airport, the main domestic hub and international airport for Norway, began operating as Oslo Airport, Fornebu, closed.

More anniversaries: October 7 – October 8 – October 9

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It is now October 8, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

The bush cockroach (Ellipsidion australe) is a cockroach of the order Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,600 total are associated with human habitats. Living in a wide range of environments around the world, cockroaches are among the hardiest insects, capable of remaining active for a month without food and able to survive on limited resources.

Photograph: Cyron Ray Macey

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