Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 January 12

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F/A-18F Super Hornet of No. 1 Squadron, 2013

No. 1 Squadron is a Royal Australian Air Force unit headquartered at RAAF Base Amberley, Queensland. It operates F/A-18F Super Hornet multi-role fighters (pictured). The squadron formed under the Australian Flying Corps in 1916 and saw action in the Middle East during World War I. Initially equipped with obsolete B.E.2s, it converted to Bristol Fighters in 1917. No. 1 Squadron was re-established as part of the RAAF in 1925. During World War II, it flew Lockheed Hudson bombers in the Malayan and Dutch East Indies campaigns, suffering heavy losses. It later operated Bristol Beauforts and de Havilland Mosquitos. The squadron re-formed with Avro Lincoln heavy bombers in 1948. From 1950 to 1958 it was based in Singapore, and was responsible for most of the Commonwealth air campaign during the Malayan Emergency. On returning to Australia it re-equipped with English Electric Canberra jets. It operated F-4E Phantoms from 1970 to 1973, as a stop-gap pending delivery of the F-111C swing-wing bomber. The F-111 remained in service for 37 years until replaced by the Super Hornet in 2010. A detachment has been deployed to the Middle East since September 2014 as part of Australia's contribution to the military intervention against ISIL. (Full article...)

Part of the No. 90 (Composite) Wing RAAF series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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January 12: Coming of Age Day in Japan (2015); Zanzibar Revolution Day in Tanzania (1964)

Joseph Smith, Jr.

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From today's featured list

A black-and-white three-quarter view portrait photograph of a sitting woman facing left and looking left while wearing a dark dress with a light collar

Fewer than fifty of the almost 250 Texians who had occupied the Alamo Mission in San Antonio, Texas, were alive when the Battle of the Alamo ended at approximately 6:30 a.m. on March 6, 1836. Of the Texians who fought during the battle, only two survived: Alamo co-commander William Barret Travis's slave, Joe, was assumed by the Mexican attackers to be a noncombatant, and Brigido Guerrero, who had deserted from the Mexican Army several months before, convinced the Mexican soldiers that he had been taken prisoner by the Texians. Alamo co-commander James Bowie's freedman, Sam, was also spared, although it is not known if he participated in the fighting. On March 7, Mexican President Antonio López de Santa Anna interviewed each of the survivors individually. He was impressed with Susanna Dickinson (pictured), the young widow of Alamo artillery captain Almaron Dickinson, and offered to adopt her infant daughter Angelina, but she refused. The survivors were allowed to go free and spread the news of the destruction that awaited those who opposed the Mexican government. (Full list...)

Today's featured picture

Tobler hyperelliptical projection

The Tobler hyperelliptical projection is a family of equal-area pseudocylindrical map projections first described by Waldo R. Tobler in 1973. The imagery used for the map is derived from NASA's Blue Marble summer months composite, with oceans lightened to enhance legibility and contrast.

Map: Strebe, using Geocart

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