Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 November 22

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From today's featured article

A segment of the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting King Harold

Depiction of King Harold

Very little is known for certain of the ancestry of the Godwins, the family of the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Harold II. When King Edward the Confessor died in January 1066 the legitimate heir was his great-nephew, Edgar Ætheling, but he was young and lacked powerful supporters. Harold was the head of the most powerful family in England and Edward's brother-in-law, and he became king. In September 1066 Harold defeated and killed King Harald Hardrada of Norway at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, and Harold was himself defeated and killed the following month by William the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. The family is named after Harold's father, Earl Godwin, who had risen to a position of wealth and influence under King Cnut in the 1020s. In 1045 Godwin's daughter, Edith, married King Edward the Confessor, and by the mid-1050s Harold and his brothers had become dominant, almost monopolising the English earldoms. Godwin was probably the son of Wulfnoth Cild, a South Saxon thegn, but Wulfnoth's ancestry is disputed. A few genealogists argue that he was descended from Alfred the Great's elder brother, King Æthelred I, but almost all historians of Anglo-Saxon England reject this theory. (Full article...)

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On this day...

November 22: Feast of Christ the King (Roman Catholic Church, 2015); Alphabet Day in Albania (1908); Independence Day in Lebanon (1943)

Angela Merkel

1635 – Dutch colonial forces on Taiwan launched a three-month pacification campaign against Taiwanese aborigines.
1831 – After a bloody battle with the military causing 600 casualties, rebellious silkworkers seized Lyon, France, beginning the First Canut Revolt.
1975 – Two days after the death of Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos I was declared King of Spain according to the law of succession promulgated by Franco.
1995 – Toy Story, the first feature film created using only computer-generated imagery, was released.
2005 – Angela Merkel (pictured) assumed office as chancellor of Germany, the first woman to do so.

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Grant Park is an urban park in the Loop community area of Chicago. Covering 319 acres or 1.29 km², it includes Millennium Park, Maggie Daley Park, Buckingham Fountain, Petrillo Music Shell, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum Campus, as well as gardens, art work, sports, and harbor facilities.

Photograph: Diego Delso

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