Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 October 2

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Capon Chapel is a mid-19th-century church near the town of Capon Bridge in the US state of West Virginia. A Baptist congregation began gathering at the site of the present-day church as early as 1756. The land originally belonged to William C. Nixon, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, and later to the extended family of Captain David Pugh of the West Virginia House of Delegates. Capon Chapel was used as a place of worship by Baptists until the late 19th or early 20th century, by the Southern Methodist Episcopal Church for most of the 20th century, and in this century by the United Methodist Church. The church cemetery contains the remains of John Monroe (one of the first ministers at the site), Nixon, Pugh, American Civil War veterans from the Union and the Confederacy, and free and enslaved African Americans. Capon Chapel, along with its cemetery, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012 in recognition of its rural religious architecture representative of the Potomac Highlands region, and for its service as a rural church in Hampshire County. (Full article...)

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Old drawing of Cortinarius glaucopus

... that Cortinarius glaucopus (pictured) forms unusually hydrophobic (water-repellant) ectomycorrhizae, which has led to interest in decoding its genome?
... that Mariah Carey channels Jocelyn Brown on her song "You Don't Know What to Do"?
... that the government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy whereby the power of the Emperor is limited and relegated primarily to ceremonial duties?
... that the Dutch composer Johann Wanning wrote the first known musical epithalamium—a poem written for a new bride heading to the marital bedchamber for the first time?
... that in May 2004, rains falling at rates of up to 4 inches (10 cm) per hour caused flash flooding on Moneypenny Creek?
... that Theodore Roosevelt McElroy holds the record for the highest speed at which anyone has received Morse code?
... that until recently, Bobby Charlton had scored more international goals than any other English footballer?
... that the French town of Rochechouart, in the department of Haute-Vienne, is located in a meteorite impact crater?

In the news

Martin Winterkorn

The Indian Space Research Organisation launches Astrosat, India's first space telescope.
Taliban forces seize control of the provincial capital of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.
A stampede during the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, kills at least 750 people and injures more than 900 others.
Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn (pictured) resigns after company officials admit widespread rigging of diesel emissions test results.
A U.S. federal judge rules that the copyright to "Happy Birthday to You", claimed by Warner/Chappell Music, is invalid.
More than 100 people are killed in a series of bombings across Borno State, Nigeria.

Ongoing events:
- Southeast Asian haze
- European migrant crisis
Recent deaths:
- Yogi Berra

On this day...

October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Eid al-Ghadeer (Islam, 2015); Gandhi Jayanti in India

Rafael Trujillo

1470 – With King Edward IV of England forced to flee to the Burgundian Netherlands after a rebellion organised by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, Henry VI was restored to the throne of England.
1835 – Mexican dragoons dispatched to disarm settlers at Gonzales, Texas, encountered stiff resistance from a Texian militia in the Battle of Gonzales, the first armed engagement of the Texas Revolution.
1937 – Under the orders of President Rafael Trujillo (pictured), Dominican troops began mass killings of approximately 20,000 Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
1968 – A peaceful student demonstration in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City was violently suppressed when army and police forces fired into the crowd.
1990 – A hijacked airliner collided with two other planes while attempting to land at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in China, resulting in a total 128 fatalities.

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From today's featured list

Shabana Azmi

The National Film Award for Best Actress is presented annually at the Indian National Film Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role while working within the Indian film industry. Though the National Film Awards were established in 1954, it was not until the 15th National Film Awards in 1968 that the Best Actress category was introduced. The winners are decided by a panel appointed by the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF). Since the inception of the award, the DFF has presented a total of 51 awards to 41 different actresses. Nargis Dutt was the first recipient, winning the award for her role in Raat Aur Din (1967). Shabana Azmi (pictured) is the most frequent winner in this category with five awards, followed by Sharada who has won the award three times. (Full list...)

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The Chamberlin trimetric projection is a map projection where three points are fixed on the globe and the points on the sphere are mapped onto a plane by triangulation. It was developed in 1946 by Wellman Chamberlin for the National Geographic Society. It is neither conformal nor equal-area, but rather attempts to minimize distortion of distances everywhere with the side-effect of balancing between areal equivalence and conformality.

Map: Strebe, using Geocart

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