Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 August 10

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From today's featured article

Jerry Pentland (1894–1983) was an Australian fighter ace of World War I. He saw action at Gallipoli as a Lighthorseman with the Australian Imperial Force in 1915. Transferring to the Royal Flying Corps in 1916, he was credited with 23 aerial victories to become the fifth highest-scoring Australian ace of the war. He was awarded the Military Cross for attacking an enemy airfield, and the Distinguished Flying Cross for engaging four hostile aircraft single-handedly. Pentland served in the fledgling Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), and later the Royal Air Force, before going into business in 1927. His ventures included commercial flying around New Guinea goldfields. By the early 1930s, he was a pilot with Australian National Airways. He re-joined the RAAF during World War II, commanding rescue and communications units in the South West Pacific. Perhaps the oldest operational pilot in the RAAF, Pentland was responsible for several rescues involving soldiers and civilians, and earned the Air Force Cross for his bravery and skill. He became a trader in New Guinea after the war, and later a coffee planter. He retired in 1959. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Skull of Zinjanthropus boisei

... that early hominin Zinjanthropus boisei (skull pictured) was named for mining engineer Charles Watson Boise?
... that İrem Karamete, daughter of an Olympian fencer mother, qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics as the first fencer from Turkey since 1984?
... that Jeffrey Grey was the first non-American to become the president of the Society for Military History?
... that the parents of Indian judoka Avtar Singh reportedly gave him their life savings to travel to a 2016 tournament?
... that a reviewer from The New York Times called the film Mr. Rice's Secret "bland and ordinary", apart from a scene where children exhume their neighbour's coffin?
... that 17-year-old Georgia Coates is the youngest swimmer in Great Britain's team for the 2016 Summer Olympics?
... that the Paradise Club of Atlantic City, New Jersey had to reinforce its wooden stage floor with metal sheeting after novelty act Peg Leg Bates got stuck in it during his "Jet Plane" finale?

In the news

Hurricane Earl

At least 90 people are killed during protests against human rights abuses and corruption in Ethiopia.
More than 70 people are killed in a suicide bombing and shooting in Quetta, Pakistan.
Landslides caused by Hurricane Earl (satellite image pictured) kill at least 41 people across Mexico.
Flooding in north-western Macedonia kills more than 20 people and injures dozens of others.
The Summer Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

On this day...

August 10: Feast day of Saint Lawrence (Roman Catholic Church)

Vasa, today a museum ship

1270 – Yekuno Amlak deposed the last Zagwe king and seized the imperial throne of Ethiopia, beginning the reign of the Solomonic dynasty that would last for more than 700 years.
1628 – The Swedish warship Vasa (salvaged wreck pictured) sank after sailing less than a nautical mile on her maiden voyage from Stockholm on her way to fight in the Thirty Years' War.
1792 – French Revolution: Insurrectionists in Paris stormed the Tuileries Palace, effectively ending the French monarchy until it was restored in 1814.
1953 – First Indochina War: The French Union withdrew its forces from Operation Camargue against the Viet Minh in central modern-day Vietnam.
1981 – The severed head of kidnapped six-year-old Adam Walsh was found in a canal in Vero Beach, Florida, prompting his father John to become an advocate for victims' rights, helping to spur the formation of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

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Today's featured picture

Portrait of a Young Woman is a tempera painting on wood which is commonly believed to be by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, but also attributed to Jacopo da Sellaio. Executed between 1480 and 1485, it shows a woman in profile but with her bust turned in three-quarter view to reveal a cameo medallion around her neck. The painting is in the Städel museum, Frankfurt, Germany.

Painting: Attributed to Sandro Botticelli

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