Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 26

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From today's featured article

The Royal Australian Navy ship HMAS Canberra

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) comprises all of the country's armed forces, including the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army, and Royal Australian Air Force. With a strength of just under 80,000 full-time personnel and active reservists, it is supported by the Department of Defence and other civilian agencies. During the first decades of the 20th century, the Australian Government established the armed services as separate organisations, each with an independent chain of command. In 1976, the government made a strategic change and established the ADF to place the three services under a single headquarters. The degree of integration has increased over time, and tri-service headquarters, logistics and training institutions have supplanted many single-service establishments. Technologically sophisticated, the ADF is the largest military in Oceania, with approximately 58,000 full-time active-duty personnel and 22,000 active reservists. It is smaller than many Asian militaries, but is supported by a significant budget by worldwide standards and can deploy forces in multiple locations outside Australia. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush wearing tangzhuangs

... that the "silly shirt" chosen for the 2001 APEC forum—the tangzhuang (pictured)—launched a fashion craze in China?
... that during World War II, Colonel George F. Good Jr. successfully defended Funafuti from ten Japanese attacks with a mixed unit that was "poorly armed" and "stuck out like a sore thumb"?
... that the secular Bach cantata Weichet nur, betrübte Schatten, BWV 202, scored for a soprano soloist, oboe, strings and continuo, pictures the transition from winter to spring?
... that the La Loche Formation can include clasts of Precambrian gneiss?
... that the English footballer Tammy Abraham was the first player to win Bristol City's Player of the Year, Young Player of the Year, and Top Goalscorer awards in the same season?
... that low-turbulence enclosures developed for the pharmaceutical industry are also suitable as engineering controls for nanomaterials?
... that Gudy Gaskill, the driving force behind the creation of the 567-mile (912 km) Colorado Trail, was honored by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush for her volunteerism?
... that in 2009 the British construction industry was urged to Never Waste a Good Crisis?

In the news

The Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul

Chinese scientists announce the successful cloning of two identical monkeys, the first primates to be cloned using the SCNT technique.
The former team doctor for USA Gymnastics, Larry Nassar, is sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 gymnasts.
Rocket Lab's Electron becomes the first rocket to reach orbit using an electric pump-fed engine.
An attack on a hotel (pictured) in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills at least 18 people and injures more than 20 others.
Turkey begins a military offensive against US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria.
A bus fire in the Aktobe Region, Kazakhstan, kills 52 people.

On this day...

January 26: Australia Day (1788); Republic Day in India (1950)

Bill Clinton's press conference

661 – The Rashidun Caliphate was effectively ended with the assassination of Ali, the last Rashidun caliph.
1700 – The Cascadia earthquake, with an estimated magnitude of 9.0, took place off the Pacific coast of the American Northwest, as evidenced by Japanese records of tsunamis.
1841 – Commodore James Bremer took formal possession of Hong Kong Island for Great Britain at Possession Point.
1952 – Spontaneous anti-British riots erupted in Cairo following the killings of 50 Egyptian auxiliary police the day before.
1998 – In a nationally televised press conference (video featured), U.S. President Bill Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with intern Monica Lewinsky.

Lady Zhen (b. 183) · Charles George Gordon (d. 1885) · Olga Tufnell (b. 1905)

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From today's featured list

The 14th President of India, Ram Nath Kovind

The President of India is the head of state of India and the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. The President is referred to as the first citizen of India. Although vested with these powers by the Constitution of India, the position is largely a ceremonial one and executive powers are de facto exercised by the Prime Minister. The President is elected by the Electoral College composed of elected members of the parliament houses, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, and also members of the Vidhan Sabha, the state legislative assemblies. Presidents may remain in office for a tenure of five years, as stated by article 56, part V, of the Constitution of India. In the case where a President's term of office is terminated early or during the absence of the President, the Vice President assumes office. There have been 14 Presidents of India since the post was established when India was declared as a republic with the adoption of the Indian constitution in 1950. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Quai Saint-Michel and Notre-Dame is a 1901 oil painting on canvas by the French artist Maximilien Luce. Luce was part of the Neo-Impressionist movement between 1887 and 1897 and used the technique of employing separate dabs of colour for the painting, one of ten he undertook of Notre-Dame de Paris. The Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which holds the image, note that it was completed as Luce was moving from his Neo-Impressionist period to his later Populist period.

Painting: Maximilien Luce

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