Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 October 2

From today's featured article

India has the majority of the world's wild tigers.

India is a country in South Asia. Comprising the bulk of the Indian subcontinent, India owes its geography, climate and biodiversity to ancient plate tectonics which pushed the Indian Plate north from deep in the Southern Hemisphere. Modern humans arrived on the subcontinent from Africa no later than 55,000 years ago. Settled life emerged in the western margins of the Indus River basin 9,000 years ago. India is home to a large mix of languages, religions, and cultures. It is the world's most populous democracy, with 1.3 billion people, and a secular federal republic governed in a parliamentary system. It is the world's third-largest economy in purchasing power parity, and a fast-growing major economy. After 190 years in the British Empire, India gained independence in 1947 through a campaign of nonviolent resistance whose enduring symbol is Mahatma Gandhi (born 2 October 1869). (Full article...)

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Haze over Jam Gadang in Indonesia

An earthquake strikes Maluku, Indonesia, killing at least 30 people.
During a prolonged period of haze (pictured) over Southeast Asia, more than 800,000 people endure respiratory diseases.
An earthquake in Kashmir kills 38 people and injures more than 700 others.
Astronomers announce that 2I/Borisov is the first verified interstellar comet, ahead of its closest approach to the Sun on 7 December.

October 2: International Day of Non-Violence; Gandhi Jayanti in India

HMS Curacoa

1879 – Qing China signed the Treaty of Livadia with the Russian Empire, but the terms were so unfavorable to China that their negotiator, Chonghou, was later sentenced to death.
1937 – President Rafael Trujillo announced that Dominican troops had begun mass killings of Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
1942 – Second World War: HMS Curacoa (pictured) was accidentally rammed and sunk by RMS Queen Mary while escorting the liner to provide protection from submarine attacks.
1996 – A maintenance worker's failure to remove tape covering the static ports of the aircraft caused Aeroperú Flight 603 to crash into the ocean near Lima, Peru, killing all 70 people on board.
2005 – The first parkrun, then known as the Bushy Park Time Trial, took place in Bushy Park, London.

Augustus Keppel (d. 1786) · Wallace Stevens (b. 1879) · Lal Bahadur Shastri (b. 1904)

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Bath Abbey is an Anglican parish church and Grade I listed building in the English city of Bath. Founded in the 7th century, Bath Abbey was reorganised in the 10th century and rebuilt in the 12th and 16th centuries. It is one of the largest examples of Perpendicular Gothic architecture in the West Country. The cathedral was consolidated to Wells Cathedral in 1539 after the abbey was dissolved in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, but the name of the diocese has remained unchanged. The church is cruciform in plan.

This picture shows the abbey's west front, including sculptures of angels climbing to heaven on two stone ladders.

Photograph credit: David Iliff

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