Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 October 1

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From today's featured article

Kagame and Habyarimana

The Rwandan Civil War was a conflict between the Hutu-led Rwandan Armed Forces and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), founded by Tutsi refugees. The war began on 1 October 1990 with an RPF invasion but the army, assisted by French troops, had largely defeated the RPF by the end of the month. Paul Kagame (pictured, left) took command of the rebels and in a few months began a multi-year guerrilla war. In 1992, after a series of protests, Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana (pictured, right) began peace negotiations with the RPF and domestic opposition parties. Despite disruption by the extremist group Hutu Power and a fresh RPF offensive, the Arusha Accords were signed in August 1993. United Nations peacekeepers were installed, but Hutu Power was steadily gaining influence. After the assassination of Habyarimana in April 1994, between half a million and a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu were killed in the Rwandan genocide. The RPF quickly resumed the war, capturing the capital and taking control of the country by July. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Holly Bradshaw

... that pole vaulter Holly Bradshaw (pictured) won her eighth national title at the 2020 British Athletics Championships?
... that Polish-French author Anna Langfus, a Holocaust survivor, wrote novels that had her own life experiences interwoven into the fiction?
... that the 1960 television play Sacco-Vanzetti Story was called "one of the most controversial ever seen on television"?
... that Robert Burg, a leading baritone at the Semperoper in Dresden between the First and Second World Wars, performed the title roles of Busoni's Dr. Faustus and Hindemith's Cardillac there?
... that as one of its campus traditions, Pomona College reveres the number 47, having the bell in its clock tower chime on the 47th minute of the hour?
... that the Maratha Empire's direct rule came to an end in the Carnatic region when Murari Rao surrendered to Nizam I after the 1743 siege of Trichinopoly?
... that Bill Nation rejected an attempt by the American Nazi Party to establish a headquarters in Cheyenne, Wyoming?
... that after an erotic encounter with a young wife in London's Seething Lane, diarist Samuel Pepys bought the lady eight pairs of gloves?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Portal

Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah

Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah (pictured) becomes Emir of Kuwait after the death of his half-brother, Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, at the age of 91.
In ice hockey, the Tampa Bay Lightning defeat the Dallas Stars to win the Stanley Cup.
Azerbaijani and Armenian armed forces clash in Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting the introduction of martial law in both countries and mobilization in Armenia.
Italy votes to amend its constitution to reduce the size of its Parliament by a third.

On this day

October 1: Mid-Autumn Festival (traditional Chinese, 2020); Unification Day in Cameroon (1961); Independence Day in Tuvalu (1978); Filipino American History Month begins

Yosemite Valley from Tunnel View

1890 – At the encouragement of preservationist John Muir and writer Robert Underwood Johnson, the United States Congress established Yosemite National Park (pictured) in California.
1940 – The first section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, one of the United States' first long-distance limited-access highways, opened to traffic.
1998 – Europol, the EU's law enforcement agency, was formed with the ratification of the Europol Convention by all member states.
2018 – The International Court of Justice ruled that Chile was under no obligation to restore Bolivia's access to the Pacific Ocean, which it had lost in the 19th century.

Frans Floris (d. 1570)
Ram Nath Kovind (b. 1945)
Malouma (b. 1960)

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Today's featured picture

The white-necked laughingthrush (Garrulax strepitans) is a species of passerine bird in the family Leiothrichidae, native to Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Chinese province of Yunnan. It is about 32 cm (13 in) long and has a chestnut-coloured crown, a brownish-black face and throat, and a rather diffuse white collar separating these from the body. Typically birds of forest and woodland, laughingthrushes are difficult to observe in the dense vegetation they prefer. They are noisy birds, and their characteristic laughing calls are often the best indication that these birds are present. This white-necked laughingthrush was photographed in Mae Wong National Park, in Thailand's Nakhon Sawan Province.

Photograph credit: John Harrison

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