Talk:August 11

Selected anniversaries for the "On this day" section of the Main Page

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August 11 City Hall, Penang 1309 – Reconquista: Aragonese forces led by King James II landed on the coast of Almería, beginning an ultimately unsuccessful siege of the city, then held by the Emirate of Granada. 1786 – Francis Light founded George Town (city hall pictured), the first British settlement in Southeast Asia and the present-day capital of the Malaysian state of Penang. 1979 – Two Aeroflot passenger jets collided in mid-air near Dniprodzerzhynsk in the Ukrainian SSR, killing all 178 people on both aircraft. 1999 – Ken Levine's System Shock 2 was released to mediocre sales, but later received critical acclaim and influenced subsequent first-person shooter game design. 2012 – At least 306 people were killed and 3,000 others injured in a pair of earthquakes near Tabriz, Iran. John Hunyadi (d. 1456) William W. Chapman (b. 1808) Kaname Harada (b. 1916) Clare Nott (b. 1986) More anniversaries: August 10 August 11 August 12

Battle of Thermopylae

There is no mention of this. There really should be. It ended on this day and is the death date of Leonidas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.109.40 (talk) 04:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Comment on the above, 2020-08-11: According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonidas_I, Leonidas died on 19 September; so is that page wrong or is this assertion wrong? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:6000:1305:4107:1C8E:EEDC:59AE:7DCE (talk) 07:06, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Destruction of second temple

This article lists the above event as being on 11 August 70. Both the corresponding article for 4 August and the Second Temple article list it as being on 4 August 70. Which is it? Crimperman (talk) 13:59, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

George Allen entry

The George Allen entry does not seem to rise to the level of global notability. I suggest that no one will care about this incident in 10 years. The speculation of a newspaper seems particularly misplaced. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 22:52, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I entirely agree. Some politician says something unwise that some newspaper (two years later) may have cost him the chance to be one of many candidates in an election to go forward for an election. Not really historical in the grand scheme of things. Bencherlite^Talk 00:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Definitely not notable. When I reverted the entry I didn't think that it would require discussion. Someone showing their ignorance and short-sightedness is not notable. Speculation on that incident by one newspaper doesn't make it notable either. The entry should be removed. Grouf^{(talk • contribs)} 03:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 03:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• Whoa, whoa, whoa, let's think about this, OK? I can pull together dozens of sources saying that the macaca incident was the reason that George Allen lost his re-election bid. Allen's loss was the most unexpected loss by a GOP Senate candidate, according to the most respected forcasters such as Cook and Rasmussen. Allen's loss also turned the Senate from GOP majority (50+VP to 50) to Democratic majority (51 to 49). In other words, the highest legislative body in the most powerful nation on earth changed hands, and this event was a major cause. Now compare this with some of the useless trivia that is currently stuffing the August 11 article:
  • 3114 BC -- the opening date in a calendar that one, extinct civilization used, but only if you calculate that date using an anacronistic calendar
  • 586 BC -- the supposed date of destruction of Solomon's Temple, even though Solomon's Temple does not make that assertion
  • 70 -- the supposed date of destruction of the Second Temple, even though Second Temple claims that the date was August 4, not 11
  • 1259 -- the supposed death of some guy at Fishing Town, even though Fishing Town gives a completely different date
  • 1919 -- some guys form a football team
  • 1970 -- the word Spork is registered, even though Spork says the registration took place on October 27.
  • 1984 -- President Reagan tells an off-color joke
  • 1992 -- the second-largest mall in America opens
  • 2000 -- some guy gets boisterous on an airplane, to zero effect
  • 2006 -- the last patent on a file format supposedly expires, even though GIF says nothing about the date
  • 2006 -- a large pile of novelty explosives is ignited.
• Seriously. You mean to tell me that all of these events are so much more notable than one of the biggest events in the 2006 US election season? --M@rēino 15:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

First; if you want to argue an events notability please argue it on its own merrits. Using the arguemnt 'That event that I think is not notable is listed therefore mine should be too' doesn't support the notability of your event.

Second; the events you have listed I would call non-notable. I don't read all the events on the date pages, I just quickly scan the list looking for the common NN events that I have come across. If I see something I don't know about I may just skip it, hoping someone with more knowledge on the subject will help clean up the date pages. I have removed the events you listed, plus one about a horse race.

If you have sources to cite about the importance of this incident please put them in the article about the incident. Once the importance of this incident has been described in the article (and properly sourced) then an arguement can be made to include it on the date page. Grouf^{(talk • contribs)} 16:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

• The importance of the macaca incident was well established long before I made the entry in the August 11 article. See:

1. Macaca (slur)#2006 Virginia Senate race
2. United States Senate election in Virginia, 2006#Allen's Macaca controversy
3. Macacawitz
4. S. R. Sidarth
5. George Allen (U.S. politician)#Macaca controversy
6. United States Senate elections, 2006#Virginia

If you insist that the macaca incident is not notable, I suggest you try to remove it from these six articles and see how the editors react. --M@rēino 17:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The importance established in those articles only relates to those articles. The incident shouldn't be removed from those articles as it directly affects the subjects of those articles. However the incident itself is quite insignificant and did not have any major historical impact. All of those articles only establish importance within the context of the 2006 US elections; nothing outside of that election period has been affected by that incident. Grouf^{(talk • contribs)} 19:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think I follow you. Nothing has importance outside its context. --M@rēino 04:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The event is the subject (or part of) the articles that you have mentioned. Of course the event belongs in the articles because it is notable in the context of those articles, but the entries in the date articles need to be globally notable. This event has no impact on the world outside of Virginia and did not lead to widespread policy changes that would be recognized throughout the world. -- Mufka ^{(u) (t) (c)} 04:35, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

French Revolution

Should the decree of the abolition of serfdom in France be included here? 76.230.72.70 (talk) 20:37, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

2492 BC

How is the precise date, let alone the year, 2492 BC used, as a prospective calendar date (even if it is mythological), when the Armenians did not exist as a people, grouping or idea? It is particularly troubling because no society or culture had a known calendar, or the technological skills to assemble one at this point, to distinguish or record what we now know to be a solar year. At this juncture, only lunar calendars existed. Historically, ancient calendar dates ascribe what we now know to be solar or calendar years, by their association with king lists that provide sequences of chronology - but no actual years because they did not know themselves what years, let alone the context of the month of a particular year - and purported events that may have happened in that interval. The "2492 BC – Traditional date of the defeat of Bel by Hayk, progenitor and founder of the Armenian nation." is a contrived date, imagined and invented by its 2 historical archivists (1 from the 5th century AD, the other 200 years ago) before Babylon is thought to have historically existed, but is not a valid date either as a tradition, or certainly as a historically-ascribed date of occurrence. The second part of the problem of use of this specific date developed 200 years ago, is it was first developed for the Julian calendar, when both of its historian sources used the Julian Calendar for dating in Armenia, and does not apply to, nor was it converted to the Gregorian Calendar. It is meaningless to use as a referred-to date, and should only be included here as a date once assigned by conjectured historicism from an earlier epic, if at all. But it would have no direct equivalents into the modern era. It is a myth about a myth...Stevenmitchell (talk) 22:35, 11 August 2019 (UTC)