Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 11

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From today's featured article

USS Michigan

The South Carolina-class battleships, South Carolina and Michigan (pictured), were built during the first decade of the twentieth century. They were the first American dreadnoughts, far outstripping older battleships that relied on smaller fast-firing guns at close range. The two ships were designed by Rear Admiral Washington L. Capps with a homogeneous battery of superfiring large guns and relatively thick armor, both favored by naval theorists. They were smaller than foreign dreadnoughts because of congressionally mandated limits on displacement (weight), and the inherent design trade-offs between armament, armor, and propulsion left them with a top speed of about 18.5 kn (21 mph; 34 km/h). Both ships were soon surpassed by faster battleships and by ever-larger and stronger super-dreadnoughts, relegating them to serving with older, obsolete battleships during the First World War. Both ships were scrapped after the war with the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Mustafa Tamimi moments before being hit

... that the Israel Defense Forces exonerated the soldier who killed Mustafa Tamimi with a tear-gas canister (incident pictured), saying the soldier had not seen "any people in the line of fire"?
... that the University of Texas at Austin's Little Campus was previously used as an asylum for the blind, a residence for General Custer, and a hospital for the senile?
... that Wang Yinglai, considered a potential candidate for a Nobel Prize after he successfully synthesized insulin, became a virtual prisoner during the Cultural Revolution?
... that an allied force of Republican soldiers and Parthians swiftly overran much of the eastern Roman lands that were under Mark Antony in 40 BC?
... that footballer Ali Ghazal was the first Egyptian player to be appointed captain of a top-tier European club?
... that between 1957 and 1972, the market price of oil was less than the posted price of oil?
... that Andreas Großmann commissioned the oratorio Laudato si' for the 50th anniversary of the Catholic Diocese of Limburg's church music department, which he heads?
... that the city of Lynnwood, Washington, was named for the wife of a local realtor?

In the news

Abiy and Isaias sign a joint declaration

Twelve boys and a man trapped in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave are rescued.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki sign a declaration (pictured) to end their countries' border conflict.
A train derails in Çorlu, Turkey, killing 24 people and injuring more than 120 others.
Flooding and landslides in western Japan kill more than 120 people and leave at least 86 others missing.
China and the United States impose additional tariffs on $34 billion of each other's goods.

On this day

July 11

Hamilton–Burr dueling pistols

1804 – U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a duel (pistols pictured) in Weehawken, New Jersey.
1833 – Noongar warrior Yagan, wanted for leading attacks on white colonists in Western Australia, was killed, becoming a symbol of the unjust and sometimes brutal treatment of the indigenous peoples of Australia by colonial settlers.
1848 – London Waterloo station, Britain's busiest railway station by passenger usage, was opened by the London and South Western Railway.
1991 – Shortly after takeoff from King Abdulaziz International Airport, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria Airways Flight 2120 caught fire and crashed, killing all 261 people on board.
2011 – An explosion at the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base killed 13 people, including the head of the Cyprus Navy.

Nicole Oresme (d. 1382) · Annie Armstrong (b. 1850) · Alessia Cara (b. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) was an American statesman who served as a diplomat, minister and ambassador to foreign nations, and treaty negotiator, United States Senator, Congressman from Massachusetts, and the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829. Involved in negotiating the treaties of Ghent, 1818, and Adams–Onís, Adams has been called one of the United States' greatest diplomats and secretaries of state. As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promote education, paying off much of the national debt despite being stymied by a Congress controlled by opponents and lacking patronage networks. Historians have generally ranked him as an above-average president.

Engraving: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; restoration: Andrew Shiva

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