Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 August 5

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From today's featured article

Stephen, King of England (c. 1094 – 1154), ruled from 1135 until his death. Born in the County of Blois in central France, he was brought up by his mother, Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror. Placed into the court of his uncle, Henry I of England, Stephen rose in prominence and was granted extensive lands. When Henry died in 1135, Stephen crossed the English Channel and took the throne in spite of his earlier oaths to support the claim of Henry's daughter, the Empress Matilda. In 1138 the Empress's half-brother Robert of Gloucester rebelled against Stephen, and in 1139 the Empress and Robert invaded England. The revolt took hold in the south-west, and Stephen was captured at the battle of Lincoln in 1141. He was abandoned by many of his followers and lost control of Normandy. He was freed after Robert was captured at the Rout of Winchester, but the civil war dragged on for many years. Upon his death, he was succeeded by the Empress's son, Henry II, the first of the Angevin kings. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Mary Robinson Foster

... that philanthropist Mary Robinson Foster (pictured) was known as the first Hawaiian Buddhist?
... that Lawrence of Arabia's plan to install the Sharif of Mecca's sons as rulers in what became modern Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and western Saudi Arabia was only partially successful?
... that in 1599, Henry IV of France appointed Humphrey Bradley maître des digues du royaume ('master of dykes of the kingdom'), in effect a monopoly of all dyking and land reclamation work in France?
... that the 2018 art installation We Come in Peace was described as "eerie, other, unnerving, ambiguous, even alarming"?
... that Gordon Bell was awarded the Military Cross 31 years before becoming president of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons?
... that critics found the couch gag of The Simpsons episode "Dad Behavior" remarkably "grim" and "bleak", as all but one of the Simpsons die during its otherwise familiar title sequence?
... that Charles Lyon Chandler's biography of Joel Roberts Poinsett went unpublished after two others came out the same year?
... that during the Peasants' Revolt in Cambridge, Margery Starre danced with a mob that sacked Corpus Christi College and burnt its charters, shouting: "Away with the learning of clerks, away with it!"?

In the news

Egan Bernal

In the United States, 30 people are killed and 53 others are injured during separate mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio.
A prison riot in Altamira, Brazil, leaves 58 people dead.
In cycling, Colombian Egan Bernal (pictured) becomes the first Latin American to win the Tour de France.
Incumbent President of Tunisia Beji Caid Essebsi dies at the age of 92, and Mohamed Ennaceur is named as his interim replacement.

On this day

August 5: Constitution Day in the Cook Islands (1965); Victory Day in Croatia (1995)

Guangwu depicted in Sancai Tuhui

AD 25 – Guangwu (pictured) claimed the throne as emperor of the Han dynasty, after Wang Mang, who had seized the throne himself and proclaimed the Xin dynasty, died when peasant rebels besieged Chang'an.
1689 – Beaver Wars: Aggravated by increased French incursions into their territory, a large force of Mohawk warriors substantially destroyed the settlement of Lachine, New France.
1772 – Russia, Prussia and Habsburg Austria began the First Partition of Poland to help restore the regional balance of power in Eastern Europe among those three countries.
1864 – American Civil War: Rear Admiral David Farragut successfully led the Union fleet through a mine field to victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay.
1949 – A magnitude 6.8 M_L earthquake struck near Ambato, Ecuador, killing 5,050 people.

Euthymius I of Constantinople (d. 917) · Tom Thomson (b. 1877) · Pete Burns (b. 1959)

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From today's featured list

Animated map of the territorial evolution of Australia

The first colonies of the British Empire on the continent of Australia were the penal colony of New South Wales, founded in 1787, and the Swan River Colony (later renamed Western Australia), founded in 1829. Over the next few decades, the colonies of New Zealand, Queensland, South Australia, Van Diemen's Land (later renamed Tasmania), and Victoria were created from New South Wales, as well as an aborted Colony of North Australia. On 1 January 1901, these colonies, excepting New Zealand, became states in the Commonwealth of Australia. Since federation, the internal borders have remained mostly stable, except for the creation of some territories with limited self-government: the Northern Territory from South Australia, to govern the vast, sparsely populated centre of the country; the split of the Northern Territory into Central Australia and North Australia, and then the quick merger of those back into the Northern Territory; and the Australian Capital Territory, a federal district ceded from New South Wales. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

I. Rice Pereira (August 5, 1902 – January 11, 1971) was an American abstract artist, poet and philosopher who played a major role in the development of modernism in the United States. She is known for her work in the genres of geometric abstraction, abstract expressionism and lyrical abstraction, as well as her use of the principles of the Bauhaus school. Her paintings and writings were significantly influenced by the complex intellectual currents of the 20th century.

This picture, showing Pereira with one of her paintings, was taken in 1938. The photograph is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.

Photograph credit: Cyril Mipaas

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