Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 6

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From today's featured article

Demetrius III's portrait on a tetradrachm

Demetrius III Eucaerus was a Seleucid ruler who reigned as King of Syria between 96 and 87 BC. He was a son of Antiochus VIII and, most likely, his Egyptian wife Tryphaena. After his father was assassinated in 96 BC, Demetrius III took control of Damascus. In 89 BC, he invaded Judaea and crushed the forces of its king, Alexander Jannaeus. By 87 BC, Demetrius III had most of Syria under his authority. He attempted to appease the public by promoting the importance of the local Semitic gods, and he might have given Damascus the dynastic name Demetrias. By late 87 BC, Demetrius III attacked his brother, and rival to the throne, Philip I, in the city of Beroea, where Philip I's allies called on the Parthians for help. The allied forces routed Demetrius III and besieged him in his camp; he was forced to surrender and spent the rest of his life in exile in Parthia. Philip I took Antioch, while Antiochus XII, another brother of Demetrius III, took Damascus. (Full article...)

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Ping Yuen (foreground) in San Francisco

... that Ping Yuen (pictured), a public housing complex in San Francisco's Chinatown, has an entrance modeled after that of a temple in Beijing?
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... that Frédéric Passy was challenged to a duel over the 1901 Nobel Peace Prize?
... that in 1947, Canadian children staged a nationwide candy bar protest against an increase in the price of chocolate bars from five to eight cents?
... that Ira L. Hanna, the 36th mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming, served for only five months before being convicted for bribery?
... that cloth face masks are considered source control but they are not considered personal protective equipment?
... that Vonda McIntyre's 1973 short story "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand", which won a Nebula Award, was used as the first chapter of her 1978 novel Dreamsnake, which also won a Nebula Award?
... that Hossein Kazempour Ardebili, Iran's former commerce minister and OPEC governor, once worked as a pizza delivery man in the U.S.?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Crew Dragon launch

SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 make their first crewed launch (pictured) for NASA.
Protests and riots break out across the United States following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to legalise same-sex marriage.
A Pakistan International Airlines passenger aircraft crashes in Karachi, killing ninety-seven people.

On this day

June 6: National Day of Sweden

Novarupta's lava dome

1822 – Alexis St. Martin, a Canadian voyageur, was accidentally shot in the stomach; investigations of his injury led to a greater understanding of the processes of digestion.
1882 – The Shewan army defeated Gojjame forces at the Battle of Embabo, an event that contributed to the supremacy of Shewa within the Ethiopian Empire.
1912 – The largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century began, forming Novarupta (lava dome pictured) in the Alaska Peninsula.
1894 – Colorado Governor Davis Hanson Waite ordered his state militia to protect and support the miners engaged in the Cripple Creek miners' strike.
1944 – World War II: The largest amphibious military operation in history began with Allied troops landing on the beaches of Normandy in France.

Marcellin Champagnat (d. 1840)
Henry Allingham (b. 1896)
Natalie Morales (b. 1972)

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Today's featured picture

Sinustrombus sinuatus, the laciniate conch, is a species of marine gastropod mollusc in the family Strombidae. It is native to the tropical Indo-Pacific region, where it lives on the seabed at depths down to about 20 m (66 ft).

This photograph shows apertural (left) and dorsal (right) views of an empty S. sinuatus shell, 83 mm (3.3 in) in length, which may have washed up on a beach. In life, the aperture would be closed by a horny operculum when the animal was not feeding on algae or detritus, or moving about. The operculum and the finger-like processes on the lip of the shell can be used to right itself when it has been overturned, and the operculum and muscular foot are used to flip itself along, in locomotion or defence.

Photograph credit: George Chernilevsky

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