Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 18

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Map of Ozurget Uyezd during the Russian Empire, corresponding to modern-day Guria

The Gurian Republic was an insurrection and protest movement in the western Georgian region of Guria between 1902 and 1906, against the Russian Empire. It arose from a revolt over land grazing rights; taxation, land ownership and economic factors were also concerns. The Republic established its own system of government, although it was not anti-Russian, desiring to remain within the Empire. The 1905 Russian Revolution led to uprisings throughout the Empire, including Georgia, and in reaction the imperial authorities deployed the military to end the rebellions. The peasants were able to fend off a small force of Cossacks, but overwhelming military force was used to re-assert control in 1906. Some of the Republic's leaders were executed, imprisoned or exiled, but others later played prominent roles in the 1918–1921 Democratic Republic of Georgia. The Gurian Republic demonstrated that peasants could participate in the socialist movement, an idea previously downplayed by leading Marxists. (Full article...)

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In the news

Hakainde Hichilema

Hakainde Hichilema (pictured) is elected President of Zambia.
The Afghan government collapses as the capital city of Kabul falls to the Taliban offensive.
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills more than 1,900 people.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases the first part of its Sixth Assessment Report on the state of knowledge of climate change and its effects.

On this day

August 18

Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony

1783 – A meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
1891 – A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (authors pictured) was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
1966 – Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan, but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
2008 – Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure from a movement to impeach him.

Olaf I of Denmark (d. 1095)
Baji Rao I (b. 1700)
Cameron White (b. 1983)

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Today's featured picture

Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) was a French Catholic priest and scientist. His celestial atlas, entitled Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio, comprised six charts of the night sky and was first published in 1674. The atlas uses a gnomonic projection so that the plates make up a cube of the celestial sphere. The constellation figures are drawn from Uranometria, but were carefully reworked and adapted to a broader view of the sky. This is the second plate from a 1693 edition of Pardies's atlas, featuring constellations including Pegasus and Andromeda, visible in the northern sky.

Map credit: Ignace-Gaston Pardies

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