Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 August 24

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From today's featured article

Benjamin Cardozo

Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co. (1928) is a leading case in American tort law on the question of liability to an unforeseeable plaintiff. Arising out of an unusual incident on August 24, 1924, the case has been studied by generations of law students. The plaintiff, Helen Palsgraf, was injured as she was boarding a train when a man (aided by railroad employees) dropped a package that exploded, causing a large coin-operated scale on the platform to hit her. She sued the railroad, arguing that she had been harmed by the negligence of its employees while they assisted the man. She won a jury verdict but lost on appeal to the New York Court of Appeals, the highest state court in New York; its opinion was written by Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo (pictured), a leading figure in the development of American common law and later a Supreme Court justice. Cardozo wrote for a majority of the Court of Appeals, ruling that the railroad was not negligent because its employees, in helping the man board, did not have a duty of care to Palsgraf as injury to her was not a foreseeable harm from aiding a man with a package. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Chemical structure of Regrelor

... that regrelor (pictured), a new experimental antiplatelet drug, was withdrawn during a phase II clinical trial due to an increased risk of bleeding?
... that John O'Brien presided over the military court that tried and acquitted Japanese Admiral Soemu Toyoda?
... that in 1999 three perfectly-preserved child mummies were found on the summit of Llullaillaco, a 6,700 m (22,000 ft) volcano, where they had been sacrificed under the Inca Empire 500 years earlier?
... that Akhamaman, the self-proclaimed king of Pegu, began his career as a rower on the royal yacht of King Narathihapate of Pagan?
... that a marine organism described in 1971 as a new species of gastrotrich was later identified as the larva of a bristleworm, probably Polydora ciliata?
... that the introduction of Ticketer ticket machines on Reading Transport buses meant that 11,000 pre-paid cards had to be reissued?
... that U.S. citizens are prohibited from engaging in business transactions with the owners of the Mexican newspaper Unomásuno?
... that when signing to MCA Records, Gregg Alexander allegedly received a $600,000 advance for the New Radicals' Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too?

In the news

The solar eclipse

The Supreme Court of India rules that the practice of instant divorce is unconstitutional.
A total solar eclipse (pictured) crosses the contiguous United States for the first time since 1918.
In women's golf, the United States win the Solheim Cup.
At least 23 people are killed and 156 others are injured in a train accident in Khatauli, India.
A knife attack in Turku, Finland, kills 2 people and injures 8 others.
Three separate attacks in Catalonia, Spain, kill at least 15 people and injure more than 100 others.

On this day...

August 24: Independence Day in Ukraine (1991)

The 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team

49 BC – Caesar's Civil War: Forces loyal to Julius Caesar led by Gaius Scribonius Curio were crushingly defeated by Pompeian Republicans under Publius Attius Varus and King Juba I of Numidia.
1482 – Anglo-Scottish Wars: The border town of Berwick-upon-Tweed and its castle were captured by English forces.
1889 – The predominantly Māori New Zealand Native football team (pictured) played the last match of their 107-game tour, the longest in rugby union history.
1942 – World War II: Bombers from the United States aircraft carrier Saratoga sank the Japanese aircraft carrier Ryūjō near Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands, helping to lead to an Allied victory.
2004 – About 90 people died after suicide bombers attacked two airliners flying out of Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport.

Magnus Barefoot (d. 1103) · William Wilberforce (b. 1759) · Valentine Baker (b. 1888)

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Today's featured picture

A view of the eastern section of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, connecting Yerba Buena Island (in San Francisco) to Oakland, in California. The original bridge (right) opened in 1936, but was replaced by a new $6.4 billion bridge in 2013 as it was becoming unsafe. The bridge's original western section, really a separate bridge connecting mainland San Francisco to the island, remains in use. This photograph was taken in September 2013, several days after the transfer of traffic but before demolition of the old bridge began.

Photograph: Frank Schulenburg

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