Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 June 12

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From today's featured article

Roy Phillipps (1892–1941) was an Australian fighter ace of World War I. He achieved fifteen victories in aerial combat, four of them in a single action on 12 June 1918. A grazier between the wars, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) in 1940 and was killed in a plane crash the following year. Born in New South Wales but raised in Western Australia, Phillipps joined the Australian Imperial Force as an infantryman in April 1915, seeing action at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Wounded twice in 1916, he transferred to the Australian Flying Corps (AFC) and, having falsified his age, was accepted for pilot training in May 1917. As a member of No. 2 Squadron in France, Phillipps flew mainly S.E.5 fighters, and was awarded two Military Crosses and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. He finished the war a major, commanding No. 6 (Training) Squadron in England. He returned to Australia in 1919 and left the AFC. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the RAAF. At his death he was ranked squadron leader, commanding No. 2 Elementary Flying Training School at Archerfield, Queensland. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Tom kha kai

... that several varieties of coconut soup exist, such as binignit, laksa, and tom kha kai (pictured)?
... that Indian quantum physicist Shasanka Mohan Roy developed an exact integral equation, now known as "Roy's equations"?
... that the Jefferson Elementary School District started with a one-room building constructed in 1856?
... that Shinnyo was the first fully ordained bhikkhuni for several hundred years?
... that 154 flights of stairs in New York City will cost $150 million to $200 million?
... that in 1907, George H. Brimhall permitted Brigham Young University students to paint the letters "B", "Y", and "U" on the mountain nearest to campus, but the work was only partially completed and it became Y Mountain?
... that the video game Nights: Journey of Dreams inspired an unofficial two-CD tribute album?
... that when the Vikings occupied Seville in 844, they tried unsuccessfully to burn the city's great mosque?
... that the red-billed quelea is the most numerous undomesticated bird species on earth, with an estimated population peaking at 1.5 billion?
... that bae is a term of endearment popular on social media and in contemporary song lyrics?

In the news

Theresa May

In the UK general election, the ruling Conservative Party, led by Theresa May (pictured), loses its majority but remains the largest party.
A study of fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, suggests that Homo sapiens may have evolved at least 100,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Simultaneous terrorist attacks at the Iranian parliament and the Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini kill at least 17 people and injure 43 others.
A Myanmar Air Force aircraft crashes into the Andaman Sea, killing all 122 people on board.
Several countries, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, cut diplomatic relations with Qatar.

On this day...

June 12: Dia dos Namorados in Brazil

Reagan speaking at the Brandenburg Gate

1240 – The Disputation of Paris began in the court of King Louis IX, in which four rabbis defended the Talmud against Nicholas Donin's accusations of blasphemy.
1381 – The first mass protest in the Peasants' Revolt began in Blackheath, England, caused by political and socioeconomic tensions due to the Black Death and high taxes as a result of the Hundred Years' War.
1942 – On her thirteenth birthday, Anne Frank began keeping her diary during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.
1967 – The U.S. Supreme Court delivered its decision in the landmark civil rights case Loving v. Virginia, striking down laws restricting interracial marriage in the United States.
1987 – Cold War: During a speech (pictured) at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate by the Berlin Wall, U.S. President Ronald Reagan challenged Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall!"

Æthelflæd (d. 918) · Medgar Evers (d. 1963) · Gregory Peck (d. 2003)

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From today's featured list

DS:Style is a series of educational software products for the Nintendo DS console. The series was created and published in Japan exclusively by Square Enix, a Japanese video game developer and publisher, and developed by both Square Enix and several other companies. It includes reference guides, travel guides for different countries or cities, and study guides for Japanese professional licensing and civil servant exams. The first nine products in the series were announced on April 4, 2007 and the first five were released on July 5, 2007; the last DS:Style release was on February 3, 2011. Several of the products were named after other non-software products, such as the Lonely Planet series of travel guides. The releases, as they fell in the line between games and software products, went largely unreviewed. Critics' reactions to the series were tepid; they felt that the products would sell well, given the publisher and subject matter, but that there was little interesting about them. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

A Young Girl Reading is an 18th-century oil painting by Jean-Honoré Fragonard. It depicts a young girl, reading from a small book held in her right hand, in profile. She is dressed in a lemon yellow dress, with her hair tied in a chignon. The painting was purchased by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1961 using funds donated by Ailsa Mellon Bruce, the daughter of Andrew W. Mellon, following her father's death.

Painting: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

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