Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 August 7

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From today's featured article

Battle of Hohenfriedberg, as depicted by Carl Röchling

The Second Silesian War (1744–1745) was a conflict between Prussia and Austria which confirmed Prussia's control of Silesia (now in south-western Poland). The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Bohemia, and Upper Saxony and formed one theatre of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. The Habsburg Monarchy's fortunes had improved since the end of the First Silesian War two years earlier. Prussia entered an alliance with Austria's enemies and rejoined the war, invading Habsburg Bohemia in mid-1744 to prevent a resurgent Austria from taking back Silesia. The war ended in a Prussian victory with the Treaty of Dresden in December 1745. Continuing conflict over Silesia would draw Austria and Prussia into the Third Silesian War a decade later. The Second Silesian War repeated the earlier defeat of the Habsburg Monarchy by a lesser German power and contributed to the Austria–Prussia rivalry that would shape German politics for more than a century. (This article is part of a featured topic: Silesian Wars.)

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Did you know ...

UNESCO World Heritage logo

... that with 1,121 World Heritage Sites, UNESCO's World Heritage Program (logo pictured) is the world's most popular cultural programme?
... that in the 1930s and 1940s, Marilyn Knowlden appeared in six films that received Academy Award nominations for Best Picture?
... that India's 2020 food-security scheme, launched during the country's COVID-19 pandemic, is equivalent to feeding 2.5 times the population of the US, 12 times that of the UK, and twice that of the EU?
... that the Morse Building, once one of New York City's tallest buildings, was expanded twenty years after completion, having been considered "small and old-fashioned"?
... that Franciszek Ksawery Niesiołowski became a colonel at age 17?
... that the song "I Can See the Change" was developed over text conversation between Celeste and Finneas after the two met in person at the 2020 Brit Awards?
... that German undercover agent Friedrich Salomon Hall's identity was betrayed by the corns on his feet?
... that one California nut job can cost up to $500,000?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Ceremony initiating construction of the Ram Temple

In India, construction of the Ram Temple on disputed land officially begins, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi laying the foundation stone (ceremony pictured).
Multiple explosions in Beirut, Lebanon, kill at least 157 people and injure more than 5,000 others.
Former King of Spain Juan Carlos I goes into voluntary exile following a financial scandal.

On this day

August 7: Assyrian Martyrs Day (1933)

Badge of Military Merit

1461 – Ming general Cao Qin staged a failed coup against the Tianshun Emperor.
1782 – The Badge of Military Merit (pictured), the precursor to the U.S. Purple Heart, was established as a military decoration of the Continental Army.
1946 – The Soviet Union informed Turkey that the way in which the latter was handling the Turkish Straits no longer represented the security interests of its fellow Black Sea nations, escalating the Turkish Straits crisis.
1970 – Jonathan Jackson kidnapped Harold Haley, a judge in Marin County, California, to coerce the release of the Soledad Brothers, including Jackson's brother George.
1985 – Five members of the Bamber family were found murdered at a farmhouse in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, England.

Jin Shengtan (d. 1661)
Jöns Jacob Berzelius (d. 1848)
Brigid Brophy (d. 1995)

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William Smith

At least 31 people have been the president of Washington College since 1782, four of whom have been interim presidents. Washington College is a private liberal arts college in Chestertown, Maryland, which is on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The college was founded in 1782 by William Smith (pictured), but is the successor institution to the earlier Kent County Free School, which was founded in 1732. From the college's founding until 1922, the executive officer of the college was known as the principal, and subsequently as the president. The president of Washington College is appointed by the Board of Visitors and Governors, and serves at the pleasure of the board. Of the 31 presidents, only one, Joseph McLain, was an alumnus of the college, and only one, Sheila Bair, was a woman. The presidents of the college have been drawn from a variety of areas, including religion, military service, governmental service, and academia. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Peasant Woman Binding Sheaves (after Millet) is an 1889 oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh showing a woman at work in a wheat field during the harvest. As a young man, Van Gogh pursued what he saw as a religious calling, wanting to minister to working people. Failing to find a vocation in ministry, he turned to art as a means of expressing and communicating his deep sense of the meaning of life. In his series of paintings of wheat fields, Van Gogh expressed through symbolism and use of colour his deeply felt spiritual beliefs, appreciation of manual labourers, and connection to nature.

This work is based on an 1852 drawing of a woman gathering wheat by Jean-François Millet. It is one of several paintings by Van Gogh based on the ten Travaux des champs engravings made for the journal L'Illustration from Millet's drawings of peasant life. Van Gogh's painting is in the collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh, after Jean-François Millet

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