Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 July 8

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From today's featured article

The Hi-Level was a bilevel intercity railroad passenger car used in the United States. The Budd Company designed it in the 1950s for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway for use on the El Capitan, a coach-only streamliner which ran daily between Los Angeles and Chicago. The design was inspired by the dome car, employed in intercity routes in the Western United States, and by bilevel commuter cars operating in the Chicago area. Budd built 73 Hi-Level cars between 1952 and 1964. Car types included coaches, dining cars, and lounge cars. Most passenger spaces were on the upper level, which featured a row of windows on both sides. Boarding was on the lower level; passengers climbed up a center stairwell to access the upper level. Vestibules on the upper level permitted passengers to walk between cars. Amtrak inherited the fleet in 1971 and continued to use the cars until their retirement in 2018. The Superliner, based on the Hi-Level concept, entered service in 1979 and remains in service. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Headingley Hill Congregational Church

... that Cuthbert Brodrick was invited to design Headingley Hill Congregational Church (pictured) after its committee rejected all of the entries in its architectural competition?
... that at the Battle of Grand Gulf, men of the Confederate 3rd Missouri Infantry Regiment fired into the portholes of Union Navy ships?
... that the Football Association has asked England fans to stop singing "No Surrender to the IRA"?
... that Rockwell A. Schnabel was nominated as United States Ambassador to the European Union instead of Ambassador to Italy, after Italian-Americans demanded one of their own be in that position?
... that after a 2014 Philippine Supreme Court decision, liking or retweeting cyberlibel is no longer a crime?
... that bobsleigh pusher Pavle Jovanovic was "one of the most feared brakemen" on the Bobsleigh World Cup circuit?
... that Gaoshi Shrine is the first Shinto shrine constructed in Taiwan after World War II?
... that the 14-year-old lead actress in the 1931 British Indian film The Last Kiss was brought from a brothel in Dhaka?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Presidential edition of the Russian constitution

Floods in Kyushu, Japan, kill more than 50 people.
The Russian electorate votes to amend the Russian constitution (pictured).
European police agencies infiltrate EncroChat, an alleged criminal chat system, leading to the arrests of more than 800 people.
More than 170 people are killed in a landslide at a jade mine in Hpakant, Myanmar.

On this day

July 8

Charles XII of Sweden

1709 – Great Northern War: Swedish forces under Charles XII (pictured) were defeated at the Battle of Poltava, effectively ending the country's role as a major power in Europe.
1758 – French and Indian War: French forces defeated the British at Fort Carillon on the shore of Lake Champlain in the British colony of New York.
1962 – Following student protests at Rangoon University, Burmese general Ne Win ordered the demolition of the historic students' union building.
2014 – In response to the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers, Israel launched a military operation into the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Giorgio Pullicino (b. 1779)
James B. McCreary (b. 1838)
Abdul Sattar Edhi (d. 2016)

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Today's featured picture

Bedroom in Arles is the title given to each of three similar oil-on-canvas paintings by 19th-century Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. The picture shows his bedroom at 2 Place Lamartine in Arles, France, known as the Yellow House, where he lived in 1888. The door to the right opened onto the upper floor and the staircase, the door to the left was that of the guest room he held prepared for Paul Gauguin, and the window in the front wall looked out onto public gardens. The first version of the painting was damaged in a flood, so he painted a second. The paintings vary slightly in their colours and details, especially with regard to the pictures hanging on the walls. This picture is the third, a reduced-size version painted in 1889 for his mother and sister. It was acquired for the French national collections in 1959, and is on permanent display in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Painting credit: Vincent van Gogh

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