April 29 Wikipedia featured article

The Cretan War (205–200 BC) was fought by King Philip V of Macedon (pictured) and a coalition that included several Cretan cities against the forces of Rhodes, Attalus I of Pergamum and their allies. Wishing to eliminate Rhodes, the king formed an alliance with pirates. With the Rhodian fleet and economy suffering from their depredations, Philip believed his chance to crush Rhodes was at hand; in alliance with the Seleucid Empire, he attacked the lands of Ptolemy V of Egypt and Rhodes' allies in the Balkans. In 201 BC, Rhodes, Pergamum and their allies defeated Philip at the Battle of Chios, but shortly afterwards, his fleet defeated the Rhodians at Lade. While he was plundering Pergamese land, Attalus went to Athens and secured an alliance against Macedon. Philip assailed Athens, but Rome warned him to withdraw or face war. After being defeated again by the Rhodian and Pergamese fleets, Philip withdrew to Greece. He rejected the Roman ultimatum to stop attacking Greek states, and the Romans invaded Macedon. The Cretan coalition cities, deprived of their strongest ally, were forced to sign a treaty favourable to Rhodes, ending the Cretan War. Three years later, the Romans defeated Philip in the Battle of Cynoscephalae. (Full article...)

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April 30 Wikipedia featured article

Æthelwold was a son of King Alfred the Great's older brother, Æthelred, who was King of Wessex from 865 to 871. While the West Saxons were fighting a Danish Viking invasion, Æthelred died; his sons were infants, so Alfred became king. He defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878, but when he died in 899 the Vikings still controlled Northumbria and East Anglia. In his will (pictured) Alfred favoured his own children over his brother's. Æthelwold, as senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), had a strong claim to the throne, and he disputed the crown with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. Æthelwold attempted to raise an army to support his claim, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Northumbria, where he was accepted by the Danes as king. In 902 he persuaded the East Anglian Vikings to launch an attack on Edward's territory in Wessex and Mercia. Edward retaliated with a raid on East Anglia, and when he withdrew, his men from Kent lingered and met the East Anglian Danes at the Battle of the Holme. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses, including the death of Æthelwold, ending the challenge to Edward's rule. (Full article...)

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On this day: April 29

April 29: Shōwa Day in Japan

• 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour, the first European ship to land in eastern Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under David Farragut captured New Orleans, securing access into the Mississippi River.
• 1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
• 1944 – Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake (pictured) parachuted into the Auvergne, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local maquis group
• 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

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On this day: April 30

April 30: Children's Day in Mexico; Consumer Protection Day in Thailand

• 1006 – SN 1006 (remnant pictured), the brightest supernova in recorded history, first appeared in the constellation Lupus.
• 1557 – Arauco War: Spanish forces of the Governor Francisco de Villagra launched a dawn surprise attack against the Mapuche headed by their toqui Lautaro in what is now Chile.
• 1789 – George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States at Federal Hall in New York City.
• 1945 – World War II: As Allied forces were closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker after being married for one day.
• 1975 – American forces completed a helicopter evacuation of U.S. citizens, South Vietnamese civilians and others from Saigon, just before North Vietnamese troops captured the city, ending the Vietnam War.

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On this day: April 30

April 30: Children's Day in Mexico; Consumer Protection Day in Thailand

• 1006 – SN 1006 (remnant pictured), the brightest supernova in recorded history, first appeared in the constellation Lupus.
• 1557 – Arauco War: Spanish forces of the Governor Francisco de Villagra launched a dawn surprise attack against the Mapuche headed by their toqui Lautaro in what is now Chile.
• 1789 – George Washington took the oath of office as the first President of the United States at Federal Hall in New York City.
• 1945 – World War II: As Allied forces were closing in on Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide in the Führerbunker after being married for one day.
• 1975 – American forces completed a helicopter evacuation of U.S. citizens, South Vietnamese civilians and others from Saigon, just before North Vietnamese troops captured the city, ending the Vietnam War.

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April 30 Wikipedia featured article

Æthelwold was a son of King Alfred the Great's older brother, Æthelred, who was King of Wessex from 865 to 871. While the West Saxons were fighting a Danish Viking invasion, Æthelred died; his sons were infants, so Alfred became king. He defeated the Vikings at the Battle of Edington in 878, but when he died in 899 the Vikings still controlled Northumbria and East Anglia. In his will (pictured) Alfred favoured his own children over his brother's. Æthelwold, as senior ætheling (prince of the royal dynasty eligible for kingship), had a strong claim to the throne, and he disputed the crown with Alfred's son, Edward the Elder. Æthelwold attempted to raise an army to support his claim, but was unable to get sufficient support to meet Edward in battle and fled to Northumbria, where he was accepted by the Danes as king. In 902 he persuaded the East Anglian Vikings to launch an attack on Edward's territory in Wessex and Mercia. Edward retaliated with a raid on East Anglia, and when he withdrew, his men from Kent lingered and met the East Anglian Danes at the Battle of the Holme. The Danes were victorious but suffered heavy losses, including the death of Æthelwold, ending the challenge to Edward's rule. (Full article...)

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April 29 Wikipedia featured article

The Cretan War (205–200 BC) was fought by King Philip V of Macedon (pictured) and a coalition that included several Cretan cities against the forces of Rhodes, Attalus I of Pergamum and their allies. Wishing to eliminate Rhodes, the king formed an alliance with pirates. With the Rhodian fleet and economy suffering from their depredations, Philip believed his chance to crush Rhodes was at hand; in alliance with the Seleucid Empire, he attacked the lands of Ptolemy V of Egypt and Rhodes' allies in the Balkans. In 201 BC, Rhodes, Pergamum and their allies defeated Philip at the Battle of Chios, but shortly afterwards, his fleet defeated the Rhodians at Lade. While he was plundering Pergamese land, Attalus went to Athens and secured an alliance against Macedon. Philip assailed Athens, but Rome warned him to withdraw or face war. After being defeated again by the Rhodian and Pergamese fleets, Philip withdrew to Greece. He rejected the Roman ultimatum to stop attacking Greek states, and the Romans invaded Macedon. The Cretan coalition cities, deprived of their strongest ally, were forced to sign a treaty favourable to Rhodes, ending the Cretan War. Three years later, the Romans defeated Philip in the Battle of Cynoscephalae. (Full article...)

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On this day: April 29

April 29: Shōwa Day in Japan

• 1770 – British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour, the first European ship to land in eastern Australia, reached the coast of Botany Bay near present-day Sydney.
• 1862 – American Civil War: Union forces under David Farragut captured New Orleans, securing access into the Mississippi River.
• 1910 – The Parliament of the United Kingdom passed the People's Budget, the first budget in British history with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the British public.
• 1944 – Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake (pictured) parachuted into the Auvergne, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local maquis group
• 1968 – The controversial musical Hair, a product of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement.

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April 22 Wikipedia featured article

SM U-66 was the lead ship of the Type U-66 U-boats (submarines) for the German Imperial Navy during World War I. The submarine had been laid down in November 1913 by Germaniawerft of Kiel for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, who then sold the entire class to the German Imperial Navy after the outbreak of war appeared to make delivery to the Adriatic impossible. Redesigned and reconstructed to German specifications, U-66 was launched in April 1915 and commissioned in July. The boat was 228 feet (69 m) long and was armed with five torpedo tubes and a deck gun. As a part of the Baltic and 4th Flotillas, U-66 sank 24 ships with a combined gross register tonnage of 69,967 in six war patrols. After reporting her position in the North Sea on 3 September 1917, neither the U-boat nor any of her 40-man crew were ever heard from again. A postwar German study offered no explanation for her loss, although British records suggest that she may have struck a mine in the Dogger Bank area. (Full article...)

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April 23 Wikipedia featured article

Caelum is a faint constellation in the southern sky, introduced in the 1750s by Nicolas Louis de Lacaille. Latin for "chisel", it is the eighth-smallest constellation, measuring around 0.038 steradians, just smaller than Corona Australis. Caelum is a rather barren constellation with few objects of interest, due to its small size and location away from the plane of the Milky Way. The constellation's brightest star, Alpha Caeli, is only of magnitude 4.45, and only one other star (Gamma¹ Caeli) is brighter than magnitude 5. Other notable objects in Caelum are RR Caeli, a binary star with one planet approximately 20.13 parsecs (65.7 ly) away; X Caeli, a Delta Scuti variable that forms an optical double with Gamma¹ Caeli; and HE0450-2958, a Seyfert galaxy (pictured) that at first appeared as just a jet, with no host galaxy visible. The source of the jet was once suggested to be a supermassive black hole, but is now agreed to be a small galaxy that is partially obscured by light from the jet and a nearby starburst galaxy. (Full article...)

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April 24 Wikipedia featured article

Colton Point State Park is a 368-acre (149 ha) Pennsylvania state park in the United States. It is on the west side of Tioga County's Pine Creek Gorge, also known as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, which is 800 feet (240 m) deep and nearly 4,000 feet (1,200 m) across at this location. The park, named for Henry Colton, a Williamsport lumberman who cut timber there starting in 1879, extends from the creek in the bottom of the gorge up to the rim and across part of the plateau to the west. Known for its views of the gorge, it offers opportunities for picnicking, hiking, fishing, hunting, whitewater boating, and camping. It was chosen by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources for its "Twenty Must-See Pennsylvania State Parks" list. Pine Creek has carved the gorge through five major rock formations from the Devonian and Carboniferous periods. A path along Pine Creek was first used by Native Americans, then lumbermen, and from 1883 to 1988 it was the route of a railroad. The gorge was named a National Natural Landmark in 1968. (Full article...)

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April 25 Wikipedia featured article

Amphibians are a class of cold-blooded vertebrates, mostly four-limbed. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats in freshwater, on or under the ground, or in trees. Typically starting their lives as aquatic larvae with gills, they generally undergo metamorphosis into adults with air-breathing lungs. They use their skins as a secondary respiratory surface; some small terrestrial salamanders and frogs lack lungs and rely entirely on their skins. The earliest amphibians evolved in the Devonian Period from fish with lungs and bony-limbed fins. The three modern orders of amphibians are Anura (the frogs and toads), Caudata (the salamanders), and Gymnophiona (the caecilians). The number of known species is approximately 7,000, of which nearly 90% are frogs. The smallest living amphibian is a frog from New Guinea with a length of just 7.7 mm (0.3 in). The largest is the 1.8 m (5 ft 11 in) Chinese giant salamander, but this is dwarfed by the extinct 9 m (30 ft) Prionosuchus from Brazil. With their complex reproductive needs and permeable skins, amphibians are often indicators of ecological disturbance, and in recent decades their populations have declined around the globe. (Full article...)

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April 26 Wikipedia featured article

Constance Stokes (1906–1991) was a modernist Australian painter working in Victoria. She trained at the National Gallery of Victoria Art School until 1929, winning a scholarship to continue her study at London's Royal Academy of Arts. Her paintings and drawings were exhibited from the 1940s onwards, and she was one of only two women included in a major exhibition of twelve Australian artists that travelled to Canada, the United Kingdom and Italy in the early 1950s. Influenced by George Bell, Stokes was part of the Melbourne Contemporary Artists, a group Bell established in 1940, and her works continued to be well-regarded by art historians for many years after the group's formation. Her husband's early death in 1962 forced her to return to painting as a career, resulting in a successful one-woman show in 1964, her first in thirty years. She continued to paint and exhibit through the 1980s. Her work faded into relative obscurity after her death, until the publication of Anne Summers' 2009 book The Lost Mother, a narrative that highlights Stokes and her paintings. Her art is represented in most major Australian galleries, including the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. (Full article...)

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April 27 Wikipedia featured article

Wish You Were Here (1975) is the ninth studio album by the English progressive rock group Pink Floyd (pictured), recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios. Some of its songs critique the music business; others express alienation. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group several years earlier; it was lead writer Roger Waters' idea to split the song into two parts and use it to bookend the other songs on the album. As on their previous album, The Dark Side of the Moon, the band made use of studio effects and synthesizers, and brought in guest singers for some tracks, including Roy Harper for the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar". The album became an instant commercial success, and record company EMI was unable to print enough copies to satisfy demand. Although it initially received mixed reviews, the album has since been acclaimed by critics and appears on Rolling Stone‍ '​s list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour have each cited Wish You Were Here as their favourite Pink Floyd album. (Full article...)

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April 28 Wikipedia featured article

The expansion era of the National Hockey League (NHL) began when six new teams were added to the original six for the 1967–68 season. The expansion teams formed the newly created West Division: the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. By 1978, the NHL had lost the Seals and had added another six teams: the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Atlanta Flames, New York Islanders, Colorado Rockies, and Washington Capitals. They added another four teams in 1979, absorbed from the defunct World Hockey Association—the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets—for a total of 21 teams, a figure that remained constant until the San Jose Sharks joined as an expansion franchise in 1991. The NHL became involved in international play in the Summit Series in 1972, matching NHL players against the top players of the Soviet Union, and in the Canada Cup and Super Series between 1976 and 1991. The expansion era was one of the highest-scoring periods in NHL history, led in the 1980s by the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky (pictured in 2006), who scored 215 points in 1985–86, still a league record. (Full article...)

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On this day: April 22

April 22: Earth Day; Yom Hazikaron in Israel (2015)

• 1519 – Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés (pictured) established a settlement in Mexico, naming it "Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz" ("Rich village of the True Cross").
• 1864 – The U.S. Congress passed the Coinage Act, authorizing the minting of a two-cent coin, the first U.S. coin to bear the phrase "In God we trust".
• 1930 – France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the London Naval Treaty, regulating submarine warfare and limiting military ship building.
• 1951 – Korean War: The People's Volunteer Army of China attacked positions occupied mainly by Australian and Canadian forces, starting the Battle of Kapyong.
• 1983 – The West German news magazine Stern published excerpts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries.

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On this day: April 23

April 23: St George's Day in various countries; Yom Ha'atzmaut in Israel (2015); Children's Day in Turkey

• 1348 – The first-ever appointments to the Order of the Garter, an order of chivalry founded by King Edward III of England, were announced.
• 1661 – Charles II, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland was crowned at Westminster Abbey.
• 1918 – First World War: The British Royal Navy conducted a raid on the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge.
• 1985 – The Coca-Cola Company replaced its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola, with "New Coke" (pictured), which generated so much negative response that the company put the previous formula back on the market less than three months later.
• 2009 – Gamma-ray burst GRB 090423 was detected, coming from the most distant known astronomical object of any kind at the time.

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On this day: April 24

April 24: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day; Republic Day in The Gambia (1970)

• 1547 – Schmalkaldic War: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, led Imperial troops to a decisive victory in the Battle of Mühlberg over the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of Protestant princes.
• 1800 – The Library of Congress, the de facto national library of the United States, was established as part of an act of Congress providing for the transfer of the nation's capital from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
• 1904 – Realizing that the Russification of Lithuania was not working, the Russian Empire lifted the 40-year-old ban on publications using the Lithuanian language.
• 1967 – The Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 1 crashed in Siberia during its return to Earth, killing cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first human to die during a spaceflight.
• 1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in mission STS-31.

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On this day: April 25

April 25: Feast day of Mark the Evangelist (Christianity); Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand (1915); Liberation Day in Italy; Elbe Day in Russia and the United States (1945)

• 1644 – The Ming dynasty of China fell when the Chongzhen Emperor committed suicide during a peasant rebellion led by Li Zicheng.
• 1849 – After Lord Elgin, the Governor General of Canada, signed the Rebellion Losses Bill into law to compensate the residents of Lower Canada for losses incurred in Rebellions of 1837, protestors rioted and burned down the Parliament building in Montreal.
• 1915 – First World War: Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed at Anzac Cove (pictured) while British and French troops landed at Cape Helles to begin the Allied invasion of the Gallipoli peninsula in the Ottoman Empire.
• 1945 – German troops retreated from northern Finland, bringing the Lapland War to a close.
• 1990 – Violeta Chamorro took office as the President of Nicaragua, the first woman elected in her own right as a head of state in the Americas.

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On this day: April 26

April 26: World Intellectual Property Day; Feast day of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Roman Catholic Church)

• 1865 – U.S. Army soldiers cornered and fatally shot John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, in rural northern Virginia, ending a twelve-day manhunt.
• 1933 – The Gestapo (SS emblem pictured), the official secret police force in Nazi Germany, was established.
• 1945 – World War II: Both the German and Polish–Soviet sides claimed victory as major fighting in the Battle of Bautzen ended.
• 1970 – The World Intellectual Property Organization came into being when its charter entered into force.
• 2007 – Controversy surrounding the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn, a Soviet Red Army World War II memorial in Tallinn, Estonia, erupted into mass protests and riots.

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On this day: April 28

April 28: International Workers' Memorial Day

• 1253 – Nichiren (pictured), a Japanese monk, expounded Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time and declared it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.
• 1789 – About 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, Fletcher Christian, master's mate on board the Royal Navy ship HMAV Bounty, led a mutiny against the ship's commander William Bligh.
• 1910 – Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in England.
• 1952 – Japan and China signed the Treaty of Taipei to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War, seven years after fighting in that conflict ended due to World War II.
• 1975 – Chief of the South Vietnamese army Cao Văn Viên fled the country as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.

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On this day: April 28

April 28: International Workers' Memorial Day

• 1253 – Nichiren (pictured), a Japanese monk, expounded Nam Myoho Renge Kyo for the first time and declared it to be the essence of Buddhism, in effect founding Nichiren Buddhism.
• 1789 – About 1,300 miles west of Tahiti, Fletcher Christian, master's mate on board the Royal Navy ship HMAV Bounty, led a mutiny against the ship's commander William Bligh.
• 1910 – Frenchman Louis Paulhan won the London to Manchester air race, the first long-distance aeroplane race in England.
• 1952 – Japan and China signed the Treaty of Taipei to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War, seven years after fighting in that conflict ended due to World War II.
• 1975 – Chief of the South Vietnamese army Cao Văn Viên fled the country as the North Vietnamese closed in on Saigon.

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April 28 Wikipedia featured article

The expansion era of the National Hockey League (NHL) began when six new teams were added to the original six for the 1967–68 season. The expansion teams formed the newly created West Division: the Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota North Stars, Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and St. Louis Blues. By 1978, the NHL had lost the Seals and had added another six teams: the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks, Atlanta Flames, New York Islanders, Colorado Rockies, and Washington Capitals. They added another four teams in 1979, absorbed from the defunct World Hockey Association—the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets—for a total of 21 teams, a figure that remained constant until the San Jose Sharks joined as an expansion franchise in 1991. The NHL became involved in international play in the Summit Series in 1972, matching NHL players against the top players of the Soviet Union, and in the Canada Cup and Super Series between 1976 and 1991. The expansion era was one of the highest-scoring periods in NHL history, led in the 1980s by the Edmonton Oilers and Wayne Gretzky (pictured in 2006), who scored 215 in 1985–86, still a league record. (Full article...)

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April 27 Wikipedia featured article

Wish You Were Here (1975) is the ninth studio album by the English progressive rock group Pink Floyd (pictured), recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios. Some of its songs critique the music business; others express alienation. "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" is a tribute to Syd Barrett, whose mental breakdown had forced him to leave the group several years earlier; it was lead writer Roger Waters' idea to split the song into two parts and use it to bookend the other songs on the album. As on their previous album, The Dark Side of the Moon, the band made use of studio effects and synthesizers, and brought in guest singers for some tracks, including Roy Harper for the lead vocals on "Have a Cigar". The album became an instant commercial success, and record company EMI was unable to print enough copies to satisfy demand. Although it initially received mixed reviews, the album has since been acclaimed by critics and appears on Rolling Stone‍ '​s list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Band members Richard Wright and David Gilmour have each cited Wish You Were Here as their favourite Pink Floyd album. (Full article...)

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