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...

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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....

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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....

Read More

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...

Read More

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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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On this day: April 27

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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...

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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...

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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...

Read More

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...

Read More