June 30 Wikipedia featured article

Fantastic Novels was an American science fiction and fantasy pulp magazine published by the Munsey Company of New York from 1940 to 1941, and by Popular Publications from 1948 to 1951. It was launched as a bimonthly companion magazine to Famous Fantastic Mysteries in response to heavy demand for book-length reprints of stories from pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories and Argosy. It ran science fiction and fantasy classics from earlier decades,...

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On this day: June 30

June 30: Independence Day in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960) 1559 – During a jousting match, Gabriel Montgomery of the Garde Écossaise mortally wounded King Henry II of France (pictured), piercing him in the eye with his lance. 1859 – French acrobat Charles Blondin crossed Niagara Gorge on a tightrope, turning him into one of the world's most famous tightrope walkers. 1894 – London's Tower Bridge, a combined bascule and suspension...

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On this day: June 29

June 29: Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Christianity, Gregorian calendar); Independence Day in Seychelles (1976) 1149 – Second Crusade: An army led by Nur ad-Din Zangi destroyed the forces of Antioch led by Prince Raymond. 1444 – Albanians led by Skanderbeg scored a resounding victory in their rebellion against the Ottoman Empire. 1776 – Lieutenant José Joaquin Moraga and Father Francisco Palóu founded Mission San Francisco de Asís (pictured),...

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June 29 Wikipedia featured article

Robin Friday (1952–1990) was an English football forward who played for Reading and Cardiff City during the mid-1970s. Born and raised in Acton in west London, Friday joined Reading in 1974, quickly becoming a key player and helping Reading win promotion to the Third Division during the 1975–76 season. Friday won Reading's player of the year award in both of his full seasons there as their leading goal scorer. Many contemporaries would later assert that he was good enough to play for England, but his habit of unsettling opponents through physical...

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On this day: June 28

June 28 1841 – Giselle, a ballet by French composer Adolphe Adam, was first performed at the Théâtre de l'Académie Royale de Musique in Paris. 1880 – Police captured Australian bank robber and cultural icon Ned Kelly after a gun battle in Glenrowan, Victoria. 1922 – The Irish Civil War began with an assault by the Irish Free State's National Army on the Four Courts building, which had been occupied by the Anti-Treaty Irish Republican Army. 1989...

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June 28 Wikipedia featured article

Edmontosaurus, a genus with the species E. regalis and E. annectens, was one of the largest duck-billed dinosaurs, up to 12 metres (39 ft) long and weighing around 4.0 metric tons (4.4 short tons). Widely distributed across western North America, especially in the coasts and coastal plains, it was a herbivore with small solid or fleshy crests that could move on two legs or four, and is thought to have lived in groups. It was named after Edmonton,...

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On this day: June 27

June 27: Mixed Race Day in Brazil; Independence Day in Djibouti (1977); Armed Forces Day in the United Kingdom (2015) 678 – Pope Agatho, later venerated as a saint in both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, began his reign as Pope. 1743 – War of the Austrian Succession: In the last time that a British monarch personally led his troops into battle, George II and his forces defeated the French in Dettingen, Bavaria. 1899 – A....

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June 27 Wikipedia featured article

Hurricane Georges hit Louisiana in 1998, doing $30.1 million in damage and causing three deaths. Attaining a peak intensity of 155 mph (250 km/h) on September 20, the storm tracked through the Greater Antilles and later entered the Gulf of Mexico. Half a million residents in Louisiana evacuated from low-lying areas before the Category 2 storm made landfall on the 28th in Mississippi. Many homes outside the levee system were flooded...

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On this day: June 26

June 26: International Day in Support of Victims of Torture; Independence Day in Madagascar (1960); Flag Day in Romania 1295 – Przemysł II was crowned King of Poland, the first coronation of a Polish ruler in 219 years. 1886 – French chemist Henri Moissan reported he was able to successfully isolate elemental fluorine (liquid fluorine pictured), for which he later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. 1918 – World War I: The 26-day Battle of Belleau...

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June 26 Wikipedia featured article

Sir Stanley Savige (1890–1954) was an Australian Army soldier and officer who served in the First and Second World Wars. He enlisted in the First Australian Imperial Force in March 1915, and served in the ranks during the Gallipoli Campaign, where he received a commission. He earned the Military Cross for bravery in fighting on the Western Front. In 1918 he joined Dunsterforce, and participated in the Caucasus Campaign, during which he was instrumental...

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On this day: June 25

June 25: Croatian Statehood Day and Slovenian Statehood Day; Independence Day in Mozambique (1975) 1658 – Anglo-Spanish War: English colonial forces repelled a Spanish attack in the largest battle ever fought on Jamaica. 1910 – The Firebird, the first major work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, made its premiere in Paris. 1950 – The Korean War began with North Korean forces launching a pre-dawn raid over the 38th parallel into South Korea. 1975...

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June 25 Wikipedia featured article

Astatine is a very rare radioactive chemical element with the chemical symbol At and atomic number 85. It occurs on Earth as the decay product of various heavier elements. All its isotopes are short-lived, with half-lives of 8.1 hours or less. Elemental astatine has never been viewed because a mass large enough to be seen by the naked eye would be immediately vaporized by its radioactive heating. The bulk properties of astatine are not known with any certainty, but they have been predicted based on its similarity to the other halogens, the lighter...

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On this day: June 24

June 24: Nativity of St. John the Baptist (Christianity); National Holiday/Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day in Quebec, Canada 1340 – Hundred Years' War: The English fleet commanded by Edward III almost totally destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of Sluys. 1622 – Dutch–Portuguese War: An outnumbered Portuguese force repelled a Dutch attack in the Battle of Macau, the only major military engagement that was fought between two European powers on the...

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June 24 Wikipedia featured article

L'Arianna (Ariadne) was the second opera by Claudio Monteverdi, composed in 1607–08; all the music is lost apart from the extended recitative known as "Lamento d'Arianna", or "Ariadne's Lament" (pictured). One of the earliest operas, it was first performed on 28 May 1608, as part of the musical festivities for a royal wedding at the court of Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga in Mantua. The libretto was written in eight scenes by Ottavio Rinuccini, who used...

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On this day: June 23

June 23: Victory Day in Estonia; Jāņi in Latvia; Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg 1280 – Reconquista: Troops of the Emirate of Granada defeated those of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of León in the Battle of Moclín. 1858 – Edgardo Mortara, a six-year-old Jewish boy, was seized by papal authorities and taken to be raised as a Roman Catholic, sparking an international controversy. 1894 – Led by French historian Pierre de Coubertin...

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June 23 Wikipedia featured article

In London's Great Stink of 1858, the smell from untreated human waste and industrial effluent being pumped onto the banks of the River Thames was exacerbated by the low levels of the river in the hot summer weather. The cause was the inadequate and archaic sewerage system, which poured waste into the river. Victorian doctors still believed in the miasma theory, that smell transmitted contagious diseases, rather than microorganisms; three outbreaks...

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On this day: June 22

June 22 1633 – Galileo Galilei was forced to recant his heliocentric view of the Solar System by the Roman Inquisition, after which, as legend has it, he muttered under his breath, "And yet it moves". 1813 – War of 1812: After learning of American plans for a forthcoming surprise attack, Laura Secord (pictured) set out on a 30 km (19 mi) journey from Queenston, Ontario, Upper Canada, on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon. 1911...

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June 22 Wikipedia featured article

In physics, M-theory is a unification of what were originally thought to be five distinct versions of superstring theory. The possibility of such a theory was first conjectured by Edward Witten (pictured) at a string theory conference at the University of Southern California in 1995, initiating a flurry of research activity known as the second superstring revolution. Work by several physicists showed that the original five theories could be related...

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On this day: June 21

June 21: June solstice (16:58 UTC, 2015); Midsummer festivities (Northern Hemisphere); Winter solstice festivals (Southern Hemisphere);World Music Day; Father's Day in various countries (2015); National Aboriginal Day in Canada 217 BC – Second Punic War: The Carthaginians under Hannibal executed one of the largest military ambushes in history when they overwhelmingly defeated the Romans. 1826 – Greek War of Independence: A combined Egyptian...

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June 21 Wikipedia featured article

HMS Nairana was a passenger ferry that was requisitioned by the Royal Navy as a seaplane carrier in 1917. She was laid down in 1914 as TSS Nairana for the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker, but construction was temporarily suspended after the outbreak of the First World War. The ship was converted to operate wheeled aircraft from her forward flying-off deck as well as floatplanes that were lowered into the water. She saw service during the...

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June 20 Wikipedia featured article

God of War: Betrayal is a two-dimensional side-scrolling action-adventure mobile game released for the Java Platform, Micro Edition in 2007. Loosely based on Greek mythology, it is the third installment in the God of War series, and the fifth chronologically. The player controls Kratos, who became the new God of War after killing the former, Ares. Kratos is framed for the murder of Argos and pursues the true assassin across Greece, resulting in a confrontation with Olympian messenger Ceryx. The gameplay relies on simplified combo-based combat and...

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On this day: June 20

June 20: World Refugee Day; Duanwu/Dragon Boat Festival (Chinese calendar, 2015); Flag Day in Argentina; National Famine Commemoration Day in Ireland (2015) 451 – Flavius Aetius, with the help of Roman foederati, defeated Attila in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, and halted the invasion of Gaul by the Huns and their allies. 1789 – French Revolution: Meeting in a tennis court near the Palace of Versailles, members of France's Third Estate...

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On this day: June 19

June 19: Day of the Independent Hungary; Juneteenth in some parts of the United States 1269 – Louis IX of France imposed a fine of ten livres of silver on Jews found in public without a yellow badge. 1816 – The Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, rival fur-trading companies, engaged in a violent confrontation in present-day Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. 1944 – World War II: The navies of the United States and Imperial Japan engaged...

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June 19 Wikipedia featured article

The 2005 United States Grand Prix was the ninth race and only American race of the 2005 Formula One season. Held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, it was won by Ferrari's Michael Schumacher (pictured). In the days before the race, several Michelin tyres suffered failures on the speedway's resurfaced track, a problem they had not had in previous races. Michelin advised its seven customer teams (representing 14 cars in the race) that without a reduction...

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