Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 April 16

From today's featured article

Sir Vernon Sturdee (1890–1966) was an Australian Army officer. During the First World War he participated in the landing at Gallipoli and the fighting on the Western Front. Promotion was stagnant between the wars, and he remained at his wartime rank of lieutenant colonel until 1935. He had little faith in the strategy of basing a fleet at Singapore, and warned that the Army would have to face a well-equipped Japan. As Chief of the General Staff during the Second World War, he conducted a doomed defence of the islands to the north of Australia against the Japanese. He later commanded the First Army in New Guinea in 1944–45, directing the fighting at Aitape and on New Britain and Bougainville. He was charged with destroying the enemy without committing his troops to battles that were beyond their strength. When the war ended, he took the surrender of Japanese forces at Rabaul. He succeeded Sir Thomas Blamey as Commander in Chief of the Australian Military Forces in December 1945, and was Chief of the General Staff again from 1946 to 1950. During this time, he had to demobilise the wartime Army while fielding and supporting part of the British Commonwealth Occupation Force in Japan. (Full article...)

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... that Randy Logan (pictured) was a consensus All-American at Michigan and appeared in 159 consecutive games for the Philadelphia Eagles?
... that the Kazanjian Red Diamond, the second-largest red diamond ever found, was confiscated by the Nazis in 1944?
... that Alma Dolens is thought to have earned her pseudonym, which is Latin for "a heavy heart," from her opinions on war?
... that Stuart Staples carved the cover design of The Hungry Saw into his kitchen wall with a screwdriver?
... that when the cornerstone of St. Mary's Church in Dedham, Massachusetts was laid, special trains brought in many of the 4,000 attendees?
... that Vietnamese journalist Huy Duc was dismissed from his position at a government-run newspaper because of comments he made on his blog?
... that Marnie, a Shih Tzu dog, has received over one million Instagram followers from photos taken by her owner?

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Günter Grass (pictured), Nobel laureate and author of The Tin Drum and Dog Years, dies at the age of 87.
In basketball, USK Praha beat UMMC Ekaterinburg to win the EuroLeague Women title.
In golf, American Jordan Spieth wins the Masters Tournament.
In rowing, Oxford's men's crew and women's crew defeat the respective Cambridge crews in the 161st Boat Race and the first Women's Boat Race held on the Tideway.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is found guilty on thirty charges related to the Boston Marathon bombings.
In basketball, the Duke Blue Devils win the NCAA Men's Championship and the Connecticut Huskies win their third consecutive NCAA Women's Championship.

Ongoing: Yemeni Civil War – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Recent deaths: Percy Sledge – Eduardo Galeano – Richie Benaud

April 16: Queen Margrethe II's birthday in Denmark; Yom HaShoah in Israel (2015)

1520 – Citizens of Toledo, Castile, who were opposed to the rule of the foreign-born Charles V, rose up in revolt when the royal government attempted to unseat radical city councilors.
1847 – New Zealand Wars: A minor Māori chief was accidentally shot by a junior British Army officer in the Petre settlement of New Zealand's North Island, triggering the Wanganui Campaign.
1912 – American Harriet Quimby (pictured) became the first woman to fly across the English Channel.
1945 – World War II: Nearly one million Soviet soldiers began the Battle of the Seelow Heights against the "Gates of Berlin".
2007 – In one of the deadliest shooting incidents in United States history, a gunman killed 32 people and wounded over 20 more before committing suicide at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia.

More anniversaries: April 15 – April 16 – April 17

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It is now April 16, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, in 2009. Born in 1955, Henri is the eldest son of Grand Duke Jean and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium. He took the throne after his father's abdication in 2000.

Photograph: א (Aleph)

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