Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 October 20

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From today's featured article

Gloster Meteors

No. 91 (Composite) Wing was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) wing active during the Korean War and its immediate aftermath. It was formed on 20 October 1950 to administer No. 77 (Fighter) Squadron, No. 30 Communications Flight, No. 391 (Base) Squadron, and No. 491 (Maintenance) Squadron. The wing and its units were headquartered at Iwakuni, Japan, except for No. 77 Squadron, which was based in Korea and tasked by the US Fifth Air Force. No. 30 Flight was re-designated No. 30 Communications Unit in November 1950, No. 30 Transport Unit a year later, and No. 36 (Transport) Squadron in March 1953. Operating mainly C-47 Dakotas, it undertook medical evacuation, cargo and troop transport, and courier flights. No. 77 Squadron converted from P-51 Mustangs to Gloster Meteors (pictured) between April and July 1951, and operated primarily in the ground attack role. It remained in Korea on garrison duty following the July 1953 armistice, and returned to Australia in November 1954; No. 491 Squadron disbanded the same month. No. 36 Squadron returned to Australia in March 1955; the following month, No. 391 Squadron and No. 91 Wing headquarters disbanded. (Full article...)

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In the news

Model of the Schiaparelli lander

The ESA–Roscosmos ExoMars mission's Trace Gas Orbiter enters orbit around Mars, but contact is lost with the Schiaparelli lander (model pictured) during its descent to the planet's surface.
Iraqi government forces, allied militias, Peshmerga, and the CJTF-OIR launch an offensive to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
Former Prime Minister of Portugal António Guterres is elected Secretary-General of the United Nations.
King of Thailand Bhumibol Adulyadej, the world's longest-serving head of state, dies at the age of 88.
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On this day...

October 20

Muammar Gaddafi

1572 – Eighty Years' War: Soldiers of the Spanish Tercios waded across the river Scheldt at its mouth, walking overnight in water to chest height, to relieve the siege of Goes in the Spanish Netherlands.
1818 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed the Treaty of 1818, which settled the Canada–United States border on the 49th parallel between the Rocky Mountains and Lake of the Woods.
1941 – World War II: German soldiers began a massacre of thousands of civilians in Kragujevac in Nazi-occupied Serbia.
1986 – Aeroflot Flight 6502 crashed on approach to Kurumoch Airport in Samara (then Kuibyshev in the Soviet Union), killing 70 people on board.
2011 – Libyan Civil War: Muammar Gaddafi (pictured), the deposed leader of Libya, was captured during the Battle of Sirte and killed less than an hour later.

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Today's featured picture

Tripedalia cystophora is a small species of box jellyfish in the family Tripedaliidae. It is native to the Caribbean Sea and the Central Indo-Pacific, where it is found in the margins of mangrove lagoons.

Photograph: Jan Bielecki, Alexander K. Zaharoff, Nicole Y. Leung, Anders Garm, Todd H. Oakley; edit: Ruthven

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