Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 April 14

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From today's featured article

Château de Tancarville. Urse was a tenant of the lords of Tancarville.

Urse d'Abetot (c. 1040 – 1108) was a Sheriff of Worcestershire and royal official under Kings William I, William II and Henry I. Urse's lord in Normandy was present at the Battle of Hastings, and Urse moved to England shortly after the Norman Conquest, where he was appointed sheriff around 1069. His castle in the town of Worcester encroached on the cathedral cemetery there, angering the Archbishop of York. He helped to put down a rebellion against King William I in 1075, and quarrelled with the Church in his county over the jurisdiction of the sheriffs. He continued in the service of William's sons after the king's death, and was appointed constable under William II and marshal under Henry I. He earned a reputation for extortion, and during the reign of William II, he was considered second only to the king's minister Ranulf Flambard in his greediness. Through his daughter, Urse is an ancestor of the Beauchamp family, who eventually became Earls of Warwick. (Full article...)

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Diogenes pugilator

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... that Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Kevin Siers began his cartooning career while working in the iron ore mines of Minnesota?
... that the 2010 Mount Meager landslide was one of the largest in Canadian history?
... that in 1963, George Dickinson Hadley introduced the gastrocamera to Britain?
... that the islands in Great Egg Harbor Bay, a habitat for migratory birds, are eroding at a rate of 0.28 in (7 mm) per year?
... that Iggy Brazdeikis is a right-handed athlete who shoots basketballs left-handed?
... that actress Carole Ann Ford described her character in the Doctor Who serial The Keys of Marinus as "pathetic"?
... that elevator operators at New York City's 181st Street station are known to play music in an attempt to cheer up commuters?

In the news

Augusta National Golf Club

The United States, United Kingdom and France bomb multiple government targets in Syria in response to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Douma.
At least 257 people are killed in an Algerian Air Force Ilyushin Il-76 aircraft crash in Algeria.
In golf, Patrick Reed wins the Masters Tournament at Augusta National Golf Club (pictured) in the United States.
In the Hungarian parliamentary election, a coalition led by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wins its third consecutive supermajority in the Hungarian National Assembly.

On this day...

April 14: Bengali New Year, Vaisakhi (Sikhism), Tamil New Year, and other New Year festivals in Asia (2018); Day of the Georgian language in Georgia (1978)

Illustration of celestial phenomena in Nuremberg

1561 – In Nuremberg, there was a mass sighting of celestial phenomena (illustration pictured) where observers described an "aerial battle" between odd-shaped objects.
1908 – The first Hauser Dam in the U.S. state of Montana failed and caused severe flooding and damage downstream.
1945 – The 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division deliberately destroyed the German town of Friesoythe on the orders of Major General Christopher Vokes.
2014 – Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria.

Christiaan Huygens (b. 1629) · Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom (b. 1857) · L. L. Zamenhof (d. 1917)

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Today's featured picture

Old Woman Cooking Eggs is a genre painting by Diego Velázquez. Its date of production is not definitively known, but is thought to be have been completed around 1618, before his definitive move from Seville to Madrid in 1623. Velázquez frequently used working-class characters in early paintings like this one, in many cases using his family as models; the old woman here also appears in his Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1618). The painting is in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Painting: Diego Velázquez

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