Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 May 27

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From today's featured article

USS Orizaba was a transport ship for the U.S. Navy in World War I and World War II, first commissioned on 27 May 1918. Orizaba made 15 transatlantic voyages for the Navy carrying troops to and from Europe in World War I with the second-shortest average in-port turnaround time of all Navy transports. The ship was turned over to the War Department in 1919 for use as Army transport USAT Orizaba. After the war, the troopship reverted to the Ward Line, her previous owners. In World War II the ship was requisitioned by the War Shipping Administration and again assigned to the War Department, but was soon transferred to the U.S. Navy as USS Orizaba (AP-24). The ship made several transatlantic runs, was damaged in an air attack in the Allied invasion of Sicily, made trips to South America, and served in the Pacific Theatre. In June 1945 the ship was transferred under Lend-Lease to the Brazilian Navy, where she served as Duque de Caxias (U-11). Permanently transferred to Brazil in 1953, the ship was decommissioned in 1959 and scrapped in 1963. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Overinflating a hot-water bottle

... that it is possible – though potentially injurious – to blow up a hot-water bottle (pictured) with your nose?
... that Ivor Allchurch was known as the "Golden Boy of Welsh football"?
... that the possibly blind extinct ant Boltonimecia has a shield-like head?
... that an opera was composed for mezzo-soprano Birgit Remmert – Iokaste by Stefan Heucke – in which the mother and wife of Oedipus is the only role?
... that New York City's 23rd Street once contained the city's largest residential complex and the world's largest hotel?
... that in 1847, Émile Küss and Charles-Emmanuel Sédillot performed the first recorded biopsies on tumours?
... that Bruiser and Bodacious are the only two bulls to win both the Professional Bull Riders World Champion Bull and the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Bull of the Year titles?
... that Saint Dominic in Soriano was a 1530 painting believed to be of miraculous origin, with numerous miracles being attributed to it?

In the news

Olga Tokarczuk

In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Real Madrid defeating Liverpool in the final to win their third consecutive title.
In a referendum, Ireland votes to allow the legalisation of abortion.
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect, imposing strict privacy controls for European citizens worldwide.
The Man Booker International Prize is awarded to the novel Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (pictured).
Cyclone Sagar makes landfall in the Middle East and East Africa, killing at least 50 people.

On this day...

May 27

F-4 Phantom II

1153 – Malcolm IV was crowned King of Scotland at the age of twelve.
1813 – War of 1812: The troops of the U.S. Army and vessels of the U.S. Navy cooperated in a successful amphibious assault to capture Fort George in Upper Canada.
1874 – The first group of nomadic pastoralists known as Trekboere set out on the Dorsland Trek, departing South Africa for Angola.
1940 – World War II: Ninety-seven soldiers of the Royal Norfolk Regiment were executed by German troops after surrendering.
1958 – The F-4 Phantom II (pictured), the principal air superiority jet fighter for both the U.S. Navy and Air Force, made its first flight.
2001 – Members of the Islamist separatist group Abu Sayyaf kidnapped 20 tourists in Palawan, Philippines, triggering a hostage crisis that lasted over a year.

Diego Ramírez de Arellano (d. 1624) · Julia Ward Howe (b. 1819) · Mal Evans (b. 1935)

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Today's featured picture

Jay Gould (1836–1892) was a leading American railroad developer and speculator. He began acquiring depreciated land in his 20s, and following the Panic of 1857 he became the majority shareholder in the Rutland and Washington Railroad, having acquired stocks for ten cents on the dollar. Over his lifetime, he acquired a fortune conservatively estimated at $72 million ($1.76 billion in 2016). He has been portrayed as a ruthless robber baron of the Gilded Age, hated and reviled. However, some modern historians have used primary sources to combat this portrayal.

Photograph: Bain News Service; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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