Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 December 13

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From today's featured article

The Kenora Thistles were an ice hockey team founded in 1894 in Kenora, Ontario, Canada. The team competed for Canada's Stanley Cup five times between 1903 and 1907, winning it in January 1907 and defending it once. They lost it in a challenge series two months later, the shortest length of time that any team has possessed the Cup. Nine Thistles players—four of them local to the area—have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Stanley Cup champion team was inducted into the Northwestern Ontario Sports Hall of Fame. The Thistles competed in Manitoba-based leagues throughout their existence, owing to the city's proximity to that province. They joined the Manitoba Hockey Association in 1902, winning the league championship in three of their six seasons. After an economic downturn in 1907, they were unable to sustain their success as professionalism came to ice hockey, and the team disbanded in 1908. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Southern block of the Warwick Road Estate

... that there have been calls for the Warwick Road Estate (pictured) in London's Earl's Court to be listed to prevent it from demolition?
... that after Steven Koecher's disappearance ten years ago today, his family ate at International House of Pancakes for four straight nights in response to a tip?
... that infestations of the cotton jassid can be reduced by growing a cotton cultivar with hairy leaves?
... that prior to debuting as a voice actress in 2018, Iori Saeki had been self-publishing songs as a dōjin musician for several years?
... that after ineffective counsel led to a man's prison sentence being increased a hundredfold, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that attorneys are obligated to inform their clients about plea bargain offers?
... that Siegfried Matthus composed the opera Judith for the reopening of the restored Semperoper, but it premiered at the Komische Oper Berlin, staged by Harry Kupfer?
... that concentration of land ownership has been linked to deforestation in 48 developing countries?
... that Esther Killick repeatedly "gassed herself for science" in order to study carbon monoxide poisoning and acclimatisation?

In the news

Whakaari/White Island

In a non-binding referendum, Bougainville votes for independence from Papua New Guinea.
In New Zealand, the Whakaari/White Island volcano (pictured) erupts, leaving at least fourteen people dead, at least two missing, and at least thirty others injured.
The World Anti-Doping Agency bans Russia from participating in major international sporting events for four years due to doping violations.
A factory fire in Delhi, India, kills at least forty-three people and injures more than fifty others.

On this day

December 13: Friday the 13th

Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College

1643 – First English Civil War: Roundhead forces serving under Sir William Waller led a successful surprise attack on a winter garrison of Royalist infantry and cavalry.
1769 – Dartmouth College (building pictured), in what is now Hanover, New Hampshire, was established by a royal charter, becoming the last university founded in the Thirteen Colonies before the American Revolution.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Japanese forces captured Nanking in China and then began to commit numerous atrocities over the next several weeks.
1989 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army engaged in a fierce firefight with the King's Own Scottish Borderers at a vehicle checkpoint complex in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.
2011 – After murdering a woman at his home, a man threw grenades and fired a rifle at crowds in Liège, Belgium, killing 6 people and injuring 125 others, before committing suicide.

Heinrich Heine (b. 1797) · Taylor Swift (b. 1989) · Jill Craigie (d. 1999)

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From today's featured list

Hurricane Alicia

The 1983 Atlantic hurricane season was the least active Atlantic hurricane season in 53 years, during which four tropical cyclones formed. The season officially began on June 1, 1983, and ended on November 30, dates which conventionally limit the period of each year when tropical cyclones tend to form in the Atlantic. The first named storm, Hurricane Alicia (pictured), formed on August 15. The last storm of the season, Tropical Storm Dean, dissipated on September 30. This season produced seven tropical depressions, of which four became named storms; three attained hurricane status, of which one became a major hurricane. Hurricane Alicia had its name retired due to the fatalities and severe damage caused in Texas. The storm killed 21 people and caused $2.6 billion (1983 USD) in damages, making it the costliest storm, at the time, in Texas history. Hurricane Barry was a weak Category 1 hurricane that traveled almost due west across the Gulf of Mexico for most of its track before making landfall in extreme northern Mexico. (Full list...)

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Flowers in a Terracotta Vase is a still life painting by the Dutch artists Albertus Jonas Brandt and Eelke Jelles Eelkema. It was painted in oils on a maple wood panel by Albertus Jonas Brandt, but had not been completed at the time of his death from tuberculosis in 1821. After being purchased by the Museum van Levende Nederlandsche Meesters in an unfinished state, it was completed by Eelke Jelles Eelkema the following year. The painting was later transferred to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam where it remains.

Painting credit: Albertus Jonas Brandt and Eelke Jelles Eelkema

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