Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 February 11

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From today's featured article

The Yeomanry Cavalry was the mounted component of the British Volunteer Corps, a military auxiliary established in the late 18th century. When the Volunteer Corps was disbanded after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the yeomanry – recruited from the middle and upper classes – was retained as a politically reliable institution that could act as a mounted police force. It became infamous after playing a leading part in the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, and its policing role declined as civilian police forces were established in the mid-19th century. The yeomanry struggled to find a place in the military establishment, and it survived largely because of its members' political influence and willingness to subsidise it financially. It found a new relevance when the Second Boer War revealed a need for mounted infantry. It was reorganised in 1901 as the Imperial Yeomanry, and in 1908 it ceased to be a discrete institution when all volunteer auxiliaries were amalgamated into the Territorial Force. (Full article...)

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Cadets of the Far Eastern Higher
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In the news

Bong Joon-ho

South Korean film Parasite wins four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho (pictured).
A mass shooting in Korat, Thailand, leaves 30 people dead and more than 50 others injured.
Two avalanches near the Turkish town of Bahçesaray kill at least 41 people.
The United States Senate votes to acquit President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The Malawian Constitutional Court annuls the results of the 2019 general election which re-elected President Peter Mutharika, ordering a fresh election.

On this day

February 11: Anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979); National Foundation Day in Japan (660 BC)

Nelson Mandela

1823 – About 110 boys were killed in a human crush at the Convent of the Minori Osservanti in Valletta on the last day of the Maltese Carnival.
1968 – Following the deaths of two employees on the job, black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, agreed to begin a strike that would last more than two months.
1990 – Anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela (pictured), having been a political prisoner for 27 years, was released from Victor Verster Prison near Paarl, South Africa.
2001 – The Anna Kournikova computer worm, which went on to affect millions of users worldwide, was released by a 20-year-old Dutch student.

Ala-ud-Din Bahman Shah (d. 1358) · Helene Kröller-Müller (b. 1869) · Sylvia Plath (d. 1963)

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Today's featured picture

I Lombardi alla prima crociata ('The Lombards on the First Crusade') is an operatic dramma lirico by Giuseppe Verdi, first performed on 11 February 1843 at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy. It is based on an epic poem by Tommaso Grossi, with an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera. The plot concerns a fictional family and its involvement in the First Crusade, appealing to the patriotic fervour of the time. The first British performance took place in London in May 1846, followed a year later by its premiere in New York, where it was the first of Verdi's operas to be performed in the United States. The opera was translated into French and significantly rewritten as Jérusalem, Verdi's first grand opera, which opened in Paris in November 1847.

This picture shows the title page of a very early edition of the libretto of I Lombardi alla prima crociata, possibly the first edition, dating to the time of the opera's premiere in 1843.

Illustration credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden

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