Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 May 18

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From today's featured article

Bath Consolidated School after the explosion

The Bath School disaster was a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe in Bath Township, Michigan. The attacks killed 38 elementary schoolchildren and 6 adults, and injured at least 58 other people. On the morning of May 18, 1927 – having previously murdered his wife at their farm – Kehoe set off almost simultaneous explosions at his home and at the Bath Consolidated School (pictured). His devices destroyed the farm's buildings and ripped through the north wing of the school. As rescuers began working at the school, Kehoe drove up to the schoolyard and set off dynamite inside his shrapnel-filled truck, killing himself and several others nearby. During the rescue and recovery efforts, searchers discovered 500 pounds (230 kg) of unexploded dynamite and pyrotol in the south wing of the school that had been set to detonate at the same time as the north wing explosions. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Hurricane

... that Hurricane (pictured), built in Hoboken by Isaac C. Smith in 1851, was reputedly the most extreme clipper ever constructed?
... that five people have received Nobel Prizes for direct and indirect studies of vitamin B₁₂?
... that Riverside Park, designed by Central Park's architects, suffered from outdoor sewerage, squatters' shacks, and coal emissions in the late 19th century?
... that Noureddine Diwa was one of the first Tunisian footballers to play abroad?
... that interest in network synthesis research is now greater than at any time since the 1950s due to its new applications in mechanics, particularly in Formula One?
... that while researching for the role of Arthur Morgan for Red Dead Redemption 2, actor Roger Clark was inspired by the stoic but humorous demeanor of Toshiro Mifune's characters?
... that the prison in Pretoria where Pedi king Mampuru II was executed was renamed in his honour in 2013?
... that the Norwegian band Vardøger formed, recorded music, disbanded, re-formed to release Whitefrozen, disbanded again, re-formed to release Ghost Notes, and then disbanded yet again?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Iranian frigate Jamaran

The Iranian Navy frigate Jamaran (pictured) accidentally strikes the Iranian support vessel Konarak with a missile, killing nineteen sailors.
A gas leak in Andhra Pradesh, India, kills thirteen people and injures over a thousand others.
Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.

On this day

May 18: Victoria Day in Canada (2020); Flag and Universities Day in Haiti (1803); Day of Revival, Unity, and the Poetry of Magtymguly in Turkmenistan (1733)

Eruption of Mount St. Helens

1388 – At the Battle of Buir Lake, Ming general Lan Yu led a Chinese army to defeat the forces of Tögüs Temür, the Mongol khan of Northern Yuan.
1926 – Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson was reportedly kidnapped near Venice Beach in Los Angeles before reappearing five weeks later in Mexico.
1944 – The Soviet Union forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Crimean Tatars to the Uzbek SSR and elsewhere in the country.
1980 – Mount St. Helens explosively erupted (pictured), killing approximately 57 people in southern Washington state, reducing hundreds of square miles to wasteland, and causing more than US$1 billion in damage.

Omar Khayyam (b. 1048)
Ester Boserup (b. 1910)
Ian Curtis (d. 1980)

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From today's featured list

Restored train car used to transport Slovak Jews

During the Holocaust, most of Slovakia's Jewish population was deported in two waves—1942 and 1944–1945. In 1942, there were two destinations: 18,746 Jews were deported in eighteen transports to Auschwitz concentration camp and another 39,000–40,000 were deported in thirty-eight transports to Majdanek and Sobibór extermination camps and various ghettos in the Lublin district of the General Governorate. A total of 57,628 people were deported; only a few hundred returned. In 1944 and 1945, 13,500 Jews were deported to Auschwitz (8,000 deportees), with smaller numbers sent to the Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Bergen-Belsen, and Theresienstadt concentration camps. Altogether, these deportations resulted in the deaths of around 67,000 of the 89,000 Jews living in Slovakia. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Tree trunk spiders are members of the family Hersiliidae, native to tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Ranging from 10 to 18 mm (0.4 to 0.7 in) in length, they have two prominent spinnerets that are almost as long as their abdomen, earning them another nickname, the "two-tailed spiders".

This picture shows a tree trunk spider of the genus Hersilia, photographed in Kadavoor in the Indian state of Kerala, capturing a cicada. The spider lies in wait on a tree for an insect to land on the trunk. Pouncing on its prey, it uses its spinnerets to wrap it in silk. When the insect is immobilised, the spider bites through the shroud before sucking out the insect's juices.

Photograph credit: Jeevan Jose

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