Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 October 3

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From today's featured article

Charles Duke (born October 3, 1935) is a former astronaut, United States Air Force (USAF) officer and test pilot. As the lunar module pilot of Apollo 16 in 1972, he became (and remains) the tenth and youngest person to walk on the Moon. A 1957 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who joined the USAF, Duke completed his advanced flight training at Moody Air Force Base, and became a fighter pilot. He graduated from the Aerospace Research Pilot School in September 1965, and stayed on as an instructor. In April 1966, he was one of nineteen men selected for NASA's fifth group of astronauts. As a CAPCOM for Apollo 11, the first crewed landing on the Moon, in July 1969, his distinctive Southern drawl became familiar to audiences around the world. Duke was backup lunar module pilot for Apollo 13. On the Apollo 16 mission, Duke and John Young landed at the Descartes Highlands and conducted three excursions. He retired from NASA in 1976, and from the USAF in 1986 with the rank of brigadier general. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Amarin Plaza

... that following the controversial success of Amarin Plaza, Rangsan Torsuwan went on to design the Grand Hyatt Erawan hotel in the same vein, but with Thai-style columns replacing Ionic ones?
... that pacifist Theodora Wilson Wilson's science fiction book The Last Weapon was banned by the British Government in 1917?
... that Activision teased the video game Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time by sending jigsaw puzzles to members of the press?
... that during disaster events, elites will typically shift the focus away from disaster relief towards measures of command and control, a behaviour referred to as elite panic?
... that construction of Wyoming Highway 257 was delayed for several years by an eminent domain lawsuit?
... that the lead belt in the English East Midlands is named after the historic use of lead in the wargames miniatures manufactured there?
... that today's London Marathon is expected to have 50,000 runners, and another 50,000 virtual competitors?
... that Aung Myo Min, Union Minister of Human Rights for the National Unity Government of Myanmar, is the country's first openly LGBT minister?

In the news

Steve Stricker

Expo 2020 opens in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
In golf, the Ryder Cup concludes with the United States (team captain Steve Stricker pictured) defeating Europe.
At the Tony Awards, The Inheritance wins Best Play and Moulin Rouge! wins Best Musical.
The Social Democratic Party wins the most seats in the German federal election.
Canadians Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig are released from detention in China shortly after the release of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou from house arrest in Canada.

On this day

October 3

A hunger strike memorial in Derry's Bogside

2333 BC – According to Korean legend, Dangun established Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom.
1792 – Spanish forces departed Valdivia, Chile, to suppress the Huilliche uprising.
1951 – The First Battle of Maryang-san, widely regarded as one of the Australian Army's greatest accomplishments during the Korean War, began.
1981 – The hunger strike by Irish Republican Army prisoners at HM Prison Maze in Belfast ended after seven months and ten deaths (memorial pictured).
1991 – Nadine Gordimer became the first South African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Gabriel Lalemant (b. 1610)
Carl Nielsen (d. 1931)
Kathryn D. Sullivan (b. 1951)

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Today's featured picture

The black skimmer (Rynchops niger) is a tern-like bird in the gull family Laridae, breeding in North and South America. Skimmers have the lower mandible (jawbone) and bill longer than the upper ones, which allows them to fly low over the water surface, skimming the water for small fish, insects, crustaceans and molluscs. This black skimmer was photographed fishing while in flight over the Rio Negro in the Pantanal, an area of tropical wetland in southwestern Brazil.Photograph credit: Charles James Sharp

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