Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 August 22

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From today's featured article

James Newland (22 August 1881 – 19 March 1949) was an Australian officer in the First World War. He received the Victoria Cross for successfully leading a company in several assaults on German positions and repulsing counterattacks in April 1917. Newland joined the Australian military in 1899 and saw active service during the Second Boer War. After completing several years' service in the artillery, he transferred to the militia in 1907. He became a police officer in Tasmania before re-joining the permanent forces in 1910. He was in the first wave of Australian Imperial Force soldiers to land at Gallipoli. In the days following the landing, he was wounded and evacuated to Egypt, where he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. Transferring to the Western Front in 1916, Newland was mentioned in despatches for his leadership while commanding a company during an attack at Mouquet Farm. He was wounded twice more during the war; medically discharged in March 1918, he returned to service with the permanent army. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1941. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Joe Clarke

... that the Olympic kayaking gold medallist Joe Clarke (pictured) had to write a letter to his school before he was allowed to join their canoeing club?
... that the fungal pathogen Cristulariella depraedans affects sycamore and maple trees and sometimes has epidemic years?
... that composer Harcourt Whyte suffered from leprosy?
... that the Sir Ralph Abercromby public house in Manchester, UK, is the only remaining building in St Peter's Field from the time of the Peterloo Massacre in 1819?
... that in between her two terms in the Chamber of Deputies, Sandra Méndez Hernández spent two years as municipal president of Tultitlán, State of Mexico?
... that Peter Paige originally auditioned for the role of Ted Schmidt in the American version of Queer as Folk?
... that Nine Partners Creek has a tributary named Leslie Creek, is also known as "Leslie Creek", and has been called a tributary of Leslie Creek?

In the news

Airlander 10

At least 50 people are killed when a wedding is attacked by a suicide bomber in Gaziantep, southern Turkey.
The Airlander 10 hybrid airship (pictured), which is 92 metres (302 ft) long, makes its maiden civilian flight.
A wildfire in the U.S. state of California displaces more than 82,000 residents, burns more than 30,000 acres (120 sq. km) and threatens at least 34,500 structures.
The China National Space Administration successfully launches Quantum Experiments at Space Scale, the first spacecraft capable of quantum key distribution.
Edgar Lungu is re-elected President of Zambia.

On this day...

August 22: Feast day of the Queenship of Mary (Roman Catholic Church); Madras Day in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Fort Stanwix, New York (reconstructed)

1711 – Queen Anne's War: A British attempt to attack Quebec failed when eight ships wrecked on the Saint Lawrence River.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: Benedict Arnold used a ruse to convince the British that a much larger force was arriving, causing them to abandon the Siege of Fort Stanwix (reconstructed fort pictured).
1864 – The Red Cross movement led by Henry Dunant officially began when twelve European nations signed the First Geneva Convention, establishing the International Committee of the Red Cross.
1944 – World War II: Wehrmacht infantry carried out an assault operation against the civilian residents of nine villages located in the Amari Valley on the Greek island of Crete.
1961 – Ida Siekmann jumped from a window in her tenement building trying to flee to West Berlin, becoming the first person to die at the Berlin Wall.

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From today's featured list

Bachtiar Effendi

Twenty-nine people are recorded as having directed fictional films in the Dutch East Indies between 1926, when L. Heuveldorp released Loetoeng Kasaroeng, the colony's first domestically produced film, and 1949, when the Dutch formally recognised Indonesia's sovereignty after a four-year revolution, leaving the Dutch East Indies defunct. Following a three-year Japanese occupation during World War II, Indonesia proclaimed its independence in 1945, an action which was not well-received by the Dutch. Thirteen directors active in the Indies continued to direct films after 1950, including Usmar Ismail: his 1950 film Darah dan Doa (The Long March) is generally considered the first truly Indonesian film. The colony's first directors, Heuveldorp and G. Kruger, were of European or mixed descent. They were followed by ethnic Chinese soon after, when Nelson Wong made his debut in 1928 with Lily van Java. Ethnic Chinese directors dominated the colony's cinema for the remainder of its existence. The first native director, Bachtiar Effendi (pictured), made his debut in 1932 with the talkie Njai Dasima. The directors active in the Indies came from various backgrounds. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Trojan Room coffee pot was the inspiration for the world's first webcam. The coffee pot was located in the corridor just outside the so-called Trojan Room within the old Computer Laboratory of the University of Cambridge. The webcam was created in 1991 to help people working in other parts of the building avoid pointless trips to the coffee pot by providing, on the user's desktop computer, a live 128×128 pixel greyscale picture of the state of the coffee pot. The webcam was shut down on 22 August 2001, following the Computer Laboratory's move to the William Gates Building.

Picture: Quentin Stafford-Fraser

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