Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 March 29

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Benjamin Franklin Tilley (March 29, 1848 – March 18, 1907) was an officer in the United States Navy and the first acting governor of what is now American Samoa. He entered the Naval Academy at age 15 during the Civil War and graduated in 1866. In the wake of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, he participated as a lieutenant in the military's crackdown against workers. During the 1891 Chilean Civil War, Tilley and a small contingent of sailors and marines defended the American consulate in Santiago, Chile. Commanding the gunship USS Newport in the Spanish–American War, he captured two Spanish Navy ships. After the war Tilley was promoted to captain and became the acting governor of Tutuila and Manua, present-day American Samoa, where he set legal and administrative precedents for the new territory. Tilley's successor, Captain Uriel Sebree, praised his "great ability, kindness, tact and sound common sense". He was promoted to rear admiral after almost 41 years of naval service, but died within a month from pneumonia. (Full article...)

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In the news

EgyptAir Airbus A320-200 involved in hijack

EgyptAir Flight 181 (aircraft pictured) is hijacked shortly after takeoff and forced to land at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus.
A suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan, targeting Christians celebrating Easter, kills at least 69 people and injures more than 300.
The Syrian Army recaptures Palmyra from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
In rowing, Cambridge win the 162nd Boat Race and Oxford win the 71st Women's Boat Race.
Denis Sassou Nguesso is re-elected President of the Republic of the Congo for a third term.

Ongoing events:
- Zika virus outbreak
- European migrant crisis
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On this day...

March 29: Boganda Day in the Central African Republic; Martyrs' Day in Madagascar (1947)

Mariner 10

845 – Viking raiders possibly led by the legendary Ragnar Lodbrok captured Paris and held the city for a huge ransom.
1638 – Swedish settlers founded New Sweden near Delaware Bay, the first Swedish colony in America.
1871 – The Royal Albert Hall in Albertopolis, London, was officially opened by Queen Victoria.
1941 – Second World War: British Royal Navy and Australian Navy ships intercepted and sank or severely damaged the ships of the Italian Regia Marina near Crete.
1974 – NASA's Mariner 10 (pictured), launched in November 1973, became the first space probe to fly by the planet Mercury.

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Today's featured picture

All earthworms have bodies composed of repeated segments called metameres separated from one another by circular membranes called septa. The metameres are very similar to one another, but in earthworms there are the following variations (among others): there are no nephridia in the first three segments; there are no nerve ganglia in the first two segments (though several nerves extend there from the third and fourth segments); the prostomium, which is not a complete segment, functions as a flap to close the mouth but is also highly flexible and is used by the worm as a prehensile body part to grasp and pull leaves and grass into its burrow. The large muscular pharynx sucks in the worm’s food which then passes between the animal’s hearts to be stored and moistened in the crop and then ground by fragments of ingested sand and stone in the gizzard before entering the rest of the intestine. The gizzard is considered the animal’s stomach. The nephridia are the only waste-filtering organs—there is no separate digestive gland or liver.

Diagram: K.D. Schroeder

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