Wikipedia:Main Page history/2012 July 10

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Today's featured article
The Halifax Gibbet was an early guillotine, or decapitating machine, used in the town of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was probably installed some time during the 16th century as an alternative to beheading by axe or sword. Halifax was once part of the Manor of Wakefield, where ancient custom and law gave the Lord of the Manor the authority to execute summarily by decapitation any thief caught with stolen goods to the value of 13½ pence or more, or who confessed to having stolen goods of at least that value. The device consisted of an axe head fitted to the base of a heavy wooden block that ran in grooves between two 15-foot (4.6 m) tall uprights, mounted on a stone base about 4 feet (1.2 m) high. A rope attached to the block ran over a pulley, allowing it to be raised, after which the rope was secured by attaching it to a pin in the base. The block carrying the axe was then released either by withdrawing the pin or by cutting the rope once the victim was in place. The date of the gibbet's installation is uncertain, so it cannot be determined with any accuracy how many were executed using the Halifax Gibbet. By 1650 public opinion considered beheading to be an overly severe punishment for petty theft; use of the gibbet was forbidden by Oliver Cromwell, and the structure was dismantled. The stone base was rediscovered and preserved in about 1840, and a non-working replica was erected on the site in 1974. (more...) Recently featured: Cross of Gold speech – Dendrocollybia – Killer7 Archive – By email – More featured articles...
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From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that at age twenty, Flight Lieutenant Dave Shannon (pictured) was the youngest pilot to take part in the "Dambuster" raid of May 1943? ... that a restaurant sketch by Kabaret Olgi Lipińskiej resulted in an official protest by the Soviet embassy in Warsaw, followed by secret police questioning? ... that Jahlil Okafor made all of his field goal attempts in the gold medal game of the 2011 FIBA Americas Under-16 Championship, totalling 18 points? ... that the sea anemone Cerianthus lloydii lives in a parchment-like tube? ... that Confederate Army Colonel Wilburn Hill King acted as a general officer for more than a year but was never legally promoted? ... that one of the archaeological hoards found in the Channel Islands comprised coins minted in Alexandria in Egypt? ... that the satinleaf tree is endangered in its native Florida, but an invasive weed in Hawaii? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
In tennis, Serena Williams (pictured) and Roger Federer win the women's singles and men's singles, respectively, at the Wimbledon Championships. At least 141 people are killed in a flash flood in the Krasnodar Krai region of Russia. The Shard in London is inaugurated as the tallest building in Europe, with a height of 310 metres (1,020 ft). In association football, the Copa Libertadores concludes with Corinthians defeating Boca Juniors in the Finals. CERN announces the discovery of a new particle with properties consistent with the Higgs boson after experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. GlaxoSmithKline pleads guilty to criminal charges of health care fraud and is fined a record US$3 billion. Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
July 10: Silence Day; Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973) 1645 – English Civil War: The Parliamentarians destroyed the last Royalist field army at the Battle of Langport, ultimately giving Parliament control of the West of England. 1921 – One day after a truce between the Irish Republican Army and British forces, violence between Catholics and Protestants in Belfast resulted in sixteen dead. 1925 – Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba began his silence until his death in 1969, only communicating by means of an alphabet board or by unique hand gestures. 1941 – The Holocaust: A group of non-Jewish ethnic Poles from around the nearby area murdered hundreds of Jewish residents of Jedwabne in occupied Poland. 1962 – Telstar (pictured), the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral. 1973 – John Paul Getty III, grandson of American oil magnate J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped in Rome. More anniversaries: July 9 – July 10 – July 11 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now July 10, 2012 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

Electrolytically refined pure (99.9%) nodules and a 1 cm³ cube of nickel, a silvery-white lustrous transition metal with a slight golden tinge. The nodules have visible green, crystallized nickel-electrolyte salts in the pores. Native nickel is rarely found on Earth's surface, being mostly confined to the interiors of larger nickel–iron meteorites.

Photo: Alchemist-hp

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