Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 April 10

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From today's featured article

The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement in the spring of 1963 organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to draw attention to the unequal treatment of black Americans in Birmingham, Alabama. Organizers led by Martin Luther King, Jr. (pictured) used nonviolent direct action tactics, beginning with a boycott of businesses. Sit-ins and marches followed, intended to provoke mass arrests. After the campaign ran low on adult volunteers, high school, college, and elementary students were trained to participate, resulting in hundreds of arrests and greater media attention. To dissuade demonstrators and control the protests the local police used water jets and dogs on children and bystanders. In some cases, bystanders attacked the police, who responded with force. Scenes of the ensuing mayhem caused an international outcry, leading to intervention by the Kennedy administration. By the end of the campaign, King's reputation surged, the "Jim Crow" signs in Birmingham came down, and public places became more open to blacks. The campaign brought national force to bear on the issue of racial segregation and was a major factor in the push towards the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's newest content:

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In the news

Margaret Thatcher

At least 13 people are killed in a spree shooting in the village of Velika Ivanča, Serbia.

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (pictured) dies at the age of 87.

More than 70 people are killed in a building collapse in Thane, India.

American Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert dies at the age of 70.

More than 50 people die in floods resulting from record-breaking rainfall in La Plata and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Amid rising tensions, North Korea closes off entry to the Kaesŏng Industrial Region and announces plans to restart a plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon.

Recent deaths: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

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On this day...

April 10

1815 – Mount Tambora in Indonesia began one of the most violent volcanic eruptions in recorded history, killing at least 71,000 people, and affecting worldwide temperatures for the next two years.

1868 – A British military expedition to Abyssinia culminated in a rout of Ethiopians and the later suicide of Emperor Tewodros II.

1925 – The novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (pictured) was first published.

1970 – In the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates, Paul McCartney announced his departure from The Beatles.

1992 – Nagorno-Karabakh War: At least 40 Armenian civilians were massacred in Maraga, Azerbaijan.

More anniversaries: April 9 – April 10 – April 11

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Today's featured picture

The peak of Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano located in Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Topping out at 8,365 ft (2,550 m), it was once much higher; the 1980 eruption reduced the mountain's height by about 1,300 feet (400 m).

Photo: Gregg M. Erickson

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