Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 July 10

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From today's featured article

Chelsea Bridge spans the River Thames in west London, connecting Chelsea on the north bank to Battersea. The first bridge on the site, Victoria Bridge, was proposed in the 1840s as part of the Battersea Park development of marshlands on the south bank. Work on the nearby Chelsea Embankment delayed the opening of this suspension bridge until 1857. Although well received architecturally, as a toll bridge it was unpopular and faced competition from the newly built Albert Bridge. It was acquired in 1877 by the Metropolitan Board of Works, which abolished the tolls. Victoria Bridge, narrow and structurally unsound, was renamed Chelsea Bridge to avoid embarrassment to the Royal Family if it collapsed. After population growth and the introduction of the automobile, the bridge was demolished, and replaced in 1937 by the current structure, the first self-anchored suspension bridge in Britain. During the early 1950s it became popular with motorcyclists, who staged regular races across it. The bridge is floodlit from below at night, when the towers and cables are illuminated by 936 feet (285 m) of light-emitting diodes. In 2008 it achieved Grade II listed status. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Lummelunda Cave (entrance pictured) is one of the longest caves in Sweden?
... that Qasim al-Ahmad, from the fortified village of Beit Wazan, led the 1834 Peasants' Revolt in Palestine against Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt?
... that the coral Solenosmilia variabilis dominates reefs 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) beneath the sea?
... that U.C. Berkeley professor Richard M. Eakin gave lectures dressed as Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, and other famous scientists, one of whom he knew personally?
... that Romanian Symbolist poet Ștefan Petică went from publishing in socialist newspapers to denouncing socialism?
... that Hillary Clinton's coffee table book, An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History, described the traditional aspects of her time as First Lady of the United States?
... that Jeff Seidel has sent thousands of Jewish college students to families in Jerusalem to eat a Shabbat meal?
... that the national park visitor centre of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in the Galápagos Islands has a unique display of a rebuilt ship's hold filled with upturned giant tortoises?

In the news

In association football, the Women's World Cup concludes with the United States defeating Japan in the final, and the Copa América concludes with Chile (captain Claudio Bravo pictured) defeating Argentina in the final.
Nicholas Winton, dubbed the "British Schindler" for saving more than 600 children – the majority Jewish – from the Nazis, dies at the age of 106.
More than 140 people are killed when a Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashes into a residential area of Medan, Indonesia.
Hisham Barakat, Egypt's prosecutor general, is assassinated in a car bombing.
SpaceX CRS-7, an unmanned resupply mission to the International Space Station, fails when the Falcon 9 launch vehicle disintegrates shortly after liftoff.

Ongoing events:
- Greek debt crisis
Recent deaths:
- Jerry Weintraub
- Boyd K. Packer

On this day...

July 10: International Quds Day (2015); Silence Day; Independence Day in the Bahamas (1973)

1460 – War of the Roses: King Henry VI of England was captured by Yorkists at the Battle of Northampton.
1800 – Lord Wellesley, Governor-General of the British Raj, founded Fort William College in Fort William, India, to promote Bengali, Hindi and other vernaculars of the subcontinent.
1925 – Indian mystic and spiritual master Meher Baba (pictured) 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, the world's first active, direct relay communications satellite, was launched by NASA aboard a Delta rocket from Cape Canaveral.

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From today's featured list

Map of railway routes in Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester has a rail network that includes 91 stations. Transport for Greater Manchester is responsible for specifying fares and service levels of train services operating in the county. The Northern Rail train operating company provides most of these services. The four main railway stations in Manchester city centre are Piccadilly, Victoria, Oxford Road and Deansgate which all form part of the Manchester station group. All services run to or through one of Manchester city centre's major stations, Manchester Victoria and Manchester Piccadilly. The network is effectively divided into two operating halves based on these stations, although the opening of a connecting line in 1988 improved operational flexibility by joining the north and south halves. The region's rail network started to develop during the Industrial Revolution, when it was at the centre of a textile manufacturing boom. Manchester was at the forefront of the railway building revolution during the Victorian era. The world's first passenger railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, opened on 15 September 1830. Its original terminus, Liverpool Road railway station, was closed to passengers in 1844, but still exists and is the oldest surviving passenger station in the world. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Chrysopidae are a large family of insects commonly known as green lacewings. This group consists of about 85 genera and 1,300–2,000 species, spread worldwide. The most common in North America and Europe are Chrysopa and Chrysoperla. This unidentified specimen was photographed in Austins Ferry, Tasmania.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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