Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 27

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From today's featured article

Ride the Lightning is the second studio album by American heavy metal band Metallica. It was produced by Flemming Rasmussen in Copenhagen, Denmark, and released on July 27, 1984, by the independent record label Megaforce Records. Rooted in the thrash metal genre, the album showcased bassist Cliff Burton's songwriting and the band's musical growth and lyrical sophistication, with acoustic guitars, extended instrumentals, and complex harmonies. Music critics considered the album a more ambitious effort than its predecessor. In 1985 the band performed at major music festivals such as Monsters of Rock and Day on the Green. Two months after the album's release, Elektra Records reissued it and signed Metallica to a multi-year deal. It peaked at number 100 on the Billboard 200 with no radio exposure. It was certified 6× platinum in 2012 for shipping six million copies in the United States. Many rock publications have ranked Ride the Lightning on their best album lists. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

SMS Novara during World War I

... that the Novara-class cruisers (SMS Novara pictured) were the largest warships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy to be used by the victors of World War I?
... that Antonio Banderas, who voices the character Puss in Boots in the Shrek films, stated that Puss is his alter ego?
... that Grand Canyon explorer Jack Sumner intentionally castrated himself?
... that Australian rules football player Ben Cousins co-produced a documentary film depicting his struggle with drug addiction?
... that Liu Boli was tasked with cleaning up China's nuclear waste?
... that Interstate 86 follows a section of the historic Oregon Trail?
... that according to Peter Wilmot-Sitwell, young well-connected stockbrokers in his firm were known as "orchids" because they were "beautiful but utterly useless"?
... that Liebe und Eifersucht (Love and Jealousy), an 1807 opera with libretto and music by E. T. A. Hoffmann, premiered in 2008?

In the news

Site of sub-surface lake on Mars

Scientists announce the discovery of a 20-kilometre-wide (12 mi) sub-surface lake of water (location pictured) on Mars.
A heat wave in Japan leaves 80 people dead, with more than 22,000 others requiring hospitalization.
At least 80 people are killed and more than 100 others injured in wildfires in the Greek tourist resort of Mati.
In the Syrian Civil War, an army offensive captures all opposition-held regions in the south of the country.
A hydroelectric dam under construction in south-eastern Laos collapses, resulting in extensive damage and leaving more than 6,000 people displaced.

On this day

July 27: Tu B'Av (Judaism, 2018)

Signing of the Korean War armistice agreement at P’anmunjŏm, Korea

678 – Sclaveni attackers were forced to give up their siege of the Byzantine city of Thessalonica, being unable to penetrate the city's defenses.
1214 – Philip II of France decisively won the Battle of Bouvines, the conclusive battle of the 1213–1214 Anglo-French War.
1949 – The de Havilland Comet, the world's first commercial jet airliner to reach production, made its maiden flight.
1953 – An armistice was signed (pictured) to end hostilities in the Korean War, officially making the division of Korea indefinite by creating an approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide demilitarized zone across the Korean Peninsula.
2002 – A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashed during an aerobatics presentation at an airshow near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 77 people and injuring over 500 others.

Conrad II of Italy (d. 1101) · Elizabeth Plankinton (b. 1853) · Alfred Duraiappah (d. 1975)

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From today's featured list

Austro-Hungarian fleet maneuvers in 1914

A total of 13 battleships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy were constructed between 1900 and 1917. The first class of battleships were three Habsburg-class battleships, launched between 1900 and 1902, and were soon followed by three Erzherzog Karl-class battleships, all of which were pre-dreadnoughts. After the appointment of Vice-Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli to the post of Chief of the Naval Section of the War Ministry in October 1904, the Austro-Hungarian Navy began a program of naval expansion befitting a Great Power. Two years later, the first Radetzky-class battleships were laid down. They were soon succeeded by the Tegetthoff class, which were Austria-Hungary's first and only class of dreadnought battleships. The navy's plans for the construction of a second class of dreadnoughts, named the Ersatz Monarch class, were canceled following the outbreak of World War I. After the collapse of Austria-Hungary in 1918, all of the battleships were handed over to France, Great Britain, the United States, and Italy, and scrapped during the 1920s. (Full list...)

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St Stephen's Green is a city centre public park in Dublin, Ireland. The current landscape of the park was designed by William Sheppard. It was officially re-opened to the public in 1880. The park is adjacent to one of Dublin's main shopping streets, Grafton Street, and to a shopping centre named for it, while on its surrounding streets are the offices of a number of public bodies as well as a stop on one of Dublin's Luas tram lines. At 22 acres (89,000 m²), it is the largest of the parks in Dublin's main Georgian garden squares.

Photograph: Dronepicr

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