Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 31

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From today's featured article

Bill Brown (31 July 1912 – 16 March 2008) was an Australian cricketer. A right-handed opening batsman, he played 22 Tests between 1934 and 1948, captaining his country in one of them. His partnership with Jack Fingleton in the 1930s is regarded as one of the finest in Australian Test history. In the 1938 tour of England, Brown had 1,854 runs, including an unbeaten 206 that saved Australia from defeat in the second Test, and was honoured as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year. The outbreak of the Second World War cost Brown his peak years as a player, time that he spent in the Royal Australian Air Force. After the war, he was a member of Don Bradman's Invincibles, who toured England in 1948 without defeat. He performed reasonably well in the tour matches, but struggled while batting out of position in the middle order during the first two Tests, and was dropped from the Test team. (Full article...)

Part of the Australian cricket team in England in 1948 series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Did you know...

Gustaf Gabriel Hällström

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... that the Flint Public Library created the Julia A. Moore Poetry Contest to celebrate bad poetry?
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... that Ninurta, the Mesopotamian god of hunting, is believed by many scholars to be the source of the biblical figure Nimrod?
... that at the time of its release in 2002, economic simulations like Sea Trader: Rise of Taipan were uncommon on handheld systems like the Game Boy Advance?
... that Joseph Mohr left Germany when Jesuit institutions were dissolved, and wrote his popular hymn abroad?
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In the news

Geraint Thomas

In cycling, Geraint Thomas (pictured) wins the Tour de France.
A 6.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Lombok, Indonesia, killing at least 16 people.
Following allegations of sexual misconduct, American Archbishop Theodore McCarrick becomes the first cleric to resign from the College of Cardinals since 1927.
The longest total lunar eclipse in the 21st century occurs.
21st Century Fox shareholders approve the $71.3 billion acquisition by The Walt Disney Company.

On this day

July 31: Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola; Ka Hae Hawaiʻi Day (Flag Day) and Lā Hoʻihoʻi Ea (Sovereignty Restoration Day) in Hawaii

K2

1201 – John Komnenos the Fat briefly seized the throne of the Byzantine Empire from Alexios III Angelos, but he was caught that night and executed.
1777 – The Second Continental Congress passed a resolution allowing French nobleman the Marquis de Lafayette to enter the American revolutionary forces as a major general.
1954 – A team of Italian climbers became the first to reach the summit of K2 (pictured), the world's second-highest mountain.
1975 – The Troubles: In a botched paramilitary attack, three members of the popular Miami Showband and two Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen were killed in County Down, Northern Ireland.
1991 – Soviet Special Purpose Police Unit troops killed seven Lithuanian customs officials in Medininkai in the most serious attack of their campaign against Lithuanian border posts.

Roger Wilbraham (d. 1616) · Jean-Gaspard Deburau (b. 1796) · Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd (d. 1948)

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Today's featured picture

Andromeda is one of the 88 modern constellations. Located north of the celestial equator, it is named for Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, who in Greek mythology was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus. Most prominent during autumn evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, Andromeda is one of the largest constellations, over 1,400 times the size of the full moon.

Here, Andromeda is shown together with Triangula - a variant of Triangulum using stars too small to feature in this star chart to make a second triangle - and the obsolete constellation Gloria Frederici. This illustration by Sidney Hall was included in Urania's Mirror, a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards first published in 1824.

Illustration: Sidney Hall; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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