Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 24

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From today's featured article

Leslie C. Smith

The Office of the Inspector General of the United States Army is the agency tasked with investigating the army. Its stated mission includes "advice and oversight to the army through ... inspection, assistance, investigations, and training". George Washington and members of the Continental Congress requested an inspector general for the Continental Army in 1777, and Thomas Conway was appointed the same year. His successor was Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian military officer who later served as Washington's chief of staff. The office has been reorganized many times, and has varied in size dramatically. In its early days, the inspectorate was frequently merged with, or proposed to be part of, the Adjutant General's department. It expanded greatly after the Civil War, and had grown to around 2,000 officers by 1993. Leslie C. Smith (pictured) has been the inspector general since February 2018. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Seal of Somerset County

... that the seal of Somerset County, Maryland (pictured), is based on the Royal Arms of England?
... that German Ice Hockey Hall of Fame inductee Roman Neumayer assisted in founding the first ice hockey team in Namibia?
... that the destruction by range safety officers of the satellite SOLRAD 2 over Cuba in 1960 sparked international protest and compromised American missile security?
... that Gujarati academic Daksha Pattani published her doctoral thesis on Mahatma Gandhi in six volumes?
... that a colony of fruit bats in Îles Ehotilés National Park in Ivory Coast is considered by the local people to be a sign of the presence of their ancestors?
... that Canadian photographic artist JJ Levine is known for portraits in which the same model depicts both the male and female members of a couple?
... that at the time of Abdullah's entry into what was to become the modern country of Jordan during the interregnum period, the region was extremely poor, sparsely populated and widely considered ungovernable?
... that a jury once rushed out of the courtroom of William F. Turner, first Chief Justice of the Arizona Territorial Supreme Court, to attend to an Indian attack?

In the news

Ricardo Rosselló

Protesters demand the resignation of Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló (pictured), following a social messaging scandal with his cabinet.
Avengers: Endgame becomes the highest-grossing film, surpassing Avatar.
An arson attack at an animation studio in Kyoto, Japan, kills at least 34 people.
The World Health Organization declares the Ebola outbreak in Congo an international public health emergency.

On this day

July 24: Pioneer Day in Utah (1847)

Isa Boletini, a leader of the Albanian revolt

1910 – Ottoman forces captured the city of Shkodër to put down the Albanian revolt of 1910 (leader Isa Boletini pictured).
1959 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon held an impromptu debate at the opening of the American National Exhibition at Sokolniki Park in Moscow.
1987 – Iran–Iraq War: In opposition to the American plan to protect Kuwaiti tankers, Iran laid mines and damaged the SS Bridgeton, resulting in a propaganda victory for Iran.
2009 – The MV Arctic Sea, reportedly carrying timber, was allegedly boarded by hijackers off the coast of Sweden, but much speculation remains as to the actual cargo and events.

Princess Charlotte of Prussia (b. 1860) · John William Finn (b. 1909) · Jennifer Lopez (b. 1969)

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Today's featured picture

The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect sphere of plasma, heated by nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium in its core, with internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process. It is by far the most important source of energy for life on Earth. Its diameter is about 1.39 million kilometres (860,000 miles) or 109 times that of Earth, while its mass is about 330,000 times that of Earth. It accounts for about 99.86% of the total mass of the Solar System. Roughly three-quarters of the Sun's mass consists of hydrogen; the rest is mostly helium, with much smaller quantities of heavier elements, including oxygen, carbon, neon and iron.

This false-color photograph of the Sun was taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at a wavelength of 304 angstroms, in the extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Photograph credit: NASA/SDO

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