Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 April 11

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From today's featured article

Apollo 13's damaged service module

Apollo 13 (April 11–17, 1970) was the seventh crewed mission in the Apollo space program and the third meant to land on the Moon. The landing was aborted after an oxygen tank in the service module (pictured) failed two days into the mission. Apollo 13 was commanded by Jim Lovell with Jack Swigert as command module (CM) pilot and Fred Haise as lunar module (LM) pilot. Swigert was a late replacement for Ken Mattingly, who was grounded after exposure to rubella. After the explosion, the CM's systems had to be shut down to conserve resources, forcing the crew to transfer to the LM as a lifeboat. Although the LM was designed to support two men for two days, Mission Control improvised new procedures so it could support three men for four days. The astronauts' peril briefly renewed interest in the Apollo program; tens of millions watched the splashdown in the South Pacific Ocean by television. The story of Apollo 13 has been dramatized, most notably in the 1995 film Apollo 13. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Ailladie

... that Ailladie (pictured), an 800-metre-long (2,600 ft) limestone sea cliff in the Burren, has been called "the mecca for rock-climbing in Ireland"?
... that Willigis Jäger, a German Benedictine friar, studied Zen for six years with Yamada Koun in Japan and introduced it to his order?
... that industry analysts have predicted that up to 75 percent of independent restaurants in the U.S. will not survive the coronavirus pandemic?
... that the two road cyclists who represented Burkina Faso at the 2012 Summer Paralympics had to share a handcycle due to a lack of resources?
... that birds, bats and humans are the main hosts of members of the bed bug family?
... that Juan Guaidó, president of the Venezuelan National Assembly, tried to climb over a fence to vote in the 2020 committee elections after being blocked from entering the building?
... that French potter Auguste Delaherche was said to have used clay dug from his garden, and only fired his kiln once a year?
... that the MAX Light Rail system in Portland, Oregon, includes North America's deepest transit station, at 260 ft (79 m) below ground?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

George Pell

The High Court of Australia quashes the conviction of Cardinal George Pell (pictured) for child sex abuse and orders his acquittal.
Cyclone Harold impacts the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Tonga, killing at least 29 people.
Vincent van Gogh's painting The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen is stolen from the Singer Laren museum in the Netherlands.

On this day

April 11

Nevill Ground's cricket pavilion after the arson attack

1241 – Mongol invasion of Europe: Mongol forces led by Batu Khan and Subutai defeated the army of King Béla IV at the Battle of Mohi near the river Sajó, a key victory in their first invasion of Hungary.
1713 – The main treaties of the Peace of Utrecht were signed in the city of Utrecht in the Dutch Republic, helping to bring an end to the War of the Spanish Succession.
1913 – The cricket pavilion at the Nevill Ground was destroyed in an arson attack (damage pictured) that was attributed to militant suffragettes as part of a country-wide campaign co-ordinated by the Women's Social and Political Union.
1979 – Uganda–Tanzania War: The allied forces of Tanzania and the Uganda National Liberation Front captured the capital Kampala, deposing Ugandan president Idi Amin.
1993 – Prisoners at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, Ohio, rioted and took over the prison for 11 days, resulting in the deaths of one officer and nine inmates.

Stephen IV of Hungary (d. 1165)
Edward Everett (b. 1794)
Trevor Linden (b. 1970)

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Today's featured picture

The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle. It hunts its preferred food of seals, which make up most of its diet, from the edge of sea ice. This picture shows a malnourished polar bear on an ice floe in the Hinlopen Strait in Svalbard, Norway. The main danger posed to bears by global warming is malnutrition or starvation due to habitat loss. In summer, some polar bears, such as this one, do not make the transition from their winter residence on the islands of Svalbard to the dense drift ice and pack ice of the high Arctic, where they would find a plethora of prey; this is caused by climate change resulting in the ice around the islands melting much earlier than in previous years. This forces the bears to change to a diet of detritus, small animals, bird eggs, and the carcasses of marine animals. Very often, they suffer starvation and are doomed to die. Besides this, insufficient nourishment leads to lower reproductive rates among adult females and the juveniles and cubs have lower survival rates.

Photograph credit: Andreas Weith

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