Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 July 16

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From today's featured article

Tutupaca viewed from a southern direction

Tutupaca is a volcano complex in Tacna, the southernmost region of Peru. It is in the Central Volcanic Zone, one of several volcanic belts in the Andes, where the subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath the South American Plate causes volcanic activity. Tutupaca consists of three overlapping volcanoes formed by lava flows and lava domes made out of andesite and dacite, which grew on top of older volcanic rocks. It features geothermal manifestations with fumaroles and hot springs. Its highest peak is usually reported to be 5,815 metres (19,078 ft), and was glaciated in the past. Tutupaca became active about 700,000 years ago. Several volcanoes in Peru have been active in recent times, including Tutupaca; one of these generated a large debris avalanche when it collapsed, probably in 1802, with pyroclastic flows and an eruption that was among the largest in Peru for which there are historical records. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Tiny the Wonder, killing rats
at the Blue Anchor Tavern

... that Tiny the Wonder (pictured) could kill 200 an hour in London's rat-baiting pits?
... that Patrick Francheterre played for, coached and managed the France men's national ice hockey team, and helped cover expenses when the French Ice Hockey Federation went bankrupt?
... that 50 years ago today, Maspalomas Station in the Canary Islands was the first ground station to make contact with the Apollo 11 astronauts in Earth orbit, about 16 minutes into the flight?
... that Sir Lancelot Barrington-Ward removed the appendix of Prince Albert, who later became King George VI?
... that during its 2019 election campaign, the Indian National Congress promised to abolish the sedition law, although the government had arrested 9,000 people for sedition alone in 2012–2013?
... that Gao Xiaoxia abandoned her PhD studies to leave America in 1951, just before the US government banned Chinese students from returning home?
... that the clingfish Diplecogaster bimaculata has been photographed cleaning a moray eel?
... that in 2001, Bury Football Club's first mascot, "Robbie the Bobby", was sent off three times by referees for bad behaviour?

In the news

Model of the Spektr-RG space telescope

The Cricket World Cup concludes with England defeating New Zealand in the final.
Spektr-RG (model pictured), a Russian-German high-energy space telescope, is launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.
A skull found in Apidima Cave, Greece, in 1978, is dated to 215,000 years ago, making it possibly the earliest Homo sapiens known to have lived outside of Africa.
In association football, the FIFA Women's World Cup concludes with the United States defeating the Netherlands in the final.

On this day

July 16

Haile Selassie on a 1930
Time magazine cover

1232 – A local mosque elected Muhammad ibn Al-Ahmar, who later established the last Muslim state in Spain, as ruler of Arjona.
1931 – Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie (pictured) signed the nation's first constitution, intended to officially replace the Fetha Nagast, which had been the supreme law since the Middle Ages.
1945 – Manhattan Project: Trinity, the first nuclear test explosion, was carried out near Alamogordo, New Mexico.
1965 – South Vietnamese Colonel Phạm Ngọc Thảo—an undetected communist spy—was reported dead due to injuries sustained during his capture, but it is generally assumed he was tortured to death.
2013 – At least 23 students died and dozens more fell ill at a primary school in the village of Dharmashati Gandaman in the Saran district of the Indian state of Bihar after eating a Midday Meal contaminated with pesticide.

Meinhardt Schomberg (d. 1719) · Mildred Lewis Rutherford (b. 1851) · Alexis Herman (b. 1947)

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Today's featured picture

The Saturn V SA-506 carrying Apollo 11, the first crewed lunar landing mission, on July 16, 1969, at 13:32 UTC. Launching from Launch Pad 39A at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, the five Rocketdyne F-1 engines of the rocket's S-IC first stage can be seen arrayed in a quincunx, with a fixed center engine and four outer engines that gimballed for steering.

A multistage liquid-fuel expendable launcher, the Saturn V was designed under the direction of Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center. It was the largest production model of the Saturn family, with a height of 111 m (363 ft), although larger models were theorized. The super heavy-lift launch vehicle consisted of liquid-propellant rockets in three stages, the first of which had a total mass at launch of 2.3 million kilograms (5.1 million pounds), consisting mostly of its RP-1 fuel and liquid oxygen. As well as launching Apollo missions, the Saturn V also launched the Skylab space station. Thirteen rockets were launched from 1967 to 1973, with an almost perfect launch record – Apollo 6 and Apollo 13 did lose engines, but the onboard computers were able to compensate.

Photograph credit: NASA; retouched by PawełMM

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