Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 April 4

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From today's featured article

The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held on 5 October 2014 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Mie. It was the 15th race of the 2014 FIA Formula One World Championship, and the 30th Japanese Grand Prix of the Formula One era. The 44-lap race was won by Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton, increasing his lead in the World Drivers' Championship to ten points over his teammate, Nico Rosberg, who finished second. Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel came in third. Heavy rain from Typhoon Phanfone soaked the track surface and reduced visibility. Jules Bianchi lost control of his Marussia on the 43rd lap and collided with a tractor crane that was tending to Adrian Sutil's car, which had spun off on the previous lap. Bianchi sustained severe head injuries and died nine months later, the first death of a driver in a Formula One Grand Prix since Ayrton Senna's in 1994. Formula One's governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, investigated and found that the crash had no single cause. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Min fanglei

... that the 3,000-year-old Min fanglei (pictured) set a world-record auction price for a piece of Asian artwork?
... that George Crowninshield Jr. was the first American yachtsman and owned the first American yacht?
... that prime numbers have been studied since the time of the ancient Greeks, but had few real-world applications until the invention of public-key cryptography in the 1970s?
... that on 14 April 1945, the German town of Friesoythe was deliberately burnt down by the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division and the ruins bulldozed on the orders of its commander?
... that in 1910, Oliver Toussaint Jackson established the agricultural settlement of Dearfield, Colorado, for black Americans?
... that the mycotoxin phomoxanthone A causes fragmentation of mitochondria within minutes?
... that the tenor Julian Podger, who took part in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, recorded the title role in Handel's last oratorio Jephtha?
... that the Beach Boys' 1967 album Wild Honey was made partly in response to critics' claims that the group consisted of "ball-less choir boys"?

In the news

Icarus indicated in the bottom right image

Astronomers report the discovery of MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, nicknamed Icarus (detection pictured), the farthest known star at 9 billion light-years away.
In American college basketball, the NCAA Men's Championship concludes with Villanova defeating Michigan.
China's first space station, Tiangong-1, re-enters the atmosphere and crashes into the South Pacific Ocean.
Clashes along the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip leave 17 Palestinian protesters dead and over 1,400 others injured.

On this day...

April 4

Martin Luther King, Jr.

1859 – Bryant's Minstrels premiered the popular American song "Dixie" in New York City as part of their blackface minstrel show.
1968 – American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (pictured) was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
1988 – Governor of Arizona Evan Mecham was removed from office after being convicted in his impeachment trial.
1990 – The current flag of Hong Kong was adopted for post-colonial use during the Third Session of the Seventh National People's Congress.
2013 – A building collapsed on tribal land in Mumbra, a suburb of Thane in Maharashtra, India, causing 74 deaths.

William Strachey (b. 1572) · Maya Angelou (b. 1928) · Karen Spärck Jones (d. 2007)

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Today's featured picture

Two yellow-billed oxpeckers (Buphagus africanus africanus) perched atop a zebra in Senegal. This bird is native to the savannah of Sub-Saharan Africa, where it feeds on insects and ticks, including the arthropod parasites found on large mammals, as well as blood. The species nests in tree holes lined with hair plucked from livestock, where it lays 2–3 eggs.

Photograph: Charles J. Sharp

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