Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 January 13

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From today's featured article

Late-medieval depiction of Edward II's arrest in 1326

The Parliament of 1327 was instrumental in the transfer of the English crown from King Edward II to his first son, Edward III, on 13 January. Edward II had become increasingly unpopular with the English nobility, and by 1325 even his wife Isabella despised him. Toward the end of the year, she took their first son to France, where she joined and probably entered into a relationship with the powerful and wealthy nobleman Roger Mortimer, whom her husband had exiled. The following year, they invaded England to depose Edward II, who was soon captured and imprisoned. Isabella and Mortimer summoned a parliament, which began gathering at the Palace of Westminster on 7 January. The king was accused of offences ranging from the promotion of favourites to the destruction of the church, a betrayal of his coronation oath to the people. An unruly mob may have helped intimidate those attending parliament into agreeing to oust the king. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Sully

... that U.S. President George H. W. Bush's service dog Sully (pictured) slept next to Bush's coffin before his state funeral?
... that the Swiss-German spy Carmen Mory, later a Nazi concentration camp kapo, was described as a "third-rate Mata Hari"?
... that the katydid Capnobotes fuliginosus shows its dark hindwings when startled?
... that merchant John Leamy owned the first U.S. ship to enter the Río de la Plata?
... that Marvel Comics' chief creative officer Joe Quesada made his directorial debut with the first episode of the digital series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: Slingshot?
... that the biochemist Wilfrid Butt was among the first to extract follicle-stimulating hormone from cadavers rather than from urine?
... that in 1346, an English army plundered its way across south-west France for 350 miles (560 km) without meeting effective resistance?
... that according to primatologists Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney, successful baboons use rules like those in Jane Austen novels: "be nice to your relatives and get in with the high-ranking relatives"?

In the news

Juan Guaidó

In an ongoing Venezuelan Presidential crisis, Juan Guaidó (pictured) and the National Assembly declare incumbent Nicolás Maduro "illegitimate" and start the process of attempting to remove him.
Félix Tshisekedi is declared the winner of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Eight soldiers are arrested and two are killed after a failed coup attempt to oust Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba.
Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople grants autocephaly to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in the ongoing schism within Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

On this day

January 13: St. Knut's Day in Finland and Sweden

Painting of the 1797 naval battle by Léopold Le Guen

1797 – French Revolutionary Wars: A naval battle (pictured) off the coast of Brittany between two British frigates and a French ship of the line ended with hundreds of deaths when the latter ran aground.
1878 – Ada Anderson, a record-setting pedestrian from England, completed her U.S. debut, walking 2,700 quarter-miles (1,086 km total) in 2,700 quarter-hours.
1915 – About 30,000 people in L'Aquila, Italy, were killed when an earthquake struck the province.
1953 – An article published in Pravda accused nine eminent doctors in Moscow of taking part in a vast plot to poison members of the top Soviet political and military leadership.
1963 – Togo's first president, Sylvanus Olympio, was assassinated by military officers in a coup d'état led by Emmanuel Bodjollé, Étienne Eyadéma, and Kléber Dadjo.

Sibyl Hathaway (b. 1884) · Michael Bond (b. 1926) · Winnie Byanyima (b. 1959)

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Today's featured picture

The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. The unicorn was depicted in ancient seals of the Indus Valley Civilization and was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, and Aelian. The Bible also describes an animal, the re'em, which is translated to "unicorn" in some versions.

This picture is a fresco titled The gentle and pensive maiden has the power to tame the unicorn, painted by Italian Domenichino in around 1604–1605. It is in the collection of the Palazzo Farnese in Rome.

Painting: Domenichino

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