Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 November 17

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From today's featured article

HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the British Royal Navy, commissioned in 1920. Hood was the largest warship in the world for 20 years and was nicknamed "the Mighty Hood". She was involved in several showing-the-flag exercises prior to the outbreak of World War II in 1939. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 but the war prevented this. In July 1940 she participated in the destruction of the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. On 24 May 1941 Hood and the battleship Prince of Wales intercepted the German battleship Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen in the Battle of the Denmark Strait. Hood was struck by several German shells, exploded, and sank with the loss of all but three of her crew of 1,418. The Royal Navy conducted two inquiries; both concluded that Hood's aft magazine exploded after a shell penetrated her armour. Hood's wreck was discovered in 2001. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battlecruisers of the world.)

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Did you know ...

The Kilmainham Brooch, late 8th or early 9th century

... that the design and form of the late 8th- or early 9th-century Irish Kilmainham Brooch (pictured) was influenced by both earlier Pictish and contemporary Viking art?
... that Scott Isphording coached golf and baseball for a time while on the football coaching staff at Wittenberg University?
... that German fashion magazine Der Bazar had many spin offs, including Harper's Bazaar?
... that Ally Condie's dystopian Matched trilogy was inspired by a high school prom?
... that Iris Murdoch wrote a poem juxtaposing the outbreak of World War II with a seminar by Eduard Fraenkel?
... that, after tolerating him for years, the Ministry of Internal Affairs III expelled Carlos the Jackal from Hungary after the bombing of Radio Free Europe's headquarters in Munich?
... that the crew of a U.S. Navy blimp mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1942?
... that Wikipedia editors wrote over 40,000 words arguing over a single letter?

In the news

SpaceX Crew-3 launch

SpaceX's Crew-3 mission (launch pictured) takes four astronauts to the International Space Station.
Former South African president F. W. de Klerk, who negotiated the end of apartheid with Nelson Mandela, dies at the age of 85.
In stock car racing, Kyle Larson wins the NASCAR Cup Series championship.
Kenyans Albert Korir and Peres Jepchirchir win the New York City Marathon men's and women's races.

On this day

November 17

14th Dalai Lama

1796 – French Revolutionary Wars: French forces defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Arcole in a manoeuvre to cut the latter's line of retreat.
1950 – The 14th Dalai Lama (pictured) assumed full temporal power as ruler of Tibet at the age of fifteen.
1968 – NBC controversially cut away from an American football game between the Oakland Raiders and New York Jets to broadcast Heidi, causing viewers in the Eastern United States to miss the game's dramatic ending.
2009 – Administrators at the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit discovered that their servers had been hacked and thousands of emails and files on climate change had been stolen.

Nikephoros Melissenos (d. 1104)
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (d. 1818)
Petra Burka (b. 1946)

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Today's featured picture

Georg Braun (1541 – 10 March 1622) was a Catholic cleric and topo-geographer from Cologne. From 1572 to 1617, he edited the Civitates orbis terrarum, which contains 546 prospects, bird's-eye views and maps of cities from around the world. This copper plate print was published in the first volume of the work; it was engraved by the Flemish mapmaker Frans Hogenberg and shows a historical view of Trier.

Credit: Frans Hogenberg and Georg Braun

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