Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 December 4

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From today's featured article

Near-contemporary depiction of the battle

The Battle of Pontvallain, part of the Hundred Years' War, took place in north-west France on 4 December 1370. A French army under Bertrand du Guesclin heavily defeated an English force which had broken away from an army commanded by Robert Knolles. The French numbered 5,200 men, and the English force was approximately the same size. The English had plundered and burnt their way across northern France from Calais to Paris. With winter coming, the English commanders fell out and divided their army. The battle consisted of two separate engagements: one at Pontvallain where, after a forced march which continued overnight, Guesclin surprised a major part of the English force, and wiped it out. In a coordinated attack, Guesclin's subordinate, Louis de Sancerre, caught a smaller English force the same day, at the nearby town of Vaas, also wiping it out. The French harried the surviving Englishmen into the following year, recapturing much lost territory. (Full article...)

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In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing

Former President of France Valéry Giscard d'Estaing (pictured) dies at the age of 94.
In baseball, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks defeat the Yomiuri Giants to win their fourth-straight Japan Series.
Ingrida Šimonytė takes office as Prime Minister of Lithuania.
Argentine footballer Diego Maradona dies at the age of 60.

On this day

December 4: Navy Day in India

Jeremiah Horrocks observing the transit of Venus

1639 – English astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks made the first successful prediction and observation (depicted) of a transit of Venus.
1893 – First Matabele War: A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele warriors.
1909 – The first Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was held in Toronto.
1980 – The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
2006 – Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena, Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for perceived racial injustice in the United States.

Pope John XXII (d. 1334)
Agnes Forbes Blackadder (b. 1875)
Frank Zappa (d. 1993)

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The works of English writer Dorothy L. Sayers include mysteries, a series of novels and short stories, set between the First and Second World Wars, which feature the fictional Lord Peter Wimsey, an English aristocrat and amateur sleuth. Sayers was educated at home and then at the University of Oxford. In 1916, a year after her graduation, Sayers published her first book, a collection of poems entitled Op. I, which she followed two years later with a second, a slim volume titled Catholic Tales and Christian Songs. In 1923 she published Whose Body?, a murder mystery novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and went on to write eleven novels and five collections of short stories about the character. The Wimsey stories were popular, and successful enough for Sayers to leave the advertising agency where she was working. Towards the end of the 1930s, and without explanation, Sayers stopped writing crime stories and turned instead to religious plays and essays, and to translations. Some of her plays were broadcast on the BBC, others performed at the Canterbury Festival and some in commercial theatres. (Full list...)

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Santa Maria della Vittoria is a Catholic titular church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome, Italy. Completed in 1620, it is the only structure designed and completed by the early Baroque architect Carlo Maderno. The interior, shown here, has a single wide nave under a low segmental vault, with three interconnecting side chapels behind arches separated by colossal Corinthian pilasters with gilded capitals that support an enriched entablature. Contrasting marble revetments are enriched with white and gilded stucco angels and putti in full relief.

Photograph credit: Livioandronico2013

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