Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 7

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From today's featured article

William of Wrotham (died c. 1217) was a medieval English royal administrator and clergyman. Hubert Walter, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury and the king's chief minister, gave William responsibility for the royal tin mines in 1197, and the following year he was placed in charge of tin production, an office later known as the Lord Warden of the Stannaries. William also held ecclesiastical office, eventually becoming Archdeacon of Taunton, and served King John of England as an administrator of ecclesiastical lands and a collector of taxes. He was in charge of the royal fleet in the south of England from 1206 until 1215, and was one of those responsible for the development of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard. He is usually given the title of "keeper of ports" or "keeper of galleys", probably a forerunner of the office of First Lord of the Admiralty. By 1215 William had joined the First Barons' War against John, but returned to the royalist cause after John's death in 1216. The medieval chronicler Roger of Wendover called him one of John's "evil advisers", but modern historians say Roger's account was exaggerated. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

William P. Frye

... that after the neutral American ship William P. Frye (pictured) was sunk by a World War I Imperial German raider, the German government was billed $228,059.54?
... that Congolese artist Rhode Makoumbou sculpts figures up to 3 metres (10 ft) tall out of sawdust and woodglue?
... that genetic differences may affect the efficacy of the anti-asthmatic drug zafirlukast?
... that Japanese singer Yunchi covered the song "Catch You Catch Me" from Cardcaptor Sakura for one of her albums?
... that the Panoz Avezzano, unveiled at the 2016 Petit Le Mans, is named after a town in Italy that was destroyed by an earthquake?
... that the Exeter Hip, designed by Robin Ling and Clive Lee, improved the lives of millions of people?
... that when the wasp Idiogramma elbakyanae was named in honor of Sci-Hub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, she took this as an insult?
... that Silvia Correale, the first female Postulator in the Vatican, focuses on guiding potential Argentine saints through the beatification process?

In the news

Rob Cross

A passenger train collides with a truck on a level crossing near Kroonstad, South Africa, killing 18 people and injuring more than 250 others.
In darts, Rob Cross (pictured) wins the PDC World Championship on his debut.
George Weah is elected President of Liberia.
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardons jailed ex-president Alberto Fujimori.
Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than 260 people.

On this day...

January 7: Christmas (Julian calendar); Victory Day over Genocide in Cambodia

Galileo Galilei

1610 – Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (pictured) made his first observation of the four Galilean moons through his telescope: Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa, although he was not able to distinguish the latter two until the following day.
1797 – The first official Italian tricolour was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic.
1948 – Air National Guard pilot Thomas Mantell fatally crashed his P-51 Mustang while in pursuit of a UFO near Fort Knox, Kentucky.
1978 – An article titled "Iran and Red and Black Colonization" was published in the newspaper Ettela'at to attack Ruhollah Khomeini, described as an Indian Sayyed.
2012 – A hot air balloon flight from Carterton, New Zealand, collided with a power line while landing, causing it to catch fire, disintegrate and crash, killing all eleven people on board.

Johann Heinrich Zedler (b. 1706) · Joseph Dennie (d. 1812) · Helena Válková (b. 1951)

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Today's featured picture

The cover of a c. 1855 vocal score for La traviata, an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to a libretto in Italian by Francesco Maria Piave. Based on La Dame aux Camélias (1852), a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils, it follows the ill-fated romance of Violetta, a courtesan, and Alfredo, a young bourgeois man. It premiered in 1853 at La Fenice in Venice, and has become one of the world's most frequently performed operas.

Illustration: Leopoldo Ratt; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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