Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 May 14

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From today's featured article

Spalding War Memorial is a First World War memorial in the gardens of Ayscoughfee Hall in Spalding, Lincolnshire, in eastern England. It was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The proposal originated with Barbara McLaren; her husband Francis McLaren, the town's member of parliament, was killed during the war. Lutyens produced a plan for a cross in a grand memorial cloister surrounding a circular pond. The memorial was to be built in the hall's formal gardens, which were owned by the local council. After a public meeting and a vote in 1919, a reduced-scale version emerged as the preferred option. The memorial consists of a brick pavilion at the south end of the garden and a Stone of Remembrance, both at the head of a long reflecting pool (pictured). The design was not used in any of Lutyens's other war memorials but it influenced several of his cemeteries on the Western Front. The memorial was unveiled at a ceremony on 9 June 1922, and is a Grade I listed building. (Full article...)

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In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Iranian frigate Jamaran

The Iranian Navy frigate Jamaran (pictured) accidentally strikes the support vessel Konarak with a missile, killing nineteen sailors.
A gas leak in Andhra Pradesh, India, kills thirteen people and injures over a thousand others.
Astronomers announce the discovery of the first black hole located in a star system visible to the naked eye.

On this day

May 14: Feast day of Saint Matthias (Catholicism)

Edward Jenner

1796 – English physician Edward Jenner (portrait shown) inoculated eight-year-old James Phipps, testing his hypothesis that cowpox infection would protect a patient from smallpox.
1804 – Led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the Corps of Discovery left Camp Dubois near present-day Hartford, Illinois, to begin the first overland expedition to the West Coast of the United States and back.
1940 – World War II: The bulk of Dutch forces surrendered to the German Wehrmacht, ending the Battle of the Netherlands.
1980 – Salvadoran Civil War: Refugees trying to flee El Salvador across the Sumpul River to Honduras were attacked by both Salvadoran and Honduran forces, resulting in at least 300 deaths.

Hans Joachim von Zieten (b. 1699)
Magnus Hirschfeld (b. 1868; d. 1935)
Cate Blanchett (b. 1969)

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Today's featured picture

Dutch Ships in a Calm Sea is an oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch marine artist Willem van de Velde the Younger (1633–1707), dating from about 1665. The son of Willem van de Velde the Elder, who also specialized in marine art, he was first instructed by his father and later by Simon de Vlieger. His brother was Adriaen van de Velde, a landscape and animal painter.

Most of Van de Velde's finest works represent shipping off the coast of Holland. The vessels are painted with intricate detail and almost photographic accuracy, providing a high-quality record of the appearance of shipping of the period. He also excelled in his rendering of the sea and sky under various weather conditions. This painting is in the collection of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Painting credit: Willem van de Velde the Younger

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