Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 17

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From today's featured article

Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (18 June 1901 – 17 July 1918) was the youngest daughter of Tsar Nicholas II, the last sovereign of Imperial Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna. She was murdered with her family by members of the Cheka, the Bolshevik secret police. The location of her burial was unknown during the decades of Communist rule, and rumors that she had escaped circulated after her death. A mass grave near Yekaterinburg which held the remains of the Tsar, his wife, and three of their daughters was revealed in 1991, and the bodies of the remaining daughter and the Tsarevitch Alexei were discovered in 2007. Forensic analysis and DNA testing have confirmed that the remains are those of the imperial family, showing that Anastasia and the other grand duchesses were killed in 1918. Several women have claimed to be Anastasia, including Anna Anderson, who died in 1984, but DNA testing in 1994 showed that she was not related to the Romanov family. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

The Earthquake,
1792–1799

... that the five versions of Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours' painting Earthquake (one version pictured) show his growing disillusion with politics after the French Revolution?
... that the drinking game Hi, Bob may have been the first to use prompts from a television show to initiate player action?
... that the Irish surgeon Solomon Richards achieved fame by performing a tracheotomy in public?
... that James Willing raided British forts, plantations, and other properties belonging to loyalists during the American Revolutionary War?
... that euthymia, a state of internal calm and contentment, is a goal of psychiatric intervention?
... that the 2016 song "Yōkoso Japari Park e", written by Masayoshi Ōishi, topped Amazon Japan's soundtrack ranking and placed third on the country's iTunes song chart?
... that the 1944 Report on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews accused US State Department officials of willfully obstructing attempts to rescue Holocaust refugees?
... that before becoming Emperor of Byzantium, the young Michael IV was the previous emperor's body servant and his wife's lover?

In the news

France national football team

In association football, the FIFA World Cup concludes with France (team pictured) defeating Croatia in the final.
At least 154 people are killed and more than 220 others are injured in multiple bombings in Mastung and Bannu, Pakistan.
Scientists announce the discovery of stone tools dating to 2.1 million years ago in Shangchen, China, the oldest evidence of hominins outside Africa.
In Germany, the National Socialist Underground trial ends after more than five years with the sentencing of the main defendant, Beate Zschäpe, to life in prison.

On this day

July 17: Constitution Day in South Korea (1948)

Churchill, Truman, and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference

1771 – Dene men, acting as guides to Samuel Hearne on his exploration of the Coppermine River in present-day Nunavut, Canada, massacred a group of about 20 Copper Inuit.
1863 – The New Zealand Wars resumed as British forces in New Zealand led by General Duncan Cameron began their Invasion of the Waikato.
1918 – RMS Carpathia, which had rescued the survivors of the RMS Titanic sinking, was itself sunk by a German U-boat with the loss of five crew.
1945 – Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, and Joseph Stalin (all pictured), leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union respectively, met in Potsdam to decide what should be done with post-war Germany.
1998 – A tsunami triggered by an undersea earthquake devastated several villages in Papua New Guinea, killing more than 2,100 people, and destroying the homes of thousands more.

Dorothea Dix (d. 1887) · Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio (b. 1918) · Wong Kar-wai (b. 1958)

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Today's featured picture

Young Man with a Skull is a painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter Frans Hals, completed in 1626 and now in the National Gallery, London. Once considered a depiction of Hamlet holding the skull of Yorick, the painting shows a young man in a feathered bonnet gesturing and holding a skull. It was first documented by Cornelis Hofstede de Groot in 1910, and identified as one of Hals' works owing to the painting's similarity to other works by the artist.

Painting: Frans Hals

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