Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 July 9

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From today's featured article

Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret is an oil painting on canvas by English artist William Etty, first exhibited in 1833. Intended to illustrate the virtues of honour and chastity, it depicts a scene from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene in which the female warrior Britomart slays the evil magician Busirane and frees his captive, the beautiful Amoret. In Spenser's poem Amoret has been tortured and mutilated by the time of her rescue, but Etty portrayed her as unharmed. Despite its depiction of an occult ritual, a violent death, a near-nude woman and strongly implied sexual torture, Britomart Redeems Faire Amoret was uncontroversial on its first exhibition in 1833 and was critically well received. In 1958 it was acquired by the Tate Gallery, and it remains in the collection of Tate Britain. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Alma Mahler by Kokoschka, 1912

... that of thrice-married composer Alma Mahler (pictured), Tom Lehrer crooned, "Alma, tell us! / All modern women are jealous / Which of your magical wands / got you Gustav and Walter and Franz"?
... that the Vilama caldera volcano on the border between Bolivia and Argentina produced over 1,200 cubic kilometres (290 cu mi) of rock in a single eruption?
... that the head of Constantine III was presented to his co-emperor Honorius on the end of a pole?
... that comic book writer Cullen Bunn included "touchstones" like Star Trek and Firefly in his pitch for Asgardians of the Galaxy?
... that Mexican-American human rights activist Alicia Cuarón became a Franciscan nun in her fifties?
... that the 1980 Finniston Report found that only 56% of British people considered engineering a good career for a woman?
... that Keith M. Davidson, the former attorney of Stormy Daniels, slept in a closet during his years at Boston College?
... that a German plan for the invasion of the United Kingdom became part of the plot for a best-selling novel?

In the news

Tham Luang Nang Non cave entrance

Flooding and landslides in western Japan kill at least 126 people and leave 86 others missing.
Rescue operations are ongoing to recover twelve boys and a man trapped in Thailand’s Tham Luang Nang Non cave (entrance pictured).
China and the United States impose additional tariffs on $34 billion of each other's goods.
A tourist boat capsizes near Phuket, Thailand, leaving 41 people dead and 15 others missing.

On this day

July 9: Independence Day in Argentina (1816)

Sherman tank and crew in Sicily

1572 – Nineteen Catholic friars and clerics were hanged in Gorkum during the 16th-century religious wars in the Low Countries.
1868 – The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, including the Citizenship Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, was ratified by the minimum required twenty-eight states.
1943 – World War II: The Allies began their invasion of Sicily (American tank pictured), a large scale amphibious and airborne operation, followed by six weeks of land combat.
1958 – A 525 m (1,722 ft) high megatsunami, the highest ever recorded, struck Lituya Bay, Alaska, U.S.
2008 – Under the belief that Israel and the United States were planning to attack its nuclear program, Iran conducted the Great Prophet III missile test and war games exercise.

Jan van Eyck (d. 1441) · Elizabeth of Austria (b. 1526) · Tom Hanks (b. 1956)

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From today's featured list

Asa Hutchinson

The Governor of Arkansas is the chief executive of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The governor is the head of the executive branch of Arkansas's state government and is charged with enforcing state laws. The governor has the power to either approve or veto bills passed by the Arkansas General Assembly, to convene the legislature, and to grant pardons, except in cases of treason and impeachment. The state has had 46 elected governors, as well as 11 acting governors who assumed powers and duties following the resignation or death of the governor. Before becoming a state, Arkansas Territory had four governors appointed to it by the President of the United States. Orval Faubus served the longest term as state governor, being elected six times to serve twelve years. Bill Clinton, elected five times over two distinct terms, fell only one month short of twelve years. The current governor is Republican Asa Hutchinson (pictured), who took office on January 13, 2015, after his election on November 4, 2014. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Punishment of Lust is an 1891 oil painting on canvas by the artist Giovanni Segantini. An early entry in a thematic series on cattive madri (bad mothers) produced between 1891 and 1896, it depicts women being punished for preferring a life of ease over a life of duty by being suspended in limbo among the barren landscape of the Alps. These women are suggested to have aborted or lost their children, and although the artist would have perceived this as a cardinal sin, there is a hint that they may be redeemed. The work was purchased by the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, England, in 1893; it remains there today.

Painting: Giovanni Segantini

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