WIKIPEDIA:MAIN PAGE HISTORY 2011 AUGUST 6

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Today's featured article
HMS Lion was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy, the lead ship of her class. Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers throughout World War I, except when she was being refitted or under repair. She sank the German light cruiser Cöln during the Battle of Heligoland Bight and served as Vice Admiral Beatty's flagship at the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port by the battlecruiser Indomitable and was under repair for more than two months. During the Battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant fire that could have destroyed the ship if not for the bravery of Royal Marine Major Francis Harvey, who posthumously received the Victoria Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded. She spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea. She was put into reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1924 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty. ( more...) Recently featured: Dengue fever – Double Seven Day scuffle – Kenesaw Mountain Landis Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Did you know...
From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that Italian sailors in the Middle Ages used trigonometry and the rule of Marteloio (pictured) to navigate at sea? ... that in 2005 Elvis Presley achieved three posthumous number-one hits in the UK Singles Chart as part of a record company campaign to mark his 70th birthday? ... that New York's Potsdam Sandstone was deposited in rising seas and consists of sediments eroded from unvegetated terrestrial landscapes? ... that Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed was the second person in two years to die while in the custody of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission? ... that the prototype of the British Type 281 early warning radar was mounted on the light cruiser HMS Dido in October 1940? ... that in some places in the video game Beep, players must stack dead enemies in order to advance? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Launch of the Juno spacecraft Standard & Poor's downgrades the credit rating of the United States to AA+ for the first time in its history. Juno, the first solar-powered spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter, is launched (pictured) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA announces that its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured photographic evidence of possible liquid water on Mars during warm seasons. Government forces crack down on protesters in Hama, a center of the Syrian uprising, killing more than 200 people. After months of negotiations, the United States Congress raises the U.S. debt ceiling to avoid a projected default. Horn of Africa famine Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
August 6: Feast of the Transfiguration ( Gregorian calendar); Independence Day in Bolivia ( 1825) and Jamaica ( 1962) 1538 – Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded a European urban settlement in what is today Bogotá, Colombia. 1806 – The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by its last emperor Francis II during the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition. 1945 – World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan, killing as many as 140,000 people. 1964 – American researcher Donald Currey had a bristlecone pine tree known as Prometheus cut down, only to find that it was the oldest known non-clonal organism ever discovered, at least 4,862 years old at the time. 1996 – NASA announced that the meteorite known as ALH 84001 (pictured), discovered in the Allan Hills of Antarctica, may contain evidence of life on Mars. More anniversaries: August 5 – August 6 – August 7 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now August 6, 2011 ( UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

A male mosquito (species unidentified), one of over 1,200 species from the genus Culex, in the Kilimanjaro Region of Tanzania. Several Culex species serve as vectors of important diseases, such as West Nile virus, filariasis, Japanese encephalitis, St. Louis encephalitis and avian malaria.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

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