Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 11

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From today's featured article

The First Silesian War was a conflict between Prussia and Austria lasting from 1740 to 1742, which resulted in Prussia's seizure of most of the region of Silesia (now in south-western Poland). The war was fought mainly in Silesia, Moravia and Bohemia and was part of the wider War of the Austrian Succession. The war commenced in late 1740 with an invasion of Habsburg Silesia when Maria Theresa's contested succession to the Habsburg Monarchy provided an opportunity for Prussia to expand. It ended in a Prussian victory with the 1742 Treaty of Berlin. The War of the Austrian Succession continued, and would draw Austria and Prussia into the Second Silesian War only two years later, which also ended in Prussian control of Silesia. The First Silesian War marked the unexpected defeat of the Habsburg Monarchy by a lesser German power and initiated the Austria–Prussia rivalry that would shape German politics for more than a century. (This article is part of a featured topic: Silesian Wars.)

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Did you know ...

James Dunn in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

... that five years after various major film studios branded him "unemployable", James Dunn (pictured) was cast as the dreamy alcoholic father in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and won an Academy Award?
... that the Cyfarthfa Band was conducted by a circus musician and his son?
... that New York City's Equitable Building, completed just before the 1916 Zoning Resolution, was described as being "more famous for what it caused than what it is"?
... that Ottilie Baader was one of the founders of the first trade union organization for women in Germany?
... that after the former church of San Sebastiano in Verona was bombed in 1945, its façade was relocated to San Nicolò all'Arena?
... that the opera The Devil in Love by Alexander Vustin took 15 years to be completed and 30 more years to be premiered, debuting at the centenary of a Moscow theatre?
... that the Church of England expected to distribute a few hundred millennium yews, but ended up sending out 8,000?
... that the Hotel Adams, Phoenix's first luxury hotel, burned to the ground in 1910, leaving the territorial governor homeless?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Pierre Nkurunziza

Burundian president Pierre Nkurunziza (pictured) dies in office at the age of 55.
Russian president Vladimir Putin declares a state of emergency after a diesel spill near Norilsk.
SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 make their first crewed launch for NASA.
Protests and riots break out across the United States and elsewhere following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

On this day

June 11: Feast of Corpus Christi (Western Christianity, 2020)

The Blackstone Hotel

1594 – Philip II of Spain recognized the sovereign rights of the principalía, the local nobles and chieftains of the Philippines who had converted to Catholicism.
1847 – Prince Afonso died at the age of two, leaving his father Pedro II, the last emperor of Brazil, without a male heir.
1920 – During their national convention in Chicago, Republican Party leaders gathered in negotiations at The Blackstone Hotel (pictured) to select their presidential candidate, leading to the phrase "smoke-filled room".
1955 – The deadliest accident in motorsport history occurred when two cars collided during a running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, resulting in 84 deaths.
2007 – Mudslides caused by heavy monsoon rainfall and exacerbated by hill cutting killed at least 128 people in Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy (d. 1253)
Millicent Fawcett (b. 1847)
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (d. 2014)

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Today's featured picture

The brown pelican (Pelecanus occidentalis) is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. This photograph shows a juvenile brown pelican gliding over the Pacific Ocean at Bodega Head, California.

After hatching, the pelican chicks are fed on regurgitated predigested fish and take about two months to fledge. When they leave the nest, they are at first unable to fly and take wing several weeks later. When the parents cease to feed them, some six months later, each will have consumed around 70 kg (150 lb) of fish. The juvenile brown pelican does not acquire adult plumage until three years of age, when the feathers on the neck become paler, the upperparts striped, the wing feathers grayer, and the belly acquires dark spots.

Photograph credit: Frank Schulenburg

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