Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 April 24

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From today's featured article

Wilfrid (c. 633 – c. 709) was an English bishop. The abbot of a monastery at Ripon, he advocated the Roman method for calculating the date of Easter at the Synod of Whitby in 664 and was appointed Bishop of Northumbria as a result. After Wilfrid quarrelled with Ecgfrith, the Northumbrian king, Theodore of Tarsus (the Archbishop of Canterbury) implemented some reforms in the diocese despite Wilfrid's opposition. Pope Agatho ruled in Wilfrid's favour, but Ecgfrith imprisoned Wilfrid before exiling him. Aldfrith, Ecgfrith's successor, allowed Wilfrid to return, but later expelled him. Wilfrid again appealed to Rome, and eventually regained possession of his Northumbrian monasteries. After Wilfrid's death, he was venerated as a saint. His followers commissioned a Life of Wilfrid (page from an 11th-century copy pictured), and the medieval historian Bede also wrote extensively about him. Wilfrid lived ostentatiously and claimed to be the first Englishman to introduce the Rule of Saint Benedict into English monasteries. Some modern historians see him as a champion of Roman customs against those of the British and Irish churches, others as an advocate for monasticism. (Full article...)

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In the news

At the Boston Marathon, American Meb Keflezighi wins the men's race and Kenyan Rita Jeptoo (pictured) wins the women's race.
An avalanche on Mount Everest kills sixteen Nepalese guides.
NASA ends the LADEE mission by intentionally crashing the spacecraft into the Moon.
Abdelaziz Bouteflika is re-elected President of Algeria.
Fifty-eight people are killed in an attack on a United Nations base in Bor, South Sudan, during an ongoing conflict.

Recent deaths: Rubin "Hurricane" Carter

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On this day...

April 24: Genocide Remembrance Day in Armenia; Republic Day in The Gambia (1970)

1479 BC – Thutmose III became the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt, although during the first 22 years of the reign he was co-regent with his aunt, Hatshepsut.
1547 – Schmalkaldic War: Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, led Imperial troops to a decisive victory in the Battle of Mühlberg over the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League of Protestant princes.
1914 – The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar in the development of quantum mechanics, was presented to the German Physical Society.
1922 – The first portion of the Imperial Wireless Chain, a strategic international wireless telegraphy communications network created to link the countries of the British Empire, opened.
1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope (pictured) was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery in mission STS-31.

More anniversaries: April 23 – April 24 – April 25

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A 3-week-old donkey (Equus africanus asinus), in Kadzidłowo, Poland. A female donkey is normally pregnant for about 12 months, and usually gives birth to a single foal; twins are rare.

Photograph: Lilly M

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