Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 October 10

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Paul Kruger (10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904) was one of the dominant political and military figures in 19th-century South Africa, and President of the South African Republic from 1883 to 1900. He was the face of the Boer cause against Britain during the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. As a child in the late 1830s, he took part in the Great Trek of people migrating east, away from the British Cape Colony. He witnessed the signing of the Sand River Convention with Britain in 1852 and over the next decade played a prominent role in the forging of the South African Republic, leading its commandos and resolving disputes between the rival Boer leaders and factions. After the South African Republic was annexed by Britain as the Transvaal, he became the leading figure in the movement to restore its independence, culminating in the Boers' victory in the First Boer War of 1880–81 and Britain's recognition of the republic as a fully independent state. During his presidency, tensions with Britain increased as thousands of predominantly British settlers arrived with the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. His portrait is on the Krugerrand, a gold bullion coin still being produced. (Full article...)

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Antonio Conte

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In the news

Hurricane Nate

Flooding and landslides from Hurricane Nate (pictured) kill at least 38 people in Central America.
Kazuo Ishiguro is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.
In the United States, 59 people are killed and 489 others are injured in a mass shooting at a concert near Las Vegas.
Amidst a constitutional crisis, an independence referendum takes place in Catalonia, Spain.

On this day...

October 10

Triton, moon of Neptune

1846 – English astronomer William Lassell discovered Triton (pictured), the largest moon of the planet Neptune.
1897 – German chemist Felix Hoffmann discovered an improved way of synthesizing acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin).
1911 – The Xinhai Revolution began with the Wuchang Uprising, marking the beginning of the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China.
1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, a treaty that forms the basis of international space law, entered into force.
1982 – Maximilian Kolbe, who had volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz in Poland, was canonized by the Catholic Church.

Blanche Lazzell (b. 1878) · Beatriz Michelena (d. 1942) · Priaulx Rainier (d. 1986)

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Today's featured picture

Messier 106 is an intermediate spiral galaxy in the constellation Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781. M106 is at a distance of about 22 to 25 million light-years from Earth. Due to x-rays and unusual emission lines detected, it is suspected that part of the galaxy is falling into a supermassive black hole in the center.

Photograph: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team, and R. Gendler

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