Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 August 30
From today's featured article
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Judith Resnik (1949–1986) was an American electrical, software and biomedical engineer, pilot and astronaut who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986. Resnik was the fourth woman and second American woman to fly in space, logging 145 hours in orbit. With a PhD in electrical engineering, she worked for RCA as an engineer on Navy missile and radar projects, and for Xerox as a senior systems engineer. She published research on special-purpose integrated circuitry. At age 28, she was selected by NASA as a mission specialist in the first NASA astronaut group to include women. While training she developed software and operating procedures for NASA missions. Her first space flight was the STS-41-D mission, the maiden voyage of Space Shuttle Discovery which launched on August 30, 1984, during which her duties included operating the orbiter's robotic arm. Her second shuttle mission was STS-51-L aboard Challenger. She died when it broke up shortly after liftoff. (Full article...)
Did you know ...
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- ... that the 1919 Rockwood & Company shipping department fire (location pictured) in New York City led to a flood of chocolate and butter sufficient to "float a rowboat for two blocks along Flushing Avenue"?
- ... that Henry Jackson served for 44 days, the shortest tenure of any New Zealand member of parliament?
- ... that armored mud balls are formed underwater when fragments of clay or mud are rolled by moving currents, picking up a coating of gravel or pebbles that helps to stop them breaking down further?
- ... that Eliane Capobianco's election to the Bolivian Constituent Assembly reflected the propensity of the country's agribusiness elites to occupy positions that granted them influence over land reform policy?
- ... that Bob Dylan rhymes "Angelina" with "concertina", "hyena", "subpoena", "Argentina" and "arena"?
- ... that The Exposé's false claims that COVID-19 was created by Moderna were republished by Chinese state media outlets?
- ... that New Zealand composer Maewa Kaihau sold her rights to the song "Now is the Hour" for £10, a decade before it became a hit in the United Kingdom and United States?
- ... that Blue Ridge Sanatorium was once a prizewinning pig farm?
In the news
- Floods in Pakistan kill more than 1,100 people and over 700,000 livestock.
- Incumbent president João Lourenço (pictured) and his party, the MPLA, are declared winners of the Angolan general election.
- William Ruto is elected President of Kenya.
- In Giza, Egypt, a church fire spreads to a nursery and kills 41 people, including at least 18 children.
On this day
August 30: Victory Day in Turkey (1922)
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- 1942 – Second World War: German field marshal Erwin Rommel launched the last major Axis offensive of the Western Desert campaign, attacking British positions near El Alamein, Egypt.
- 1959 – Writer and politician Abdul Muis became the first person to be awarded the posthumous title of National Hero of Indonesia.
- 1959 – South Vietnamese opposition figure Phan Quang Đán was elected to the National Assembly, despite soldiers being bussed in to vote multiple times for President Ngô Đình Diệm's candidate.
- 1984 – Discovery, the third orbiter of NASA's Space Shuttle program, lifted off on its maiden voyage from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
- 1992 – German racing driver Michael Schumacher (pictured) won the Belgian Grand Prix, the first of his 91 Formula One Grand Prix wins.
- Mary Shelley (b. 1797)
- Marcelo H. del Pilar (b. 1850)
- Guy Burgess (d. 1963)
Today's featured picture
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Ignace-Gaston Pardies (1636–1673) was a French Catholic priest and scientist. His celestial atlas, entitled Globi coelestis in tabulas planas redacti descriptio, comprised six charts of the night sky and was first published in 1674. The atlas uses a gnomonic projection so that the plates make up a cube of the celestial sphere. The constellation figures are drawn from Uranometria, but were carefully reworked and adapted to a broader view of the sky. This is the fifth plate from a 1693 edition of Pardies's atlas, featuring constellations including Lyra, Cygnus, Hercules, Ophiuchus, Sagittarius and Scorpius, Aquila, Delphinus, and Corona Australis, as well as Antinous, an obsolete constellation. All of these are visible in the Northern Hemisphere, though a few cross the boundary from the northern sky into the southern sky. Map credit: Ignace-Gaston Pardies
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