Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 February 16

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From today's featured article

A 20th-century commemorative coin of Mindaugas

The

King of Lithuania in 1253 and is traditionally regarded as the founder of the state. However, in 1261, he broke the peace with the Livonian Order, and his assassination in 1263 by Treniota ended the early Christian kingdom in Lithuania. It was a pagan empire for the next 120 years, fighting against the Teutonic and Livonian Orders during the Northern Crusades. After Mindaugas' death, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania entered times of relative instability but did not disintegrate. Vytenis assumed power in 1295, and during the next twenty years laid solid foundations for the Duchy to expand and grow. (Full article...

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's newest content:

... that unlike most other brittle stars, the reticulated brittle star (pictured) makes use of its tube feet during locomotion?

... that dignitaries travelled from as far afield as Yugoslavia to look at Tilgate's "impressive" shopping parade, one of Crawley's 58 locally listed buildings?

... that ETA bombing survivor, author and para-alpine skier Irene Villa was a member of the first Spanish women's disability ski club?

... that period instruments
?

... that British Royalist Andrew Sprowle founded the United States Navy's longest continuously operating naval shipyard in 1767?

... that according to

Sad" is his most personal track on their album Overexposed

?

... that during her underground imprisonment for adultery, Blanche of Burgundy gave birth and became queen of two kingdoms?

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In the news

In central Russia,

a meteor

(pictured)—the largest recorded object encountered by Earth since 1908—injure more than 1,000 people, mainly due to widespread broken glass.

In an

scandal, horse meat and pork are found in food products labelled as containing beef

.

North Korea conducts its third nuclear weapons test.

Benedict XVI announces that he will resign as pope of the Catholic Church at the end of February.

Thirty-six people are killed and thirty-nine injured in Allahabad, India, during the Kumbh Mela
festival.

At the
Grammy Awards, Gotye wins Record of the Year and Mumford & Sons wins Album of the Year
.
Recent deaths: Zhuang Zedong

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On this day...

Statehood Day in Lithuania (1918

)

1862 – American Civil War: Union victory in the Battle of Fort Donelson gave General Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.

eighteenth dynasty
.

African American
history, culture, and art, was chartered.

Victoria
, killing 75 people and injuring 2,676 others.
2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, entered into force.
More anniversaries: February 15 – February 16 – February 17

List of historical anniversaries

It is now February 16, 2013 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

A young girl standing amid the freshly made graves of 70 children in

refugee camps

; the camp in Dadaab, although built for 90,000 people, held at least 440,000 at its peak.

Photograph: Andy Hall

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