Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 June 2

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Billy Corgan

Adore is the fourth studio album by the American alternative rock band The Smashing Pumpkins (vocalist Billy Corgan pictured), released on June 2, 1998, by Virgin Records. After the multi-platinum success of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and subsequent tour, the Pumpkins' follow-up album was highly anticipated, but drummer Jimmy Chamberlin had left the band, and the recording of Adore was challenging. The album featured a more subdued and electronica-tinged sound than the band's previous work; Greg Kot of Rolling Stone magazine called it "a complete break with the past". Sales for the album were far less than for the band's previous two albums, but it became the third straight Pumpkins album to be nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance. It was well received by critics, and has gained a cult following. A remastered and expanded version of the album was released on CD, vinyl and other formats in September 2014. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Blue calamintha bee

... that scientists were unsure whether the blue calamintha bee (pictured) still existed until it was observed again in March 2020?
... that Servaas Theron, a World War II fighter pilot, landed next to a stranded aircraft and siphoned fuel from his plane so that they could both fly away?
... that in 2016, Scientific American listed one of Lynden Archer's discoveries among their top-10 "world changing ideas" for that year?
... that Tamil Nadu was the first state in India to use green corridors to expedite organ transplants?
... that between 1857 and the 1930s, a Russian gun captured during the Crimean War was displayed on the Hastings seafront near Pelham Arcade?
... that the Protestant Film Commission was founded partly in response to the sympathetic portrayal of Catholics in Hollywood films of the 1940s, while Protestants were played for laughs?
... that the world's longest domestic flight, between Papeete, Tahiti, and Paris, France, a distance of 9,765 miles (15,715 km), came about because of the COVID-19 pandemic?
... that the Lincoln Legion of Lesbians, a lesbian separatist collective in Nebraska, tried to outlaw anti-gay discrimination in 1980?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Crew Dragon launch

SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 make their first crewed launch (pictured) for NASA.
Protests and riots break out across the United States following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Costa Rica becomes the first Central American country to legalise same-sex marriage.
A Pakistan International Airlines passenger aircraft crashes in Karachi, killing ninety-seven people.

On this day

June 2: Festa della Repubblica in Italy (1946)

The wedding of Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom

455 – After having removed Petronius Maximus from the imperial throne, Vandals led by Genseric entered Rome and sacked the city for two weeks.
1886 – Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom (wedding depicted), becoming the only U.S. president to wed in the White House.
1967 – German university student Benno Ohnesorg was killed during a protest in West Berlin against the visit of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi of Iran, sparking the formation of the militant 2 June Movement.
1995 – Bosnian War: U.S. Air Force captain Scott O'Grady was shot down while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone over Bosnia, but ejected safely and was rescued six days later.
2010 – A gunman carried out a shooting spree in Cumbria, England, killing 12 people and injuring 11 others before committing suicide.

Bernard of Wąbrzeźno (d. 1603)
Daniel Pollen (b. 1813)
Abby Wambach (b. 1980)

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Today's featured picture

Fractional currency, also referred to as shinplasters, was introduced by the United States federal government following the outbreak of the Civil War. These low-denomination banknotes of the U.S. dollar were in use between 21 August 1862 and 15 February 1876; they were issued in denominations of 3, 5, 10, 15, 25 and 50 cents across five issuing periods. The notes could be redeemed by the U.S. Postal Service for the face value in postage stamps.

This picture shows a third-issue fifty-cent fractional currency note (one of three variants of this denomination), issued by the United States Department of the Treasury between 5 December 1864 and 16 August 1869, featuring a portrait of Francis E. Spinner, then treasurer of the United States, on the obverse. This banknote is in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

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Banknote design credit: United States Department of the Treasury; photographed by the National Numismatic Collection

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