Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 March 25

The Australian cricketer Neil Harvey toured England in 1948 as a member of "The Invincibles" – so-called as they were undefeated in their 34 tour matches, an unprecedented feat. Aged 19, Harvey (pictured in 1953) was the youngest player of the touring party. An attacking left-handed middle-order batsman who was the youngest Australian to score a Test century, he struggled early in the tour. After being omitted from the first-choice team in the first half of the tour, Harvey's performances improved with his increasing familiarity with local conditions and he was called into the team for the Fourth Test at Headingley. Harvey scored 112 in a first innings counter-attack to keep Australia in contention, and hit the winning runs in the second innings. He retained his place for the Fifth Test, ending the series with 133 runs at a batting average of 66.50. Overall, Harvey was sixth on the tour team's run-scoring aggregates and seventh in the batting averages. Harvey was an acrobatic fielder, regarded as the best in the Australian team, and took several acclaimed catches throughout the tour. He took 17 catches for the tour and claimed a solitary wicket with his occasional off spin. (Full article...)

Recently featured: Kennedy half dollar – Ontario Highway 416 – Alloxylon flammeum

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that Per Teodor Cleve (pictured) discovered holmium and thulium and helped isolate helium from cleveite?
• ... that mountaineers Anna and Ellen Pigeon made their most famous traverse in the Swiss Alps by mistake?
• ... that Kiesza gave away 4,500 CDs to Canadian troops serving in Afghanistan?
• ... that when invited to lunch at the Bank of England, the economist Adam Ridley arrived by motorcycle?
• ... that the starfish Trophodiscus almus is unusual in brooding its young on its upper surface?
• ... that Spanish ballet dancer Lucia Lacarra stated, "I love to do bad stuff! I don't want to get typecast in goody roles"?

• Japanese architect Shigeru Ban (pictured) wins the Pritzker Prize.
• Malaysia Airlines announces that Flight 370, which went missing on 8 March, crashed in the southern Indian Ocean with no survivors.
• A mudslide in the US state of Washington kills at least fourteen people and leaves more than one hundred missing.
• Russia formally annexes Crimea while the European Union and Ukraine sign an association agreement.
• Anna Fenninger and Marcel Hirscher of Austria win the overall Alpine Skiing World Cup titles.

Recent deaths: Adolfo Suárez – Fred Phelps

March 25: Feast of the Annunciation (Christianity)

• 708 – Pope Constantine was selected as one of the last popes of the Byzantine Papacy; he would be the last pope to visit Constantinople until Pope Paul VI in 1967.
• 1410 – The Yongle Emperor launched the first of his military campaigns against the Mongols, resulting in the fall of the Mongol khan Bunyashiri.
• 1911 – The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (pictured) in New York City killed more than 140 sweatshop workers, many of whom could not escape because the doors to the stairwells and exits had been locked.
• 1931 – The Scottsboro Boys were arrested and charged with rape, leading to a legal case that eventually established legal principles in the United States that criminal defendants are entitled to effective assistance of counsel.
• 1949 – The Soviet Union began mass deportations of over 90,000 people from the Baltic states to Siberia.

More anniversaries: March 24 – March 25 – March 26

{| style="margin:0 3px 3px; width:100%; text-align:left; background-color:transparent; border-collapse: collapse; "

|style="padding:0 0.9em 0 0;"| File:Mount-Yamnuska2-Szmurlo.jpg

|style="padding:0 6px 0 0"|

Mount John Laurie is a mountain found in Alberta, Canada. Part of the Canadian Rockies, it is a popular rock climbing destination.

Photograph: Chuck Szmurlo