Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 March 4

Bradford City A.F.C. was founded in Bradford, England, in 1903, bringing an association football club to the West Riding of Yorkshire as an alternative to rugby league. They were immediately elected to the Football League to replace Doncaster Rovers in Division Two, and made their permanent home in the Valley Parade stadium. Under the management of Peter O'Rourke the club won promotion to Division One in 1908, and the FA Cup in 1911 (team pictured). After subsequent relegations, they remained in the third and fourth tiers of the English football league system until 1985–86. During that time, they endured several periods of financial hardship, and in 1985, their ground suffered a disastrous fire in which 56 people died. After coming close to returning to the top division of the League in 1987–88, the club enjoyed mixed fortunes before finally achieving promotion to the Premier League in 1998–99. After two seasons in the top tier, the club's playing and financial misfortunes multiplied; successive relegations saw them fall into the bottom tier of The Football League, before promotion in 2012–13 brought them back up a division. (Full article...)

Recently featured: Three-cent nickel – Maggie Gyllenhaal – Old Church of St Nidan, Llanidan

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that the 104-foot (32 m) Sivadol (pictured) in Sivasagar, Assam, is believed to be the tallest Shiva temple in India?
• ... that the first woman elected to the Geological Society of America, Mary Emilie Holmes, was also one of the cofounders of a historically black college?
• ... that the common water moss provides a protective habitat for fish eggs and aquatic invertebrates?
• ... that film producer Lisa Bruce began working on The Theory of Everything in 2009, but it was only released in 2015?
• ... that the electoral district Beirut I had the largest concentration of Jewish voters in Lebanon?
• ... that Dame Lowell Goddard is believed to be the first person of Māori ancestry to become a High Court judge in New Zealand?
• ... that Grand Canyon freshman Miroslav Jakšić made his first college basketball appearance against No. 1 Kentucky?
• ... that a founding abbess of the restored convent of Sant'Ambrogio della Massima was convicted of pretending to be a saint?

• The Estonian Reform Party, led by Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas (pictured), wins the country's parliamentary election.
• Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow.
• The U.S. Federal Communications Commission votes to reclassify Internet broadband as a utility, enforcing net neutrality rules.
• Avijit Roy, a secularist activist and blogger, is murdered in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
• British soldier Joshua Leakey is awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions in the war in Afghanistan.
• A gunman kills eight people and commits suicide in the Czech town of Uherský Brod.
• Birdman wins four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, at the Academy Awards.

Ongoing:

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine

Recent deaths:

Dave Mackay – Minnie Miñoso – Yaşar Kemal

March 4: Saint Casimir's Day; Fast of Esther (Judaism, 2015)

• 306 – Roman Herculian guard Adrian of Nicomedia, who had converted to Christianity after being impressed with the faith of Christians that he had been torturing, was martyred.
• 1681 – King Charles II of England granted Quaker William Penn a charter for the Pennsylvania Colony.
• 1899 – Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Queensland, killing over 400 people, the deadliest natural disaster in Australian history.
• 1918 – The first known case of the so-called Spanish flu was first observed at Fort Riley, Kansas.
• 1980 – Robert Mugabe (pictured) of the Zimbabwe African National Union was elected to head the first government in Zimbabwe.

More anniversaries: March 3 – March 4 – March 5

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The hooded pitta (Pitta sordida) is a passerine bird commonly found in eastern and southeastern Asia and maritime Southeast Asia. Reaching a length of 16 to 19 centimetres (6.3 to 7.5 in), these birds feed on insects and berries.

Photograph: JJ Harrison