Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 December 11

George Mason (December 11, 1725 – October 7, 1792) was a Virginia planter, politician, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of three men who refused to sign. He served in the pro-independence Fourth Virginia Convention of 1775 and the Fifth Virginia Convention of 1776, during which he wrote much of the Virginia Declaration of Rights; this later served as a basis for the Bill of Rights, of which he has been deemed the father. Named one of his state's delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Mason traveled to Philadelphia, his only lengthy trip outside Virginia, and was active in the convention for months before deciding he could not sign the final draft. Although he lost his fight to add a bill of rights there, and again at the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788, his efforts led his fellow Virginian James Madison to introduce one during the First Congress in 1789, and it was ratified in 1791, a year before Mason died. Long obscure, Mason is today recognized for his contributions to the founding texts of Virginia and the United States. (Full article...)

• ... that after Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii died in 1917, her pet dog Poni (pictured) was given to her confidante and final lady-in-waiting Lahilahi Webb?
• ... that Brigham Young University has a digitized collection of Mormon missionary diaries that includes the work of 115 diarists and 376 written volumes?
• ... that Gonzalo Castellot Madrazo was the first announcer to appear on Mexican television?
• ... that low-level Schedule C political appointees in the United States sometimes attempt to "burrow in" by transferring to permanent merit-based positions?
• ... that Baxter Langley, who stood for the UK Parliament alongside William Gladstone, was later sentenced to hard labour?
• ... that despite charting at only 96, "To Build a Home" by The Cinematic Orchestra has been streamed more than 60 million times and featured in several TV shows?
• ... that expulsion from the Senate did not prevent Gaius Antonius Hybrida from attaining the highest elected office in the Roman Republic?
• ... that the Pu Songling short story "Stealing Peaches" describes the Indian rope trick?

• Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 38 people and injure 166 others.
• A freight train derails, explodes and catches fire at Hitrino, Bulgaria, killing 7 people and injuring 29 others.
• Pakistan International Airlines Flight 661 (aircraft pictured) crashes near Havelian, Pakistan, killing all 47 people on board.
• More than 100 people are killed when an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 strikes Aceh, Indonesia.
• Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key announces his resignation.
• Shavkat Mirziyoyev wins the Uzbekistani presidential election.

December 11: Mawlid begins at sunset (Sunni Islam, 2016); Republic Day in Burkina Faso (1958)

• 220 – Emperor Xian abdicated the throne and the Han dynasty broke apart, beginning the Three Kingdoms period in China.
• 1899 – Second Boer War: In the Battle of Magersfontein, Boers defeated the forces of the British Empire trying to relieve the Siege of Kimberley.
• 1905 – In support of the December Uprising in Moscow, the Council of Workers' Deputies of Kiev stage a mass uprising, establishing the Shuliavka Republic (monument pictured) in the city.
• 1980 – The United States Congress enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act to protect people, families, communities and others from heavily contaminated toxic waste sites that have been abandoned.
• 2006 – The first action in the Mexican Drug War took place as President Felipe Calderón ordered Mexican military and Federal Police units into the state of Michoacán.

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A mass grave of 26 Republican victims killed by Nationalists in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War. This grave was excavated in Estépar, Burgos, in 2014.

Generally speaking, mass graves contain multiple bodies that may or may not be identified prior to burial. They may be seen after violent conflict or be dug for sanitation reasons after a major famine, epidemic, or natural disaster.

Photograph: Mario Modesto Mata