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From today's featured article
Operation Perch was a British offensive of the
Second World War between 7 and 14 June 1944. The intention was to seize
Caen, a major Allied objective in the early stages of the
invasion of northwest Europe.
The operation had been planned to start immediately after the beach
landings, but when Caen was still in German hands three days into the
Battle of Normandy, it changed to a
pincer attack using
XXX Corps and
I Corps. XXX Corps faced strong German forces in a fierce battle for
Tilly-sur-Seulles. I Corps's eastern thrust from the
Orne
bridgehead met determined resistance. With mounting casualties and no
sign of success, the offensive was abandoned. To the west, American
pressure had opened up a gap in the German lines. The
7th Armoured Division
was ordered to advance through it, to try to force a German retreat.
After two days of intense fighting, the division's position was
untenable and it was withdrawn. Historians generally agree that while an
early opportunity to capture Caen was squandered by British command
failures, the Germans had had to use their most powerful armoured
reserves in a defensive role, incurring heavy losses, rather than in
counteroffensive operations. (
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From today's featured article
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth
studio album by the English
rock band
the Beatles (pictured). Released on 1 June 1967, it was an immediate commercial and critical success. After the group retired from touring,
Paul McCartney had an idea for a song involving an
Edwardian era
military band, and this developed into a plan to release an entire
album as a performance by the fictional Sgt. Pepper band. Knowing they
would not have to perform the tracks live, the Beatles adopted an
experimental approach to composition, writing songs such as "
With a Little Help from My Friends", "
Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and "
A Day in the Life". The producer
George Martin's innovative recording of the album included the liberal application of
signal processing.
The cover, depicting the band in front of a collage of celebrities and
historical figures, was designed by the English pop artists
Peter Blake and
Jann Haworth. One of the
best-selling albums of all time,
Sgt. Pepper is regarded as an important work of British
psychedelia and an early
concept album.
Literature scholar and author David Scott Kastan has described it as
"the most important and influential rock and roll album ever recorded". (
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From today's featured article
Tadeusz Kościuszko
(1746–1817) was a military leader who became a national hero in Poland,
Lithuania, Belarus, and the United States. He graduated from the Corps
of Cadets in Warsaw, Poland, before studying in France. In 1776, he
moved to North America, where he took part in the
American Revolutionary War as a colonel in the
Continental Army.
An accomplished military architect, he designed and oversaw the
construction of state-of-the-art fortifications, including those at
West Point, New York. He returned to Poland, and was commissioned a
major general in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Army in 1789. Two years after the
Polish–Russian War of 1792 had resulted in the
Second Partition of Poland, he led
an uprising against Russia in March 1794. Russian forces captured him at the
Battle of Maciejowice, and the defeat of the uprising led to the
Third Partition in 1795, which ended Poland's independent existence for 123 years. He was pardoned by Tsar
Paul I in 1796 and emigrated to the United States. A close friend of
Thomas Jefferson, Kościuszko wrote
a will in 1798 dedicating his American assets to the education and freedom of U.S. slaves. (
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From today's featured article
Great Eastern Highway is a 590-kilometre-long (370 mi) road linking the
Western Australian capital of
Perth with the city of
Kalgoorlie. A key route for vehicles accessing the eastern
Wheatbelt and the
Goldfields, it is the western portion of the main road link between Perth and the
eastern states of Australia. The highway forms the majority of
National Highway 94, with various segments included in
other road routes.
The highway was created in the 1930s from an existing system of roads
linking Perth with the Goldfields, though the name was coined to
describe a different route from Perth to Guildford (modern-day
Guildford Road). The
Belmont section was constructed in 1867 using
convict labour, with the road base made from sections of tree trunks. Several bypasses have been constructed, including
Great Eastern Highway Bypass in Perth. Over the years the road has been upgraded, with the whole highway
sealed by 1953, segments reconstructed and widened,
dual carriageways created in Perth and Kalgoorlie, and
grade separated interchanges built at major intersections. A future route to replace its current ascent of the
Darling Scarp has been identified. (
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From today's featured article
The
cutthroat trout (
Oncorhynchus clarki) is a fish species of the
family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean,
Rocky Mountains and
Great Basin in North America. Cutthroat trout are popular
gamefish, especially among anglers who enjoy
fly fishing. The common name "cutthroat" refers to the distinctive red coloration on the underside of the
lower jaw. The
specific name clarki was given to honor explorer
William Clark, coleader of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition. Cutthroat trout usually inhabit and
spawn in small to moderately large, clear, well-
oxygenated, shallow rivers with gravel bottoms. They also reproduce in clear, cold, moderately deep lakes. They are native to the
alluvial or
freestone streams
that are typical tributaries of the Pacific basin, Great Basin and
Rocky Mountains. Cutthroat trout spawn in the spring and may
inadvertently but naturally
hybridize with rainbow trout, producing fertile
cutbows. Several subspecies of cutthroat trout are currently listed as
threatened due to
habitat loss and the
introduction of non-native species. The cutthroat trout type species and several subspecies are the
official state fish of seven western U.S. states. (
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From today's featured article
Frederick Delius (1862–1934) was an English composer. Born in the north of England to a prosperous mercantile family, he was sent to
Florida in 1884 to manage an orange plantation. Influenced by
African-American music,
he began composing. After a brief period of formal musical study in
Germany from 1886, he embarked on a full-time career as a composer in
France, living in
Grez-sur-Loing with his wife
Jelka.
His first successes came in Germany in the late 1890s; it was not until
1907 that his music regularly appeared in British concerts.
Thomas Beecham conducted the full premiere of
A Mass of Life in London in 1909, staged the opera
A Village Romeo and Juliet at
Covent Garden
in 1910, mounted a six-day Delius festival in London in 1929, and made
gramophone recordings of many works. After 1918 Delius began to suffer
the effects of
syphilis, became paralysed and blind, but completed some late compositions with the aid of
Eric Fenby.
His early compositions reflect the music he had heard in America and
Europe; later he developed a style uniquely his own. The Delius Society,
formed in 1962, promotes knowledge of his life and works, and sponsors
an annual competition for young musicians. (
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