Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 April 30b

The Quelccaya Ice Cap (also known as the Quenamari Ice Cap) is the second-largest glaciated area in the tropics, after Coropuna. Located in the Cordillera Oriental in Peru's Andes, it covers an area of 42.8 square kilometres (16.5 sq mi) with ice up to 200 metres (660 ft) thick. It is surrounded by tall ice cliffs and a number of outlet glaciers, the largest of which is known as Qori Kalis Glacier. Quelccaya is an important source of water, eventually nourishing the Inambari and Vilcanota Rivers. It is regularly monitored and has a weather station. Quelccaya was much larger in the past, merging with neighbouring glaciers during the Pleistocene epoch. After reaching a secondary highstand (area expansion) during the Little Ice Age, Quelccaya has been shrinking due to human-caused climate change. Models predict that without aggressive climate mitigation measures, Quelccaya is likely to disappear during the 21st or 22nd century. (Full article...)

14th-century gold-ground Madonna and Child

• ... that the use of a gold background (example pictured) has been prevalent for some types of art from Europe to Japan?
• ... that Helen D'Amato was appointed to a three-year term as Malta's commissioner of children, but held the role for nearly twice as long after her term expired without a successor being designated?
• ... that because the globose octopus Bathypolypus sponsalis lives at great depths, it has large eggs, reduced gills, and no ink sac?
• ... that Gira Sarabhai and her brother Gautam were crucial in the formation of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad?
• ... that upon its completion, 400 Madison Avenue in New York City was described as one of several buildings that comprised the "Grand Canyon of midtown business"?
• ... that Captain John T. Newton commanded USS Missouri on the first crossing of the Atlantic by an American steam-powered warship, and was later court-martialed after an accidental fire sank the ship?
• ... that the 1975 book Fighting Auschwitz: The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp was the first work to discuss in detail the story of the resistance's founder, Witold Pilecki?
• ... that Rocking the Boat believes that kids are built by boats?

Michael Collins

• In Israel, at least 45 people are killed in a crowd crush at a religious festival on Mount Meron.
• American astronaut Michael Collins (pictured), the command module pilot for Apollo 11, dies at the age of 90.
• At the Academy Awards, Nomadland wins three awards, including Best Picture.
• A fire at a COVID-19 hospital in Baghdad, Iraq, kills at least 82 people.

April 30: Reunification Day in Vietnam (1975)

Mary Pickford's handprints and footprints

• 1883 – New York governor Grover Cleveland signed legislation that led to the creation of Niagara Falls State Park, the United States' first state park.
• 1927 – Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford became the first two celebrities to imprint their handprints and footprints in cement (Pickford's pictured) at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California.
• 1982 – Sixteen monks and a nun belonging to Ananda Marga in Calcutta, India, were dragged out of taxis by persons unknown in three different locations, beaten to death and then set on fire.
• 2004 – The New Yorker published an online article and photographs detailing accounts of torture and abuse by American military personnel of Iraqi prisoners held at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.