Wikipedia article of the day for January 22, 2021

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 22, 2021 is Æthelred I, King of Wessex.
Æthelred I (845 or 848 – 871) was King of Wessex from 865 until his death. He was the fourth of five sons of King Æthelwulf. He succeeded his elder brother Æthelberht and was followed by his youngest brother, Alfred the Great. Æthelred's two infant sons were passed over for the kingship. Æthelred's accession coincided with the arrival of the Viking Great Heathen Army in England. Over the next five years the Vikings conquered Northumbria and East Anglia, before launching a full-scale attack on Wessex in late 870. In early January 871, Æthelred was defeated at the Battle of Reading. Four days later he scored a victory in the Battle of Ashdown, but this was followed by two defeats at Basing and Meretun. He died shortly after Easter. Alfred was forced to buy off the Vikings, but decisively defeated them seven years later. Æthelred's reign was important numismatically, as he adopted the Mercian Lunettes design, creating a unified coinage design for southern England for the first time.

Wikipedia article of the day for January 25, 2020

The Wikipedia article of the day for January 25, 2020 is Æthelbald, King of Wessex.
Æthelbald, King of Wessex (died 860) was the second of five sons of King Æthelwulf of Wessex. Æthelbald's elder brother Æthelstan defeated the Vikings in 850 in the first recorded sea battle in English history, and probably died in the early 850s. The next year Æthelwulf and Æthelbald inflicted another defeat on the Vikings at the Battle of Aclea. In 855 Æthelwulf went on pilgrimage to Rome and appointed Æthelbald king of Wessex, while Æthelberht, the next oldest son, became king of Kent, which had been conquered by Wessex thirty years earlier. Æthelbald refused to give up his throne when his father returned to England in 856, and continued as king either of west Wessex or the whole territory until his father died in 858. Æthelbald then married his father's widow, Judith, a great-granddaughter of Charlemagne, to the scandal of later monastic chroniclers, and ruled Wessex until his own death. Æthelberht now re-united Wessex and Kent under his sole rule and they were never again divided.