Wikipedia:Today's featured list/October 13, 2014
The signatories of the Act of Independence of Lithuania were the twenty Lithuanian men who signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania on February 16, 1918. The signatories were elected to the Council of Lithuania by the Vilnius Conference in September 1917 and entrusted with the mission of establishing an independent Lithuanian state. The signatories succeeded in their mission and independent Lithuania existed until the Soviet Union occupied the state on June 15, 1940. The signatories comprised a wide political, professional, and social spectrum. After the declaration of Lithuania's independence the signatories continued to participate in Lithuania's public life; two of them, Antanas Smetona and Aleksandras Stulginskis, were later elected Presidents of Lithuania, and Jonas Vileišis went on to become mayor of Kaunas, the temporary capital of Lithuania. After Lithuania lost its independence during World War II, six of the surviving signatories were sent to prison or executed by the Soviet government, and six others went into exile. (Full list...)