Wikipedia:Main Page history/2012 January 7

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Today's featured article
The Entombment is a glue-size painting on linen attributed to the Early Netherlandish painter Dirk Bouts. It shows a scene from the biblical entombment of Christ, probably completed between 1440 and 1455 as a wing panel for a large hinged polyptych altarpiece. The now lost altarpiece is thought to have contained a central crucifixion scene flanked by four wing panel works half its length (two either side) depicting scenes from the life of Christ. The larger work was probably commissioned for export, possibly to a Venetian patron whose identity is lost. The Entombment was first recorded in a mid-19th century Milan inventory and has been in the National Gallery, London since its purchase on the gallery's behalf by Charles Eastlake in 1861. The Entombment is renowned for its austere but affecting portrayal of sorrow and grief. It shows four female and three male mourners grieving over the body of Christ. It is one of the few surviving 15th-century paintings created using glue-size, an extremely fragile medium lacking durability. (more...) Recently featured: Sarah Trimmer – Justus – Loggerhead sea turtle Archive – By email – More featured articles...
Did you know...
From Wikipedia's newest content: ... that James H. Horne (pictured), the first head coach of the men's basketball team at Indiana University, accidentally killed a man with a twelve-pound hammer? ... that George Harrison's 1970 song "Beware of Darkness" marked his return to the spiritual concerns of such Beatles' songs as "Within You Without You"? ... that the United States Supreme Court ruled in Cleveland v. United States that video poker licenses are not "property"? ... that the celebration of the Dodoleglime festival by the Ve people of Ghana commemorates the escape, through a town wall hole, of their ancestors from a tyrant king in Togo? ... that construction of Roosevelt High School in St. Louis, Missouri, required the removal of a cemetery, yet not all bodies were removed and local children took bones away from the work site? ... that the beach pea was used in traditional Hawaiian medicine to treat wounds? Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

In the news
Portia Simpson-Miller Two people are convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the crime that led to a landmark change in UK double jeopardy law. Christopher Loeak is elected President of the Marshall Islands. Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan, and Togo join the UN Security Council as non-permanent members. Scores of people are killed and 20,000 more displaced by inter-tribal fighting in Pibor, South Sudan, despite the presence of UN peacekeepers. The People's National Party, led by Portia Simpson-Miller (pictured), wins a majority in the Jamaican general election. Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...
On this day...
January 7: Christmas (Julian calendar); Victory Day in Cambodia; Flag Day in Italy 1797 – The first official Italian tricolour (pictured) was adopted by the government of the Cispadane Republic. 1940 – Winter War: The outnumbered Finnish 9th Division decisively defeated Soviet forces on the Raate-Suomussalmi road. 1979 – The Vietnam People's Army captured the Cambodian capital city Phnom Penh, deposing Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, which marked the end of large-scale fighting in the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. 1993 – The Fourth Republic of Ghana was inaugurated with Jerry Rawlings as its president. 2010 – Muslim gunmen opened fire on a crowd of Coptic Christians leaving church after celebrating a midnight Christmas Mass, killing eight of them as well as one Muslim bystander. More anniversaries: January 6 – January 7 – January 8 Archive – By email – List of historical anniversaries It is now January 7, 2012 (UTC) – Refresh this page

Today's featured picture

The main circuits of the basal ganglia, a group of nuclei in the brains of vertebrates that act as a cohesive functional unit. Shown here are two coronal slices that have been superimposed to include the involved basal ganglia structures. + and − signs at the point of the arrows indicate respectively whether the pathway is excitatory or inhibitory in effect.

Excitatory glutamatergic pathways

Inhibitory GABAergic pathways

Dopaminergic pathways that are excitatory on the direct pathway and inhibitory on the indirect pathway

Image: Mikael Häggström

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