Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 September 1

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From today's featured article

Hilda Rix Nicholas, circa 1920, dressed as "the spirit of the bush"

Hilda Rix Nicholas (1884–1961) was an Australian artist. After training under leading Heidelberg School painter, Frederick McCubbin, she travelled to Europe in 1907 and studied in both London and Paris. Visiting Tangiers in 1912, she was one of the first Australians to paint post-impressionist landscapes and was made a member of the Société des Peintres Orientalistes Français. During World War I, she met and married Major George Nicholas; she spent only three days with him before he returned to duty and was killed on the Western Front. Returning to Australia, she held an exhibition of over a hundred works in Melbourne's Guild Hall. Many sold, including In Picardy, purchased by the National Gallery of Victoria. Spending the mid-1920s in Europe, she enjoyed significant success and was made an Associate of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In 1926, Rix Nicholas returned again to Australia. A staunch critic of modernism, she disdained emerging artists such as Russell Drysdale and William Dobell. She fell out of step with Australian art and her last solo show was in 1947. Her works, which portray an Australian pastoral ideal, are held in most major Australian collections. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that veterans of the South African Air Force can have their ashes interred at the South African Air Force Memorial (pictured)?
... that Will White, the first Major League Baseball player to wear glasses, holds the records of 75 complete games and 680 innings pitched in one season?
... that the Lake Murray Meteorite, discovered in 1933, is the largest Class IIAB octahedrite found in Oklahoma and the fifth largest found in the world?
... that when the telecommunications entrepreneur Robert A. Brooks had his corporate headquarters built in St. Louis, the arrangement of windows spelled out "Brooks Fiber Properties" in Morse code?
... that Abyss Odyssey took inspiration from both the Art Nouveau movement and games like the Super Smash Bros. series?
... that Susan Leeman was the first woman elected to the National Academy of Sciences in physiology and pharmacology?
... that "If It Wasn't True" from countertenor Shamir's 2014 Northtown EP was called "Your Favorite Breakup Song" by Vogue and "semidissonant pulses tickled by antsy snares and hi-hats" by Dazed?

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In the news

Hamas and Israel agree to a long-term ceasefire brokered by Egypt after seven weeks of conflict.
At the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards, Modern Family wins Outstanding Comedy Series and Breaking Bad wins Outstanding Drama Series.
A copy of the 1938 Action Comics #1 is auctioned for US$3.2 million, the highest price paid for a single issue of a comic book.
Bank of America agrees to pay more than US$16 billion for the sale of risky mortgage-backed securities before the Great Recession.
At least 72 people are killed by a series of landslides (damage pictured) in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Ukrainian conflict
Recent deaths: Richard Attenborough – U. R. Ananthamurthy

On this day...

September 1: Start of the Liturgical year (Eastern Orthodox Church); Labour Day in Canada and Labor Day in the United States (2014); Constitution Day in Slovakia

1604 – Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the religious text of Sikhism, was installed at Harmandir Sahib.
1804 – German astronomer Karl Ludwig Harding discovered one of the largest main belt asteroids, naming it Juno after the Roman goddess.
1914 – The passenger pigeon, which once had a population of at least 3 billion birds, became extinct, when the last individual (pictured) died in captivity.
1928 – Ahmet Zogu, President of the Albanian Republic, declared the country was now a constitutional monarchy and himself king with the regnal name Zog I.
1972 – American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer became the 11th World Chess Champion when he defeated Russian Boris Spassky in a match that was widely publicized as a Cold War confrontation.

More anniversaries: August 31 – September 1 – September 2

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It is now September 1, 2014 (UTC) – Reload this page

From today's featured list

Colour photograph of Rihanna singing live in 2008.

During the 2000s, 110 singles topped the UK Official Download Chart. The chart was launched on 1 September 2004 after a 10-week trial period – its first official number one was a live version of "Flying Without Wings" by Irish boy band Westlife. The most successful artist of the decade was Barbadian singer Rihanna (pictured), who featured on five different number-one singles for a total of 13 weeks, while the most successful record label was Universal Music Group, who spent 110 weeks at number one with 40 singles. The most downloaded single of the 2000s was "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. Released in 2009, the song was downloaded 779,000 times, and topped the chart for three weeks. Sales of music downloads in the UK grew significantly over the course of the 2000s. From 2004 to 2005, sales grew by 743%, and by 2007 the country had become Europe's largest consumer of online music, with almost 78 million tracks being downloaded that year. By the end of the decade this figure had nearly doubled. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Great Wave off Kanagawa is an ukiyo-e woodblock print by the Japanese artist Hokusai, published sometime between 1830 and 1833. The first print in his series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (the mountain visible in the background), it depicts a large wave threatening boats off the coast of Kanagawa Prefecture. The series was very popular when it was produced, and it is likely that the original woodblocks printed around 5,000 copies.

Print: Hokusai

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