Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 August 22

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From today's featured article

Maus is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Art Spiegelman (pictured in 2007), serialized from 1980 to 1991. It depicts Spiegelman interviewing his father, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. The book is self-referential and postmodern—most strikingly in its depiction of Jews as mice, Germans as cats, and non-Jewish Poles as pigs. The narrative consists mostly of flashbacks to the war years, framed by the interview that takes place in 1978 in the Rego Park section of New York City. Much of the story revolves around Spiegelman's troubled relationship with his father, and the impact of his mother's suicide when he was 20. The book uses a minimalist drawing style with innovative page and panel layouts, pacing, and structure. Maus was serialized as an insert in Raw, an avant-garde comics and graphics magazine published by Spiegelman and his wife, Françoise Mouly. It was one of the first graphic novels to receive significant academic attention in the English-speaking world, and in 1992 became the first to win a Pulitzer Prize. (Full article...)

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Wendhausen Windmill

... that weddings were first performed in Wendhausen Windmill (pictured) in 2001?
... that a blue plaque dedicated to George Livesey describes him as "one of Southwark's greatest industrialists"?
... that the greater guinea pig is semi-aquatic and has webs between its toes?
... that Johannes Wiese was the 45th Luftwaffe pilot to claim 100 aerial victories?
... that the house of Argentine journalist Jorge Lanata was stoned and apparently shot at after he aired interviews about the 2008 triple crime?
... that after winning three national championships with the UCLA Bruins, John Ecker played basketball overseas and married German Olympic gold medalist Heide Rosendahl?
... that the Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Oman and Central Arabia is considered "the most important single source of historical material on the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia"?
... that Aage Bohr and Niels Bohr are one of four pairs of fathers and sons who have won the Nobel Prize in Physics?

In the news

Jason Day

A bomb explosion in Bangkok, Thailand, kills 20 people and injures more than 120 others.
In golf, Jason Day (pictured) wins the PGA Championship.
The Netball World Cup concludes with Australia defeating New Zealand in the final.
Trigana Air Service Flight 257 crashes in Papua, Indonesia, killing all 54 passengers and crew.
Mathematicians at the University of Washington Bothell discover a new type of pentagon tiling, the first new way to "tile the plane" with a single polygon since 1985.

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On this day...

August 22: Feast day of the Queenship of Mary (Roman Catholic Church); Madras Day in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

Chennai skyline

1138 – English forces repelled a Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in Yorkshire.
1639 – The East India Company bought a small strip of land on what is today Chennai (modern skyline pictured), the capital city of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, from the King of the Vijayanagara Empire, Peda Venkata Raya.
1791 – A slave rebellion erupted in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, starting the Haitian Revolution.
1910 – Japan annexed Korea with the signing of the Japan–Korea Annexation Treaty, beginning a period of Japanese rule of Korea that lasted until the end of World War II.
2012 – A series of ethnic clashes between the Orma and Pokomo tribes of Kenya's Tana River District resulted in the deaths of at least 52 people.

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Today's featured picture

A panoramic view of the Bryce Amphitheater in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah, as seen from Sunrise Point. It is the largest amphitheater in the park, measuring 12 miles (19 km) long, 3 miles (4.8 km) wide and 800 feet (240 m) deep. Bryce Canyon National Park, which was designated a National Park in 1928, consists of numerous natural amphitheaters and is distinguished by its hoodoos.

Photograph: Tuxyso

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