Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 March 24

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From today's featured article

J. Robert Oppenheimer

The Oppenheimer security hearing (1954) of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) explored the background, actions and associations of J. Robert Oppenheimer (pictured). He had headed the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, where he played a key part in the Manhattan Project that developed the atomic bomb. Doubts about Oppenheimer's loyalty dated back to the 1930s, when he was associated with Communist Party USA members, including his wife and his brother. At Los Alamos and in the AEC, he was involved in bureaucratic conflict between the Army and Air Force over the types of nuclear weapons the country required, technical conflict between the scientists over the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb, and personal conflict with AEC commissioner Lewis Strauss. The panel found that he was loyal and discreet with atomic secrets, but did not recommend that his security clearance be reinstated. This ended his role in government and policymaking. He became an academic exile, cut off from his former career and the world he had helped to create. The findings were seen as fair by some and as an expression of anti-Communist McCarthyism by others. (Full article...)

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Khasi women of Meghalaya

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... that the viola da gamba player Philippe Pierlot co-founded the Ricercar Consort, which plays little-known 17th-century music?
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... that Dona Nelson, known for her two-sided paintings, was called "one of the best artists working today" by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith?
... that Operation Fa Ngum ended on the verge of mutiny?

In the news

Mahamadou Issoufou

Mahamadou Issoufou (pictured) is re-elected President of Niger amidst an opposition boycott.
At least 34 people are killed and more than 270 injured in attacks at Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station.
Independent candidate Patrice Talon is elected President of Benin.
Barack Obama becomes the first U.S. President since 1928 to visit Cuba.
In rugby union, the Six Nations Championship concludes with England winning the Grand Slam by defeating France.
A suicide bombing in Istanbul kills 5 people and injures 36 others, six days after the Ankara bombing killed 37 people.

Ongoing events:
- Zika virus outbreak
- European migrant crisis
Recent deaths:

On this day...

March 24: Purim (Judaism, 2016); World Tuberculosis Day

Exxon Valdez aground

1603 – King James VI of Scotland acceded to the thrones of England and Ireland, becoming James I of England and unifying the crowns of the kingdoms for the first time.
1869 – The last of Māori leader Titokowaru's forces surrendered to the New Zealand government, ending his uprising.
1934 – The Tydings–McDuffie Act came into effect, which provided for self-government of the Philippines and for Filipino independence from the United States after a period of ten years.
1989 – The tanker Exxon Valdez (pictured) spilled more than 10 million US gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, Alaska, causing one of the most devastating man-made environmental disasters at sea.
2015 – The co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 deliberately crashed the aircraft in a mass murder–suicide in the French Alps, killing all 150 people on board.

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Today's featured picture

A five-złoty banknote, issued by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth on 8 June 1794 under the authority of Tadeusz Kościuszko. This issue, which also included denominations of 10, 25, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 złotych, marked the currency's first use of banknotes; złoty coins had been in use since the fifteenth century.

Banknote: Kingdom of Poland; image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution

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