Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 December 29

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From today's featured article

Qatna's royal palace

Qatna is an ancient city in Syria whose remains are about 18 km (11 mi) northeast of Homs near the village of al-Mishrifeh. It was an important center in the second millennium BC and in the first half of the first millennium BC, with one of the largest royal palaces of Bronze Age Syria. An intact royal tomb has provided data on the funerary habits of that period. First inhabited in the second half of the fourth millennium BC, it was repopulated around 2800 BC and continued to grow. Around 2000 BC, it became the capital of a regional kingdom that spread its authority over the central and southern Levant. By the 15th century BC, Qatna had lost its hegemony and was under the authority of Mitanni. It was conquered and sacked by the Hittites in the late 14th century BC and abandoned by the 13th century BC. It was re-inhabited in the 10th century BC, becoming a center of the kingdoms of Palistin and Hamath until it was destroyed by the Assyrians in 720 BC, eventually disappearing in the 6th century BC. The site has been excavated since the 1920s. As a result of the Syrian Civil War, excavations stopped in 2011. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Millet butterflyfish

... that the millet butterflyfish (pictured) and the bluestripe butterflyfish are both endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and nearby atolls?
... that Darnell Hunt, Dean of Social Sciences at UCLA, believes Hollywood should use the Rooney Rule to increase the share of African-American writers?
... that scientific research demonstrates that perspective-taking may lead to reduced stereotyping?
... that Hans Otto Jung was a jazz musician during World War II, ran a winery from the Boosenburg, and was co-founder of the Rheingau Musik Festival?
... that Australia has the earliest mineral grains of Earth's history in the form of Hadean zircons?
... that Perry Askam was the only professional singer in the Hollywood musical Sweet Kitty Bellairs?
... that FVB Mice are used for genetic research because they produce large litters and their eggs have enlarged nuclei?
... that British logistics in the Falklands War depended on ships that were STUFT?

In the news

Carles Puigdemont

Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than two hundred people and leaving dozens of others missing.
In the Catalan election, pro-independence parties, spearheaded by the exiled Carles Puigdemont (pictured), secure a majority.
Sebastián Piñera is elected President of Chile for a second time.
In the United States, an Amtrak Cascades passenger train derails in DuPont, Washington, killing three people and injuring more than seventy others.
Incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández is declared the winner of the Honduran presidential election, with the Organization of American States calling for a new vote amidst widespread irregularities.

On this day...

December 29

Sun Yat-sen

1845 – The Republic of Texas was annexed by the United States, becoming the 28th state admitted into the union.
1860 – To counter the French Navy's Gloire, the world's first ironclad warship, the British Royal Navy launched the world's first iron-hulled armoured battleship, HMS Warrior.
1911 – Sun Yat-sen (pictured) was elected in Nanjing as the Provisional President of the Republic of China.
1975 – A bomb set by unknown perpetrators at LaGuardia Airport in New York City exploded, killing 11 people and seriously injuring 74 others.
1997 – In order to prevent the spread of the H5N1 flu virus, the Hong Kong government began the slaughter of 1.3 million chickens.

Stephen Bocskai (d. 1606) · Womesh Chunder Bonnerjee (b. 1844) · Twinkle Khanna (b. 1974)

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From today's featured list

Jessica Lange

The award nominations received by American Horror Story, a horror television series, include fifteen Critics' Choice Television Awards (four wins), seventy-eight Emmy Awards (fifteen wins), nine Golden Globe Awards (two wins), three People's Choice Awards (one win), eleven Satellite Awards (three wins), and sixteen Saturn Awards. American Horror Story is created and produced by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, and broadcast on the cable television channel FX in the United States. Described as an anthology series, each season is conceived as a self-contained miniseries, following a disparate set of characters and settings, and a storyline with its own "beginning, middle, and end". Actress Jessica Lange (pictured), who was featured in the first four seasons, has won the most awards of the franchise, including the Primetime Emmy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance. Lange, James Cromwell, and Kathy Bates each won an Emmy. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

An Old Man and his Grandson is a tempera painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Domenico Ghirlandaio completed c. 1490. It portrays an older man in a red robe, embracing a young child whose hand is on his chest. The deformity of the man's nose, evidence of rhinophyma, is at variance with the physiognomic theory of the era, as it is seen not as implying a defect of character but as inviting an appreciation of the man's virtuousness. Critics have noted an emotional undercurrent in the work; according to art historian Bernard Berenson, "There is no more human picture in the entire range of Quattrocento painting, whether in or out of Italy."

Painting: Domenico Ghirlandaio

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