Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 July 20

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From today's featured article

Chris Cornell; July 20, 1964 – May 18, 2017

Chris Cornell in 2011

Audioslave was an American rock supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 2001. The four-piece band consisted of Chris Cornell, Soundgarden's lead singer and rhythm guitarist (pictured), and Rage Against the Machine members Tom Morello (lead guitar), Tim Commerford (bass and backing vocals), and Brad Wilk (drums). Their sound was created by blending 1970s hard rock with 1990s alternative rock, using only guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. The group released three albums, received three Grammy nominations, and became the first American rock band to perform an open-air concert in Cuba. They disbanded in February 2007 when Cornell announced he was leaving "due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences". The 2007 Rage Against the Machine reunion and tour involving the rest of the band cemented the supergroup's demise, as did the solo albums released that same year by Morello and Cornell. The group announced a reunion in January 2017, and performed together for the first time in over a decade at Prophets of Rage's Anti-Inaugural Ball. Cornell died in May 2017. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Church of St. Augustine ruins

... that the supposed relics of Georgian saint Ketevan the Martyr were retrieved from the ruins of the Church of St. Augustine (pictured) in Goa?
... that Frank J. Canova has been described as the inventor of the smartphone?
... that Mayda Insula on Titan is the first named island beyond the Earth?
... that among the Tuareg people, men traditionally wear a veil called a litham or tagulmust, while women go unveiled?
... that the 2016 "slashomedy" Pi Day Die Day stars Friday the 13th actor Ari Lehman?
... that Jammu and Kashmir education minister Naeem Akhtar installed a helpline to his personal office to hear complaints?
... that the New York City Subway G train is the only non-shuttle service that does not run through Manhattan?
... that at a 1999 performance of Savuka's anti-apartheid song "Asimbonanga", former South African President Nelson Mandela danced on stage?

In the news

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, former President of Brazil

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva

Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, the first woman to receive the Fields Medal, dies at the age of 40.
Liu Xiaobo, a Chinese pro-democracy activist, political prisoner and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, dies at the age of 61.
Former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (pictured) is sentenced to nearly ten years in prison over the Operation Car Wash corruption scandal.
A giant iceberg, covering approximately 5,800 km² (2,200 sq mi), breaks away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
After covering 450 kilometres (280 mi), the Turkish March for Justice concludes in Istanbul at a rally attended by hundreds of thousands of people.

On this day...

July 20: Independence Day in Colombia (1810)

The Niépce brothers' Pyréolophore

1779 – Tekle Giyorgis I began the first of his six reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.
1807 – French brothers Claude and Nicéphore Niépce received a patent for their Pyréolophore (diagram pictured), one of the world's first internal combustion engines.
1944 – Adolf Hitler survived an assassination attempt by German Resistance member Claus von Stauffenberg, who hid a bomb inside a briefcase during a conference at the Wolfsschanze military headquarters in East Prussia.
1987 – United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 was adopted, calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Iran–Iraq War.
1997 – After being fully restored, USS Constitution, one of the United States Navy's first ships, sailed for the first time in 116 years.

Gregor Mendel (b. 1822) · Miron Cristea (b. 1868) · Amanda Clement (d. 1971)

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Today's featured picture

The domed ceiling of Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, a 17th-century mosque located on the eastern side of Naqsh-e Jahan Square in Isfahan, Iran. The eight-fold symmetry of the dome's interior is created by rings of ornamental bands filled with arabesque patterns that become smaller and smaller towards the top. Such use of symmetry is common in Islamic architecture, which tends to emphasize aniconism through its use of geometric patterns and calligraphy.

Photograph: Phillip Maiwald

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