Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 July 13

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From today's featured article

Novel from which Si Tjonat was adapted

Si Tjonat is a 1929 bandit film from the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). The silent film was directed by Nelson Wong and produced by Wong and Jo Eng Sek. It was shot in black and white and starred Ku Fung May and Herman Sim. Based on the novel (cover pictured) by F. D. J. Pangemanann, it follows an indigenous man who flees to Batavia (today Jakarta) and becomes a bandit after killing his fellow villager. After kidnapping an ethnic Chinese woman, he is defeated and brought to justice. The story had proved popular with ethnic Chinese readers and was often adapted to the stage by Betawi troupes as a lenong stage performance, but the film received mixed reviews. Although it was intended as a serial, no sequel was ever made; the production house, Batavia Motion Picture, closed soon afterwards. Several works in the same genre as Si Tjonat were released, including Si Pitoeng in 1931, which used the same director and star. The film has probably been lost. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Marie Hassenpflug

... that stories by Marie Hassenpflug (pictured) were a source for the Brothers Grimm fairy tales "Little Red Riding Hood", "Sleeping Beauty", and possibly "Snow White"?
... that the Chinese policy of Five Fingers of Tibet considers Tibet to be China's right-hand palm, with five fingers—Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh—that must be "liberated"?
... that amid the George Floyd protests, New York City implemented its first nighttime curfew since the Harlem riot of 1943?
... that most Nepali families disapprove of inter-caste marriage because they are afraid of becoming social outcasts?
... that Seraph Young Ford was the first American woman to cast a vote under a women's equal-suffrage law?
... that army ambulances were deployed during the 1989–90 British ambulance strike?
... that Stanley Matthews vowed to never work in management again after one year as Port Vale F.C. manager?
... that the Stanford Fleet Street Singers perform a medley of songs called the "Greatest Hits of the 1590s"?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic

Lee Hsien Loong

In the Singaporean general election, Lee Hsien Loong (pictured) is re-elected Prime Minister as his People's Action Party retains its supermajority.
Bulgaria and Croatia join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism 2, the first major step in their adoption of the euro.
A bus plunges into a reservoir in Anshun, China, killing 21 people and injuring 16.
Floods in Kyushu, Japan, kill more than 60 people.

On this day

July 13

Wallachian copy of Regulamentul Organic

1260 – Livonian Crusade: Samogitian forces decisively defeated Teutonic knights and the Livonian Order at the Battle of Durbe.
1831 – Wallachian officials adopted Regulamentul Organic (cover shown), which engendered a period of unprecedented reforms that provided for the Westernization of the local society.
1942 – World War II: The 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment was converted from a battalion to accommodate a larger number of volunteers spurred on by the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
2003 – French DGSE personnel aborted an operation to rescue Colombian politician Íngrid Betancourt from FARC guerrillas, later causing a political scandal when details were leaked to the press.

Giulio d'Este (b. 1478)
Stan Coveleski (b. 1889)
Liu Xiaobo (d. 2017)

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From today's featured list

St Mary's Church

There are 53 Grade I listed buildings in Sedgemoor, 14 of which are on Castle Street, Bridgwater. Sedgemoor is a local government district in the English county of Somerset. In the United Kingdom, the term listed building refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance; Grade I structures are those considered to be "buildings of exceptional interest". From 1723 to 1728, Castle Street was built on the site of the demolished Bridgwater Castle, as homes for the merchants trading in the town's port. Outside the town of Bridgwater, the largest concentration of Grade I listed buildings are in the village of Cannington, where the 12th-century Cannington Court and 14th-century St Mary's Church (pictured) were both associated with a Benedictine nunnery. Most of the Grade I listed buildings in Sedgemoor are Norman- or medieval-era churches, many of which are included in the Somerset towers, a collection of distinctive, mostly spireless Gothic church towers. (Full list...)

Part of the Grade I listed buildings in Somerset series, one of Wikipedia's featured topics.

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Today's featured picture

Parthenos sylvia, commonly known as the clipper, is a species of nymphalid butterfly found in forested areas of southern and southeastern Asia. This butterfly, photographed in Kerala, India, is puddling in a film of shallow water at the edge of a stream. Puddling is a behavior whereby butterflies, and some other insects, suck up fluids from mud, carrion, excrement, or rotting plant material, in order to fulfil their physiological needs for certain minerals and amino acids. When the conditions are suitable, butterflies commonly form conspicuous aggregations on wet soil, and some species are also attracted to body fluids such as sweat or tears.

Photograph credit: Jeevan Jose

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