Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 March 7

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From today's featured article

"S&M" is a song by Barbadian singer Rihanna (pictured) from her fifth studio album, Loud (2010). The song was released in January 2011 as the fourth single from the album. Written by the American songwriter Ester Dean in collaboration with its producers StarGate and Sandy Vee, "S&M" borrows from Depeche Mode's 1984 song "Master and Servant". The lyrics make reference to sadomasochism, bondage, and fetishes. The song reached number two on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaked at number one in Australia, Canada, and Poland, and reached the top five in France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, and the UK. Critical response was mixed; some praised its sound and composition while others criticized its overtly sexual lyrics. An accompanying music video that portrays softcore sadomasochistic acts and fetishes was banned in many countries and restricted to nighttime television in others. Critics complimented Rihanna's sensuality and the vibrant colors. Photographer David LaChapelle filed a lawsuit alleging that the video incorporates ideas from his photographs. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the driver killed in the Valhalla train crash (wreckage pictured)—the deadliest in Metro-North Railroad's history—had her Mercedes-Benz ML350 on the tracks for about 30 seconds before the train struck it?
... that on 11 September 2002 Andrew Dallmeyer premiered a one-man show in which he played Osama bin Laden as a shopping-mall Santa Claus?
... that the ICMEC and NCMEC's Global Missing Children's Network assists investigations across 22 participating countries?
... that when Yale professor Kang-i Sun Chang was a young girl, her father was imprisoned in Taiwan and her grandfather committed suicide in China?
... that when the Church of All Saints in Chipstable, Somerset, was rebuilt in 1869, it reused stone from the original church as much as possible?
... that Kimberly Bryant founded Black Girls Code, an organization that aims to teach one million African-American girls to code by 2040?
... that following its capture at the Battle of Mykonos in 1794, the French frigate Sibylle became "one of the finest frigates" of the Royal Navy?
... that Sports Illustrated stated that former Alabama State center Chief Kickingstallionsims had one of the greatest names in sports?

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In the news

NASA's Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres (pictured).
The Iraqi government reports that the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud has been destroyed by ISIL, who claimed it was blasphemous.
Pakalitha Mosisili forms a coalition government following a snap election in Lesotho.
The wreck of the Japanese battleship Musashi is discovered in the Sibuyan Sea of the Philippines.
The Reform Party wins the Estonian parliamentary election.
Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov is assassinated in Moscow.
The U.S. Federal Communications Commission votes to reclassify Internet broadband as a utility, enforcing net neutrality rules.

Ongoing: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine
Recent deaths: Dave Mackay – Minnie Miñoso – Yaşar Kemal

On this day...

March 7

321 – Emperor Constantine I decreed that Sunday, the day honoring the sun god Sol Invictus, would be the Roman day of rest.
1871 – José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, became Prime Minister of the Empire of Brazil, starting a four-year rule, the longest in the state's history.
1945 – World War II: In Operation Lumberjack, Allied forces seized the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine, enabling them to establish and expand a lodgement on German soil that changed the entire nature of the conflict on the Western Front.
1965 – African-American Civil Rights Movement: Civil rights demonstrators marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, were brutally attacked by police (pictured) on Bloody Sunday.
1985 – The charity single "We Are the World" by the supergroup USA for Africa was released, and would go on to sell over 20 million copies.

More anniversaries: March 6 – March 7 – March 8

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It is now March 7, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

Fantasia, also known as lab el baroud ("the gunpowder play"), is a traditional exhibition of horsemanship in the Maghreb region of North Africa. A group of horse riders, all wearing traditional clothes, charge along a straight path at the same speed before firing into the sky using old muskets or muzzle-loading rifles at the end of the charge. It is considered to symbolize a strong relationship between the man and the horse.

Photograph: Maxim Massalitin

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