Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 February 24

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Æthelberht was King of Kent from about 589 until his death on 24 February 616. Bede lists him in the Ecclesiastical History of the English People as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and he is called a bretwalda or "Britain-ruler" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Æthelberht's law, the earliest written code in any Germanic language, instituted a complex system of fines. Coins may have begun to circulate in Kent during his reign for the first time since the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain. His marriage to Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, built an alliance with the most powerful Western European state. Æthelberht became the first English king to convert to Christianity, shortly after the arrival of Pope Gregory I's missionary Augustine in 597. Churches were established, and wider-scale conversion to the religion began in the kingdom. Æthelberht provided the new church with land in Canterbury, thus establishing one of the foundation stones of what ultimately became the Anglican church. He later came to be regarded as a saint; his feast day is 25 February. (Full article...)

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In the news

Cyclone Winston on February 20

In motorsport, Denny Hamlin wins the Daytona 500 by 0.01 seconds, the closest margin in the race's history.
Cyclone Winston (satellite image pictured), the strongest tropical cyclone on record to strike Fiji, kills at least forty-two people.
Yoweri Museveni claims a fifth term as President of Uganda, in an election some international observers have criticised as flawed.
A bombing in Ankara, Turkey, kills at least twenty-eight people and injures more than sixty others.
The Revenant wins five awards, including Best Film and Best Director, at the British Academy Film Awards.

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

On this day...

February 24: Independence Day in Estonia (1918); Flag Day in Mexico; National Artist Day in Thailand

Swaminarayan Mandir

1525 – A Spanish-Imperial army defeated a French force in the Battle of Pavia, the decisive engagement of the Italian War of 1521–26.
1711 – George Frideric Handel's Rinaldo, the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage, premiered.
1822 – The first Swaminarayan temple, Swaminarayan Mandir (pictured) in present-day Ahmedabad, India, was inaugurated.
1946 – Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina.
2006 – Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of emergency in an attempt to subdue a possible military coup.

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Today's featured picture

Howard Thurston (1869–1936) was a stage magician from Columbus, Ohio. After an unhappy childhood, he ran away to join the circus, where his future partner Harry Kellar also performed. Thurston was deeply impressed after he attended magician Alexander Herrmann's magic show and was determined to equal his work. He eventually became the most famous magician of his time, with a show so large that eight train cars were required to transport it.

Lithograph: Strobridge Litho. Co.; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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