Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 April 17

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From today's featured article

"Spinning Around" is the lead single from Light Years (2000), Kylie Minogue's seventh studio album. The disco-influenced dance-pop song addresses the theme of reinvention, with Minogue (pictured performing the song) claiming that she has changed as a person and learned from the past. Released in June 2000, it received favourable reviews from music critics, who regarded it as one of the album's highlights and praised Minogue for returning to her signature musical style. The song was a commercial success and became Minogue's "comeback" single following the critical and commercial disappointment of her sixth studio album Impossible Princess (1997). It entered the Australian Singles Chart at number one, becoming the singer's first chart-topper since "Confide in Me" (1994). The song also debuted at number one in the United Kingdom, and was her first UK number-one single since 1990. The accompanying music video features Minogue dancing and enjoying herself in a disco. It became popular for the gold hotpants she sported in most of the scenes and led to a media "fetish" regarding her bottom. "Spinning Around" has been performed by Minogue during most of her concert tours. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Herbert Garland (pictured) taught Lawrence of Arabia how to use explosives?
... that Li Xueqin, considered in China to be "the most important historian working today", never finished college?
... that the Assembly of Delvino ratified the Protocol of Corfu in 1914, which gave Northern Epirus autonomy inside Albania?
... that Victorian polymath Gordon Smith was a rower, mathematician, barrister, major and freemason who formed the finest collection of mint stamps of South Australia of his day?"
... that Argentine actor Alfredo Alcón read Richard III by William Shakespeare at the age of 11?
... that ghost craters on Mercury contain both graben and wrinkle ridges?

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In the news

A ferry carrying more than 450 people capsizes near Jindo Island off South Korea, leaving at least 9 dead and more than 280 missing.
The Supreme Court of India recognises a legal third gender for hijra and transgender individuals.
A total lunar eclipse (pictured) is visible across the Pacific Ocean and the Americas.
The Washington Post and The Guardian share the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, for coverage of the NSA surveillance disclosures.
Twin bomb blasts in Abuja, Nigeria, kill at least 75 people and injure more than 140 others.

Recent deaths: Owen Woodhouse – Brian Harradine

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On this day...

April 17: Maundy Thursday (Christianity, 2014); Evacuation Day in Syria (1946)

1907 – Brazil became the third country in the world to start construction on a dreadnought battleship (pictured), sparking a vastly expensive South American naval arms race.
1942 – World War II: Captured French General Henri Giraud escaped from German captivity in the Königstein Castle.
1969 – Sirhan Sirhan was convicted of the assassination of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy.
1975 – The Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot captured Phnom Penh, ending the Cambodian Civil War, and established Democratic Kampuchea.
1984 – British police officer Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed while on duty during a protest outside the Libyan embassy in London's St James's Square, resulting in an eleven-day police siege of the building and a breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two nations.

More anniversaries: April 16 – April 17 – April 18

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Today's featured picture

Judith Leyster (1609–60), depicted here in a c. 1630 self-portrait, was a Dutch Golden Age painter who mostly made genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Born in Haarlem, she had begun painting by the age of twenty. By 1633 she had joined the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, the first woman to become a member. In 1646 she married Jan Miense Molenaer; only two of her works are known to have been completed after this marriage.

Painting: Judith Leyster

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