Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 January 28

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From today's featured article

Ralph Richardson (1902–1983) was an English actor who played more than sixty film roles and, along with his contemporaries John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier, dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. In 1931 he joined the Old Vic, playing mostly Shakespearean roles. He led the company the following season, succeeding Gielgud, who had taught him much about stage technique. After he left the company, a series of leading roles took him to stardom in the West End and on Broadway. In the 1940s, Richardson was the co-director of the Old Vic company. He and Olivier led the company to Europe and Broadway in 1945 and 1946. In the 1950s, in the West End and occasionally on tour, Richardson played in modern and classic works including The Heiress, Home at Seven and Three Sisters. Richardson was cast in leading roles in British and American films including Things to Come in the 1930s, The Fallen Idol and The Heiress in the 1940s, and Long Day's Journey into Night and Doctor Zhivago in the 1960s. He received nominations and awards in the UK, Europe and the US for his stage and screen work from 1948 until his sudden death at the age of eighty, and earned a posthumous Academy Award nomination for his final film, Greystoke. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that "an esoteric teaching of the science of Brahman" explains the structure of Om (pictured) and its sound?
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... that Saint Mary's Church in Jajce was the place of coronation of the last Bosnian king and later a mosque?
... that although slavery in Korea has been abolished for over a century, modern slavery is still a concern?
... that one man was the model for three of the figures representing the stages of a Scouting career in Norman Rockwell's Growth of a Leader, and the man's son was the model for the fourth?
... that the composer Aram Khachaturian was "entirely a creation of the Soviet musical and dance establishment"?
... that the Museum of Death owns the head of Bluebeard and a Kevorkian suicide machine?

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In the news

The Coalition of the Radical Left wins a plurality of seats in the Greek legislative election and forms a coalition government with the Independent Greeks.
Edgar Lungu of Patriotic Front party is elected President of Zambia.
Sumo wrestler Hakuhō Shō (pictured) wins a record-breaking 33rd makuuchi championship.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah dies and is succeeded by his half brother, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, Prime Minister Khaled Bahah, and the Yemeni cabinet resign after a coup d'état in Yemen by Shia insurgents.
At least 15 people are killed in protests against President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Ongoing: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine
Recent deaths: R. K. Laxman – Demis Roussos – Ernie Banks

On this day...

January 28

98 – Trajan (bust pictured) succeeded his adoptive father Nerva as Roman emperor; under his rule the Roman Empire would reach its maximum extent.
1077 – Pope Gregory VII lifted the excommunication of Henry IV after the Holy Roman Emperor made his trek from Speyer to Canossa Castle to beg the pope for forgiveness for his actions in the Investiture Controversy.
1821 – Alexander Island, the largest island of Antarctica, was discovered by Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen.
1933 – Choudhry Rahmat Ali published a pamphlet entitled "Now or Never" in which he called for the creation of a Muslim state in northwest India that he termed "Pakstan".
1982 – After having been kidnapped by the Italian Red Brigade 42 days earlier, General James L. Dozier of the United States Army was freed by the anti-terrorist force NOCS.

More anniversaries: January 27 – January 28 – January 29

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Today's featured picture

Bharata Natyam is a classical Indian dance which originated from the temples of Tamil Nadu and is practiced today by male and female dancers all over the world. This dance is a modern attempt to reconstruct the Sadir of the temple dancers, a form which can be traced back to the beginning of the common era. Shiva is considered the god of this dance form, which is performed here by Ranjitha Shivanna.

Photograph: Augustus Binu

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