Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 July 13

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From today's featured article

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 American computer-animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi (pictured), creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer-animated feature film and remains the most expensive film inspired by a video game of all time. Featuring the voices of Ming-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin, Donald Sutherland, James Woods, Ving Rhames, Peri Gilpin and Steve Buscemi, The Spirits Within follows scientists Aki Ross (Wen) and Doctor Sid (Sutherland) in their efforts to free a post-apocalyptic Earth from the Phantoms, a mysterious and deadly alien race. Square Pictures' staff of 200 rendered the film using some of the most advanced processing capabilities available at the time, taking about four years to complete it. The film debuted to mixed critical reception, but was widely praised for the realism of the computer-animated characters. It greatly exceeded its original budget, costing $137 million and recovering only $85 million at the box office. The film has been called a box office bomb and is blamed for the demise of Square Pictures. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

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... that Šime Budinić created a version of Latin script, based on the Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts, to make Church writings accessible to 16th-century Southern Slavs?
... that Mariana Fabbiani and Guido Kaczka, hosts of the 45th Martín Fierro Awards ceremony, received awards of their own during the event?
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... that it is unclear who first used Franz Wilhelm Ferling's oboe études for the study of the saxophone?
... that the titular character of Simon Vestdijk's 1934 novel Terug tot Ina Damman, the third in the Anton Wachter cycle, was based on a girl who rejected the writer at age 14?

In the news

In tennis, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams win the Wimbledon singles titles.
Drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán (pictured) escapes from a Mexican federal prison for the second time, resulting in a manhunt.
In association football, the Women's World Cup concludes with the United States defeating Japan in the final, and the Copa América concludes with Chile defeating Argentina in the final.
Nicholas Winton, dubbed the "British Schindler" for saving more than 600 children – the majority Jewish – from the Nazis, dies at the age of 106.
More than 140 people are killed when a Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashes into a residential area of Medan, Indonesia.

Ongoing events:
- Greek debt crisis
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On this day...

July 13

1260 – The Livonian Order suffered its greatest defeat in the 13th century in the Battle of Durbe against the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
1793 – Charlotte Corday (pictured) assassinated Jean-Paul Marat, a leader in both the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, in his bathtub.
1941 – The Communist Party of Yugoslavia initiated a general and popular uprising against Italian occupation forces in Montenegro that was suppressed within six weeks.
1977 – Ethiopia and Somalia went to war over the disputed Ogaden region in eastern Ethiopia.
2011 – Three coordinated bombings across Mumbai, India, killed 26 victims and injured 130 more.

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From today's featured list

The works of the British writer Sax Rohmer include songs, sketches, plays and stories. After attempting careers in the civil service, as well as the banking, journalism and gas industries, Rohmer began writing comic songs, monologues and sketches for music hall performers, including Little Tich and George Robey. Rohmer's first book was Pause!, a series of sketches conceived by Robey and written by Rohmer, which was published anonymously in 1910; his second book was the ghost-written biography of Little Tich, published with Tich's real name, Harry Relph. In 1913 The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu was published, a novel that introduced Fu Manchu, described by Rohmer as "the yellow peril incarnate in one man"; the book brought the author popularity and wealth. In total he wrote 15 Fu Manchu books and although he killed the character off more than once, public pressure demanded his return. Fu Manchu is the character with which Rohmer "remains most strongly identified", and was described by Rohmer's biographer Will Murray as one of the literary characters that "has achieved universal acceptance and popularity which will not be forgotten". From 1951 onwards Rohmer published five novels with Sumuru as the central protagonist; she was a female conterpart of Fu Manchu, and the novels were both popular and successful. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The red-bearded bee-eater (Nyctyornis amictus) is a large species of bee-eater found in the Indo-Malayan subregion of South-East Asia. This colorful species feeds predominantly on insects.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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