Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 28

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From today's featured article

Faltonia Betitia Proba holding a scroll with the beginning of her Cento

Cento Vergilianus de laudibus Christi is a fourth-century Latin poem arranged by Faltonia Betitia Proba after her conversion to Christianity. A cento rearranges verses written by other poets; this one repurposes Virgil to tell stories from the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible. Much of the work focuses on the story of Jesus Christ. The poem was widely circulated, eventually being used in schools to teach the tenets of Christianity, often alongside Augustine of Hippo's De Doctrina Christiana. Although the poem was popular, critical reception was mixed. A pseudonymous work purportedly by Pope Gelasius I disparaged the poem, deeming it apocryphal, and St. Jerome may have written disapprovingly of it, and of Proba. Other thinkers like Isidore of Seville, Petrarch, and Giovanni Boccaccio wrote highly of her, and many praised her ingenuity. During the 19th and 20th centuries the poem was considered a work of poor quality, but recent scholars have held it in higher regard. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Star singers in 2014

... that "Stern über Bethlehem" is a German song created in 1964 and often sung by star singers (pictured)?
... that Wang Zhongyu was one of China's most powerful figures in the 1990s, with authority over reforming state-owned enterprises?
... that over seven hours of rain delays resulted in the 1998 NAPA 500 becoming the first night race held at Atlanta Motor Speedway?
... that Rome's first emperor, Augustus, adopted his grandsons Lucius and Gaius?
... that Bill Dubuque's scripts for The Judge and The Accountant were both featured on the Black List of the best unproduced screenplays in Hollywood?
... that larvae of the firefly Luciola substriata swim upside down?
... that the Prospect House at Blue Mountain Lake in New York was the first hotel anywhere to be equipped with electric lighting in all the guest rooms?
... that the Welsh footballer Syd Thomas impressed Fulham so much in a trial match that he was offered a contract at half-time?

In the news

A bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills at least 102 people and injures nearly 200 others.
In Miryang, South Korea, a hospital fire kills 37 people and injures more than 130 others.
Chinese scientists announce the creation of two identical monkeys, the first primates to be cloned using the SCNT technique.
The former team doctor for USA Gymnastics, Larry Nassar, is sentenced to at least 40 years in prison for sexually abusing more than 150 gymnasts.
Rocket Lab's Electron becomes the first rocket to reach orbit using an electric pump-fed engine.

On this day...

January 28

Lego bricks

1568 – Delegates of the Three Nations of Transylvania adopted the Edict of Torda, allowing local communities to freely elect their preachers in an unprecedented act of religious tolerance.
1813 – The novel Pride and Prejudice by English author Jane Austen was published, using material from an unpublished manuscript that she originally wrote between 1796 and 1797.
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".
1958 – The Lego Group, a Danish toy company, patented the design of Lego bricks (pictured).
1984 – Tropical Storm Domoina made landfall in southern Mozambique, causing some of the most severe flooding recorded in the region.

Paul Luther (b. 1533) · Colette (b. 1873) · Crew of Space Shuttle Challenger (d. 1986)

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Today's featured picture

Rho Ophiuchi is a multiple star system in the constellation Ophiuchus. The central system has an apparent magnitude of 4.63. Based on the central system's parallax of 9.03 mas, it is located about 360 light-years (110 parsecs) away. The other stars in the system are slightly farther away.

Photograph: Rogelio Bernal Andreo

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