Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 August 21

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From today's featured article

Hillary Clinton (born 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, lawyer, and writer. She was First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001, a U.S. senator from New York from 2001 to 2009, and the 67th secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. As a Democrat running in the 2016 presidential election, she became the first woman to receive the nomination of a major U.S. political party. Clinton was raised in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge. She graduated from Wellesley College, and in 1973 earned a law degree from Yale, where she met future president Bill Clinton; they married in 1975. She was appointed the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. As U.S. secretary of state in the Obama administration, Clinton helped organize international sanctions against Iran in an effort to curtail that country's nuclear program, leading to the multinational Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement in 2015. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Pampa mesa in Parcoloma, Ecuador

... that indigenous people in the Ecuadorian highlands sometimes mark special occasions with a pampa mesa (pictured), a communal meal eaten from a cloth spread on the ground?
... that Helen Appo Cook, an African-American activist, publicly admonished Susan B. Anthony in 1898 for failing to support universal suffrage?
... that "Let Nature Sing", a single consisting of nothing but unedited bird song, reached number one on the UK Singles Sales Chart?
... that a prize for contemporary art of Styria is named after Viktor Fogarassy, the managing director of a department store?
... that Manresa Island in Connecticut was used by the Jesuits as a retreat center before being developed as an electrical power plant?
... that Japanese voice actress Kanon Takao won an international piano competition when she was ten years old?
... that it is not known whether larvae of Deretaphrus beetles spin their cocoons from their mouths or anal glands?
... that Australian rules footballer Callum Wilkie, who had been overlooked in four previous national drafts, was working as an accountant when he was selected by St Kilda?

In the news

Ural Airlines Airbus A321 in 2013

At least 80 people are killed in a bombing at a wedding in Kabul, Afghanistan.
All 233 people on board Ural Airlines Flight 178 (aircraft pictured) survive a crash following bird strikes in both engines of an Airbus A321.
Typhoon Lekima impacts the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and East China, killing at least 80 people.
At least 75 people are killed and more than 50 others injured in a fuel tanker truck explosion in Morogoro, Tanzania.

On this day

August 21

Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas

1689 – Jacobite risings: Jacobites supporting James VII of Scotland clashed with a regiment of Covenanters supporting William of Orange, in the streets of Dunkeld.
1858 – The first of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (both pictured), candidates for an Illinois seat in the U.S. Senate, was held in Ottawa, Illinois.
1944 – World War II: A combined Canadian–Polish force captured the strategically important town of Falaise, France, in the final offensive of the Battle of Normandy.
1963 – The Army of the Republic of Vietnam Special Forces raided and vandalised Buddhist pagodas across the country, arresting thousands and leaving hundreds dead.
1969 – An Australian tourist set the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on fire, a major catalyst of the formation of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

Baldwin II of Jerusalem (d. 1131) · Emily Tinne (b. 1886) · Emma Mashinini (b. 1929)

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Today's featured picture

The solar eclipse of August 21, 2017, was a total solar eclipse visible within a band that spanned the entire contiguous United States, passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. As a partial solar eclipse, it was visible on land from Nunavut in northern Canada to as far south as northern South America. In Africa and northwestern Europe, it was partially visible in the late evening. In Asia, it was visible only at the eastern extremity, the Chukchi Peninsula. Prior to this event, no solar eclipse had been visible across the entire contiguous United States since June 8, 1918; not since the February 1979 eclipse had a total eclipse been visible from anywhere in the mainland United States. The path of totality, up to about 70 miles (110 km) wide, touched 14 states, while the rest of the U.S. experienced a partial eclipse.

This picture shows the solar eclipse during totality as seen from outside Crowheart, Wyoming. The image is a composite of multiple exposures, bracketed to show both the Sun's corona and the surface features of the new moon itself, illuminated by earthshine. A few solar prominences are visible around the lunar limb.

Photograph credit: Michael S. Adler

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