Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 February 10

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From today's featured article

Sydney Tamiia Poitier

Abby is an American sitcom created by Nat Bernstein and Michael Katlin that aired for one season on UPN from January 6, 2003, to March 4, 2003. The show features Sydney Tamiia Poitier (pictured) as television producer Abby Walker and Kadeem Hardison as her ex-boyfriend Will Jeffries. After they break up in the pilot episode, they agree to live together as friends in their rent-controlled San Francisco apartment. Bernstein and Katlin had intended to feature an interracial couple, casting Sean O'Bryan as Will. After a negative response from test audiences, they gave the role to Hardison and recast O'Bryan as a supporting character, along with Randy J. Goodwin and Tangie Ambrose. Despite UPN's heavy promotion, the show attracted a weekly average of just 1.7 million viewers, making it the lowest-performing show tracked by Nielsen Holdings at the time. Critical responses were primarily negative; commentators praised Poitier's acting but criticized the show's reliance on sexual humor. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Sand sculpture of Chamundeshwari in Mysore

... that 115 truckloads of construction sand were used to create 150 sand sculptures (example pictured) at the Mysore Sand Sculpture Museum?
... that Gai Mizuki and Takeshi Matsu are among the artists featured in Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, the first English-language anthology of gay manga?
... that the American Express Building in Manhattan replaced a pair of brownstone structures that were described as being "among the ancient landmarks" on Broadway?
... that Egon Hartmann won a competition to design Stalinallee in East Berlin?
... that equipment from defunct television station WTVI in Fort Pierce, Florida, was sold to start an unrelated WTVI in Charlotte, North Carolina?
... that the Tedder certificate was awarded by the British government to foreign citizens who assisted Allied prisoners of war to escape German captivity during the Second World War?
... that after the devastating 2010 and 2011 Christchurch earthquakes, the New Zealand government "red-zoned", purchased, and demolished 8,000 houses?
... that the idea for the Twilight novel series came to Stephenie Meyer in a dream?

In the news

Bong Joon-ho

The South Korean film Parasite wins four Oscars at the Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho (pictured).
A mass shooting in Korat, Thailand, leaves 30 people dead and more than 50 others injured.
Two avalanches near the Turkish town of Bahçesaray kill at least 41 people.
The United States Senate votes to acquit President Donald Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
The Malawian Constitutional Court annuls the results of the 2019 general election which re-elected President Peter Mutharika, ordering a fresh election.

On this day

February 10: Tu BiShvat (Judaism, 2020)

Albert, Prince Consort

1712 – Huilliches in Chile's Chiloé Archipelago rose up against Spanish encomenderos as vengeance for perceived injustices.
1840 – Prince Albert (pictured) of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha married Queen Victoria at the Chapel Royal in St James's Palace, London, becoming prince consort.
1930 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng launched the failed Yên Bái mutiny in the hope of ending French colonial rule in Vietnam.
1940 – Puss Gets the Boot, the first Tom and Jerry cartoon, was released to theaters.
1962 – Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy arrested by the FBI, was exchanged for Francis Gary Powers, the pilot of the CIA spy plane that had been shot down over Soviet airspace two years earlier.

Robert Garran (b. 1867) · Edith Clarke (b. 1883) · Joan Curran (d. 1999)

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From today's featured list

Sam Mendes

The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, organized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on March 26, 2000, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented Academy Awards (commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories honoring films released in 1999. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by husband-and-wife producing team Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck, and directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actor Billy Crystal hosted for the seventh time. He first hosted the 62nd ceremony held in 1990, and had last hosted the 70th ceremony in 1998. American Beauty won five awards, including Best Picture, and Best Director for Sam Mendes (pictured). Other winners included The Matrix, with four awards, as well as The Cider House Rules and Topsy-Turvy, each with two. The telecast garnered nearly 47 million viewers in the United States. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Calumma brevicorne, the short-horned chameleon, has a compressed body, spindly legs, grasping feet and a powerful prehensile tail that allows it to negotiate the branches and twigs of its arboreal habitat. Its most distinctive features are its large, ear-like flaps, and the short bony appendage that projects from the snout of the male. Chameleons are primarily insectivores and feed by ballistically projecting their long tongues from their mouths to capture prey located some distance away.

This picture shows a C. brevicorne female, photographed at night near Analamazaotra Special Reserve, part of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park in Madagascar, the island to which the species is endemic. In these forests, the population density of short-horned chameleons is approximately 2.4 per hectare (1.0 per acre).

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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