Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 August 23

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From today's featured article

John Sherman Cooper (1901–1991) was an American politician, jurist, and diplomat. He began his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives (1927–29) before being elected as a county judge in 1930. After serving in the U.S. Army in World War II and reorganizing the Bavarian judicial system after Germany's defeat, he was a Kentucky circuit judge before winning election to the U.S. Senate in 1946. He was defeated in the 1948 election, but re-elected to partial terms in 1952 and 1956, serving as Ambassador to India in between. He was re-elected to the Senate in 1960 and 1966 by record margins for Kentucky. President John F. Kennedy chose Cooper to conduct a secret fact-finding mission to Moscow and New Delhi. Following Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Cooper to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. Cooper soon became an outspoken opponent of Johnson's decision to escalate U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. Aging and increasingly deaf, Cooper did not seek re-election in 1972. His last acts of public service were as Ambassador to East Germany from 1974 to 1976 and as an alternate delegate to the United Nations in 1981. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that baseball pitcher, dentist, and voice trainer Jumping Jack Jones (pictured) leapt into the air before throwing, making him "the twirling marvel of his time"?
... that Cicero's lost Consolatio (45 BC) is widely accepted as the distinct work that transmitted the earlier consolatio literary tradition to the Romans of the late Republic?
... that when the recording sessions of Stratum by Drottnar began, guitarist Bengt Olsson left the band, only to rejoin it a few months later?
... that Josefina de la Torre, closely associated with the Generation of '27, was a columnist for the film magazine Primer Plano?
... that Charles de Visscher, a Belgian judge of the International Court of Justice, was orphaned at age twelve?
... that Chris Paul won gold medals with the US basketball team at both the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics?
... that intimacy between a retired Empress and a monk was one of the causes of the Fujiwara no Nakamaro Rebellion?

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In the news

At least 39 people are killed in a series of landslides in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan.
The 41st Chess Olympiad concludes with China winning the open section and Russia winning the women's section of the tournament.
Mathematicians Artur Ávila, Manjul Bhargava, Martin Hairer, and Maryam Mirzakhani are awarded the Fields Medal; Mirzakhani is its first female recipient.
Actor and comedian Robin Williams (pictured) dies at the age of 63.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wins Turkey's first direct presidential election.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Gaza conflict – Ukrainian unrest
Recent deaths: B. K. S. Iyengar

On this day...

August 23: Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism/Black Ribbon Day in Canada, the European Union and the United States

1514 – Ottoman forces defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Chaldiran, gaining control of eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq.
1873 – The Albert Bridge, spanning the River Thames in London, opened.
1914 – In their first major action of the First World War, the British Expeditionary Force defeated German troops in Mons, Belgium.
1944 – King Michael dismissed the pro-Axis government of General Ion Antonescu, putting Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of World War II.
1989 – Singing Revolution: Approximately two million people joined hands (pictured) to form an over 600 km (370 mi) long human chain across the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian Soviet republics to demonstrate their respective desires for independence.

More anniversaries: August 22 – August 23 – August 24

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Today's featured picture

Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy is a pharmacy college in Bangalore, India. Established in 1983, it is under the purview of the Al-Ameen Educational Society.

Photo: Muhammad Mahdi Karim

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