Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 August 14

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From today's featured article

xx is the debut album by English indie pop band the xx, released by Young Turks, an imprint of XL Recordings, on 14 August 2009. Audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald and the xx strove for an intimate, unembellished sound. The band's Jamie Smith produced xx on his laptop, mixing in electronic beats. Strongly influenced by R&B acts, the album also drew comparisons to alternative rock, electronica, and post-punk sounds. The melancholic songs on xx featured minimalist arrangements. Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim sang most of these as low-key duets, and wrote emotional lyrics about love, intimacy, loss, and desire. The album received widespread acclaim from critics, many naming it one of the year's best records. It became a sleeper hit in Britain and the United States. Although none of its singles became hits, xx benefited from the licensing of its songs on television and the band's 2010 Mercury Prize win for the album. In 2013, xx was ranked number 237 on NME magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Grey-headed woodpecker

... that the grey-headed woodpecker (pictured) was split into three separate species in 2014?
... that Elizabeth Mounsey became the organist of St Peter upon Cornhill when she was 14 years old?
... that cheese and crackers has been described as one of the first fast foods in the United States?
... that Isaac Asiamah, Ghana's new Minister for Youth and Sports, was at one time the country's youngest legislator?
... that the Mexican Seismic Alert System provided Mexico City 80 seconds of advance notice prior to the 2012 Oaxaca earthquake?
... that Rano M. Shaiza helped further the Naga peace accord by brokering a meeting between her uncle, the founder of the Naga separatist movement, and the Prime Minister of India?
... that the star S Coronae Borealis has been estimated as having around 1.34 times the Sun's mass but 308 times its radius?
... that Toronto Blue Jays baseball player Riley Adams has a black belt in karate?

In the news

Uhuru Kenyatta

Violence at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, United States, leaves one person dead and at least nineteen others injured.
More than seventy children die at Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur, India, allegedly due to lack of oxygen supply to the wards.
The Obelisk Gate wins the Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Uhuru Kenyatta (pictured) is re-elected President of Kenya.
A 7.0 M_w earthquake in China's Sichuan province kills at least twenty people and injures more than four hundred others.

On this day...

August 14: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2017); Independence Day in Pakistan (1947)

Whitehead No. 21

1720 – The Spanish Villasur expedition, intended to check French influence on the Great Plains of North America, ended in failure as it was ambushed by a Pawnee and Otoe force.
1888 – A recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's The Lost Chord, one of the first recordings of music ever made, was played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London.
1901 – Gustave Whitehead allegedly made a successful powered flight of his Number 21 aircraft (pictured) in Fairfield, Connecticut, U.S.; if true, this predates the Wright brothers by two years.
1975 – The film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is still in limited release today, making it the longest-running theatrical release in film history, premiered in Los Angeles.
2007 – Four coordinated suicide bomb attacks detonated in the Iraqi towns of Qahtaniya and Jazeera, killing an estimated 796 people and wounding 1,562 others.

Tiberius II Constantine (d. 582) · Pieter Coecke van Aelst (b. 1502) · Connie Smith (b. 1941)

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Nguyễn Phú Trọng

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, known as First Secretary from 1951 to 1976, is the highest office within the Communist Party of Vietnam. The General Secretaryship was the second-highest office within the party when Hồ Chí Minh was Chairman, a post which existed from 1951 to 1969. The general secretary is also the Secretary of the Central Military Commission, the leading Party organ on military affairs. For a period in its history, the position of general secretary has been synonymous with leader of Vietnam. The current general secretary is Nguyễn Phú Trọng (pictured), and he is ranked first in the Political Bureau. Trần Phú, one of the founding members of the Indochinese Communist Party, was the party's first general secretary. A year after being elected, he was sentenced to prison by the French authorities because of anti-French activities. He died in prison the same year. Trần's de facto successor was Lê Hồng Phong who led the party through the office of General Secretary of the Overseas Executive Committee. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

A one Deutsche Mark banknote issued by Allied-occupied Germany and circulated by the United States Army Command in 1948. This was the first of three issues of West German currency introduced that year. The Mark remained the official currency of West Germany until German reunification in 1990, then the official currency of Germany until the adoption of the Euro in 2002.

Banknote: Allied-occupied Germany (image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History)

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