Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 December 25

the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

From today's featured article

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) is honoured as the founder of Pakistan, where his birthday is observed as a national holiday. He served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until Pakistan's independence from Great Britain in 1947, and then as the first Governor-General of Pakistan until his death. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, he advocated Hindu–Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League. By 1940, he had come to believe that Muslims of the Indian subcontinent should have their own state. As the first leader of Pakistan, he worked to establish the nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of Muslim migrants who had emigrated from the new nation of India to Pakistan after independence, personally supervising the establishment of refugee camps. Several universities and public buildings in Pakistan bear Jinnah's name. (Full article...)

Recently featured:

Did you know...

Nativity scene, New York

... that two Nativity scenes attributed to Zanobi Strozzi (example pictured) probably belong to an altarpiece now spread between five museums, with some parts missing?
... that a traditional Christmas carol has the chorus "We will rock you"?
... that one-quarter of respondents to a 2016 survey of Europeans said they had re-gifted their Christmas presents to someone else?
... that the musicologist Willi Gundlach, who founded the chamber choir of Dortmund University, trained volunteers to sing a Bach cantata in one day, including Part I of Bach's Christmas Oratorio?
... that Rosemary Biggs and her colleagues discovered the Christmas factor?
... that the children's book Wombat Divine was written in response to the publisher's request for "a typically Australian Christmas story"?
... that "Long Ago, Prophets Knew, Christ would come born a Jew" was one of about 50 hymns written after 1950 that were included in The New English Hymnal?
... that you won't find any Ba humbugi on Christmas Island?

In the news

Carles Puigdemont

Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than two hundred people and leaving dozens of others missing.
In the Catalan election, pro-independence parties, spearheaded by the exiled Carles Puigdemont (pictured), secure a majority.
Sebastián Piñera is elected President of Chile for a second time.
In the United States, an Amtrak Cascades passenger train derails in DuPont, Washington, killing three people and injuring more than seventy others.
Incumbent Juan Orlando Hernández is declared the winner of the Honduran presidential election, with the Organization of American States calling for a new vote amidst widespread irregularities.

On this day...

December 25: Christmas (Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day (Pakistan)

Baldwin I of Jerusalem

1100 – Baldwin of Boulogne was crowned as Baldwin I of Jerusalem (pictured), the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
1831 – A Baptist preacher named Samuel Sharpe began an unsuccessful eleven-day slave revolt in Jamaica.
1927 – The Việt Nam Quốc Dân Đảng, a revolutionary socialist political party that sought Vietnamese independence from French colonial rule, was formed in Hanoi.
1989 – Romanian Revolution: Dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were condemned to death under a wide range of charges and executed.
2007 – A tiger at the San Francisco Zoo escaped from its enclosure and attacked three patrons before it was shot and killed.

Makan ibn Kaki (d. 940) · Nina E. Allender (b. 1873) · Sadiq al-Mahdi (b. 1935)

More anniversaries:

From today's featured list

Church of St Mary and St Michael, Bonds

English architect E. G. Paley designed nearly 50 new, rebuilt, and restored churches. Paley partnered with Edmund Sharpe in 1845, and by 1847 Paley was responsible for most of the firm's work, carrying out commissions independently from at least 1849. During the time Paley was being trained by Sharpe the practice was involved mainly with ecclesiastical work, although it also undertook commissions for country houses and smaller projects. When Paley became sole principal in 1856, he continued to work mainly on churches, designing new ones and restoring, rebuilding, and making additions and alterations to existing churches. In almost all his designs, Paley used the Gothic Revival style, initially with Early English or Decorated features. During the early 1860s he introduced Perpendicular features. Paley was an Anglican and most of his ecclesiastical work was carried out on Church of England churches: exceptions include St Mary and St Michael, Bonds (pictured), and St Peter, Lancaster, both Roman Catholic, and Clark Street Congregational Church, Morecambe. (Full list...)

Recently featured:

Today's featured picture

Nativity is a devotional mid-1450s oil-on-wood panel painting by the Early Netherlandish painter Petrus Christus. It shows a nativity scene—the birth of the Christ Child as narrated in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke—with grisaille archways and trompe-l'œil sculptured reliefs. The panel, which may have once been part of a triptych, was acquired by Andrew Mellon in the 1930s. One of several hundred works from Mellon's personal collection donated to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Nativity was restored in the early 1990s.

Painting: Petrus Christus

Recently featured:

Other areas of Wikipedia

Community portal – Bulletin board, projects, resources and activities covering a wide range of Wikipedia areas.
Help desk – Ask questions about using Wikipedia.
Local embassy – For Wikipedia-related communication in languages other than English.
Reference desk – Serving as virtual librarians, Wikipedia volunteers tackle your questions on a wide range of subjects.
Site news – Announcements, updates, articles and press releases on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
Village pump – For discussions about Wikipedia itself, including areas for technical issues and policies.