Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 February 2

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Het loflied van Simeon (Simeon's canticle) by Aert de Gelder

Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (With peace and joy I depart), BWV 125, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, composed in Leipzig in 1725 for the Candlemas feast on 2 February. The cantata is based on Martin Luther's 1524 hymn of the same name. The gospel for the feast day, the presentation of Jesus at the Temple, includes Simeon's canticle (painting pictured), which Luther paraphrased in his hymn. For Bach's chorale cantata cycle, an unknown librettist retained the first and the last of Luther's four stanzas, paraphrasing the second stanza for an aria, and including its original text line by line in a recitative. Bach framed four solo movements with choral music, a chorale fantasia and a closing chorale. He scored the work for three vocal soloists, a four-part choir, horn, flauto traverso, oboes, strings and basso continuo. In the third movement, Bach uses recitative for the librettist's text, and arioso for the interspersed hymn quotations, accompanying both with a joyful motif. The opening chorus has been compared to the opening movement of Bach's later St Matthew Passion. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Sutton Hoo Helmet (2002)

... that Rick Kirby's Sutton Hoo Helmet (pictured) is 360 times heavier than the original?
... that the night before the 2003 Football League Second Division play-off Final, the Queens Park Rangers' team hotel was targeted by a malicious false fire alarm?
... that the first Edison incandescent lamp-illuminated home was James Hood Wright's residence in New York City in 1881?
... that the Swan with Two Necks was one of the principal departure points for coach travel to the north of England from London?
... that Janet Napolitano, a former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, sued her own agency?
... that the horseshoe shrimp Hutchinsoniella macracantha is the first example of a new class of crustaceans that was given the name Cephalocarida?
... that Montana lieutenant governor Archibald E. Spriggs participated in a secret scheme to allow William A. Clark to retain his Senate seat?
... that after making a portrait bust of Giuseppe Garibaldi, sculptor Elisabet Ney is thought to have provided him with military intelligence during the Third Italian War of Independence?

In the news

Lunar eclipse

A super blue blood moon (pictured) occurs for the first time in more than 35 years.
In Yemen, separatists from the Southern Transitional Council seize government buildings in Aden from President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi's forces.
Miloš Zeman is re-elected for a second term in the Czech presidential election.
A bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, kills at least 103 people and injures more than 200 others.
In Miryang, South Korea, a hospital fire kills 37 people and injures more than 130 others.

On this day...

February 2: Groundhog Day in Canada and the United States

Statue of Alexander Selkirk

1438 – Nine leaders of the Transylvanian peasant revolt were executed at Torda.
1709 – Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk (commemorative statue pictured) was rescued by English captain Woodes Rogers and the crew of the Duke after spending four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island in the Juan Fernández archipelago, providing the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe.
1913 – New York City's Grand Central Terminal, the world's largest train station in number of platforms, opened immediately after midnight.
1942 – The Osvald Group committed the first active event of the Norwegian resistance movement by blowing up Oslo East Station to protest the inauguration of Vidkun Quisling.
2012 – The passenger ferry MV Rabaul Queen capsized and sank in rough conditions in the Solomon Sea, resulting in at least 88 deaths.

Piotr Skarga (b. 1536) · Vincenzo Dimech (d. 1831) · Christie Brinkley (b. 1954)

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From today's featured list

View from Blue House Farm bird hide

The Essex Wildlife Trust (EWT) is one of 47 wildlife trusts which cover the United Kingdom. The EWT was founded in 1959, and it describes itself as Essex's leading conservation charity, which aims to protect wildlife for the future and the people of the county. As of January 2017, it has over 34,000 members and runs 87 nature reserves, 2 nature parks and 11 visitor centres. Essex has one of the longest coastlines of any English county, with saltmarshes, lagoons, mudflats, grazing marshes, reedbeds and shingle. Its ancient forests were formerly important to the local economy, with wood being used for fuel, construction and bark in the tanning industry. The EWT's first site was Fingringhoe Wick, which was established in 1961; its visitor centre has views over the Colne Estuary. The largest site is the 400-hectare (990-acre) Hanningfield Reservoir, which has nationally important numbers of gadwalls and a rare moss. The smallest is Horndon Meadow at 0.8 hectares (2.0 acres); it is an unimproved hay meadow which has 80 flower species. (Full list...)

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Johannes van den Bosch (1780–1844) was a Dutch officer and politician who served variously as Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies (1830–1833), commander of the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army, and Minister of Colonies (1834–1840). He introduced a regulation making the Constitution of the Netherlands apply in the West Indies, as well as the Cultivation System in the East Indies.

Painting: Cornelis Kruseman

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