Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 March 26

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From today's featured article

Diamonds Are Forever is the fourth novel by the English author Ian Fleming to feature his fictional British Secret Service agent James Bond. Fleming wrote the story at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, inspired by a Sunday Times article on diamond smuggling. The book was first published on 26 March 1956. The story centres on Bond's investigation of a diamond-smuggling operation that originates in the mines of Sierra Leone and runs to Las Vegas. Along the way Bond meets and falls in love with one of the members of the smuggling gang, Tiffany Case. Fleming's background research formed the basis for his non-fiction 1957 book The Diamond Smugglers. The Bond novel received broadly positive reviews at the time of publication. It was serialised in the Daily Express newspaper, first in an abridged, multi-part form and then as a comic strip. In 1971 it was adapted into the seventh film in the Bond series, and the sixth one to star Sean Connery as Bond. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Ground billiards

... that modern cue sports games such as snooker and nine-ball can be traced back to the game of ground billiards, played with hoops and mallets (illustration shown)?
... that Brazilian-born Catarina Macario won three of the most prestigious American college soccer awards in the same year?
... that the giant spoon worm Ikeda taenioides survived a tsunami that devastated other members of the seabed community?
... that physician Sumant Mehta spent five years in jails for his participation in the Indian independence movement?
... that a visit from UNICEF resulted in the development of The Farm Vegetarian Cookbook?
... that horror author Michaelbrent Collings used the pen name "Angelica Hart" for his western romance series?
... that the sheriffs of more than a dozen of the 39 counties of Washington state have announced they will not enforce recently enacted gun-control legislation?
... that Swedish singer Sophia Somajo released her second album via The Pirate Bay?

In the news

SDF fighter in Al-Baghuz Fawqani

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant loses its last territory in Syria following a defeat by the Syrian Democratic Forces (pictured) and the US-led coalition.
An explosion at a chemical plant in Xiangshui, Jiangsu, China, kills at least 78 people and injures more than 90 others.
Nursultan Nazarbayev resigns as President of Kazakhstan after a 29-year tenure, appointing Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as interim president.

On this day

March 26: Independence Day in Bangladesh (1971)

A page from William Caxton's
edition of Aesop's Fables

1344 – Reconquista: The Muslim city of Algeciras surrendered after a 21-month siege and was incorporated into the Kingdom of Castile.
1484 – William Caxton printed the first English translation of Aesop's Fables (page pictured).
1939 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists began their final offensive of the war, at the end of which they controlled almost the entire country.
1979 – By signing the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, Egypt became the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel.
1999 – Jack Kevorkian, an American advocate for and practitioner of physician-assisted suicide, was found guilty of murder in the death of a terminally ill patient.

Julie-Victoire Daubié (b. 1824) · Fred Karno (b. 1866) · Constantin Fehrenbach (d. 1926)

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Today's featured picture

Portrait of a Man is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449–1494), executed in tempera on wood. One of Ghirlandaio's early works, it was probably painted at the same time as he painted the frescos in the church of San Gimignano. The identity of the man depicted in the painting is unknown. Portrait of a Man is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Painting: Domenico Ghirlandaio

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