Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 September 14

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From today's featured article

Thomas F. Mulledy (1794–1860) was a Catholic priest from Virginia and a prominent leader of the American Jesuits. He twice served as President of Georgetown College in Washington, D.C., where he undertook a significant building campaign. After his first presidency, he was appointed provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland province in 1837. The following year, Mulledy executed the sale of 272 slaves owned by the Maryland Jesuits in order to relieve the province's mounting debts. After an outcry from his fellow Jesuits over the immorality of the sale, church authorities in Rome exiled him to Nice for several years, for insubordination and promoting scandal. Following his return to the United States in 1843, he became the first President of the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, where he oversaw the construction of the college's first building. In his later years, he engaged in preaching and pastoral work, and assisted Holy Cross during investigations by the Know Nothing Party. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Empress Elisabeth Bridge

... that the Empress Elisabeth Bridge (pictured), a chain bridge over the Elbe that opened in 1855, was named in honor of the newly married Elisabeth of Austria?
... that Donald Balfour, who began working at the Mayo Clinic as a pathology assistant, later became the director of the Mayo Foundation?
... that cricket coach Gurcharan Singh survived the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in Delhi with the help of his trainees?
... that Ernst Dammann, an early member of the Nazi Party, was a founding figure of African studies in East Germany – together with Walter Markov, a communist who spent much of the Nazi era in prison?
... that the Texas Reliability Entity monitors the state's electrical grid to ensure its reliability?
... that twelve years after his death, Mou Zuoyun became the first Chinese person to be inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame?
... that the Asian garden dormouse can enter torpor, a state in which it may remain for several days?
... that the novel Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann uses stream of consciousness narrative and mostly consists of a single sentence running over more than 1,000 pages?

In the news

Artist's impression of K2-18b orbiting red dwarf K2-18

Astronomers announce the detection of water in the atmosphere of exoplanet K2-18b (artist's impression shown), the first such discovery for an exoplanet in the habitable zone around a star.
A stampede during the observance of Ashura in Karbala, Iraq, kills at least thirty-one people and injures more than a hundred others.
The Indian Space Research Organisation loses contact with Chandrayaan-2's Vikram lunar lander shortly before a hard landing on the Moon's surface.
Former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe dies at the age of 95.

On this day

September 14

Fort Manoel

919 – A coalition of native Irish, led by Niall Glúndub, failed in their attempt to drive the Vikings of the Uí Ímair from Ireland.
1723 – António Manoel de Vilhena, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, laid the first stone of Fort Manoel (pictured) in Malta.
1943 – World War II: Nazi forces began a mass extermination campaign against the civilian residents of around 20 villages on the Greek island of Crete, eventually killing more than 500 men.
1979 – Afghan president Nur Muhammad Taraki was overthrown and later killed, on the orders of Hafizullah Amin, who succeeded him.
2003 – President Kumba Ialá of Guinea-Bissau was deposed in a bloodless military coup.

Constantine V (d. 775) · Franz Bopp (b. 1791) · Kate Millett (b. 1934)

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Today's featured picture

A promotional flyer for Lagu Kenangan ('Song of Memories'), a 1953 Indonesian film directed by L. Inata and produced by Djamaluddin Malik for the Persari Film Corporation. Starring Titien Sumarni and A. N. Alcaff, the film tells the story of a composer, Supardi, who lives with his wife, Surjati, and their two children Janti and Janto. The couple often fight, owing to Supardi's late hours, as he does his best work at night when the children are sleeping. Things escalate to the point that Surjati takes Janti and leaves. This separation nearly ends in divorce, but eventually with the support of their parents, Surjati and Supardi are able to reconcile. The film was one in a long line of commercially oriented ventures which had been produced by the Persari Film Corporation, starting with Sedap Malam in 1950.

Flyer credit: Persari Film Corporation; image restored by Chris Woodrich

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