Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 February 13

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From today's featured article

Helen Craig

The Unconquered is a three-act play written by Russian-American author Ayn Rand as an adaptation of her 1936 novel We the Living. Producer George Abbott staged the play on Broadway in February 1940, featuring Helen Craig (pictured) as Kira Argounova, a young woman living in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. Her lover Leo Kovalensky develops tuberculosis. To get money for his treatment, Kira has an affair with a Communist official, Andrei Taganov. After Leo recovers from his illness, he becomes involved with black market food sales that Andrei is investigating. When Andrei realizes that Kira loves Leo, he helps his rival avoid prosecution, then commits suicide. Leo leaves Kira, who decides to risk her life escaping the country. The production was troubled by problems with the script and the cast. When the play opened at the Biltmore Theatre, it was a critical and financial failure, and closed in less than a week. It was the last of Rand's plays produced during her lifetime. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Grave-watcher's hut at St Thomas à Becket Church

... that the churchyard of St Thomas à Becket Church, Warblington – a place of worship in the Borough of Havant – has two huts (one pictured) in which grave-watchers kept a lookout for body snatchers?
... that Gujarati humourist Ratilal Borisagar was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award by India's National Academy of Letters in 2019?
... that Brewer, the fictional Pennsylvania city in John Updike's Rabbit novels, reflects change in American society throughout the second half of the 20th century?
... that musicologist Ulrich Konrad studied sketches that Wolfgang Amadé Mozart made for composition, and concluded that the composer planned his works more thoroughly than previously assumed?
... that Brenda Nelson, host of the Talk of the Town interview program on KTLO-FM in Mountain Home, Arkansas, retired after doing more than 8,000 interviews over 34 years?
... that after examining serial rapist Reynhard Sinaga's mobile phone, police discovered more than three terabytes of digital video evidence of his assaults?
... that Dutch forces surrendered to Japanese invaders after their defeat in the Battle of Tjiater Pass because they did not want to fight in Bandung?
... that in an Alden Rowing boat, you can expect your seat to slide out from under you?

In the news

Bong Joon-ho

The Irish general election concludes with no party holding a majority of seats in Dáil Éireann.
South Korean film Parasite wins four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bong Joon-ho (pictured).
A mass shooting in Korat, Thailand, leaves 30 people dead and more than 50 others injured.
Two avalanches near the Turkish town of Bahçesaray kill at least 41 people.

On this day

February 13

The covering of the Senne

1689 – Glorious Revolution: The English Parliament passed the Declaration of Right, proclaiming Mary Stuart and her husband William of Orange as co-rulers of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1867 – Work began on the covering of the Senne (pictured), burying the polluted main waterway in Brussels to allow urban renewal in the centre of the city.
1960 – African-American college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee, as part of a nonviolent direct-action campaign to end racial segregation in the U.S.
1970 – The English rock band Black Sabbath released their eponymous debut album, which is generally accepted as the first heavy-metal album.
2010 – A terrorist bombing at a bakery popular among foreigners in Pune, India, killed 17 people and injured 60 others.

Luis de Carvajal y de la Cueva (d. 1591) · Sarojini Naidu (b. 1879) · Dorothy Bliss (b. 1916)

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Today's featured picture

Marian Dawkins (born 13 February 1945) is a British biologist and professor of ethology at the University of Oxford. Her research has focused on animal behaviour and animal welfare. She is sceptical as to whether science can establish that animals have consciousness, and therefore its role in the definition and measurement of animal welfare and suffering. Instead, her view is that good animal welfare depends on determining the needs and wants of the animals; she studied the activities and interactions of hens and deduced that inadequate floor-space in traditional battery cages deprived the birds of their ability to participate in their natural behaviours.

This photograph of Dawkins was taken at the Royal Society's admissions day in 2014, when she was admitted as a fellow of the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.

Photograph credit: Royal Society; edited by Chris Woodrich

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