Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 January 22

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Alhambra in 2017

Muhammad II was the Nasrid ruler of the Emirate of Granada in Al-Andalus on the Iberian Peninsula from 1273 until his death in 1302. Succeeding his father Muhammad I, he maintained Granada's independence in the face of its larger neighbours, the Christian kingdom of Castile and the Muslim Marinid state of Morocco. He added the Tower of the Ladies and the Tower of the Points to his father's palace and fortress complex, the Alhambra (pictured). To defend Granada against the Christians, he recruited soldiers from North Africa and organized them into the Volunteers of the Faith. He instituted the Nasrid royal protocol and the court chancery and increased the importance of the vizier in government. Muhammad II built a series of strongholds in strategic positions that remained for centuries as the backbone of Granadan border defences. He was known by the epithet al-Faqih, the canon lawyer, reflecting his education and his support for scholars and poets. (Full article...)

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RF-94113 "Valentin Bliznyuk"

... that in 2006, a Tupolev Tu-160 bomber (pictured) was named after its chief designer, Valentin Bliznyuk?
... that the music of Grim Fandango is considered one of the best early examples of adaptive music systems in video gaming, heralding the era of cinematic experiences in gameplay?
... that George Downing created the first surfboard with a removable fin?
... that the egg sacs of the newly discovered Phinda button spider are made of bright purple silk that fades to grey when it dries?
... that medal inflation is the devaluation of military awards if too many are issued?
... that many survivors of the Holocaust in the Sudetenland lost their Czechoslovak citizenship after the war because they were deemed to be "Germans"?
... that Georgina Gascoyne-Cecil became a leading member of the Primrose League, the first British political organisation to give women a prominent role, despite finding its medieval influences absurd?
... that Peter Hedges was paid $10 to write the screenplay for Pieces of April, and another $10 to direct the film?

In the news

Mikhail Mishustin

In China, a new strain of coronavirus infects more than four hundred people, killing at least nine.
Mikhail Mishustin (pictured) is appointed Prime Minister of Russia following the resignation of Dmitry Medvedev and his cabinet.
Scientists announce that presolar stardust grains in the Murchison meteorite formed five to seven billion years ago, and are the oldest solid material found on Earth to date.

On this day

January 22: Day of Unity of Ukraine (1919)

Evo Morales

565 – Eutychius, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, was arrested after he refused Byzantine emperor Justinian I's order to adopt the tenets of the Aphthartodocetae, a sect of non-Chalcedonian Christians.
1689 – The Convention Parliament met to decide the fate of the English throne after James II, the last Catholic monarch, had fled to France as a result of the Glorious Revolution.
1905 – Russian Revolution: Unarmed demonstrators, led by Russian Orthodox priest Georgy Gapon, were massacred by the Imperial Guard outside the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.
1970 – The Boeing 747, the world's first wide-body commercial airliner, entered service for Pan Am on the New York–London route.
2006 – Evo Morales (pictured) was inaugurated as President of Bolivia, becoming the country's first democratically elected indigenous leader.

Wang Zhi (d. 1560) · Noah Phelps (b. 1740) · Pope Benedict XV (d. 1922)

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Today's featured picture

This portrait of Lord Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), by the English artist Richard Westall, is an oil-on-canvas work painted in 1813. Byron was an English poet, peer, and politician who became a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence. He contributed generously to this cause, and despite his military inexperience, took a section of the rebel army under his own command. He fell ill while planning an attack on the Turkish-held fortress of Lepanto, rallied a little, developed a fever, and died a few weeks later.

This is one of a number of portraits of Byron painted by Richard Westall, who also painted Horatio Nelson, John Milton, and other well-known figures, as well as landscapes in watercolour and book illustrations. This picture hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Painting credit: Richard Westall

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