Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 February 12

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From today's featured article

Grant Memorial gold dollar with star

The Grant Memorial gold dollar and silver half dollar were struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1922 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ulysses S. Grant, a leading Union general during the Civil War and later the 18th president of the United States. The two coins are identical in design and were sculpted by Laura Gardin Fraser. The Ulysses S. Grant Centenary Memorial Association wanted to sell 200,000 gold dollars to pay for projects in the areas of Grant's birthplace and boyhood home. Congress authorized 250,000 half dollars, but only 10,000 gold dollars. About 5,000 of each denomination were struck with a special mark, a star (example pictured). All of the gold dollars and most of the half dollars sold. The half dollar with star has long been priced higher than most commemoratives; its rarity has also caused it to be counterfeited. Money from the coins was used to help preserve Grant's birthplace, but other planned projects were not completed. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Virol jar

... that Virol (jar pictured) was dispensed by the Virol Lady in British primary schools in the 1940s?
... that during his 2020 campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada, Erin O'Toole made a platform catering to Quebec nationalist voters?
... that the Knoxville Raceway will host the first NASCAR nationally sanctioned race in its 120-year history in 2021, joining a race at Bristol Motor Speedway as dirt-track races on the NASCAR Truck Series schedule?
... that Claude-Laurent Bourgeois de Jessaint was the prefect of Marne from 1800 to 1838, surviving numerous regime changes?
... that after winning the 2013 Football League One play-off Final, Yeovil Town were promoted to the second tier of English football just ten years after being a non-League club?
... that Jackie Robinson Park was selected as the site for a pool in Harlem after a 1935 riot?
... that a manga series by Nanae Sasaya is credited with influencing the adoption of new Japanese child-abuse laws?
... that the Bernie Sanders mittens meme has raised nearly $2 million for Vermont charities?

In the news

Tianwen-1 launching in July 2020

The Hope orbiter from the United Arab Emirates and China's Tianwen-1 orbiter (launch pictured) separately reach Mars.
In American football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
A glacial outburst flood in Uttarakhand, India, leaves at least 31 people dead and around 165 others missing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor of Myanmar, is detained by the military in a coup d'état.

On this day

February 12: Red Hand Day

"Bar" suit from Dior's New Look

1502 – Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile, forcing virtually all her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
1924 – George Gershwin's composition Rhapsody in Blue premiered at Aeolian Hall, New York City.
1947 – The French fashion company Dior unveiled its New Look collection (suit pictured), which revolutionized women's dress and re-established Paris as the centre of the fashion world after World War II.
1968 – Following the deaths of two employees on the job, black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, began a strike that lasted more than two months.
2001 – The NASA space probe NEAR Shoemaker touched down on Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.

Norbert Provencher (b. 1787)
Eugène Atget (b. 1857)
Eubie Blake (d. 1983)

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From today's featured list

Pomona College's first graduating class, 1894

Many notable individuals have been affiliated with Pomona College, an elite private liberal arts college in Claremont, California, and the founding member of the Claremont Colleges. Pomona College was established in 1887 and currently enrolls approximately 1500 students. Notable alumni include anthropologist David Prescott Barrows, Chinese sociologist Chen Hansheng, anti–Japanese internment librarian Clara Breed, transgender activist Virginia Prince, Bengal cat creator Jean Mill, actor Richard Chamberlain, Russian Orthodox hieromonk Seraphim Rose, singer Kris Kristofferson, Light and Space artist James Turrell, NAACP chairperson Myrlie Evers-Williams, New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, author Marianne Williamson, 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Jennifer Doudna, and U.S. senator Brian Schatz. Notable past and present faculty include kabuki expert Leonard Pronko, basketball coach Gregg Popovich, corporeal mime Thomas Leabhart, ethnomusicologist and Santería priestess Katherine Hagedorn, and novelist David Foster Wallace. The college's first president was hydroelectricity pioneer Cyrus G. Baldwin, and its current president is G. Gabrielle Starr. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Alice Roosevelt Longworth (February 12, 1884 – February 20, 1980) was an American writer and prominent socialite, the only child of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and his first wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt. Nicknamed "Princess Alice", she led an unconventional and controversial life. She was photographed here by Frances Benjamin Johnston in 1903.

Photograph credit: Frances Benjamin Johnston; restored by Adam Cuerden

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