Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 November 27

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From today's featured article

A 56-bell carillon

A carillon is a pitched percussion instrument housed in a bell tower and played with a keyboard. Consisting of at least 23 cast bronze bells in fixed suspension and tuned in chromatic order, carillons are usually owned by churches, universities, or municipalities. The bells are struck with clappers connected to a keyboard of wooden batons played with the hands and pedals played with the feet. They are among the world's heaviest instruments, usually between 4.5 and 15 metric tons (5.0 and 16.5 short tons). The tuned carillon was invented in the Netherlands in 1644, cast by Jacob van Eyck and the Hemony brothers. Today, most are found in and around Belgium, the Netherlands, and northern France, though nearly 200 are in North America. Almost all existing carillons were built in the 20th century. In 2014, UNESCO recognized the carillon cultures of the Netherlands and Belgium as part of their intangible cultural heritage. (Full article...)

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In the news

Nicolae Ciucă

A coalition government, led by Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă (pictured), takes office in Romania, ending a nearly three-month-long political crisis.
At least fifty people are killed in a mining accident in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission is launched to attempt to change the orbit of the asteroid moon Dimorphos.
Magdalena Andersson resigns shortly after being elected as the first female prime minister of Sweden.

On this day

November 27

NASA drawing of the extrasolar planet Osiris

1095 – At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade, declaring holy war against the Muslims who had occupied the Holy Land and were attacking the Eastern Roman Empire.
1703 – The great storm of 1703, one of the most severe storms to strike southern Great Britain, destroyed the first Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth.
1945 – A consortium of twenty-two U.S. charities founded CARE with the purpose of delivering food aid to Europe in the aftermath of World War II.
2001 – The Hubble Space Telescope detected sodium in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HD 209458 b (artist's impression pictured), the first planetary atmosphere outside our solar system to be measured.

Increase Sumner (b. 1746)
Jean Albert Gaudry (d. 1908)
Gary Speed (d. 2011)

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Today's featured picture

Cygnus is a northern constellation on the plane of the Milky Way, deriving its name from the Latinized Greek word for 'swan'. Cygnus is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn, and it features a prominent asterism known as the Northern Cross. Cygnus was among the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century astronomer Ptolemy, and it remains one of the 88 modern constellations. This illustration of Cygnus, with the surrounding constellations of Lacerta, Lyra and Vulpecula, was produced around 1823 as part of Urania's Mirror, a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards published in the United Kingdom.

Lithograph credit: Sidney Hall; restored by Adam Cuerden

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