Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 January 17b

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From today's featured article

Exit A of Chinatown station

Chinatown MRT station is an underground Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) interchange on the North East line (NEL) and Downtown line (DTL) in Outram, Singapore. It is located near landmarks such as the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum, Masjid Jamae (Chulia), Chinatown Point and People's Park Complex. Announced in 1996 and completed in 2003, the NEL station was one of the most challenging projects during that line's construction, requiring diversion of roads, and preservation of the Garden Bridge. In 2007, an interchange with the DTL at this station was announced. The DTL platforms opened in 2013. Each of the six entrances has glass structures, with the Pagoda Street entrance having a pavilion-style transparent roof structure (pictured) and the DTL entrance having an elliptical shape. The NEL concourse and platforms feature calligraphy as part of The Phoenix's-Eye Domain by Tan Swie Hian, while the DTL concourse walls feature artworks of clothes lines as part of Flying Colours by Cheo Chai Hiang. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Marshall Sherman with the 28th Virginia battle flag

... that the 28th Virginia battle flag (pictured) is stored at an undisclosed location in the Minnesota Historical Society, and has not been returned to Virginia despite multiple requests across three centuries?
... that after first alerting authorities to the Omicron variant in South Africa, bioinformatician Tulio de Oliveira insisted that its origin is unknown?
... that the 1912 production of Man's Genesis was the first "primitive man" film ever made and created a prehistory film boom in the years following its release?
... that development economist John Toye said free-market proponents "first turn liberty against equality and fraternity, then overthrow liberty itself"?
... that the surname Waering is Anglo-Saxon, but Waring may be Norman?
... that the street from which Mississippi radio station WMPR broadcasts was renamed in honor of the station's longtime owner and general manager, former politician Charles Evers?
... that when Helena Braun visited New York "just for the trip", she sang the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Die Walküre at the Metropolitan Opera with four hours' notice?
... that George H. W. Bush hated broccoli so much that he banned it from Air Force One?

In the news

Hunga Tonga eruption

The Hunga Tonga volcano erupts (satellite animation shown), causing damage in Tonga and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean.
An apartment fire in the Bronx, New York City, kills 17 people.
A rockfall at Furnas Lake in Capitólio, Brazil, kills 10 people.
Sidney Poitier, the first black actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, dies at the age of 94.

On this day

January 17: Tu BiShvat (Judaism, 2022); Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States (2022)

Patrice Lumumba

1562 – Catherine de' Medici, the regent of France, promulgated the Edict of Saint-Germain, providing limited tolerance to the Protestant Huguenots.
1899 – The United States took possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.
1912 – Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition reached the South Pole, only to find that Roald Amundsen's team had beaten them by 33 days.
1961 – Former Congolese prime minister Patrice Lumumba (pictured) was murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the Belgian and US governments and the UN.
2002 – Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo began erupting, killing hundreds and leaving about 120,000 people homeless in the nearby town of Goma.

Henry of Asti (d. 1345)
Thomas Jaggar (d. 1953)
Zhao Ziyang (d. 2005)

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From today's featured list

The 2002 NFL expansion draft is the most recent National Football League (NFL) draft in which a new expansion team, named the Houston Texans, selected its first players. On October 6, 1999, in Atlanta, Georgia, NFL owners had unanimously voted to award the 32nd NFL franchise and Super Bowl XXXVIII to the city of Houston, Texas. In order for the Texans to become competitive with existing teams, the league awarded them the first pick in the 2002 NFL Draft and gave them the opportunity to select current players from existing teams. That selection was provided by the expansion draft, held on February 18, 2002. In this draft, held months before the regular draft, the existing franchises listed players from which the Texans could select to switch to the new team. Teams placed many quality players on the list who had large contracts, as the Texans were required to assume the contracts of those players if selected. The Texans drafted a total of 19 players. (Full list...)

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Alva Belmont (January 17, 1853 – January 26, 1933) was a prominent multi-millionaire American socialite and a major figure in the women's suffrage movement in the United States. She was noted for her energy, intelligence, strong opinions, and willingness to challenge convention. In 1909, she founded the Political Equality League to get votes for suffrage-supporting New York state politicians, wrote articles for newspapers, and joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In 1916, she was one of the founders of the National Woman's Party and organized the first picketing ever to take place before the White House in January 1917; she was elected president of the organization and held the office until her death.

Photograph credit: Bain News Service; restored by Adam Cuerden

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