Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 February 15

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From today's featured article

John Barrymore (1882–1942) was an American actor most famous for his film roles. Born into a theatrical dynasty, he initially tried to avoid the stage, briefly attempting a career as an artist, but he soon followed his father Maurice and siblings Ethel and Lionel into acting. After beginning in light comedy, he moved to high stage drama, culminating in productions of Justice (1916), Richard III (1920), and especially Hamlet (1922), a role critics lavishly praised him for. After his stage career peaked, he turned entirely to cinema for the next 14 years, initially in silent films. His stage-trained voice proved an asset when sound films were introduced, and three of his works have been inducted into the National Film Registry. His personal life has been the subject of much attention before and since his death. He struggled with alcohol abuse from the age of 14, was married and divorced four times, and declared bankruptcy in his fifties. Much of his later work involved self-parody and the portrayal of drunken has-beens. A hugely influential actor whose talent still shapes Shakespearean acting today, his later career and private life were seen by the obituarists as a waste of a once-great talent. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that the Hayagriva Upanishad is dedicated to a horse-headed god (pictured)?
... that swimmer Mary Wayte won the first of four Olympic medals by defeating former world record-holder Sippy Woodhead in the final of the women's 200-meter freestyle at the 1984 Summer Olympics?
... that a method to reduce the temperature recovery time for an oven is to keep a baking stone in it?
... that freelance programmer and author Martin Pistorius was believed to be in a persistent vegetative state but was actually suffering from locked-in syndrome?
... that Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's government is trying to force the impeachment of the judge investigating her in the Hotesur scandal?
... that John Shannon Munn, one of the few first-class cricketers from Newfoundland, was killed in the wreck of a ship owned by his stepfather's company?
... that Jennifer Rush's "Higher Ground" was covered by Mario Pelchat and Celine Dion in French as "Plus haut que moi"?
... that Henry Ford was a "comparative nonentity" who got various jobs because his wife's uncle was a bishop?

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In the news

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (pictured) is imprisoned for five years after the country's Federal Court upholds his conviction for sodomy.
Sam Smith wins Record of the Year and Beck wins Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.
In association football, the Africa Cup of Nations concludes with Ivory Coast defeating Ghana in the final.
Boyhood wins three awards, including Best Film, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Paul Gauguin's When Will You Marry? sells for $300m (£197m), the highest known price ever paid for any painting.
Ross Ulbricht is found guilty of seven offenses related to the creation and running of the Silk Road website.

Ongoing: Boko Haram – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine
Recent deaths: Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat – Bob Simon – Jerry Tarkanian

On this day...

February 15: National Day in Serbia (1804)

1898 – The United States Navy battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba (wreckage pictured), killing more than 260 people and precipitating the Spanish–American War.
1900 – Second Boer War: British cavalry under Major-General John French defeated Boer forces to end a 124-day siege of Kimberley, present-day South Africa.
1949 – Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux began excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves in the West Bank region of Jordan, the location of the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.
1965 – Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag, replacing the Canadian Red Ensign.
1999 – Abdullah Öcalan, one of the founding members of the militant organization the Kurdistan Workers' Party, was arrested by Turkish security forces in Nairobi, Kenya.

More anniversaries: February 14 – February 15 – February 16

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It is now February 15, 2015 (UTC) – Reload this page

Today's featured picture

The Reading Power Station is a natural gas-fueled power station which supplies electric power to the Tel Aviv District in central Israel. Commissioned in 1938 and named for Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, this power station at the mouth of the Yarkon River was designed by Ed Rosenhak.

Photograph: Andrew Shiva

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