Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 January 6b

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From today's featured article

Robin Williams

The second season of Homicide: Life on the Street, a US police drama TV series, originally aired in the US in January 1994. Low ratings during the first season meant NBC ordered only four episodes before deciding whether to renew the show. The original cast returned for this season, the last to include Jon Polito. Jean de Segonzac was director of photography and Chris Tergesen was the music coordinator. "Bop Gun", was the last episode filmed, but became the season premiere due to a guest appearance by Robin Williams (pictured). The episodes "See No Evil" and "Black and Blue" featured a police shooting based on a real-life incident. Guest stars in this season also included Julianna Margulies, Wilford Brimley, Isaiah Washington, Adrienne Shelly and a young Jake Gyllenhaal. Homicide received generally positive reviews, and the show received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor for Williams. NBC demanded further changes to the show before committing to a third season. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Christine Nagel

... that Christine Nagel (pictured) once created a strawberry-and-popcorn perfume for Dior?
... that the former ASCE Society House in New York City has been home to a tire showroom, a restaurant, and an art shop?
... that Shanti Stupa, Delhi, was inaugurated by the Dalai Lama in 2007?
... that William Cline Borden wrote the first American textbook on X-rays?
... that Bechevinka, an abandoned Soviet submarine base in Kamchatka, is now a ghost town that attracts tourists?
... that Openload, a defunct file-sharing site that once received more traffic than Hulu, was labelled a notorious market?
... that the permeability of rocks affected by faults can increase or decrease as a result of seismic activity?
... that Taylor Swift offered to postpone the release date of Evermore by one week so as not to coincide with Paul McCartney's McCartney III?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

The US Capitol Building

In the United States, the Democratic Party wins control of the Senate, with victories in a regular and a special Senate election in Georgia.
Pro-Trump rioters storm the US Capitol Building (pictured), disrupting certification of the presidential election and forcing Congress to evacuate.
Saudi Arabia reopens its border with Qatar, ending a three-year diplomatic crisis.

On this day

January 6: Little Christmas

Maria Montessori

1449 – Constantine XI Palaiologos was proclaimed the last Byzantine emperor, four years before the Fall of Constantinople.
1540 – King Henry VIII of England married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves; the marriage was annulled six months later.
1907 – Italian educator Maria Montessori (pictured) opened her first school and day-care centre for working-class children in Rome, employing the philosophy of education that now bears her name.
1941 – During his State of the Union address, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms as fundamental freedoms that all people ought to enjoy.
1953 – The first Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties in Asia, opened in Rangoon, Burma, with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.

John of Ávila (b. 1499 or 1500)
Gustav Bauer (b. 1870)
Sybil Plumlee (d. 2012)

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Today's featured picture

The Adoration of the Kings is an oil-on-panel painting depicting the scene of the Magi adoring the infant Jesus at the stable in Bethlehem, as related in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. It was painted by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1564, and is now in the National Gallery, London. The painting treats the biblical episode in an unconventional manner; the onlookers are crowded around the mother and child, with everyone warmly clad except for Jesus himself. The Magi are depicted richly dressed but somewhat dishevelled, the soldiers are menacing, and the onlookers appear bewildered. The figures are slightly elongated, their faces caricatured or even grotesque, while Mary is shown natural and unidealised.

Painting credit: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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