Wikipedia:Today's featured list/January 2014
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January 6
The Carry On series consisted of thirty-one films, three Christmas specials, one television series of thirteen episodes, and three West End and provincial stage plays as part of a wider franchise. Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas were the series' sole producer and director respectively who mostly employed the same crew and group of actors. Much of the series' humour came from the use of innuendo and double entendre, provided by seven writers, who produced the material for all the output, between 1958 and 1992. The Carry On films were distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated (1958 – 66), and the Rank Organisation (1967 – 78); they were all made at Pinewood Studios. The series comprises the largest number of films of any British film series and, next to the James Bond films, are the second-longest continually-running UK film series. (Full list...)
January 13
The first Ambassador of Russia to Austria was Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn (pictured) and he served in the position from 1763 until 1792. Later that year, Count Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky became ambassador in Vienna, the Austrian capital, where he kept contact with representatives of the European aristocracy, politicians and artists. Prominent Russian diplomat Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov led the Russian diplomatic mission from 1854 to 1856. In 1882, scientist and diplomat Prince Aleksey Borisovich Lobanov-Rostovsky was appointed as the Empire's representative in Vienna. The first Soviet Plenipotentiary in Vienna was Yan Antonovich Berzin. Diplomatic relations between Russia and Austria were broken after the German invasion of Austria and its incorporation into Nazi Germany, but diplomatic relations have since been re-established. (Full list...)
January 20
The first of the International Mathematical Olympiads (IMOs) was held in Romania in 1959. The oldest of the International Science Olympiads, the IMO has since been held annually, except in 1980. That year, it was cancelled due to internal strife in Mongolia. Because the competition was initially founded for Eastern European countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, under the influence of the Eastern Bloc, the earlier IMOs were hosted only in Eastern European countries, gradually spreading to other nations. Sources differ about the cities hosting some of the early IMOs and the exact dates when they took place. The number of participating countries has risen from 7 at the inaugural event to 14 in 1969, 50 in 1989, and 104 in 2009. North Korea is the only country to have been caught cheating, resulting in its disqualification at the 32nd IMO in 1991 and the 51st IMO in 2010. In January 2011, Google gave €1 million to the IMO organization to help cover the costs of the events in 2011–2015. (Full list...)
January 27
Fifty destinations were served by Braathens, a Norwegian scheduled and charter airline that operated from 1946 to 2004. 23 of these destinations were in Norway and 6 were in Sweden. Braathens provided international services to 24 airports serving 22 cities in 17 countries. Braathens' main hubs were Oslo Airport, Fornebu; Oslo Airport, Gardermoen; and Stockholm Arlanda Airport. The main technical base was at Stavanger Airport, Sola. The destinations in Asia were served from 1949 to 1954. Then, Braathens became a domestic airline, and did not have international scheduled services again until 1987, except during part of 1960. From 1994, the airline market was deregulated and Braathens was free to operate domestically and within the European Economic Area. In 1997, Braathens bought Transwede and started domestic services in Sweden, but these were terminated in 1999. The company ceased serving all destinations in 2004, when Braathens merged with the Norwegian division of Scandinavian Airlines System to create SAS Braathens. (Full list...)