Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 December 22

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From today's featured article

Andrew Sledd (1870–1939) was an American theologian, university professor and university president. A native of Virginia, he was ordained as a Methodist minister after earning his master's degree; he later earned a doctorate at Yale. After teaching for several years, Sledd became the last president of the University of Florida at Lake City from 1904 to 1905, and the first president of what is now the University of Florida from 1905 to 1909. He was president of Southern University from 1910 to 1914, and became a professor and an influential biblical scholar at Emory University's Candler School of Theology from 1914 to 1939. Bibliographies highlight his 1902 magazine article advocating better legal and social treatment of African Americans, his role in founding the modern University of Florida, his scholarly analysis of biblical texts as literature, his call for an end to racial violence, and his influence on a generation of Methodist seminary students, scholars and ministers. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Saint-Chamond tank

... that the steering system on the Saint-Chamond tank (pictured) weighed five tons?
... that Michigan linebacker Mike McCray was named Big Ten Conference Defensive Player of the Week for his first career start?
... that in 1967, President Hastings Banda established the Order of the Lion, Malawi's second-highest honor?
... that the Iazyges were a tribe of Sarmatians that migrated from Central Asia to the Pannonian Basin?
... that in 2005, Howard Dean was elected as Chair of the Democratic National Committee, despite both Democratic Congressional leaders endorsing Tim Roemer instead?
... that after High Priest Matua of Mangareva converted to Christianity in 1835, his long hair, sacred in the old pagan religion, was cut short?
... that the third movement of the chorale motet Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme contains a quotation from a Bach cantata which composer J. C. F. Bach included as a tribute to his father?
... that Bertha Bracey was a Hero of the Holocaust?

In the news

Breitscheidplatz Christmas market

An explosion at a fireworks market in Tultepec, Mexico, kills at least 32 people and injures more than 50 others.
At least 12 people are killed and 49 others injured in a suspected terrorist attack, as a stolen truck is rammed into a Christmas market (pictured) in Berlin, Germany.
Researchers measure a spectral line of antihydrogen, a type of antimatter, finding it to be identical to hydrogen, as predicted by the Standard Model.
More than 60 people die in Irkutsk, Russia, after drinking counterfeit bath lotion containing methanol.
The Russian ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, is assassinated in Ankara.
Muhammad V of Kelantan becomes Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia.

On this day...

December 22

President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan

1216 – Pope Honorius III issued the papal bull Religiosam vitam to establish the Dominican Order.
1769 – Having been soundly defeated in battle, the Qing dynasty agreed to terms of truce, ending the Sino-Burmese War.
1937 – The Lincoln Tunnel, connecting New York City to Weehawken, New Jersey, opened.
1988 – Brazilian unionist and environmental activist Chico Mendes was murdered at his Xapuri home.
2001 – Burhanuddin Rabbani of the Northern Alliance handed over power in Afghanistan to the interim government headed by Hamid Karzai (pictured).

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Today's featured picture

Thor, in Norse mythology, is a hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, the protection of mankind, and also hallowing and fertility. He is prominently mentioned throughout the recorded history of the Germanic peoples and is described as relentlessly slaughtering his foes and having fierce battles with the monstrous serpent Jörmungandr. Symbols of Thor were worn in defiance during the Christianization of Scandinavia, and today his influence is found in the names of cities and a day of the week as well as popular culture. He is shown here in Thor's Fight with the Giants, an 1872 painting by Mårten Eskil Winge which depicts the deity in battle with a jötunn.

Painting: Mårten Eskil Winge

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