Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 August 9

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From today's featured article

L. W. Hoffecker

The Gadsden Purchase half dollar was a proposed commemorative coin to be issued by the United States Bureau of the Mint. El Paso coin dealer L. W. Hoffecker (pictured) wanted a coin issued he could control and distribute. He gained the support of several members of Congress, and a bill was introduced. Treasury Secretary Andrew W. Mellon sent a letter and two officials in opposition to the bill at its committee hearing, but it passed both houses of Congress without dissent. On April 21, 1930, President Herbert Hoover vetoed the bill, deeming commemorative coins abusive; the House of Representatives sustained his veto. No commemorative coins were struck during the remainder of the Hoover administration, and although they began again after Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated, in 1938, Roosevelt vetoed one, citing Hoover's action, as would Truman and Eisenhower. No commemorative coins were struck from 1955 until after the Treasury Department changed its position in 1981. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Sports and exercises on the Field of Mars, pre-1914

... that over its 300 years, the area of Saint Petersburg's Field of Mars has been a military parade ground, public meeting space, festival site, and location for sports and exercises (pictured)?
... that prolific British author S. H. "Tim" Burton hand-wrote his books because he could not stand typewriters?
... that imaging scientist Katie Bouman first learned of the Event Horizon Telescope in 2007, while still in high school, and joined the project six years later?
... that the investigational drug SEP-363856 may represent a new class of antipsychotics?
... that in addition to founding Tmura, an anti-discrimination center that advocates for women's rights, Yifat Bitton was shortlisted for Israel's Supreme Court twice?
... that the maple Acer beckianum was described from a piece of petrified wood found near Vantage, Washington, in 1954?
... that the 1813 sinking of the British warship HMS Peacock was celebrated with a song by Eliakim Doolittle?
... that Ottessa Moshfegh's second novel, My Year of Rest and Relaxation, was originally planned to focus on the September 11 attacks?
... that Ina Kaplan was six months pregnant when she won three of the four 2014 German national pool championships?

In the news

Toni Morrison

American novelist Toni Morrison (pictured) dies at the age of 88.
India revokes the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and establishes Ladakh as a separate union territory.
In the United States, 32 people are killed and more than 50 others are injured during separate mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio.
The United States formally withdraws from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia.
A prison riot in Altamira, Brazil, leaves 62 people dead.

On this day

August 9: International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples; National Women's Day in South Africa

Leaning Tower of Pisa

1173 – Construction began on a campanile that would eventually be known as the Leaning Tower of Pisa (pictured).
1944 – The United States Forest Service authorized the use of Smokey Bear as its mascot to replace Bambi.
1974 – On the verge of impeachment and removal from office amidst the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to resign his office.
2001 – A suicide bomber attacked a Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, killing 15 people and wounding 130 others.
2014 – Michael Brown, an 18-year-old African-American man, was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, resulting in widespread protests and unrest.

Annie Malone (b. 1869) · Ernst Haeckel (d. 1919) · Jason Heyward (b. 1989)

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From today's featured list

2008 British Olympic cycling
team member Chris Hoy

The BBC Sports Team of the Year Award is an award given annually as part of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony each December. The award is given "[f]or the team in an individual sport or sporting discipline that has achieved the most notable performance in the calendar year to date. The team should have significant UK interest or involvement". From 2012, the award's recipient is decided by an expert panel selected by the BBC. The Team of the Year Award was first presented in 1960, six years after the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award was introduced. The first recipient of the award was the Cooper Formula One Racing team. The England national rugby union team and the Ryder Cup team have won the award the most times; both teams have won five times and have shared the award on one of those occasions. Six nations have been represented by the award-winning team. Football has had the highest representation among the winners, with thirteen recipients. The most recent award was presented in 2018 to the England national netball team. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Béatrice et Bénédict is an opéra comique in two acts by French composer Hector Berlioz. Berlioz wrote the French libretto himself, based closely on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. He had been interested in setting Shakespeare's comedy since his return from Italy in 1833, but only composed the score of the opera following the completion of Les Troyens in 1858. It was first performed at the opening of the Theater Baden-Baden on 9 August 1862. Berlioz conducted the first two performances of a German version in Weimar in 1863, where, as he wrote in his memoirs, he was "overwhelmed by all sorts of kind attention".

This picture is the title page of the first edition vocal score of Béatrice et Bénédict, published in 1863, with an illustration by French illustrator Antoine Barbizet.

Illustration credit: Antoine Barbizet; restored by Adam Cuerden

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