Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 December 24

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From today's featured article

Frank Borman (born 1928) is a retired United States Air Force colonel, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and businessman, and the oldest living former NASA astronaut. In 1968, he was the commander of Apollo 8, the first crewed mission to fly around the Moon, for which he was awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. A graduate of West Point, he served as an air force fighter pilot and flight instructor, and an assistant professor at West Point. He was one of five students in the first class at the Aerospace Research Pilot School, and was selected with the second group of NASA astronauts in 1962. He set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record as commander of Gemini 7, and served on the review board for the Apollo 1 fire. He became a senior vice president at Eastern Air Lines in 1970, and later its chief executive officer and chairman of the board, leading the company through its four most profitable years before resigning in 1986. He currently owns a ranch in Montana. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Rosika Schwimmer

... that in 1929 Rosika Schwimmer (pictured), a woman over 50 and thus ineligible to take up arms in the U.S., was denied citizenship by the Supreme Court for pacifism and became stateless?
... that John Rutter wrote the text and music for Angels' Carol, a choral piece for Christmas, using the Latin "Gloria in excelsis Deo" from the Christmas story as a refrain?
... that Tlingit artist Tanis S'eiltin's mixed-media installation Hit includes video, a replica M16 rifle, and a glass tank of oil and water?
... that the establishment of a secondary population of Christmas white-eye has reduced its risk of extinction?
... that French Resistance member Odette Abadi was a co-founder of Réseau Marcel, which saved more than 500 Jewish children during the Holocaust?
... that 1 William Street was described by the New York Architect magazine as New York City's "most complete banking institution" upon its completion?
... that Erza Muqoli was a founding member of the French child music group Kids United, which had three number-one albums during her tenure?
... that a juniper tree in the median of Interstate 17 in Arizona is mysteriously decorated every year at Christmas?

In the news

Jamal Khashoggi

A court in Saudi Arabia sentences five people to death for the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi (pictured).
In the Netherlands, the supreme court upholds a ruling that the government must meet established emissions reduction milestones, creating the first legal precedent on the impact of climate change on human rights.
United States president Donald Trump is impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf is sentenced to death in absentia for treason and subverting the constitution.

On this day

December 24

The advertisement that spurred the creation of NORAD Tracks Santa

1814 – The United Kingdom and the United States signed a peace treaty in Ghent, present-day Belgium, ending the War of 1812.
1846 – The Sultanate of Brunei ceded the island of Labuan to the British Empire as a crown colony.
1955 – According to legend, the NORAD Tracks Santa program began after children began calling the Continental Air Defense Command Center to inquire about Santa Claus's whereabouts due to a misprinted phone number in an advertisement (pictured).
1979 – The Soviet government deployed troops in Afghanistan, starting the Soviet–Afghan War.
2008 – The Lord's Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group, began attacks on several villages in the north of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing hundreds and committing numerous atrocities.

Gongsun Shu (d. AD 36) · Johnny Gruelle (b. 1880) · Maria Koepcke (d. 1971)

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Today's featured picture

Aida is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its premiere there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today, the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886.

This picture is the set design for Act 1, Scene 2, of the opera's 1871 premiere, depicting the portico of the Temple of Vulcan, designed by Philippe Chaperon. The drawing is in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Drawing credit: Philippe Chaperon; restored by Adam Cuerden

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