Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 December 27b

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From today's featured article

Gold dinar named for
Salih ibn Mirdas

Salih ibn Mirdas (died 1029) was the founder of the Mirdasid dynasty and emir of Aleppo from 1025 until his death. His sons and grandsons ruled Aleppo for most of the next five decades. In 1008 he seized the Euphrates river fortress of al-Rahba. He was imprisoned and tortured in 1012 by the emir of Aleppo, Mansur ibn Lu'lu', before escaping two years later and capturing Mansur in battle. With his Bedouin warriors, Salih captured a string of fortresses along the Euphrates, including Manbij and Raqqa, by 1022. He later allied with the Banu Kalb and Banu Tayy tribes in their rebellion against the Fatimids of Egypt, who ruled Aleppo. He annexed the central Syrian towns of Homs, Baalbek and Sidon before conquering Aleppo in 1025 and establishing a well-organized administration. He paid formal allegiance to the Fatimids, but his alliance with the Banu Tayy drew him into conflict with the Fatimid general, Anushtakin al-Dizbari, whose forces killed Salih in battle near the Sea of Galilee. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Mackintosh with his gun and a trophy

... that Donald Mackintosh (pictured) was posthumously awarded an Olympic gold medal for shooting 22 live pigeons in a row?
... that "Baby Yoda", a character in the Star Wars spin-off The Mandalorian, was named "2019's biggest new character" by The Guardian?
... that Stribodh, first published in 1857, was one of the earliest magazines in India to be aimed at a female audience?
... that actress Kathryn Crosby earned a nursing degree at the Queen of Angels Hospital in Los Angeles?
... that a year after Five Ash Down Independent Chapel opened, doctrinal differences caused some members to leave and form Uckfield Baptist Church?
... that in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the refusal of the International Longshoremen's Association to unload cargo from the Soviet Union was illegal under the National Labor Relations Act?
... that Liang Baibo and Yu Feng were among China's first female cartoonists?
... that Burleigh House in Enfield, near London, was said to be haunted by a ghost wearing a doublet, hose, and a ruffle?

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 27

J. M. Barrie

1657 – Citizens of New Netherland presented the Flushing Remonstrance to Peter Stuyvesant, the director general, requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship.
1845 – John L. O'Sullivan, in his newspaper the New York Morning News, argued that the United States had the right to claim the entire Oregon Country "by the right of our manifest destiny", popularizing the term's use.
1904 – The stage play Peter Pan; or, The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, by Scottish author and dramatist J. M. Barrie (pictured), premiered in London.
1966 – A group of three men made the first descent into the Cave of Swallows, the largest known cave shaft in the world, in Aquismón, Mexico.
2002 – The company Clonaid claimed that a cloned human baby had been born, although it has yet to present any verifiable evidence.

George Whitefield (b. 1714) · George Cayley (b. 1773) · Chyna (b. 1969)

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From today's featured list

Callum Mills

The 2016 AFL Rising Star was presented to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for that year. An eligible player was nominated for the award each round during the AFL's regular season, and a panel of experts voted for the winner at the end of the season. The winner was Sydney player Callum Mills (pictured), who polled 49 votes. Mills was the third Sydney recipient to win the award, and the first New South Wales – born winner. The club that garnered the most individual nominations this season was Melbourne with four players nominated for the award, a record for the club. Essendon player Orazio Fantasia, who received a nomination in round 17, was previously nominated for the award in the 2015 season – becoming the tenth player ever to be nominated twice for a Rising Star award. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The chinstrap penguin (Pygoscelis antarcticus) is a species of penguin that inhabits land masses in the Southern Pacific and Antarctic Oceans. The bird's black back and white underparts provide camouflage in the form of countershading when viewed from above or below, helping it to avoid detection by its predators, which include the leopard seal, the southern giant petrel, the brown skua and the south polar skua. The chinstrap penguin grows to a length of 68–76 cm (27–30 in) and a weight of 3.2–5.3 kg (7.1–11.7 lb), with the weight varying with the time of year. Males are greater in weight and height than females.

This picture shows a chinstrap penguin photographed on Deception Island, in the Antarctic archipelago of the South Shetland Islands.

Photograph credit: Andrew Shiva

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