Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 February 3

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From today's featured article

Felix Mendelssohn (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847) was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concertos, oratorios, piano music, and chamber music. His best-known works include his Overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, his mature Violin Concerto, his String Octet, and his Songs Without Words for solo piano. He was born into a prominent Jewish family in Berlin, baptised as a Reformed Christian at age seven, and recognised early as a musical prodigy. Mendelssohn revived interest in Bach's music, notably with a performance of the St Matthew Passion in 1829. He enjoyed success in Germany and in his travels throughout Europe as a composer, conductor and soloist. Many of his major works premiered during his ten visits to Britain. He founded the Leipzig Conservatory, which became a bastion of his rather conservative tastes. After a long period of relative denigration, he is among the most popular romantic composers. (Full article...)

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Kansas City Union Station

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... that more than half the organic content of the tunic of the shiny orange sea squirt consists of cellulose?
... that bass singer Carlos Feller made his debut at the Teatro Colón in 1946, and at the Metropolitan Opera in 1988 in his signature role of Don Alfonso in Mozart's Così fan tutte?
... that the 1978–79 Penn Quakers men's basketball team was the only nine-seed to reach the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament until 2013?
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In the news

Aftermath of the Jolo Cathedral bombings

In football, the AFC Asian Cup concludes with Qatar beating Japan in the final.
A cold wave impacts North America, killing at least 21 people.
Two bombs at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (aftermath pictured) in Jolo, Philippines, kill at least 20 people and leave more than 100 others injured.
A mining dam collapses in Brumadinho, Brazil, leaving more than 120 people dead and hundreds of others missing.

On this day

February 3: Setsubun in Japan; Four Chaplains' Day in the United States

Wreckage of the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper

1266 – Conquest of Murcia: James I of Aragon entered the Muslim-held city of Murcia after the surrender of its inhabitants three days earlier.
1852 – The Argentine Confederation was defeated in the Platine War by an alliance consisting of Brazil, Uruguay and the Argentine provinces of Entre Ríos and Corrientes.
1930 – The Communist Party of Indochina, the Communist Party of Annam, and the Communist League of Indochina merged to form the Communist Party of Vietnam.
1959 – American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson were killed when their plane crashed shortly after taking off from Mason City Municipal Airport in Iowa (wreckage pictured).
2014 – Russia's first school shooting took place when a student opened fire at School No. 263 in Otradnoye District, Moscow, resulting in the deaths of a teacher and a police officer.

Coloman, King of Hungary (d. 1116) · George Crabbe (d. 1832) · Tatyana Velikanova (b. 1932)

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Today's featured picture

The Harvesters is an oil painting on wood completed by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565. It was commissioned by Nicolaes Jonghelinck, a merchant banker and art collector from Antwerp. Depicting the harvest, in July, August or late summer, the painting is one in a series of six works representing different times of the year. As in many of his paintings, the focus is on peasants and their work and does not have the religious themes common in landscape works of the time. The painting is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, which has described it as a "watershed in the history of Western art".

Painting: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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