Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 January 15

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From today's featured article

Wōdejebato is an undersea volcanic mountain with a flat top (a guyot), and probably a shield volcano, in the northern Marshall Islands of the Pacific. Formed of basaltic rocks, it is connected through a 74-kilometre (46 mi) submarine ridge to the smaller Bikini Atoll to its southeast. Named for a sea god of Bikini, Wōdejebato rises 4,420 metres (14,500 ft) above the ocean floor, to within 1,335 metres (4,380 ft) of the surface. It was probably formed by a hotspot in present-day French Polynesia before being shifted by plate tectonics. A volcanic episode in the Late Cretaceous led to the formation of an island and a carbonate platform that disappeared below the sea. A second volcanic episode between 85 and 78.4 million years ago created an island that was eventually eroded, generating an atoll or atoll-like structure that covered the former island with carbonates. The second carbonate platform drowned about 68 million years ago. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Esther before Ahasuerus

... that after various changes to Tintoretto's Esther before Ahasuerus (shown) from the 1540s onwards, the painting now has two figures of Haman?
... that the offspring of the little brown bat weighs nearly a third of its mother's weight at birth?
... that the Old West figurine sculptor Earl Heikka's first studio was on Gary Cooper's ranch?
... that after journalist Victor Mallet chaired a talk by Chan Ho-tin, leader of the now-banned Hong Kong National Party, he was denied renewal of his Hong Kong work permit?
... that the 18th-century Rami Barracks was temporarily used by food wholesalers before its current planned redevelopment to create Turkey's biggest library?
... that black voting rights activist Herbert Lee was killed in 1961 by Mississippi state representative E. H. Hurst?
... that a volunteer medical unit was raised in Ireland for service with the French Army in the Franco-Prussian War?
... that before Richard Ellis became a photographer, he was a tightrope walker in a travelling circus?

In the news

Paweł Adamowicz

Mayor of Gdańsk Paweł Adamowicz (pictured) dies after being stabbed on stage at a charity concert.
Fifteen people are killed when a Saha Airlines Boeing 707 crashes on landing at Fath Air Base, Iran.
In the midst of an ongoing constitutional crisis in Venezuela, the National Assembly disputes incumbent president Nicolás Maduro's victory in the May 2018 election and declares Juan Guaidó the acting president.
Félix Tshisekedi is declared the winner of the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

On this day

January 15: Mattu Pongal (Tamils, 2019); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi

Damage caused by the Boston Molasses Disaster

1919 – A large molasses tank in Boston, Massachusetts, burst and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets (damage pictured), killing 21 people and injuring 150 others.
1933 – A teenage girl in Banneux, Belgium, reported the first of several Marian apparitions, now known as Our Lady of Banneux.
1991 – Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.
2009 – US Airways Flight 1549 struck a flock of Canada geese during its initial climb out from New York City and made an emergency landing in the Hudson River.

Theophylact (d. 849) · Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (b. 1812) · Ben Shapiro (b. 1984)

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Today's featured picture

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne is an oil painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting Saint Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. Christ is shown grappling with a sacrificial lamb on the edge of a precipice, symbolizing his Passion. It is likely that the painting was commissioned by King Louis XII of France following the birth of his daughter Claude in 1499, but it was never delivered to him. Leonardo probed into incorporating these figures together through preparatory works including the Burlington House Cartoon, now in the National Gallery, London, and a drawing which resides in the Louvre, Paris. The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne is also in the Louvre.

Painting: Leonardo da Vinci

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