Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 November 22

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From today's featured article

Donkey Kong 64 is an adventure video game for the Nintendo 64 console, first released on November 22, 1999. It was the first in the series to feature 3D gameplay. As the gorilla Donkey Kong, the player explores an island to collect items and rescue his kidnapped friends. The player completes minigames and puzzles as five playable Kong characters, each with its own special abilities. The game's exceptionally large marketing budget included advertisements, sweepstakes, and a United States tour. The game received universal acclaim from reviewers, but was criticized for its camera controls and emphasis on item collection and backtracking. It won the 1999 E3 Game Critics award for the best platform game, and multiple awards and nominations from games magazines. By 2004, 2.3 million units had been sold. A rap song from the game's introductory sequence is often cited among the worst songs to feature in a video game. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Fred Rogers testifies before
a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

... that Fred Rogers's 1969 testimony (video shown) resurfaced in 2012 and 2017 to counter calls for defunding PBS and similar non-profit arts-related organizations?
... that Benjamin Britten, who composed A Hymn of St Columba for the 1,400th anniversary of Saint Columba's voyage to Iona, wanted it sung "with fire"?
... that nurse and suffragette Mary Bartlett Dixon helped establish the first hospital in Easton, Maryland?
... that the male of the hoverfly species Syritta pipiens darts sharply in flight to facilitate mating?
... that Mustafa Güzelgöz was called the "Librarian with Donkey" as he circulated hundreds of books among villagers in Ürgüp, Turkey, on the back of a donkey?
... that the Isaac T. Hopper House, built during the development of one of New York City's wealthiest neighborhoods, is now a halfway house for women?
... that Japanese fetish artist Namio Harukawa contributed artwork to a BDSM pulp magazine while still in high school?
... that in 1998, a buyer of Colorado radio station KGRE risked his entire savings and maxed out seven credit cards to acquire it?

In the news

Kyle Busch

In stock car racing, the NASCAR Cup Series concludes, with Kyle Busch (pictured) winning the drivers' championship.
Cyclone Bulbul hits the Indian and Bangladeshi coasts of the Bay of Bengal, killing at least 24 people.
After weeks of protests over alleged electoral fraud, Bolivian president Evo Morales and other high-ranking politicians are forced to resign, and opposition senator Jeanine Áñez becomes interim president.
The Supreme Court of India delivers a unanimous verdict in favour of the construction of a Hindu temple at a disputed holy site in Ayodhya.

On this day

November 22: Alphabet Day in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia (1908)

Cairngorm Plateau

498 – Following the death of Anastasius II, both Symmachus and Laurentius were elected pope, causing a schism that lasted until 506, with Symmachus being recognized as legitimate.
1635 – Dutch colonial forces on Taiwan launched a three-month pacification campaign against Taiwanese indigenous peoples.
1910 – The crews of three Brazilian warships – all commissioned only months before – and several smaller vessels mutinied against perceived "slavery" being practised in the Brazilian Navy.
1971 – In Britain's worst mountaineering tragedy, the Cairngorm Plateau disaster (location pictured), five teenage students and one of their leaders were found dead from exposure in the Scottish mountains.

Francis Willughby (b. 1635) · Mary Boykin Chesnut (d. 1886) · Marjane Satrapi (b. 1969)

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From today's featured list

Monmouth Castle

There are 53 Grade I listed buildings in Monmouthshire, a county and principal area of Wales. In the United Kingdom, the term "listed building" refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance. Listing was begun by a provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Once a building is listed, strict limitations are imposed on the modifications allowed to its structure or fittings. The Grade I listed buildings in Monmouthshire consist of twenty-four churches, a priory and an abbey, eight castles, seven houses, two bridges, a barn, a cross, a farm, a folly, a gatehouse, a hotel, a municipal building, a stables, and two elements of town walls. Notable people associated with Monmouthshire's Grade I listed buildings include Henry V, born at Monmouth Castle (pictured) in 1387; the medieval soldier and statesman William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who undertook major construction at Chepstow Castle; and Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester, who entertained his king at Raglan, and lost the castle at the end of the First English Civil War. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Guion Bluford (born November 22, 1942) is an American aerospace engineer, retired U.S. Air Force officer and fighter pilot, and former NASA astronaut, who is the first African American and the second person of African descent to go to space. Before becoming an astronaut in 1978 as part of NASA Astronaut Group 8, Bluford was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, where he remained while assigned to NASA, rising to the rank of colonel. He participated in four Space Shuttle flights between 1983 and 1992. In 1983, as a member of the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the mission STS-8, he became the first African American in space, as well as the second person of African ancestry in space, after Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez.

This picture of Bluford is his official NASA portrait, taken in 1992, the year of his final mission, STS-53. He is depicted in his Launch Entry Suit and holding the helmet.

Photograph credit: NASA; retouched by Coffeeandcrumbs

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