Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 30

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Mary Shelley (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein (1818), an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley, who drowned in a sailing accident in 1822. Scholarly appreciation has increased in recent decades for her novels, including Valperga, Perkin Warbeck, Lodore, Falkner, and the apocalyptic The Last Man, as well as her biographical articles for Dionysius Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia. The influences of her mother, the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, are evident in Shelley's travel narrative Rambles in Germany and Italy. Shelley often argued in favour of cooperation and sympathy as skills for reforming civil society; this view challenged the individualistic Romantic ethos promoted by her husband and the Enlightenment ideals of her father, William Godwin. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Dancing pallbearers in Suriname

... that there is an annual holiday for dancing pallbearers in Suriname (examples pictured)?
... that when Paralympian Issy Bailey was in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, she had so many injuries that taking up shooting seemed to be the best option?
... that the Zuijin Teiki Emaki, a 13th-century Japanese painted handscroll, presents nine equestrian portraits of some of the Imperial Guards who protected the Daijō Tennō?
... that Nova Iriansyah, the governor of Aceh, was expelled from elementary school as a child?
... that when the 68-story Metropolitan Tower in New York City was being built, its developer was forced to stop marketing it as a 78-story building?
... that Kangmei Pharmaceutical's financial fraud was initially described as an "accounting error"?
... that William McAndrew, the superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, was accused of being an agent of George V, King of the United Kingdom?
... that Yoko Ono's song "Beautiful Boys" incorporates sound effects from the first Star Wars film?

In the news

Paralympics opening ceremony

Amid evacuations from Afghanistan, a suicide bombing kills at least 182 people at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
The Summer Paralympics open (ceremony pictured) in Tokyo, Japan.
Ismail Sabri Yaakob is appointed as prime minister by the King of Malaysia.
Hakainde Hichilema is elected President of Zambia.
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills more than 2,200 people.

On this day

August 30: Krishna Janmashtami (Hinduism, 2021); Victory Day in Turkey (1922)

Amalasuintha

AD 70 – First Jewish–Roman War: The Siege of Jerusalem ended with Roman forces entering and sacking the Lower City, destroying the Second Temple.
526 – Upon the death of her father Theodoric the Great, Amalasuintha (pictured) of the Ostrogoths became the regent for her ten-year-old son Athalaric.
1914 – World War I: The Battle of Tannenberg resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian 2nd Army by the German 8th Army.
1974 – An express train carrying foreign workers from Yugoslavia to West Germany derailed in Zagreb, killing 153 people.
2014 – Prime minister of Lesotho Tom Thabane fled to South Africa, claiming that the army had launched a coup d'état.

Hervey le Breton (d. 1131)
Theodor Svedberg (b. 1884)
Oliver Sacks (d. 2015)

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Andrew McGrath

The 2017 AFL Rising Star was an Australian rules football award presented to the player adjudged the best young player in the Australian Football League (AFL) for the 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. During the 2017 season, the award was sponsored by National Australia Bank, and the winner announced in a presentation held on 1 September 2017 and broadcast on subscription television by Fox Footy. The winner was Essendon player Andrew McGrath (pictured), who polled 51 votes. McGrath became only the third number-one draft pick to win the award, and the second Essendon recipient. The club that garnered the most individual nominations this season was Carlton, with five players nominated for the award. (Full list...)

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Albury railway station is a heritage-listed railway station at Railway Place in Albury, New South Wales, adjacent to the border with the state of Victoria, in Australia. The buildings were erected in 1880 and 1881, at a time when increasing wool trade from the Riverina region was driving expansion of the railway network. The station was the terminus for the Main Southern Railway until 1962. The yard was designed to facilitate the interchange of goods and passenger traffic arriving on tracks of different gauges and remains as an operational railway yard and passenger station. To accommodate the break of gauge, a very long railway platform was built, the covered platform being one of the longest in Australia.

Photograph credit: David Gubler

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