Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 June 23

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From today's featured article

Sonic the Hedgehog is a Japanese video game series and media franchise created and owned by Sega. The franchise follows Sonic, an anthropomorphic blue hedgehog who battles Doctor Eggman, a mad scientist. In addition to video games, Sonic incorporates printed media, animations, a 2020 feature film, and merchandise. The first Sonic game, released for the Sega Genesis on June 23, 1991, was developed after Sega requested a mascot character to compete with Nintendo's mascot Mario. Sonic's success helped Sega become one of the leading video game companies during the fourth generation of video game consoles in the early 1990s. When Sega exited the console market and shifted to third-party development in 2001, it continued the series on Nintendo, Xbox, and PlayStation systems. Sonic the Hedgehog is Sega's flagship franchise and one of the bestselling video game franchises, having sold more than 140 million copies by 2016. Several Sonic games have been listed among the greatest of all time. Although later games, notably the 2006 series reboot, have been criticized for a perceived decline in quality, Sonic is influential in the video game industry and is frequently referenced in popular culture. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Male hooded visorbearer

... that the hooded visorbearer (example pictured) builds its nest out of cactus spines?
... that Russian generals proposed to invade India in 1854 and in 1855 to divert British forces from the Crimean War?
... that Addo Bonetti lost renomination in a Democratic primary by one vote, but the election was later invalidated?
... that the illustrated erotic novel Su'e pian, published during the late Ming dynasty, describes "Stopping the Horse to Pull the Saddle", "Flowers Longing for Butterflies", and "The Union of Yin and Yang"?
... that pianist and composer Grace Welsh turned down becoming president of the American Conservatory of Music due to thinking that it would get in the way of her teaching music?
... that the new bishop of Kotor in Montenegro, Ivan Štironja, speaks Swahili and served as a missionary in Tanzania?
... that in the musical Fermat's Last Tango, mathematicians Euclid and Newton are played by women?
... that in China, Buddha-like parents, the polar opposite of tiger parents, do not envision their offspring accomplishing much in life?

In the news

Ryan Crouser

In golf, Jon Rahm wins the U.S. Open.
Ryan Crouser (pictured) sets a new shot put world record of 23.37 metres (76 ft 8 in).
Ebrahim Raisi is elected president of Iran.
China's Shenzhou 12 launches with the first crew to dock at the Tiangong space station.
Kenneth Kaunda, the first president of Zambia, dies at the age of 97.
A new government is formed in Israel, with Naftali Bennett becoming prime minister, ending Benjamin Netanyahu's 12-year tenure.

On this day

June 23: Grand Duke's Official Birthday in Luxembourg

Pierre de Coubertin

1266 – War of Saint Sabas: At the Battle of Trapani, Venetian forces defeated a larger Genoese fleet, capturing all their remaining ships.
1865 – Stand Watie became the last Confederate general of the American Civil War to surrender to Union forces.
1894 – Led by French historian Pierre de Coubertin (pictured), an international congress at the Sorbonne in Paris formed the International Olympic Committee to revive the ancient Olympic Games.
1946 – Canada's largest recorded onshore earthquake struck Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
2013 – A group of militants stormed a high-altitude Pakistani mountaineering base camp near Nanga Parbat in Gilgit-Baltistan, killing ten climbers and one local guide.

Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (d. 1324)
Huda Sha'arawi (b. 1879)
Michèle Mouton (b. 1951)

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Today's featured picture

Françoise-Marguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de Grignan (1646–1705), was a French aristocrat. She is remembered for the letters that her mother, Madame de Sévigné, wrote to her over the course of thirty years. Françoise-Marguerite was a renowned beauty with a sharp wit, but was considered unbearably vain by Roger de Rabutin, comte de Bussy, another of her mother's correspondents. This oil-on-canvas portrait of the comtesse de Grignan was painted by Alexander Roslin in 1753, and is anachronistic in depicting her in mid-18th-century clothing.

Painting credit: Alexander Roslin

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