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From today's featured article

The atrium of the Görlitzer Warenhaus doubled for the hotel lobby.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is a 2014 comedy-drama film written and directed by Wes Anderson. Ralph Fiennes leads a seventeen-actor ensemble cast as Monsieur Gustave H., renowned concierge of a fictional European mountainside resort. When Gustave is framed for the murder of a wealthy dowager (Tilda Swinton), he embarks on a quest for fortune and a priceless Renaissance painting with his recently befriended lobby boy (Tony Revolori). Thematic analysis focuses on the function of color as a storytelling device and the film's exploration of fascism, nostalgia, friendship, and loyalty. The Grand Budapest Hotel was based on Anderson and longtime collaborator Hugo Guinness's vision of a fragmented tale of a character inspired by a mutual friend. Filming took place in Germany over ten weeks, in the regions around Berlin and Saxony. After premiering at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2014, the film grossed more than $172 million at the global box office. The Grand Budapest Hotel was released to highly positive reviews, and won four Academy Awards for music and technical achievement. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Brian Sicknick

... that US Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick (pictured) wanted to pursue a career in law enforcement since high school, and joined the New Jersey Air National Guard "as a means to that end"?
... that the 1959 short story "Now: Zero", while sharing some concepts with the popular 2003 manga Death Note, has been described as one of J. G. Ballard's weakest works?
... that Malysha Kelly's return to the Jamaica national netball team after a three-year absence was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic?
... that the American reality TV series The Bachelor took 18 years and 25 seasons to star its first black man?
... that for the 2015 film A Heavy Heart, German actor Peter Kurth gained and then lost 35 pounds (16 kg) to portray his character's physical decline due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?
... that the 1996 book Breton Ballads studies examples of the Breton genre of gwerz, and discusses the Barzaz Breiz controversy?
... that in 2020, Eli Savit was elected the prosecuting attorney of Washtenaw County, Michigan, on a promise to abolish the cash bail system?
... that at the 2010 Belgian Grand Prix, Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton slid off the wet track into a gravel trap, but was able to re-join the circuit and win the race?

In the news

Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic

In Zamfara, Nigeria, 279 girls who had been kidnapped from a secondary school by armed bandits are released.
In tennis, Naomi Osaka wins the women's singles and Novak Djokovic wins the men's singles at the Australian Open (both winners pictured).
Porfirije is enthroned as the 46th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
NASA's Perseverance rover, carrying the Ingenuity helicopter, successfully lands on Mars.

On this day

March 7: Feast day of Saints Perpetua and Felicity (Catholicism, Anglicanism, Lutheranism)

Silver leaf disc of Sol Invictus

321 – Emperor Constantine I decreed that Sunday, the day honoring the sun god Sol Invictus (disc pictured), would be the Roman day of rest.
1850 – United States senator Daniel Webster delivered a speech advocating compromise on slavery, which proved to be unpopular with abolitionists in his home state.
1871 – José Paranhos, Viscount of Rio Branco, began a four-year premiership as Prime Minister of the Empire of Brazil, the longest in the state's history.
1941 – The German submarine U-47, one of the most successful U-boats of World War II, disappeared with 45 men on board.
2009 – Dissident Irish republican campaign: Two off-duty British Army soldiers were shot dead by Real IRA paramilitaries outside Massereene Barracks in Antrim, Northern Ireland.

Boris Kustodiev (b. 1878)
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan (b. 1961)
Cool Papa Bell (d. 1991)

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Today's featured picture

Mieke Wijaya (born 7 March 1940) is an Indonesian actress who has won three Citra Awards. Photographed here around 1960, she rose to fame as one of the stars in Perfini's musical comedy film Tiga Dara. Her career, spanning five decades, included performing as part of a stage-drama troupe in the 1960s while continuing to act in films, but she mostly concentrated on television roles by the 1990s.

Photograph credit: Tati Photo Studio; restored by Chris Woodrich

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