Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 May 15

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Obverse

The Columbia, South Carolina, Sesquicentennial half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1936 as a commemorative coin. Designed by Abraham Wolfe Davidson, it marks the 150th anniversary of the designation of Columbia as South Carolina's state capital. The obverse design (pictured) depicts Lady Justice holding a sword and scales, standing between South Carolina's Old State House, built in 1790, and the New State House, completed in 1903. The reverse shows the palmetto tree, South Carolina's state symbol, with 13 stars representing the original Thirteen Colonies, though they may also be intended to represent the Confederate States. The coins were struck in September 1936, but they were slow to be distributed. Once they were, they were sold to the public in small quantities, frustrating coin dealers who hoped to accumulate more to resell to their customers. They generally sell in the range of hundreds of dollars today, depending on condition. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Comstock mealybug infestation

... that in a 1980 Japanese study, virgin female adult Comstock mealybugs (examples pictured) were taken from pumpkins so that scientists could extract their sex pheromone to capture the males?
... that the 2021 FA Cup Final between Leicester City and Chelsea today is expected to be the first football match in England with more than 8,000 supporters since March 2020?
... that construction site visits for the Denny Centre in Seattle were conducted through 360-degree video for the Canadian developer due to the COVID-19 pandemic?
... that Orvokki Kangas authored six books, including a novel, memoirs, and religious devotionals, after she left the Finnish parliament at the age of 61?
... that Russ Ford developed the emery ball pitch and taught it to Ed Sweeney and Earle Gardner, who taught it to Cy Falkenberg, before it was banned by Major League Baseball when Ray Keating was caught using it?
... that A Question of Love was widely regarded as a bold film for portraying homosexuality, a rare topic for television dramas in 1978?
... that 47,000 bodies from Lafayette Cemetery in Philadelphia were reinterred to allow for the construction of a playground?
... that Miroslav Fryčer's wish for his former head coach John Brophy to be fired after scoring two goals against the Toronto Maple Leafs came true that same month?

In the news

Security forces enter after school shooting

A school shooting (security response pictured) in Kazan, Russia, leaves nine people dead.
Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, escalating to airstrikes and rocket attacks, kill more than a hundred people and injure several hundred others.
In Afghanistan, a bombing near a school in Kabul kills at least 85 people and injures more than 140 others.
Maldives speaker of parliament and former president Mohamed Nasheed is injured with four others in a car bombing in Malé.

On this day

May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities

Statue of Valentinian II

392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II (statue pictured) was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, in present-day France.
1602 – Early English explorer Bartholomew Gosnold arrived on Cape Cod in present-day Massachusetts.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: After striking several mines off Port Arthur, China, the Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank.
1966 – Disapproving of General Tôn Thất Đính's handling of the Buddhist Uprising, South Vietnamese prime minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ ordered an attack on his forces and ousted Đính from his post.
1990 – Vincent van Gogh's Portrait of Dr. Gachet was sold at auction at Christie's in New York for US$82.5 million, making it the world's most expensive painting at the time.

Hilary of Galeata (d. 558)
Emily Dickinson (d. 1886)
Patrice Evra (b. 1981)

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Today's featured picture

L'enfant et les sortilèges (The Child and the Spells) is a one-act opera in two scenes with music by Maurice Ravel and a libretto by Colette. It is the story of a child who is reprimanded by the objects in his room after he has been destroying them in a tantrum; the second scene shows the garden where the child attempts to make friends with the animals and plants but they reject his advances because of his past behaviour. These two sets were designed for the première at the Théâtre de l'Opéra-Comique in Paris, which took place on 1 February 1926.

Illustration credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden

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