Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 November 18b

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From today's featured article

Walt Whitman, c. 1860

Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln never met, but the American poet greatly admired Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, and was deeply affected by his assassination, writing several poems as elegies and giving a series of lectures on Lincoln. Shortly after the assassination, Whitman hastily wrote the first of his Lincoln poems, "Hush'd Be the Camps To-Day". Two more appeared in his collection Sequel to Drum-Taps later in 1865: "O Captain! My Captain!" and "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd". The poems—particularly "My Captain!"—were popular upon publication and, in the following years, Whitman styled himself as an interpreter of Lincoln. In 1871, his fourth poem on Lincoln, "This Dust Was Once the Man", was published. "My Captain!" is still one of Whitman's most popular works, despite slipping in popularity and critical assessment since the early 1900s. "Lilacs" is often listed as one of Whitman's finest works. (This article is part of a featured topic: Walt Whitman and Abraham Lincoln.)

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Detail of Henry VIII's horned helmet

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... that Guy Gavriel Kay, author of Children of Earth and Sky, has been described as "contemporary fiction's finest fantasist"?
... that in the late 2000s the Campbell Soup Company began producing a spicier canned cheese sauce in their California and Texas plants than they did elsewhere to cater for different consumer tastes?
... that Miray Cin played for the Germany women's national U15, U16 and U17 football teams before she became a member of the Turkey women's national football team?
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In the news

SpaceX Crew-3 launch

Kosmos 1408 is destroyed by a Russian anti-satellite weapon, producing space debris.
We Continue the Change, led by Kiril Petkov and Asen Vasilev, wins the most seats in the Bulgarian general election.
SpaceX's Crew-3 mission (launch pictured) takes four astronauts to the International Space Station.
Former South African president F. W. de Klerk, who negotiated the end of apartheid with Nelson Mandela, dies at the age of 85.

On this day

November 18

Mark Twain in 1867

1210 – Otto IV, Holy Roman Emperor, was excommunicated by Pope Innocent III after Otto commanded him to annul the Concordat of Worms.
1865 – "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was published, becoming the first great success of American author Mark Twain (pictured).
1956 – At the Polish embassy in Moscow, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev said "We will bury you" while addressing Western envoys, prompting them to leave the room.
1991 – Croatian War of Independence: The Yugoslav People's Army captured the Croatian city of Vukovar, ending an 87-day siege.
2014 – Two Palestinian men attacked the praying congregants of a synagogue in Jerusalem with axes, knives, and a gun, resulting in eight deaths, including the attackers themselves.

Thomas Burgess (b. 1756)
Dorothy Dix (b. 1861)
Tara Singh Hayer (d. 1998)

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Today's featured picture

The Utah monolith was a three-meter-tall (9.8 ft) metal pillar that stood in a red sandstone slot canyon in northern San Juan County in the U.S. state of Utah. Made of metal sheets riveted into a triangular prism, it was unlawfully placed on public land between July and October 2016, and stood unnoticed for more than four years until its discovery and removal in late 2020. The identity of its makers, and their objectives, are unknown. Following its discovery, numerous similar metal columns, many of which were built by local artists as deliberate imitations, were erected in other places throughout the world. This photograph shows the Utah monolith at its original location.

Photograph credit: Patrick A. Mackie; retouched by Chainwit.

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