Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 September 25

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From today's featured article

Plate 21, depicting a male red-capped parrot

Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book by Edward Lear containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs (example pictured). Lear started painting parrots for the book in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. Although the book was a financial failure, Lear's paintings of parrots established his reputation as one of the best natural history artists of his time. It found him work with leading contemporary naturalists, and the young Queen Victoria engaged him to help her with her painting technique. Lear's works influenced children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak. He continued with his nature painting for some years, but from about 1835 he became concerned about his failing eyesight, and increasingly concentrated on his nonsense works and landscape painting. He may have contributed to the illustrations for Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

HMS Caroline, painted by Thomas Buttersworth

... that Admiral Benjamin William Page was tasked with announcing the start of the Napoleonic Wars to the East Indies, using HMS Caroline (pictured)?
... that the music for the video game Rings of Power was composed by a first-year medical student?
... that Jean-Paul Jeannotte, founder and first artistic director of the Opéra de Montréal, performed the role of Bobino more than 100 times, in the premiere on CBC TV and on stages on a Canada tour?
... that according to Christopher Bollen, much of his 2020 novel A Beautiful Crime was written in a 17th-century monastery?
... that the small island of Aruba was at the Paralympics because Shardea Arias de la Cru thought they should be?
... that the Sawmill Fire of 2017, which burned more than 45,000 acres (18,000 ha), was started at a gender reveal party?
... that Park Chan-dea is the only male wushu athlete to be a six-time world champion?
... that Washington state educational TV station KPEC-TV bought and repaired a video tape recorder that had fallen off a forklift and been written off?

In the news

Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Former President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika (pictured) dies at the age of 84.
SpaceX launches Inspiration4, the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight.
The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia sign a security pact that will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
British tennis player Emma Raducanu wins the US Open, becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title.

On this day

September 25

Sandra Day O'Connor

1237 – Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland signed the Treaty of York, establishing the Anglo-Scottish border, which mostly remains the same today.
1396 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: After U.S. ships became involved, French forces abandoned their invasion of the Batavian island of Curaçao.
1944 – Second World War: British troops began their withdrawal from the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, ending the Allies' Operation Market Garden in defeat.
1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor (pictured) became the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Billy Hughes (b. 1862)
Johannes Brost (b. 1946)
Marian Breland Bailey (d. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

Equestrian Portrait of Cornelis and Michiel Pompe van Meerdervoort with Their Tutor and Coachman, also known as Starting for the Hunt, is an oil-on-canvas painting by Aelbert Cuyp. Created around 1652–53, the painting depicts two young brothers and their retainers about to embark on a hunt. The ruined castle, likely intended to indicate the ancient lineage of those pictured, does not resemble the Pompe van Meerdervoort family home, and was originally painted in the left middleground before being repainted on the right. In the background on the left, sailing boats can be seen on the Rhine. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Painting credit: Aelbert Cuyp

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