Wikipedia:Today's featured list/June 2016
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June 3
There is a collection of 20 video games in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, ranging from Pong to Minecraft. Curated by Paola Antonelli, the collection is part of the Applied Design installation in the Philip Johnson Architecture and Design Galleries. An initial fourteen games were announced in November 2012, with plans to expand the collection to up to forty games over time. Six more games were added in June 2013, as well as a game console. The video games are displayed in a minimalist fashion in order to showcase the design elements within them, while minimizing emotional factors such as nostalgia. Some games, such as Myst and The Sims, are solely displayed as a video presentation for practical reasons, but the museum is most interested in acquiring a game's proprietary source code. (Full list...)
June 6
There have been 27 head coaches of the Detroit Red Wings, a professional ice hockey team based in Detroit, Michigan. Of them, three were during the era of the Detroit Cougars (1926–1930) and Detroit Falcons (1930–1932) and the rest were under the Detroit Red Wings (1932–present). Six Red Wings coaches have been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as players: Jack Adams, Sid Abel, Bill Gadsby, Marcel Pronovost, Ted Lindsay, and Brad Park, with two others inducted as builders: Tommy Ivan and Scotty Bowman. Barry Smith has the highest winning percentage of any Red Wings coach, with an .800 record from the five games he coached on an interim basis with Dave Lewis during the 1998 season. Adams coached the most games of any Red Wings head coach, 964 games during his tenure with the Cougars, Falcons and Red Wings. Adams also has the most regular season losses and ties. Mike Babcock (pictured) has the most regular season wins. (Full list...)
June 10
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More than 112,000 men have been initiated into Phi Kappa Psi, an American collegiate social fraternity founded at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. Many brothers have achieved recognition in their field. Phi Psis in public service include U.S. President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Woodrow Wilson, over a hundred members of Congress (including 18 senators and Speaker of the House Warren Keifer), and three-term New York City Mayor and Bloomberg L.P. founder Mike Bloomberg. Academian Phi Psis include over a dozen university presidents (among these are Priestley Medal recipient Edgar Fahs Smith, and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Detlev Bronk), Rhodes scholars, and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frederick Jackson Turner. Among the Phi Psis who have served in the military are dozens of generals and admirals. In the arts, Phi Psis have received Academy Awards, Emmys, Golden Globes, Grammys, and Tony Awards. (Full list...)
June 13
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The 2001 Indian film Lagaan has received awards and nominations in several categories. Lagaan is an Indian sports drama film, written and directed by Ashutosh Gowariker, and stars Aamir Khan (pictured) and Gracy Singh in the lead roles. At the 74th Academy Awards, the film was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category, becoming the third Indian film to be nominated in the category after Mother India (1957), and Salaam Bombay! (1988). Lagaan went on to win a total of eight awards, including for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, at the 49th National Film Awards. The film earned eight honours at the 47th Filmfare Awards in the Best Film, Best Director, and Best Story category for Gowariker and the Best Actor award for Khan. It also won nine awards at the 3rd IIFA Awards, including Best Actor, and Best Movie. In 2010, Lagaan was ranked at number 55 in the Empire list of "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema". (Full list...)
June 17
The works of Arthur Conan Doyle include short stories, novels, poems, plays, operettas, non-fiction and pamphlets—the latter on spiritualism and the paranormal. In October 1879 Doyle was still studying for his medical degree when he published his first work—"The Mystery of the Sasassa Valley"—which appeared in Chambers's Journal. In 1887 he published A Study in Scarlet, which appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual; the story introduced Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr John Watson. The duo subsequently came to wide public notice in the July 1891 short story "A Scandal in Bohemia" in The Strand Magazine. Doyle, fearful of having his other work overshadowed by his fictional detective, killed off his creation in December 1893, although he later relented and re-introduced the characters; the works make up the Holmes series of stories. Doyle also wrote four full-length Holmes works, as well as adventure novels and nine works of historical fiction, and the adventure series featuring Professor Challenger, who first appeared in The Lost World—both in short stories and novel form. He also wrote four volumes of poetry and a series of stage works. Owing to the close successive deaths of his son and brother, Doyle turned to spiritualism and wrote extensively on the subject. (Full list...)
June 20
There are 21 counties in the U.S. state of New Jersey. These counties together contain 565 municipalities, or administrative entities composed of clearly defined territory; 250 boroughs, 52 cities, 15 towns, 244 townships, and 4 villages. In New Jersey, a county is a local level of government between the state and municipalities. County government in New Jersey includes a Board of Chosen Freeholders, sheriff, clerk, and surrogate (responsible for uncontested and routine probate), all of whom are elected officials. Counties organized under the Optional County Charter Law may also have an elected county executive. Counties traditionally perform state-mandated duties such as the maintenance of jails, parks, and certain roads. The site of a county's administration and courts is called the county seat. (Full list...)
June 24
Uruguayan singer-songwriter Jorge Drexler has received awards and nominations for his contributions to the music industry. Drexler released his first album in 1992, La Luz Que Sabe Robar, and following an invitation from Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquín Sabina, he relocated to Spain, where he signed an international recording contract. In 2005, he received Uruguay's first Academy Award, taking Best Original Song for "Al Otro Lado del Río", written for the film The Motorcycle Diaries; the track also received Latin Grammy and World Soundtrack Awards nominations. Drexler has been nominated four times at the Grammy Awards, for the albums Eco (2004), 12 Segundos de Oscuridad (2006), Cara B (2008), and Bailar en la Cueva (2014); for the latter album, he won the award for Best Singer-Songwriter Album at the 15th Latin Grammy Awards. At the same ceremony, the singer earned a Latin Grammy for Record of the Year for his song "Universos Paralelos", performed with Chilean artist Ana Tijoux. Overall, Drexler has received 13 awards from 46 nominations. (Full list...)
June 27
From 1981 to 2011, 135 Space Shuttle missions were flown. The Space Shuttle was a partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Its official program name was Space Transportation System, taken from a 1969 plan for a system of reusable spacecraft of which it was the only item funded for development. Operational missions launched numerous satellites (including the Hubble Space Telescope), conducted science experiments in orbit, and participated in construction and servicing of the International Space Station (ISS). The longest orbital flight of the shuttle was STS-80 at 17 days 15 hours, while the shortest flight was STS-51-L at one minute 13 seconds, cut short when the Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart during launch. The shuttles docked with Russian space station Mir nine times and visited the ISS 37 times. The highest altitude achieved by the shuttle was 350 miles when servicing the Hubble Space Telescope. (Full list...)