Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 August 25

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From today's featured article

Todd Manning is a fictional character from the American daytime drama One Life to Live. Created by writer Michael Malone, the role was originated in 1992 by actor Roger Howarth, recast with Trevor St. John in 2003, and given back to Howarth in 2011. Todd became part of a groundbreaking storyline in which Marty Saybrooke was gang raped. Todd's popularity with the audience and critics, even after the rape, persuaded the writers to retain the character. While keeping aspects of his personality dark and violent, they had Todd exhibit a conscience and compassion. They took steps to redeem him, borrowing from nineteenth-century melodrama, Gothic traditions, and literature such as Frankenstein, despite Howarth's objections to a redemption storyline for a rapist. Todd has been the subject of many scholarly feminist studies. He has remained a popular and controversial figure since his creation, and is considered one of soap opera's breakout characters. The main players in the rape storyline—Howarth, Susan Haskell (Marty), and Hillary B. Smith (Todd's lawyer Nora Hanen)—won Emmys in 1994, as did Malone and his writing team. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Josephine Butler

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... that a group of people carried fake breasts over the Tamar Bridge to highlight breast cancer?

In the news

Proxima Centauri

The exoplanet Proxima Centauri b is discovered in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri (pictured), the closest star to the Sun.
A magnitude 6.2 earthquake hits central Italy, killing at least 247 people.
The Summer Olympics conclude in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
At least 54 people are killed when a wedding is attacked by a suicide bomber in Gaziantep, southern Turkey.
The Airlander 10 hybrid airship – the largest aircraft flying today – completes its maiden civilian voyage.

On this day...

August 25:

Józef Piłsudski

1258 – George Mouzalon, regent of the Empire of Nicaea, was assassinated as part of a conspiracy led by the nobles under future emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.
1537 – The Honourable Artillery Company, currently the oldest surviving regiment in the British Army, was formed by Royal Charter from King Henry VIII.
1920 – Polish forces under Józef Piłsudski (pictured) successfully forced the Russians to withdraw from Warsaw at the Battle of Warsaw, the decisive battle of the Polish–Soviet War.
2001 – American singer Aaliyah and several members of her record company were killed when their overloaded aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Marsh Harbour Airport in Marsh Harbour, The Bahamas.

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Today's featured picture

The black-fronted dotterel (Elseyornis melanops) is a small, slender plover found in Australia and New Zealand. It is common in freshwater wetlands, where it can be found feeding on insects and other small creatures.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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