Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 July 20

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From today's featured article

Sesame Street's format includes skits featuring Jim Henson's Muppets as well as animation and short films to help its preschool audience prepare for school. The American children's television program uses music, humor, and sustained action to capture young viewers' attention. Premiering in 1969, it was the first television show to base its contents and production values on laboratory and scientific research, and the first to base its curriculum on what its researchers termed "measurable outcomes". It was also the first to use an authentic inner-city street and neighborhood setting for a children's program. The producers switched in 1998 from a magazine-based structure to a more narrative format after the show's ratings dominance was challenged by programs such as Barney and Friends and Blue's Clues. The popular fifteen-minute segment "Elmo's World", hosted by the Muppet Elmo, was added the same year to make the show more accessible to a younger audience. The new format was expanded to the entire show in 2002. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Flag of Tanganyika Territory

... that the Flag of Tanganyika Territory (pictured) features a giraffe, chosen because it was common within the territory?
... that S. N. Haleʻole wrote The Hawaiian Romance of Laieikawai, the first book-length work of fiction by a Native Hawaiian?
... that the Children's Museum, Siri Fort, has a sandstone sculpture of a woman in the buff?
... that Newell Weight received over 500 applicants to the Brigham Young University a cappella choir, which he founded?
... that Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, the co-founder of Al-Qaeda, came from the Palestinian village of Silat al-Harithiya?
... that Miku Sawai transferred to a high school in Tokyo due to her work as a singer?
... that due to the French football bribery scandal, no team is classed as winning the 1992–93 French Division 1 title?

In the news

Henrik Stenson

In golf, Henrik Stenson (pictured) wins the Open Championship.
At least 265 people are killed as a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces launches an unsuccessful coup.
An attacker drives a cargo truck into a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, France, killing more than 80 people.
Theresa May replaces David Cameron as leader of the Conservative Party and becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
At least 23 people are killed when two trains collide near Andria, Italy.

On this day...

July 20: Friendship Day in Argentina and other Latin American countries; Independence Day in Colombia (1810)

Viking 1 lander replica

1592 – During the Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese forces led by Toyotomi Hideyoshi captured Pyongyang, although they were ultimately unable to hold it.
1779 – Tekle Giyorgis I began the first of his six reigns as Emperor of Ethiopia.
1936 – The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits was signed in Montreux, Switzerland, allowing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
1976 – The Viking 1 lander (pictured) became the first spacecraft to successfully land on Mars and perform its mission.
2012 – Gunman James Eagan Holmes opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, US, killing 12 people and injuring 58 others.

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Today's featured picture

A banknote for three pence, or 1/80 of a Pennsylvania pound, the currency of colonial Pennsylvania. Created as a response to the global economic downturn caused by the 1720 collapse of the South Sea Company, the currency was worth 25% less than sterling. It was discontinued in 1793 in favor of the United States dollar. This note was signed by Thomas Wharton and printed by Benjamin Franklin and David Hall.

Banknote: Benjamin Franklin and David Hall (printers); image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History (Smithsonian Institution)

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