Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 October 6

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From today's featured article

Akhmad Bassah (flourished 1923–1930), known by his pen name Joehana, was an author from the Dutch East Indies who wrote stories, articles, and several novels in Sundanese. He was also a productive translator, dramatist, and reporter, and operated a company which offered writing services. He worked for a time on the railroad before becoming an author by 1923. His strong interest in social welfare is evident in his novels. He has been classified as a realist owing to his use of the names of actual locations and products in his works, as well as the predominantly vernacular Sundanese in his novels, but influences from traditional theatrical forms such as wayang and literature such as pantun are also evident. Joehana's works cover a wide range of themes, especially social criticism and modernization. Although his writings were adapted to the stage and film, they received little academic attention until the 1960s, and critical consensus since then has been negative. Two of his works have been republished since the 1960s, and stage productions of his novel Rasiah nu Goreng Patut continued into the 1980s. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Gypsy Madonna, Titian, 1510–11

... that the landscape in Titian's Gypsy Madonna (pictured) virtually repeats part of that in the Dresden Venus?
... that Horace Greeley died shortly after he lost the U.S. Presidency to Ulysses S. Grant?
... that the Thomas's pika is sympatric with the Gansu pika?
... that Annie Nicolette Zadoks Josephus Jitta's unusual name inspired a book?
... that 18 cities in the Soviet Union had a population of at least one million in 1979?
... that in the American scholar Scott Rozelle's 30-year career as a development economist, he has been mostly concerned with children's health conditions in rural China?
... that the Philippine cuckoo-dove was formerly listed as a subspecies of the ruddy cuckoo-dove and the brown cuckoo-dove?
... that a 1912 party hosted by Vine Colby made the news for its originality?

In the news

Las Vegas Strip

Kazuo Ishiguro is awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young share the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythm.
In the United States, 59 people are killed and 489 others are injured in a mass shooting at a concert near Las Vegas (location pictured).
Amidst a constitutional crisis, an independence referendum takes place in Catalonia, Spain.
In Saudi Arabia, a decree by King Salman effectively removes a longstanding ban on women driving in the country.

On this day...

October 6: German-American Day in the United States

Egyptian forces crossing the Suez Canal

69 BC – Third Mithridatic War: Forces of the Roman Republic captured the Armenian capital city Tigranakert.
1777 – American Revolutionary War: British forces under the command of General Sir Henry Clinton captured Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery, and then dismantled the Hudson River Chain.
1973 – Egypt started the Yom Kippur War by crossing the Suez Canal (pictured) and attacking the fortified Israeli Bar Lev Line.
1985 – Police constable Keith Blakelock was killed during rioting in the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, London.
2000 – Denouncing corruption in the administration of Argentine President Fernando de la Rúa and in the Senate, Vice President Carlos Álvarez resigned.

Matteo Ricci (b. 1552) · Guru Har Rai (d. 1661) · Hattie Jacques (d. 1980)

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From today's featured list

Charmed logo

The Charmed literary franchise is a series of novels and short stories based on the eponymous television show, which aired from 1998 to 2006. The franchise consists of forty-four novels and eleven short stories released in two anthologies, with ten guide books. Scholarly essay collections on the show were also published. Writers of the novels had to obtain approval from Paramount Pictures or CBS Consumer Products to ensure that they followed the canon established for the television series. A majority of the novels are original stories revolving around the Charmed Ones and their allies, while some were novelizations of episodes. Between 1999 and 2008, forty-one novels were published by Simon & Schuster and were set roughly during the same period as the events of the television series. HarperCollins published a second series of novels starting in 2015, and these narratives primarily occur during the same time period as the comic book series. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Gorakhpur Junction railway station, located in the city of Gorakhpur in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is a railway station that serves as the headquarters of the North Eastern Railway. In 2013, Gorakhpur became the world's longest railway platform, with a stretch of around 1.34 kilometres (0.84 mi), after the inauguration of the remodelled Gorakhpur Yard.

Photograph: Benison P Baby

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