Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 September 9

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The Vermont Sesquicentennial half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Mint in 1927. Designed by Charles Keck, its obverse depicts early Vermont leader Ira Allen, brother of Ethan Allen. The reverse design of a catamount has been criticized as irrelevant to Vermont. On January 9, 1925, U.S. Senator Frank L. Greene of Vermont introduced legislation for commemorative coins to mark the 150th anniversary of Vermont independence in 1777 and of the American victory at the Battle of Bennington the same year. His bill passed the Senate without difficulty, but the House of Representatives added two more special half dollars. The Senate agreed to the changes, and President Calvin Coolidge signed the authorizing act on February 24, 1925. The coins did not sell out; over a fourth of the issue was returned for redemption and melting. Today, they can sell for hundreds of dollars, depending on condition. (Full article...)

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IranPride Day logo

... that despite homosexuality being punishable by death, Iranian LGBT activists celebrate IranPride Day (logo pictured) by secretly photographing themselves holding rainbow flags in Tehran and other cities?
... that Milton Griepp was receiving unemployment benefits when he co-founded Capital City Distribution, which became the largest comic book distributor in the United States?
... that the skeleton shrimp Caprella penantis may take on some of the coloration of whatever it is feeding on?
... that in 2016, Jaime Bonilla Valdez invited current Mexican president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador to his suite at Petco Park to watch the Major League Baseball All-Star Game?
... that Australian artist John Peter Russell painted a portrait of Vincent van Gogh and gave it to him as a mark of their friendship?
... that police investigating the 1988 murder of 8-year-old April Tinsley believed that the murderer also left threatening notes with used condoms on girls' bicycles in 2004?
... that if completed, the proposed 1,422-foot (433 m) Tribune East Tower would be the second tallest building in Chicago, behind the Willis Tower?
... that in 1985, Victor Almaraz made a charro outfit which consisted mainly of pull tabs from 2,500 aluminum cans?

In the news

Typhoon Jebi

Jair Bolsonaro, a candidate in the upcoming Brazilian presidential election, is stabbed during a campaign rally.
The Supreme Court of India strikes down portions of the colonial-era Section 377, now making all private consensual sexual acts between adults legal.
An earthquake in the south of Hokkaido, Japan, results in at least seventeen deaths.
Typhoon Jebi (satellite image shown) affects Taiwan and Japan, killing at least seventeen people and causing extensive damage in the Kansai region of Japan.
Arif Alvi is elected as President of Pakistan.
A court in Myanmar sentences two Reuters journalists to seven years in prison for violating the state secrets act while investigating violence against the Rohingya minority.

On this day

September 9: Day of the Foundation of the Republic in North Korea (1948); Independence Day in Tajikistan (1991)

Bust of Constantius II

337 – After disposing of all relatives who possibly held a claim to the throne, Constantine II, Constantius II (bust pictured), and Constans became Roman co-emperors.
1493 – Ottoman wars in Europe: At the Battle of Krbava Field, a large Croatian army intercepted an Ottoman force returning to the Sanjak of Bosnia, but was defeated.
1739 – The Stono Rebellion, at the time the largest slave rebellion in the Thirteen Colonies of British America, erupted near Charleston, South Carolina.
1954 – The 6.7 M_w Chlef earthquake struck Algeria, leaving at least 1,243 people dead and 5,000 injured, and forced the government to implement comprehensive reforms in building codes.
2001 – Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was assassinated in Afghanistan.

Joseph Leidy (b. 1823) · Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (d. 1841) · Neil Davis (d. 1985)

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Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a Russian writer who is regarded as one of the world's greatest novelists. He is best known for War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1877), often cited as pinnacles of realist fiction. Born to an aristocratic family on 9 September [O.S. 28 August] 1828, Tolstoy was orphaned when he was young. He studied at Kazan University, but this was not a success, and he left university without completing his degree. During this time, he began to write and published his first novel, Childhood, in 1852. Tolstoy later served at the Siege of Sevastopol during the Crimean War, and was appalled by the number of deaths and left at the conclusion of the war. He spent the remainder of his life writing whilst also marrying and starting a family. In the 1870s he converted to a form of fervent Christian anarchism.

Photograph: F. W. Taylor; restoration: Yann

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