Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 December 25b

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From today's featured article

Charles H. Stonestreet (1813–1885) was an American Catholic priest and Jesuit who led several institutions in Maryland and Washington, D.C. After becoming a professor at Georgetown University, he led St. John's Literary Institution and St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Maryland. He was appointed president of Georgetown University in 1851, and oversaw the expansion of its library. The following year, he became provincial superior of the Jesuit Maryland Province, which faced growing anti-Catholicism from the Know Nothings; as a result, he forbade Jesuits from wearing their clerical attire in public. While president of Gonzaga College in Washington, D.C. (today a high school), he oversaw construction of St. Aloysius Church, becoming its first pastor. In the trial of the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, he was called to testify about a parishioner, Mary Surratt, and a former student, Samuel Mudd. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

2014 Anthem Christmas tree

... that the tallest Christmas tree in Arizona (pictured) is decorated with at least 5,000 ornaments and bows?
... that Yoshi Kasuya was appointed to the Order of the Precious Crown for her contributions to women's education?
... that the German carol "Kommet, ihr Hirten", derived by Carl Riedel from a Bohemian song in Czech, addresses shepherds, men, and women?
... that James A. Ward was one of the last surviving graduates of the Jesuit novitiate in White Marsh, Maryland?
... that the Christmas Island flying fox matures more slowly than nearly all other bats?
... that religious ministers revealed the winning numbers to illegal lotteries on WOOK radio, by hiding them in Bible references?
... that confectioner Tom Smith is traditionally described as the inventor of the Christmas cracker, in 1847?
... that A Rubber Band Christmas is a novelty album featuring popular Christmas songs played on rubber bands, staplers, and other office equipment?

In the news

Jamal Khashoggi

A court in Saudi Arabia sentences five people to death for the 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi (pictured).
In the Netherlands, the supreme court upholds a ruling that the government must meet established emissions reduction milestones, creating the first legal precedent on the impact of climate change on human rights.
United States president Donald Trump is impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf is sentenced to death in absentia for treason and subverting the constitution.

On this day

December 25: Christmas (Western Christianity; Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day in Pakistan

St Mel's Cathedral in 2015

1066 – Norman Conquest: William the Conqueror was crowned king of England at Westminster Abbey, although he continued to face rebellions over the following years and was not secure on the throne until after 1072.
1809 – American physician Ephraim McDowell performed the world's first removal of an ovarian tumor.
1989 – Romanian Revolution: Communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were condemned to death on a wide range of charges and executed.
2009 – A fire destroyed Longford's 19th-century St Mel's Cathedral (restored cathedral pictured), considered the "flagship cathedral" of the Irish midlands.

Sverker I of Sweden (d. 1156) · Lady Grizel Baillie (b. 1665) · Joan Miró (d. 1983)

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Today's featured picture

The Adoration of the Shepherds is an oil-on-panel painting by Italian Renaissance artist Giorgione, completed around 1505 to 1510. It depicts a common subject in the nativity of Jesus in art. The scene, based on the Biblical account in Luke 2, depicts shepherds visiting the stable to celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Giorgione portrayed the main characters on the right, with Saint Joseph, the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child shown in front of a dark grotto, while on the left is a bright landscape with trees, buildings and distant hills. At one time, the work was owned by the department-store magnate Samuel Henry Kress, who displayed it in the window of his Fifth Avenue store in New York City over the Christmas period in 1938. The picture was part of a donation made by the Kress Foundation to the newly established National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., in 1941, where it remains to this day.

Painting credit: Giorgione

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