Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 March 19

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From today's featured article

The Sonestown Covered Bridge is a Burr arch truss covered bridge over Muncy Creek in Davidson Township, Sullivan County, in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Built c. 1850, the bridge is 110 feet (34 m) long, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1980. The bridge is named for the nearby unincorporated village of Sonestown; it was built to provide access to a gristmill, which operated until the early 20th century. The bridge construction is cruder than the other two surviving covered bridges in Sullivan County, with each Burr arch formed from six straight beams set at angles instead of a smooth curve. Despite being repaired or restored several times from 1969, as of 2016 the bridge was deemed "basically intolerable requiring high priority of corrective action" on the National Bridge Inventory. It is the shortest covered bridge in the county and as of 2015 had average daily traffic of 50 vehicles. (Full article...)

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In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Edwin Catmull

Edwin Catmull (pictured) and Pat Hanrahan are awarded the Turing Award for their work on computer-generated imagery.
The World Health Organization recognises the coronavirus outbreak as a pandemic.

On this day

March 19

Clara Zetkin

1279 – Mongol conquest of Song China: Emperor Bing, the last emperor of the Song dynasty, died during the Battle of Yamen, bringing the dynasty to an end after three centuries.
1911 – Established by Clara Zetkin (pictured), Käte Duncker, and others, the first International Women's Day was observed.
1962 – Influential American musician Bob Dylan released his eponymous debut album, mainly comprising traditional folk songs.
1987 – American televangelist Jim Bakker resigned as the host of The PTL Club in the midst of a sex scandal.
2016 – Flydubai Flight 981 crashed during an aborted landing at Rostov-on-Don Airport, Russia, resulting in the deaths of all 62 passengers and crew on board.

Elizabeth Seymour, Lady Cromwell (d. 1568) · Minna Canth (b. 1844) · Bruce Willis (b. 1955)

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Today's featured picture

The Allegory of Faith is an oil-on-canvas painting by Dutch Golden Age artist Johannes Vermeer. Painted in the early 1670s, it is now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where it has been since 1931.

The painting depicts a finely dressed woman, representing the Catholic faith, sitting on a platform, with her right foot on a terrestrial globe and her right hand on her heart. She looks up, adoringly, at a glass sphere hung from the ceiling by a blue ribbon. Her left arm rests on the edge of a table which holds a golden chalice, a large book, and a crucifix. Resting on the book is a crown of thorns. At the bottom of the picture is an apple, and near that a snake squashed by a cornerstone. In the dim background hangs a large painting of the crucifixion of Jesus. Much of the symbolism, including the colour of the woman's clothing, her hand gestures, and the presence of the crushed snake and the apple, may have come from Cesare Ripa's emblem book Iconologia.

Painting credit: Johannes Vermeer

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