Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 September 25b

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From today's featured article

Plate 21, depicting a male red-capped parrot

Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book by Edward Lear containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs (example pictured). Lear started painting parrots for the book in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. Although the book was a financial failure, Lear's paintings of parrots established his reputation as one of the best natural history artists of his time. It found him work with leading contemporary naturalists, and the young Queen Victoria engaged him to help her with her painting technique. Lear's works influenced children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak. He continued with his nature painting for some years, but from about 1835 he became concerned about his failing eyesight, and increasingly concentrated on his nonsense works and landscape painting. He may have contributed to the illustrations for Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Remains of the Musalla complex

... that most of the Timurid 15th-century Musalla complex (remains pictured) was destroyed in 1885 by the British and the Emir of Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman Khan?
... that each of the three times Fox Island exploded, shockwaves could be felt dozens of miles away?
... that Anna Apostolaki, the first Greek woman to work as a professional archaeologist, was also a feminist educator who promoted women's traditional crafts?
... that the social golfer problem is used to assign groups in classrooms to maximize student interaction?
... that sportswriter Matt Zabitka started his career at the age of 13?
... that Windsor Gardens station was built to serve a single apartment complex?
... that playwright Carol K. Mack wrote the thriller novel The Chameleon Variant in 1980 with Rutgers University biologist David Ehrenfeld?
... that Tlalli will replace a monument to Christopher Columbus, not to "erase history", but to "deliver social justice"?

In the news

Abdelaziz Bouteflika

Former President of Algeria Abdelaziz Bouteflika (pictured) dies at the age of 84.
SpaceX launches Inspiration4, the first all-civilian orbital spaceflight.
The United States, United Kingdom, and Australia sign a security pact that will provide Australia with nuclear-powered submarines.
British tennis player Emma Raducanu wins the US Open, becoming the first qualifier to win a Grand Slam title.

On this day

September 25

Sandra Day O'Connor

1237 – Henry III of England and Alexander II of Scotland signed the Treaty of York, establishing the Anglo-Scottish border, which mostly remains the same today.
1396 – Ottoman wars in Europe: Ottoman forces under Bayezid I defeated a Christian alliance led by Sigismund of Hungary near present-day Nikopol, Bulgaria.
1800 – French Revolutionary Wars: After U.S. ships became involved, French forces abandoned their invasion of the Batavian island of Curaçao.
1944 – Second World War: British troops began their withdrawal from the Battle of Arnhem in the Netherlands, ending the Allies' Operation Market Garden in defeat.
1981 – Sandra Day O'Connor (pictured) became the first female justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Billy Hughes (b. 1862)
Johannes Brost (b. 1946)
Marian Breland Bailey (d. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

Equestrian Portrait of Cornelis and Michiel Pompe van Meerdervoort with Their Tutor and Coachman, also known as Starting for the Hunt, is an oil-on-canvas painting by Aelbert Cuyp. Created around 1652–53, the painting depicts two young brothers and their retainers about to embark on a hunt. The ruined castle, likely intended to indicate the ancient lineage of those pictured, does not resemble the Pompe van Meerdervoort family home, and was originally painted in the left middleground before being repainted on the right. In the background on the left, sailing boats can be seen on the Rhine. The painting is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Painting credit: Aelbert Cuyp

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