Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 August 27

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From today's featured article

USS Iowa is a retired battleship, the lead ship of her class and the last lead ship of any class of United States battleships. Iowa served with the Pacific Fleet in 1944, shelling beachheads at Kwajalein and Eniwetok and screening aircraft carriers operating in the Marshall Islands. She also served as the flagship of the Third Fleet, flying Admiral William F. Halsey's flag at the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay. During the Korean War, Iowa was involved in raids on the North Korean coast, after which she was decommissioned. She was reactivated in 1984 and operated in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets to counter the recently expanded Soviet Navy. In April 1989, an explosion wrecked her No. 2 gun turret, killing 47 sailors. Iowa was decommissioned for the last time in October 1990 after 19 total years of active service. In 2012 she was donated to the nonprofit Pacific Battleship Center and opened as a museum in Los Angeles. (This article is part of a featured topic: Iowa-class battleships.)

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Did you know ...

Barack Obama seated at the Resolute desk

... that Jacqueline Kennedy found the Resolute desk (pictured) languishing in the White House basement and had it moved to the Oval Office?
... that Erich Witte was the first performer of the title role of Britten's Peter Grimes in Berlin?
... that the SS Alpena, currently the oldest active steamship on the Great Lakes, was shortened by 120 feet (37 m) in 1991?
... that the over 349,000 signatures collected in favour of the Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co. initiative set a new record for the number of signatures collected for a Berlin referendum?
... that wheelchair racer Nathan Maguire, who is scheduled to compete at the 2020 Summer Paralympics, appeared on a British gameshow with his partner in 2020?
... that Operation Hectic, an operation planned by the Rhodesian security forces to assassinate Robert Mugabe, was called off three hours before it was due to start?
... that Sigismund III transferred Poland's capital from Kraków to Warsaw in 1596?
... that during the 2013 Nutellagate controversy, students at Columbia University were accused of costing the university $5,000 in dining hall Nutella per week?

In the news

Paralympics opening ceremony

Amid evacuations from Afghanistan, two suicide bombings kill more than 100 people at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.
The Summer Paralympics open (ceremony pictured) in Tokyo, Japan.
Ismail Sabri Yaakob is appointed as prime minister by the King of Malaysia.
Hakainde Hichilema is elected President of Zambia.
A 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Haiti kills more than 2,200 people.

On this day

August 27: Independence Day in Moldova (1991)

Nguyễn Khánh

1776 – British forces led by William Howe defeated the Continental Army under George Washington at the Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the American Revolutionary War.
1896 – In the shortest recorded war in history, the Sultanate of Zanzibar surrendered to the United Kingdom after less than an hour of conflict.
1964 – South Vietnamese junta leader Nguyễn Khánh (pictured) entered into a triumvirate power-sharing arrangement with rival generals Trần Thiện Khiêm and Dương Văn Minh, who had both been involved in plots to unseat Khánh.
2003 – Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years, passing within approximately 55,758,000 kilometres (34,650,000 mi).

Josquin des Prez (d. 1521)
Samuel C. Pomeroy (d. 1891)
Ieva Simonaitytė (d. 1978)

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From today's featured list

Steve Carell

The American sitcom The Office received numerous accolades during its run. The series, styled as a mockumentary, originally aired from 2005 to 2013 and depicts the lives of a group of office employees at the fictional Dunder Mifflin Paper Company. It was nominated for forty-four Primetime Emmy Awards and won five, including a win for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2006 and five additional nominations in the category. Accolades from major guilds include a Producers Guild of America Award, a Directors Guild of America Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Writers Guild of America Awards. The show also received a Peabody Award in 2007. Series lead Steve Carell (pictured) was particularly praised for his performance as Michael Scott, earning him a Golden Globe Award and a TCA Award. Carell was also nominated for six Emmys for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series but never won the award, which many have considered a major snub. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Guilty Mother is the third play of the Figaro trilogy by Pierre Beaumarchais, following The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. Like its predecessors, it has been turned into operatic form, but unlike them, has failed to enter the general opera repertoire. This 1876 illustration by Émile Bayard shows one of the main characters, the Irishman Bégearss, a major in the Spanish military, and a great schemer and stirrer-up of trouble.

Illustration credit: Émile Bayard; restored by Adam Cuerden

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