Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 March 4

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From today's featured article

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from March 4, 1921, until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, Harding was defeated for Governor of Ohio in 1910, but was elected to the Senate in 1914. He ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920. Considered a long shot until after the convention began, he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, running on the theme of a return to normalcy, and won in a landslide, the first sitting senator to be elected president. He appointed a number of well-regarded figures to his cabinet, including Andrew Mellon at the Treasury Department, Herbert Hoover at Commerce, and Charles Evans Hughes at State. After his death in San Francisco, a number of scandals, including Teapot Dome, came to light, as did his extramarital affair with Nan Britton, eroding his popular regard. Harding was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Portrait of Queen Victoria's dog, Spot, by F. C. Fairman

... that artist Frances C. Fairman painted portraits of Queen Victoria's dogs (example pictured) by royal command?
... that Osborne's ligament is a tissue under some people's elbows that can compress the ulnar nerve when the elbow is flexed, causing numbness and weakness in the fingers?
... that even though low interest prompted the Associated Students of Montana Tech to cut funding for student radio station KMSM-FM, it still filed to renew the station's license?
... that the investigations of Scandinavian place names by Magnus Olsen were instrumental in restoring confidence in Icelandic literature as a useful source for information on Old Norse religion?
... that Winston Churchill, an amateur painter, held the first exhibition of his paintings in Paris under a pseudonym?
... that Verna Grahek Mize was given the title "First Lady of Lake Superior" for her campaign to stop a mining company from dumping 67,000 tons of "gray gunk" into the lake each day?
... that George Balanchine choreographed the ballet Stravinsky Violin Concerto in 1972, a year after Igor Stravinsky's death, having previously choreographed another ballet to the same score in 1941?
... that during a bloody assault with his unit on the Western Front in 1914, Stephan Westmann was amazed to see the British stop firing and send stretcher-bearers to rescue his wounded German comrades?

In the news

Naomi Osaka and Novak Djokovic

About 300 girls kidnapped from a secondary school by armed bandits in Zamfara, Nigeria, are released.
In tennis, Naomi Osaka wins the women's singles and Novak Djokovic wins the men's singles at the Australian Open (both winners pictured).
Porfirije is enthroned as the 46th Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
NASA's Perseverance rover, carrying the Ingenuity helicopter, successfully lands on Mars.

On this day

March 4: Feast day of Saint Casimir (Catholicism)

Władysław II Jagiełło

1386 – Jogaila, Grand Duke of Lithuania, was crowned King of Poland as Władysław II Jagiełło (pictured), beginning the Jagiellonian dynasty.
1776 – American Revolutionary War: Using artillery transported from Ticonderoga, the Continental Army occupied Dorchester Heights, forcing the British to abandon Boston two weeks later.
1918 – A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, conventionally marking the beginning of the Spanish flu.
1941 – Second World War: British Commandos successfully executed a raid on the Lofoten Islands in German-occupied Norway.
2009 – President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the War in Darfur.

Stephen III of Hungary (d. 1172)
Robert Emden (b. 1862)
Jane Fawcett (b. 1921)

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Today's featured picture

This historical depiction of the coat of arms of Vermont was illustrated by American engraver Henry Mitchell in State Arms of the Union, published in 1876 by Louis Prang. The escutcheon depicts a green landscape, beyond which are high mountains and a yellowish sky; in the center grows a pine tree, between three erect yellow sheaves and a red cow. The state's official motto, "Freedom and Unity", appears below the shield.

Illustration credit: Henry Mitchell; restored by Andrew Shiva

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