Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 17

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From today's featured article

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period. He grew up in Warsaw but left Poland, never to return, aged 20. He settled in Paris, obtaining French citizenship in 1835. From 1837 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with her was one of his most productive periods of composition. All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, although he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. Many contain elements of Polish folk music and of the classical tradition of J.S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert. His innovations in style, musical form, and harmony, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period. His music, his status as one of music's earliest "superstars", his association with political insurrection, his love life and his early death have made him a leading symbol of his era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy. (Full article...)

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... that the 2014 Internet Slowdown Day (logo pictured) has been compared to the Internet Blackout Day of 2012?
... that the majority of the Mikea people live in and around the spiny Mikea Forest on the southwestern coast of Madagascar, between Morombe and Toliara?
... that the landscape painter Willis E. Davis was informed over the phone of his daughter's elopement?
... that the closure-threatened Secombe Theatre was converted from a Christian Science church in 1984?
... that in 1996 Jamie Nabozny sued school officials for failing to protect him from years of homophobic bullying?
... that Scottish religion in the seventeenth century included intense conflicts between Presbyterian Covenanters and government forces?
... that Shloime Gertner has been called "the Hasidic Robbie Williams"?

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In the news

Jean Tirole (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of market power and regulation.
Evo Morales is re-elected for a third term as President of Bolivia.
Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism against the oppression of children and young people.
The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to French historical author and novelist Patrick Modiano.

Ongoing: Ebola outbreak – Hong Kong protests – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

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On this day...

October 17: Dessalines Day in Haiti (1806)

1558 – Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, was founded by order of King Sigismund II Augustus.
1604 – German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an exceptionally bright star, now known as Kepler's Supernova, which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus.
1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opened the artificial Lake Burley Griffin (pictured) in the middle of the capital Canberra.
1989 – The 6.9 M_w Loma Prieta earthquake struck California's San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,757, and leaving at least 8,000 homeless.
1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov was assassinated in the offices of Moskovskij Komsomolets during his investigations into alleged corruption among high ranks of the Russian military.

More anniversaries: October 16 – October 17 – October 18

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From today's featured list

There have been fourteen recorded sieges of Gibraltar. Despite occupying a peninsula that is only 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) long and 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) wide, the modern territory of Gibraltar's strategic location on the southern Iberian coast at the western entrance to the Mediterranean Sea and just across the eponymous Strait from Morocco in North Africa, as well as its natural defensibility, have made it one of the most fought-over places in Europe. Only five of the sieges of Gibraltar resulted in a change of rule. Seven were fought between Muslims and Catholics during Muslim rule, four between Spain and Britain from the Anglo-Dutch capture in 1704 to the end of the Great Siege in 1783 (Grand Assault pictured), two between rival Catholic factions, and one between rival Muslim powers. Four of Gibraltar's changes in rule, including three sieges, took place over a matter of days or hours, whereas several other sieges had durations of months or years and claimed the lives of thousands without resulting in any change in rule. (Full list...)

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The grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) is an albatross, averaging 81 cm (32 in) in length and 2.2 m (7.2 ft) in wingspan, which breeds further south than any other mollymawk. Though its common name derives from the species' ashy-grey head, throat and upper neck, the scientific name is a reference to the bright golden streaks on its bill.

Photograph: JJ Harrison

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