Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 December 19

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From today's featured article

David Lynch

Mulholland Drive is a 2001 American neo-noir mystery film written and directed by David Lynch (pictured) and starring Justin Theroux, Naomi Watts, Laura Harring, Ann Miller, and Robert Forster. It tells the story of an aspiring actress named Betty, newly arrived in Los Angeles, who befriends an amnesiac woman hiding in an apartment that belongs to Betty's aunt. The film includes seemingly unrelated vignettes that eventually interlock, along with darkly comic scenes and images, presented in Lynch's signature surreal style. Much of the filming took place in 1999 as a television pilot. After it was rejected by television executives, Lynch gave the pilot an ending and completed the project as a feature film. The cryptic ending, which he declined to explain, has left the general meaning of the film's events open to interpretation. Mulholland Drive was acclaimed by critics and earned award nominations for Lynch at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival and 74th Academy Awards. The film is now widely regarded as one of his finest works. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Licancabur Lake

... that the environment of Licancabur Lake (pictured) on Earth has been compared to early lakes on Mars?
... that after part of the dome of the New Jersey State House was painted blue, George H. Barbour introduced legislation to ensure it would be restored to its traditional gold and white?
... that one member of South Sudan's delegation to the 2016 Summer Olympics was informed by email eight days prior to the Games that he would not be competing?
... that in the 1980s, the West Bengal Fisheries Minister Bhakti Bhushan Mandal declared himself to be an intermediary between the Government of India and exiled Naga leader Phizo?
... that in South Africa, fewer than 40% of African cuckoo eggs are successfully hatched and the chicks raised by their foster parents?
... that New England expatriate Thomas Wright Everett became the last Royal Governor of Maui?
... that one critic described the novel Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks as starting a trend in the 1990s of British literature rethinking the legacy of the World Wars?
... that Alice Brock owned the restaurant that inspired both the song and the film named "Alice's Restaurant"?

In the news

Bill English

Bill English (pictured) becomes Prime Minister of New Zealand.
A bombing at St. Peter and St. Paul's Church in Cairo, Egypt, kills at least 25 people and injures 49 others.
A church collapses in Uyo, Nigeria, killing at least 23 people.
Two explosions outside a football stadium in Istanbul, Turkey, kill 46 people and injure more than 150 others.
A freight train derails, explodes and catches fire at Hitrino, Bulgaria, killing 7 people and injuring 29 others.

On this day...

December 19: Liberation Day in Goa (1961)

Charles Dickens

1828 – Nullification Crisis: Vice President of the United States John C. Calhoun wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest to protest the Tariff of 1828.
1843 – A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (pictured), a novella about the miser Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation after being visited by three Christmas ghosts, was first published.
1941 – Second World War: Three Italian Royal Navy divers on manned torpedoes detonated limpet mines on British Royal Navy ships, disabling two battleships.
1956 – Irish-born British physician John Bodkin Adams was arrested in connection with the suspicious deaths of more than 160 of his patients, although he was only convicted on minor charges.
1986 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev released dissident Andrei Sakharov after six years of internal exile in Gorky.

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From today's featured list

Alyssa Milano

American singer Alyssa Milano has recorded numerous songs. After signing a five-album deal with Japanese record label Pony Canyon, Inc., Milano released her debut studio album, Look in My Heart, in March 1989. Following the release of her debut album, Milano released an exercise video, titled Alyssa Milano's Teen Steam, and recorded its theme song along with a rap. Milano's second studio album, Alyssa, was released later that year, followed by her first compilation album, The Best in the World: Non-Stop Special Remix/Alyssa's Singles in 1990. In 1991, Milano contributed to the charity single "Voices That Care" as one of the choir members. The record was followed by Milano's third studio album, Locked Inside a Dream, in May 1991. Milano's fourth studio album, Do You See Me?, was released in May 1992, and her final record was her second compilation album, The Very Best of Alyssa Milano, released in January 1995. Throughout her musical career, Milano had little involvement with the songwriting and production of her albums. She did not express any interest in releasing her music in the United States, and in May 2013, she said that she had not returned to Japan since the end of her music career. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Madonna with the Blue Diadem is an oil painting on wood by Raphael and his pupil Gianfrancesco Penni that is held at the Louvre. Most likely completed in Rome in the 1510s, the painting features Mary symbolically lifting a veil over the sleeping Christ Child; Raphael had used the same theme in his Madonna of Loreto.

Painting: Raphael and Gianfrancesco Penni

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