Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 February 20

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From today's featured article

Hurricane Juan was a large and erratic tropical cyclone that looped twice near the Louisiana coast, causing widespread flooding. It was the tenth named storm of the 1985 Atlantic hurricane season, forming in the central Gulf of Mexico in late October. Juan made landfall near Morgan City. Weakening to tropical storm status over land, it turned back to the southeast over open waters, crossing the Mississippi River Delta. Turning to the northeast, it made its final landfall just west of Pensacola, Florida. Juan was the last of three hurricanes to move over Louisiana during the season, after Danny in August and Elena in early September. Twelve people died in the storm, including nine in maritime accidents off Louisiana. Rainfall and a high storm surge flooded 50,000 houses and many communities in southern Louisiana, causing extensive agriculture losses. Juan directly inflicted about $1.5 billion in damage, making it among the costliest United States hurricanes. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Beaver Hall

... that in 1871, Beaver Hall (pictured) was demolished so that the neighbours could have a "private green belt"?
... that Jennie Jackson, an original member of the Fisk Jubilee Singers, performed with the ensemble before US President Ulysses S. Grant, Mark Twain, and Queen Victoria?
... that the British submarine HMS P222 was ordered to escort an Allied convoy to Malta on the surface, with the intent that it would be spotted by enemy aircraft?
... that Joseph Jenckes Sr., a 17th-century blacksmith in Massachusetts, was granted the first machine patent in America?
... that the historical card game of Briscan has been described as a "Gothic extravaganza", squeezing "a truly phenomenal range of scores and melds" from a 32-card pack?
... that Louis Dreller was decorated by both the United States and Brazil for designing and building World War II warships?
... that in 543 a Byzantine army was unexpectedly defeated by a force less than one-seventh its size, during their invasion of Sasanian Armenia?
... that Twitter satirist Coldwar Steve creates most of his works on a phone while travelling to work by bus?

In the news

Artist's concept of the Mars rover

A suicide bombing attack near Pulwama, in Indian-administered Kashmir, kills 40 security personnel.
NASA concludes the 15-year Opportunity Mars rover mission after being unable to wake the rover (artist's concept shown) from hibernation.
The Republic of Macedonia changes its name to the Republic of North Macedonia as the Prespa agreement takes effect, ending a 27-year naming dispute with Greece.
In an American trial, Mexican drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán is found guilty of ten criminal charges, including one mandating life imprisonment.

On this day

February 20

Avro CF-105 Arrow

1816 – Italian composer Gioachino Rossini's opera buffa The Barber of Seville was hissed at by the audience during its debut at the Teatro Argentina in Rome.
1835 – An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 8.2 M_s devastated Concepción, Chile, and the resulting tsunami destroyed the neighboring city of Talcahuano.
1872 – New York City's Metropolitan Museum of Art, today the largest art museum in the United States with a collection of over two million works of art, opened.
1959 – The Canadian government under Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the Avro CF-105 Arrow (pictured) interceptor aircraft program amid much political debate.
2009 – The Tamil Tigers attempted to crash two aircraft packed with C-4 in suicide attacks on Colombo, Sri Lanka, but the planes were shot down before they reached their targets.

Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan (d. 1771) · Alfred Escher (b. 1819) · Audrey Munson (d. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

The Stolen Kiss is a painting by French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard created in the late 1780s. Painted in a style characteristic of the French Rococo period, it depicts a passionate kiss between two lovers. The composition is diagonal, made up by an axis composed through her leaning figure, the shawl and the balcony door opening from the outside, ending with the table the shawl is draped over. The painting is hosted in the collection of the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

Painting: Jean-Honoré Fragonard

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