Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 January 6

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From today's featured article

Robin Williams

The second season of Homicide: Life on the Street, a US police drama TV series, originally aired in the US in January 1994. Low ratings during the first season meant NBC ordered only four episodes before deciding whether to renew the show. The original cast returned for this season, the last to include Jon Polito. Jean de Segonzac was director of photography and Chris Tergesen was the music coordinator. "Bop Gun", was the last episode filmed, but became the season premiere due to a guest appearance by Robin Williams (pictured). The episodes "See No Evil" and "Black and Blue" featured a police shooting based on a real-life incident. Guest stars in this season also included Julianna Margulies, Wilford Brimley, Isaiah Washington, Adrienne Shelly and a young Jake Gyllenhaal. Homicide received generally positive reviews, and the show received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actor for Williams. NBC demanded further changes to the show before committing to a third season. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Detail from Adoration of the Magi by the Master

... that the existence of the painter known as the Master of the Lille Adoration (painting detail pictured), active in 16th-century Antwerp, was only proposed in 1995?
... that Gernot Roll, considered an expert in literary adaptations, was the cinematographer for the 11-part television series The Buddenbrooks based on Thomas Mann's novel?
... that although fracking is banned in Maryland, state officials support the Eastern Shore Pipeline, which carries fracked gas?
... that Michael White served in the same regiment as his father and married the daughter of another of its officers?
... that in the Mediterranean Sea, recruitment of the bryozoan Callopora lineata takes place in February and March, whereas in the Isle of Man, it takes place all year round?
... that in his first run for Texas House of Representatives, El Franco Lee had to pay a $400 fee to remain on the ballot because his nominating petition did not have enough verifiable signatures?
... that dissections for Gray's Anatomy were carried out at the medical school in London's Kinnerton Street?
... that in a 2018 U.S. district court case, software company Stardock unsuccessfully tried to claim trademarks for the names of aliens from the game Star Control?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Top of the landslide

Saudi Arabia reopens its border with Qatar, ending a three-year diplomatic crisis.
At least seven people are killed in a landslide (pictured) in Ask, Norway.
An attack at Aden International Airport, Yemen, leaves twenty-five people dead and more than a hundred others injured.
An earthquake strikes Petrinja, Croatia, killing seven people.

On this day

January 6: Little Christmas

Maria Montessori

1449 – Constantine XI Palaiologos was proclaimed the last Byzantine emperor, four years before the Fall of Constantinople.
1540 – King Henry VIII of England married his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves; the marriage was annulled six months later.
1907 – Italian educator Maria Montessori (pictured) opened her first school and day-care centre for working-class children in Rome, employing the philosophy of education that now bears her name.
1941 – During his State of the Union address, U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his Four Freedoms as fundamental freedoms that all people ought to enjoy.
1953 – The first Asian Socialist Conference, an organisation of socialist political parties in Asia, opened in Rangoon, Burma, with 177 delegates, observers and fraternal guests.

John of Ávila (b. 1499 or 1500)
Gustav Bauer (b. 1870)
Sybil Plumlee (d. 2012)

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Today's featured picture

The Adoration of the Kings is an oil-on-panel painting depicting the scene of the Magi adoring the infant Jesus at the stable in Bethlehem, as related in the second chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. It was painted by the Netherlandish Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1564, and is now in the National Gallery, London. The painting treats the biblical episode in an unconventional manner; the onlookers are crowded around the mother and child, with everyone warmly clad except for Jesus himself. The Magi are depicted richly dressed but somewhat dishevelled, the soldiers are menacing, and the onlookers appear bewildered. The figures are slightly elongated, their faces caricatured or even grotesque, while Mary is shown natural and unidealised.

Painting credit: Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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