Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 October 17

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From today's featured article

A polar bear

Political Animals and Animal Politics is a 2014 book edited by the green political theorists Marcel Wissenburg and David Schlosberg, and published by Palgrave Macmillan. The first edited collection to address the emergence of academic animal ethics informed by political philosophy, its chapters variously cover institutional change for animals, the relationship between animal ethics and ecologism, and real-world laws made for the benefit of animals. Recurring features include discussions of human exceptionalism, exploration of ways that animal issues are or could be present in political discourse, and reflections on the relationship between theory and practice in politics. For example, Kurtis Boyer contributed a chapter entitled "The Limits of Species Advocacy", focusing on the legal protection of polar bears (example pictured). The political theorist Robert Garner wrote that Political Animals and Animal Politics should be praised for its trailblazing, but predicted that it would be superseded by stronger collections on the same theme. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Ana María Campos Monument in Maracaibo

... that Ana María Campos, who died 190 years ago today as a result of injuries from torture, is celebrated (monument pictured) as a heroine of the Venezuelan War of Independence?
... that Floyd Bennett Field, New York City's first municipal airport, was not commercially successful due to its remoteness from Manhattan?
... that John Lennon was inspired to write the song "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by his anger over the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre?
... that in 1981, Elnora M. Gilfoyle became the first occupational therapist to receive an honorary Doctor of Science degree?
... that the full implementation of the Calais Conference proposals was thwarted by the threatened resignations of Field Marshal Douglas Haig and General Sir William Robertson?
... that the regent of Karawang, Indonesia, claims to have been named after a car?
... that during the American Revolution, the British stronghold of Fort Granby in the South Carolina colony was attacked with a Quaker gun?
... that while in prison, Richard W. Meade wrote a political pamphlet about rotten cheese?

In the news

Soyuz MS-10 launch

Both crew members survive an emergency landing when Soyuz MS-10 suffers a booster failure shortly after launch (pictured) from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.
Hurricane Michael makes landfall in Florida, United States, as a Category 4 storm, causing 18 deaths after killing at least 15 people in Central America.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change releases a report on actions urgently needed to confine global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F).
The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for integrating climate change and technological innovation, respectively, into "long-run macroeconomic analysis".

On this day

October 17: Dessalines Day in Haiti (1806)

Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra, Australia

1346 – King David II of Scotland, under the terms of the Auld Alliance with France, led an invasion of England during the Hundred Years' War, but was captured in the Battle of Neville's Cross.
1604 – German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an exceptionally bright star, now known as Kepler's Supernova, which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus earlier in October.
1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opened the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital, Canberra.
1992 – Having gone to the wrong house for a Halloween party, Japanese exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori was shot and killed by the homeowner in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.
2001 – Rehavam Ze'evi, the Israeli Minister of Tourism, was assassinated in revenge for the death of the PFLP leader Abu Ali Mustafa.

Edward Hawke, 1st Baron Hawke (d. 1781) · Childe Hassam (b. 1859) · Chuka Umunna (b. 1978)

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Today's featured picture

Study of a Young Woman is a painting by Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, completed between 1665 and 1667, around the same time as his better-known Girl with a Pearl Earring. The two paintings are similar in tone, composition, and size. Both subjects wear pearl earrings, have scarves draped over their shoulders, and are shown in front of a plain black background. It is likely that the creation of both works involved the use of a camera obscura. The sitter is depicted as having a widely spaced and flat face, with a small nose and thin lips. Her lack of conventional beauty has led to a general belief that this work was painted on commission, although it is possible that the model was Vermeer's daughter. The work was probably created as a tronie rather than a portrait, being a study of the young woman's thoughts, feelings, or character, something typical in many of Vermeer's paintings. Study of a Young Woman is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Painting: Johannes Vermeer

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