Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 November 26

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From today's featured article

Grasshoppers are insects in the suborder Caelifera, probably the oldest living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. They are typically ground-dwelling insects with powerful hind legs which enable them to escape from threats by leaping vigorously. Defences against their many predators include camouflage, flight, and brilliantly coloured wing-flashes that can startle or distract an assailant. Some species have warning coloration. Grasshoppers share the order Orthoptera with crickets and their allies in the other suborder Ensifera. Some grasshopper species can change colour and behaviour to form locust swarms that can destroy crops and cause famine over wide areas. Even in smaller numbers, the insects can be serious pests. They are used as food in some countries, including Mexico and Indonesia. They feature in art, symbolism and literature. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

The Durant

... that The Durant (pictured) in Flint, Michigan, was opened as a hotel in 1920, vacated in 1973, acquired by the Genesee County Land Bank in 2005, and reopened as an apartment building in 2010?
... that Mexican suspected hitman René Velázquez Valenzuela shaved his head and grew his beard as a sign of loyalty to his boss?
... that the concept of an ethnographic group is more commonly found in Soviet and post-Soviet, rather than Western, scholarly works?
... that William C. F. Robinson had a song he composed himself played at his South Australia governorship inauguration?
... that for his role in the Holocaust, Adolf Eichmann was described as a desk murderer by Hannah Arendt?
... that the herring-bone hydroid has two types of feeding polyp which differ in their behaviour?
... that Close But No Cigar, the debut album of the Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio, reached number one on the U.S. Contemporary Jazz Albums chart?
... that Lyle Wright favored the Follies and minded the Millers?

In the news

Joey Logano

In U.S. stock car racing, Joey Logano (pictured) wins the NASCAR Cup Series.
The wreck of Argentinian submarine San Juan, which disappeared in November 2017, is found in the South Atlantic.
David Hockney's Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) sells for more than US$90 million, the highest price for a work by a living artist at auction.
The General Conference on Weights and Measures confirms new definitions for the units kilogram, ampere, kelvin and mole.

On this day

November 26: Feast day of Sylvester Gozzolini (Catholic Church); Constitution Day in India (1949)

Pontcysyllte Aqueduct

1805 – The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (pictured), the longest aqueduct in Great Britain and the highest canal aqueduct in the world, opened.
1842 – The University of Notre Dame was founded by Rev. Edward Sorin, of the Congregation of Holy Cross, as an all-male institution in South Bend, Indiana, U.S.
1943 – Second World War: The British troop ship HMT Rohna was sunk in the Mediterranean by a Luftwaffe bomb, killing more than 1,100 people.
1983 – Six robbers broke into the Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport in London and stole three long tons (3,000 kilograms) of gold bullion, much of which has never been recovered.
2008 – A coordinated group of shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai began, ultimately killing at least 174 people and wounding more than 300 others.

Jean-Jacques d'Ortous de Mairan (b. 1678) · Marshall Taylor (b. 1878) · Fatima Massaquoi (d. 1978)

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From today's featured list

The Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series Directing Team is an award presented annually by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) and Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (ATAS). It was first awarded at the 1st Daytime Emmy Awards ceremony, held in 1974 when the award was originally called Outstanding Individual Director for a Drama Series. Therefore, between 1974 and 1978, the award only honored individual directors. In 1979, the award was renamed Outstanding Direction for a Drama Series before using its current title years later. Since then, the award has honored the performances of the entire directing team participating in a form of a daytime drama. Richard Dunlap has received the most wins for his direction on The Young and the Restless, with a total of two. The soap opera holds the record for the most awards, winning on thirteen occasions (including Dunlap's wins). The Young and the Restless has also received the most nominations, with a total of twenty-six. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Allegory of Fortune, sometimes also named La Fortuna, is a 1658 or 1659 oil painting by the Italian baroque painter Salvator Rosa. It depicts Fortuna, the goddess of fortune, pouring her gifts on an array of undeserving animals. It breaks with traditional Fortuna depictions in portraying her with eyes uncovered, aware of the recipients of the gifts, rather than with her eyes covered. Painted at the same time as Rosa's essay Babilonia, a satirical condemnation of the papal court, Allegory of Fortune was interpreted initially as an attack on Pope Alexander VII's patronage, with the hogs seen as representing churchmen. He was threatened with imprisonment and excommunicated until being saved by an intervention from the pope's brother, Don Marco Chigi.

Painting: Salvator Rosa

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