Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 October 25

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From today's featured article

Science Fantasy was a British fantasy and science fiction magazine, launched in 1950 by Nova Publications. John Carnell edited the magazine beginning with the third issue, typically running a long lead novelette along with several shorter stories. Prominent contributors in the 1950s included John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, and Brian Aldiss, whose first novel Nonstop appeared (in an early version) in the February 1956 issue. Fantasy stories began to appear more frequently during the latter half of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s Carnell began to publish Thomas Burnett Swann's well-received historical fantasies. In the early 1960s Carnell's efforts were rewarded with three consecutive Hugo nominations for best magazine. After Nova went out of business in early 1964, Roberts & Vinter took over as publishers until 1967. Kyril Bonfiglioli, the editor, attracted new writers, including Keith Roberts, Brian Stableford and Josephine Saxton. In the opinion of science fiction historian Mike Ashley, the final year of the magazine, when it was renamed Impulse, included some of the best material ever published in a British science fiction magazine. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Mai Khôi at the 2018 Oslo Freedom Forum

... that Mai Khôi (pictured), an outspoken singer and political dissident known as the "Lady Gaga of Vietnam", received a Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in 2018?
... that director and screenwriter Travis Stevens paused renovations on his house to film Girl on the Third Floor?
... that Piera Aiello wore a veil to protect her identity when standing for Italy's Chamber of Deputies because of threats from the mafia?
... that after the owner of Delaware radio station WNRK died before he could put it on the air, his widow was interviewed on the station's first day of broadcasting?
... that German stock trader Dirk Müller is known as "Mr. DAX"?
... that the Corps of Royal Artillery Drivers was created in 1793 to replace civilian contractors, who sometimes abandoned their artillery in battle?
... that John B. Creeden was a founder of both Boston College Law School and Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service?
... that Neil Robertson will not play at the 2019 World Open snooker tournament because he drove to Barnsley, Gloucestershire, rather than Barnsley, South Yorkshire, to compete in the qualifiers?

In the news

Yurisbel Gracial

Thirty-nine people are found dead in a refrigerated lorry container in Grays, England.
In baseball, the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks defeat the Yomiuri Giants to win the Japan Series (MVP Yurisbel Gracial pictured).
In Santiago, Chile, protests over increased metro fares cause President Sebastián Piñera to declare a state of emergency.
Several Lebanese cabinet ministers resign amid protests after the government announces plans to tax gasoline, tobacco, and online phone calls.

On this day

October 25: Diwali begins (2019)

Hartog Plate

1147 – Reconquista: Forces under Afonso I of Portugal captured Lisbon from the Moors after a four-month siege in one of the few Christian victories during the Second Crusade.
1616 – The VOC sailing ship Eendracht reached Shark Bay on the western coastline of Australia, as documented on the Hartog Plate (pictured) etched by explorer Dirk Hartog.
1944 – USS Tang, the U.S. Navy submarine credited with sinking more ships than any other American submarine, sank when it was struck by its own torpedo.
1980 – Proceedings on the Hague Abduction Convention, a multilateral treaty providing an expeditious method to return a child taken from one member nation to another, concluded at The Hague.

Beatrice of Castile (d. 1359) · Richard Parkes Bonington (b. 1802) · Larry Itliong (b. 1913)

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From today's featured list

Map of Utah counties

There are 29 counties in the U.S. state of Utah. There were originally seven counties established under the provisional State of Deseret in 1849: Davis, Iron, Sanpete, Salt Lake, Tooele, Utah, and Weber. The Territory of Utah was created in 1851 with the first territorial legislature meeting from 1851–1852. The first legislature re-created the original counties from the State of Deseret under territorial law as well as establishing three additional counties: Juab, Millard, and Washington. All other counties were established between 1854 and 1894 by the Utah Territorial Legislature under territorial law except for the last two counties formed, Daggett and Duchesne. They were created by popular vote and by gubernatorial proclamation after Utah became a state. Based on 2010 United States Census data, the population of Utah was 2,763,885. Just over 75 percent of Utah's population is concentrated along four Wasatch Front counties: Salt Lake, Utah, Davis, and Weber. (Full list...)

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Ariadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera occupied ninety minutes, and the performance of play plus opera occupied over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.

This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.

Illustration credit: unknown

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