Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 January 16

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From today's featured article

John C. Breckinridge (January 16, 1821 – May 17, 1875) was an American lawyer, politician, and soldier. He represented Kentucky in both houses of Congress and became the youngest-ever vice president of the United States. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1850 as a Democrat. He served as vice president from 1857 to 1861 alongside President James Buchanan. In 1859, he was elected senator for Kentucky. The Southern Democrats held two rival conventions; one nominated Breckinridge for president, who carried most of the Southern states. With the southern vote split, Abraham Lincoln won the election. Taking his Senate seat, Breckinridge urged compromise. When the Civil War broke out, Breckinridge fled to the Confederacy. He fought in numerous engagements as a general officer. In 1865 he was appointed secretary of war and urged the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, to arrange a national surrender. After the war he lived abroad, returning in 1869. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Siegfried Pank

... that Siegfried Pank (pictured), the director of the International Telemann Association, was a cellist of the Gewandhausorchester and professor of cello and viol?
... that the 2008 FA Cup Final between Cardiff City and Portsmouth holds the record for the highest attendance for a football match at the new Wembley Stadium, with 89,874?
... that Katherine Loker donated $30 million each to Harvard and USC, and millions more to develop university, medical, and cultural programs in California?
... that prior to the arrival of the Year 24 Group, most girls' comics in Japan were written by men?
... that memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner blames Alternative for Germany for the increase in heckling at former Nazi concentration camps in recent years?
... that in the 1930 United States Senate election in Illinois, Ruth Hanna McCormick was the first woman ever nominated for the U.S. Senate by a major party?
... that the defenses of the soft coral Leptogorgia virgulata are useless against the barnacle Conopea galeata?
... that comedian Blaire Erskine's mock interview duped Michael Moore into believing she was a Donald Trump supporter stranded and freezing after his Omaha, Nebraska, rally?

In the news

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

Donald Trump

An earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi kills at least 42 people and injures more than 820 others.
Donald Trump (pictured) becomes the first U.S. president to be impeached twice after the House of Representatives charges him with incitement of insurrection.
In Ireland, an investigation into church-run homes for unwed mothers and their babies details the deaths of 9,000 children between 1922 and 1998.
Sriwijaya Air Flight 182, carrying 62 people, crashes north of Jakarta, Indonesia.

On this day

January 16

Jose Calugas

1862 – A pumping engine at a colliery in New Hartley, England, broke and fell down the shaft, trapping miners below and resulting in 204 deaths.
1942 – World War II: During the Battle of Bataan, U.S. Army sergeant Jose Calugas (pictured) organized a squad of volunteers to man an artillery position under heavy fire, which later earned him the Medal of Honor.
1964 – The musical Hello, Dolly! opened at the St. James Theatre on Broadway, and went on to win ten Tony Awards, a record that stood for 37 years.
2018 – In Mrauk U, Myanmar, police fired into a crowd protesting the ban of an event to mark the anniversary of the end of the Kingdom of Mrauk U, resulting in seven deaths and twelve injuries.

Anton Schindler (d. 1864)
Miguel Ángel Mancera (b. 1966)
Lorna Kesterson (d. 2012)

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Today's featured picture

The Danzig gulden was the currency of the Free City of Danzig (present-day Gdańsk, Poland) between 1923 and 1939. Inflation in Danzig during 1922 had spiralled out of control, and the city abandoned the German Papiermark in favour of the Danzig gulden the following year. The issuance of the new gulden was overseen by the Bank of Danzig, established in early 1924. The obverse of each note shows the city's coat of arms on the left and an important local architectural structure in the centre. This one-hundred-gulden specimen banknote, issued in 1931, bears an illustration of a dock scene beside the river Motława in the city centre on the obverse.

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Banknote design credit: Bank of Danzig; photographed by Andrew Shiva

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