Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 February 21

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From today's featured article

Anarky is a fictional character in comic books published by DC Comics. Co-created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle, he first appeared in Detective Comics No. 608 (November 1989), as an adversary of Batman. A former child prodigy driven to overthrow governments to improve social conditions, he has espoused environmentalism, antimilitarism, economic equality, and especially anti-statism. Anarky was used as a sporadically recurring character throughout the early 1990s, following a positive reception by readers, and experienced a brief surge in media exposure during the late 1990s. The 1997 spin-off series Anarky generated positive reviews. In 2008, he reappeared in an issue of Robin, and then became a recurring character in issues of Red Robin, authored by Fabian Nicieza, until the series was cancelled in 2011. Since 2013 Anarky has been featured more heavily in media adaptations of DC Comics properties, across multiple platforms. He made his live action debut in 2015 in Arrow, a television series based on the Green Arrow character, where he was portrayed by Alexander Calvert, once again as a villain. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Muga silk fabric with jaapi hat

... that Assamese muga silk (pictured) is naturally golden in colour?
... that Anna Korondi appeared at the Bavarian State Opera as Zdenka in Arabella by Richard Strauss and in a leading role in the premiere of Aribert Reimann's Bernarda Albas Haus?
... that the pre-1st century text Mahanarayana Upanishad, literally "Great Vishnu Upanishad", glorifies not only Vishnu but also Shiva?
... that Colby Carthel is the son of fellow American football head coach Don Carthel?
... that Gujarat's Sankheda furniture is named after the Sankheda village, where it is made with teak wood and lacquer and painted in traditional bright shades of maroon and gold?
... that the black Liberian scholar and educator, Princess Fatima Massaquoi, wrote of her challenging experiences in Nazi Germany and the U.S. South in a recently rediscovered autobiography?
... that CR-39, used in the manufacture of plastic eyeglass lenses, was one of 200 polymers invented by Columbia-Southern Chemical Corporation during World War II?
... that the mechanical engineer Lionel Bussey had 600 pairs of women's shoes?

In the news

Cyclone Winston on February 20

Cyclone Winston (satellite image pictured) becomes the strongest tropical cyclone on record to strike Fiji, causing extensive damage and prompting a nationwide curfew.
A bombing in Ankara, Turkey, kills at least twenty-eight people and injures more than sixty others.
The Revenant wins five awards, including Best Film and Best Director, at the British Academy Film Awards.
Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill jointly call for an end to persecution of Christians in the Middle East and to wars in the region.

Ongoing events:
- Zika virus outbreak
- European migrant crisis
Recent deaths:

On this day...

February 21: International Mother Language Day; Language Movement Day in Bangladesh

Richard Trevithick

1543 – Led by the Ethiopian Emperor Galawdewos, the combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeated a Muslim army led by Imam Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi.
1804 – Built by Cornish inventor Richard Trevithick (pictured), the first self-propelled steam locomotive first ran in Wales.
1919 – Bavarian socialist Kurt Eisner, who had organized the German Revolution that overthrew the Wittelsbach monarchy and established Bavaria as a republic, was assassinated.
1958 – British artist Gerald Holtom designed a logo for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament that became internationally recognised as the peace sign.
1973 – After accidentally having strayed into Israeli-occupied airspace, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 was shot down by two Israeli fighter aircraft.

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Today's featured picture

A twelve-shilling note from the Province of New Jersey, dated 25 March 1776. The New Jersey pound was a type of colonial currency used in New Jersey until 1793, when it was replaced by the U.S. dollar.

Banknote: Province of New Jersey and I. Collins (printer); image courtesy of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution

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