Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 October 31

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From today's featured article

Michael Collins (born October 31, 1930) is a former astronaut and test pilot who was the command module pilot of Apollo 11 in 1969. The first person to perform more than one spacewalk, he is one of 24 people to have flown to the Moon. Collins joined the U.S. Air Force after graduating from West Point in 1952. He graduated in 1960 from the Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School and was selected for NASA's third group of astronauts in 1963. He made two spacewalks on his first mission on Gemini 10 in 1966. During Apollo 11, he remained in orbit around the Moon in the command module Columbia while his crewmates Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first crewed landing on the surface. After retiring from NASA, Collins became Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and later director of the National Air and Space Museum. Under his guidance, the museum opened on time and within budget for the United States Bicentennial in 1976. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Shey, the capital of Maryul

... that Ladakh was originally called Maryul (capital pictured), the "lowland" of West Tibet?
... that American tenor Joshua Guerrero stepped in at late notice to sing Almaviva in a Grammy Award-winning production of The Ghosts of Versailles?
... that the common name of the Halloween darter refers to the orange and black coloration that individuals develop during the breeding season?
... that Zdeňka Wiedermannová-Motyčková established the first girls' secondary school in Moravia?
... that the skeleton frog Boophis popi can be identified by its bright red irises?
... that the namesake of Betsy Head Park left half her estate to the New York City parks system and only $5 to her daughter?
... that the Coffin Cave mold beetle may not actually be found in Coffin Cave?
... that forensic artists at the University of Dundee used 100-year-old photographs of a skull to digitally recreate the face of an accused witch in Scotland?

In the news

Stephen Strasburg

In baseball, the Washington Nationals defeat the Houston Astros to win the World Series (MVP Stephen Strasburg pictured).
In motor racing, Estonians Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja win the World Rally Championship.
At least sixty-seven people are killed in protests and inter-ethnic clashes in Ethiopia's Oromia Region and surrounding areas.
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dies during a US raid in Idlib, Syria.

On this day

October 31: Halloween

Martin Luther

802 – Irene of Athens, the first empress regnant of the Byzantine Empire, was deposed and exiled to the island of Lesbos.
1517 – According to one account, Martin Luther (depicted) posted his Ninety-five Theses onto the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenberg, present-day Germany, marking the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
1973 – Three Provisional Irish Republican Army members escaped from Mountjoy Prison in Dublin aboard a hijacked helicopter that landed in the prison's exercise yard.
1999 – Australian sailor Jesse Martin arrived in Melbourne, becoming the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe solo, non-stop, and unassisted.

Cornelis Jol (d. 1641) · Charles A. Wickliffe (d. 1869) · Larry Mullen Jr. (b. 1961)

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Today's featured picture

Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead is a 1968 American independent horror film written, directed, photographed and edited by George Romero, co-written by John Russo, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven people who are trapped in a rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania, which is besieged by a large and growing group of "living dead". The 96-minute film was completed on a $114,000 budget (equivalent to $821,000 in 2018) and shot outside Pittsburgh, where it had its theatrical premiere on October 1, 1968. It grossed $12 million domestically ($86 million, 2018) and $18 million internationally ($130 million, 2018). Despite being heavily criticized upon its release for its explicit gore, the film eventually garnered critical acclaim and was selected in 1999 by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry. Night of the Living Dead led to five subsequent films between 1978 and 2009, also directed by Romero, and inspired several remakes.

Film credit: George A. Romero

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