Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 May 1

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James A. Ryder (1800–1860) was an American Catholic priest who led several Jesuit institutions. He studied at Georgetown College before entering the Society of Jesus in 1815. Ryder was then sent to Italy, where he studied and taught theology. He continued as a professor upon his return to the United States in 1829, and became the president of Georgetown on May 1, 1840. He established the university's observatory and liquidated its debt, while gaining a reputation as a talented preacher. For two years of his term, he was also the provincial superior of the Jesuits' Maryland Province. In 1845, Ryder became the second president of the College of the Holy Cross. He then returned to Georgetown as president in 1848, where he oversaw construction of a new Holy Trinity Church and accepted a group of physicians to form a School of Medicine. Ryder then assisted in founding Saint Joseph's College in Philadelphia, and became its president in 1856. From 1857 until his death, he preached and did pastoral work. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

432 Park Avenue

... that the design of 432 Park Avenue (pictured) was inspired by a trash can?
... that Charli XCX, while under self-isolation due to the coronavirus pandemic, is collaborating with her fans to record her album How I'm Feeling Now?
... that the Rowridge Valley in the Isle of Wight is the only known location for the wood calamint in Britain?
... that Chicano labor and civil rights activist Pancho Medrano started out as a boxer?
... that the pursuit of new ceramic glaze effects led to some pieces of art pottery still being slightly radioactive today, nearly a century later?
... that the 1951 short film A Wonderful Life, starring James Dunn, was an adaptation of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life for the Christian film industry?
... that Mahatma Gandhi championed the concept of composite nationalism, which led to a massive expansion of the Indian independence movement?
... that Neanderthals went fishing?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Netanyahu and Gantz

After seventeen months of stalemate, the Likud and Blue and White parties reach an agreement for Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz (pictured) to share power in Israel.
A mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves twenty-two victims dead.
In the South Korean legislative election, the ruling Democratic Party and their allies increase their majority in the National Assembly.

On this day

May 1: International Workers' Day; Beltane and Samhain in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, respectively; Maharashtra Day in Maharashtra, India (1960); Loyalty Day in the United States

Overture to The Marriage of Figaro

1576 – Stephen Báthory and Anna Jagiellon were crowned as the elected rulers of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.
1625 – Dutch–Portuguese War: Portuguese and Spanish forces recaptured the Brazilian city of Bahia, which had previously been captured by the Dutch Republic.
1786 – The Marriage of Figaro (audio featured), an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
1950 – Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to receive the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
1974 – Argentine president Juan Perón expelled Montoneros from a demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires, forcing the group to become a clandestine organization.

François de Troy (d. 1730)
Henry DeWolf Smyth (b. 1898)
Magda Goebbels (d. 1945)

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Chairil Anwar

Indonesian author Chairil Anwar wrote 75 poems, 7 pieces of prose, and 3 poetry collections. He also translated 10 poems and 4 pieces of prose. The majority of Anwar's original poems are included in his collections: Deru Campur Debu (1949), Kerikil-Kerikil Tajam dan yang Terampas dan yang Putus (1949), and Tiga Menguak Takdir (1950). In 1942, he wrote "Nisan" ('Gravestone'), which is generally considered to be his first poem. He wrote extensively during the Japanese occupation (1942–1945), at times having to change his poems to avoid censorship; for instance, the title of his best-known work, "Aku" ('Me'), was temporarily known as "Semangat" ('Spirit') to avoid censorship based on themes of individuality. After his death Anwar was criticised for plagiarism, with several works revealed to have been uncredited translations of foreign poems. His original works, unlike poems by earlier writers, used everyday language in an unusual manner in his poetry, mixing in words from foreign languages. (Full list...)

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Marie-Aimée Roger-Miclos (1 May 1860 – 19 May 1951) was a French pianist of international acclaim. One reviewer described her as "an artist of interesting and unconventional qualities, possessing a strongly marked sense of rhythm, brilliant and incisive touch, and her playing is marked with certainty, that adds tonal charm to brilliancy". Camille Saint-Saëns and Joseph O'Kelly dedicated piano pieces to her, and she taught piano at the Conservatoire de Paris. Her work lives on in her recordings, which include piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin and Felix Mendelssohn.

This photograph of Roger-Miclos was taken in 1902 by Jean Reutlinger as part of volume 21 of the Album Reutlinger de portraits divers. The Reutlinger studio in Paris specialised in photographic portraits of popular actresses and opera singers, which were either sold to magazines and newspapers or reproduced as postcards.

Photograph credit: Jean Reutlinger; restored by Adam Cuerden

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