Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 February 11

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From today's featured article

Bernard A. Maguire (February 11, 1818 – April 26, 1886) was a Catholic priest and Jesuit who twice served as the president of Georgetown University. Maguire emigrated with his family from Ireland to Maryland at the age of six, where he studied under the Jesuits at Saint John's College, and entered the Society of Jesus in 1837. He then continued his education at Georgetown University, where he eventually became a teacher and prefect. As prefect, Maguire was responsible for quelling an uprising of 40 students who were unhappy with rules over the meeting times of the Philodemic Society. In 1852, he became the president of Georgetown University, and oversaw the partial separation of the preparatory division from the college. He left in 1858 to do pastoral work, but returned as president in 1866. Maguire directed the university's rebuilding after the Civil War and the establishment of the law school. His tenure ended in 1870, and he spent the rest of his life in pastoral ministry. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Facade of the Attara Kacheri, Bangalore

... that unable to demolish the colonial-style Attara Kacheri (pictured), K. Hanumanthaiah, Chief Minister of Mysore, instead ordered that the Dravidian-style Vidhana Soudha be built opposite it at a slight elevation?
... that Konrad Rupf, a long-term singer of the Leipzig Opera, made his stage debut in 1955 as Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore and appeared as Tevje in Fiddler on the Roof in 2000?
... that after Amanda Gorman recited the poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inauguration of US president Joe Biden, she gained Twitter followers at a faster rate than the president?
... that some members of Napoleon I's Guards of Honour considered themselves to be hostages of the emperor?
... that a seven-figure deal was made for Soman Chainani's debut book The School for Good and Evil to make a film adaptation less than two weeks after the book's publication?
... that Hilda Ellis Davidson played an important role in rescuing the field of folklore studies from its eccentric postwar image?
... that Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind is the first wind farm to be built in U.S. federal waters?
... that Billy Kee was going to include "Wembley" in the name of his child who was being born during the 2014 Football League Two play-off Final if he scored?

In the news

Tianwen-1 launching in July 2020

The United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter and China's Tianwen-1 orbiter (launch pictured) separately reach Mars.
In American football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
A glacial outburst flood in Uttarakhand, India, leaves at least 31 people dead and around 165 others missing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the State Counsellor of Myanmar, is detained by the military in a coup d'état.

On this day

February 11: Fat Thursday (Western Christianity, 2021); anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran (1979); National Foundation Day in Japan (660 BC)

UCL Main Building

1826 – London University, later University College London (pictured), was founded as the first secular university in England.
1851 – As part of celebrations marking the separation of Victoria from New South Wales, the inaugural first-class cricket match in Australia began at the Launceston Racecourse in Tasmania.
1938 – The BBC aired an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. in the first broadcast of science fiction on television.
1991 – The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization was established in The Hague to represent the interests of indigenous peoples, minorities, occupied nations, and other areas lacking international recognition.
2001 – The computer worm Anna Kournikova, which would affect millions of users worldwide, was released by a 20-year-old Dutch student.

William Shenstone (d. 1763)
Louis Bouveault (b. 1864)
Kelly Rowland (b. 1981)

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Today's featured picture

The doubloon was a Spanish gold coin worth two escudos or thirty-two reales weighing 6.867 grams (0.221 troy ounces), introduced in 1537. It became the model for several other gold coins issued in Europe, including this 1626 two-doppie gold coin issued in Piacenza in northern Italy by the Duchy of Parma, depicting Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, on the obverse. The coin is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the National Museum of American History.

Coin design credit: Duchy of Parma

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