Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 May 4

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From today's featured article

William Feiner (1792–1829) was a German Catholic priest and Jesuit who became a missionary to the United States and eventually the president of Georgetown College. Born in Münster, he taught in Jesuit schools in the Russian Empire and Polish Galicia as a young member of the Society of Jesus. He then emigrated to the United States several years after the restoration of the Society, taking up pastoral work and teaching theology in Conewago, Pennsylvania, before becoming a full-time professor at Georgetown College. There, he also became the second dedicated librarian of the college's library. Eventually, Feiner became the president of Georgetown in 1826. While president, he taught theology at Georgetown and led the congregation at Holy Trinity Church. Despite being the leader of an American university, he never mastered the English language. Long plagued by poor health due to tuberculosis, his short-lived presidency ended after three years, just weeks before his death. (Full article...)

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In the news

Mark Selby

Mark Selby (pictured) wins the World Snooker Championship, defeating Shaun Murphy in the final.
Colombian president Iván Duque Márquez withdraws a proposed tax reform after nationwide protests leave at least nineteen people dead.
In horse racing, Medina Spirit wins the Kentucky Derby, earning trainer Bob Baffert a record seventh victory in the race.
In Israel, forty-five people are killed in a crowd crush at a religious festival on Mount Meron.

On this day

May 4: Star Wars Day

Manaslu

1436 – Swedish nobleman Engelbrekt Engelbrektsson was assassinated while leading a rebellion against Eric of Pomerania.
1780 – The first running of the Epsom Derby horse race took place, won by Diomed, owned by Sir Charles Bunbury.
1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Navy attacked Allied naval forces at the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first fleet action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other.
1974 – An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu (pictured) in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb a peak higher than 8,000 metres (26,247 ft) above sea level.

William H. Prescott (b. 1796)
Franklin Carmichael (b. 1890)
Carl von Ossietzky (d. 1938)

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Today's featured picture

William Tell (Guillaume Tell) is a French-language opera in four acts by the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini, first performed in 1829. This watercolour illustration shows costume designs by Eugène Du Faget for three characters for the opera's premiere: from left to right, Laure Cinti-Damoreau as Mathilde, Adolphe Nourrit as Arnold Melchtal, and Nicolas Levasseur as Walter Furst. The picture had previously been cut up into three separate images (one for each character), and has here been restored.

Painting credit: Eugène Du Faget; restored by Adam Cuerden

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