Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 December 24

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From today's featured article

Jeff Foxworthy

The American Bible Challenge (2012–2014) is a Biblical-themed American television game show created by Game Show Network. The series is hosted by Jeff Foxworthy (pictured), joined by Kirk Franklin in the second season. Each season of the series is played as a nine-episode tournament with six episodes of opening rounds, two semi-finals, and a final. Each opening round starts with three teams of three contestants answering questions about the Bible. One contestant from each team participates in the following round. The two highest-scoring teams compete in a final one-minute round, and a $20,000 prize is donated to a charity of the winning team's choice. Over the course of the season, winning teams advance to semi-final games and then to a final game with a grand prize of $100,000, for a total possible payout of $140,000 for the season winner's charity. The show became GSN's highest rated original program in the history of the network. In 2014, the show received a nomination at the 41st Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Game Show, and Foxworthy was nominated as Outstanding Game Show Host. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Original publication of "Helmsley" in 1763

... that Queen Victoria was displeased after an organist played an unfamiliar tune for the Advent hymn "Lo! He comes with clouds descending" at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle ("Helmsley" tune pictured)?
... that Nicki McNelly, who spent most of her working life as an army wife, later became provost of an Episcopal cathedral?
... that Calabria was once attached to Sardinia before it migrated to Sicily?
... that Hollywood studio head Frank Price's decision to film Ghostbusters (1983) was initially considered a "terrible mistake" by industry insiders?
... that the Advent hymn "Wie soll ich dich empfangen" with lyrics by Paul Gerhardt had a melody by Johann Crüger when he published it in 1653, but Bach used a different melody in his Christmas Oratorio?
... that the final episode of the six-part BBC Television adaptation of John Masefield's The Box of Delights was broadcast on Christmas Eve 1984?
... that women's rights campaigner Mozn Hassan is subject to a travel ban and has had her assets frozen by the Egyptian government?
... that the gold Christmas beetle is prized by collectors?

In the news

Carles Puigdemont

Typhoon Tembin sweeps through the southern Philippines, killing more than two hundred people and leaving dozens of others missing.
In the Catalan election, pro-independence parties, spearheaded by the exiled Carles Puigdemont (pictured), secure a majority.
Sebastián Piñera is elected President of Chile for a second time.
In the United States, an Amtrak Cascades passenger train derails in DuPont, Washington, killing three people and injuring more than seventy others.

On this day...

December 24

British and German troops during the Christmas truce

1818 – "Silent Night", a Christmas carol by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber, was first performed in a church in Austria.
1846 – The Sultanate of Brunei ceded the island of Labuan to Great Britain as a colony.
1914 – British and German soldiers interrupted the World War I to celebrate Christmas, beginning the Christmas truce (pictured).
1964 – The Viet Cong bombed the Brinks Hotel in Saigon, killing two U.S. Army officers, raising fears of an escalation in the Vietnam War.
1973 – The United States Congress granted Washington, D.C. home rule, allowing the residents to elect their own mayor and city council.

Adam Mickiewicz (b. 1798) · Cosima Wagner (b. 1837) · Jeff Sessions (b. 1946)

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Today's featured picture

An osteosarcoma cell that was stained with phalloidin to visualise actin and imaged using a confocal microscope. It was then deconvoluted using a point spread function and colour coded to better show the position of the filaments.

Photograph: Howard Vindin

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