Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 August 18

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From today's featured article

Practitioners on their way to a ceremony

Heathenry, or Germanic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. The practitioners of this new religious movement model their faith on the belief systems of Germanic peoples of Iron Age and Early Medieval Europe. Heathenry uses historical, archaeological, and folkloric evidence as a basis. It does not have a unified theology and typically centers on a pantheon of deities. It adopts cosmological views, including an animistic view of the cosmos in which the natural world is imbued with spirits. Many practitioners are solitary; other members of the Heathen community assemble in small groups to perform their rites in specially constructed buildings or outdoors (pictured). Heathen ethical systems place great emphasis on honor, personal integrity, and loyalty, while beliefs about an afterlife are varied and rarely emphasized. Many groups adopt a universalist perspective which holds that the religion is open to all, irrespective of ethnic or racial identity. Scholarly estimates put the number of Heathens at no more than 20,000 worldwide, with communities of practitioners active in Europe, North America, and Australasia. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Abebe Bikila in 1968

... that Abebe Bikila (pictured) set a world record winning the 1960 Men's Olympic marathon, running barefoot?
... that Presidents Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt each created a Federal Real Estate Board?
... that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Wood has called Heather Booth "one of the nation's most influential organizers for progressive causes"?
... that the woodpecker has special adaptations to avoid damaging its brain while pecking and drumming?
... that L. Fidelia Woolley Gillette was one of the first women to be ordained as a Universalist minister in the United States, and the first woman ordained of any denomination in Canada?
... that KFKU, the AM radio station of the University of Kansas, ceased operations because its time-share partner went silent due to financial difficulties?
... that French composer Pascal Dusapin wrote the English libretto for his opera Faustus, the Last Night, which premiered in Germany in 2006?
... that the codename assigned to U.S. Senate president pro tempore James Eastland by the Central Locator System was "FOURFINGER"?

In the news

Car driven into a crowd in Charlottesville, Virginia

An attacker drives a van into pedestrians on La Rambla in Barcelona, killing at least thirteen people and injuring more than eighty others.
At least four hundred people are killed by mudslides in and around Freetown, Sierra Leone.
In golf, Justin Thomas wins the PGA Championship.
A suicide bombing in Quetta, Pakistan, kills fifteen people and injures forty others.
In eSports, The International Dota 2 tournament concludes with Team Liquid defeating Newbee.
In the United States, a car (pictured) is driven into a crowd of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring nineteen others.

On this day...

August 18: Long Tan Day in Australia (1966)

Pierre Jules Janssen

684 – Second Fitna: Umayyad partisans defeated the supporters of Ibn al-Zubayr and cemented Umayyad control of Syria.
1590 – On the third birthday of his granddaughter Virginia Dare, the first English child born in the Americas, John White returned to the Roanoke Colony in present-day North Carolina, U.S., only to find it deserted.
1868 – Astronomer Pierre Jules Janssen (pictured) discovered helium while analysing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India.
1940 – Second World War: During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe made an all-out effort to destroy RAF Fighter Command, wherein both sides lost more aircraft combined on this day than at any other point during the campaign.
2008 – War in Afghanistan: French ISAF forces were ambushed by Afghan militants, suffering heavy casualties.

Agneta Horn (b. 1672) · Matthew Boulton (d. 1809) · Maria Ulfah Santoso (b. 1911)

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From today's featured list

Alexandra Stan

Romanian singer Alexandra Stan has released three studio albums and 19 singles. Stan's career began in 2009, when music producers Marcel Prodan and Andrei Nemirschi heard her singing at a karaoke bar and offered her a contract under their management, Maan Studio. Her debut single, "Lollipop (Param Pam Pam)" (2009), was heavily broadcast on native radio stations. In 2011, the singer released her breakthrough single "Mr. Saxobeat", which was an immediate commercial success, peaking at number one on the Romanian Top 100 for eight consecutive weeks. The single was subsequently released internationally, reaching the top position in eight countries across Europe including Germany and Italy. In August 2011, Stan's debut album, Saxobeats, was made available and managed to peak within the top forty in Austria, Finland, Germany and Switzerland. Stan's second studio album, Unlocked, was released in August 2014, including the top seventy singles "Cherry Pop" and "Dance"; both gained popularity in Japan. Her third studio album, Alesta, was released in 2016. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The House of the Blackheads is a building in the old town of Riga, Latvia. The original building was erected during the early 14th century for the Brotherhood of Blackheads, with major work completed in 1580 and 1886. In 1941, the original building was bombed by the Germans; the ruins were demolished by the Soviets seven years later. The current reconstruction was erected from 1995 to 1999.

Photograph: David Iliff

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