Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 December 8

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From today's featured article

Caroline Johnson

The 2016 Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election took place on 8 December, triggered by the resignation of Member of Parliament (MP) Stephen Phillips, a Conservative, who left Parliament due to policy differences with Theresa May over Brexit. The constituency had been held by the Conservatives since it was first contested in the 1997 general election and was considered a safe seat for the party. Sleaford and North Hykeham was estimated to have had a vote share of more than 60 per cent in favour of leaving the EU in the June 2016 EU membership referendum and Brexit was a key issue in the by-election campaign. The Conservatives nominated Caroline Johnson (pictured), a paediatrician; she won the by-election with more than 50 per cent of the vote. The UK Independence Party came second with 13 per cent of the vote, followed by the Liberal Democrats with 11 per cent and Labour with 10 per cent. The result was widely seen as poor for the Labour Party, whose vote share decreased by 7 per cent. (Full article...)

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Syaoran Li cosplayer

... that Syaoran Li (cosplayer pictured) from the manga Cardcaptor Sakura formed the basis of two characters in a later manga; one original and one clone?
... that an all-male boating event on Tinsley Island was called the "Bohemian Grove of yachting"?
... that according to legend, Edigna fled an arranged marriage in 1074, leaving her royal life behind to live as a hermit in a hollowed-out tree in Fürstenfeldbruck?
... that the bryozoan Walkeria tuberosa is sometimes referred to as Valkeria tuberosa despite being named after the Scottish natural historian John Walker?
... that Michaela Goade received the 2021 Caldecott Medal for her watercolor illustrations for We Are Water Protectors, becoming the first Indigenous artist to win the award?
... that two years after the small Corinthian navy was defeated during the Affair of Epidamnus, their navy became the third largest in all of Greece?
... that the Panacea Society believed in God the Father, God the Mother, Jesus the Son, and Octavia?
... that?

In the news

Karl Nehammer

Karl Nehammer (pictured) becomes Chancellor of Austria following the resignation of Alexander Schallenberg.
Violent confrontations between a unit of the Indian army and civilians leave 15 people dead in Nagaland.
Adama Barrow is re-elected President of the Gambia.
On the Indonesian island of Java, Mount Semeru erupts, killing at least 34 people and injuring more than 160 others.

On this day

December 8: Feast of the Immaculate Conception (Roman Rite Catholicism); Rōhatsu in Japan

Margaret Hughes

1660 – Margaret Hughes (pictured) appeared professionally on the English stage; she is thought to have been the first woman to do so.
1854 – Pope Pius IX promulgated the apostolic constitution Ineffabilis Deus, proclaiming the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, which holds that the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin.
1941 – The Holocaust: The Chełmno extermination camp in occupied Poland, the first such Nazi camp to kill Jews, began operations.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: Following their successful attack three days earlier, a small Indian Navy strike force attacked the Port of Karachi again and created a de facto blockade.
1991 – Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian leaders signed the Belovezh Accords, agreeing to dissolve the Soviet Union and establish the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Maria Josepha of Austria (b. 1699)
Jean Sibelius (b. 1865)
Betty Holberton (d. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (8 December 1832 – 26 April 1910) was a Norwegian writer who received the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature "as a tribute to his noble, magnificent and versatile poetry, which has always been distinguished by both the freshness of its inspiration and the rare purity of its spirit". The first Norwegian Nobel laureate, he was a prolific polemicist and extremely influential in Norwegian public life and Scandinavian cultural debate. Bjørnson is considered to be one of the four great Norwegian writers, alongside Ibsen, Lie, and Kielland, and is also celebrated for his lyrics to the Norwegian national anthem, "Ja, vi elsker dette landet".

Photograph credit: Erwin Raupp; restored by Adam Cuerden

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