Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 24, 2016
Nelson's Pillar was a large granite column capped by a statue of Horatio Nelson, erected in the centre of O'Connell Street, Dublin, Ireland, in 1809. It was severely damaged by explosives in March 1966 and demolished a week later. The monument was erected after the euphoria following Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It proved a popular tourist attraction but provoked aesthetic and political controversy, and there were frequent calls for it to be removed, or replaced with a memorial to an Irish hero. Nevertheless it remained, even after Ireland became a republic in 1948. Although influential literary figures defended the Pillar on historical and cultural grounds, its destruction just before the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising was, on the whole, well received by the Irish public. The police could not identify those responsible; when in 2010 a former republican activist admitted planting the explosives, he was not charged. The Pillar was replaced in 2003 with the Spire of Dublin. Relics of the Pillar are found in various Dublin locations, and its memory is preserved in numerous works of Irish literature. (Full article...)