Wikipedia:Main Page history/2015 February 16

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From today's featured article

Tintin in the Congo is the second volume of The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Commissioned by the conservative newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century) for its children's supplement, it was serialised weekly from May 1930 to June 1931. The story tells of young reporter Tintin, who is sent to the Belgian Congo with his dog Snowy. Encountering native Congolese people and wild animals, Tintin unearths a diamond smuggling operation run by the American gangster Al Capone. Following Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and bolstered by publicity stunts, it was a commercial success and appeared in book form shortly after the serial's conclusion. The Tintin series grew over the 1930s and 1940s to become a defining part of the Franco-Belgian comics tradition. In 1946, Hergé re-drew and coloured Tintin in the Congo in his distinctive style of uniform lines and low contrast for republication by Casterman, revised for a 1975 edition. In the late 20th century, Tintin in the Congo was criticised for its representation of big-game hunting and for its typically colonial depictions of Africans as unable to fend for themselves and in need of European masters. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Huda Zoghbi (pictured), the physician–scientist who identified the gene that causes Rett syndrome, originally wanted to study literature?
... that HBO used some 160 lawyers to vet its film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief because of the notorious litigiousness of the Church of Scientology?
... that a nineteenth-century author wrote, "there is not a more complete system of fortifications extant, in any part of the world, than the cordon of defensive structures at Malta"?
... that New York Yankees' prospect Ty Hensley was allegedly assaulted by another athlete because Hensley did not want to discuss his $1.2 million signing bonus?
... that God's Choice was the fruit of a late-1970s 18-month ethnographic study of a 350-student Christian fundamentalist Baptist K–12 day school in Illinois?
... that John Norton, future United States Army lieutenant general, was college roommates with George Scratchley Brown, future Air Force Chief of Staff?
... that the theme for World Youth Day 1995, "Tell the World of His Love", was performed multiple times during the visit of Pope Francis in the Philippines?
... that the renovation of the nuclear weapon arsenal of the United States resulted in the setting of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight?

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In the news

The attempted rape and murder of a student on a bus sparks protests across Turkey.
Two people are killed in shootings at a free-speech seminar and a synagogue service in Copenhagen.
Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (pictured) is imprisoned for five years after the country's Federal Court upholds his conviction for sodomy.
Sam Smith wins Record of the Year and Beck wins Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards.
In association football, the Africa Cup of Nations concludes with Ivory Coast defeating Ghana in the final.

Ongoing: Boko Haram – Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – War in Ukraine
Recent deaths: John McCabe – Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat – Bob Simon

On this day...

February 16: Family Day in various regions of Canada (2015); Statehood Day in Lithuania (1918); Washington's Birthday (Presidents' Day) in the United States (2015)

1862 – American Civil War: Union victory in the Battle of Fort Donelson gave General Ulysses S. Grant the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant.
1918 – The Council of Lithuania signed the Act of Independence of Lithuania (facsimile pictured), proclaiming the restoration of an independent Lithuania governed by democratic principles, despite the presence of German troops in the country during World War I.
1940 – Second World War: The British Royal Navy boarded and captured the German tanker Altmark and freed 299 captured British sailors.
1985 – "The Hizballah Program" was released, describing the ideology and goals of the Shia Islamic political and paramilitary organization Hizballah.
2005 – The Kyoto Protocol, an amendment to the international treaty on climate change, entered into force.

More anniversaries: February 15 – February 16 – February 17

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From today's featured list

Since its inception in 1992, more than 100 players have scored three goals (a hat-trick) or more in a single Premier League football match. The first player to achieve the feat was Frenchman Eric Cantona, who scored three times for Leeds United in a 5–0 victory over Tottenham Hotspur. Twenty players have scored more than three goals in a match; of these, four players, Andrew Cole, Alan Shearer (pictured), Jermain Defoe and Dimitar Berbatov have scored five. Robbie Fowler holds the record for the quickest Premier League hat-trick, netting three times for Liverpool against Arsenal in 4 minutes 23 seconds. Shearer scored three or more goals eleven times in the Premier League, more than any other player. Fowler has scored nine hat-tricks; Thierry Henry and Michael Owen have scored eight hat-tricks each. Five players have each scored hat-tricks for three different clubs. The Dubious Goals Committee has subsequently ruled out hat-tricks that have resulted from goals' being incorrectly credited to players during matches. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The short-snouted seahorse (Hippocampus hippocampus) is a species of seahorse in the family Syngnathidae. Endemic to the Mediterranean Sea and parts of the North Atlantic, it is often found in shallow muddy waters, estuaries or seagrass beds.

Photograph: Hans Hillewaert

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