Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 January 15

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From today's featured article

The Pale Emperor is the ninth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson, released on January 15, 2015. In place of their usual industrial rock style, the album features a sparser, blues-rock-influenced sound. It was the band's first album to be co-produced by score composer Tyler Bates, who had met frontman Marilyn Manson (pictured) through their mutual involvement in the television series Californication. It was released through the singer's Hell, etc. label to generally positive reviews, with several publications referring to it as the band's best album in over a decade. It went on to appear on multiple best-album lists for 2015. It was also a commercial success, debuting at number eight on the Billboard 200 with the band's highest opening week sales since 2007. The album was dedicated to Manson's mother, who died of Alzheimer's disease during its production. To promote the record, the band embarked on The Hell Not Hallelujah Tour, which ran for almost two years along with two co-headlining tours: The End Times with The Smashing Pumpkins, and a summer 2016 tour with Slipknot. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Martin Luther

... that Martin Luther (pictured) paraphrased in his hymn "Mitten wir im Leben sind mit dem Tod umfangen" the Latin "Media vita in morte sumus" (In the midst of life we are in death), including its Trisagion?
... that Ibrahim ibn al-Ashtar killed Umayyad commander Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad at the Battle of Khazir?
... that after the Bolshevik Party of India leader Barada Mukutmoni was named Tourism Minister in the Second United Front Cabinet of West Bengal, there was a split in his party?
... that drag queen Violet Chachki's EP Gagged was inspired by her time working as an assistant to a dominatrix?
... that Gui Minhai, whose four bookseller colleagues also disappeared in mysterious circumstances, reappeared three months later on Chinese television confessing to killing a girl in a 2003 DUI accident?
... that the titular character from Bug! was one of three candidates to be the mascot for the Sega Saturn console, due to the lack of a Sonic the Hedgehog video game?
... that epidemiologist Yasmin Altwaijri encourages other Saudi Arabian women to become scientists, arguing that this need not "cross the boundaries of our societal norms and customs"?

In the news

Zhou Youguang

Chinese linguist Zhou Youguang (pictured), creator of the pinyin system for writing Chinese in Latin letters, dies at the age of 111.
Passenger services are inaugurated on the Addis Ababa–Djibouti Railway, a fast electric railway connecting the Ethiopian capital to the Red Sea.
A cold wave affecting Eastern and Central Europe causes more than 60 deaths.
La La Land wins a record-breaking seven awards at the Golden Globe Awards.

On this day...

January 15: World Religion Day (2017); John Chilembwe Day in Malawi; Korean Alphabet Day in North Korea

The British Museum

1759 – The British Museum (pictured) in London, today containing one of the largest and most comprehensive collections in the world, opened to the public in Montagu House, Bloomsbury.
1865 – American Civil War: The Union Army captured Fort Fisher, the last seaport of the Confederacy.
1937 – Spanish Civil War: Nationalists and Republican forces both withdrew after suffering heavy losses, ending the Second Battle of the Corunna Road.
1967 – The Green Bay Packers defeated the Kansas City Chiefs in the American football championship game now known as Super Bowl I.
1991 – Elizabeth II, as Queen of Australia, signed letters patent allowing Australia to become the first Commonwealth realm to institute its own separate Victoria Cross award in its own honours system.

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Today's featured picture

A view of the Taj Mahal from the south, featuring the Charbagh garden. The mausoleum complex also includes subsidiary tombs, waterworks infrastructure, the small town of Taj Ganji, and a "moonlight garden". Its origins and architecture have been extensively documented, covering both the circumstances of its commission and the cultural and historical influence of the Islamic Mughal Empire in India.

Photograph: Yann; edit: Jim Carter

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