Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 January 19

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From today's featured article

Sonic Spinball is a pinball video game developed by the Sega Technical Institute and published by Sega. It was originally released for the Mega Drive/Genesis in North America and Europe in November 1993 and in Japan the following month. It was later ported to the Game Gear and Master System in 1994 and 1995 respectively. The game has been re-released on eleven different consoles and has been included in Genesis-related compilations. The player controls Sonic the Hedgehog, who is manipulated like a pinball in various machine-like environments for most of the game, while the series antagonist Doctor Robotnik tries to enslave the population on the planet Mobius. Sonic Spinball was commissioned by Sega when it became clear that a new Sonic the Hedgehog game could not be completed in time for the 1993 holiday season, since the majority of their staff were developing Sonic the Hedgehog 3. The game was hastily developed, with most work completed within two months. It received mixed reviews upon release; most critics praised the game's novelty and graphics but faulted its control scheme. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Boris Townsend

... that the English physicist and television technology developer Boris Townsend (pictured) described colour television as a "judicious combination of human imperfections and clever technical solutions"?
... that The Hammer of Thor by Rick Riordan won a Stonewall Book Award for its portrayal of the genderfluid character Alex Fierro?
... that Major General Sir Randle Feilden has a horse race named in his memory?
... that India, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, and the Philippines made their debut in under-20 international ice hockey at the 2018 IIHF U20 Challenge Cup of Asia?
... that Lorenzo Viotti conducted Massenet's Werther in three productions in opera houses of three countries in 2017, silently singing with the soloists?
... that in order to attract skilled civil servants, the Hong Kong government offered a free sea cruise back to the UK on retirement to British civil servants who joined up?
... that Effie Owuor was Kenya's first female state counsel, magistrate, High Court judge, and Court of Appeal judge?
... that Amtrak ran "toasters" on the Northeast Corridor for over thirty years?

In the news

Mudflow damage in Santa Barbara County

The British construction and services company Carillion goes into compulsory liquidation.
The oil tanker MV Sanchi sinks with the loss of all 32 crew eight days after colliding with another ship.
At least 18 people are killed after mudflows (damage pictured) strike the area of Montecito, California, in the area affected by the recent Thomas Fire.
In cricket, the Ashes series concludes with Australia beating England.
The National Unity Party wins the most seats in the parliamentary election in Northern Cyprus.

On this day...

January 19

Kim Dotcom, founder of Megaupload

649 – War against the Western Turks: The forces of Kucha surrendered after a siege, establishing Tang control over the northern Tarim Basin in what is now Xinjiang.
1795 – The Batavian Republic was established, a day after William V, Prince of Orange fled the Dutch Republic as a result of the Batavian Revolution in Amsterdam.
1945 – World War II: Soviet forces liberated the Łódź Ghetto; only 877 Jews of the initial population of 164,000 remained there at that time.
1975 – A magnitude 6.8 M_s earthquake struck northern Himachal Pradesh in India, causing extensive damage to the region.
2012 – The Hong Kong-based file-sharing website Megaupload (founder Kim Dotcom pictured) was shut down by the FBI.

Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger (d. 1636) · Herbert Chapman (b. 1878) · Choor Singh (b. 1911)

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From today's featured list

The Uncharted adventure media franchise, developed by Naughty Dog, is composed of video games and associated media. The core of the franchise is an eponymous series of action-adventure third-person shooter games, which follow Nathan Drake, along with Victor Sullivan and Elena Fisher, as he journeys around the world searching for historical treasures and attempting to prevent villains from harnessing the supernatural powers of various relics. The video games have had high sales, with the series as a whole selling over 28 million units prior to the 2016 release of Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. In addition to the four games of the main series, published for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, the Uncharted video game series includes a browser game, two handheld games, and a mobile game, with varying gameplay styles. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

Waiting is a pastel on paper by the French Impressionist Edgar Degas, completed between 1880 and 1882. Part of a series of pastels, paintings, mixed media drawings and sculptures of ballerinas, it depicts one accompanied by her chaperone, bent over ostensibly to massage her foot but with body language indicating anticipation. The work, which is jointly owned by the Norton Simon Art Foundation, Pasadena, and the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, has been read as emphasizing the brevity of a ballerina's career and the stress they undergo to obtain fleeting moments of elegance.

Painting: Edgar Degas

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