Wikipedia:Main Page history/2021 December 20b

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From today's featured article

The seventeenth season of Grey's Anatomy was ordered in May 2019, by ABC, as part of a double renewal with the sixteenth season. For the 2020–2021 U.S. broadcast television season, filming began in September 2020 while the season did not premiere until November 12, 2020, both delayed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The impact of the pandemic on U.S. television only allowed seventeen episodes to be produced, the fewest of any season since the fourth. COVID-19 safety protocols were also implemented during production, and most main storylines dealt with the pandemic in the U.S. with some also connecting to spin-off series Station 19 through fictional crossover events. Numerous former starring cast members guest starred throughout the season, which received mixed reviews from critics but remained ABC's most-watched scripted series. It concluded on June 3, 2021. Despite initial uncertainty from the cast, crew, and network, the series was eventually renewed for an eighteenth season. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Diagram of the three utilities problem showing lines in a plane

... that it is impossible to draw non-crossing lines from three houses to three utilities (pictured) in a plane?
... that the only remaining artifact in the ghost town of Fremont, Oregon, is a juniper stump notched with steps that women travelers used to mount horses in a modest fashion?
... that Semuel Jusof Warouw advocated Minahasan independence to gain leverage in Dutch–Indonesian negotiations?
... that 80 per cent of the Royalist garrison were killed in the 1645 storming of Shelford House?
... that the cultural scholar Hermann Bausinger wrote a book about the history of literature from Swabia from the 18th century to the present, published for his 90th birthday?
... that in December 1876, two police officers were murdered by brothers who had poached just two pheasants and a jay?
... that according to a review from the The New Yorker, The French Suicide largely overstates France's decline?
... that marine engineer Elmer P. Wheaton made his employees learn to scuba dive so that they would have respect for the sea?

In the news

Typhoon Rai

Typhoon Rai (satellite image shown) results in at least 375 deaths in the Philippines.
A building fire in Osaka, Japan, kills 24 people.
Siaosi Sovaleni is elected as prime minister by the Legislative Assembly of Tonga.
A fuel tanker truck explodes in Cap-Haïtien, Haiti, killing at least 75 people.
In Canadian football, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers defeat the Hamilton Tiger-Cats to win the Grey Cup.

On this day

December 20

Cardiff City Hall

1955 – Cardiff (City Hall pictured) was recognised as the capital of Wales.
1968 – The first two confirmed murders by the Zodiac Killer occurred in Benicia, California, in a case which remains unsolved.
1988 – The United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances governing international cooperation against the illegal drug trade was signed in Vienna.
1995 – American Airlines Flight 965 crashed into a mountain in Buga, Colombia, killing 151 passengers and 8 crew members.
2007 – Pablo Picasso's Portrait of Suzanne Bloch was stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art, before being recovered about three weeks later.

John Bell (d. 1820)
Kan'ichi Asakawa (b. 1873)
Beatrice Beeby (d. 1991)

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From today's featured list

Uranus and its six largest moons compared at their proper relative sizes and relative positions

Uranus, the seventh planet of the Solar System, has 27 known moons, most of which are named after characters that appear in, or are mentioned in, the works of William Shakespeare and Alexander Pope. Uranus's moons are divided into three groups: thirteen inner moons, five major moons, and nine irregular moons. The inner and major moons all have prograde orbits, while orbits of the irregulars are mostly retrograde. The inner moons are small dark bodies that share common properties and origins with Uranus's rings. The five major moons are ellipsoidal, indicating that they reached hydrostatic equilibrium at some point in their past (and may still be in equilibrium), and four of them show signs of internally driven processes such as canyon formation and volcanism on their surfaces. William Herschel discovered the first two moons, Titania and Oberon, in 1787. The other three ellipsoidal moons were discovered in 1851 by William Lassell (Ariel and Umbriel) and in 1948 by Gerard Kuiper (Miranda). (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom for all civil cases, as well as for criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It also hears cases of the greatest public or constitutional importance affecting the whole population. The court is located in the Middlesex Guildhall on Parliament Square, London; this photograph depicts the interior of Court 1, the largest of the three courtrooms in the building.

Photograph credit: David Iliff

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