This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 4 January 2015 through 11 January 2015. Anything in quotation marks is taken from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.
June 1941 uprising in eastern Herzegovina(
nominated by
Peacemaker67) The
June 1941 uprising was the uprising by Serbs "against the authorities of the
Independent State of Croatia (
Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH)". The NDH was a puppet state formed after the defeat and occupation of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the
Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy). The state was controlled by the
Ustaša–Croatian Revolutionary Movement, known as the Ustaše, a Fascist and ultra-conservative terrorist organisation, who intended to create an ethnically pure Croatia by killing, expelling, or converting to
Roman Catholicism those Serbs living in
Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The majority of the population of eastern Herzegovina were Serbs; from the first week of June 1941 the Ustaše carried out attacks, shootings of hostages, and massacres in the region. Isolated incidents of resistance against the Ustaše and the NDH gendarmerie escalated into full-scale rebellion on 23 June, after news of the German invasion of the Soviet Union reached the region. The revolt was finally suppressed by the intervention of Italian troops, followed by mopping-up operations by the Croatian Home Guard. Peacemaker67's written a damn good article – near impossible to condense it into a paragraph without losing a lot.
The Boat Race 2003(
nominated by
The Rambling Man) Every year, Cambridge and Oxford Universities' rowing crews race on the
Championship Course against each other. The 2003 event was numbered as the 149th Boat Race of the
Boat Races, an annual rowing race between the
University of Oxford, or the "Dark Blues", and the
University of Cambridge, or the "Light Blues". First held in 1829, the
side-by-side rowing event is held on the
River Thames between
Putney and
Mortlake. This 186-year-old rivalry is followed throughout the United Kingdom and broadcast worldwide. On Wikipedia,
The Rambling Man is trying very hard to have a featured article on every single one of these annual sporting events, and that is awesome. To quote his description of this race from the featured article candidate page: Hot on the heels of "
a man jumping in front of two boats" and "
cleavers not spoons", I humbly submit to you this meagre offering. It seemed unlikely that anything would match the excitement of the
2002 race but this race took the proverbial biscuit. Dramaz beforehand with broken oars and wrists, and the closest finish in the long history of the event. The winning margin is estimated to have been approximately five hundredths of a second over the course of an 18-minute race. That's close.
Marvel Science Stories(
nominated by
Mike Christie)Marvel Science Stories was a US
pulp magazine which published a total of fifteen issues in two separate runs, both edited by Robert O. Erisman. The publisher for the first run was Postal Publications, and the second run was published by Western Publishing; both companies were owned by Abraham and
Martin Goodman. It appeared in August 1938, and carried stories with more sexual content than was usual for the genre.
Olympic marmot(
nominated by
innotata) The Olympic marmot is a
marmot that lives on
Mount Olympus. In ancient Greek mythology, it is the Olympic marmot that serves the Greek gods their
afternoon tea and the gods use them
as cushions during the winter season... Well, okay, it's not. It occurs only in the U.S. state of
Washington, on the middle elevations of the
Olympic Peninsula. This is not a joke anymore, it is true, it was declared the official
endemic mammal of Washington. The closest related species are the
hoary marmot and the
Vancouver Island marmot. It has a brown coat and long, bushy tail, and it is a vegetarian with a diet of dry grasses, which it also uses as bedding in burrows. The Olympic marmot lives in
colonies, which are found in various mountain locations. These vary in size, from a single family to multiple families with up to 40 marmots. Olympic marmots are very sociable animals who often engage in play fighting and they communicate with whistles. During
hibernation, beginning in September, they are in a deep sleep and they emerge again in May.
Battle of Schliengen(
nominated by
Auntieruth) At the Battle of Schliengen (24 October 1796), both the French
Army of the Rhine and Moselle under the command of
Jean-Victor Moreau and the Austrian army under the command of
Archduke Charles of Austria claimed victories. During the
French Revolutionary Wars, Schliengen was a strategically important location for the armies of both
Republican France and
Habsburg Austria. Control of the area gave either combatant access to southwestern German states and important
Rhine river crossings. On 20 October Moreau retreated from
Freiburg im Breisgau and established his army of 32,000 along a ridge of hills. His retreat was closely followed by Charles' combined force of 24,000 soldiers. Moreau halted at Schliengen, and arranged his forces along a high ridge. Charles, appreciating that Moreau was in a strong defensive position, attacked the French flanks, rather than the centre. After a day of battle Moreau, realising that Charles' forcing of his flanks from their positions made his centre vulnerable, decided that retreat was the best option. Moreau reached the French border by 3 November. He had offered an armistice to Charles, but this was refused by the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, who was Charles' brother. Charles' forces were then ordered to lay siege to the fortifications at Kehl and Hüningen, which kept them occupied for the winter.
Jack Parsons (rocket engineer)(
nominated by
JJARichardson and
Midnightblueowl) John Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952) (born Marvel Whiteside Parsons (no, seriously), and better known as Jack Parsons), was an American
rocket and
chemical engineer,
propulsion researcher,
inventor, businessman, writer, and
Thelemiteoccultist. Parsons' "distinctive technical innovations" in rocketry, and advocacy for space exploration and human spaceflight, make him regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of the U.S. space program. Parsons was associated with the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and was one of the principal founders of both the
Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the
Aerojet Engineering Corporation. He invented the first
castable,
composite solid rocket
propellant, and pioneered the advancement of both
liquid and
solid-fuel rockets. Born in
Los Angeles,
California, Parsons was raised by a wealthy family in
Pasadena. Inspired by
science fiction literature, he developed an interest in rocketry in his childhood and in 1928 began
amateur rocket experiments with his best friend Ed Forman. He was forced to drop out of
Pasadena Junior College and
Stanford University due to financial difficulties during the
Great Depression, but in 1934 together with Forman and
Frank Malina formed the Caltech-affiliated GALCIT Rocket Research Group, supported by
Guggenheim Aeronautical Laboratory chairman
Theodore von Kármán. In 1939 they gained funding from the
National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to work on
Jet-Assisted Take Off (JATO) for the U.S. military. In 1942 they founded Aerojet to develop and sell their JATO technology; the Group became JPL in 1943. Parsons was also a devotee to Thelema,
Aleister Crowley's new religious movement, and in 1942 he succeeded
Wilfred Talbot Smith as high priest of the Agape Lodge, the church of the
Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) in California. Parsons fell out of favor with Crowley, however, when he endeavoured to
immaculately conceive a vessel of the goddess
Babalon in
Enochiansex magic rituals with his future wife
Marjorie Cameron, alongside future
Scientology founder
L. Ron Hubbard. Parsons continued the operation alone in order to conjure the
Antichrist into the physical plane. (Seriously, we're not making this up). Parsons was banned from rocketry by the U.S. government, apparently not for his efforts to bring forth the Apocalypse, but for his Marxism/libertarianism and alleged spying for the Israelis. He was killed in an explosion which was, according to your point of view, an evil conspiracy planned by dark forces or caused by him storing a large amount of dangerous chemicals in his house. Scientists, keep in mind: don't mess with the Antichrist, it doesn't pay off... well, other than in minor things, maybe, like a
Moon crater being named after you.
William F. Raynolds(
nominated by
MONGO) William F. Raynolds (1820–1894) was a civil engineer and graduate of the
United States Military Academy who served in both the
Mexican–American War and was a brevetted brigadier general for meritorious service in the
American Civil War. In 1848 during the American occupation of Mexico, he led the first successful mountaineering expedition to the summit of
Pico de Orizaba, which, at (18,620 feet (5,680 m)), is the tallest mountain in Mexico and third tallest in North America, and inadvertently set an American alpine record that was not surpassed for 50 years. The Mexicans refused to believe that the Raynolds expedition had reached the top, until a French team climbed up in 1851 and discovered the "Stars and Stripes" flying there, with "1848" carved into the flagstaff. Afterwards he returned to his pre-war task of mapping the US-Canada border. In 1859, he was in charge of the
Raynolds Expedition, the first U.S. government sponsored expedition to the region that later became
Yellowstone National Park. Heavy snowpack from the previous winter forced the expedition south of Yellowstone and they became the first government sponsored party to enter
Jackson Hole and survey the
Teton Range. Reynolds designed and surpervised numerous lighthouse projects and several of those lighthouses are still in use and are listed on the
National Register of Historic Places. He saw plenty of service during the
American Civil War, which included "chasing
Stonewall Jackson up the
Shenandoah Valley" and being in charge of the fortifications of
Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. Raynolds retired after 40 years of military service in 1884. While he climbed the tallest mountains in Mexico, built lighthouses, and made maps of the US-Canada border, it was
MONGO that got his article to featured status. Wikipedia not good enough for you, Raynolds?
[[[Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22|Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe, BWV 22]]] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (
help)(
nominated by
Gerda Arendt)Jesus nahm zu sich die Zwölfe (Jesus gathered the twelve to Himself), BWV 22, is a
church cantata by
Johann Sebastian Bach, written for the last Sunday before
Lent. He composed it as an audition piece for the position of director of church music in
Leipzig, and first performed it in a church service there at
St. Thomas on 7 February 1723. The work begins with a scene from the
Gospels in which Jesus
predicts his suffering in Jerusalem, but substitutes a contemporary Christian for the disciples, who, while not understanding Jesus' words, decides to follow him anyway. The work, structured in five movements, shows that Bach had mastered the composition of a dramatic scene, an expressive aria with
obbligatooboe, a recitative with
strings, an exuberant dance, and a chorale in the style of
Johann Kuhnau, his predecessor in Leipzig. Elements such as a "frame of biblical text and chorale around the operatic forms of
aria and
recitative" became standards for Bach's Leipzig
cantatas and even his
Passions.
Elliðaey(created and
nominated by
Alchemist-hp)Elliðaey is one of the small islands in
Breiðafjörður, a large shallow bay, about 50 km wide and 125 km long, in the west of
Iceland. Breiðafjörður has a spectacular land and seascape consisting of shallow seas, small fjords and bays and an inner part of intertidal areas dotted with about 3,000 islands, islets and skerries. The islands in Breiðafjörður have an unbroken history of human use but now only few islands are inhabited year-round. Many islands are used for summer residences and natural resources such as eiderdown harvesting is the main source of income for many farmers.
Carl Linnaeus(created by
Alexander Roslin,
nominated by
Երևանցի (Yerevantsi))Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) was a Swedish
botanist, physician, and
zoologist here depicted by the less famous – but still rather renowned Swedish painter
Alexander Roslin. So what's the big deal? He was running around in the fields naming everything in
Latin, and thus to be blamed for the fate of many poor naturalist students causing many painfull hours for botanist, biologists, zoologists and related species who spent weeks and month of their precious time chanting Latin names (like Zygophyllum spinosum, Zygophyllum spinosum, Zygophyllum spinosum and Glycyrrhiza echinata, Glycyrrhiza echinata) in a desperate effort in remembering them. That is what we think today. But from the beginning ... Linnaeus was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe, proclaimed by Swiss philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau to the "greatest man on earth". He is considered the father of modern ecology and
taxonomy, developing the foundations for the
binomial nomenclature with
Systema Naturae. The Swedish king Adolf Frederick granted Linnaeus nobility. Linnaeus was born in southern Sweden, studied at
Uppsala University, lived in the Netherlands between 1735 and 1738, where he published a first edition of his
Systema Naturae. He then returned to Sweden, and became professor in medicine and botany at Uppsala University. He made a number of journeys through Sweden to collect and classify plants and animals. The
Apostles of Linnaeus continued his work classifying species around the world. The Swedish one hundred
kronor note bears
an image of Linnaeus based on this portrait.
Kuchipudi performer(created and
nominated by
Augustus Binu)Kuchipudi /kuːtʃiˈpuːdi/ is a
Indian classical dance from Andhra Pradesh, India. It is also popular all over South India.
Bharata Muni who wrote the
Natya Shastra about 3000 years ago had explained various aspects of this dance form. Later sometime in the 13th century, the impetus to kuchipudi was given by Sidhendra Yogi. Kuchipudi dancers are quicksilver and scintillating, rounded and fleet-footed, they perform with grace and fluid movements. Performed to classical
Carnatic music, it shares many common elements with
Bharatanatyam. Kuchipudi is as ancient as Natya astra (1st century BC) in which mention is made of a dance drama form besides solo. An invocatory verse also indicates that four forms of dance were prevalent then, of which ‘Dakshintya’ or South Indian form is apparently the earliest version of Kuchipudi.
Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting(created by
Artemisia Gentileschi,
nominated by
Chris Woodrich)Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting was painted by
Artemisia Gentileschi, a very unusual woman of the late
Renaissance and early
Baroque era and also one with a somewhat tragic fate. She was born into a family of artists in Rome, Italy in 1593, and was a noted and extremely talented painter in her own right- one of the very few woman artists who made a career of her own in a society where women were not practitioners. Gentileschi’s father,
Orazio was a well-known artist and Artemisia trained in his workshop for a long time before launching her own career. Her life was also shadowed by an unfair tragedy. In the 1610s, Artemisia was raped by a member of the workshop,
Agostino Tassi, an event which affected her for the rest of her life and is reflected in her art, in themes such as Judith Slaying Holofernes(
if you don't like bloody scenes avoid that link about Holofernes) and Salome with the Head of St. John the Baptist. The abstract concept of "
Painting" was traditionally represented by a female allegorical figure, and this painting is both
self-portrait and
allegory. Gentileschi’s portait of herself as the Allegory of Painting (La Pittura) was rather daring and slightly controversial for her in that period, when women were expected to be
muses but not creative artists. She is dressed in a shimmering green robe, with her hair tied up and a chain of gold from which hangs a mask. She holds in her hand a brush, and in the other the palette. The distorted position is typical for the beginning of the
Baroque era.
Sailing yacht Zapata II(created and
nominated by D Ramey Logan a.k.a.
WPPilot)Sailing yacht Zapata II is an offshore yacht and a featured picture nominated by our sporty pilot contributor
WPPilot (who actually IS a pilot). Originally the all-wooden Calkins 50 sailboats were considered the
Rolls-Royces of the Southern California sail boat racing scene. The 50-year-old Zapata II was originally commissioned for a prominent Southern California yachtsman in 1964, she would become the only other Calkins 50 built to this particular design configuration e.g. a yacht with
flush decks. San Diego naval architect Skip Calkins built first her sister ship and won the 1957
Transpacific Yacht Race with a young
David Ullman on-board. The design was considered so advanced, it was banned from racing for the next two years in the event. The “C-50s” were competitive racers, equally renowned for both exceptional craftsmanship and quality. "Zapata II" has a long racing history and is still raced every year in the opening day race for its affiliated yacht club. Zapata II hails out of
Newport Harbor Yacht Club, in
Newport Beach, CA, and we are invited to a glorious free tour out on the Californian waters on this yacht!!!
Neil Gaiman(created by
Kyle Cassidy,
nominated by
J Milburn)Neil Gaiman, born Neil Richard Gaiman; ( on 10 November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books,
graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the
Hugo,
Nebula, and
Bram Stoker awards, as well as the
Newbery and
Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). The fourth episode of the British science-fiction drama Doctor Who'ssixth series was also written by Neil Gaiman, entitled the "The Doctor's Wife" ... Spoilers: The Doctor's Wife in this case is the consciousness of the TARDIS, not his
actual wife.
United States Capitol(created by
Martin Falbisoner,
nominated by
AgnosticPreachersKid) The
United States Capitol is the seat of the
United States Congress, housing the
federal government of the United States. The building was rebuilt several times. The first building was designed by
William Thornton and built in the
neoclassical style completed in the year 1800, around which the city was laid out, situated at the
Capitol Hill in
Washington, D.C., USA. In spring 1792,
United States Secretary of StateThomas Jefferson proposed a design competition to solicit designs for the Capitol and the
"President's House", and set a four-month deadline. The prize was $500 and a lot in the Federal City. At least ten individuals submitted designs for the Capitol; A late entry by amateur architect
William Thornton, submitted on January 31, 1793, won praise for its "Grandeur, Simplicity, and Beauty" by Washington, as well as from Thomas Jefferson. Thornton was inspired by the
east front of the Louvre, as well as the
Paris Pantheon for the center portion of the design. Thornton's design was officially approved in a letter dated April 5, 1793. After the in 1814
Burning of Washington, by British forces that set fire to the
White House and the
Capitol, it was rebuilt again and further expanded in the 1850s, with the design of Philadelphia architect
Thomas U. Walter. The East Front of was rebuilt in 1904, following a design of the architects Carrère and Hastings. The next major expansion to the Capitol was in 1958; the old columns can be seen at the
National Capitol Columns. Rebuilding is still continuing, and a new project is on the verge of being actualized.
PlayStation 4(created by
Evan Amos,
nominated by
Crisco 1492) The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a gaming console made by Sony. Released on 11-15-2013 in North America it is an eighth generation system and competes with the Microsoft Xbox One and the Nintendo Wii U. This console is shown with the DualShock 4 controller that is included with the system.
"His Majesty the KING-EMPEROR has been graciously pleased to approve of the grant of the Victoria Cross to the undermentioned soldier of the Indian Army for conspicuous bravery whilst serving with the Indian Army Corps, British Expeditionary Force."
Darwan Singh NegiVC. Hey, don't look so surprised, guys, you made it into the Signpost!
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United States Capitol
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