Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 September 21

From today's featured article

Theda Bara as Ruth Gordon

The Blue Flame is a four-act play written by George V. Hobart and John Willard, who revised an earlier version by Leta Vance Nicholson. In 1920, producer Albert H. Woods staged the play on Broadway and on tour across the United States. Ruth Gordon, the main character, is a religious young woman who dies and is revived by her scientist fiancé as a soulless femme fatale. She seduces several men and involves them in crimes, including drug use and murder. In the final act, her death and resurrection are revealed to be a dream. The production starred Theda Bara (pictured), a popular silent film actress who was known for playing similar roles in movies. Critics panned the play, ridiculing the plot, the dialog, and Bara's acting. Theater historian Ward Morehouse called it "one of the worst plays ever written". Bara's movie fame drew large crowds to theaters, and the play was a commercial success, breaking attendance records at some venues. Ruth Gordon was Bara's only Broadway role, and The Blue Flame was one of her last professional acting projects. (Full article...)

Did you know...

Illustration of Spirit of the Confederacy

• ... that the purpose of the statue Spirit of the Confederacy (illustration pictured) in Houston, Texas, unveiled on Robert E. Lee's birthday in 1908, has been questioned since the 2015 Charleston church shooting and the 2017 Unite the Right rally?
• ... that Raymond Leane was described as the "foremost fighting leader" in the Australian Imperial Force during World War I?
• ... that in the American West from the 1860s to the 1880s, nearly 25% of cowboys were black?
• ... that Paolo and Francesca, the second work "for Reader with Piano accompaniment" by pianist and composer Berenice Wyer, was performed in New York and Chicago?
• ... that the Martian dunes of Aspledon Undae may have formed due to erosion of part of the Planum Boreum?
• ... that the house of Judith Ellen Foster, the "Iowa lawyer" of the temperance movement, was burnt down, presumably by her opponents?
• ... that Steps achieved thirteen consecutive top-five singles in the United Kingdom?
• ... that the absurdist Twitter writer known as dril continues to insist that he is not owned, even as he slowly shrinks and transforms into a corncob?

In the news

Earthquake damage
in Mexico City

• A magnitude 7.1 earthquake strikes central Mexico (damage pictured), killing more than two hundred people.
• Hurricane Maria crosses the Antilles as a Category 5 hurricane, causing widespread destruction and at least nine deaths.
• In U.S. television, The Handmaid's Tale wins Best Drama and Veep wins Best Comedy at the Primetime Emmy Awards.
• InGaelic football, Dublin beat Mayointhe final to win their third consecutive All-Ireland title.
• The Cassini–Huygens mission to the Saturn system ends with a controlled fall into the atmosphere of the planet.
• Carbon dating of the Bakhshali manuscript reveals the earliest known Indian use of a zero symbol.

On this day...

Virginia O'Hanlon

• 1170 – Combined English and Irish forces seized Dublin, forcing Ascall mac Ragnaill, King of Dublin, into exile.
• 1897 – In response to a letter written by eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon (pictured), The New York Sun published an editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church stating, "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus".
• 1937 – J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy children's novel The Hobbit, which later served as a prequel to The Lord of the Rings, was first published.
• 1993 – Nirvana released their third and final studio album, In Utero, which went on to sell 15 million copies.
• 2001 – With racial tensions high after the September 11 attacks, a gang of British Muslim youths in Peterborough, England, murdered 17-year-old Ross Parker.

Barbara Longhi (b. 1552) · H. G. Wells (b. 1866) · Leonard Cohen (b. 1934)