Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 November 23

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Similar smog in 1953

The 1966 New York City smog (November 23–26) was an air-pollution event, with damaging levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, smoke, and haze. Coming during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it was the third major smog in New York City, after a similar event in 1953 (pictured) and another in 1963. Leaders of local and state governments announced an alert and asked residents and industry to take voluntary steps to minimize emissions. Health officials advised people with respiratory or heart conditions to stay indoors. The alert ended after a cold front dispersed the smog. It was an environmental disaster with severe public health effects, including 168 deaths, according to a statistical analysis. The smog catalyzed greater national awareness of air pollution as a serious health problem, and became a political issue. With support from presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon, a series of bills and amendments aimed at regulating air pollution culminated in the 1967 Air Quality Act and the 1970 Clean Air Act. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Michelangelo's Brutus

... that opposition to tyranny in 16th-century Florence led Michelangelo to sculpt a heroic Brutus (pictured)?
... that the simple hymn "Nun laßt uns Gott dem Herren", used at the end of a meal, became a model for other songs of thanks?
... that communist politician Homi F. Daji called the 1984 Bhopal gas leak "a callous man-made tragedy of unparalleled dimensions"?
... that the gall wasp Bassettia pallida induces oak trees to form galls, but has its own behavior altered by a chalcid wasp?
... that Ireland national rugby hooker Cliodhna Moloney is also a banker?
... that Helicopter 66, which recovered astronauts from five different Apollo missions, has been called "one of the most famous, or at least most iconic, helicopters in history"?
... that Colombian performer J Balvin won Artist of the Year for the second year in a row at the Premio Lo Nuestro 2017?
... that Lillian Bilocca threatened to picket British Prime Minister Harold Wilson's house if he did not impose stronger safety regulations on the fishing industry?

In the news

ʻOumuamua

Robert Mugabe resigns as President of Zimbabwe following a military coup.
Scientists describe ʻOumuamua (artist's impression shown), the first known apparent interstellar object to pass through the Solar System.
In American stock car racing, Martin Truex Jr. wins the NASCAR Cup Series.
The Argentinian submarine ARA San Juan, with 44 crew on board, goes missing in the South Atlantic.
Salvator Mundi, generally attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, sells at auction for US$450.3 million, a new record for an artwork.
Borut Pahor is re-elected President of Slovenia.

On this day...

November 23: Labor Thanksgiving Day in Japan

IBM Simon

1867 – The Manchester Martyrs were hanged in Manchester, England, for killing a police officer while helping two Irish nationalists escape from police custody.
1876 – William "Boss" Tweed, a New York City politician who had been arrested for embezzlement, was handed to U.S. authorities after having escaped from prison to Spain.
1924 – Edwin Hubble published evidence in a newspaper that the Andromeda Nebula, previously believed to be part of the Milky Way, is actually another galaxy, one of many in the universe.
1992 – IBM introduced the Simon (pictured), a handheld, touchscreen mobile phone and PDA that is considered the first smartphone.
2007 – MS Explorer became the first cruise ship to sink in the Antarctic Ocean.

Richard Hakluyt (d. 1616) · Mary Brewster Hazelton (b. 1868) · Mary Whitehouse (d. 2001)

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Today's featured picture

The cover of an 1867 vocal score for Jacques Offenbach's opéra comique Robinson Crusoé. The French libretto for this work, which was first staged at the Opéra-Comique on 23 November 1867, was written by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan Crémieux. Although loosely adapted from the novel Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, the work owes more to British pantomime.

Illustration: A. Jannin; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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