Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 May 31

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From today's featured article

Stefan Lochner (c. 1410 – c. 1451) was a German painter working in the late International Gothic period. Based in Cologne, he became one of the most important German artists before Albrecht Dürer. His paintings combine the long flowing lines of his period with the brilliant colours, realism, surface textures and innovative iconography of the early Northern Renaissance. His surviving works often feature fanciful blue-winged angels, and consist of single-panel oil paintings, polyptychs and illuminated manuscripts. Records of his life, apart from later records of creditors, end after an outbreak of plague in the city in 1451; it is presumed he died from the epidemic, probably after Christmas. Lochner's identity and reputation were lost until a revival of 15th-century art during the early 19th-century Romantic Period. Echoes of his panels can be seen in works by major 15th-century painters such as Rogier van der Weyden and Hans Memling. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Vivian Bartley Green-Armytage

... that Vivian Bartley Green-Armytage (pictured) was an advocate of vaginal hysterectomy?
... that a Deutsches Hochamt (German High Mass) by Michael Haydn has been described as "musically the epitome of south-German/Austrian Catholicism"?
... that before becoming a successful writer, James Francis Dwyer was sentenced to seven years in prison for forgery and uttering?
... that Félicette, France's first cat to successfully travel into space, was launched from the Centre interarmées d'essais d'engins spéciaux?
... that Maurine Whipple's Mormon epic The Giant Joshua was the most-borrowed book in the Salt Lake City Public Library in 1989?
... that in May 1917, German general Liman von Sanders organized the expulsion of the Greek population of Ayvalık, Turkey, to inner Anatolia?
... that Madeleine Moreau is the only French athlete to win an Olympic medal in diving?
... that Duck Donuts was named after Duck?

In the news

Gareth Bale in 2015

In association football, the UEFA Champions League concludes with Real Madrid defeating Liverpool in the final (man of the match Gareth Bale pictured) to win their third consecutive title.
In a referendum, Ireland votes to allow the legalisation of abortion.
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect, imposing strict privacy controls for its residents.
A joint investigation team concludes that the Buk missile system used to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 originated from the Russian 53rd Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade.

On this day...

May 31: World No Tobacco Day; Feast of the Visitation (Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism)

'Abd al-Ilah

1223 – Mongol invasions: Mongol forces defeated a combined army of Kiev, Galich, and the Cumans at the Kalchik River in present-day Ukraine.
1795 – French Revolution: The Revolutionary Tribunal, a court instituted by the National Convention for the trial of political offenders, was suppressed.
1902 – The Second Boer War came to an end with the signing of the Treaty of Vereeniging.
1941 – The United Kingdom completed its re-occupation of Iraq, returning 'Abd al-Ilah (pictured) to power as regent for Faisal II.
2005 – An article in the magazine Vanity Fair revealed that the secret informant known as "Deep Throat", who provided information about the Watergate scandal, was former FBI Associate Director Mark Felt.

Nur Jahan (b. 1577) · Jane Joseph (b. 1894) · Timothy Leary (d. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

Frederik Sødring (1809–1862) was a Danish landscape painter and founder of an endowment. He studied under Jens Peter Møller, was influenced by Johan Christian Dahl, and travelled to Norway and Germany to further his craft. By the 1830s, he was exhibiting landscapes from the Rhine, Southern Germany, and Tyrol.

This portrait of Sødring was painted by Christen Købke in 1832. It is now part of the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen.

Painting: Christen Købke

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