Wikipedia:Main Page history/2019 March 8

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Brie Larson (born 1989) is an American actress and filmmaker who has received many awards and nominations. At age six, she became the youngest student admitted to a training program at the American Conservatory Theater. She began her acting career in 1998 with a comedy sketch in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Larson played supporting roles in the comedy films Hoot (2006), Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010), and 21 Jump Street (2012), and appeared as a sardonic teenager in the television series United States of Tara (2009–2011). After her breakthrough with a leading role in Short Term 12 (2013), she continued to take on supporting parts in The Spectacular Now (2013) and Trainwreck (2015). For playing a kidnapping victim in the drama Room (2015), Larson won the Academy Award for Best Actress. After playing a photojournalist in the adventure film Kong: Skull Island (2017), she starred as the titular superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Captain Marvel (2019). (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Gun Runner

... that Gun Runner (pictured) won the 2017 Whitney Stakes with another horse's shoe caught in his tail?
... that Tessa Ganserer is the first openly transgender person to serve in a German parliament?
... that a disputed Priory election in early 14th-century Yorkshire led to nuns being placed under interdict and later being accused of being "daughters of perdition" by their own Archbishop?
... that Soham El Wardini is the first female mayor of post-independence Dakar, Senegal?
... that when arrested for performing illegal abortions, members of the Jane Collective protected their clients' identities by swallowing their names and contact information?
... that Peggy Goodin wrote her Hopwood Award-winning novel Clementine in the basement of the Chi Omega sorority house at the University of Michigan?
... that Wang Yening helped establish China's first specialization in X-ray metal physics?
... that 1920s Broadway star Adele Astaire taught dance steps to the Prince of Wales, played backgammon with Winston Churchill, and proposed to an English nobleman in an American speakeasy?

In the news

Tornado damage in Lee County, Alabama

A severe tornado outbreak hits the Southeastern United States, with one tornado causing 23 deaths in Alabama (damage pictured).
Heightened tensions remain between India and Pakistan after both countries conduct airstrikes.
Muhammadu Buhari is re-elected President of Nigeria.
Cardinal George Pell becomes the highest-ranking member of the Catholic Church to be convicted of child sexual abuse.

On this day

March 8: International Women's Day

Anne of Great Britain

1618 – German astronomer and mathematician Johannes Kepler discovered the third law of planetary motion.
1702 – Anne (pictured) became the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, succeeding William III.
1919 – During the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, British authorities arrested rebel leader Saad Zaghloul, exiling him to Malta.
1983 – Cold War: During a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, U.S. President Ronald Reagan described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire".
2017 – The Azure Window, a limestone natural arch in Gozo, Malta, collapsed during a storm.

Benjamin Ruggles Woodbridge (d. 1819) · Beatrice Shilling (b. 1909) · Alfons Rebane (d. 1976)

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American actress Lauren Bacall had an extensive career in films, television shows, and plays. She was one of the leading ladies during the Golden Age of Hollywood along with actresses such as Marilyn Monroe and Rita Hayworth. Bacall's first film appearance was with Humphrey Bogart in the 1944 film To Have and Have Not. The following year she married Bogart and went on to appear with him in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948). She also starred in comedies such as How to Marry a Millionaire in 1953 with Marilyn Monroe, Designing Woman in 1957 with Gregory Peck, and Sex and the Single Girl in 1964 with Natalie Wood. For her role as Hannah Morgan in The Mirror Has Two Faces, Bacall won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture and was nominated for a BAFTA and an Academy Award. Bacall also performed on Broadway in the plays Cactus Flower in 1965 and The Visit in 1995 and musicals such as Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981. (Full list...)

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The Costa Rican colón is the national currency of Costa Rica; it replaced the Costa Rican peso at par in 1896. It is named after Christopher Columbus, who is known as Cristóbal Colón in Spanish. Colóns were issued by a variety of banks in the first half of the twentieth century, but since 1951 have been produced solely by the Central Bank of Costa Rica. The currency was subject to a crawling peg against the United States dollar from 2006 to 2015, but has been floating since then.

This picture shows an 1897 coin with a value of 20 colones. The coin shows the Costa Rican coat of arms on the obverse and a profile of Columbus on the reverse.

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