Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 December 17

Nefarious: Merchant of Souls is a 2011 American documentary film about modern human trafficking, specifically sexual slavery. Presented from a Christian worldview, Nefarious covers human trafficking in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia, alternating interviews with re-enactments. Nefarious was written, directed, produced and narrated by Benjamin Nolot, founder and president of Exodus Cry, the film's distributor. Nolot travelled to 19 countries to collect the film's content. Interviewees in the film include Agape International Missions founder Don Brewster, former prostitute Annie Lobert, and Swedish Detective Superintendent Kajsa Wahlberg. Laila Mickelwait (pictured), Exodus Cry's Director of Awareness and Prevention, screened the film in several countries in an attempt to persuade governments to make laws similar to Sweden's Sex Purchase Act, which criminalizes the purchasing rather than the selling of sex. Nefarious has won a variety of film awards, including the Honolulu Film Award for Best Screenplay, the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival Best Documentary Feature Award, and the Indie Fest Feature Documentary Award of Excellence. (Full article...)

Recently featured: Adelaide Anne Procter – Battle of Arawe – New York State Route 28N

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that the extinct ant Agroecomyrmex duisburgi (head pictured) was first described in 1868?
• ... that the Song fleet, armed with bombs launched by trebuchets, defeated the Jin navy in the Battle of Caishi on the Yangtze River during the Jin–Song wars?
• ... that Elizabeth Burchinal, considered America's leading authority on folk dancing, organized large folk dance gatherings – one in particular involving 10,000 schoolgirls?
• ... that the Universalist Church of Westfield Center was one of Ohio's first Universalist churches?
• ... that Meralda Warren and several children on Pitcairn Island wrote the first book published in both English and Pitkern, a South Pacific creole language?
• ... that Hong Kong's Central Government Offices, Office of the Chief Executive and Legislative Council Complex are located on Tamar Park?
• ... that Charles Voysey's remodelling of Garden Corner in London ensured that politician Emslie Horniman's wife had sliding shelves, to bring the morning tea-tray over her bed?

• Chang'e 3, carrying the Yutu rover, becomes the first spacecraft to land on the Moon since 1976.
• North Korean media announce the execution of senior government official Jang Sung-taek.
• Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla is executed for war crimes committed during the Bangladeshi War of Independence.
• Uruguay becomes the first country in the world to legalize the cultivation, sale, and use of cannabis.
• An exoplanet, HD 106906 b, is discovered with the most distant orbit around a single star, farther than thought possible.
• The World Trade Organization unanimously adopts the Bali Package, aimed at liberalizing world trade.

Recent deaths: Joan Fontaine – Peter O'Toole

December 17

• 497 BC – The temple to the Roman god Saturn was dedicated in the Roman Forum; its anniversary was celebrated as Saturnalia.
• 1583 – Cologne War: Forces under Ernest of Bavaria defeated the troops under Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg at the Siege of Godesberg.
• 1926 – A coup d'état by the Lithuanian military replaced the democratically elected President Kazys Grinius with Antanas Smetona (pictured).
• 1960 – A US Air Force Convair C-131 Samaritan crashed shortly after take-off into downtown Munich due to fuel contamination, killing all 20 people on board as well as 32 more on the ground.
• 1983 – The Provisional Irish Republican Army detonated a car bomb just outside Harrods Department Store in London, killing six people and injuring about 90 others.

More anniversaries: December 16 – December 17 – December 18

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Eureka Tower is a 297.3-metre (975 ft) skyscraper located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Construction began in August 2002 and the building was officially opened on 11 October 2006. The project was designed by Melbourne architectural firm Fender Katsalidis Architects and was built by Grocon. As of May 2013 it is the 12th tallest residential building in the world.

Photo: David Iliff