Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 March 1

Fuck is a 2005 American documentary film by Steve Anderson, which argues the titular word is key to discussions on freedom of speech and censorship. It provides perspectives from art, linguistics and society. Oxford English Dictionary editor Jesse Sheidlower, journalism analyst David Shaw, and linguists Reinhold Aman and Geoffrey Nunberg explain the term's evolution. Comedian Billy Connolly states it can be understood regardless of one's background, and musician Alanis Morissette says its taboo nature gives it power. The film contains the last interview of author Hunter S. Thompson before his suicide. It features animated sequences by Bill Plympton. The documentary was first screened at the AFI Film Festival at ArcLight Hollywood. The New York Times critic A. O. Scott called the film a battle between advocates of morality and supporters of freedom of expression; a review by the American Film Institute said this freedom "must extend to words that offend". Other reviewers criticized the film's length and repetitiveness. Its DVD was released in the US and the UK and used in university courses. (Full article...)

Recently featured: Starfish – "Terms of Endearment" (The X-Files) – John F. Bolt

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that Frédéric Chopin (pictured) left his homeland of Poland in 1830 and never returned?
• ... that the Hare and Billet pub was mistakenly accused in the House of Commons of serving a "blatant copy" of Lea & Perrins Worcester sauce?
• ... that a major character in "Who Ya Gonna Call?", an episode of the comedy-drama TV series Psych, is a man who is unknowingly also a woman and a violent murderer?
• ... that the Hertha Feist dance school was moved by the Nazis to smaller premises?
• ... that Kendallina, a genus of trilobite, lived in North America during the Upper Cambrian?
• ... that Sutton High Street is the site of the pub where the Rolling Stones were spotted by a music promoter in 1963?

• The Winter Olympics close with host nation Russia winning the most gold medals and most medals overall.
• Following widespread demonstrations and civil unrest, the Ukrainian parliament restores the 2004 constitution and frees Yulia Tymoshenko, while Oleksandr Turchynov (pictured) becomes acting President.
• Matteo Renzi is sworn in as the Italian Prime Minister.
• Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, leader of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, is arrested.

Recent deaths: Paco de Lucía – Harold Ramis – Alice Herz-Sommer

March 1: Independence Day in Bosnia and Herzegovina (1992); Victory at Adwa Day in Ethiopia (1896)

• 750 BC – Romulus, the legendary co-founder of Rome, held the first Roman triumph to celebrate a military victory following the Rape of the Sabine Women.
• 1476 – War of the Castilian Succession: Although the Battle of Toro was militarily inconclusive, it assured Ferdinand and Isabella (both pictured) the throne of Castile, forming the basis for modern Spain.
• 1896 – French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered the principle of radioactive decay when he exposed photographic plates to uranium.
• 1944 – World War II: American and Australian troops won the Battle of Sio in New Guinea.
• 1954 – Four Puerto Rican nationalists shot 30 rounds from semi-automatic pistols during an open session of the United States House of Representatives, injuring five people.

More anniversaries: February 28 – March 1 – March 2

{| style="margin:0 3px 3px; width:100%; text-align:left; background-color:transparent; border-collapse: collapse; "

|style="padding:0 0.9em 0 0;"| File:UGC 1810 and UGC 1813 in Arp 273 (captured by the Hubble Space Telescope).jpg

|style="padding:0 6px 0 0"|

Arp 273 is a group of interacting galaxies, lying 300 million light years away in the constellation Andromeda and first discovered in 1966. In this photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope, the larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disk that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. A swath of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars.

Photograph: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team