Wikipedia:Main Page history/2014 October 17

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period. He grew up in Warsaw but left Poland, never to return, aged 20. He settled in Paris, obtaining French citizenship in 1835. From 1837 he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer George Sand. A brief and unhappy visit to Majorca with her was one of his most productive periods of composition. All of Chopin's compositions include the piano. Most are for solo piano, although he also wrote two piano concertos, a few chamber pieces, and some songs to Polish lyrics. Many contain elements of Polish folk music and of the classical tradition of J.S. Bach, Mozart and Schubert. His innovations in style, musical form, and harmony, and his association of music with nationalism, were influential throughout and after the late Romantic period. His music, his status as one of music's earliest "superstars", his association with political insurrection, his love life and his early death have made him a leading symbol of his era. His works remain popular, and he has been the subject of numerous films and biographies of varying degrees of historical accuracy. (Full article...)

Recently featured: Tintin in Tibet – Tropical Storm Kiko (2007) – Colorado River

From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

• ... that the 2014 Internet Slowdown Day (logo pictured) has been compared to the Internet Blackout Day of 2012?
• ... that the majority of the Mikea people live in and around the spiny Mikea Forest on the southwestern coast of Madagascar, between Morombe and Toliara?
• ... that the landscape painter Willis E. Davis was informed over the phone of his daughter's elopement?
• ... that the closure-threatened Secombe Theatre was converted from a Christian Science church in 1984?
• ... that in 1996 Jamie Nabozny sued school officials for failing to protect him from years of homophobic bullying?
• ... that Scottish religion in the seventeenth century included intense conflicts between Presbyterian Covenanters and government forces?
• ... that Shloime Gertner has been called "the Hasidic Robbie Williams"?

• Jean Tirole (pictured) is awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his analysis of market power and regulation.
• Evo Morales is re-elected for a third term as President of Bolivia.
• Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their activism against the oppression of children and young people.
• The Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to French historical author and novelist Patrick Modiano.

Ongoing:

Ebola outbreak –

Hong Kong protests –

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

October 17: Dessalines Day in Haiti (1806)

• 1558 – Poczta Polska, the Polish postal service, was founded by order of King Sigismund II Augustus.
• 1604 – German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an exceptionally bright star, now known as Kepler's Supernova, which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus.
• 1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opened the artificial Lake Burley Griffin (pictured) in the middle of the capital Canberra.
• 1989 – The 6.9 M_w Loma Prieta earthquake struck California's San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,757, and leaving at least 8,000 homeless.
• 1994 – Russian journalist Dmitry Kholodov was assassinated in the offices of Moskovskij Komsomolets during his investigations into alleged corruption among high ranks of the Russian military.

More anniversaries: October 16 – October 17 – October 18

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

|style="padding:0 0.9em 0 0;"| File:Thalassarche chrysostoma - SE Tasmania.jpg

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

The grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma) is an albatross, averaging 81 cm (32 in) in length and 2.2 m (7.2 ft) in wingspan, which breeds further south than any other mollymawk. Though its common name derives from the species' ashy-grey head, throat and upper neck, the scientific name is a reference to the bright golden streaks on its bill.

Photograph: JJ Harrison