Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 February 26

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Halo Wars (released 2009) is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for the Xbox 360 video game console. The game is set in the science fiction universe of the Halo series in the year 2531, 21 years before the events of Halo: Combat Evolved. The player leads human soldiers aboard the warship Spirit of Fire in an effort to stop an ancient fleet of ships from falling into the hands of the genocidal alien Covenant. Halo Wars was unveiled at the 2006 X06 Xbox show. Ensemble was closed by Microsoft before the game's release, but Robot Entertainment was founded soon after by many of Ensemble's former employees; this new company continued to support Halo Wars with updates and downloadable content. The game received generally positive reviews. Reviewers lauded the game's pre-rendered cinematics, attention to detail in replicating the Halo universe, and intuitive control scheme. Complaints against the game included the lack of an option to play as the Covenant faction in campaign mode as well as the lack of strategic options during play. The game sold one million units worldwide through March 2009. (Full article...)

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February 26: Ayyám-i-Há begins (Bahá'í calendar); Saviours' Day (Nation of Islam); Liberation Day in Kuwait (1991)

• 747 BC – According to Ptolemy, the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar began and with it, a new era characterized by the systematic maintenance of chronologically precise historical records.
• 1233 – Mongol–Jin War: The Mongols captured Kaifeng, the capital of the Jin dynasty, after besieging it for months.
• 1936 – Over 1400 troops of the Imperial Japanese Army staged a coup d'etat in Japan, occupying Tokyo, and killing Finance Minister Takahashi Korekiyo (pictured) and several other leading politicians.
• 1991 – British computer programmer Tim Berners-Lee introduced WorldWideWeb, the world's first web browser and WYSIWYG HTML editor.
• 2008 – In the first significant cultural visit from the United States to North Korea since the Korean War, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra performed in East Pyongyang Grand Theatre.

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Victor Hugo (1802–1885) was a French poet, novelist, and dramatist of the Romantic movement who is considered one of the greatest and best-known French writers. He is recognized for his poetry, including Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles, as well as the novels The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Les Misérables (1862). Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo later changed his views and became a passionate supporter of republicanism; his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and the artistic trends of his time. His legacy has been honoured in many ways; for some years his portrait appeared on the 5-franc banknote.

Photograph: Étienne Carjat; restoration: Scewing

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