Wikipedia:Main Page history/2020 April 22

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From today's featured article

Henry Conwell (c. 1748 – 1842) was an Irish-born Catholic bishop in the United States. After serving as a priest in Ireland for more than four decades, he was installed as the second bishop of Philadelphia in 1819. He took up the post at an advanced age, and spent much of his time there feuding with the lay trustees of his parishes, especially those of St. Mary's Church in Philadelphia. When he removed and excommunicated William Hogan, a controversial priest at St. Mary's, the parish trustees instead rejected Conwell's authority, creating a minor schism. The two sides partially reconciled by 1826, but the Vatican hierarchy believed Conwell had ceded too much power to the laymen and recalled him to Rome. Although he retained his position, he was compelled to relinquish actual control to his coadjutor bishop, Francis Kenrick. He remained in Philadelphia and performed some priestly duties, but for all practical purposes no longer ran the diocese. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Poster for The Mummy

... that a poster (shown) illustrated by Karoly Grosz for the 1932 film The Mummy held the record for the most expensive sold at auction for 17 years?
... that Royalist victories at the Battles of Piercebridge and Tadcaster five days apart in December 1642 shifted the balance of power in Yorkshire in their favour?
... that American performing artist Nashom Wooden starred in an off-Broadway play titled My Pet Homo with drag queen RuPaul?
... that Karan Johar launched the pop song "Genda Phool" on social media during India's coronavirus lockdown?
... that Syrian refugee Hassan Al Kontar was stranded at Kuala Lumpur International Airport for seven months?
... that 90 West Street, damaged by falling steel in the September 11 attacks, may have survived because of its use of architectural terracotta?
... that Peter Minich was a lead tenor for Viennese operettas at the Volksoper in the 1960s and 1970s?
... that when US president Bill Clinton phoned Trimdon Labour Club to talk to UK prime minister Tony Blair, the barmaid who answered the call said that "someone called Clinton" was on the phone?

In the news

Coronavirus pandemic

Lee Hae-chan

A mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada, leaves at least twenty-three people dead.
In the South Korean legislative election, the ruling Democratic Party (leader Lee Hae-chan pictured) and their allies increase their majority in the National Assembly.
Thirty-eight people are killed in a tornado outbreak in the Southeastern United States.

On this day

April 22: Earth Day; Administrative Professionals Day in various countries (2020)

Two-cent piece first issued in 1864

1500 – Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet anchored off the coast of present-day Brazil, claiming the land for the Portuguese Empire.
1864 – The U.S. Congress authorized the creation of a two-cent coin (pictured), the first U.S. currency to bear the phrase "In God We Trust".
1915 – German forces released 168 tons of chlorine gas at the beginning of the Second Battle of Ypres, causing thousands of casualties among French troops.
1969 – British yachtsman Robin Knox-Johnston completed the first single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the world, winning the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race.
2000 – In a pre-dawn raid, U.S. federal agents seized six-year-old Elián González from his relatives' home in Miami and returned him to his Cuban father.

Miguel de Cervantes (d. 1616)
Laura Gilpin (b. 1891)
Wilhelm Cauer (d. 1945)

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Today's featured picture

The Marriage Settlement is the first of a series of six oil-on-canvas paintings by English painter and pictorial satirist William Hogarth, created around 1743. The series, entitled Marriage A-la-Mode, depicts an arranged marriage and its disastrous consequences in a satire of 18th-century society, and is now in the collection of the National Gallery, London.

In this painting, a marriage is being arranged between the son of the bankrupt Earl Squanderfield and the daughter of a wealthy but miserly city merchant. Construction on the earl's new mansion, visible through the window, has stopped, and a usurer negotiates payment for further construction at the table in the centre. The gouty earl proudly points to a picture of his family tree, originating with William the Conqueror. The son views himself in a mirror, showing where his interests in the matter lie. The distraught merchant's daughter is consoled by the lawyer Silvertongue while polishing her wedding ring. Even the faces in the portraits on the walls appear to have misgivings. Two dogs chained to each other in the corner mirror the situation of the young couple.

Painting credit: William Hogarth

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