Wikipedia:Main Page history/2018 December 25

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From today's featured article

First edition frontispiece and title page (1843)

A Christmas Carol (1843) is a novella by Charles Dickens, illustrated by John Leech. It recounts the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who is visited by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. After their visits, Scrooge is transformed into a kinder, gentler man. Dickens wrote the story during a period when the British were exploring and re-evaluating past Christmas traditions, including carols, and newer customs such as Christmas trees. His Christmas stories (including three before and four after this one) were influenced by those of other authors, including Washington Irving and Douglas William Jerrold. Parts of the novella point out the misery that poor children often endured; Dickens had recently witnessed appalling conditions for children working in the Cornish tin mines. He gave 128 public readings of A Christmas Carol, including his farewell performance in 1870, the year of his death. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Adoration of the Shepherds detail

... that the Adoration of the Shepherds (detail pictured) by Giovanni Cariani seems to have been started as a Rest on the Flight into Egypt before the subject was changed by adding shepherds?
... that historian and educator Tomas Fonacier had the longest public service record in the Philippines, spanning more than six decades?
... that the choir sings Jauchzet, frohlocket! (Shout for joy, exult!), the beginning of Part I of Bach's Christmas Oratorio, first imitating kettledrums due to its secular model?
... that the footballer Owen McNally scored eight goals in a single match, which remains a joint record for the Scottish Football League?
... that the submarine HMS P48 is thought to have been sunk by an Italian torpedo boat on Christmas Day 1942?
... that the cucumber orchid and straggly pencil orchid can hybridize when they grow together?
... that a bracelet lost by Josephine Heffernan during the First World War was found in 2002, and returned to her family in 2017?
... that the Christmas carol "Green Groweth the Holly" was composed and written by King Henry VIII?

In the news

Damage from the Sunda Strait tsunami

A tsunami hits Sunda Strait, Indonesia, killing at least 429 people and injuring more than 1,400 others (aftermath pictured).
In field hockey, the World Cup concludes with Belgium defeating the Netherlands in the final.
The Balangiga bells, taken by US Army soldiers from the Philippines in 1901 as war trophies, are repatriated.
Nine people are killed when a high-speed train collides with a locomotive in Ankara, Turkey.

On this day

December 25: Christmas (Gregorian calendar); Quaid-e-Azam Day (Pakistan)

St Mel's Cathedral

1758 – Based on predictions by Edmond Halley in 1705, Johann Georg Palitzsch observed a comet that was later named Halley's Comet.
1815 – The Handel and Haydn Society, the oldest continuously performing arts organization in the United States, made its debut at King's Chapel in Boston.
1941 – Second World War: The Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when Mark Aitchison Young, the Governor of Hong Kong, surrendered the territory to Japan after 18 days of fierce fighting.
1968 – In Tamil Nadu, India, families of striking Dalit workers were massacred by a gang, allegedly led by their landlords.
2009 – Fire destroyed Longford's 19th-century St Mel's Cathedral (pictured), considered the "flagship cathedral" of the Irish midlands.

Zhang Jingda (d. 936) · Otto Frederick Hunziker (b. 1873) · Atal Bihari Vajpayee (b. 1924)

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Today's featured picture

The Nativity at Night is a painting by Early Netherlandish artist Geertgen tot Sint Jans, dating to around 1490. It is a panel painting in oil on oak. The painting shows the Nativity of Jesus, attended by angels, and with the Annunciation to the shepherds on the hillside behind seen through the window in the centre of the painting. It is a small painting presumably made for private devotional use, and Geertgen's version, with significant changes, of a lost work by Hugo van der Goes of about 1470. The Nativity at Night hangs in the National Gallery, London.

Painting: Geertgen tot Sint Jans.

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