Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 August 21

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Powderfinger

"My Happiness" is a song by Australian rock band Powderfinger (pictured), released by Universal Music Australia on 21 August 2000 as the first single from the band's fourth album, Odyssey Number Five. Frontman Bernard Fanning, inspired by a love of gospel and soul music, wrote the lyrics for "My Happiness" as a reflection on the loneliness the band felt while touring. The rest of the band are co-credited with Fanning for composing the track. Powderfinger's most successful single, it peaked at number four on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart, was instantly successful in New Zealand, and was the first Powderfinger song to appear on the American Hot Modern Rock Tracks. It won an ARIA and an APRA Award, topped the Triple J Hottest 100 poll in 2000, and placed 27th in the 2009 Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time poll. Along with the single "My Kind of Scene", "My Happiness" was highly praised by critics; even negative reviews of Odyssey Number Five noted it as a highlight, especially for its catchy chorus. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Sycamore lace bug

... that the sycamore lace bug (pictured), native to North America, was first observed in Italy in 1964 and has since spread to much of Southern and Central Europe?
... that chef María Marte has a tattoo of her first original dish, a caramelized hibiscus flower?
... that "Neon Blue" is about coming out?
... that Kwesi Amoako Atta, Ghana's Minister for Roads and Highways, announced that 50 percent of toll booth collectors will be people with disabilities?
... that the town of East Redmond, Washington, was found by the Washington Supreme Court to have been "illegally incorporated"?
... that the composer Giselher Klebe wrote the libretto for his opera Die tödlichen Wünsche based on Balzac's La Peau de chagrin?
... that James A. Wetmore's name is inscribed on more federal buildings than any other U.S. citizen?
... that the extended play To the Edge of the Earth by Thirty Seconds to Mars was conceived to raise public awareness of global warming and green politics?

In the news

La Rambla, Barcelona, in 2011

A knife attack in Turku, Finland, kills two people and injures ten others.
Three separate attacks in Catalonia, Spain, (one location pictured) kill at least fifteen people and injure more than one hundred others.
The Hong Kong Court of Appeal sentences three prominent pro-democracy activists to jail.
At least four hundred people are killed by mudslides in and around Freetown, Sierra Leone.
In golf, Justin Thomas wins the PGA Championship.

On this day...

August 21

Mona Lisa

1140 – Song dynasty general Yue Fei defeated an army led by Jin dynasty general Wanyan Wuzhu at the Battle of Yancheng during the Jin–Song Wars.
1858 – The first of seven debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, candidates for an Illinois seat in the United States Senate, was held in Ottawa.
1911 – Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa (pictured) was stolen from the Louvre by a museum employee and was not recovered until two years later.
1942 – World War II: The Imperial Japanese Army lost the Battle of the Tenaru, the first of its three major land offensives during the Guadalcanal Campaign.
2007 – Hurricane Dean made landfall on the Yucatán Peninsula as a Category 5 storm, causing 45 deaths and US$1.5 billion in damage.

Alphonse, Count of Poitiers (d. 1271) · Emily Tinne (b. 1886) · Emma Mashinini (b. 1929)

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Volumes 49 to 72 of the Naruto manga series were published between January 4, 2010, and February 4, 2015. The plot of Naruto, written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto, is divided in two; the second part is known as Part II. The series is about the eponymous character Naruto Uzumaki, who wants recognition and respect from the fellow villagers, and to become the Hokage, the leader of Konohagakure. Part II, set two-and-a-half years after the conclusion of Part I, follows the return of the ninja Uzumaki to Konohagakure from two-and-a-half years of training. Naruto was published in individual chapters by Shueisha in Weekly Shōnen Jump and later collected in tankōbon format with extra content. The English version (serialization) of the Naruto manga, licensed by Viz Media, is published in North America in the Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine. An anime adaptation of Part II, produced by Studio Pierrot and TV Tokyo, premiered on February 15, 2007, on TV Tokyo as Naruto: Shippuden. (Full list...)

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SpaceShipOne, an experimental air-launched rocket-powered aircraft with suborbital flight capability at speeds of up to 900 m/s (3,000 ft/s), prior to takeoff during Flight 17P on October 4, 2004. Flown by Brian Binnie, SpaceShipOne reached an altitude of 112 kilometres (70 mi) and a speed of Mach 3.09. After the flight, SpaceShipOne's developers won the $10,000,000 X Prize as the first non-government organization to launch a reusable manned spacecraft into space twice within two weeks. SpaceShipOne was then retired and placed on exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Photograph: D. Ramey Logan

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