Wikipedia:Today's featured article/January 2025
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January 1
1 Wall Street is a skyscraper in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York. Designed in the Art Deco style, the building is 654 feet (199 m) tall and consists of two sections. The original 50-story building was constructed between 1929 and 1931 for Irving Trust. A 28-story annex to the south (later expanded to 36 stories) was built between 1963 and 1965. The building occupies a full city block between Broadway, Wall Street, New Street, and Exchange Place. At the time of its construction, 1 Wall Street occupied what was considered one of the most valuable plots in the city. The building is one of New York City's Art Deco landmarks, although architectural critics initially ignored it in favor of such buildings as the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building. The original portion of the building is designated as a city landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Wall Street Historic District, a National Register of Historic Places district created in 2007. (Full article...)
January 2
Benjamin Jackson (January 2, 1835 – August 20, 1915) was a Canadian sailor and farmer who was a decorated veteran of the American Civil War. He began his career as a commercial seaman at 16 years old and started a farm in his mid twenties. During the American Civil War, he served for a year in the Union Navy and was deployed in the Union blockade of the Confederate coastline. As a gun captain aboard the USS Richmond, he served in the Battle of Mobile Bay. He disarmed multiple naval mines and once picked up a live grenade and threw it from the deck of the Richmond. He likely earned an enlistment bounty, as well as prize money by capturing multiple blockade runners. He developed bronchitis, suffered a serious hand injury, and eventually received a Civil War Campaign Medal. After the war, he lived the rest of his life in Lockhartville, Nova Scotia. He retired from commercial sailing in 1875 but continued managing his farm. His grave remained unmarked until 2010, when a headstone was erected. (Full article...)
January 3
The Albona class were mine warfare ships used by the Italian Regia Marina and Royal Yugoslav Navy (KM). Fourteen ships were originally laid down between 1917 and 1918 for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The end of World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary left them incomplete until 1920, when three ships were finished for the Regia Marina. An additional five ships were completed for the KM in 1931. All the completed ships could carry 24 to 39 naval mines. The five ships in KM service were captured by Italian forces during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia and commissioned in the Regia Marina. Three of the ships were returned to the KM-in-exile in late 1943 until transferred to the Yugoslav Navy in August 1945. The three surviving ships were stricken in 1962 and 1963. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.)
January 4
Liza Soberano (born January 4, 1998) is an American and Filipino actress. Her accolades include a FAMAS Award, a Star Award, and six Box Office Entertainment Awards. She began her career as a model, before her television debut in the fantasy anthology series Wansapanataym (2011). She achieved wider recognition for starring in the second season of Got to Believe (2013) and Forevermore (2014), the latter of which marked the first of her collaborations with actor Enrique Gil. Soberano found commercial successes in several romantic films, winning the Box Office Entertainment Award for Box Office Queen for My Ex and Whys (2017). Attempting to shed her image as an on-screen couple with Gil, she sought roles in other genres, before pursuing an acting career in Hollywood with Lisa Frankenstein (2024). Soberano has been described by media publications as one of the most beautiful Filipino actresses of her generation. She is vocal about gender equality, women's rights, and mental health. (Full article...)
January 5
Cyfeilliog or Cyfeiliog (probably died 927), was a bishop in south-east Wales. The location and extent of his diocese is uncertain, but lands granted to him are mainly close to Caerwent, suggesting that his diocese covered Gwent, possibly extending into Ergyng (now south-west Herefordshire). He is recorded in charters dating from the mid-880s to the early tenth century. In 914 he was captured by the Vikings and ransomed by Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons, for 40 pounds of silver. Edward's assistance is regarded by historians as evidence that he inherited the overlordship of his father, Alfred the Great, over the south-east Welsh kingdoms. Cyfeilliog is probably the author of a cryptogram (encrypted text) which was added as a marginal note to the ninth-century collection of poetry known as the Juvencus Manuscript. The twelfth-century Book of Llandaff records his death in 927, but some historians are sceptical as they think that this date is late for a bishop active in the 880s. (Full article...)
January 6
Maria Vasilievna Trubnikova (Russian: Мари́я Васи́льевна Тру́бникова; 6 January 1835 – 28 April 1897) was a Russian feminist and activist. From a wealthy family, she was orphaned at a young age and raised by her aunt. She married Konstantin Trubnikov at age 19; they had seven children. Trubnikova hosted a women-only salon which became a center of feminist activism. Alongside Anna Filosofova and Nadezhda Stasova, whom she mentored, Trubnikova was one of the earliest leaders of the Russian women's movement; the three women were referred to as the "triumvirate". They founded several organizations designed to promote women's cultural and economic independence, as well as pushing for higher education for women. Trubnikova maintained international connections to fellow feminists in England, France, and other countries. Over time, her once-liberal husband grew implacably opposed to her activism, and they separated. Trubnikova later experienced severe illness; she died in an asylum in 1897. (Full article...)
January 7
The Portland spy ring was an espionage group active in the UK between 1953 and 1961. It comprised five people who obtained classified research documents from the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE) on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, and passed them to the Soviet Union. Two of the group, Harry Houghton and Ethel Gee worked at the AUWE and had access to classified information. They passed this to their handler, Konon Molody, a KGB agent acting under a Canadian passport in the name Gordon Lonsdale. Lonsdale would pass the documents to Lona and Morris Cohen, American communists living under the names Helen and Peter Kroger; they passed the information to Moscow. The ring was exposed in 1960 after a tip-off from the Polish spy Michael Goleniewski. The information he supplied was enough to identify Houghton. MI5 surveillance uncovered the rest of the group, who were arrested in January 1961 and tried that March. Sentences for the group ranged from 15 to 25 years. (Full article...)
January 8
Elvis Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977) was an American singer and one of the most important figures of 20th-century popular culture. Often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll", Presley began his career in 1954 and became the leading figure of the newly popular sound of rock and roll in the late 1950s. Conscripted in 1958, he relaunched his recording career two years later with some of his most commercially successful work. In 1968, after seven years away from the stage, he returned to live performance in a television special that led to an extended Las Vegas residency and a string of tours. In 1973 he staged the first concert broadcast globally via satellite, seen by around 1.5 billion viewers. Prescription drug abuse severely affected his health, and he died suddenly in 1977. With wide success in many musical genres, Presley is the best-selling solo artist in the history of popular music. He won three Grammys, and received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36. (Full article...)
January 9
Title is the debut major-label studio album by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor, released on January 9, 2015. Initially a songwriter for other artists in 2013, Trainor signed with Epic Records the following year and began recording material she co-wrote with Kevin Kadish. They drew influence from retro-styled music as they were tired of chasing radio trends. Title includes "All About That Bass", which reached number one in 58 countries, and two other US Billboard Hot 100 top-10 singles: "Lips Are Movin" and "Like I'm Gonna Lose You". Reviewers criticized the album's repetitiveness and doubted Trainor's longevity, though some appreciated her wit and audacious attitude. It debuted at number one on charts in the US, Canada and the UK, and spent multiple weeks at the summit in Australia and New Zealand. Title was the ninth-best-selling album of 2015 worldwide. It was supported by the 2015 That Bass Tour and MTrain Tour. (This article is part of two featured topics: Title and Meghan Trainor albums.)
January 10
The Ferrari FF is a grand touring car made by Italian carmaker Ferrari. Suceeding the 612 Scaglietti, the FF—whose name is an acronym for "Ferrari Four"—was produced between 2011 and 2016 in Ferrari's manufacturing facility in Maranello, Italy. Featuring the body style of a shooting brake, the vehicle made its first public appearance at the Geneva International Motor Show in 2011. Upon its release, the FF was the world's fastest four-seater car and Ferrari's second-fastest grand tourer after the 599 GTO. The FF features a 6.3 L V12 engine, producing a power output of 485 kW (660 PS; 651 hp) and a torque output of 683 N⋅m (504 lb⋅ft) to give the car a top speed of 335 km/h (208 mph) and a 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) acceleration of 3.7 seconds. The car has been praised by critics, who call it a "Ferrari for the whole family" and appreciate its design. The FF has received several awards, including Top Gear's Estate Car of the Year in 2011. (Full article...)
January 11
The tomb of Kha and Merit is the funerary chapel and burial place of the ancient Egyptian foreman Kha and his wife Merit, in the northern cemetery of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina. Kha supervised the workforce who constructed royal tombs during the reigns of the pharaohs Amenhotep II, Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III (r. 1425 – 1353 BC) in the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty of the early New Kingdom of Egypt. He died in his 60s, while Merit died before him in her 20s or 30s. The couple's pyramid-shaped chapel has been known since at least 1818. The tomb was cut into the base of the cliffs. This position allowed the entrance to be quickly buried by debris deposited by landslides and later tomb construction, hiding its location from ancient robbers. Almost all of the contents of the tomb were awarded to the excavators and were shipped to Italy soon after the discovery. They have been displayed in the Museo Egizio in Turin since its arrival, and an entire gallery is devoted to it. (Full article...)
January 12
Smash Hit is a 2014 rail shooter video game developed and published by the Swedish indie game studio Mediocre. Through the game's 11 levels, the player takes a first-person perspective, shooting metal balls to destroy glass obstacles. The player can also shoot up to five balls at once by smashing a consecutive sequence of crystals and gather power-ups that are activated for a limited amount of time. The game also features a one-time in-game purchase that allows the player to start from any unlocked checkpoint. The game's development team consisted of Dennis Gustafsson, Henrik Johansson, and Douglas Holmquist. A virtual reality adaptation of the game was released for platforms in 2015 and 2018. Smash Hit received positive acclaim from reviewers, who praised its physics engine, graphics, music, and sound effects. CNET and Apple Inc. listed it as one of the best mobile games of 2014. Gustafsson and Holmquist later worked on Teardown after Mediocre closed in 2017. (Full article...)
January 13
The Mount Edziza volcanic complex (MEVC) in British Columbia, Canada, has a history of volcanism that spans more than 7 million years. The first magmatic cycle took place between 7.5 and 6 million years ago and is represented by the Raspberry, Little Iskut and Armadillo geological formations. Volcanism has taken place during five cycles of magmatic activity, each producing less volcanic material than the previous one. During these cycles volcanism has created several types of volcanoes, including cinder cones, stratovolcanoes, subglacial volcanoes, shield volcanoes and lava domes. The roughly 1,000-square-kilometre (400-square-mile) volcanic plateau of the MEVC originated from the successive eruptions of highly mobile lava flows. Several types of volcanic rocks were deposited by multiple eruptions of the MEVC. At least 10 distinct flows of obsidian were produced by volcanism of the MEVC, some of which were exploited by indigenous peoples in prehistoric times to make tools and weapons. (Full article...)
January 14
Josette Simon (born 1959 / 1960) is a British actor. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and played the part of Dayna Mellanby in the third and fourth series of the television sci-fi series Blake's 7 from 1980 to 1981. She was the first black woman in a Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) play when she appeared in Salvation Now in 1982, and has been at the forefront of colour-blind casting, playing roles traditionally taken by white actors, including Maggie, a character that is thought to be based on Marilyn Monroe, in Arthur Miller's After the Fall in 1990. Simon's first leading role at the RSC, the first principal part filled by a black woman for the company, was as Rosaline, in Love's Labour's Lost in 1984. Simon won the Evening Standard's Best Actress award, a Critics' Circle Theatre Award, Plays and Players Critic Awards and two film festival awards. She was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 2000, for services to drama. (Full article...)
January 15
The cherry-throated tanager (Nemosia rourei) is a critically endangered bird native to the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. Since its description in 1870, there had been no confirmed sightings for more than 100 years, and it was feared that the species was extinct. It was rediscovered in 1998 in the state of Espírito Santo. By the end of 2023, 20 individuals were known and the total population was estimated to be less than 50 birds. The main threat to its survival is the large-scale destruction of the old-growth rainforest that it requires, and in 2018 it was estimated that the species was restricted to a total area of just 31 km2 (12 sq mi). It has a striking gray, black and white plumage, with a distinctive red throat patch. The yellow or dark amber eyes contrast with a black face mask. Its call is clear and far-carrying. A social species, it lives in flocks of up to eight birds. The birds breed once a year, building a cup nest of beard lichen and spider web; nests contain two or three eggs. (Full article...)
January 16
Night of January 16th is a play by Ayn Rand inspired by the death of Ivar Kreuger, an industrialist and accused swindler known as the Match King. The play is set in a courtroom during a murder trial and audience members are chosen to play the jury. The court hears the case of Karen Andre, a former secretary and lover of businessman Bjorn Faulkner, of whose murder she is accused. The jury must rely on character testimony to decide whether Andre is guilty; the play's ending depends on their verdict. Rand wanted to dramatize a conflict between individualism and conformity. The play was first produced in 1934 in Los Angeles under the title Woman on Trial. Producer A. H. Woods took it to Broadway for the 1935–36 season and re-titled it Night of January 16th. It became a hit and ran for seven months. The play has been adapted as a film, as well as for television and radio. Rand had many disputes with Woods over the play, and in 1968 re-edited it for publication as her "definitive" version. (Full article...)
January 17
William Robinson Brown (January 17, 1875 – August 4, 1955) was a corporate officer of the Brown Company and a breeder of Arabian horses. He advocated for sustainable forest management practices and his innovations became industry standards. He was influenced by the Progressive movement, instituting employee benefits at the Brown Company that predated modern workers' compensation laws. He founded the Maynesboro Stud in 1912 with bloodstock from American breeders of Arabian horses, also importing horses from England, France, and Egypt. At its peak, Maynesboro was the largest Arabian horse farm in the United States. To prove the abilities of Arabians, he organized several endurance races, which his horses won three times. He served as President of the Arabian Horse Club of America from 1918 until 1939. His 1929 book The Horse of the Desert is an authoritative work on Arabians. A Republican, he served as a presidential elector for New Hampshire in 1924. (Full article...)
January 18
Freston is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, an archaeological site near the village of Freston in Suffolk, England. The enclosure was first identified in 1969 from cropmarksin aerial photographs. At 8.55 ha (21.1 acres) it is one of the largest causewayed enclosures in Britain, and would have required thousands of person-days to construct. The cropmarks show an enclosure with two circuits of ditches, and a palisade that ran between the two circuits. There is also evidence of a rectangular structure in the northeastern part of the site, which may be a Neolithic longhouse or Anglo-Saxon hall. Excavation in 2019 indicated that the site was constructed in the mid-4th millennium BC. Other finds included oak charcoal fragments believed to come from the palisade, and evidence of a long ditch to the southeast that probably predated the enclosure, and which may have accompanied a long barrow, a form of Neolithic burial mound. The site has been protected as a scheduled monument since 1976. (Full article...)
January 19
Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh was a comedy show broadcast from 1944 to 1950 and 1951 to 1954 by BBC Radio and in 1950–1951 by Radio Luxembourg. It was written by and starred Richard Murdoch and Kenneth Horne as officers in a fictional RAF station coping with red tape and the inconveniences and incongruities of life in the Second World War. After the war the station became a country club and, for its last season, the show became the chronicle of a newspaper, The Weekly Bind. Among the supporting cast were Sam Costa as the officers' batman, Maurice Denham in a multitude of roles, Dora Bryan and Nicholas Parsons. Singers in the show's musical interludes included Gwen Catley, Maudie Edwards, Binnie Hale and Doris Hare. Among those appearing as guest stars were Phyllis Calvert, Richard Dimbleby, Glynis Johns, Alan Ladd and Jean Simmons. The show followed It's That Man Again as the most popular British radio comedy and was succeeded by Take It from Here and The Goon Show. After the show ended, its two stars returned to radio in several long-running series. (Full article...)
January 20
Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. He was a frontier lawyer and briefly served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, representing Tennessee. He became a wealthy planter who owned hundreds of African American slaves during his lifetime. In 1801, he was appointed colonel of the Tennessee militia and was elected its commander. In the war against the British, Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a national hero. He later commanded U.S. forces in the First Seminole War, which led to the annexation of Florida from Spain. He was elected president in 1828, defeating John Quincy Adams in a landslide. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act. This act displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi and resulted in thousands of deaths. Jackson's legacy remains controversial, and opinions on his legacy are frequently polarized. (Full article...)
January 21
Ada Wong is a fictional character in Resident Evil (Biohazard in Japan), a survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. Ada was first mentioned in the original Resident Evil (1996), before being introduced as a supporting character and antiheroine in Resident Evil 2 (1998). The character was initially conceived as a researcher named Linda for the prototype of the second game, but her name was changed to Ada and she was rewritten as a spy and mercenary for the final build to connect its story to that of the original. Over the course of the series, Ada is often hired to steal biological weapons for various organizations, although she betrays her employers on numerous occasions to save protagonist Leon S. Kennedy from dire situations. Ada is featured in several Resident Evil games, novelizations, and films, and has also appeared in other game franchises such as Project X Zone, Teppen, and Dead by Daylight. (Full article...)
January 22
Caitlin Clark (born January 22, 2002) is an American professional basketball player for the Indiana Fever of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). In her college freshman season with the Iowa Hawkeyes, she earned All-American honors; as a sophomore, Clark was again first-team All-American and in her junior and senior seasons, she was the national player of the year. She became the Division I women's career and single-season leader in points and is regarded as one of the greatest collegiate players of all time. Clark was selected first overall by Indiana Fever in the 2024 WNBA draft. In her first season, she won the WNBA Rookie of the Year award, made the All-WNBA First Team and WNBA All-Star Game. At youth international level, Clark won three gold medals with the United States, including two at the FIBA Under-19 Women's World Cup. Since her college career, she has helped popularize women's basketball, a trend known as the "Caitlin Clark effect". (Full article...)
January 23
Castell Coch is a 19th-century Gothic Revival castle built above the village of Tongwynlais in South Wales. The first castle on the site was built by the Normans after 1081 to protect the newly conquered town of Cardiff. The castle's earth motte was reused by Gilbert de Clare as the basis for a new stone fortification, built between 1267 and 1277. John Crichton-Stuart, 3rd Marquess of Bute, inherited the castle ruins in 1848. One of Britain's wealthiest men, he employed the architect William Burges to reconstruct the castle as a summer residence. Burges rebuilt the outside before his death in 1881, and the interior work was finished by his team in 1891; it featured elaborate decorations including extensive use of symbolism drawing on classical mythology and legendary themes. Crichton-Stuart planted a vineyard just below the castle, where wine production continued until the First World War. Castell Coch is considered to be one of the best surviving examples of Victorian architecture. (Full article...)
January 24
Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Regiment was a cavalry regiment of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Formed as Slayback's Missouri Cavalry Battalion, the unit consisted of men recruited in Missouri by Lieutenant Colonel Alonzo W. Slayback during Price's Raid in 1864. The battalion's first action was at the Battle of Pilot Knob in September; it later participated in actions at Sedalia, Lexington, and the Little Blue River. In October, the unit was used to find an alternate river crossing during the Battle of the Big Blue River and saw action at the battles of Westport, Marmiton River, and Second Newtonia. Around February 1865, the battalion reached regimental strength after more recruits joined. On June 2, 1865, the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered. The men of the regiment were located at different points in Louisiana and Arkansas when they were paroled, leading the historian James McGhee to believe that the regiment had disbanded before the surrender. (Full article...)
January 25
The new wave of British heavy metal began in the late 1970s and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. Encompassing diverse mainstream and underground styles, the music often infused 1970s heavy metal music with the intensity of punk rock to produce fast and aggressive songs. The do it yourself ethic of the new metal bands led to the spread of raw-sounding, self-produced recordings and a proliferation of independent record labels. Song lyrics were usually about escapist themes from mythology, fantasy, horror or the rock lifestyle. The movement involved mostly young, white, male musicians and fans of the heavy metal subculture, whose behavioural and visual codes were quickly adopted by metal fans worldwide after the spread of the music globally. The movement spawned perhaps a thousand bands, but only a few survived the rise of MTV and glam metal. Among them, Motörhead and Saxon had considerable success, and Iron Maiden and Def Leppard became international stars. (Full article...)
January 26
"Telephone" is a song by Lady Gaga featuring Beyoncé (both pictured) and released on January 26, 2010. "Telephone" conveys Gaga's fear of not finding time for fun given the increasing pressure for her to work harder. The song consists of an expanded bridge and verse-rap; Beyoncé appears in the middle of the song, singing the verses in a "rapid-fire" way, accompanied by double beats. "Telephone" received positive reviews from critics who praised Gaga's chemistry with Beyoncé. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. The song charted in many countries and sold 7.4 million digital copies worldwide in 2010, making it the year's fourth best-selling single. The music video follows Beyoncé as she bails Gaga out of prison for killing her boyfriend and ends with the two trying to escape a high-speed police chase. The video received generally positive reviews and was nominated for three awards at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. (Full article...)
January 27
The Holocaust in Bohemia and Moravia resulted in the deportation, dispossession, and murder of most of the pre-World War II population of Jews in the Czech lands that were annexed by Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1945. From the pre-war population of 118,310 some 30,000 Jews managed to emigrate. Most of the remaining Jews were deported to other Nazi-controlled territories, starting in October 1939 as part of the Nisko Plan. In October 1941, mass deportations of Protectorate Jews began. Beginning in November 1941, the transports departed for Theresienstadt Ghetto in the Protectorate which was a stopping-point before deportation to other ghettos, extermination camps, and other killing sites. About 80,000 Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were murdered in the Holocaust. After the war, many Jews faced obstacles in regaining their property and pressure to assimilate into the Czech majority. Most Jews emigrated; a few were deported as part of the expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia. (Full article...)
January 28
Lewis W. Green (1806–1863) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator, and academic administrator. Born in Danville, Kentucky, and educated in Woodford County, he enrolled at Transylvania University but transferred to Centre College to complete his degree. He graduated in 1824 as one of two members of Centre's first graduating class. He enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1831 but returned to Kentucky the following year. He spent time as a professor and minister before returning to Centre in 1839 as its vice president. In January 1849, he was elected president of Hampden–Sydney College, where he spent eight years. He left to become president of Transylvania in November 1856 shortly following the establishment of a normal school there by the Kentucky General Assembly. He resigned a year later, following the repeal of the bill that created the normal school, and became president of Centre. He led his alma mater through parts of the Civil War and died in office in May 1863. (Full article...)
January 29
Dominik Hašek (born 29 January 1965) is a Czech former ice hockey goaltender. He won six Vezina Trophies with the National Hockey League (NHL), the most under the award's current system. In 1998 he became the first goaltender to win the Hart Memorial Trophy twice. During the 1998 Winter Olympics he led the Czech national ice hockey team to its first Olympic gold medal. In 2002 Hašek became the first European-trained starting goaltender to win the Stanley Cup and set a record for shutouts in a postseason year. He was considered an unorthodox goaltender, with a distinct style that labeled him a "flopper". He holds the highest career save percentage of all time, and is the only goalie to face the most shots per 60 minutes and have the highest save percentage in the same season. Hašek was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and is a member of the Czech Ice Hockey Hall of Fame and the IIHF Hall of Fame. His number was retired by the Buffalo Sabres and HC Pardubice. (Full article...)
January 30
Nihilism (Spring/Summer 1994) is the third collection by the British designer Alexander McQueen for his eponymous fashion house. An eclectic collection with no straightforward theme, it pushed back against dominant womenswear trends with its hard tailoring and aggressive, sexualised styling. It was created in collaboration with McQueen's associates Simon Ungless and Fleet Bigwood. McQueen's first professional runway show, Nihilism included experimental techniques, silhouettes and materials, such as dresses made from cellophane, stained with clay or adorned with dead locusts. The styling was intended to be provocative and disturbing. The clothing was highly sexualised: thin fabric that exposed the skin underneath or garments cut to expose breasts and vulvas. The collection received mixed reviews. Journalists had a difficult time deciding what to make of it. McQueen returned to many of the ideas he explored in Nihilism throughout his lifetime, especially the interplay of sexuality and violence. (Full article...)
January 31
Stanley Green (22 February 1915 – 12 December 1993) was a sandwich man who became a well-known figure in London during the latter part of the 20th century. For 25 years Green patrolled Oxford Street, carrying a placard that advocated "Less Lust, By Less Protein: Meat Fish Bird; Egg Cheese; Peas Beans; Nuts. And Sitting"—the wording, and punctuation, changing over the years. Arguing that protein made people lustful and aggressive, his solution was "protein wisdom", a low-protein diet for "better, kinder, happier people". For a few pence, passers-by could buy his 14-page pamphlet, Eight Passion Proteins with Care, which reportedly sold 87,000 copies over 20 years. He became one of London's much-loved eccentrics, though his campaign was not invariably popular, leading to two arrests for obstruction and the need to wear green overalls to protect himself from spit. When he died in 1993 at the age of 78, his pamphlets, placards, and letters were passed to the Museum of London. (Full article...)