Wikipedia:Main Page history/2017 September 9

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The California Diamond Jubilee half dollar was a US commemorative fifty cent piece, struck at the San Francisco Mint in 1925. The San Francisco Citizens' Committee wanted to use coin sales to fund a celebration of the 75th anniversary of California statehood. A California congressman attached the authorization to another coinage bill, which was approved in early 1925. Designs by sculptor Jo Mora met a hostile reception at the Commission of Fine Arts, but the Citizens' Committee would not change them, and they were approved. The coin has been widely praised for its beauty; the obverse depicts a Gold Rush-era prospector, and the reverse is an adaptation of the Flag of California, showing a grizzly bear. Some 150,000 of the authorized mintage of 300,000 coins were struck in August 1925 in San Francisco. They were offered for sale the following month, but nearly half went unsold, and were later melted. The coin is catalogued at between $200 and $1,300, though exceptional specimens have sold for more. (Full article...)

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John Grisham

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In the news

Hurricane Irma

A magnitude 8.1 earthquake strikes southern Mexico, killing more than 60 people.
Hurricane Irma (satellite image pictured) crosses the Leeward Islands as the strongest recorded hurricane to make landfall in the Caribbean, killing at least 10 people.
Monsoon flooding kills nearly 1,300 people and affects 45 million others in India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
North Korea conducts its sixth nuclear test.
The European X-ray free-electron laser is inaugurated in Hamburg, Germany.

On this day...

September 9: Eid al-Ghadeer (Shia Islam, 2017); Republic Day in North Korea (1948); Independence Day in Tajikistan (1991)

John Lennon singing "Imagine", 1971

1493 – Ottoman Empire forces defeated the Croatian army at the Battle of Krbava Field.
1936 – Opposed to António de Oliveira Salazar's support of the Nationalists in the Spanish Civil War, the crews of the Portuguese Navy ships NRP Afonso de Albuquerque and Dão mutinied while anchored in Lisbon harbour.
1954 – The 6.7 M_w Chlef earthquake struck Algeria, leaving at least 1,243 people dead and 5,000 injured, and forced the government to implement comprehensive reforms in building codes.
1969 – Allegheny Airlines Flight 853 collided in mid-air with a Piper PA-28 Cherokee flown by a student pilot near Fairland, Indiana, U.S., destroying both planes and killing all 83 occupants.
1971 – John Lennon's solo album Imagine was released.

Louise Lehzen (d. 1870) · Colonel Sanders (b. 1890) · Madge Syers (d. 1917)

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Today's featured picture

The Queen Elizabeth II Great Court is the central quadrangle of the British Museum in London. Based on a 1970s design by Colin St John Wilson, it was developed during the late 1990s by Foster and Partners after the British Library relocated to its own building. In its centre is the British Museum Reading Room, formerly the main reading room of the Library. The Court, covered by a tessellated roof, also includes twelve sculptures from the British Museum's collection.

Photograph: David Iliff

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