today's Featured List/September 2014

September 1

Barbadian singer Rihanna was the most successful artist on the UK Official Download Chart during the 2000s.

During the 2000s, 110 singles topped the UK Official Download Chart. The chart was launched on 1 September 2004 after a 10-week trial period – its first official number one was a live version of "Flying Without Wings" by Irish boy band Westlife. The most successful artist of the decade was Barbadian singer Rihanna (pictured), who featured on five different number-one singles for a total of 13 weeks, while the most successful record label was Universal Music Group, who spent 110 weeks at number one with 40 singles. The most downloaded single of the 2000s was "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga. Released in 2009, the song was downloaded 779,000 times, and topped the chart for three weeks. Sales of music downloads in the UK grew significantly over the course of the 2000s. From 2004 to 2005, sales grew by 743%, and by 2007 the country had become Europe's largest consumer of online music, with almost 78 million tracks being downloaded that year. By the end of the decade this figure had nearly doubled. (Full list...)

September 5

Monmouth Shire Hall

Sixty county courts in Wales have closed since the modern system of county courts in England and Wales was established by the County Courts Act 1846. In all, 80 towns and cities in Wales have held county courts since 1847, and only 20 county courts in Wales are still open. The first closure was Fishguard in 1856. Newbridge was the location of a county court for the shortest period – for only five months in 1856. Blaenavon is the only town in Wales to have a county court close and then reopen, both events taking place in 1938. The volume of court business declined during the Second World War and some little-used courts, including Presteigne and Llandeilo, were closed as a result. The most recent opening of a county court took place in Caerphilly in 1965, although this closed in 2000. Monmouth was based in the Shire Hall (pictured) until the court was closed in 2002 because of the poor standard of the court accommodation. The most recent closures are the county courts in Aberdare and Pontypool, which closed on 1 August 2011. (Full list...)

September 8

Ursula K. Le Guin

The Nebula Award for Best Novelette is given each year by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to a science fiction or fantasy novelette published in English or translated into English and released in the United States or on the internet during the previous calendar year. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as a novelette if it is between 7,500 and 17,500 words; Nebula Awards are also given out for pieces of longer lengths in the Novel and Novella categories, and for shorter lengths in the Short Story category. The Nebula Award for Best Novelette has been awarded annually since 1966. During the 49 nomination years, 192 authors have had works nominated; 42 of these have won, including co-authors and ties. Ted Chiang has won three times out of three nominations, and Poul Anderson, Kelly Link, George R. R. Martin, and Connie Willis have each won twice out of five, two, four, and five nominations, respectively. Ursula K. Le Guin (pictured) has the most nominations of any author with seven, including one win. James Patrick Kelly has the most nominations without winning at six. (Full list...)

September 12

Video blogger Alex Day performing during the ninth episode of Chartjackers

There are eleven episodes of Chartjackers, a British documentary television programme that ran for a single season in 2009. The series documents the lives of four teenage video bloggers—Alex Day (pictured), Johnny Haggart, Jimmy Hill and Charlie McDonnell—from the video-sharing website YouTube as they attempt to write, record and release a pop song by crowdsourcing through social media in ten weeks. When originally broadcast, the first ten episodes of Chartjackers, each five minutes in length, detailed the events of the previous seven days. The eleventh and final episode compiled highlights from the previous ten weeks into one 30-minute compilation. The series garnered a viewing figures peak of almost half a million with its final episode and was critically panned by reviewers. A cross-platform project, Chartjackers was distributed both on television and through online media – after being broadcast on BBC Two, each episode was available to view again through BBC iPlayer and on the YouTube channel BBCSwitch. (Full list...)

September 15

Lithograph of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

During the history of the United States, eight presidents have died in office. Of those eight, four were assassinated and four died of natural causes. William Henry Harrison holds the record for shortest term served, holding the office of presidency for 31 days before dying of pneumonia. Zachary Taylor died from acute gastroenteritis. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be assassinated (assassination pictured). President James A. Garfield was assassinated by Charles J. Guiteau. President William McKinley died from complications after being shot twice by Leon Czolgosz. President Warren G. Harding suffered a heart attack and died. Franklin Delano Roosevelt collapsed and died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. The most recent president to die in office was John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated with two rifle shots on November 22, 1963. (Full list...)

September 19

Mario Lemieux's star

The inductees of Canada's Walk of Fame are displayed on sidewalks in Toronto, Ontario. The Walk of Fame acknowledges the achievements and accomplishments of successful Canadians. The Walk of Fame was first conceived in 1996 and the first group was inducted two years later. Canadians are allowed to nominate potential inductees, who are then evaluated by a committee based on several criteria, including their national or international impact on Canada’s cultural heritage. New inductees are inducted annually at an unveiling ceremony where their star, a stylized maple leaf, is revealed. Since 2008, the Walk of Fame also hands out the Cineplex Legends Award, which is a posthumous award. There are the 151 stars on the walk of fame for individuals from a variety of different fields, including athletes, actors, directors, musicians, authors, artists and models. (Full list...)

September 22

Alfréd Hajós

There were 146 medalists in the art competitions that were part of the Olympic Games from 1912 until 1948. These art competitions were grouped into various categories depending on the year. Since participants were allowed multiple submissions, it was possible for artists to win more than one award in a single event, as Alex Diggelmann of Switzerland did in the graphic arts category of the 1948 edition. Diggelmann is tied with Denmark's Josef Petersen, who won second prize three times in literature, for the number of medals captured in the art competitions. Luxembourg's Jean Jacoby is the only individual to win two gold medals, doing so in painting in 1924 and 1928. Of the 146 medalists, 11 were women and only Finnish author Aale Tynni was awarded gold. Germany was the most successful nation, with eight gold, seven silver, and nine bronze medals. Two individuals, Walter W. Winans and Alfréd Hajós (pictured), won medals in both athletic and art competitions. (Full list...)

September 26

HMAS Australia

Sunken battlecruisers are large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century that were either destroyed in battle, scuttled, or destroyed in a weapon test. Three British battlecruisers were lost at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. SMS Lützow, a German battlecruiser, was also sunk during the battle. Five German battlecruisers scuttled themselves in 1919 to prevent their seizure by the Royal Navy after the First Armistice at Compiègne in 1918. HMAS Australia (pictured), the sole Australian battlecruiser, was scuttled to comply with the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 which limited the number and tonnage of capital ships that could be retained by the British Empire. In contrast to World War I, where all four ships were lost to gunfire, only two were sunk solely by guns during World War II and two more by a combination of gunfire and aerial attack. Four ships were sunk solely by aircraft and two by submarines. The three surviving battlecruisers—two of which had been converted into aircraft carriers—were scrapped or used as a target for nuclear weapon tests. (This list is part of a featured topic: Battlecruisers of the world.)

September 29

Cattle egret

The birds of Thailand represent nearly one thousand species. At least seven bird species previously found in Thailand have since been extirpated, and approximately fifty of the country's species are globally threatened. In 1991, it was estimated that 159 resident and 23 migratory species were endangered or vulnerable due to forest clearance, illegal logging, hunting and habitat degradation, especially in the lowlands. The birds of Thailand are mainly typical of the Indomalayan realm, with affinities to the Indian subcontinent to the west, and, particularly in Southern Thailand, with the Sundaic fauna to the southeast. The northern mountains are outliers of the Tibetan Plateau with many species of montane birds, and, in winter, the avifauna is augmented by migrants from the eastern Palearctic and Himalayas. The Java sparrow has been introduced by humans, and the cattle egret (pictured) has naturally colonised. The white-eyed river martin, known only from its single wintering site in Thailand, is probably extinct. (Full list...)