Wikipedia:Today's featured list/November 2019

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November 1

Bhupesh Baghel in 2018
Bhupesh Baghel

The Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh is the chief executive of the Indian state of Chhattisgarh. In accordance with the Constitution of India, the governor is a state's de jure head, but de facto executive authority rests with the chief minister. Following elections to the Chhattisgarh Legislative Assembly, the governor of Chhattisgarh usually invites the party (or coalition) with a majority of seats to form the state government. The governor appoints the chief minister, whose council of ministers are collectively responsible to the assembly. Three people have served as the state's chief minister since Chhattisgarh's formation on 1 November 2000. The first was Ajit Jogi of the Indian National Congress. He was succeeded in 2003 by Raman Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party who served three consecutive five-year terms. His successor, and current incumbent, is the Indian National Congress leader Bhupesh Baghel (pictured), who was elected in 2018. (Full list...)


November 4

New Zealand, the 2011 champions
New Zealand, the 2011 champions

The Rugby World Cup final is the last match of the international rugby union competition established in 1987. The Rugby World Cup is contested by the men's national teams of the member unions of the sport's governing body, World Rugby, and takes place every four years. The winning team in the final is declared world champion and receives the Webb Ellis Cup. The winners of the first final were New Zealand, who beat France 29–9; they are also the only team to have won consecutive tournaments, with their victories in the 2011 and 2015 Rugby World Cup (2011 New Zealand team pictured). New Zealand and South Africa are the most successful teams, with three wins, Australia have won the competition twice, while England have one win. They are the only nation from the northern hemisphere to have won the competition. (Full list...)


November 8

Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl

The works of British author Roald Dahl have been translated into 59 languages and have sold more than 200 million books worldwide. Roald Dahl was "the most popular writer of children's books since Enid Blyton", according to Philip Howard, the literary editor of The Times. During the Second World War Dahl was a pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF) until he crashed in the Libyan desert; the subsequent injuries left him unfit to fly. The writer C. S. Forester asked him to provide details of his experiences in North Africa which Forester hoped to use in an article in The Saturday Evening Post. Instead of the notes which Forester expected, Dahl sent a finished story for which he was paid $900. The work led to The Gremlins, a serialised story in Cosmopolitan about a mischievous and fictional RAF creature, the gremlin; the work was published as Dahl's first novel in 1943. His first children's novel, James and the Giant Peach, was published in 1961, which was followed, along with others, by Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), Fantastic Mr Fox (1970), Danny, the Champion of the World (1975), The BFG (1982) and Matilda (1988). (Full list...)


November 11

2013 winners Sporting Kansas City with President Obama
2013 winners Sporting Kansas City
with President Obama

The MLS Cup is the annual championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top-level association football (soccer) league for the United States and Canada. The match marks the conclusion of the MLS Cup Playoffs, a four-round knockout competition contested by the top six teams from each of the league's two conferences. The playoffs tournament is organized by the league at the end of the regular season in a format similar to other professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, but unlike other soccer leagues. First contested in 1996, the MLS Cup was originally hosted by a predetermined neutral site, but is now hosted by the remaining team with the highest regular season standing. Atlanta United FC are the reigning cup-holders, having defeated the Portland Timbers in the 2018 final, which was watched by 73,019 spectators at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and set a competition attendance record. The Los Angeles Galaxy hold the record for most MLS Cup titles, having won five times in nine appearances. (Full list...)


November 15

Pushpa Girimaji, winner in 1991
Pushpa Girimaji, winner in 1991

The Chameli Devi Jain Award for Outstanding Women Mediaperson is an Indian journalism award named after Chameli Devi Jain, an Indian independence activist who became the first Jain woman to go to prison during India's independence struggle. The award was instituted in 1980 by The Media Foundation and is given to women in the journalism field. According to Business Standard, the award is "perhaps India's longest running media award for women". The Media Foundation was founded in 1979 by B. G. Verghese, Lakshmi Chand Jain, Prabhash Joshi, Ajit Bhattacharjea and N. S. Jagannathan. The award was instituted by Verghese and the family of Chameli Devi. The criteria for selection include social concern, dedication, courage and compassion in the individual's work. Neerja Chowdhury won the inaugural award in 1981. In 2015, Supriya Sharma of Scroll.in became the first online journalist to receive the award. The most recent award was given to Priyanka Dubey of the BBC in March 2019. (Full list...)


November 18

Cleopatra Stratan in 2012
Cleopatra Stratan

Since the late 1990s, more than 70 albums have been certified in Romania in accordance with the certification levels set up by the Uniunea Producătorilor de Fonograme din România (UPFR). When considering an album's certification level, the UPFR considers both its unit sales and its sales price. From lowest to highest, the certifications that have been awarded over the years are: gold (ranging from 2,000 to 100,000 units sold), double gold, platinum (10,000 to 250,000 units), double platinum (100,000 units), triple platinum, quadruple platinum, diamond (60,000 units) and triple diamond (150,000 units). The first known release to be certified in Romania was the album Party in Transylvania by Romanian singers Marius and Nadia Dragomir, which received a gold certification in 1996. Romania's highest certified record is La vârsta de trei ani by Moldovan singer Cleopatra Stratan (pictured), which was awarded a triple diamond certification in 2006 for selling 150,000 units. The only other artists to receive a diamond award are Andra and Sandel Mihai, for selling 60,000 copies of their 2007 album De la frate la soră. (Full list...)


November 22

Monmouth Castle
Monmouth Castle

There are 53 Grade I listed buildings in Monmouthshire, a county and principal area of Wales. In the United Kingdom, the term "listed building" refers to a building or other structure officially designated as being of special architectural, historical or cultural significance. Listing was begun by a provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. Once a building is listed, strict limitations are imposed on the modifications allowed to its structure or fittings. The Grade I listed buildings in Monmouthshire consist of twenty-four churches, a priory and an abbey, eight castles, seven houses, two bridges, a barn, a cross, a farm, a folly, a gatehouse, a hotel, a municipal building, a stables, and two elements of town walls. Notable people associated with Monmouthshire's Grade I listed buildings include Henry V, born at Monmouth Castle (pictured) in 1387; the medieval soldier and statesman William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke, who undertook major construction at Chepstow Castle; and Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester, who entertained his king at Raglan, and lost the castle at the end of the First English Civil War. (Full list...)


November 25

US Highway 25 in 1941
US Highway 25 in 1941

The US Highways in Michigan are the segments of the national United States Numbered Highway System that are owned and maintained by the state of Michigan, totaling about 2,300 miles (3,701 km). The longest of these is US Highway 23, at around 362 miles (583 km). The original highways were approved on November 11, 1926, by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, including 14 mainline highways. A handful of these original highway designations no longer run within Michigan, and a few numbers have been added since the 1930s. Since 1999, there have been 13 mainline highways and, with the creation of a business route for Constantine, there are a total of 30 special routes in the state. Several highways have been converted to freeways, some of which are now Interstate Highways and no longer part of the US Highway System. (This list is part of a featured topic: U.S. Highways in Michigan.)


November 29

Saif Ali Khan
Saif Ali Khan

Indian actor Saif Ali Khan works in Hindi films. He made his debut with a leading role in the drama Parampara (1993) and then starred in Aashik Awara (1993). The latter earned him the Filmfare Award for Best Male Debut, but failed to do well commercially, as did his next three releases–Parampara (1993), Pehchaan (1993), and Imtihaan (1994). Later in 1994, Khan played supporting roles alongside Akshay Kumar in two of the highest-grossing films of the year–the romance Yeh Dillagi and the action drama Main Khiladi Tu Anari. For his performance in the latter, he received a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. This success was followed by a series of commercial failures, leading to a setback in Khan's career. Khan played the second male lead behind Ajay Devgn in Milan Luthria's action thriller Kachche Dhaage (1999) which was his first commercial success since Main Khiladi Tu Anari; it also earned him another nomination for Best Supporting Actor at Filmfare. (Full list...)