Wikipedia:Main Page history/2016 May 3

The Carpet from Bagdad is a 1915 American silent adventure film directed by Colin Campbell, based on Harold MacGrath's 1911 novel of the same name. In the story, Horace Wadsworth (played by Guy Oliver), one of a gang of criminals planning a bank robbery in New York, steals a prayer rug from a Baghdad mosque. He sells the carpet to antique dealer George Jones (Wheeler Oakman) to fund the robbery scheme. The carpet's guardian kidnaps both men and Fortune Chedsoye (Kathlyn Williams), the innocent daughter of another conspirator, but they escape. Marketing for the film included a media tour of part of the set and an invitation-only screening sponsored by the publisher of MacGrath's book. The Carpet from Bagdad was released on 3 May 1915 to mostly positive reviews. Many praised the tinted desert scenes and realistic Middle East imagery, although some felt the scenery overshadowed the characters. The film is now lost, except for one badly damaged reel salvaged from the RMS Lusitania in 1982. Images from several feet of the reel were recovered by the British Film Institute's National Archive. (Full article...)

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• ... that Sir Frederick Ballantyne, a cardiologist and the Governor-General of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, was the first in his family to attend high school?
• ... that a memorial was not erected for the 674 bodies at the Hurricane of 1928 African American Mass Burial Site until the 75th anniversary of the hurricane?
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Mark Selby

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May 3: World Press Freedom Day

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• 1491 – Nkuwu Nzinga of the Kingdom of Kongo was baptised as João I (pictured) by Portuguese missionaries.
• 1791 – The Polish–Lithuanian Constitution of May 3, the oldest codified national constitution in Europe, was adopted by the Great Sejm.
• 1921 – The island of Ireland was divided into two distinct territories: Northern and Southern Ireland.
• 1960 – The Off-Broadway musical The Fantasticks made its premiere, eventually becoming the world's longest-running musical.
• 2007 – Four-year-old Madeleine McCann was abducted while on holiday with her family in Portugal, sparking "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history."

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