Wikipedia:Today's featured list/February 2012


February 6

Three-time Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Joe Montana
Three-time Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Joe Montana

The Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award is presented annually to the most valuable player (MVP) of the Super Bowl, the National Football League's (NFL) championship game. The winner is chosen by a fan vote during the game and by a panel of 16 American football writers and broadcasters who vote after the game. Since the first Super Bowl was held in 1967, the MVP award has been given to 41 players. From 1967 to 1989, the Super Bowl MVP was presented by SPORT magazine. Since 1990, the award has been presented by the NFL. At Super Bowl XXV, the league first awarded the Pete Rozelle Trophy, named after the former NFL commissioner, to the Super Bowl MVP. Joe Montana (pictured) is the only player to have won three Super Bowl MVP awards; four others—Bart Starr, Terry Bradshaw, Tom Brady and Eli Manning—have won the honor twice. The MVP has come from the winning team every year except 1971, when Dallas Cowboys linebacker Chuck Howley won the award despite the Cowboys' loss in Super Bowl V to the Baltimore Colts. (Full list...)


February 13

Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee being presented with Best in Show in 2009
Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee being presented with Best in Show in 2009

The title of Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club has been awarded 104 times since 1907. If a dog wins the title on five occasions, the James Mortimer Memorial Silver Trophy is awarded permanently; otherwise, the winner receives a silver-plated replica. The most successful dog was the first to win the title, a Smooth Fox Terrier named Ch. Warren Remedy, who won it on three occasions. The Terrier Group has continued to be the most successful breed group, with terriers winning the title 45 times. Competition at Westminster was restricted to Champions only in 1992; before this, two dogs had won the title in their first American shows. The most recent winner is GCH Foxcliffe Hickory Wind in 2011, the first Scottish Deerhound to take the title and only the fifth member of the Hound Group. (Full list...)


February 20

Season 8 winner Joan Rivers
Season 8 winner Joan Rivers

Candidates on the American version of The Apprentice compete to become Donald Trump's apprentice, as determined by Trump and his boardroom associates. The series first broadcast in 2004, and eleven complete seasons have aired on NBC; Season 12 premieres on February 20, 2012. Each season, competitors are progressively eliminated based on their performance during an assigned task. After each task, the winning team receives a reward, while the losing team faces a boardroom showdown in order to determine which team member should be fired, and therefore eliminated from the show. Trump hires one of the finalists to be his apprentice. Starting with Season 7, celebrities participated as a way to revitalize the series, with the winners donating their proceeds to charity. Seasons in which celebrities compete are branded as The Celebrity Apprentice. Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth is the only person to have competed in multiple seasons; she appeared in both Season 1 and Season 7. The youngest competitors include Jessie Connors and Chris Shelton, who appeared on the show at age 21. At age 75, Joan Rivers (pictured) of Season 8 was the oldest candidate to both appear on the show and win the competition. (Full list...)


February 27

Wings is considered the first movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Wings is considered the first movie to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best films of 1927 and 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks hosted the show. Awards were created by Louis B. Mayer, founder of Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. During the ceremony, the AMPAS presented Academy Awards in twelve categories. Some nominations were announced without reference to a specific film, such as for Ralph Hammeras and Nugent Slaughter, who received nominations in the now defunct category of Engineering Effects. Charlie Chaplin and Warner Brothers both received an Honorary Award. Winners in competition at the ceremony included Seventh Heaven and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, each receiving three awards, and Wings (poster pictured), receiving two awards. (Full list...)