Wikipedia:Today's featured list/June 2014
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June 2
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Most national anthems are either marches or hymns in style. The first national anthem to be composed was the Dutch national anthem "Wilhelmus", which was written between 1568 and 1572. The first anthem to be officially adopted as such was the Spanish anthem "Marcha Real" in 1770. The French anthem "La Marseillaise" (first performance pictured) was written soon after in 1792 and adopted in 1795. National anthems are usually written in the most common language of the state, whether de facto or official. For example, India's anthem "Jana Gana Mana" is written in a Sanskritized version of Bengali, and Sanskrit and Bengali are both official languages of India. The New Zealand national anthem "God Defend New Zealand" is traditionally sung with the first verse in Māori and the second in English. South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the eleven official languages are used in the same anthem, in which each language comprises a stanza. (Full list...)
June 9
Fifty-nine companies have been acquired by Apple Inc. (logo pictured), an American multinational corporation with a focus on designing and manufacturing consumer electronics and software products. Apple has also purchased a stake in two companies. Apple's business philosophy is to acquire small companies that can be easily integrated into existing company projects. For example, Apple acquired Emagic and its professional music software, Logic Pro, in 2002. The acquisition led to the creation of the digital audio workstation software GarageBand, now part of the iLife software suite. The company made its first acquisition on March 2, 1988 when it purchased Network Innovations. It has also made five divestments, all in the 1990s, in which parts of the company were sold to another company. The company's largest acquisition was the purchase of Beats Electronics in 2014 for US$3 billion. In 2013, Apple acquired thirteen companies, more than in any other single year thus far. Of the companies that Apple has acquired, 44 were based in the United States. (Full list...)
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June 30
Dozens of Square Enix companion books have been produced since 1998, when video game developer Square began to produce books that focused on artwork, developer interviews, and background information on the fictional worlds and characters in its games rather than on gameplay details. The first series of these books was the Perfect Works series, written and published by Square subsidiary DigiCube. They produced three books between 1998 and 1999 before the line was stopped in favor of the Ultimania series. This series of books is written by Studio BentStuff, which had previously written game guides for Square for Final Fantasy VII. They were published by DigiCube until the company was dissolved in 2003. Square merged with video game publisher Enix on April 1, 2003 to form Square Enix, which resumed publication of the companion books. Sometimes, multiple books have been written per game or revised editions have been published years afterwards. One of the books, Final Fantasy IX Ultimania Online, was solely published online as part of an experiment by Square Enix with online content delivery. The Ultimania series had sold over 10 million books by July 2007. (Full list...)