SS Dakotan was a cargo ship built in 1912 by the Maryland Steel Company
as one of eight sister ships for the American-Hawaiian Steamship
Company. The ship was employed in inter-coastal service via the Isthmus
of Tehuantepec and the Panama Canal after it opened, and then served as
a transport ship under the United States Army during World War I. As
USAT Dakotan, she carried cargo and animals to France. She was in the
first American convoy to sail to France after the United States entered
the war in April 1917. Near the end of the war, she was transferred to
the United States Navy and commissioned as USS Dakotan. The ship
continued to carry cargo to France, and returned over 8,800 American
troops after the Armistice. After her Navy service ended in 1919, she
was returned to her original owners and resumed relatively uneventful
cargo service over the next twenty years. Dakotan ran aground off the
coast of Mexico in 1923 but was freed and towed to port for repairs.
Early in World War II, the ship was requisitioned by the War Shipping
Administration and transferred to the Soviet Union under the terms of
Lend-Lease in December 1942. Sailing as SS Zyrianin, the ship remained
a part of the Soviet merchant fleet before being scrapped in the late
1960s.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Dakotan>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
284:
Diocletian became Roman Emperor, eventually establishing reforms that
brought an end to the Crisis of the Third Century.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian>
1695:
Zumbi, the last of the leaders of Quilombo dos Palmares in early
Brazil, was executed.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumbi>
1820:
The American whaleship Essex sank 2,000 nautical miles (3,700 km) west
of the western coast of South America after it was attacked by a sperm
whale.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_%28whaleship%29>
1902:
While discussing how to promote the newspaper L'Auto during a lunch
meeting in Paris, sports journalists Henri Desgrange and Géo Lefèvre
came up with the idea of holding a cycling race that later became known
as the Tour de France.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_de_France>
1979:
A group of armed insurgents attacked and took over the Masjid al-Haram
in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, declaring that one of their leaders, Muhammad
bin abd Allah al-Qahtani, was the Mahdi, the prophesied redeemer of
Islam.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Mosque_Seizure>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
hallows (n):
(archaic, plural) The relics or remains of a saint, or the shrines in
which they are kept
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hallows>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look
back I see a pattern.
--Benoît Mandelbrot
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Beno%C3%AEt_Mandelbrot>
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