HMAS Melbourne was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Australian Navy.
She was laid down for the Royal Navy in 1943 as the lead ship of the
Majestic class of light aircraft carriers, but work on her was
suspended when World War II ended. The carrier was purchased by the
Australian government in 1947, and upgraded to become the third ship in
the world constructed with an angled flight deck. Renamed for the
Australian city of Melbourne, the ship was commissioned in 1955.
Melbourne never served in combat, but collided with and sank two
destroyers during her career: HMAS Voyager in 1964, and USS Frank E.
Evans in 1969. These, along with several minor incidents, led to the
reputation that the carrier was jinxed. The last carrier in Australian
service, Melbourne was decommissioned in 1982. Although sold to China
for breaking, the People's Liberation Army Navy studied Melbourne over
many years to further plans for a Chinese aircraft carrier. The British
carrier HMS Invincible was to be acquired as a replacement, but this
was cancelled following the Falklands War and the 1983 Australian
federal election.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAS_Melbourne_%28R21%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1258:
Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid caliphate, surrendered to Hulagu
Khan and the Mongols after almost a two-week siege.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Baghdad_%281258%29>
1567:
After an explosion destroyed the house in Kirk o' Field, Edinburgh,
where he was staying, the strangled body of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley,
the King consort of Scotland, was found in a nearby orchard.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Stuart%2C_Lord_Darnley>
1763:
Britain, France, and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris to end the Seven
Years' War, significantly reducing the size of the French colonial
empire while at the same time marking the beginning of an extensive
period of British dominance outside of Europe.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Paris_%281763%29>
1840:
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha married Queen Victoria of the
United Kingdom at the Chapel Royal, becoming prince-consort.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert%2C_Prince_Consort>
1930:
The Viet Nam Quoc Dan Dang launches the failed Yen Bai mutiny in the
hope of ending French colonial rule in Vietnam.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yen_Bai_mutiny>
1996:
Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in a game of chess, the first ever
game won by a chess-playing computer against a World Chess Champion
under chess tournament conditions.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Blue_%28chess_computer%29>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
periphrastic (adj):
1. Expressed in more words than are necessary.
2. Indirect in naming an entity; circumlocutory
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/periphrastic>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
--Bertolt Brecht
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertolt_Brecht>
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