130px|HMS Lion
HMS Lion was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy, the lead ship of her
class. Lion served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet's battlecruisers
throughout World War I, except when she was being refitted or under
repair. She sank the German light cruiser Köln during the Battle of
Heligoland Bight and served as Vice Admiral Beatty's flagship at the
battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland. She was so badly damaged at the
first of these battles that she had to be towed back to port by the
battlecruiser Indomitable and was under repair for more than two
months. During the Battle of Jutland she suffered a serious propellant
fire that could have destroyed the ship if not for the bravery of Royal
Marine Major Francis Harvey, who posthumously received the Victoria
Cross for having ordered the magazine flooded. She spent the rest of
the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea. She was put into
reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1924 under the terms of the
Washington Naval Treaty. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Lion_%281910%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1538:
Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada founded a European
urban settlement in what is today Bogotá, Colombia.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogot%C3%A1>
1806:
The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved by its last emperor Francis II
during the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_II%2C_Holy_Roman_Emperor>
1945:
World War II: The U.S. Army Air Force bomber Enola Gay dropped an
atomic bomb named Little Boy on Hiroshima, Japan, killing as many as
140,000 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enola_Gay>
1964:
American researcher Donald Currey had a bristlecone pine tree known as
Prometheus cut down, only to find that it was the oldest known
non-clonal organism ever discovered, at least 4,862 years old at the
time.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_%28tree%29>
1996:
NASA announced that the meteorite known as ALH 84001 , discovered in
the Allan Hills of Antarctica, may contain evidence of life on Mars.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Hills_84001>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
coffle (n):
A line of people or animals fastened together, especially a chain of
slaves or prisoners
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/coffle>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Men, my brothers, men the workers, ever reaping something new:
That which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall
do:
For I dipped into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the
Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots
of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the
central blue;
Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunderstorm;
Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were
furled
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
There the
common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law.
--Alfred Tennyson
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_Tennyson>