USS Indiana was the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in
the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time.
Authorized in 1890, she was launched on 28 February 1893 and
commissioned on 20 November 1895. The ship pioneered the use of an
intermediate battery. Indiana served in the Spanish–American War as
part of the North Atlantic Squadron and took part in the blockade of
Santiago de Cuba and the battle of Santiago de Cuba. After the war she
became obsolete—despite several modernizations—and spent most of her
time in commission as a training ship or in the reserve fleet, with her
last commission during World War I as a training ship for gun crews.
She was decommissioned for the third and final time in January 1919 and
was shortly after renamed Coast Battleship Number 1 so that the name
Indiana could be reused. She was sunk in shallow water as a target in
aerial bombing tests in 1920 and her hull was sold for scrap in 1924.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indiana_%28BB-1%29>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1897:
Ranavalona III, the last sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of
Madagascar, was deposed by French military forces.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_III>
1928:
Indian physicist C. V. Raman and his colleagues discovered
what is now known as Raman scattering, for which he later became the
first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Physics.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Raman>
1947:
Nationalist soldiers fired on protesters in Taipei (crowd
pictured), triggering widespread uprisings and the violent suppression
in the Taiwanese White Terror.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_incident>
1975:
A London Underground train failed to stop at the terminal
Moorgate station, crashing and causing the deaths of 43 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorgate_tube_crash>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
short twentieth century:
1. (history, specifically) The period between 1914 and 1991, from the
beginning of World War I to the fall of the Soviet Union.
2. (history, generally) Any period of years defined by significant
historical events falling within the 20th century (1 January 1901 to 31
December 2000).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/short_twentieth_century>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her
state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and
serene.
--Michel de Montaigne
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne>