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
_______________________________ 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
_____________________________ 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
___________________________ 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