The Almirante Latorre class consisted of two super-dreadnought battleships designed by the British company Armstrong Whitworth for the Chilean Navy, named for Admirals Juan José Latorre and Thomas Cochrane. Construction began on 27 November 1911, but both were purchased and renamed by the Royal Navy prior to completion for use in the First World War. Almirante Latorre (pictured) was commissioned into British service as HMS Canada in October 1915 and spent its wartime service with the Grand Fleet, seeing action in the Battle of Jutland. The ship was sold back to Chile in 1920, assuming its former name. Almirante Latorre 's crew instigated a naval mutiny in 1931. After a major refit in 1937, she patrolled Chile's coast during the Second World War. Almirante Cochrane was converted to an aircraft carrier and commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Eagle in 1924. It served in the Mediterranean Fleet and on the China Station in the inter-war period and operated in the Atlantic and Mediterranean during the Second World War before being sunk in August 1942 during Operation Pedestal.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almirante_Latorre-class_battleship
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1703:
The Great Storm of 1703, one of the most severe storms to strike southern Great Britain, destroyed the first Eddystone Lighthouse off Plymouth, England. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Storm_of_1703
1815:
As specified by the Congress of Vienna, the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland was signed for the newly recreated Polish state that was under Russian control. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Kingdom_of_Poland
1940:
The Iron Guard killed over 60 political detainees at a penitentiary near Bucharest and followed up with several high-profile assassinations, including that of former Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Iorga. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolae_Iorga
1975:
Members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army assassinated Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, a few weeks after he offered a £50,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for several recent high-profile bombings that were publicly claimed by the IRA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_McWhirter
2001:
The Hubble Space Telescope detected sodium in the atmosphere of the extrasolar planet HD 209458 b, the first planetary atmosphere outside our solar system to be measured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_209458_b
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
bodge: 1. (Britain) To do a clumsy or inelegant job, usually as a temporary repair; mend, patch up, repair. 2. To work green wood using traditional country methods; to perform the craft of a bodger. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bodge
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a pattern of systems. --Bruce Lee https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bruce_Lee