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>
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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>
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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>
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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>