Two Andrea Doria-class dreadnought battleships were built for the Royal
Italian Navy. Completed during World War I, Andrea Doria (pictured) and
Caio Duilio displayed incremental improvements over the preceding Conte
di Cavour class. Like the earlier ships, they were armed with a main
battery of thirteen 305-millimeter (12.0 in) guns. The two ships were
based in southern Italy during World War I to help contain the Austro-
Hungarian Navy surface fleet in the Adriatic, but neither vessel saw
combat during the conflict. After the war, they cruised the
Mediterranean and were involved in several international incidents,
including at Corfu in 1923. In 1940, when Italy was engaged in World War
II, they were moored when the British launched a carrier strike on the
Italian fleet. In the resulting Battle of Taranto, Caio Duilio was hit
by a torpedo and forced to beach to avoid sinking.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Doria-class_battleship>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1734:
A black slave known as Marie-Joseph Angélique, having been
convicted of setting the fire that destroyed much of Montreal, was
tortured and then hanged in New France.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Joseph_Ang%C3%A9lique>
1854:
Crimean War: During the first Battle of Bomarsund, Irish sailor
Charles Davis Lucas threw an artillery shell off his ship before it
exploded, earning him the first Victoria Cross.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Davis_Lucas>
1898:
In a bloodless event during the Spanish–American War, the
United States captured Guam from Spain.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Guam>
1948:
The Manchester Baby (replica pictured), the world's first
stored-program computer, ran its first computer program.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Baby>
1963:
Italian cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini was elected as Pope
Paul VI.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_VI>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
melomaniac:
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melomaniac>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I
have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text:
"By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the
presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the
fruits — the relevant fruits — are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a
sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an
atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have
therefore many agnostic friends.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr>