Beli Orao was a royal yacht built for the Yugoslav Royal Navy in 1938–1939. She was captured in April 1941 by the Italians during the World War II invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. Re-armed, she saw service as a gunboat in the Italian Royal Navy, briefly as Alba then Zagabria, undertaking harbour protection and coastal escort duties. She was then used to train anti-submarine warfare specialists. After the Italian armistice with the Allies in September 1943, she was handed back to the Yugoslav navy-in-exile on 7 December. Refitted, and under her original name, she became a tender for a flotilla of motor gunboats. In this role she operated out of Malta, off the western coast of Italy, and later off the Yugoslav coast. After the war she remained in Yugoslav hands under the names Biokovo then Jadranka, serving as a naval yacht, as a presidential yacht and as a dispatch boat. In 1978, she was still in service, but was scrapped soon after.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_gunboat_Beli_Orao
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1936:
Australian cricketer Jack Fingleton became the first player to score centuries in four consecutive Test innings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Fingleton
1975:
The Indonesian military invaded East Timor under the pretext of anti-colonialism, beginning an occupation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_occupation_of_East_Timor
1995:
The Galileo spacecraft (illustration shown) arrived at Jupiter, a little more than six years after it was launched by Space Shuttle Atlantis during Mission STS-34. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_%28spacecraft%29
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
Lessepsian: 1. (obsolete, rare) Pertaining to the French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps, who designed the Suez Canal. 2. (marine biology) Of or relating to organisms that migrate from the Red Sea to the eastern Mediterranean Sea by means of the Suez Canal. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Lessepsian
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. … Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces — with the unbounding determination of our people — we will gain the inevitable triumph — so help us God. --Franklin D. Roosevelt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt