USS Connecticut was the lead ship of the six Connecticut-class
battleships. Due to the Royal Navy's commissioning of HMS Dreadnought
seven months earlier, Connecticut was obsolete before she was
commissioned; thus, she was the last lead ship of any class of
pre-dreadnought battleship commissioned by the United States Navy.
Connecticut served as a flagship for the Jamestown Exposition, which
commemorated the 300th anniversary of the founding of the Jamestown
colony. She later sailed with the Great White Fleet on a
circumnavigation of the Earth to showcase the United States Navy's
growing fleet of blue-water-capable ships. After completing her service
with the Great White Fleet, Connecticut participated in several
flag-waving exercises intended to protect American citizens abroad
until she was pressed into service as a troop transport at the end of
World War I to expedite the return of American Expeditionary Forces
from France. For the remainder of her career, Connecticut sailed to
various places in both the Atlantic and Pacific while training newer
recruits to the Navy. However, the provisions of the 1922 Washington
Naval Treaty stipulated that many of the older battleships, Connecticut
among them, would have to be disposed of, so she was decommissioned on
1 March 1922 and sold for scrap on 1 November 1923.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Connecticut_%28BB-18%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1744:
War of the Austrian Succession: British ships began attacking the
Spanish rear of a France–Spanish combined fleet in the Mediterranean
Sea off the coast near Toulon, France.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Toulon_%281744%29>
1819:
Under the terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain sold Florida and other
North American territory to the United States for about US$5 million.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adams-On%C3%ADs_Treaty>
1943:
Members of the White Rose, a nonviolent resistance movement in Nazi
Germany that became known for a leaflet campaign that called for active
opposition to Adolf Hitler's regime, were found guilty of treason and
guillotined.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Rose>
1959:
Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500 NASCAR auto race at the Daytona
International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daytona_500>
2006:
At least six men staged Britain's biggest robbery ever, stealing
£53,116,760 in bank notes from a Securitas depot in Tonbridge, Kent.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securitas_depot_robbery>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
moniker (n):
A personal name or nickname
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/moniker>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Life is short, and truth works far and lives long: let us speak the
truth.
--Arthur Schopenhauer
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer>