Asahi was a pre-dreadnought battleship built in Britain for the Imperial Japanese Navy in the late 1890s. As flagship of the Standing Fleet, Asahi was in every major naval battle of the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The ship saw no combat during World War I, but participated in the Siberian Intervention in 1918. Reclassified as a coastal defence ship in 1921, Asahi was disarmed two years later to meet the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty, then served as a training and submarine depot ship. The ship was modified for marine salvage and rescue before being placed in reserve in 1928. Asahi was recommissioned in late 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and used to transport Japanese troops. In 1938 the ship was converted into a repair ship and based first at Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China, and then Camranh Bay, French Indochina, from late 1938 to 1941. The ship was transferred to occupied Singapore in early 1942 to help repair a damaged light cruiser and ordered to return home in May. Asahi was sunk en route by the American submarine USS Salmon, but most of the crew survived.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Asahi
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
624:
Led by Muhammad, the Muslims of Medina defeated the Quraysh of Mecca in Badr, present-day Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Badr
1781:
German-born astronomer and composer William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus while in the garden of his house in Bath, Somerset, thinking it was a comet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranus
1845:
German composer Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, one of the most popular and most frequently performed violin concertos of all time, was first played in Leipzig. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_(Mendelssohn)
1943:
The Holocaust: Nazi German troops began liquidating the Jewish Ghetto in Kraków, Poland, sending about 8,000 Jews deemed able to work to the Plaszow labor camp, with the rest either killed or sent to Auschwitz. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krak%C3%B3w_Ghetto
1986:
Claiming the right of innocent passage, American warships USS Yorktown and USS Caron entered the Soviet territorial waters in the Black Sea, inciting Soviet combat readiness. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Black_Sea_incident
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
aposiopesis: (rhetoric) An abrupt breaking-off in speech, often indicated in print using an ellipsis (…) or an em dash (—). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/aposiopesis
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Whereas "false stories" can be told anywhere and at any time, myths must not be recited except during a period of sacred time. --Mircea Eliade https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mircea_Eliade