HMS Nairana was a passenger ferry that was requisitioned by the Royal
Navy as a seaplane carrier in 1917. She was laid down in 1914 as TSS
Nairana for the Australian shipping line Huddart Parker, but
construction was temporarily suspended after the outbreak of the First
World War. The ship was converted to operate wheeled aircraft from her
forward flying-off deck as well as floatplanes that were lowered into
the water. She saw service during the war with the Grand Fleet, and in
1918–19 supported the British intervention in the Russian Civil War.
Nairana was returned to her former owners in 1921 and refitted in her
original planned configuration, then spent the next several decades
ferrying passengers and cargo across Bass Strait between Tasmania and
Melbourne, where she was nearly capsized twice by rogue waves. Nairana
was the only Bass Strait ferry not requisitioned for military service in
the Second World War, and so became the sole passenger ship with service
to Tasmania during the conflict. She was laid up in 1948, wrecked in a
storm three years later, and scrapped onsite in 1953–54.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Nairana_(1917)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
217 BC:
Second Punic War: The Carthaginians under Hannibal executed
one of the largest military ambushes in history when they overwhelmingly
defeated the Romans.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lake_Trasimene>
1826:
Greek War of Independence: A combined Egyptian and Ottoman army
began their invasion of the Mani Peninsula, but they were initially held
off by the Maniots at the fortifications of Vergas.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman%E2%80%93Egyptian_invasion_of_Mani>
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>
1919:
Admiral Ludwig von Reuter scuttled the German High Seas Fleet
in Scapa Flow to prevent the ships from being seized and divided amongst
the Allied Powers.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scuttling_of_the_German_fleet_in_Scapa_Flow>
1948:
The Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, the world's
first stored-program computer, ran its first computer program.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Small-Scale_Experimental_Machine>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
angst:
1. A feeling of acute but vague anxiety or apprehension often accompanied
by depression, especially philosophical anxiety.
2. More commonly, painful sadness or emotional turmoil, as teen angst.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/angst>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
One of the fundamental points about religious humility is you
say you don't know about the ultimate judgment. It's beyond your
judgment. And if you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have
a wrong religion.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reinhold_Niebuhr>