The Beograd class consisted of three destroyers built for the Royal
Yugoslav Navy in the late 1930s, to a French design. Beograd was
constructed in France, and Zagreb and Ljubljana were built in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the German-led Axis invasion of Yugoslavia
in April 1941, Zagreb was scuttled to prevent its capture, and the other
two were seized by the Italians. The Royal Italian Navy operated the two
captured ships as convoy escorts between Italy, the Aegean Sea and North
Africa. One was lost in the Gulf of Tunis in April 1943; the other was
seized by the Germans in September 1943 after the Italian surrender, and
was operated by the German Navy. There are conflicting reports about the
fate of the last ship, but it was lost in the final weeks of the war. In
1967, a French film was made about the scuttling of Zagreb. In 1973, the
President of Yugoslavia and wartime Partisan leader Josip Broz Tito
awarded the Order of the People's Hero posthumously to the two officers
who scuttled Zagreb.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beograd-class_destroyer>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
284:
Diocletian (pictured on coin) became Roman emperor, eventually
establishing reforms that ended the Crisis of the Third Century.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletian>
1776:
American Revolutionary War: The Battle of Fort Lee marked the
invasion of New Jersey by British and Hessian forces and the subsequent
general retreat of the Continental Army.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lee_Historic_Park>
1917:
First World War: The Battle of Cambrai began with British
forces having initial success over Germany's Hindenburg Line.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cambrai_(1917)>
1952:
The Slánský trial, a show trial against Czech General
Secretary Rudolf Slánský and 13 other members of the Communist Party
of Czechoslovakia, was held.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sl%C3%A1nsk%C3%BD_trial>
1990:
Andrei Chikatilo, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific
serial killers with 56 convicted murders, was arrested in Novocherkassk.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Chikatilo>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
vigesimal:
1. Occurring in intervals of twenty.
2. To the base 20.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vigesimal>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Only earthbound man still clings to the dark and poisoning
superstition that his world is bounded by the nearest hill, his universe
ends at river shore, his common humanity is enclosed in the tight circle
of those who share his town or his views and the color of his skin. It
is — It is your job, the task of young people in this world, to strip
the last remnants of that ancient, cruel belief from the civilization of
man.
--Robert F. Kennedy
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy>