Kronan was the flagship of the Swedish navy in the Baltic Sea in the
1670s. When built, she was one of the largest seagoing vessels in the
world. After four years of service, the ship foundered in rough weather
at the Battle of Öland on 1 June 1676, with the loss of about 800 men
(including the navy's acting supreme commander Lorentz Creutz and other
senior officers), over 100 guns, and large quantities of silver and gold
coin. This was a hard blow for Sweden during the Scanian War
(1675–79), as besides being the largest and most heavily armed ship in
the Swedish navy, Kronan had been an important status symbol for the
monarchy of the young Charles XI. The inexperienced Creutz has been
blamed by many historians for the sinking of Kronan, although recent
research points to Sweden's general lack of a well-developed naval
organization and officer corps at the time. Most of her guns were
salvaged in the 1680s, but eventually the wreck fell into obscurity
before its exact position was rediscovered in 1980. Yearly diving
operations have since surveyed and excavated the site, and many of the
artifacts recovered have been put on display at the Kalmar County
Museum.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronan_(ship)>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1757:
Seven Years' War: British forces under Robert Clive defeated
troops under Siraj ud-Daulah at the Battle of Plassey, allowing the
British East India Company to annex Bengal.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey>
1887:
The Parliament of Canada passed the Rocky Mountains Park Act,
creating Banff National Park as the country's first national park.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banff_National_Park>
1919:
Estonian War of Independence: Estonian troops engaged the
forces of the Pro-German Government of Latvia near Cēsis, Latvia,
recapturing the area four days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_C%C4%93sis_(1919)>
1926:
The College Board administered the first SAT, a major
standardized test for university and college admissions in the United
States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT>
1982:
Chinese American Vincent Chin died after being beaten into a
coma in Highland Park, Michigan, US, by two automotive workers who had
mistaken him for Japanese and who were angry about the success of
Japanese auto companies.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Vincent_Chin>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
unbeknownst:
(followed by to) Without the knowledge of.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unbeknownst>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
I believe the only reality is how we treat each other. The
morality comes from the absence of any grander scheme, not from the
presence of any grander scheme.
--Joss Whedon
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon>