SS Washingtonian was a cargo ship launched in 1913 by the Maryland Steel
Company, one of eight sister ships for the American-Hawaiian Steamship
Company and the largest cargo ship under American registry at the time.
During the American occupation of Veracruz in April 1914, the ship was
chartered by the Department of the Navy for service as a refrigerated
supply ship for the U.S. fleet stationed off the Mexican coast. In
January 1915, after a little more than one year of service,
Washingtonian collided with the schooner Elizabeth Palmer off the
Delaware coast after the cargo ship's captain misjudged the schooner's
rapid pace. Washingtonian sank in ten minutes with the loss of a
$1,000,000 cargo of raw Hawaiian sugar. In the days after the sinking,
the price of sugar in the United States increased almost 9%, partly
attributed to the loss of this cargo. Lying under approximately 100 feet
(30 m) of water, the wreck is one of the most popular recreational dive
sites on the eastern seaboard.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Washingtonian_(1913)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1302:
Byzantine–Ottoman Wars: The Ottoman sultanate gained its
first major victory against the Byzantine Empire in the Battle of
Bapheus in Bithynia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bapheus>
1778:
Anglo-French War: French and British fleets fought to a
standoff west of Ushant, which led to political disputes in both
countries.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ushant_(1778)>
1916:
British mariner Charles Fryatt was executed at Bruges, Belgium,
after a court-martial found him to be a franc-tireur.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fryatt>
1953:
An armistice was signed to end hostilities in the Korean War,
officially making the Division of Korea indefinite by creating an
approximately 4 km (2.5 mi) wide demilitarized zone across the Korean
Peninsula.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone>
2002:
A Ukrainian Air Force Sukhoi Su-27 aircraft crashed during an
aerobatics presentation at an airshow near Lviv, Ukraine, killing 84
people and injuring over 100 others.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sknyliv_air_show_disaster>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
baby carrot:
1. A carrot harvested and sold when immature and of a small size.
2. A small piece cut from a larger carrot.
3. The term baby-cut carrot is sometimes used for the second sense,
especially to distinguish it from the first sense.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/baby_carrot>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this that
he cannot make; that he can befog or destroy, but that he cannot
sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every
civilisation exactly that has been true. We sit by and watch the
Barbarian, we tolerate him; in the long stretches of peace we are not
afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence, his comic inversion of our
old certitudes and our fixed creeds refreshes us: we laugh. But as we
laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond: and on these
faces there is no smile.
--Hilaire Belloc
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hilaire_Belloc>