HMS Endeavour was the Royal Navy research vessel commanded by Lieutenant
James Cook on his first voyage of discovery to Australia and New Zealand
from 1769 to 1771. She was launched in 1764 as the collier Earl of
Pembroke, and purchased by the Navy in 1768 for a scientific mission to
the Pacific Ocean and to explore for the surmised Terra Australis
Incognita. Her voyage took her to Tahiti for the 1769 transit of Venus,
then south into the largely uncharted South Pacific. In September 1769
she reached New Zealand, the first European vessel to visit in 127
years. Seven months later Endeavour became the first ship to reach the
east coast of Australia, making landfall in Botany Bay on 29 April 1770.
Her return voyage marred by shipwreck and the deaths of one third of her
crew, Endeavour reached the port of Dover in July 1771 after nearly
three years at sea. In 1776 she returned to naval service for the
American Revolutionary War but was scuttled in a blockade of
Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. The wreck has not been precisely
located, but relics including cannons and an anchor are displayed in
maritime museums worldwide. The Space Shuttle Endeavour was named in her
honour in 1989.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Endeavour>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1587:
Anglo-Spanish War: In the Bay of Cádiz, Francis Drake led the
first of several naval raids on the Spanish Armada that destroyed so
many ships that Philip II of Spain had to delay his plans to invade
England for over a year.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singeing_the_King_of_Spain%27s_Beard>
1862:
American Civil War: Union forces under David Farragut captured
New Orleans, securing access into the Mississippi River.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_New_Orleans>
1944:
Second World War: British agent Nancy Wake parachuted into the
Auvergne, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive
and the local maquis group
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Wake>
1997:
The 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention went into effect,
outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons in
those countries that ratified the arms control agreement.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention>
2011:
A worldwide television audience of 300 million people watched
the wedding of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine Middleton
at Westminster Abbey in London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_of_Prince_William_and_Catherine_Middleton>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
anapest:
1. (US, prosody) A metrical foot consisting of three syllables, two short
and one long (e.g the word "velveteen").
2. (US, prosody) A fragment, phrase or line of poetry or verse using this
meter; e.g. “Every Who down in Whoville liked Christmas a lot, but the
Grinch, who lived just north of Whoville, did NOT!” (Dr. Seuss, How
the Grinch Stole Christmas.).
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anapest>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do
so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure
in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not
be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. I am not speaking,
of course, of the beauty which strikes the senses, of the beauty of
qualities and appearances. I am far from despising this, but it has
nothing to do with science. What I mean is that more intimate beauty
which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure
intelligence can grasp.
--Henri Poincaré
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Poincar%C3%A9>