Silverplate was the codename for the United States Army Air Forces'
participation in the Manhattan Project during World War II. Originally
the name for the aircraft modification project for the B-29
Superfortress bomber to enable it to drop an atomic weapon, Silverplate
eventually came to identify the training and operational aspects of the
program as well. Modifications began in November 1943 on a prototype
B-29 known as the "Pullman", used for bomb flight testing at Muroc Army
Air Field in California commencing in March 1944. Seventeen production
Silverplate aircraft were ordered in August 1944 for 509th Composite
Group training, and to allow the 216th Army Air Forces Base Unit to test
bomb configurations. In February 1945, 28 more were ordered, including
Bockscar (pictured), the plane that carried out the atomic bombing of
Nagasaki in August 1945. A total of 65 Silverplate B-29s were made. The
use of the Silverplate codename was discontinued after the war;
modifications to an additional 80 aircraft continued under a new
codename, Saddletree.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverplate>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1014:
Byzantine–Bulgarian wars: Forces of the Byzantine Empire
defeated troops of the Bulgarian Empire at the Battle of Kleidion in the
Belasica Mountains near present-day Klyuch, Bulgaria.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kleidion>
1858:
Japan reluctantly signed the Treaty of Amity and Commerce, an
unequal treaty giving the United States various commercial and
diplomatic privileges.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Amity_and_Commerce_(United_States%E2%80%93Japan)>
1899:
The first Hague Convention, among the first formal statements
of the laws of war and war crimes in international law, was signed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Conventions_of_1899_and_1907>
1958:
US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the National
Aeronautics and Space Act into law, establishing a new federal non-
military space agency known as NASA.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA>
1987:
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.
R. Jayewardene signed the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord in an ultimately
unsuccessful attempt to resolve the ongoing Sri Lankan Civil War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Sri_Lanka_Accord>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
platypusary:
A place where platypuses are nurtured.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/platypusary>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Whether or not it was a coincidence, Jurgen met precisely the
vampire of whom he had inveigled his father into thinking. She was the
most seductively beautiful creature that it would be possible for
Jurgen's father or any other man to imagine: and her clothes were
orange-colored, for a reason sufficiently well known in Hell, and were
embroidered everywhere with green fig–leaves. "A good morning to you,
madame," says Jurgen, "and whither are you going?" "Why, to no place
at
all, good youth. For this is my vacation, granted yearly by the Law of
Kalki —" "And who is Kalki, madame?" "Nobody as yet: but he will come
as a stallion. Meanwhile his Law precedes him, so that I am spending my
vacation peacefully in Hell, with none of my ordinary annoyances to
bother me." "And what, madame, can they be?" "Why, you must
understand
that it is little rest a vampire gets on earth, with so many fine young
fellows like yourself going about everywhere eager to be destroyed."
--James Branch Cabell
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Branch_Cabell>