Skipper Thomas Crisp (28 April 1876 – 15 August 1917) was a posthumous
recipient of the Victoria Cross. A commercial fisherman operating from
Lowestoft in Suffolk, England, Crisp joined the Royal Navy in 1915. He
was killed in the North Sea defending his armed naval vessel, His
Majesty's Smack Nelson, against an attack from a German submarine. The
government used his self-sacrifice against long odds to bolster morale
in the First World War during a difficult time for Britain, the summer
and autumn of 1917, when the country was suffering heavy losses in the
Battle of Passchendaele. His exploit was read aloud by David Lloyd
George in the House of Commons and made headline news for nearly a week.
After the war, a small display to his memory was set up in a Lowestoft
library with parts of the sunken Nelson, which were dredged up years
later, and a specially commissioned painting. This display was destroyed
during the Second World War when the building was gutted in the Blitz.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Crisp>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1887:
A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police,
French police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé was released on the order
of William I, the German Emperor, defusing a possible war.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Schnaebel%C3%A9>
1949:
Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, her
daughter, and ten others were assassinated by the military arm of the
Philippine Communist Party.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Quezon>
1973:
The album The Dark Side of the Moon by the British progressive
rock band Pink Floyd entered the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, on
which it spent a record 942 weeks.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon>
1999:
A 14-year-old former student in Taber, Alberta, walked into his
high school and opened fire, killing one student and wounding another in
Canada's first fatal school shooting in more than two decades.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._R._Myers_High_School_shooting>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
philopolemic:
1. (rare) Exalting or supporting conflict or war.
2. (rare) Fond of polemics or controversy.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/philopolemic>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
This is the school, isn't it. The magic place? The world. Here.
And you don't realize it until you look. Do you know the pictsies think
this world is heaven? We just don't look.
--The Wee Free Men
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Discworld#The_Wee_Free_Men_%282003%29>