The Courageous class comprised three battlecruisers built for the Royal
Navy during World War I. Nominally designed to support Admiral of the
Fleet Lord John Fisher's Baltic Project, which was intended to land
troops on the German Baltic Coast, ships of this class were fast but
very lightly armoured with only a few heavy guns. To maximize their
speed, the Courageous-class battlecruisers were the first capital ships
of the Royal Navy to use geared steam turbines and small-tube boilers.
The first two ships, Courageous and Glorious, were commissioned in 1917
and spent the war patrolling the North Sea. Their half-sister Furious
was designed with a pair of 18-inch (457 mm) guns, the largest guns
ever fitted on a ship of the Royal Navy, but was modified during
construction to take a flying-off deck and hangar in lieu of her forward
gun turret and barbette. All three ships were laid up after the end of
the war and were rebuilt as aircraft carriers during the 1920s.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courageous_class_battlecruiser>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1867:
In Boston, Massachusetts, the Harvard School of Dental Medicine
was established as the first dental school in the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_School_of_Dental_Medicine>
1918:
The RMS Carpathia, which had rescued the survivors of the
RMS Titanic sinking, was itself sunk by a German U-boat.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Carpathia>
1945:
Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Harry S. Truman, leaders
of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States
respectively, met in Potsdam to decide what should be done with post-
World War II Germany.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potsdam_Conference>
1968:
Led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr (pictured), the Arab Socialist
Ba'ath Party overthrew Iraqi President Abdul Rahman Arif.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Hassan_al-Bakr>
2009:
Two suicide bombers detonated themselves at two separate hotels
in Jakarta, Indonesia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Jakarta_bombings>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
disconsolate:
1. Cheerless, dreary.
2. Seemingly beyond consolation; inconsolable.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/disconsolate>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech.
--Martin Farquhar Tupper
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Farquhar_Tupper>