Sava was a river monitor, originally built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy as SMS Bodrog. She and two other monitors fired the first shots of World War I in the early hours of 29 July 1914, when they shelled Serbian defences near Belgrade. During the war, she fought the Serbian and Romanian armies, and was captured in its closing stages. She was transferred to the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia), and renamed Sava. During the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, she fought off several air attacks, but was scuttled on 11 April. Sava was later raised by the Axis puppet state, the Independent State of Croatia, and continued to serve under that name until 1944 when she was again scuttled. Following World War II, Sava was raised again, and was refurbished to serve in the Yugoslav Navy from 1952 to 1962. She became a gravel barge after that, but was restored and opened as a floating museum in November 2021.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_monitor_Sava

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1693:

Nine Years' War: French troops defeated the forces of the Grand Alliance led by William III of England at the Battle of Landen in present-day Neerwinden, Belgium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Landen

1818:

French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel submitted a memoir on the diffraction of light to the Royal Academy of Sciences, providing strong support for the wave theory of light. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Jean_Fresnel

1914:

The Cape Cod Canal, connecting Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, opened on a limited basis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Cod_Canal

1954:

The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of J. R. R. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, was published by Allen & Unwin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

racemate: 1. A mixture which is racemic (“containing equal amounts of dextrorotatory and levorotatory stereoisomers and therefore not optically active”). 2. (archaic) Any ester or salt of racemic acid. 3. (chiefly sports) One participating in the same race as others. [...] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/racemate

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

It is when we all play safe that we create a world of utmost insecurity. It is when we all play safe that fatality will lead us to our doom. It is in the "dark shade of courage" alone that the spell can be broken.   --Dag Hammarskjöld https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld