USS Lexington (CV-2) was an early aircraft carrier built for the United States Navy during the 1920s. Originally designed as a battlecruiser, she was converted into an aircraft carrier during construction to comply with the terms of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. Lexington was at sea when the Pacific War began in 1941, ferrying fighter aircraft to Midway Island. She was sent to the Coral Sea in February 1942 to block any Japanese advances into the area. Together with the carrier Yorktown, she successfully attacked Japanese shipping off the east coast of New Guinea in early March. Lexington rendezvoused with Yorktown in the Coral Sea in early May. A few days later the Japanese began Operation MO, the invasion of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, and the two American carriers attempted to stop the invasion. Aircraft from Lexington and Yorktown succeeded in badly damaging the carrier Shōkaku, but Japanese aircraft crippled Lexington. Vapors from leaking aviation gasoline tanks sparked a series of explosions and fires that could not be controlled, and the carrier had to be scuttled by an American destroyer during the evening of 8 May to prevent her capture.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Lexington_(CV-2)

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1918:

World War I: Following his armed forces' defeat to the Allied Powers, Bulgarian Tsar Ferdinand I abdicated in favor of his son Boris III (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_III_of_Bulgaria

1935:

Italian forces under General Emilio De Bono invaded Abyssinia during the opening stages of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bono%27s_invasion_of_Abyssinia

1963:

Oswaldo López Arellano replaced Honduran President Ramón Villeda Morales in a violent coup and initiated two decades of military rule. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

1993:

American armed forces attempted to capture officials of Somalian warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid's organization at the Battle of Mogadishu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mogadishu_(1993)

2003:

Roy Horn of the American entertainment duo of Siegfried & Roy was mauled by a tiger during a performance at The Mirage hotel and casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_%26_Roy

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

unitive: Causing or characterized by unity or union. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unitive

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

We have no elected government, nor are we likely to have one, so I address you with no greater authority than that with which liberty itself always speaks. I declare the global social space we are building to be naturally independent of the tyrannies you seek to impose on us. You have no moral right to rule us nor do you possess any methods of enforcement we have true reason to fear. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. You have neither solicited nor received ours. We did not invite you. You do not know us, nor do you know our world. Cyberspace does not lie within your borders.   --John Perry Barlow https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Perry_Barlow