Ryūjō ("Prancing Dragon") was a light aircraft carrier built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during the early 1930s. Small and lightly built in an attempt to exploit a loophole in the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922, she proved to be top-heavy and only marginally stable, and was back in the shipyard for modifications within a year of completion. With her stability improved, Ryūjō returned to service and was employed in operations during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During World War II, she provided air support for operations in the Philippines, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies, where her aircraft participated in the Second Battle of the Java Sea. During the Indian Ocean raid in April 1942, the carrier attacked British merchant shipping with both her guns and her aircraft. Ryūjō participated in the Battle of the Aleutian Islands in June. She was sunk by American carrier aircraft at the Battle of the Eastern Solomons on 24 August 1942.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_Ry%C5%ABj%C5%8D

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

216 BC:

Second Punic War: Outnumbered Carthaginian forces led by Hannibal defeated a Roman army, near the town of Cannae, Apulia, in southeast Italy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae

1916:

An explosion, blamed on Austro-Hungarian saboteurs, sank the Italian dreadnought Leonardo da Vinci. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_battleship_Leonardo_da_Vinci

1939:

Leo Szilard wrote a letter, signed by Albert Einstein and addressed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, warning that Germany may develop atomic bombs, leading to the U.S. establishing the Manhattan Project. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein%E2%80%93Szil%C3%A1rd_letter

1989:

Sri Lankan Civil War: The Indian Peace Keeping Force began a massacre that led to the deaths of 64 minority Sri Lankan Tamil civilians over a two-day period in Valvettithurai, Sri Lanka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Valvettiturai_massacre

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

hello girl: (telephony, informal, dated) A female telephone operator. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hello_girl

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

They are not long, the days of wine and roses; Out of a misty dream Our path emerges for a while, then closes Within a dream.   --Ernest Dowson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ernest_Dowson