HMS Indefatigable was a battlecruiser of the Royal Navy and the lead ship of her class. Her keel was laid down in 1909 and she was commissioned on 24 February 1911. When the First World War began, the ship was serving with the 2nd Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS) in the Mediterranean, where she unsuccessfully pursued the battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau of the German Imperial Navy as they fled towards the Ottoman Empire. The ship bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914, then, following a refit in Malta, returned to the United Kingdom. Indefatigable was sunk on 31 May 1916 during the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of the war. Part of Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty's Battlecruiser Fleet, she was hit several times in the first minutes of the "Run to the South", the opening phase of the battlecruiser action. Shells from the German battlecruiser Von der Tann caused an explosion ripping a hole in her hull, and a second explosion hurled large pieces of the ship 200 feet (61 m) in the air. Only three of the crew of 1,017 survived.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Indefatigable_%281909%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1607:

Italian composer Claudio Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, considered the first fully developed opera, was first performed in Mantua (now in modern Italy). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Orfeo

1822:

The first Swaminarayan temple, Swaminarayan Mandir in present-day Ahmedabad, India, was inaugurated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shri_Swaminarayan_Mandir%2C_Ahmedabad

1826:

The Treaty of Yandabo was signed, ending the First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and most expensive war in the history of the British Raj. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Yandabo

1944:

World War II: The United States Army long-range penetration special operations unit known as Merrill's Marauders began a 1000-mile (1600 km) march over the Patkai region of the Himalayas and into the Burmese jungle behind Japanese lines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrill%27s_Marauders

2006:

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo declared a state of emergency in an attempt to subdue a possible military coup. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_state_of_emergency_in_the_Philippines

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

dystrophy (n): A wasting of body tissues, of genetic origin or due to inadequate or defective nutrition http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dystrophy

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it. --George A. Moore http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_A._Moore