The logistical support of INTERFET (International Force East Timor), a multinational peacekeeping mission in 1999 and 2000, involved 11,693 personnel from 23 countries. Led by Australia, it was the largest deployment of Australian forces overseas since the Vietnam War. INTERFET deployed to East Timor in September 1999. A base was established in Darwin, with supplies, equipment, stores and personnel stockpiled or staged there. East Timor possessed only one deepwater port, Dili, with a limited quayside depth, and only three airfields (heliport pictured). Troops were initially landed with a minimum of vehicles and supplies. Effective logistical support enabled INTERFET to carry out its mission without severe limitations, although there were some shortages. Over 90 per cent of the cargo and most of the passengers travelled by sea. Eleven nations contributed transport aircraft, which flew 3,400 sorties, carried 9,500 tonnes of cargo and transported more than 30,000 passengers.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTERFET_logistics
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1657:
Citizens of New Netherland presented the Flushing Remonstrance to Peter Stuyvesant, the director general, requesting an exemption to his ban on Quaker worship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Remonstrance
1831:
HMS Beagle departed Plymouth, England, on a voyage to South America that would make a name for Charles Darwin as a naturalist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_voyage_of_HMS_Beagle
1922:
The Imperial Japanese Navy commissioned Hōshō, the world's first purpose-built aircraft carrier. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_aircraft_carrier_H%C5%8Dsh%C5%8D
1985:
The body of murdered American primatologist Dian Fossey was discovered inside her cabin in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey
2007:
Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated while leaving a Pakistan Peoples Party political rally at Liaqat National Bagh in Rawalpindi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Benazir_Bhutto
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
golden touch: (idiomatic) Synonym of Midas touch (“the ability to achieve financial reward (or, more generally, success) easily and consistently”) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/golden_touch
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Owing to this struggle for life, any variation, however slight and from whatever cause proceeding, if it be in any degree profitable to an individual of any species, in its infinitely complex relations to other organic beings and to external nature, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and will generally be inherited by its offspring. The offspring, also, will thus have a better chance of surviving, for, of the many individuals of any species which are periodically born, but a small number can survive. I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection, in order to mark its relation to man's power of selection. --Charles Darwin https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
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