The Battle of Cape Esperance took place on 11–12 October 1942 between the Imperial Japanese Navy and U.S. Navy in the Pacific campaign of World War II. The second major surface engagement of the Guadalcanal Campaign, it took place at the entrance to the strait between Savo Island and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese sent a major supply and reinforcement convoy to their forces on Guadalcanal. At the same time, five warships (under the command of Rear Admiral Aritomo Gotō) were to bombard the Allied airfield on Guadalcanal. Shortly before midnight on 11 October, the Americans surprised Gotō's force, sinking two warships and heavily damaging another (Japanese cruiser Aoba, pictured). Gotō was mortally wounded and his other warships were forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the Japanese supply convoy unloaded and began its return journey without being discovered; four of its destroyers turned back to assist Gotō's retreating warships, but U.S. aircraft sank two of them. The battle did not give either navy operational control of the waters around Guadalcanal, but it provided a significant morale boost to the U.S. Navy after its heavy losses at the earlier Battle of Savo Island.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1142:

The Treaty of Shaoxing, ending the Jurchen campaigns against the Song Dynasty, was formally ratified when a Jin envoy visited the Southern Song court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin%E2%80%93Song_Wars

1634:

A storm tide on the coast of North Frisia caused a massive flood that killed at least 8,000 people and split the island of Strand into three smaller islands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burchardi_flood

1797:

French Revolutionary Wars: The Royal Navy captured eleven Dutch Navy ships without any losses in the Battle of Camperdown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Camperdown

1941:

Armed insurgents from the People's Liberation Army of Macedonia attacked Axis-occupied zones in the city of Prilep, beginning the National Liberation War of Macedonia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_in_Yugoslav_Macedonia

1962:

Pope John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council, the first Roman Catholic ecumenical council in 92 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vatican_Council

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

microcosm: 1. A smaller system which is representative of or analogous to a larger one. 2. A small natural ecosystem; an artificial ecosystem set up as an experimental model. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/microcosm

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." ... You must do the thing you think you cannot do.   --Eleanor Roosevelt https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Eleanor_Roosevelt