Hyūga was the second of two Ise-class battleships built for the Imperial Japanese Navy during the 1910s. The battleship supported Japanese forces in the early 1920s during the Siberian intervention in the Russian Civil War, and assisted survivors of the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923. The ship was partially modernised between 1927 and 1932 and rebuilt in the pagoda mast style, with further improvements in 1934–1936. Hyūga played a minor role in the Second Sino-Japanese War, but was considered obsolete by the eve of the Pacific War. Following the loss of most of the navy's large aircraft carriers during the Battle of Midway in mid-1942, the battleship was rebuilt with a flight deck, but lacked aircraft and qualified pilots throughout the war. In late 1944 the ship helped to decoy an American carrier fleet away from the landing beaches at Leyte. Hyūga was sunk during American airstrikes in July 1945. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Japan.). Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Battleships_of_Japan> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1820: A Russian expedition led by naval officers Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev became the first explorers to sight the coast of Antarctica. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica> 1945: The Soviet Red Army liberated about 7,000 prisoners left behind by the Nazis in Auschwitz concentration camp (entrance pictured), in present-day Oświęcim, Poland. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp> 1980: Assisted by Canadian government officials, six American diplomats who had avoided capture in the Iran hostage crisis escaped to Zürich, Switzerland. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Caper> 2010: Porfirio Lobo Sosa became the new President of Honduras, ending the constitutional crisis that had begun in 2009 when Manuel Zelaya was forcibly removed from office. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Honduran_constitutional_crisis> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: looking glass: 1. A piece of glass with a reflective surface that one may look into to see an image of oneself; a mirror. 2. A way into a bizarre world. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/looking_glass> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:   When I was young, my mindset was image, image, image. I took that approach with the media. As I became more experienced I realized: No matter what, people are going to like you or not like you. So be authentic, and let them like you or not for who you actually are. At that point, I started keeping all of my answers blunt and straightforward. I would mix in some humor and sarcasm, too. I think fans and reporters came to appreciate that, came to appreciate the real me.   --Kobe Bryant <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kobe_Bryant>