USS Indiana was the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time. Authorized in 1890, she was launched on 28 February 1893 and commissioned on 20 November 1895. The ship pioneered the use of an intermediate battery. Indiana served in the Spanish–American War as part of the North Atlantic Squadron and took part in the blockade of Santiago de Cuba and the battle of Santiago de Cuba. After the war she became obsolete—despite several modernizations—and spent most of her time in commission as a training ship or in the reserve fleet, with her last commission during World War I as a training ship for gun crews. She was decommissioned for the third and final time in January 1919 and was shortly after renamed Coast Battleship Number 1 so that the name Indiana could be reused. She was sunk in shallow water as a target in aerial bombing tests in 1920 and her hull was sold for scrap in 1924.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Indiana_%28BB-1%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1897:

Ranavalona III, the last sovereign ruler of the Kingdom of Madagascar, was deposed by French military forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranavalona_III

1928:

Indian physicist C. V. Raman and his colleagues discovered what is now known as Raman scattering, for which he later became the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._V._Raman

1947:

Nationalist soldiers fired on protesters in Taipei (crowd pictured), triggering widespread uprisings and the violent suppression in the Taiwanese White Terror. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_28_incident

1975:

A London Underground train failed to stop at the terminal Moorgate station, crashing and causing the deaths of 43 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorgate_tube_crash

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

short twentieth century: 1. (history, specifically) The period between 1914 and 1991, from the beginning of World War I to the fall of the Soviet Union. 2. (history, generally) Any period of years defined by significant historical events falling within the 20th century (1 January 1901 to 31 December 2000). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/short_twentieth_century

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.   --Michel de Montaigne https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Michel_de_Montaigne