SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was a German pre-dreadnought battleship
of the Kaiser Friedrich III class, built as part of a program of naval
expansion under Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was laid down in January 1898,
launched in June 1899, and completed in May 1901, and was armed with a
main battery of four 24-centimeter (9.4 in) guns in two twin gun
turrets. The vessel served in the Home Fleet and later the High Seas
Fleet for the first seven years of her career, participating in training
cruises and maneuvers. Placed in reserve in 1910, the battleship was
returned to active service in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I,
tasked with coastal defense in the North Sea. The ship was deployed
briefly to the Baltic but saw no action. In 1915, Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse was again withdrawn from service and relegated to secondary
duties as a depot ship in Kiel and then a torpedo target ship. The
vessel was sold for scrapping and broken up in 1920. (This article is
part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.).
Read more:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_topics/Battleships_of_Germany>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1831:
British naval officer and explorer James Clark Ross (portrait
shown) successfully led the first expedition to reach the North Magnetic
Pole.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clark_Ross>
1868:
The Navajo and the U.S. government signed an agreement,
allowing those interned at Fort Sumner to return to their ancestral
lands.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Bosque_Redondo>
1988:
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty came into effect,
banning all American and Soviet land-based missiles with a range of 500
to 5,500 km (310 to 3,420 mi).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty>
2015:
China's worst peacetime maritime disaster occurred when the
cruise ship Dongfang zhi Xing capsized in the Yangtze, resulting in 442
deaths.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_Dongfang_zhi_Xing>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
oxishly:
(rare) In a manner like that of an ox.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oxishly>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The invention of gunpowder and the constant improvement of
firearms are enough in themselves to show that the advance of
civilization has done nothing practical to alter or deflect the impulse
to destroy the enemy, which is central to the very idea of war.
--Carl von Clausewitz
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz>
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