The Battle of the Coral Sea (4–8 May 1942) was the first battle of World War II in which the Allies were able to stop a major advance of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Japanese forces, including two fleet carriers and a light carrier, had orders to invade and occupy Port Moresby in New Guinea and Tulagi in the southeastern Solomon Islands. The US intercepted their communications, and sent two carrier task forces and a joint Australian–American cruiser force to stop them. On 3–4 May Japanese forces took Tulagi, although several of their supporting warships were sunk or damaged by aircraft from the US carrier Yorktown. On 7–8 May the opposing carrier forces exchanged airstrikes in the Coral Sea. Yorktown was damaged, and the USS Lexington was scuttled (explosion pictured). After the loss of the Japanese carrier Shōhō and heavy damage to Shōkaku, the Port Moresby invasion was scrapped, and never reattempted. The Japanese losses led to a greater loss a month later at the Battle of Midway, where all four of their large aircraft carriers were sunk. Two months later, the Allies launched the Guadalcanal Campaign, hastening Japan's ejection from the South Pacific.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1493:

Pope Alexander VI issued the papal bull Inter caetera, establishing a line of demarcation dividing the New World between Spain and Portugal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter_caetera

1776:

The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations became the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_of_Rhode_Island_and_Providence_Plantations

1886:

An unknown assailant threw a bomb into a crowd of police, turning a peaceful labor rally in Chicago into the Haymarket massacre, which resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four bystanders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair

1974:

An all-female Japanese team reached the summit of Manaslu in the Himalayas, becoming the first women to climb an 8,000-metre peak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manaslu

2015:

The Parliament of Malta moved from the Grandmaster's Palace to the purpose-built Parliament House. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House_(Malta)

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

lightsaber: (science fiction) A sword having a blade made of a powerful beam of light. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lightsaber

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

I do not agree with the extremists of either the left or the right, but I think they should be allowed to speak and to publish, both because they themselves have, and ought to have, rights, and once their rights are gone, the rights of the rest of us are hardly safe. Extremists typically want to squash not only those who disagree with them diametrically, but those who disagree with them at all. It seems to me that in every country where extremists of the left have gotten sufficiently in the saddle to squash the extremists of the right, they have ridden on to squash the center or terrorize it also. And the same goes for extremists of the right. I do not want that to happen in our country.   --Jane Jacobs https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jane_Jacobs