Skipper Thomas Crisp (28 April 1876 – 15 August 1917) was a posthumous recipient of the Victoria Cross. A commercial fisherman operating from Lowestoft in Suffolk, England, Crisp joined the Royal Navy in 1915. He was killed in the North Sea defending his armed naval vessel, His Majesty's Smack Nelson, against an attack from a German submarine. The government used his self-sacrifice against long odds to bolster morale in the First World War during a difficult time for Britain, the summer and autumn of 1917, when the country was suffering heavy losses in the Battle of Passchendaele. His exploit was read aloud by David Lloyd George in the House of Commons and made headline news for nearly a week. After the war, a small display to his memory was set up in a Lowestoft library with parts of the sunken Nelson, which were dredged up years later, and a specially commissioned painting. This display was destroyed during the Second World War when the building was gutted in the Blitz.

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

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1887:

A week after being arrested by the Prussian Secret Police, French police inspector Guillaume Schnaebelé was released on the order of William I, the German Emperor, defusing a possible war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillaume_Schnaebel%C3%A9

1949:

Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, her daughter, and ten others were assassinated by the military arm of the Philippine Communist Party. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Quezon

1973:

The album The Dark Side of the Moon by the British progressive rock band Pink Floyd entered the Billboard Top LPs & Tape chart, on which it spent a record 942 weeks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Side_of_the_Moon

1999:

A 14-year-old former student in Taber, Alberta, walked into his high school and opened fire, killing one student and wounding another in Canada's first fatal school shooting in more than two decades. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._R._Myers_High_School_shooting

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

philopolemic: 1. (rare) Exalting or supporting conflict or war. 2. (rare) Fond of polemics or controversy. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/philopolemic

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

This is the school, isn't it. The magic place? The world. Here. And you don't realize it until you look. Do you know the pictsies think this world is heaven? We just don't look.   --The Wee Free Men https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Discworld#The_Wee_Free_Men_%282003%29