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From today's featured article

Shinano was an aircraft carrier built by the
Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II,
the largest one built up to that time. Laid
down in May 1940 as the third of the
Yamato-class battleships, the ship's partially complete hull was
ordered to be converted to a carrier following Japan's disastrous loss
of four fleet carriers at the Battle of Midway in mid-1942. Her
conversion was still incomplete in November 1944 when she was
ordered to sail from the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal to Kure Naval Base
to complete her fitting out and to transfer a load of 50 Yokosuka
MXY7 Ohka rocket-propelled kamikaze flying bombs. Hastily
dispatched with an inexperienced crew and serious design and
construction flaws, the ship had inadequate pumps, no fire-control
systems, and no carrier aircraft. She was sunk en route, just 10 days
after commissioning, on 29 November 1944, by four torpedoes from
the US Navy submarine Archerfish. Over a thousand sailors and
civilians were rescued, but some 1,435 were lost, including her
captain. She remains the largest warship ever sunk by a submarine.
(Full article...)
Part of the Yamato-class battleships series, one of Wikipedia's
featured topics.
Recently featured: Hu Zhengyan John Lloyd Waddy
Hurricane Gert (1993)

Did you know...

... that the fossil fly Elephantomyia
bozenae (pictured) was described from a
single male preserved in amber?
... that despite reports to the contrary,
Justice James Edelman is not the
youngest person to be appointed to the
Supreme Court of Western Australia?
E. bozenae male
... that the word "kissing" was altered in
the song "Don't Say You Love Me" as it
was considered inappropriate for the Pokmon: The First
Movie soundtrack?
... that Vavro robr was the only Slovak to sign the
Czechoslovak proclamation of independence?
... that naturalist Edward Frederick Kelaart observed the heart
of Elysia grandifolia beating in its back?
... that Egypt's Mohamed Nagy was the recipient of the
golden prize of the Salon du Paris for his "Egypt Renaissance"?
... that Pennsylvania's North Branch Shamokin Creek is too
acidic to support aquatic life?

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In the news
Takaaki Kajita and Arthur
B. McDonald are awarded
the Nobel Prize in Physics
for their discovery of
neutrino oscillations.
Twelve Pacific Rim states
TPP leaders in 2010
(leaders in 2010 pictured),
amounting to about 40% of the world's GDP,
reach an agreement on the Trans-Pacific
Partnership.
William C. Campbell, Satoshi mura, and Tu
Youyou are awarded the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of
novel treatments against parasites.
Hurricane Joaquin and a nor'easter produce
flooding in the Bahamas and southeastern U.S.,
causing an estimated 50 deaths.
Ongoing events: Russian military intervention in
Syria Southeast Asian haze European migrant
crisis
Recent deaths: Henning Mankell Denis Healey

On this day...
October 8: Independence Day in Croatia (1991)
1200 Isabella of Angoulme
was crowned queen consort of
England at the age of twelve,
after having married King John
two weeks earlier.
1871 Four large fires broke
out in the United States,
including the Great Chicago
Gustav Mahler
Fire and the Peshtigo Fire in
Wisconsin, the latter being the deadliest in U.S.
history.
1897 Composer Gustav Mahler (pictured) was
appointed the director of the Vienna Court Opera.
1932 The Indian Air Force was founded as an
auxiliary air force of the Indian Empire.
1962 Newsmagazine Der Spiegel revealed the
unpreparedness of the West German armed forces
against the communist threat from the east, and
was accused of treason shortly afterwards.
More anniversaries: October 7 October 8

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... that all four sons of biologist Angus M. Woodbury earned

PhDs in biology, and both of his daughters married biologists?

October 9

Today's featured picture

Bernhard Hoetger's 1936 relief Lichtbringer at the entrance to

Bttcherstrae, a street in the historic centre of Bremen, Germany.
The artist and his patron, Ludwig Roselius, intended to promote a Nazi
worldview and to glorify the victory of Adolf Hitler "over the powers
of darkness", but Hitler's reaction was negative.
Relief: Bernhard Hoetger; Photograph: Andrew Shiva

Recently featured: Calocoris affinis Guildhall, London Irises

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