Today's featured article
|
!["Battle of Lissa, 13 March 1811", engraving by Henri Merke](http://web.archive.org./web/20101017050844im_/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/50/Battle_of_Lissa.jpg/100px-Battle_of_Lissa.jpg)
The Battle of Lissa was a naval action fought between a British frigate squadron and a substantially larger squadron of French and Venetian frigates and smaller ships on 13 March 1811 during the Adriatic campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. The engagement was fought in the Adriatic Sea for possession of the strategically important island of Lissa (later renamed Vis), from which the British squadron had been disrupting French shipping in the Adriatic. The French needed to control the Adriatic to supply a growing army in the Illyrian Provinces, and consequently despatched an invasion force in March 1811 consisting of six frigates, numerous smaller craft and a battalion of Italian soldiers. The French invasion force under Bernard Dubourdieu was met by Captain William Hoste and his four ships based on the island. In the subsequent battle Hoste sank the French flagship, captured two others and scattered the remainder of the Franco-Venetian squadron. The battle has been hailed as an important British victory, due to both the disparity between the forces and the signal raised by Hoste, a former subordinate of Horatio Nelson. Hoste had raised the message "Remember Nelson" as the French bore down and had then manoeuvred to drive Dubourdieu's flagship ashore and scatter his squadron in what has been described as "one of the most brilliant naval achievements of the war". (more...)
Recently featured: 1910 Cuba hurricane – L'Orfeo – The Judd School
|
Did you know...
|
From Wikipedia's newest articles:
![Medieval miniature of a fortified city in the centre, attacked on both sides](http://web.archive.org./web/20101017050844im_/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Siege_of_Amorium.jpg/120px-Siege_of_Amorium.jpg)
- ... that the Sack of Amorium (pictured) in 838 by the Abbasids discredited Byzantine Iconoclasm and led to the restoration of the veneration of icons?
- ... that Papua New Guinean Anglican archbishop Sir George Ambo was "the first South Pacific native to be made a bishop", in 1960?
- ... that Robert Levin reconstructed for the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage missing parts of Ach! ich sehe, itzt, da ich zur Hochzeit gehe, BWV 162?
- ... that the 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) wave pool at Hyderabad's Jalavihar, which is the largest in India, can accommodate about 1,000 people at a time?
- ... that, during the 2010 Winter Olympics, Stephen Colbert visited Pride House Vancouver, which is located in the LGBT community centre Qmunity?
- ... that English photographer Greg Williams used a high-resolution video camera to create a photograph of Megan Fox for the cover of Esquire magazine?
- ... that Lake Sausacocha in Peru is one of the rare Andean lakes with acidic waters?
- ... that professional wrestler and Maori Anglican Church member Ike Robin was once said to be "so absorbed in his preaching that he failed to notice that the congregation comprised only his dog"?
- ... that during the 16th century, St Peter and St Paul's Church, Preston Deanery, Northamptonshire, was used as a dog kennel and a pigeon house?
|
|
|
In the news
|
- Mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, known for his work with fractals (Mandelbrot set pictured), dies at the age of 85.
- After 14 years of construction, the drilling of the world's longest transport tunnel, the Gotthard Base Railway Tunnel through the Swiss Alps, is completed.
- The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization announces that it believes rinderpest has been eradicated, making it the second virus in history, after smallpox, to have been eliminated by humans.
- All 33 miners trapped for 10 weeks in the San José Mine in Copiapó, Chile, are rescued.
- A U.S. federal judge orders the Defense Department to stop enforcing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy prohibiting openly gay people from serving in the military.
- British author Howard Jacobson is awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Finkler Question.
|
On this day...
|
October 17: Vijayadashami (India and Nepal, 2010); International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
![Johannes Kepler](http://web.archive.org./web/20101017050844im_/http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6e/Johannes_Kepler_engraving.jpg/82px-Johannes_Kepler_engraving.jpg)
- 1448 – Ottoman wars in Europe: The Hungarian army led by John Hunyadi engaged an Ottoman army led by Sultan Murad II.
- 1604 – Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler (pictured) observed an exceptionally bright star which had suddenly appeared in the constellation Ophiuchus.
- 1860 – The Open Championship, the oldest of the four major championships in men's golf, was first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland.
- 1961 – In Paris, the French police under the Prefect of Police Maurice Papon attacked a peaceful but illegal demonstration of some 30,000 who were protesting the Algerian War, killing anywhere between 40 and 200 people.
- 1964 – Prime Minister of Australia Robert Menzies opened the artificial Lake Burley Griffin in the middle of the capital Canberra.
- 1989 – A 6.9 Mw earthquake struck California's San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,757, leaving at least 8,000 homeless, and forcing the postponement of Game 3 of Major League Baseball's World Series.
More anniversaries: October 16 – October 17 – October 18
|
|