Navy. Launched in 1786, she served mostly on blockades or convoy escort
duties. Known to sailors as the "Billy Ruffian", she entered service on
the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars, and took part in the
Glorious First of June fleet action in 1793. Bellerophon narrowly
escaped being captured by the French in 1795, saved only by the bold
actions of the squadron's commander, Vice-Admiral Cornwallis. Detached
to reinforce Rear-Admiral Nelson's fleet in 1798 under Admiral Jervis,
she took part in the decisive defeat of a French fleet at the Battle of
the Nile. At the Battle of Trafalgar Bellerophon fought a bitter
engagement against Spanish and French ships, sustaining heavy casualties
including the death of her captain, John Cooke. In July 1815, when
Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and found escape to America barred by
the blockading Bellerophon, he came aboard "the ship that had dogged his
steps for twenty years" to finally surrender to the British, ending 22
years of nearly continuous war with France. The ship's long and
distinguished career has been recorded in literature and folk songs.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Bellerophon_(1786)>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1616:
Nicolaus Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelestium,
describing his heliocentric theory of the Solar System, was prohibited
by the Roman Catholic Church.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_revolutionibus_orbium_coelestium>
1770:
British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, Massachusetts,
killing five civilians.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre>
1824:
The First Anglo-Burmese War, the longest and most expensive war
in British Indian history, began.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Burmese_War>
1960:
Cuban photographer Alberto Korda took his iconic photograph of
Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerrillero_Heroico>
1975:
Computer hackers in Silicon Valley held the first meeting of
the Homebrew Computer Club, whose members would go on to have great
influence on the development of the personal computer.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homebrew_Computer_Club>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
Tinker to Evers to Chance:
(US, idiomatic) A task accomplished quickly by well-executed teamwork;
those involved in the teamwork.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tinker_to_Evers_to_Chance>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
Without general elections, without freedom of the press, freedom
of speech, freedom of assembly, without the free battle of opinions,
life in every public institution withers away, becomes a caricature of
itself, and bureaucracy rises as the only deciding factor.
--Rosa Luxemburg
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rosa_Luxemburg>
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