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From the day after tomorrow's featured article

A British Chariot manned torpedo

Operation Title was an unsuccessful Allied attack on the German battleship Tirpitz during World War II. The Allies considered Tirpitz to be a major threat to their shipping and after several Royal Air Force heavy bomber raids failed to inflict any damage it was decided to use Royal Navy midget submarines instead. Operation Title involved a pair of two-man British Chariots which were transported to Norway on board a small boat named Arthur. Both Chariots were lost when bad weather caused them to detach from Arthur on 31 October. It was not possible for the Allied boat to reach the sea due to German security measures, and Arthur was scuttled. The Allied personnel attempted to escape overland and all but one reached neutral Sweden on 5 November. The other – a British serviceman – was taken prisoner by German forces and murdered on 19 January 1943. Tirpitz was eventually sunk by another bomber raid on 12 November 1944. (Full article...)

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Did you know ...

Erik Sparre

... that Erik Sparre (pictured) is known as "the father of Swedish constitutional law"?
... that writer and artist Jim Steranko was given authorship of "The Strange Death of Captain America" in part to resolve a dispute between himself and Stan Lee?
... that Jan Klán, as a pilot in the Groupe de Chasse II/5, became the first Czech to achieve an aerial victory against the Luftwaffe while flying the Hawk 75?
... that Bruce Conner's Cosmic Ray has been recognized as the first music video?
... that before becoming a voice actor, Kikunosuke Toya was the keyboardist of an all-male Princess Princess cover band in high school?
... that there were 583 sitdown strikes in the United States from 1936 to 1939, affecting more than half a million workers?
... that Triton, a moon of Neptune, has thin clouds that are likely made of nitrogen ice crystals?
... that Jake Bates's first in-game field goal was the second-longest in professional football history?
... that all sea lions in Otago descend from Mum?

In the news (For today)

Aurora australis seen from Melbourne, Australia

A series of solar storms impact Earth, creating aurorae (pictured) seen further from the poles than usual.
Former prime minister of Fiji Frank Bainimarama is sentenced to one year in prison for attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Mahamat Déby is declared the winner of the Chadian presidential election.
Flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, leaves more than 110 people dead and at least 140 others missing.
Kyren Wilson wins the World Snooker Championship.

In two days

May 15: Feast day of Saint Carthage (Catholicism); Nakba Day in Palestinian communities

Statue of Valentinian II

392 – Roman emperor Valentinian II (pictured) was found hanged in his residence in Vienne, in present-day France.
1855 – Thieves stole 224 pounds (102 kg) of gold from a train travelling from London to Folkestone, England.
1864 – American Civil War: A small Confederate force, which included cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, forced the Union Army out of the Shenandoah Valley.
1904 – Russo-Japanese War: The Japanese battleships Hatsuse and Yashima sank after striking several mines off Port Arthur, China.
1916 – Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas.

Hilary of Galeata (d. 558)
Emily Dickinson (d. 1886)
K. M. Cariappa (d. 1993)

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Featured picture (Check back later for the day after tomorrow's.)

The Tarantula Nebula, also known as 30 Doradus, is a large H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). It is one of the largest H II regions in the Local Group, with an estimated diameter around 650 to 1860 light years. It is around 160,000 light-years from Earth and has apparent magnitude of 8. The Tarantula Nebula was first observed by Nicolas-Louis de Lacaille during an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope between 1751 and 1753. This high-resolution photograph was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the star-forming region of Tarantula Nebula with the R136 super star cluster at its center.

Photograph credit: NASA, ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute

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