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Today's featured article

Beograd (right), Ljubljana's sister ship

Ljubljana was the third and last Beograd-class destroyer built for the Royal Yugoslav Navy in the late 1930s. She was designed to operate as part of a division led by Dubrovnik, the flotilla leader. Ljubljana entered service in November 1939, was armed with a main battery of four Škoda 120 mm (4.7 in) guns in single mounts, and had a top speed of 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph). In 1940, Ljubljana ran aground on a reef off the Yugoslav port of Šibenik, where, badly damaged, she was taken for repairs. Yugoslavia entered World War II when the Axis powers led by Germany invaded in April 1941, and Ljubljana—still under repair—was captured by the Royal Italian Navy. After repairs were completed, she saw active service in the Royal Italian Navy under the name Lubiana, mainly as a convoy escort on routes between Italy and North Africa. She was lost on 1 April 1943, when she ran aground and was abandoned off the Tunisian coast. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.)

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In the news

Maia Sandu

Maia Sandu (pictured) is re-elected President of Moldova.
In baseball, the Yokohama DeNA BayStars defeat the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks to win the Japan Series.
A canopy collapse at Serbia's Novi Sad railway station kills fourteen people.
The ruins of a Maya city, dubbed Valeriana, are discovered in Campeche, Mexico.

Today's featured picture

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900–1979) was a British-born American astronomer and astrophysicist who proposed in her 1925 doctoral thesis that stars were composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Her groundbreaking conclusion was initially rejected because it contradicted the scientific wisdom of the time, which held that there were no significant elemental differences between the Sun and Earth. Independent observations eventually proved she was correct. Her work on the nature of variable stars was foundational to modern astrophysics.

Photograph credit: Science Service; restored by Adam Cuerden

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Did you know...

Sana, vocalist of Sajou no Hana

... that the name of the Japanese band Sajou no Hana (vocalist pictured) has no official meaning?
... that From Warsaw to Ojców, an 1897 Polish adventure and travel novel for young readers, was inspired by Jules Verne's works but reflects Polish patriotic and educational values?
... that a portrait engraver made the controversial decision to change a Sioux chief's war bonnet so that it would fit on the 1899 United States five-dollar silver certificate?
... that Charli XCX once followed George Daniel into a toilet but stopped halfway, and later wrote the song "Talk Talk" about the experience?
... that Rose O'Neill's marriage to Hugh Roe O'Donnell united two powerful noble families that had been rivals for centuries?
... that the practice of some Christians of making the lesser sign of the cross has been traced back to the 11th century?
... that Frederick Prigg and his predecessor as secretary of the Provisional Government of Oregon were both doctors who drowned in a river at Oregon City just three years apart?
... that a rainbow plaque marks the site of Peckham's Black Lesbian and Gay Centre?
... that one of the paintings sold by Beijing Hanhai was stolen by an emperor, and another was hidden in a well?

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