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Drawing of a Helgoland-class battleship

SMS Oldenburg was the fourth Helgoland-class battleship of the Imperial German Navy. Built between 1909 and 1912 at the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Danzig, Oldenburg was assigned to I Battle Squadron of the High Seas Fleet for most of her career, including World War I. Oldenburg participated in all of the major fleet operations during the conflict against the British Grand Fleet, including the Battle of Jutland on 31 May and 1 June 1916, the largest naval battle of the war. The ship also saw action in the Baltic Sea against the Imperial Russian Navy. After the German collapse in November 1918, most of the High Seas Fleet was interned and then scuttled in Scapa Flow during the peace negotiations. The four Helgoland-class ships remained in Germany but were ceded to the Allied powers as war reparations; Oldenburg was given to Japan, which sold the vessel to a British ship-breaking firm in 1920. She was scrapped in Dordrecht in 1921. (This article is part of a featured topic: Battleships of Germany.)

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Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk and peace activist Thích Nhất Hạnh dies at the age of 95.

On this day

February 1: Feast day of Saint Brigid of Kildare (Western Christianity); the Fajr decade begins in Iran; Black History Month begins in North America

Skyline of Kuala Lumpur

1327 – Fourteen-year-old Edward III was crowned King of England, but with the country ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
1662 – Sino-Dutch conflicts: The Dutch East India Company's rule in Taiwan ended after a siege by the Ming loyalist Koxinga, who established the Kingdom of Tungning on the island.
1942 – Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States federal government, began broadcasting with programs aimed at Axis-controlled areas during World War II.
1972 – Kuala Lumpur (pictured), the capital of Malaysia, became the first settlement in the country to be granted city status since independence.
2012 – Following an Egyptian Premier League match in Port Said, Al Masry fans rioted and violently attacked Al Ahly supporters, resulting in 74 deaths.

Alexios I of Trebizond (d. 1222)
Clara Butt (b. 1872)
Hassan Al-Turabi (b. 1932)

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Today's featured picture

Valerie Thomas (born 1943) is an American scientist and inventor. She invented the illusion transmitter, for which she received a patent in 1980, and was responsible for developing digital image processing systems used in the early years of the Landsat program, a satellite-imagery program run by NASA and the United States Geological Survey. This photograph, taken in 1979, depicts Thomas standing next to a stack of early Landsat computer compatible tapes.

Photograph credit: NASA; restored by Adam Cuerden

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