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From today's featured article

Schiff 50 (previously Zmaj) under attack in 1944

Zmaj was built in Germany as a seaplane tender for the Royal Yugoslav Navy between 1928 and 1930, and converted to a minelayer in 1937. During the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, she was slightly damaged by Italian dive bombers. Captured by the Italians, she was handed over to the Germans who renamed her Drache. She was used as a seaplane tender and later as a troop transport. In mid-1942 she was rebuilt as a minelayer with improved anti-aircraft armament, renamed Schiff 50, and then used to evaluate the shipboard use of helicopters for anti-submarine warfare and mine reconnaissance. She continued to be used as both a troop transport and minelayer, laying several minefields in the Aegean Sea. A minefield she laid in the Dodecanese in 1943 sank one British submarine and two Allied destroyers, and badly damaged a third. Sunk by British aircraft on 22 September 1944 while in port (pictured), she was scrapped in place after World War II. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.)

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Did you know ...

Ruby Diamond

... that prominent Florida State University benefactor Ruby Diamond (pictured) had the middle name Pearl?
... that the slogan "One Nation, One Language" has been used to justify the imposition of Hindi?
... that Swedish naval officer Axel Lagerbielke was imprisoned in Lima for over a year, held in Callao and eventually escaped from Panama on an English packet boat to Jamaica?
... that the title of Olivia Rodrigo's song "All-American Bitch" was derived from an essay by Joan Didion?
... that attending the 1984 Summer Olympics inspired Bob Barney to establish an institution to research the Olympic Games?
... that CBS executive Laurence Tisch found out on a tennis court in the U.S. Virgin Islands that rival network NBC had bought his company's affiliate station in Miami?
... that Mihai Eminescu's poem "Out of All the Masts", which Eminescu himself never intended to publish, has won posthumous praise as a "perfect combination of words"?
... that Saunders Island has a lava lake and is populated by penguins?

In the news

Evika Siliņa

A ceasefire is announced following Azerbaijan's military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Canada accuses India of killing Sikh separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada, causing a diplomatic crisis.
Evika Siliņa (pictured) takes office as Prime Minister of Latvia.
In Hanoi, Vietnam, a fire at an apartment building kills at least 56 people.

On this day

September 22

François Duvalier

1236 – Livonian Crusade: The Livonian Brothers of the Sword were soundly defeated by pagan Samogitian and Semigallian troops at the Battle of Saule.
1789 – The office of United States Postmaster General was formally established.
1957 – François Duvalier (pictured), nicknamed Papa Doc, was elected President of Haiti as a populist before consolidating power and ruling as a dictator for the rest of his life.
2003 – Dolphin, the first emulator for the GameCube that could run commercial video games, was released.
2013 – Insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, was attacked by two suicide bombers who killed 127 people.

Ibn Khallikan (b. 1211)
Louise McKinney (b. 1868)
Ice Box Chamberlain (d. 1929)
Florence Merriam Bailey (d. 1948)

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From today's featured list

Kylie Minogue

Australian singer and actress Kylie Minogue has received various awards and nominations. Aged nineteen, she became the youngest recipient of the Gold Logie Award, for her breakthrough role in the soap opera Neighbours as Charlene Robinson. Her songs – a cover of "The Loco-Motion" and "I Should Be So Lucky" – consecutively won the award for Highest Selling Single at the ARIA Music Awards of 1988 and of 1989. Minogue's eighth studio album, Fever, won her first Brit Award for International Album. Its lead single, "Can't Get You Out of My Head", garnered accolades for Single of the Year at the 2002 ARIA Music Awards and Edison Awards. "Come into My World" won the Grammy Award for Best Dance Recording in 2004 – the first time an Australian music artist had won in a major category since 1983. For her contribution to music, Minogue was appointed an officer of the Order of the British Empire and was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. (Full list...)

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Today's featured picture

The common buzzard (Buteo buteo) is a bird of prey in the family Accipitridae. The species lives in most of Europe and extends its breeding range across much of the Palearctic as far as northwestern China (the Tian Shan), far western Siberia, and northwestern Mongolia. It is a year-round resident over much of its range. However, buzzards from the colder parts of the Northern Hemisphere as well as those that breed in the eastern part of their range typically migrate south for the northern winter, many journeying as far as South Africa. The common buzzard is an opportunistic predator that can take a wide variety of prey, but it feeds mostly on small mammals, especially rodents such as voles. It typically hunts from a perch. Like most accipitrid birds of prey, the common buzzard builds a nest and has a relatively small brood of young. It appears to be the most common diurnal raptor in Europe; estimates of its total global population run well into the millions. This steppe buzzard (of the subspecies B. b. vulpinus) was photographed in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

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