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A battleship is a large, heavily-armored warship with a main battery consisting of the largest caliber of guns. They are larger, better-armed and better-armored than cruisers. The word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a shortened form of line of battle ship, the dominant warship in the Age of Sail. In 1906, HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, and for many years modern battleships were referred to as dreadnoughts. The global arms race in battleship construction in the early 1900s was a significant factor in the origins of World War I, which saw a clash of huge battlefleets at the Battle of Jutland. The construction of battleships was limited by the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s, but battleships both old and new were deployed during World War II. Despite this record, some historians and naval theorists question the value of the battleship. Aside from Jutland, there were few great battleship clashes. And despite their great firepower and protection, battleships remained vulnerable to much smaller, cheaper ordnance and craft: initially the torpedo and mine, and later aircraft and the guided missile. The growing range of engagement led to the battleship's replacement as the leading type of warship by the aircraft carrier during World War II, being retained into the Cold War only by the United States Navy for fire support purposes. These last battleships were removed from the U.S. Naval Vessel Register in March 2006. (more...)

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From Wikipedia's newest articles:

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...that Chapter XVI of the United Nations Charter declares that if there is a conflict between the Charter and any other treaty, the UN Charter will prevail?

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In the news

In a tunnel under the Newhall Pass interchange near Los Angeles, fifteen trucks collide, causing a fire that closes I-5 and disrupts transportation and the economy.
The Chinese government announces that four million people will be forced from their homes near the Three Gorges Dam because of a possible "environmental catastrophe".
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore (pictured) share the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Turkey recalls its ambassador to the United States, after the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs passes a resolution condemning the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire.
British writer Doris Lessing wins the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature.
A Soyuz-TMA spacecraft carrying Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, the first Malaysian astronaut, is launched for a mission to the International Space Station.

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On this day...

October 14: Teachers' Day in Poland.

1773 – The first recorded ministry of education, the Commission of National Education, was formed in Poland.
1806 – Battle of Jena-Auerstedt: French forces under Napoleon secure a decisive victory over the Prussians, effectively eliminating Prussia from the War of the Fourth Coalition after only nineteen days of fighting.
1926 – The first book featuring English author A. A. Milne's fictional bear Winnie-the-Pooh was first published.
1947 - Flying at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13.7 km) in an experimental Bell X-1 rocket-powered aircraft, American test pilot Chuck Yeager (pictured) became the first person to break the sound barrier.
1981 – Hosni Mubarak was elected President of Egypt, one week after Anwar Sadat was assassinated.

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Today's featured picture

Replica of a compass rose from the chart of Jorge de Aguiar (1492), the oldest known signed and dated Portuguese nautical chart. It is a 32 point compass rose, meaning that the lines that radiate from its centre indicate 32 different geographic directions. The original chart is in the Beinecke Library at Yale University.

Image credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

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