Main Page

Convoy GP55 was a convoy of Allied ships that travelled between Sydney and Brisbane in June 1943 during World War II. It comprised ten cargo ships, three Landing Ships, Tank and an escort of five corvettes. The Japanese submarine I-174 attacked the convoy on 16 June, sinking the United States Army transport ship Portmar and damaging USS LST-469. Two of the corvettes subsequently counter-attacked I-174, but only lightly damaged her. The Australian military conducted an intensive search for I-174 in the days after the attack in the mistaken belief that she had been significantly damaged. This search was not successful and highlighted the unsatisfactory communications between the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Due to Japan's deteriorating strategic situation, I-174 was the last Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) submarine to operate off the Australian east coast. (more...)

Recently featured: Shield nickel – Ravenloft (module) – Proxima Centauri

From Wikipedia's newest articles:

• ... that Colonia Morelos in Mexico City is home to a 25-street tianguis market and two public sites to worship Santa Muerte (pictured)?
• ... that research by Dorothy M. Horstmann and Robert W. McCollum at Yale University showed that the poliovirus reached the brain by way of the blood, leading to the development of the polio vaccine in the early 1950s?
• ... that the Ryan Premises, a national historic site in Newfoundland and Labrador, was opened by Queen Elizabeth II to mark the 500th anniversary of John Cabot's landing in Bonavista?
• ... that Nazi and neo-Nazi sympathizer Princess Marie Adelheid of Lippe-Biesterfeld translated numerous works into German, including Paul Rassinier's Holocaust-denying work The Drama of European Jews?
• ... that the Kiruna Mine located in Kiruna, Sweden, is the largest and most modern underground iron ore mine in the world?
• ... that out of a total of eight training venues for rugby sevens at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, seven are colleges of Delhi University?
• ... that when cut or injured, the poisonous mushroom Lactarius vinaceorufescens will ooze a white latex that rapidly turns sulfur-yellow?
• ... that Elizabeth Turk was a Washington, D.C., lobbyist before she became a sculptor and was named a 2010 MacArthur Fellow?
• ... that the captain of the Swedish river monitor HMS Garmer had to steer the ship as well as aim and fire her gun?
  
  Archive – Start a new article – Nominate an article

• Peruvian-Spanish writer Mario Vargas Llosa (pictured) wins the Nobel Prize in Literature.
• The identification of the Koro language, spoken by 800 to 1,200 people in the Arunachal Pradesh region of India, is announced.
• Richard F. Heck, Ei-ichi Negishi and Akira Suzuki win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in organic synthesis.
• Faisal Shahzad is sentenced to life in prison for an attempted car bombing in Times Square, New York City.
• Former trader Jérôme Kerviel is sentenced to three years in jail for his role in the January 2008 Société Générale trading loss incident.
• Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov win the Nobel Prize in Physics for their research on graphene.
  Wikinews – Recent deaths – More current events...

October 8: Navy Day in Peru (1821); Independence Day in Croatia (1991)

• 1600 – San Marino, the world's oldest constitutional republic, adopted its written constitution.
• 1856 – Officials of the Chinese Qing Dynasty arrested and imprisoned twelve people aboard the Hong Kong-registered ship Arrow for suspected piracy and smuggling, sparking the Second Opium War.
• 1871 – The Great Chicago Fire (pictured) broke out in Chicago, destroying 17,500 buildings and leaving 90,000 people homeless within two days.
• 1918 – World War I: After his platoon suffered heavy casualties during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France's Forest of Argonne, United States Sergeant Alvin C. York led the seven remaining men on an attack against a German machine gun nest, killing 28 German soldiers and capturing 132 others.
• 1932 – The Indian Air Force was founded as an auxiliary air force of the Indian Empire.