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Unsinkable Sam
Unsinkable Sam (also known as Oskar or Oscar) is, according to a probably exaggerated story, the nickname of a ship's cat who purportedly served during World War II with both the Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy and survived the sinking of three ships. History The cat's original name is unknown. The name "Oscar" was given by the crew of the British destroyer HMS ''Cossack'' that rescued him from the sea following the sinking of the German battleship ''Bismarck''. "Oscar" was derived from the International Code of Signals for the letter 'O', which is code for " Man Overboard" (the German spelling, "Oskar", was sometimes used, since he was a German cat). ''Bismarck'' The black-and-white-patched cat was supposedly owned by an unknown crewman of the German battleship ''Bismarck'' and was on board the ship on 18 May 1941 when he set sail on Operation Rheinübung (German for Rhine Exercise), ''Bismarck''s only mission. ''Bismarck'' was sunk after a fierce naval battle o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom and the second-largest in Ireland. It had a population of 345,418 . By the early 19th century, Belfast was a major port. It played an important role in the Industrial Revolution in Ireland, briefly becoming the biggest linen-producer in the world, earning it the nickname " Linenopolis". By the time it was granted city status in 1888, it was a major centre of Irish linen production, tobacco-processing and rope-making. Shipbuilding was also a key industry; the Harland and Wolff shipyard, which built the , was the world's largest shipyard. Industrialisation, and the resulting inward migration, made Belfast one of Ireland's biggest cities. Following the partition of Ireland in 1921, Belfast became the seat of government for Northern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is dominated by a maritime climate with narrow temperature differences between seasons. The 60% smaller island of Ireland is to the west—these islands, along with over 1,000 smaller surrounding islands and named substantial rocks, form the British Isles archipelago. Connected to mainland Europe until 9,000 years ago by a landbridge now known as Doggerland, Great Britain has been inhabited by modern humans for around 30,000 years. In 2011, it had a population of about , making it the world's third-most-populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The term "Great Britain" is often used to refer to England, Scotland and Wales, including their component adjoining islands. Great Britain and Northern Ireland now const ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Individual Cats
This is a list of famous cats which achieved some degree of popularity either in their own right or by association with someone famous. Before the modern era * Nedjem or Nojem ( Egyptian: ''nḏm'' "Sweet One" or "Sweetie"), 15th century BC. The cat of Puimre, second priest of Amun during the reign of Queen Hatshepsut. Depicted on a damaged relief from Puimre's tomb, Nedjem is the earliest known cat to bear an individual name. * Pangur Bán (Old Irish "White Pangur"; the meaning of the latter word is unclear), 8th-9th century AD. The cat of an otherwise unknown Irish monk, who wrote a poem cataloguing the similarities between the cat's character and his own. * Ta-Miu (Egyptian: ''tꜣ mjw'' "She-Cat"), 14th century BC. The cat of Crown Prince Thutmose, mummified after her death and buried in a decorated sarcophagus in Prince Thutmose's own tomb following his own early demise. * Muezza, 7th century AD. The (possibly apocryphal) cat of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Famous in own ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apocryphal
Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. The word ''apocryphal'' (ἀπόκρυφος) was first applied to writings which were kept secret because they were the vehicles of esoteric knowledge considered too profound or too sacred to be disclosed to anyone other than the initiated. ''Apocrypha'' was later applied to writings that were hidden not because of their divinity but because of their questionable value to the church. In general use, the word ''apocrypha'' has come to mean "false, spurious, bad, or heretical". Biblical apocrypha are a set of texts included in the Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, but not in the Hebrew Bible. While Catholic Church, Catholic tradition considers some of these texts to be deuterocanonical books, deuterocanonical, and the Orthodox Churches consider them all to be canonical, Protestants consider them apocryphal, that is, non-canonical books that are useful for instruction. Luther's Bible placed them in a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ludovic Kennedy
Sir Ludovic Henry Coverley Kennedy (3 November 191918 October 2009) was a Scottish journalist, broadcaster, humanist and author best known for re-examining cases such as the Lindbergh kidnapping and the murder convictions of Timothy Evans and Derek Bentley, and for his role in the abolition of the death penalty in the United Kingdom. Early life Kennedy was born in 1919 in Edinburgh, the son of a career Royal Navy officer, Edward Kennedy, and his wife, Rosalind Grant, daughter of Sir Ludovic Grant, 11th Baronet. His mother Rosalind was a cousin of the Conservative politician Robert Boothby, later Lord Boothby. He had two younger sisters, Morar and Katherine. Morar married the playwright Royce Ryton in 1954. Katherine married Major Ion Calvocoressi in 1947. He was schooled at Eton College (where he played in a jazz band with Humphrey Lyttelton) and studied for a year at Christ Church, Oxford, until the outbreak of war. While at Oxford he was a member of the Bullingdon ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nautical Fiction
Nautical fiction, frequently also naval fiction, sea fiction, naval adventure fiction or maritime fiction, is a genre of literature with a setting on or near the sea, that focuses on the human relationship to the sea and sea voyages and highlights nautical culture in these environments. The settings of nautical fiction vary greatly, including merchant ships, liners, naval ships, fishing vessels, life boats, etc., along with sea ports and fishing villages. When describing nautical fiction, scholars most frequently refer to novels, novellas, and short stories, sometimes under the name of sea novels or sea stories. These works are sometimes adapted for the theatre, film and television. The development of nautical fiction follows with the development of the English language novel and while the tradition is mainly British and North American, there are also significant works from literatures in Japan, France, Scandinavia, and other Western traditions. Though the treatment of themes a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Maritime Museum
The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the United Kingdom, it has no general admission charge; there are admission charges for most side-gallery temporary exhibitions, usually supplemented by many loaned works from other museums. Creation and official opening The museum was created by the National Maritime Museum Act 1934 under a Board of Trustees, appointed by HM Treasury. It is based on the generous donations of Sir James Caird (1864–1954). King George VI formally opened the museum on 27 April 1937 when his daughter Princess Elizabeth accompanied him for the journey along the Thames from London. The first director was Sir Geoffrey Callender. Collection Since the earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation. It was a landing place for the Romans, He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Governor Of Gibraltar
The governor of Gibraltar is the representative of the British monarch in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. The governor is appointed by the monarch on the advice of the British government. The role of the governor is to act as the ''de facto'' head of state. They are responsible for formally appointing the chief minister of Gibraltar, along with other members of the government of Gibraltar after a general election. The governor serves as commander-in-chief of Gibraltar's military forces and has sole responsibility for defence and security. Although recent appointments have all been former military personnel, most being former Royal Navy or Royal Marines flag officers, Sir James Dutton resigned from the role in 2015, complaining that it was "more representational and ceremonial than I had expected". The governor has his own flag in Gibraltar, the Union Flag defaced with the territory's coat of arms. However, at the governor's official residence ('' The Convent' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Legion (G74)
HMS ''Legion'' was an L-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She entered service during the Second World War, and had a short but eventful career, serving in Home waters and the Mediterranean. She was sunk in an air attack on Malta in 1942. The ship had been adopted by the British civil community of the Municipal Borough of Cheltenham, Gloucestershire in November 1941. Construction and commissioning ''Legion'' was ordered on 31 March 1938 from the yards of Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Newcastle upon Tyne under the 1937 Naval Estimates. She was laid down on 1 November 1938 and launched just over a year later on 26 November 1939. During 1940 her main armament along with three others of the L class was changed. Twin 4 inch HA mountings were fitted and these four ships were re-classified as anti-aircraft destroyers. She was commissioned on 19 December 1940 at a total cost of £445,684, which excluded items such as weapons and communications equipment supplied by the Admiralty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HMS Lightning (G55)
HMS ''Lightning'' was an L-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 22 April 1940 and sunk on 12 March 1943 by German Motor Torpedo Boat ''S-55''. Ordered under the 1937 Programme and laid down as Job No J4502, Hawthorn Leslie & Co of Newcastle Upon Tyne were awarded the contract to build her with machinery supplied by Parsons. She would be the 10th Royal Navy ship to bear the name ''Lightning''. Build was completed on 28 May 1941 but had been delayed by late delivery of the three twin 4.7-inch mountings required meeting the original design. The tender cost was £440,807 which excluded items such as weapons and communications equipment supplied by the Admiralty. On 25 March 1942, ''Lightning'' was adopted by the Borough of Doncaster as part of a Warship Week National Savings plan. Doncaster and the surrounding boroughs raised over £800,000 in National Savings and effectively paid for the ship. At the same time ''T/S Lightning'' was formed in Doncaster for Sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Motor Launch
A Motor Launch (ML) is a small military vessel in Royal Navy service. It was designed for harbour defence and submarine chasing or for armed high-speed air-sea rescue. Some vessels for water police service are also known as motor launches. World War I service Although small by naval standards, it was larger than the preceding steam or diesel-engined harbour launches of 56ft and coastal motor boats of 40 and 55 ft length. The first motor launches entered service in the First World War. These were five hundred and eighty vessels built by the US Elco company for the Admiralty, receiving the numbers ML-1 to ML-580. They served with the Royal Navy between 1916 and the end of the war, defending the British coast from German submarines. Some of the earliest examples, including ML 1, also served in the Persian Gulf from June 1916. After the Armistice of 11 November 1918 a flotilla of 12 Royal Navy motor launches travelled down the Rhine performing duty as the Rhine Patrol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies south of Sicily (Italy), east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The official languages are Maltese language, Maltese and English language, English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language, Italian language. Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Ancient Carthage, Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights Hospitaller, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others. With a population of about 516,000 over an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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