The Montana class was a planned class of battleships for the United States Navy; five ships were approved for construction during World War II, but none were built. With increased anti-aircraft capability and thicker armor in all areas, the Montanas would have been the largest and most heavily armed US battleships ever, and rivaled Japan's Yamato- class battleships in terms of displacement. The first two vessels were approved by Congress in 1939 following the passage of the Naval Act of 1938. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor delayed the construction of the Montana class. The importance of carrier combat at the Battle of the Coral Sea and the Battle of Midway diminished the perceived value of the battleship, and the US Navy chose to cancel the Montana class before any keels were laid in favor of more urgently needed aircraft carriers as well as amphibious and anti-submarine vessels. Instead, the Navy continued production of Essex-class aircraft carriers and Iowa-class battleships. (Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana-class_battleship> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1773: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three journeys there. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart_in_Italy> 1899: Cyclone Mahina struck Bathurst Bay, Queensland, killing more than 300 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in Australian history. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Mahina> 1918: A case of influenza was recorded at Camp Funston, Kansas, conventionally marking the beginning of the Spanish flu pandemic. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu> 2017: Construction began on a 69-metre (226 ft) statue of the Buddha at Wat Paknam Bhasicharoen in Bangkok. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wat_Paknam_Bhasicharoen> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: pig iron: 1. (metallurgy) A brittle, impure form of iron produced by smelting iron ore which is often shaped into blocks; it is unsuitable for working but suitable for casting, and so is commonly used as an industrial raw material. 2. (cooking, obsolete) An iron plate which is hung between a piece of meat and the fire used to cook it to prevent the meat from burning if the fire is too hot. 3. About Word of the Day 4. Nominate a word 5. Leave feedback <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pig_iron> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: I've found that the chief difficulty for most people was to realize that they had really heard new things: that is things that they had never heard before. They kept translating what they heard into their habitual language. They had ceased to hope and believe there might be anything new. --P. D. Ouspensky <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe write to: [email protected] Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
