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From today's featured article

USS Marmora, a sternwheel tinclad similar to Romeo

USS Romeo was a sternwheel steamer that saw service as a tinclad warship during the American Civil War. Completed in August 1862 as a civilian merchant vessel, she was instead purchased by the Union Navy in October. Commissioned in December, she cleared naval mines from the Yazoo River later that month before participating in operations against Confederate-held Fort Hindman in January 1863. Romeo was involved in some of the operations of the Vicksburg campaign in 1863, particularly the Yazoo Pass expedition. Later in 1863, Romeo was involved in part of the Little Rock campaign. During February 1864, she was part of an expedition up the Yazoo River to Yazoo City, Mississippi. She spent most of the rest of the war patrolling the Mississippi River, encountering Confederate land forces on several occasions. Romeo was declared surplus at the end of the war and was sold to civilian owners. Eventually converted into a sidewheel steamer, Romeo ceased to appear in the shipping registers in 1870. (Full article...)

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In the news

Jesse Jackson in 1983

American civil rights leader Jesse Jackson (pictured) dies at the age of 84.
The Nationalist Party, led by Tarique Rahman, wins the Bangladeshi general election.
In the Barbadian general election, the Labour Party wins a third term and every seat in the House of Assembly.
Shootings at a residence and a school in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, leave nine people dead.

On this day

February 17: Mardi Gras / Shrove Tuesday (2026); Chinese New Year (2026); Korean New Year (2026); Tết (Vietnam, 2026)

Commemorative button of the Armory Show

1621 – Myles Standish was elected the first commander of the militia of Plymouth Colony.
1838 – Great Trek: Zulu impis massacred about 532 Voortrekkers, Khoekhoe, and Basuto near present-day Weenen, South Africa.
1913 – The Armory Show (commemorative button pictured), the first large modern-art exhibition in the United States, opened at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City.
1978 – The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army carried out a bombing of a restaurant near Belfast, Northern Ireland, killing twelve people and injuring thirty others.
1996 – An earthquake with a moment magnitude of 8.2 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent) occurred in the New Guinea Trench, which generated a tsunami that killed 108 people.

Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria (d. 1371)
Mary Carson Breckinridge (b. 1881)
Friedrich Cerha (b. 1926)
Jeremy Allen White (b. 1991)

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Today's featured picture

The Mao Gong ding is a ceremonial bronze vessel (ding) produced c. 805 BC in Western Zhou–era China. It was presented to King Xuan of Zhou by his vassal, the gong (duke) Yin of Mao. The Mao Gong ding was discovered in Shaanxi in 1843 and is currently in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taiwan.

Photograph credit: National Palace Museum

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