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Operation Tungsten was a World War II Royal Navy air raid that targeted the German battleship Tirpitz. The operation sought to damage or destroy Tirpitz at her base in Kaafjord in the far north of Norway before she could become fully operational again following a period of repairs and potentially attack convoys carrying supplies to the Soviet Union. After four months of training and preparations, the British Home Fleet sailed on 30 March 1944 and aircraft launched from five aircraft carriers struck Kaafjord on 3 April (bomb preparations pictured). The raid achieved surprise, with the British aircraft meeting little opposition. Fifteen bombs hit the battleship, and strafing by fighter aircraft inflicted heavy casualties on her gun crews. Four British aircraft and nine airmen were lost during the operation. The damage inflicted during the attack was not sufficient to sink or disable Tirpitz, but 122 members of her crew were killed and 316 wounded. The British conducted further carrier raids against Tirpitz between April and August 1944, but none were successful. Tirpitz was eventually disabled and then sunk by Royal Air Force heavy bombers in late 1944. (Full article...)

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From Wikipedia's new and recently improved content:

... that Peter the Venetian (pictured) was King of Hungary twice?
... that visitors at The Flask, Highgate, were once asked to swear to drink only strong beer, and not to kiss the maid if they could kiss the mistress, unless they preferred the maid or could kiss both?
... that the Australian subterranean termites Coptotermes acinaciformis and Coptotermes frenchi can both cause substantial damage to timbers in buildings?
... that after taking an early interest in gymnastics in Algiers, Myriam Ould-Braham turned to dance, finding it was more fun to move about with music?
... that Hoolock gibbons, the sole ape species in India, are translocated to the Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary from fragmented habitats?
... that Italy's Andrea Doria-class battleships were attacked by Swordfish during the Battle of Taranto?

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In the news

An 8.2-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Chile causes six deaths and prompts a tsunami warning.
The International Court of Justice rules that Japan's whale hunt in the Southern Ocean is not for scientific purposes and must be halted.
At least 80 people are killed in an Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
The North Atlantic Council appoints Jens Stoltenberg (pictured) as the next Secretary General of NATO.
Russian–American mathematician Yakov Sinai wins the Abel Prize "for his fundamental contributions to dynamical systems, ergodic theory, and mathematical physics".
Iwao Hakamada, the world's longest-serving death row inmate, is freed and granted a retrial after 48 years in prison.

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On this day...

April 3

1043 – Edward the Confessor was crowned King of England, the last king of the House of Wessex.
1895 – The libel trial instigated by Irish author Oscar Wilde (pictured) began, eventually resulting in Wilde's arrest, trial and imprisonment on charges of gross indecency.
1922 – Joseph Stalin became the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1961 – An individual Leadbeater's possum, thought to have been extinct for over 50 years, was discovered in New South Wales, Australia.
1996 – A U.S. Air Force CT-43 crashed into a mountainside while attempting an instrument approach to Dubrovnik Airport in Dubrovnik, Croatia, killing U.S. Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown and all the other 34 people on board.

More anniversaries: April 2 – April 3 – April 4

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Today's featured picture

"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92). The poem recasts Arthurian subject matter, the legend of Elaine of Astolat. In the poem, the Lady of Shalott is cursed to weave eternally without ever looking out at the world, but when she does she falls in love with Sir Lancelot. She strikes out into the world to find him, finding death as she floats along the river towards Camelot.

The poem was a popular subject for pre-Raphaelite painters, though this illustration is from a 1901 critical edition of Tennyson's work.

Illustration: W. E. F. Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden

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