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From today's featured article

The Moltke-class battlecruisers were a class of two "all-big-gun" battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy built between 1909 and 1911. Named SMS Moltke and SMS Goeben, they were similar to the previous battlecruiser Von der Tann, but the Moltke class was slightly larger, faster, and better armored, and had an additional pair of 28 cm (11 in) guns. Both ships served during World War I. Moltke participated in several major battles with the rest of the High Seas Fleet, including the battles of Dogger Bank and Jutland in the North Sea, and the Battle of the Gulf of Riga and Operation Albion in the Baltic Sea. At the end of the war, Moltke was interned with the majority of the High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow while the ships' fate was being discussed during peace treaty negotiations. The ships were scuttled on 21 June 1919 by the Germans crewing them to prevent seizure of the ships by the Allies. (This article is part of two featured topics: Battlecruisers of the world and Battlecruisers of Germany.)

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In the news

Mohammed Ali Ahmed al-Haddad

Israel officially recognises Somaliland as an independent state, becoming the first country to do so.
A jet crash near Ankara, Turkey, kills all eight people on board, including Libyan Army chief of staff Mohammed al-Haddad (pictured).
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Bangladeshi activist Osman Hadi is assassinated, triggering violent protests and arson.
Fatafehi Fakafānua is elected prime minister by the legislative assembly of Tonga.

On this day

December 28

Neptune

1065 – Westminster Abbey, built by Edward the Confessor as the first Romanesque church in England, was first consecrated.
1612 – Galileo Galilei became the first person to observe the planet Neptune (pictured), although he mistakenly catalogued it as a fixed star.
1908 – An earthquake registering 7.1 M_w struck near Messina, which, along with the subsequent tsunami, killed at least 75,000 people in southern Italy.
1925 – The Tokyo Grand Sumo Association became the All Japan Sumo Association at the instigation of Prince-Regent Hirohito, laying the foundations for the world's sole professional sumo association.
2014 – Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed into the Java Sea after the pilots mishandled a non-critical error in the cockpit, which resulted in all 162 people on board being killed in the crash.

Wang Zongbi (d. 925)
William Carstares (d. 1715)
Charles Fernández (b. 1995)
Quackity (b. 2000)

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Today's featured video

Regeneration is a 1915 American silent biographical crime drama co-written and directed by Raoul Walsh. The film, which was the first full-length feature film directed by Walsh, stars Rockliffe Fellowes and Anna Q. Nilsson and was adapted for the screen by Carl Harbaugh and Walsh from the 1903 memoir My Mamie Rose, by Owen Frawley Kildare and the adapted 1908 play by Kildare and Walter C. Hackett.

Film credit: Raoul Walsh;

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