Wikipedia:Main Page history/2022 January 21b

Torpedo Boat No. 38 (formerly Kranich), of the Schichau class

The Schichau class consisted of 22 torpedo boats built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy between 1885 and 1891. Initially powered by steam from a locomotive boiler and armed with two 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss guns and two 356 mm (14 in) torpedo tubes, they all received two Yarrow boilers and a second funnel between 1900 and 1910. Ten were converted into minesweepers between 1911 and 1913. One boat was discarded in 1911 and the rest saw active service as part of local defence forces for Adriatic naval bases during World War I. The nine torpedo boats which survived were also converted into minesweepers in 1917. After the war, sixteen of the boats were allocated to Italy and four to the Royal Yugoslav Navy. All of the boats had been discarded by 1929 except for one Yugoslav vessel. Captured during the 1941 Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, it served with the Italians and later the Germans. It was lost sometime after September 1943. (This article is part of a featured topic: Ships of the Royal Yugoslav Navy.)

Belt buckle from Finnestorp

• ... that archaeologist Bengt Nordqvist interprets a Migration Period belt buckle (pictured) found at Finnestorp as a depiction of a mythological scene known from the Old Norse poem Völuspá?
• ... that in her 2021 book White Evangelical Racism, professor of religion Anthea Butler called American evangelicalism a pro-Trump, "nationalistic political movement"?
• ... that the steamship Clyde was wrecked in 1879 while carrying more than 500 replacements for the British 24th Regiment, which had suffered heavy losses at the Battle of Isandlwana?
• ... that in his final collegiate game, Tufts University football player Carl Etelman kicked a field goal with a broken ankle?
• ... that the construction of Auckland's Panmure Bridge in 1865 involved underwater repairs using Heinke diving suits?
• ... that Leon Stynen has been called one of Belgium's greatest architects of the 20th century?
• ... that the glass surface on the BNL BNP Paribas headquarters has alternating angles that follow the principle of the "two-faced Janus"?
• ... that U.S. Virgin Islands suffragist Ella Gifft smuggled rum during Prohibition by hiding it in her underwear?

Hunga Tonga eruption

• Belgian-British pilot Zara Rutherford becomes the youngest woman to fly solo around the world.
• Microsoft announces its forthcoming acquisition, pending regulatory approvals, of video game company Activision Blizzard.
• A 5.3 magnitude earthquake in Badghis Province, Afghanistan, kills at least 28 people.
• The
  Hunga Tonga volcano erupts (satellite animation shown), causing damage in Tonga and tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean
  .

January 21

Members of the First Dáil

• 763 – The Abbasid Caliphate crushed the Alid revolt when a rebel leader was mortally wounded in battle near Basra in present-day Iraq.
• 1789 – The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown, widely considered to be the first American novel, was published.
• 1919 – The First Dáil (members pictured) convened at the Mansion House in Dublin and adopted a declaration of independence calling for the establishment of the Irish Republic.
• 1972 – Tripura, formerly part of the independent Twipra Kingdom, became a state of India.
• 2017 – An estimated five million people participated in worldwide demonstrations to advocate for legislation and policies on human rights and other issues.