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Glyndwr Michael's grave

Operation Mincemeat was a successful British deception operation of the Second World War. In 1943, the body of Glyndwr Michael was dressed as an officer of the Royal Marines, and items were placed on him identifying him as the fictitious Captain William Martin. Correspondence between two British generals suggesting that the Allies planned to invade Greece and Sardinia, with merely a feint at Sicily, was also planted. The body was taken by the submarine HMS Seraph to the southern coast of Spain and released close to shore, where it was picked up the following morning by a Spanish fisherman. The nominally neutral Spanish government shared copies of the documents with German military intelligence, before returning them to the British. Ultra decrypts of German messages showed that the Germans fell for the ruse. Reinforcements were shifted to Greece and Sardinia before and during the invasion of Sicily; Sicily received none. The body was buried with military honours in Spain (grave pictured). (Full article...)

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On this day

March 31: Cesar Chavez Day in various U.S. states (1927)

USS Missouri

1761 – Lisbon experienced its second major earthquake in six years, with effects felt as far north as Scotland.
1899 – Philippine–American War: Malolos, capital of the First Philippine Republic, was captured by American forces.
1942 – Second World War: Because of a mutiny by Indian soldiers against their British officers, Japanese troops captured Christmas Island without any resistance.
1992 – USS Missouri (pictured), the last active United States Navy battleship, was decommissioned in Long Beach, California.
2018 – Nikol Pashinyan began his protest walk, starting in the city of Gyumri, opening the 2018 Armenian revolution.

Pope Benedict XIV (b. 1675)
Edward FitzGerald (b. 1809)
Choor Singh (d. 2009)

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Today's featured picture

Borbo cinnara, commonly known as the rice swift, Formosan swift or rice leaf folder, is a butterfly belonging to the family Hesperiidae, found in southern and southeastern Asia, and Australia. This photograph of a B. cinnara butterfly perching on a leaf, focus-stacked from eight images, was taken in Si Phan Don, Laos.

Photograph credit: Basile Morin

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