1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane

1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane.
The 1944 Cuba–Florida hurricane was a large Category 4 tropical cyclone that caused widespread damage across the western Caribbean Sea and the Southeastern United States. It inflicted over US$100 million in damage and was responsible for at least 318 deaths. The unprecedented availability of meteorological data during the hurricane marked a turning point in the United States Weather Bureau's ability to forecast tropical cyclones. The system became a tropical storm on October 12 and intensified into a hurricane the next day. On October 18, it made landfall on western Cuba at peak strength with reported winds of 145 mph (230 km/h). At least 300 people were killed in Cuba, which suffered extensive damage from winds and storm surge, especially in the Havana area. Numerous ships sank in Havana Harbor. On October 19 the storm made a final landfall near Sarasota, Florida, as a Category 2 hurricane. Eighteen people were killed in Florida, half of those from the loss of a ship in Tampa Bay.

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A Song Flung Up to Heaven

A Song Flung Up to Heaven.
A Song Flung Up to Heaven is the sixth book in a series of autobiographies by author Maya Angelou (pictured). Set between 1965 and 1968, it begins where her previous book All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes ends, with her return to the United States from Accra, Ghana, where she had lived for four years. The assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. frame the beginning and end of the book. Angelou describes how she dealt with these events and the sweeping changes both in the country and in her personal life, and how she coped with her return home. The book ends with Angelou writing the opening lines to her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Angelou wrote Song in 2002, sixteen years after All God's Children. By that time she had received recognition as an author, poet and spokesperson. A recorded version of the book received the Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in 2003. (This article is part of a featured topic: Maya Angelou autobiographies.)

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Operation Inmate

Operation Inmate.
Operation Inmate was an attack by the British Pacific Fleet against Japanese positions on the isolated islands of Truk Atoll in the central Pacific Ocean during the Second World War. On 14 June 1945, British aircraft from the aircraft carrier HMS Implacable conducted a series of raids against Japanese positions. The next morning, several islands were bombarded by British and Canadian cruisers, though with little success. Further air strikes took place in the afternoon and night of 15 June before the Allied force returned to its base. The attacks were conducted to provide combat experience ahead of the fleet's involvement in more demanding operations off the Japanese home islands. The attack was considered successful by the Allies, with ships and air units gaining useful experience while suffering two fatalities and the loss of seven aircraft to combat and accidents. The damage to the Japanese facilities in the atoll was modest.

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Omphalotus nidiformis

Omphalotus nidiformis.
Omphalotus nidiformis, or ghost fungus, is a bioluminescent gilled mushroom that occurs primarily in southern Australia and Tasmania, and has been reported from India. The cream-coloured fan- or funnel-shaped caps, up to 30 cm (12 in) across, have shades of orange, brown, purple, or bluish-black. The white or cream gills run down the length of the stalk, which is up to 8 cm (3 in) long and tapers in thickness to the base. The fungus is both saprotrophic and parasitic, and its fruit bodies are generally found growing in overlapping clusters on a wide variety of dead or dying trees. First described scientifically in 1844, O. nidiformis (from Latin for 'nest-shaped') was known by several names before Orson K. Miller Jr. assigned its current name in 1994. Similar in appearance to the common edible oyster mushrooms, O. nidiformis is poisonous, with compounds called illudins that can produce severe cramps and vomiting.