On this day, February 5, 1885, news reached London that the Mahdists had taken Khartoum and killed General Charles George Gordon. The news would prompt an expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, the Governor of the Egyptian province of Equatoria.
There is legitimate controversy over which ship was America’s first true battleship. But the Navy answers that question relatively clearly- USS Indiana was, from the outset, called "Battleship Number One."