Mutiny broke out on board HMS Bounty on this date in 1789.

The Royal Navy ship had been on a mission transporting breadfruit plants in the South Pacific. (Philip Larkin: “Boys dream of native girls who bring breadfruit, / Whatever they are …”) The crew spent about five months on Tahiti and in that time several of them fell in love with some of the native women who resided there. Acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian possibly considered himself betrothed to a young native woman whose name he changed from Mauatua to “Isabella.”

(Phrases heavy with words like “probable” and “possible” are necessary in telling the story of the mutiny.)
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Rocky Marciano fought 49 times between March 17, 1947, and September 21, 1955. He won each of the 49 fights. In his final six fights, he successfully defended his world heavyweight title. All told, he won 43 of his 49 victories by knockout. Sixty years ago today, at age 32, Marciano did the unexpected and announced his retirement from boxing. He remains the only undefeated heavyweight champion. A video from the 50th anniversary in 2006 (below the fold), which is worth watching for the historic footage and for the quotes from the late Bert Sugar:
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Reactor number four exploded at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine (at the time a part of the USSR) on this date 30 years ago.

Officially, 41 deaths are attributed to the explosion and its immediate effects, most of them reactor employees who were not firefighters, some of whom knowingly sacrificed their own lives and health as they attempted to manage the radioactive fire in and near the reactor, or direct water towards it. Many local firefighters also died of acute radiation poisoning within days or weeks, as they may not have known or were not told about the unique hazards at a radioactive accident.

It remains the worst nuclear accident on the planet and the first to reach a Level 7 Event classification (Fukushima was the second accident to acquire that distinction). Almost a half-million people were displaced from the region over the next 15 years. Much of the eastern portion of Western Europe received some contamination from the disaster.
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