The Battle of Schellenberg was fought on 2 July 1704 during the War of
the Spanish Succession. The engagement was part of the Duke of
Marlborough's campaign to save the Habsburg capital of Vienna from a
threatened advance by King Louis XIV's Franco-Bavarian forces ranged in
southern Germany. Marlborough had commenced his 250 mile (400 km) march
from Bedburg, near Cologne, on 19 May. En route, the Allies needed to
secure a fortified bridgehead and magazine on the Danube through which
their supplies could cross to the south of the river into the heart of
Bavaria. For this purpose, Marlborough selected the town of Donauwörth.
Once the French knew of the Allies' objective, they dispatched Count
d'Arco with an advance force of 12,000 men from their main camp at
Dillingen to strengthen and hold the Schellenberg heights above the
town. Rejecting a protracted siege Marlborough decided in favour of a
quick assault before the position could be made impregnable. After two
failed attempts to storm the barricades the Allied commanders, acting in
unison, finally managed to overwhelm the defenders. The deliberate
devastation of the Elector's lands in Bavaria failed to bring Max
Emanuel. Only when Marshal Tallard arrived with reinforcements, and
Prince Eugene of Savoy arrived from the Rhine to bolster the Allies, was
the stage finally set for the decisive action at the Battle of Blenheim
the following month.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Schellenberg>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
626:
During the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Prince Li Shimin led his forces
to assassinate his rival brothers, Crown Prince Li Jiancheng and Prince
Li Yuanji, in a bloody palace coup for the Tang Dynasty throne.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xuanwu_Gate_Incident>
1644:
The combined forces of the Scottish Covenanters and the English
Parliamentarians defeated the Royalists at the Battle of Marston Moor,
one of the decisive encounters of the English Civil War, near York.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marston_Moor>
1937:
Aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan
disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during an attempt to make a
circumnavigational flight.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart>
1997:
The Thai baht rapidly lost half of its value, marking the
beginning of the Asian financial crisis.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis>
2002:
American aviator Steve Fossett became the first person to fly
solo nonstop around the world in a balloon, completing an almost 14-day
trip after landing in Queensland, Australia.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Fossett>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
geodesy:
Scientific discipline that deals with the measurement and representation
of earth, its gravitational field and geodynamic phenomena (polar
motion, earth tides, and crustal motion) in three‐dimensional,
time‐varying space.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/geodesy>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the
very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the
world's phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That
is why every man's story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why
every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is
wondrous, and worthy of every consideration. In each individual the
spirit has become flesh, in each man the creation suffers, within each
one a redeemer is nailed to the cross.
--Hermann Hesse
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse>
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