[Wikipedia] October 27: Siege of Malakand

[Faraaz Damji]

  The Siege of Malakand was the 26 July – 2 August 1897 siege of the
  British garrison in the Malakand region of modern day Pakistan's North
  West Frontier Province.  The British faced a force of Pashtun tribesmen
  whose tribal lands had been dissected by the Durand Line, the 1,519
  mile (2,445 km) border between Afghanistan and Pakistan drawn up at
  the end of the Anglo-Afghan wars to help hold the Russian Empire's
  spread of influence towards British India.  The unrest caused by this
  division of the Pashtun lands led to the rise of Saidullah, a Pashtun
  Fakir who led an army of at least 10,000 against the British garrison
  in Malakand.  Although the British forces were divided amongst a number
  of poorly defended positions, the small garrison at the camp of
  Malakand South and the small fort at Chakdara were both able to hold
  out for six days against the much larger Pashtun army.  The siege was
  lifted when a relief column dispatched from British positions to the
  south was sent to assist General William Hope Meiklejohn, commander of
  the British forces at Malakand South.  Accompanying this relief force
  was second lieutenant Winston S.  Churchill, who later published his
  account as The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of
  Frontier War.

Read the rest of this article:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Malakand


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Today's selected anniversaries:

1553:
  Condemned as a heretic, Michael Servetus was burned at the stake
  outside Geneva.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Servetus)

1904:
  The New York City Subway, one of the most extensive public
  transportation systems in the world, opened with its first segment
  running between New York City Hall and Harlem.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway)

1958:
  General Ayub Khan deposed Iskander Mirza in a bloodless coup d'état
  to become the second President of Pakistan, less than three weeks
  after Mirza had appointed him the enforcer of martial law.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayub_Khan)

1961:
  NASA launched the first Saturn I rocket, the United States' first
  dedicated spacecraft designed specifically to launch loads into Earth
  orbit.
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_I)

1971:
  The Democratic Republic of the Congo was renamed Zaire after a
  Portuguese mispronunciation of the Kikongo word nzere or nzadi, which
  translates to "the river that swallows all rivers."
  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaire)


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Wiktionary's Word of the day:

  delude: To deceive someone into believing something which is false.
  (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/delude)


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Wikiquote of the day:

  Patriotism means to stand by the country.  It does not mean to stand by
  the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree
  in which he himself stands by the country.  It is patriotic to support
  him insofar as he efficiently serves the country.  It is unpatriotic
  not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or
  otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country.  -- Theodore
  Roosevelt
  (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt)