The Gloucestershire Regiment (1881–1994) was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, formed from two regiments originally raised in 1694 and 1758, which first saw action in the Second Boer War. During the First World War, 16 battalions fought under the regiment’s colours, winning 72 different battle honours. In the Second World War, the 2nd and 5th Battalions fought in the Battle of France. Most of the 2nd Battalion soldiers were taken prisoner in the Battle of Dunkirk, but the rebuilt unit returned to France on D-Day at Gold Beach. The 1st Battalion saw action during the Japanese conquest of Burma, and the 10th Battalion fought in the Burma Campaign 1944–45. During the Korean War, the 1st Battalion held out for three nights against overwhelming Chinese forces in the Battle of the Imjin River, and received the American Presidential Unit Citation. The stand was described by the commander of the United Nations forces as "the most outstanding example of unit bravery in modern war".
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloucestershire_Regiment
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1500:
Portuguese explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral and his crew landed in present day Brazil and claimed the land for Portugal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_%C3%81lvares_Cabral
1889:
Over 50,000 people rushed to claim a piece of the available two million acres (8,000 km2) in the Unassigned Lands, the present-day U.S. state of Oklahoma, entirely founding the brand-new Oklahoma City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rush_of_1889
1915:
The Germans released chlorine gas in the Second Battle of Ypres, causing over 6,000 casualties, with many deaths within ten minutes by asphyxiation in the first large-scale successful use of poison gas in World War I. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Ypres
1948:
Civil War in Mandatory Palestine: The Jewish paramilitary group Haganah captured Haifa from the Arab Liberation Army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Haifa_(1948)
2013:
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested two men who were plotting to commit terrorist attacks against Via Rail Canada operations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Via_Rail_Canada_terrorism_plot
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
Gaia: 1. (ecology) The ecosystem of the Earth regarded as a self-regulating organism. 2. Alternative form of Gaea (“Greek goddess personifying the Earth”). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gaia
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Despite the vision and farseeing wisdom of our wartime heads of state, the physicists have felt the peculiarly intimate responsibility for suggesting, for supporting, and in the end, in large measure, for achieving the realization of atomic weapons. Nor can we forget that these weapons, as they were in fact used, dramatized so mercilessly the inhumanity and evil of modern war. In some sort of crude sense which no vulgarity, no humor, no overstatement can quite extinguish, the physicists have known sin; and this is a knowledge which they cannot lose. --Robert Oppenheimer https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer