The Battle of Azaz was fought in 1030 in northern Syria between the Byzantine army, led by Emperor Romanos III Argyros, and the Mirdasid forces of the Emirate of Aleppo, under the personal command of Shibl al- Dawla Nasr. Romanos aimed to conquer Aleppo, long a flashpoint between Byzantium and its Arab neighbours. At the head of a large army and confident of success, the Emperor rejected Mirdasid peace offers, as well as his generals' advice to avoid action in the hot and dry Syrian summer. After the Byzantines camped near Azaz, the considerably smaller Mirdasid army, mostly Bedouin light cavalry, harassed the imperial camp and kept the heavier Byzantine troops from foraging. Romanos ordered his hungry and thirsty army to withdraw to Antioch, but the retreat soon collapsed into chaos, and the Byzantines were routed by the Arabs. Humiliated, Romanos returned to Constantinople, but his generals later managed to restore the Byzantine position, and Nasr concluded a treaty with Byzantium.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Azaz_%281030%29
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1628:
The Swedish warship Vasa sank shortly after departing on her maiden voyage from Stockholm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_%28ship%29
1793:
The Louvre (Louvre Pyramid pictured) in Paris, today the world's most visited museum, officially opened with an exhibition of 537 paintings and 184 objets d'art. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louvre
1904:
Russo-Japanese War: The first major confrontation between modern steel battleship fleets took place in the Battle of the Yellow Sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Yellow_Sea
1988:
The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 became law, authorizing reparations to surviving Japanese Americans interned during World War II. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Liberties_Act_of_1988
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
sere: 1. (archaic or literary, poetic) Without moisture; dry. 2. (obsolete) Of fabrics: threadbare, worn out. [...] 3. (obsolete or Britain, dialectal) Individual, separate, set apart. 4. (obsolete or Britain, dialectal) Different; diverse. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sere
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Tribalism is now not just one force in American politics, it’s the overwhelming one, and tribalism abhors reality if it impugns the tribe. But you can’t have both tribalism and public health. When you turn wearing a simple face mask into a political and cultural symbol of leftism, when you view social distancing as a concession to your enemies, you deeply undermine the power of millions of small impediments to viral outbreak. What we are seeing is whether this tribalism can be sustained even when it costs tens of thousands of lives, even when it means exposing yourself to a deadly virus, even when it is literally more important than your own life. --Andrew Sullivan https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Andrew_Sullivan