The Battle of Grand Port was a naval battle between frigates from the
French Navy and the British Royal Navy, fought in August 1810 to control
the harbour of Grand Port on Isle de France (now Mauritius) during the
Napoleonic Wars. The British squadron of four frigates sought to
blockade the port, but four of the five French ships managed to break
past the blockade. They took shelter in a protected anchorage that was
only accessible through a series of complicated reefs and sandbanks,
requiring an experienced harbour pilot. When the British commander,
Samuel Pym, ordered his frigates to attack, they became trapped in the
narrow channels of the bay: two were irretrievably grounded, a third was
outnumbered and defeated, and a fourth, unable to close within effective
gun range, was later seized as it left the harbour. Although the French
ships were also badly damaged, the defeat was the worst the Royal Navy
suffered during the entire war, and it left the Indian Ocean and its
vital trade convoys exposed to attack from Commodore Jacques Hamelin's
frigates. In December a strong British battle squadron under Admiral
Albemarle Bertie rapidly invaded and subdued Isle de France.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grand_Port>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
636:
Rashidun forces led by Khalid ibn al-Walid took control of Syria
and Palestine in the Battle of Yarmouk, marking the first great wave of
Muslim conquests after the death of Muhammad.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Yarmouk>
1707:
The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British
abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Pensacola_(1707)>
1882:
The 1812 Overture by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
was first performed at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_Overture>
1940:
In the midst of the Battle of Britain, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill delivered a speech thanking the Royal Air Force,
declaring, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_was_so_much_owed_by_so_many_to_so_few>
1989:
The final stage of the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South
Australia, was completed, becoming the world's longest and fastest
guided busway with buses travelling a total of 12 km (7.5 mi) at
maximum speeds up to 100 km/h (62 mph) (example pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Bahn_Busway>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
kitchen-sinky:
1. (informal) Inclusive of too wide a variety of features or items,
typically with a resulting trade-off in efficiency or usefulness.
2. Of or pertaining to the kitchen sink drama; depicting social realities
in an unstylized and direct manner.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kitchen-sinky>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability
of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should voyage far.
--H. P. Lovecraft
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft>