The Battle of Pontvallain, part of the Hundred Years' War, took place in
north-west France on 4 December 1370. A French army under Bertrand du
Guesclin heavily defeated an English force which had broken away from an
army commanded by Robert Knolles. The French numbered 5,200 men, and
the English force was approximately the same size. The English had
plundered and burnt their way across northern France from Calais to
Paris. With winter coming, the English commanders fell out and divided
their army. The battle consisted of two separate engagements: one at
Pontvallain where, after a forced march which continued overnight,
Guesclin surprised a major part of the English force, and wiped it out.
In a coordinated attack, Guesclin's subordinate, Louis de Sancerre,
caught a smaller English force the same day, at the nearby town of Vaas,
also wiping it out. The French harried the surviving Englishmen into the
following year, recapturing much lost territory.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Pontvallain>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1893:
First Matabele War: A patrol of 34 British South Africa Company
soldiers was ambushed and annihilated by more than 3,000 Matabele
warriors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shangani_Patrol>
1909:
The first Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian
Football League, was held in Toronto.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Cup>
1980:
The English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbanded.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Led_Zeppelin>
2006:
Six black teenagers assaulted a white student in Jena,
Louisiana; the subsequent court cases became a cause célèbre for
perceived racial injustice in the United States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jena_Six>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
status symbol:
A visible possession that is a sign of one's personal wealth or social
status.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/status_symbol>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The whole universe is carried on on the credit system, and if the
mutual confidence on which it is based were to collapse, it must itself
collapse immediately. Just or unjust, it lives by faith; it is based on
vague and impalpable opinion that by some inscrutable process passes
into will and action, and is made manifest in matter and in flesh: it is
meteoric — suspended in mid-air; it is the baseless fabric of a vision
so vast, so vivid, and so gorgeous that no base can seem more broad than
such stupendous baselessness, and yet any man can bring it about his
ears by being over-curious; when faith fails, a system based on faith
fails also. Whether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether
it is an inflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is
another matter. If people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable
certainty for everything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on
the credit of the bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind
it all to stand so great a drain even on so great a reserve?
--Samuel Butler
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Butler_%28novelist%29>