The Battle of the Aegates was a naval battle fought on
10 March 241 BC between the fleets of Carthage and Rome. It took
place among the Aegates Islands, off the western coast of Sicily. The
Carthaginians were commanded by Hanno, and the Romans were under the
overall authority of Gaius Lutatius Catulus, but Quintus Valerius Falto
had the battle command. It was the final battle of the 23-year-long
First Punic War. The Roman army had been blockading the Carthaginians in
their strongholds on the west coast of Sicily. Almost bankrupt, the
Romans borrowed money to build a fleet, with which they extended the
blockade to the sea. The Carthaginians assembled a larger fleet to run
supplies into Sicily. It was intercepted and in a hard-fought battle the
better-trained Romans defeated the undermanned and ill-trained
Carthaginians. As a direct result, Carthage sued for peace and agreed to
the Treaty of Lutatius, surrendering Sicily to Rome and paying
substantial reparations.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Aegates>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1945:
World War II: The United States Army Air Forces conducted a
firebombing raid on Tokyo that killed at least 90,000 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo_%2810_March_1945%29>
1959:
An anti-Chinese uprising began as thousands of Tibetans
surrounded the Potala Palace in Lhasa to prevent the Dalai Lama from
leaving or being removed by the Chinese army.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1959_Tibetan_uprising>
1990:
Eighteen months after seizing power, Prosper Avril was ousted
as the military head of state of Haiti.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_Avril>
2006:
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (artist's impression
pictured) reached and entered orbit around Mars.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Reconnaissance_Orbiter>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
audiation:
(music) The comprehension and internal realization of music by an
individual in the absence of any physical sound.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/audiation>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Through artists mankind becomes an individual, in that they unite
the past and the future in the present. They are the higher organ of the
soul, where the life spirits of entire external mankind meet and in
which inner mankind first acts.
--Friedrich Schlegel
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Schlegel>