The Bougainville counterattack (8–25 March 1944) was an unsuccessful
Japanese offensive against the Allied base at Cape Torokina, on
Bougainville Island (now part of Papua New Guinea), during the Pacific
War of the Second World War. The goal of the offensive was to destroy
the Allied beachhead, which accommodated three strategically important
airfields. The Allies detected Japanese preparations and strengthened
the base's defenses. The attack, hampered by inaccurate intelligence and
poor planning, was repulsed mainly by United States Army forces
(artillery pictured) after intense fighting. The Japanese commanders had
underestimated the strength of the U.S. defenders, who greatly
outnumbered them, and suffered severe casualties, while Allied losses
were light. This attack was the last big Japanese offensive in the
Solomon Islands campaign. In late 1944 Australian troops took over from
the Americans and began a series of advances across the island that
lasted until the end of the war in August 1945.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_counterattack>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1190:
Around 150 Jews died inside York Castle, with the majority
committing mass suicide to avoid being killed by a mob.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Castle>
1322:
Despenser War: A royalist army defeated troops loyal to Thomas,
2nd Earl of Lancaster, in the Battle of Boroughbridge, which allowed
King Edward II of England to hold on to power for another five years.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Boroughbridge>
1872:
In the inaugural final of the FA Cup (trophy pictured)
Wanderers defeated Royal Engineers 1–0 at The Oval in Kennington,
London.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_FA_Cup_final>
2001:
A series of bomb blasts in the city of Shijiazhuang, China,
killed 108 people.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shijiazhuang_bombings>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
fall at the last hurdle:
(intransitive, idiomatic) To fail near the end of an activity, a
project, etc.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fall_at_the_last_hurdle>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We want to replace proprietary software, with its unjust social
system with Free Software and its ethical social system. And so we
develop free replacements for proprietary software, and other free
programs whenever we get an idea, so that the world can live in freedom.
The part that uses computers, at least, in that one area of life.
Because winning and maintaining freedom in general is a much bigger,
much broader and harder activity, but this is one part of it.
--Richard Stallman
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman>
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