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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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