The Battle of Arras was a British offensive during World War I. From 9 April to 16 May, 1917, British, Canadian, and Australian troops attacked German trenches near the French city of Arras on the Western Front. The Arras offensive was conceived as part of a plan to break through the German defences into the open ground beyond and engage the numerically inferior German army in a war of movement. It was planned in conjunction with the French High Command, who were simultaneously embarking on a massive attack (the Nivelle Offensive) about eighty kilometres to the south. The stated aim of this combined operation was to end the war in forty-eight hours. At Arras, the British Empire's immediate objectives were more modest: (1) to draw German troops away from the ground chosen for the French attack and (2) to take the German-held high ground that dominated the plain of Douai. After considerable bombardment, Canadian troops advancing in the north were able to capture the strategically significant Vimy Ridge. Only in the south, where British and Australian forces were frustrated by the elastic defence, were the attackers held to minimal gains. Although these battles were generally successful in achieving limited aims, many of them resulted in relatively large numbers of casualties. When the battle officially ended on 16 May, British Empire troops had made significant advances, but had been unable to achieve a major breakthrough at any point.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Arras_%281917%29

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1675:

German polymath Gottfried Leibniz employed integral calculus for the first time to find the area under a function y = ƒ(x). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Leibniz

1889:

Washington, named in honor of the first U.S. president, was admitted to the United States as the 42nd state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington

1918:

Germany and the Allies signed an armistice treaty in a railway carriage in France's Compiègne Forest, ending World War I on the Western Front. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice_with_Germany_%28Compi%C3%A8gne%29

1960:

A coup attempt by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam against President Ngo Dinh Diem was crushed after Diem falsely promised reform, allowing loyalists to rescue him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_South_Vietnamese_coup_attempt

1965:

Ian Smith, Premier of the British Crown Colony of Southern Rhodesia, issued the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, a move that the British government and the United Nations condemned as illegal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_Declaration_of_Independence_%28Rhodesia%29

2004:

Mahmoud Abbas was elected Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization after Yasser Arafat died from an unknown illness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

lunette (n): 1. A small opening in a vaulted roof of a circular or crescent shape. 2. A crescent-shaped recess or void in the space above a window or door http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lunette

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or in the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. Great necessities call out great virtues. --Abigail Adams http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abigail_Adams