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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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