The Defense of Sihang Warehouse took place from 26 October to 1 November 1937, and marked the beginning of the end of the three-month Battle of Shanghai in the opening phase of the Second Sino-Japanese War. The defenders of the warehouse, popularly known as both the "Eight Hundred Heroes" and the "Lone Battalion", held out against numerous waves of Japanese forces and covered the movements of the Chinese forces retreating west during the Battle of Shanghai. The successful defense of the warehouse provided a morale-lifting consolation to the Chinese army and people in the demoralizing aftermath of the Japanese invasion of Shanghai. The warehouse's location just across the Suzhou River from the foreign concessions in Shanghai meant the battle took place in full view of the western powers. This drew the attention, if only briefly, of the international community to Chiang Kai-shek's bid for worldwide support against Japanese aggression.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Sihang_Warehouse

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1470: Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, restored Henry VI as the King of England during the Wars of the Roses. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Neville%2C_16th_Earl_of_Warwick)

1831: African American slave Nat Turner was captured after leading a brutally suppressed slave rebellion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner)

1905: Russian Revolution: Tsar Nicholas II reluctantly signed the "October Manifesto", establishing the State Duma as the elected legislature in Imperial Russia. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905)

1938: The radio drama The War of the Worlds frightened many listeners in the United States into believing that an actual Martian invasion was in progress. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1905)

1961: The Soviet hydrogen bomb Tsar Bomba was detonated over Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Sea as a test; with a yield of around 50 megatons, it was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

The fundamental article of my political creed is that depotism, or unlimited sovereignty, or absolute power, is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junto, and a single emperor. -- John Adams (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Adams)