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Today's featured article

Castle of Guînes in 2012

The siege of Guînes took place from May to July 1352 when a French army under Geoffrey de Charny unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the French castle (pictured) at Guînes which had been seized by the English the previous January. The siege was part of the Hundred Years' War and took place during the uneasy and ill-kept truce of Calais. The strongly fortified castle had been taken by the English during a period of nominal truce and the English king, Edward III, decided to keep it. Charny led 4,500 men and retook the town but was unable to either recapture or blockade the castle. After two months of fierce fighting, a large English night attack on the French camp inflicted a heavy defeat and the French withdrew. Guînes was incorporated into the Pale of Calais. The threat posed by this enclave caused the French to garrison 60 fortified positions around it, at ruinous expense. The castle was besieged by the French in 1436 and 1514, but was relieved each time, before falling to the French in 1558. (Full article...)

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On this day...

May 31: World No Tobacco Day

Bessarion

455 – Petronius Maximus, ruler of the Western Roman Empire, was stoned to death by a mob as he fled Rome ahead of the arrival of a Vandal force that sacked the city.
1223 – Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus': Mongol forces defeated a Kievan Rus' army at the Kalka River in present-day Ukraine.
1468 – Cardinal Bessarion (pictured) announced his donation of 746 Greek and Latin codices to the Republic of Venice, forming the Biblioteca Marciana.
1935 – An earthquake registering 7.7 M_w struck Balochistan in British India, now part of Pakistan, killing between 30,000 and 60,000 people.
2013 – A tornado struck Central Oklahoma, killing 8 people and injuring more than 150.

Albertino Mussato (d. 1329)
Joseph Grimaldi (d. 1837)
Dina Boluarte (b. 1962)
Mbaye Diagne (d. 1994)

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{{{Image text}}} Today's featured picture

Picture of the day

Common moorhen

Photograph credit: Alexis Lours

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