of the major events in the Arab–Byzantine Wars. In retaliation for
Byzantine attacks the previous year, the Caliph al-Mu'tasim targeted
Amorium in central Anatolia, one of the Byzantine Empire's most
important cities. The Abbasid army launched a two-pronged offensive,
defeated the Byzantine emperor Theophilos and his forces at Anzen, and
sacked the city of Ancyra on their way to Amorium. Faced with intrigues
at Constantinople and an army rebellion, Theophilos was unable to aid
the city. Amorium was strongly fortified and garrisoned, but after two
weeks of siege (siege depicted), a traitor revealed a weak spot in the
wall, where the Abbasids effected a breach. The commander of the
breached section left his post to try to negotiate privately with the
Caliph, allowing the Arabs to capture the city. Amorium was
systematically destroyed, never to recover its former prosperity. Many
of its inhabitants were slaughtered, and the remainder driven off as
slaves. The conquest of Amorium not only was a major military disaster
and a heavy personal blow for Theophilos, but also a traumatic event for
the Byzantines, its impact resonating in later literature.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Amorium>
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
917:
Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars: Bulgarians led by Tsar Simeon I
drove the Byzantines out of Thrace with a decisive victory in the Battle
of Achelous (pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Achelous_(917)>
1707:
The first Siege of Pensacola came to an end with the British
abandoning their attempt to capture Pensacola in Spanish Florida.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Pensacola_(1707)>
1910:
Hurricane-force winds combined hundreds of small fires in the
U.S. states of Washington and Idaho into the Devil's Broom fire, which
burned about three million acres (12,140 km²), the largest fire in
recorded U.S. history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fire_of_1910>
1940:
In the midst of the Battle of Britain, British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill delivered a speech thanking the Royal Air Force,
declaring, "Never was so much owed by so many to so few."
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_was_so_much_owed_by_so_many_to_so_few>
1988:
The Troubles: The Provisional Irish Republican Army bombed a
bus carrying British Army soldiers in Northern Ireland, killing eight of
them and wounding another 28.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballygawley_bus_bombing>
_____________________________
Wiktionary's word of the day:
transhumance:
The moving of cattle or other grazing animals to new pastures, often
quite distant, according to the change in season.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/transhumance>
___________________________
Wikiquote quote of the day:
We're beginning to learn the hard way that today's global ills
are not cured by more and more science and technology.
--Roger Wolcott Sperry
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roger_Wolcott_Sperry>
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