This Day in History - July 10th

1943: Allies land on Sicily

After months of preparation, the British Eighth Army under General Bernard Law Montgomery lands on the southeast corner of Sicily. British and American forces had raced across the Mediterranean from Malta and Tunisia to attack Sicily’s shores while the U.S. Seventh Army under General George Patton came ashore on the south western coast. On 17 August, Patton arrived in Messina before Montgomery, completing the Allied conquest of Sicily and winning the so-called Race to Messina.

Also On This Day

2000

The British Government releases statistics showing that one in four homes in Britain has the internet.

1996

In England, the bodies of Lin Russell and her six-year-old daughter Megan are found near their home in Kent. Michael Stone was convicted of their murders in 2001.

1992

In America, the former leader of Panama, Manuel Noriega, is sentenced by a Florida court to 40 years in prison for drug and racketeering offences.

1990

Mikhail Gorbachev is is re-elected head of the Soviet Communist Party.

1985

The Greenpeace campaign ship, Rainbow Warrior, sinks off Auckland in New Zealand after two explosions inside the hull. Two operatives from the French intelligence service DGSE were held responsible and were subsequently found guilty of manslaughter.

1976

A leak of weed killer from a chemicals factory in Northern Italy forms a toxic cloud around the town of Seveso killing 40,000 animals and destroying crops.

1972

In Britain, The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland William Whitelaw announces to the House of Commons that he has held secret talks with the IRA.

1962

The launch of Telstar, the world’s first television communications satellite, designed to bring live pictures from America to Europe.

1940

The Second World War: The Battle of Britain begins.

1925

In Dayton, Tennessee, the so-called “Monkey Trial” begins with John Thomas Scopes, a young high school science teacher, accused of teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law.

1925

Indian Spiritual Master Meher Baba begins his silence, and does not speak for the rest of his life, dying in 1969.

1917

The First World War: Unable to unite a divided Reichstag, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the Chancellor of Germany, resigns.

1777

The American Revolution: British General Richard Prescott is captured in Rhode Island by the patriot militia.

1645

The English Civil War: Parliamentarians defeat the Royalists at the Battle of Langport in Somerset.

138 AD

Roman Emperor Hadrian dies.