World roundup: August 2 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Somalia, Venezuela, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

August 2, 338 BCE (or thereabouts): Philip II of Macedon defeats a Greek army organized by Thebes and Athens at the Battle of Chaeronea. The outcome effectively ended any chance of Greek resistance to a Macedonian takeover. After harshly punishing Thebes, Philip engaged in heavy diplomacy to win over Athens and Corinth and isolate Sparta. He managed to unite most of the Greek city-states behind him in what historians call the “League of Corinth,” which was one of the key preliminary steps in his grand plan to invade the Persian Empire. Philip didn’t live long enough to lead that campaign, but his son Alexander picked up where dad left off.

August 2, 216 BCE (or thereabouts): At the Battle of Cannae in southeastern Italy, the Carthaginian general Hannibal annihilates a much larger Roman army in what has often been regarded as the closest thing to a total military victory in history. Hannibal’s cavalry outflanked and completely encircled the Roman infantry in a pincer movement, then attacked from all sides. Of the 86,000 or so Roman soldiers who began the battle (to about 50,000 for Hannibal), Livy says that the Carthaginians killed 67,500 and that’s the low estimate. Polybius cites a death toll of over 85,000.

American painter John Trumbull’s 1773 The Death of Paulus Aemilius at the Battle of Cannae (Wikimedia Commons)

August 2, 1964: The USS Maddox, in North Vietnamese territorial waters, exchanges fire with several North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, as it came to be known, along with a second alleged engagement two nights later that turned out to be fictional, kicked off the Vietnam War.

August 2, 1990: Iraq invades Kuwait, sparking a US military buildup that would eventually lead to the Gulf War and, as far as that conflict’s fans are concerned, nothing else whatsoever.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The body of former Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday, an occasion that prompted more calls for retaliation against Israel for having killed him. Israeli authorities are making preparations for that retaliation, particularly in terms of preparing air raid shelters and locking down hazardous materials and industrial sites, but after initially expecting it to come within 72 hours of Haniyeh’s killing they’re now in a holding pattern. Apparently, though, they’re not so worried about a coming attack that they can’t spare time to summon the Turkish ambassador to complain that Turkey’s Tel Aviv embassy was flying its flag at half mast in honor of Haniyeh.