World roundup: January 26 2026

Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Sudan, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 26, 1565: A coalition of Muslim kingdoms in southern India known as the Deccan Sultanates defeats the Hindu Vijayanagara Empire at the Battle of Talikota. Muslim forces captured and executed Vijayanagara regent Rama Raya and were then able to sack the city of Vijayanagara itself. The empire never really recovered and a couple of the Deccan sultanates conquered it fully in 1646.

January 26, 1699: The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the 1683-1699 Great Turkish War that pitted the Ottoman Empire against a coalition of Christian powers. What is mainly noteworthy about Karlowitz is that it was the first treaty the Ottomans concluded in clear defeat, forced to give up significant European territory to the Habsburgs, Venice, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

January 26, 1788: The British First Fleet arrives at the future Port Jackson and plants a flag on Sydney Cove, marking the establishment of Britain’s penal colony in Australia. Annually commemorated as Australia Day.

British painter Algernon Talmage’s 1937 The Founding of Australia. By Capt. Arthur Phillip R.N. Sydney Cove, Jan. 26th 1788 (Wikimedia Commons)

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

The Syrian military and the Syrian Democratic Forces group have been accusing one another of multiple violations of their just-extended ceasefire, including dozens of drone and artillery strikes and primarily in areas around the city of Kobani. The ceasefire is nevertheless holding at least in a technical sense, but if this low-level fighting continues the future of the ceasefire beyond its current 15 day term is going to be very uncertain at best.