TODAY IN HISTORY
March 11, 843: Byzantine Empress Theodora restores the veneration of religious icons in a ceremony held in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Thus ended the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm, which had begun under Emperor Leo V in 815. Theodora—who by this point was serving as regent for her son, Michael III—was aligned with the iconophilic faction at court. When she assumed power upon the 842 death of her husband, Emperor Theophilos, she called the Council of Constantinople, which in early March 843 made iconophilism the official Church position.
March 11, 1917: British forces capture Baghdad from the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of the city signaled that the British military had recovered from its disastrous defeat at Kut the previous year and was one of the last major engagements on the Mesopotamian front in World War I. Ottoman forces retreated to the strategically more vital city of Mosul and most of the regional action shifted to the Levant front.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least 64 people in multiple strikes across Lebanon on Wednesday, including a second attack on downtown Beirut since the war began. The Lebanese Health Ministry now says that the IDF has killed at least 634 people and wounded 1586 since last Monday. Its attacks have displaced over 816,000 people.
