World roundup: June 23 2025

Stories from Iran, Thailand, NATO, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

June 23, 1757: A British East India Company army defeats a combined Bengali-French army at the Battle of Palashi (Plassey). EIC officials managed to turn Mir Jafar, the field commander of the Bengali army, to their side by promising to elevate him to the Bengali throne. This proved key to securing victory even though the EIC went into the battle heavily outnumbered. After the battle the British commander, Robert Clive, installed Mir Jafar in place of the ousted Siraj ud-Daulah as the Nawab of Bengal and effectively annexed Bengal into the East India Company’s territory. Plassey thus became one of the key battles in establishing British control over the Indian subcontinent.

English painter Francis Hayman’s c. 1760 Robert Clive and Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, 1757 (Wikimedia Commons)

June 23, 1865: Stand Watie surrenders to US forces at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory. In doing so he became the last Confederate general to capitulate in the US Civil War. Watie was one of two principal chiefs of the Cherokee Nation, elected by Confederate-sympathizing elements of the Cherokee and recognized by the CSA government. By 1865 he’d been promoted to brigadier general in the CSA army, commanding the First Indian Brigade of the Army of the Trans-Mississippi. That army was the last CSA theater command to surrender, on May 26. After the war Watie, no longer recognized as chief, largely stayed out of politics and died in 1871.

MIDDLE EAST

LEBANON

The Israeli military (IDF) bombed several areas in southern Lebanon on Monday to unclear effect. There have been no reports of casualties and while Israeli officials are claiming that they targeted Hezbollah “rocket launchers and an arms depot” that claim cannot be confirmed.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The IDF killed at least 43 Palestinians across Gaza on Monday, including at least 20 in new attacks on aid seekers near “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” distribution centers. The IDF has now killed more than 400 people in the vicinity of those centers since the GHF began operating late last month.

IRAN

It didn’t take the Iranian government long to retaliate for this weekend’s US airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilities, after which the Israeli and Iranian governments may have agreed to a ceasefire. It’s been quite a day.