World roundup: May 30 2025
Stories from China, Libya, Ukraine, and elsewhere
TODAY IN HISTORY
May 30, 1431: The 19 year old (give or take) Joan of Arc is burned at the stake for heresy. After helping shepherd Charles VII to the French throne in 1429, Joan was captured while accompanying an army sent to relieve the English-Burgundian siege of Compiègne in May 1430. The Burgundians transferred her to English custody, and despite several French attempts to rescue her she was placed on trial for heresy in January 1431. Despite a lack of evidence and amid heavy English interference in what was supposed to be a Church process, Joan was found guilty.
May 30, 1913: The Treaty of London brings the First Balkan War to an end. The victorious Balkan League and the “Great Powers” (Austria-Hungary, Britain, Germany, Italy, and Russia) dictated the terms, which gave Crete to Greece and ceded every remaining Ottoman European territory to the Balkan League, except for the European environs of Istanbul and the territory of an independent Albania whose exact borders were to be determined by the “Powers.” The treaty satisfied almost none of the parties, particularly over the issue of dividing formerly Ottoman Macedonia. An especially frustrated Bulgarian government wound up attacking Serbia and Greece on June 29, kicking off the Second Balkan War.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The Israeli military (IDF) conducted another round of airstrikes in Syria on Friday, this time hitting what it said were “weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation” in northwestern Syria’s Latakia and Tartus provinces. The attacks killed at least one person in Latakia. Syria’s interim government is engaged in deescalation talks with the Israeli government but clearly it’s a work in progress.
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