Apologies but I am unable to do a voiceover tonight. Those who require assistance should be able to use the text-to-voice function in the Substack app.
TODAY IN HISTORY
November 11, 1813: A relatively small and heavily outnumbered British-Canadian force defeats an invading US army near the town of Morrisburg in what is now the Canadian province of Ontario, in the War of 1812’s Battle of Crysler’s Farm. The American defeat, following so closely on the heels of their defeat at the Battle of the Châteauguay in late October, ended the US army’s Saint Lawrence Campaign and thus its hopes of capturing Montreal.
November 11, 1918: Marshal Józef Piłsudski becomes Chief of State of the first Polish nation to have existed since Austria, Prussia, and Russia carved up the previous one in the “Third Partition” in 1795. The German and Austrian governments had formed a Polish Regency Council the previous year, and with Germany defeated, Austria-Hungary defeated and disintegrating, and Russia in chaos following its 1917 revolution, the council availed itself of the opportunity to declare independence in October 1918. Piłsudski, who in 1914 founded a military unit that would eventually grow into the “Polish Legions” and advance the Polish national cause through World War I, was the obvious choice as head of state. His appointment is considered the foundation of the modern Polish state and it’s therefore this date that’s commemorated every year as Polish Independence Day.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Lebanese Agriculture Ministry and two United Nations agencies, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program, issued a joint statement on Wednesday estimating that over 1 million Lebanese people are being affected by “acute food shortages.” The main drivers are the Israeli military (IDF) occupation and destruction of southern Lebanon (in particular the displacement it’s caused) and the implosion of the Lebanese economy. They’re expecting that this number will rise to 1.15 million people by the middle of next year and continue beyond that as more families run out of ways to cut their budgets and/or exhaust whatever savings they have left.
