TODAY IN HISTORY
November 12, 1893: Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan agrees to accept the boundary drawn by British Foreign Secretary for India Sir Mortimer Durand as the new border between Afghanistan and British South Asia. The Durand Line, which ran through the traditional homelands of both the Pashtun and the Baluch peoples, has for better or worse (usually worse) remained the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan to the present day.
November 12, 1942: The naval Battle of Guadalcanal begins. The battle ended three days later with a decisive US victory over Imperial Japan that ensured the Japanese would be unable to provide significant support to their soldiers on Guadalcanal itself. It thus marks a decisive turning point in the Guadalcanal Campaign and, at least for some historians, marks the overall turning point in World War II’s Pacific Theater.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The US military’s Central Command reported on Wednesday that its forces participated in over 22 counter-Islamic State operations in Syria between October 1 and November 6. It’s claiming that those operations left at least five IS members dead and 19 captured. The Syrian government announced earlier this week that it has joined the anti-IS coalition, albeit only in a “political” capacity.
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