TODAY IN HISTORY
November 13, 1002: In an event that’s been commemorated as the “St. Brice’s Day Massacre,” English King Æthelred the Unready orders the execution of all Danes in his kingdom. Æthelred’s relationship with the Danes was poor. He’d been defeated by a Danish army at the Battle of Maldon in 991 and forced to pay tribute, and Danish raiders routinely swept through the English countryside. There was a historical memory of the depredations of the Danelaw that likely contributed to general anti-Dane sentiment in England. At some point in 1002 Æthelred was apparently convinced that any Dane living in his domain would gladly assassinate him, and under this vaguely perceived notion of a “threat” he issued an order for their mass killing. The actual number of people killed is unclear but the massacre is thought to have contributed to Danish King Sweyn Forkbeard’s invasion of England in 1003. It’s said that Sweyn’s sister and her husband were among the massacre’s victims.
November 13, 1918: Allied forces occupy Istanbul. Under the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottoman Empire’s World War I surrender document, Allied soldiers were permitted to garrison the empire’s Bosphorus Fort. A military occupation of the entire city was something of a gray area, though the Ottomans were in no position to object. The later Treaty of Sèvres would have made Istanbul an “international city,” but the Turkish War of Independence and subsequent Treaty of Lausanne incorporated it into the new Republic of Turkey.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Lebanese Army seized an “arms depot” in the southern Beirut suburbs on Friday and confiscated the arms and munitions therein. Lebanese officials didn’t identify the owner(s) of the depot but given the location it seems reasonable to assume that this was a Hezbollah cache, which could raise concerns if this marks the start of a broader campaign to try to disarm that organization.
