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Modern reconstruction of a ship of the period

The siege of Brest took place in 1342 during the Breton Civil War, a dispute over who should inherit the Duchy of Brittany, with Charles of Blois, supported by a large French army, besieging supporters of John of Montfort. As France and England were engaged in the Hundred Years' War, the Monfortists appealed to the English king for military assistance, which was promised. It was slow in coming, and by July 1342 Brest was the last fortification held for the Montfort cause. The town was blockaded from the sea by 14 mercenary Genoese galleys. On 18 August, an English fleet of 260 ships (example pictured), commanded by William of Northampton, sailed into the Brest Roads and overwhelmed the galleys, burning 11. The English ships carried only a small fighting force, but seeing so many enemy ships and the English vanguard disembarking, Charles broke off the siege and withdrew. The historian Jonathan Sumption describes this as extraordinary. The Breton Civil War continued until 1365, and the Hundred Years' War until 1453. (Full article...)

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On this day

August 18

Royal Australian Air Force helicopter in Vietnam

1783 – A meteor procession blazed across the night sky over Great Britain.
1891 – A hurricane struck the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing about 700 people, injuring at least 1,000 others, and causing severe damage.
1920 – The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, guaranteeing women's suffrage in the country.
1966 – Vietnam War: Members of the 6th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were surrounded by a much larger Viet Cong unit at the Battle of Long Tan (helicopter pictured), but held them off for several hours until reinforcements arrived.
2008 – Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf resigned under pressure from a movement to impeach him.

Mother Solomon (d. 1890)
Evan Gattis (b. 1986)
Nick Fuentes (b. 1998)
Machali (d. 2016)

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Today's featured picture

The Scream is an art composition first created by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. Its imagery has been interpreted as expressing the anxiety of modern humanity and influenced the Expressionist movement. Munch described walking at sunset when the sky turned blood red and sensing an "infinite scream passing through nature". He produced four versions, two in paint and two in pastel, as well as a lithograph. The 1895 pastel sold at auction for nearly US$120 million in 2012. Versions of The Scream were stolen from museums in Oslo in 1994 and 2004; both were later recovered. This 1893 painted version of The Scream features the barely visible pencil inscription Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand! ('could only have been painted by a madman'), and is in the collection of the National Museum of Norway in Oslo.

Painting credit: Edvard Munch

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