This day in history

The Battle of Verdun, the longest engagement of World War I, ends after 10 months and massive loss of life.

In February 1916, German forces launched an offensive against Verdun, a city 137 miles east of Paris. The outlying forts of Hardaumont and Douaumont soon fell, but the French rallied under General Henri Pétain, and a bloody stalemate ensued. On 1 July, a major British offensive in the Somme River region relieved some of the pressure on Verdun, as did the Brusilov Offence by Russia on the Eastern Front.

By mid-December, the French had recovered most of the ground lost in the early days of the battle. When the Battle of Verdun ended with a French victory on 18 December, 23 million shells had been fired and 650,000 lives lost.

The British government announces that it will pay £42,000 in compensation to the families of those killed during the Bloody Sunday massacre in Northern Ireland.

Tchaikovsky’s ballet, ‘The Nutcracker’, premiers at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Second Punic War: Hannibal’s Carthaginian army defeats the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia in Italy.