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George Simmons (British Army Officer)
George Simmons (2 May 17855 March 1858) was a British Army officer who served in the Napoleonic Wars and was wounded at the Battle of Waterloo while serving with the 95th Regiment of Foot (Rifles). Life and career Simmons was born in Beverley, Yorkshire one of nine sons and three daughters. He at first studied medicine but in 1805 was given a commission as an assistant surgeon in the Royal South Lincolnshire Militia as the threat from Napoleon increased. After four years service he transferred to the 1st Battalion of the 95th Rifles as a second-lieutenant since the normal lowest rank of ensign did not exist in the Rifles at that time. He was subsequently promoted to first-lieutenant on 25July 1811; to captain on 17April 1828 and to major on 16February 1838. Peninsular War Wounded at the Combat of the Côa in 1810, he was present at subsequent Combat at Pombal (1811), Fuentes de Oñoro (1811), Ciudad Rodrigo (1812). Badajoz (1812), Salamanca (1812), Vitoria (1813), Pyrenees (181 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Army
The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurkhas, and 28,330 volunteer reserve personnel. The modern British Army traces back to 1707, with antecedents in the English Army and Scots Army that were created during the Restoration in 1660. The term ''British Army'' was adopted in 1707 after the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Members of the British Army swear allegiance to the monarch as their commander-in-chief, but the Bill of Rights of 1689 and Claim of Right Act 1689 require parliamentary consent for the Crown to maintain a peacetime standing army. Therefore, Parliament approves the army by passing an Armed Forces Act at least once every five years. The army is administered by the Ministry of Defence and commanded by the Chief of the General Staff. The Brit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of The Pyrenees
The Battle of the Pyrenees was a large-scale offensive (the author David Chandler recognises the 'battle' as an offensive) launched on 25 July 1813 by Marshal Nicolas Jean de Dieu Soult from the Pyrénées region on Emperor Napoleon’s order, in the hope of relieving French garrisons under siege at Pamplona and San Sebastián. After initial success the offensive ground to a halt in the face of increased allied resistance under the command of Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington. Soult abandoned the offensive on 30 July and headed toward France, having failed to relieve either garrison. The Battle of the Pyrenees involved several distinct actions. On 25 July, Soult and two French corps fought the reinforced British 4th Division and a Spanish division at the Battle of Roncesvalles. The Allied force successfully held off all attacks during the day, but retreated from the Roncesvalles Pass that night in the face of overwhelming French numerical superiority. Also on the 25 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1858 Deaths
Events January–March * January – **Benito Juárez (1806–1872) becomes Liberal President of Mexico. At the same time, conservatives install Félix María Zuloaga (1813–1898) as president. **William I of Prussia becomes regent for his brother, Frederick William IV, who had suffered a stroke. * January 9 ** British forces finally defeat Rajab Ali Khan of Chittagong ** Anson Jones, the last president of the Republic of Texas, commits suicide. * January 14 – Orsini affair: Felice Orsini and his accomplices fail to assassinate Napoleon III in Paris, but their bombs kill eight and wound 142 people. Because of the involvement of French émigrés living in Britain, there is a brief anti-British feeling in France, but the emperor refuses to support it. * January 25 – The ''Wedding March'' by Felix Mendelssohn becomes a popular wedding recessional, after it is played on this day at the marriage of Queen Victoria's daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, to Princ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1785 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The first issue of the ''Daily Universal Register'', later known as ''The Times'', is published in London. * January 7 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England to Calais, France in a hydrogen gas balloon, becoming the first to cross the English Channel by air. * January 11 – Richard Henry Lee is elected as President of the U.S. Congress of the Confederation.''Harper's Encyclopaedia of United States History from 458 A. D. to 1909'', ed. by Benson John Lossing and, Woodrow Wilson (Harper & Brothers, 1910) p167 * January 20 – Battle of Rạch Gầm-Xoài Mút: Invading Siamese forces, attempting to exploit the political chaos in Vietnam, are ambushed and annihilated at the Mekong River, by the Tây Sơn. * January 27 – The University of Georgia in the United States is chartered by the Georgia General Assembly meeting in Savannah. The first students are ad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and millions of books. In addition to its archiving function, the Archive is an activist organization, advocating a free and open Internet. , the Internet Archive holds over 35 million books and texts, 8.5 million movies, videos and TV shows, 894 thousand software programs, 14 million audio files, 4.4 million images, 2.4 million TV clips, 241 thousand concerts, and over 734 billion web pages in the Wayback Machine. The Internet Archive allows the public to upload and download digital material to its data cluster, but the bulk of its data is collected automatically by its web crawlers, which work to preserve as much of the public web as possible. Its web archiving, web archive, the Wayback Machine, contains hu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willoughby Verner
Colonel William Willoughby Cole Verner (22 October 1852 – 25 January 1922) was a British soldier, writer, ornithologist, and inventor of a type of compass. He was briefly a Professor of Topography at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He is remembered for bringing Cueva de la Pileta, a cave filled with prehistoric paintings, to international attention. Life Verner was born in 1852 and he showed an early interest in bones collecting the fossils of extinct animals. By 1867 he had started his own diary recording his interest in egg collecting and shooting. In 1874 he joined the Rifle Brigade and was posted to Gibraltar although he also holidayed on the Scottish island of Tiree with fellow naturalist Howard Irby where they continued their interest in studying, shooting (and eating) the local wildlife. He continued his diary until 1890. He took out patents to improve a cavalry sketch board which was designed to be used strapped to the wrist. In 1895 Verner had a novel version ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winchester Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity,Historic England. "Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity (1095509)". ''National Heritage List for England''. Retrieved 8 September 2014. Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun, commonly known as Winchester Cathedral, is the cathedral of the city of Winchester, England, and is among the largest of its kind in Northern Europe. The cathedral is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and is the mother church for the ancient Diocese of Winchester. It is run by a dean and chapter, under the Dean of Winchester. The cathedral as it stands today was built from 1079 to 1532 and is dedicated to numerous saints, most notably Swithun of Winchester. It has a very long and very wide nave in the Perpendicular Gothic style, an Early English retrochoir, and Norman transepts and tower. With an overall length of , it is the longest medieval cathedral in the world, and only surpassed by the more recent churches of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, Basilica of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medal Bar
A medal bar or medal clasp is a thin metal bar attached to the ribbon of a military decoration, civil decoration, or other medal. It most commonly indicates the campaign or operation the recipient received the award for, and multiple bars on the same medal are used to indicate that the recipient has met the criteria for receiving the medal in multiple theatres. When used in conjunction with decorations for exceptional service, such as gallantry medals, the term "and bar" means that the award has been bestowed multiple times. In the example, "Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, VC, OM, DSO and two bars, DFC", "DSO and two bars" means that the Distinguished Service Order was awarded on three occasions. A British convention is to indicate bars by the use of asterisks; thus, DSO** would denote a DSO and two bars. Bars are also used on long-service medals to indicate the length of service rendered. The two terms are used because terms "bar" and "clasp" both refer to two parts of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Military General Service Medal
__NOTOC__ The Military General Service Medal (MGSM) was a campaign medal approved in 1847 and issued to officers and men of the British Army in 1848.Including officers and men of the King's German Legion, Brunswick Oels and Chasseurs Britanniques, but not other foreign troops in British service. The MGSM was approved on 1 June 1847 as a retrospective award for various military actions from 1793–1814; a period encompassing the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars, and the Anglo-American War of 1812. Each battle or campaign covered by the medal was represented by a clasp on the ribbon; twenty-nine were sanctioned and the maximum awarded to one man was fifteen. The Duke of Richmond, who had fought at Waterloo, was chiefly responsible for the belated institution of the Military General Service Medal for all survivors of the campaigns between 1793 and 1814. He campaigned in Parliament and also enlisted the interest of Queen Victoria, who persuaded a reluctant Duke of W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Quatre Bras
The Battle of Quatre Bras was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French ''Armée du Nord'' under Marshal Michel Ney. The battle was a tactical victory for Wellington (as he possessed the field at dusk), but because Ney prevented him going to the aid of Blucher's Prussians who were fighting a larger French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte at Ligny it was a strategic victory for the French. Prelude Facing two armies (Wellington's arriving from the west and the Prussians under Field Marshall von Blücher from the east), Napoleon's overall strategy was to defeat each in turn, before these forces could join. Napoleon intended to cross the border into what is now Belgium (but was then part of the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tarbes
Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' or ''Tarba'' in Roman times. Tarbes is part of the historical region of Gascony. Formerly of strong industrial tradition, Tarbes today tries to diversify its activities, particularly in aeronautics and high tech around the different zones of activities which are increasing. The recent development of and other regional specialties also shows a willingness to develop the agri-food industry thus justifying its nickname of "market town". Its 42,888 inhabitants are called ''Tarbaises'' and the ''Tarbais''. It is the seat of the diocese of Tarbes-et-Lourdes. The 1st Parachute Hussar Regiment and 35th Parachute Artillery Regiment are stationed in Tarbes. Geography Location Tarbes is a Pre-Pyrenees town within the rich agricultural plai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Orthez
The Battle of Orthez (27 February 1814) saw the Anglo-Spanish-Portuguese Army under Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Marquess of Wellington attack an Imperial French army led by Marshal Nicolas Soult in southern France. The outnumbered French repelled several Allied assaults on their right flank, but their center and left flank were overcome and Soult was compelled to retreat. At first the withdrawal was conducted in good order, but it eventually ended in a scramble for safety and many French soldiers became prisoners. The engagement occurred near the end of the Peninsular War. In mid-February, Wellington's army broke out of its small area of conquered territory near Bayonne. Moving east, the Allies drove the French back from several river lines. After a pause in the campaign, the westernmost Allied corps surrounded and isolated Bayonne. Resuming their eastward drive, the remaining two Allied corps pushed Soult's army back to Orthez where the French marshal offered battle. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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