July 22:Siege of Belgrade broken by János Hunyadi
1456: In 1456 the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, laid siege to Belgrade. The governor of Hungary, János Hunyadi, provisioned and armed the fortress of that city, collected a considerable army of mercenaries, and was joined by a poorly equipped and ragged army of peasants. On this day, this untrained army and Hunyadi's troops won one of the most remarkable victories in the history of Turkish wars, raising the siege and saving Hungary from Ottoman conquest for 70 years.
1946: A violent Jewish right-wing underground movement in Palestine, the Irgun Zvai Leumi, blew up a wing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, killing 91 soldiers and civilians.
1943: Led by General George S. Patton, the Allied forces took Palermo, on the northwest corner of Sicily, giving them a strategic foothold from which to invade mainland Italy. |
