LESSONS OF HISTORY ?

During the Crimean War (October 1853- February1856) on the 28th March 1854, Britain and France formally declared war on Russia. This culminated in the Treaty of Paris which was signed on the 30th March 1856 at the Congress of Paris. The seeds of the conflict can be laid at the door of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte who had managed by means of a surreptitious coup d’état in 1851 to declare himself Napoleon III Emperor of France, attempting to emulate his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte.

Russian map of the Crimean war

This was on the face of it, a religious war, in that it involved some degree of control over the Holy Land. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The ramifications of this war and the personalities involved affected the peace of Europe for the next century and into the present day, with killings going on in North Africa and the Middle East. It is what makes history fascinating but apparently we have learned very little by it as the killing continues. However, more of this anon…

As to the 28th March:

01:34 am 28th MARCH 1942 - OPERATION CHARIOT

The St Nazaire Raid or Operation Chariot was a successful British amphibious attack on the heavily defended Normandie dock at St Nazaire , France during the Second World War. The operation was undertaken by the Royal Navy and British Commandos under the auspices of Combined Operations HQ. At 01:34 on 28 March 1942 HMS Campbeltown rammed the dock gate 4 minutes later than planned. The Commandos and ship's crew came ashore under heavy German fire, and set about demolishing the dock machinery. The charges in the Campbeltown exploded at noon, an hour and a half after the latest time that the British had expected them to detonate. Although the ship had been searched by the Germans, the explosives had not been detected. The explosion demolished both the front half of the destroyer and the 160-ton caisson of the drydock, with the rush of water into the drydock washing the remains of the ship into it. The St. Nazaire drydock was rendered unusable for the rest of the war, and was not repaired until 1947.

German and some French civilian casualties were over 360 dead, mostly killed after the raid when Campbeltown exploded. 169 of the raiders were killed (64 commandos and 105 sailors) out of the 611 men in the attacking force. Of the survivors, 215 were captured and 222 were evacuated by the surviving small craft. A further five evaded capture and travelled overland through France to Spain and then to Gibraltar.

To recognise their bravery, 89 decorations were awarded to members of the raiding party, including five VC's. After the war St Nazaire was one of 38 battle honours awarded to the Commandos; the operation has since become known as The Greatest Raid of All.

The whole of the documentary can be watched on You Tube.

On the 28th March 1930 the names of the Turkish cities of Constantinople and Angora were  changed to Istanbul and Ankara. 

Names of Istanbul

Bysantium (Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion) is the first known name of the city. Around 660 BC, Greek settlers from the city-state of Megara founded a Doric colony on the present-day Istanbul, and named the new colony after their king, Byzas. After Constantine I (Constantine the Great) made the city the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD, the city became widely known as Constantinopolis or Constantinople, which, as the Latinised form of "Κωνσταντινούπολις" (Kōnstantinoúpolis), means the "City of Constantine". He also attempted to promote the name Nea Roma ("New Rome"), but this never caught on. Constantinople remained the official name of the city throughout the byzantine period, and the most common name used for it in the West until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.

By the 19th century, the city had acquired a number of names used by either foreigners or Turks. Europeans often used Stamboul alongside Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, but Turks used the former name only to describe the historic peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. Pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu which is still in use today.

However, with the Turkish Postal Service Law of 28 March 1930, the Turkish authorities formally requested foreigners to adopt İstanbul, a name in existence since the 10th century, as the sole name of the city within their own languages.

Etymologically, the name "İstanbul" derives from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν" [is tin ˈpolin] or, in the Aegean dialect, "εἰς τὰν Πόλιν" [is tan ˈpolin] (Modern Greek "στην Πόλη" [stin'poli],  which means "in the city" or "to the city". In modern Turkish, the name is written "İstanbul", with a dotted İ, as the Turkish alphabet distinguishes between a dotted and dotless I. Also, while in English the stress is on the first syllable ("Is"), in Turkish it is on the second syllable ("tan").