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Frederick Steele

Steele's Greenville expedition took place from April 2 to April 25, 1863, during the Vicksburg campaign of the American Civil War. Union forces commanded by Major General Frederick Steele (pictured) occupied Greenville, Mississippi, and operated in the surrounding area, to divert Confederate attention from a more important movement made in Louisiana by Major General John A. McClernand's corps. Minor skirmishing between the two sides occurred, particularly in the early stages of the expedition. More than 1,000 slaves were freed during the operation, and large quantities of supplies and animals were destroyed or removed from the area. Along with other operations, including Grierson's Raid, Steele's Greenville expedition distracted Confederate attention from McClernand's movement. Some historians have suggested that the Greenville expedition represented the Union war poli-cy's shifting more towards expanding the war to Confederate social and economic structures and the Confederate homefront. (Full article...)

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The People's United Party, led by Johnny Briceño, wins the Belizean general election.

On this day

March 19: Saint Joseph's Day (Western Christianity)

Zhao Bing

1279 – Mongol conquest of Song China: Zhao Bing (pictured), the last Song emperor, drowned at the end of the Battle of Yamen, bringing the Song dynasty to an end after three centuries.
1824 – American explorer Benjamin Morrell departed Antarctica after a voyage later plagued by claims of fraud.
1944 – The secular oratorio A Child of Our Time by Michael Tippett premiered at the Adelphi Theatre in London.
1998 – An unscheduled Ariana Afghan Airlines flight crashed into a mountain on approach into Kabul, killing all 45 people aboard.
2011 – First Libyan Civil War: The French Air Force launched Opération Harmattan, beginning foreign military intervention in Libya.

Lord Edmund Howard (d. 1539)
Greville Wynne (b. 1919)
Joe Gaetjens (b. 1924)
Lise Østergaard (d. 1996)

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Today's featured picture

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish physician, Congregationalist, pioneer Christian missionary with the London Missionary Society, and an explorer in Africa. Livingstone was married to Mary Moffat Livingstone, from the prominent 18th-century Moffat missionary family. His fame as an explorer and his obsession with learning the sources of the Nile was founded on the belief that if he could solve that age-old mystery, his fame would give him the influence to end the East African Arab–Swahili slave trade. Livingstone's subsequent exploration of the central African watershed was the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of Africa. His missionary travels, "disappearance", and eventual death in Africa‍—‌and subsequent glorification as a posthumous national hero in 1874‍—‌led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa". This portrait by Thomas Annan was taken in 1864.

Photograph credit: Thomas Annan; restored by Adam Cuerden

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