10 March 1359

An English raiding force under Sir Robert Knolles captures the French town of Auxerre. The town is looted but is spared wholesale destruction on the payment of a substantial ransom.

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10 March 1513

Death of John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford. Oxford fought at Barnet in 1471, led Henry VII’s vanguard at Bosworth in 1485, and Stoke two years later, and began the assault on the Cornish rebels at Blackheath in 1497.


10 March 1777

Radical James Aitken, alias John the Painter, is hanged for arson at the gate of Portsmouth Dockyard.


10 March 1799

After the Ottoman city of Jaffa falls to Napoleon, he orders his troops to slaughter several thousand men from the city’s Albanian garrison.


10 March 1858

Birth in Tonbridge, Kent, of Henry Watson Fowler, lexicographer and author of the best-selling Modern English Usage, considered by many to be the definitive style guide to the English language.

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10 March 1831

The French Foreign Legion was established by King Louis-Philippe. It initially saw service in Algeria before being sent to Spain four years later to fight in the Carlist Wars.


10 March 1910

Release of the silent movie In Old California. Directed by DW Griffith of the Biograph Company, it was the first film to be shot in Hollywood.

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10 March 1922

Following an outbreak of violent protest at Chauri Chaura, which led him to call off his campaign of civil disobedience, Mohandas Gandhi was arrested for sedition. He was sentenced to six years' imprisonment but was released after two years.

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