On 1 August 1944, at 5 p.m., the hour the insurgents called W-hour, the Polish Home Army rose against the German occupiers of Warsaw. In some districts the fighting began earlier in the afternoon. By nightfall the insurgents had taken the Prudential building, the tallest in the city, and the Victoria hotel, which became their district headquarters, but the Vistula bridges, the railway stations and the airfields stayed in German hands. The German garrison commander put the day’s Polish losses at 2,000 soldiers. The rising, planned to last a few days, went on for 63. On the same date in 1798, Nelson attacked the French fleet at sunset off the mouth of the Nile.
The Warsaw Uprising, 1944: 63 days of defiance
1 August to 2 October 1944 · 82 years ago
Since 1939 Warsaw had suffered brutal German occupation. The Polish underground state built a secret army, the Home Army, loyal to the government in exile in London.
Read the full story of The Warsaw Uprising, 1944: 63 days of defiance ›Battle of Saint Gotthard, 1664: Montecuccoli stops the Grand Vizier on the Rába
1 August 1664 · 362 years ago
On the Raab near Szentgotthárd in western Hungary, Raimondo Montecuccoli's imperial army, with German and French contingents, met the Ottoman army of Grand Vizier Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed. The Ottomans who had crossed the river were thrown back, and the Peace of Vasvár followed.
Read the full story of Battle of Saint Gotthard, 1664: Montecuccoli stops the Grand Vizier on the Rába ›Also on this day
1798: at sunset Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson attacked the French fleet off the mouth of the Nile. “Almighty God has blessed His Majesty’s Arms in the late Battle, by a great Victory over the Fleet of the Enemy, whom I attacked at Sun-set on the 1st of August off the Mouth of the Nile,” he wrote to the Earl of St Vincent. An account printed in London in 1798 and drawn up, its title says, from the minutes of an officer of rank in the squadron, puts sunset at 31 minutes past six; it says that a fire was seen on board L’Orient, the French flagship, at ten minutes after nine, and that she blew up about ten o’clock. Nelson’s list of the French line marks L’Orient and Le Timoleon burnt, the Guillaume Tell and the Genereux escaped, and the other ships of the line taken. The official return of British killed and wounded gives a total of 895; the naval historian William James counts 218 killed and 678 wounded, one more wounded than the official account, which left out Nelson himself. Nelson’s life is told in our biography of Horatio Nelson.1
