The Battle of Jutland was the largest naval battle of World War I, and the only full-scale clash of battleships in that war. It was fought on 31 May–1 June 1916, in the North Sea near Jutland. The combatants were the Kaiserliche Marine's High Seas Fleet, commanded by Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer, and the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe. The Germans planned to lure Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty's battlecruiser squadrons into the path of the main German battle fleet and so destroy them. But the British had learned from signal intercepts that a major fleet operation was in prospect, and on 30 May Jellicoe sailed with the Grand Fleet to rendezvous with Beatty. On the afternoon of 31 May, Beatty and Hipper encountered each other, and in a running battle Hipper drew the British into the path of the High Seas Fleet. Fourteen British and eleven German ships were sunk with great loss of life. Both sides claimed victory. The British had lost more ships and many more sailors, but Scheer's plan of destroying Beatty's squadrons had failed. For the remainder of the war, the German High Seas Fleet stayed in port. and never again contested control of the seas. Instead, the German Navy turned its efforts and resources to unrestricted submarine warfare.

Clockwise from top-left: members of the XI International Brigade at the Battle of Belchite; Granollers after being bombed by Nationalists aviation in 1938; Bombing of an airfield in Spanish Morocco; Republican soldiers at the siege of the Alcázar; Nationalist soldiers operating an anti-aircraft gun; The Lincoln Battalion

The Spanish Civil War (Spanish: Guerra Civil Española) was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

The war began after the partial failure of the coup d'état of July 1936 against the Republican government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces, with General Emilio Mola as the primary planner and leader and having General José Sanjurjo as a figurehead. The government at the time was a coalition of Republicans, supported in the Cortes by communist and socialist parties, under the leadership of centre-left President Manuel Azaña. The Nationalist group was supported by a number of conservative groups, including CEDA, monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists, and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party. After the deaths of Sanjurjo, Emilio Mola and Manuel Goded Llopis, Franco emerged as the remaining leader of the Nationalist side. (Full article...)

• ... that cavalry of both sides at the Battle of Ticinus fought on foot?
• ... that the special designation of the 623rd Field Artillery Regiment is being reviewed as it refers to Confederate general John Hunt Morgan?
• ... that dermosyphilopathologist Giuseppe Mariani received a silver medal for his bravery under fire at the Third Battle of the Isonzo?
• ... that in 1776 Abraham Hunt entertained Hessian mercenaries with food and drink to render them incapable for duty the night before George Washington defeated them at Trenton?
• ... that Elizabeth Thorn was six months pregnant when she buried approximately one hundred fallen soldiers after the Battle of Gettysburg?
• ... that rebel leader and later Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had to walk 19 kilometres (12 mi) and borrow a car before the Battle of Kabamba because his pickup truck had broken down?
• ... that many Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant fighters were able to reunite with their kidnapped families after the 2021 Battle of Sambisa Forest?
• ... that according to the Chronicon Wormatiense, Emperor Frederick II would have conquered the entire Holy Land if the pope had not invaded his kingdom while he was away on crusade?

January 26

• 1699 - Treaty of Carlowitz signed.
• 1863 - American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He is replaced by Joseph Hooker.
• 1885 - Troops loyal to the Mahdi conquer Khartoum.
• 1887 - Battle of Dogali: Abyssinian troops defeat Italians.
• 1939 - Spanish Civil War: Troops loyal to Francisco Franco and aided by Italy take Barcelona.
• 1942 - World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
• 1992 - Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia is going to stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.