On this day in military history, June 23: 1258 - Naval Battle of Acre: Venetians defeat the Genoese. 1287 - Battle of the Counts: Ruggiero di Lauria’s Aragonese-Sicilian fleet defeats the Angevins off Naples, taking many noble prisoners. 1314 - Start of the Battle of Bannockburn south of Stirling, Edward II of England & Robert I of Scotland met in battle. Scotland won and Edward fled the field and Scotland. 1700 - Russia gives up its Black Sea fleet as part of a truce with the Ottoman Empire. 1757 - Battle of Plassey - 3000 British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at Plassey. 1758 - Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld - British forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany. 1760 - Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut - Austria beats Prussia. 1863 - Confederate forces overwhelm a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in Louisiana. 1865 - At Fort Towson in Oklahoma Territory Confederate General Stand Watie surrenders the last significant rebel army. 1884 - A Chinese Army defeats the French at Bacle, Indochina. 1885 - Former general and president Ulysses S. Grant dies at the age of 63. 1915 - First Battle of the Isonzo begins (to July 7). 1919 - Defeat of German forces at Cesis in northern Latvia during Estonian Liberation War, now celebrated annually as Estonian Victory Day. 1940 - German leader Adolf Hitler surveys newly defeated Paris in now occupied France. 1941 - Lithuanian Activist Front initiates Lithuanian 1941 independence from the Soviet Union; it lasted only briefly as the Nazis occupied Lithuania a few weeks later. 1942 - Rommel breaks the Gazala Line and drives on Egypt. 1942 - Germany's latest fighter, a Focke-Wulf FW190 is captured intact when it mistakenly lands in Wales. 1943 - The British destroyers Eclipse and Laforey sink the Italian submarine Ascianghi in the Mediterranean after she torpedoes the cruiser Newfoundland. 1943 - Japanese sub Ro-103 sinks two transports off Guadalcanal. 1944 - In one of the largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sends 761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania. 1944 - Russians begin the destruction of German Army Group Center. 1952 - The U.S. Air Force bombs power plants on Yalu River, Korea.

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