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Bielski partisans
The Bielski partisans were a Jewish partisan group founded in 1942 in Western Belorussia by Tuvia, Asael, Zus, and Aharon Bielski, combining armed resistance with rescue; over 1,200 Jews survived in their Naliboki Forest camp.
Birmingham pub bombings
The Birmingham pub bombings of 21 November 1974, IRA attacks on the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs, killed 21 and injured over 220; six innocent Irishmen, the Birmingham Six, were wrongly convicted in 1975 and freed in 1991.
Biscari massacre
The Biscari massacre, also called the Santo Pietro massacres, was the 14 July 1943 killing of 73 Italian and German POWs by US 45th Division soldiers near Biscari airfield, Sicily; Sergeant Horace West was convicted and later paroled, Captain Compton acquitted.
Bismarck Archipelago campaign
The Bismarck Archipelago campaign was a World War II Allied operation, running from December 1943 to November 1944, to isolate and neutralize the Japanese stronghold at Rabaul in the Bismarck Archipelago.
Bitch Wars
The Bitch Wars (Сучьи войны) were 1945–1953 conflicts in Soviet Gulag camps between thieves-in-law upholding the non-collaboration code and 'sukas', front-veteran prisoners who fought for the Red Army, with tens of thousands dead.
Bixby letter
The Bixby letter, also called Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby, is a 139-word condolence letter of November 21, 1864, signed by Abraham Lincoln to Boston widow Lydia Bixby, whose five lost sons claim proved false; stylometric evidence points to John Hay as author.
Bizerte crisis
The Bizerte crisis was a 1961 Franco-Tunisian confrontation over the French naval base at Bizerte, in which Tunisia blockaded the base and France evacuated it in 1963.
Black Hawk War
The Black Hawk War (1832) was a conflict in Illinois and Wisconsin between the United States and Sauk leader Black Hawk's band contesting the disputed 1804 Treaty of St. Louis, ending in the Bad Axe massacre and Native removal.
Black Hills Expedition
The Black Hills Expedition was a United States Army reconnaissance led by George Armstrong Custer in 1874 that confirmed gold in the Black Hills, land guaranteed to the Lakota.
Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a Fort William dungeon where, per Holwell's sole 1758 account, 146 prisoners were held on 20 June 1756 and 123 died; historians dispute the numbers, estimates ranging from nine to sixty-nine.
Black July (කළු ජූලි)
Black July (කළු ජූලි) was the anti-Tamil pogrom that swept Sri Lanka from 23 July 1983, killing about 3,000 Tamils and triggering the 26-year civil war.
Black Power Revolution
The Black Power Revolution, also called the February Revolution, was a wave of protests, strikes, and an army mutiny in Trinidad and Tobago in 1970.
Black Prince's chevauchée of 1355
The Black Prince's chevauchée of 1355, the Grande Chevauchée, was an Anglo-Gascon mounted raid from Bordeaux across Languedoc to the Mediterranean, 5 October to 2 December 1355, with Count Armagnac avoiding battle.
Black September (أيلول الأسود)
Black September (أيلول الأسود), the 1970–71 Jordanian civil war: King Hussein's army crushed the PLO-fedayeen state-within-a-state after PFLP hijackings and a Syrian invasion; the PLO fled to Lebanon, spawning the Black September Organization and the 1972 Munich attack.
Black September Organization (منظمة أيلول الأسود)
Black September Organization (منظمة أيلول الأسود), a Palestinian militant group linked to Fatah, active 1971–1973; named after the 1970 Jordan conflict; carried out the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of 11 Israeli athletes and the 1973 Khartoum embassy killings.
Black Tom explosion
The Black Tom explosion was German sabotage of a Jersey City, New Jersey munitions depot on July 30, 1916, destroying about two million pounds of war material, damaging the Statue of Liberty's torch, and leading to $50 million in reparations awarded in 1939.
Black War
The Black War (1824–1831) was the violent frontier conflict in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) between Aboriginal nations and British colonists, ending in martial law, the Black Line campaign, forced removal to Wybalenna, and near-destruction of Tasmania's Indigenous population.
Bleiburg repatriations
Bleiburg repatriations: May 1945 forced handover of Croatian NDH soldiers and civilians by British forces in Austria to Tito's Partisans, followed by death marches, mass executions, and a contested annual commemoration.
Blitzkrieg
Blitzkrieg, German for "lightning war," is the popular term for Germany's mobile combined-arms offensives of 1939-1941; never an official Wehrmacht doctrine, and its status as a coherent concept is debated by historians.
Blockade of Biafra
Blockade of Biafra: Nigeria's Federal Military Government encirclement of the secessionist Eastern Region from 31 May 1967 to January 1970, combining naval, land, currency, and supply restrictions that caused famine, killed up to two million, and prompted the Biafran airlift.
Bloody Sunday (1905)
Bloody Sunday (Кровавое воскресенье), 9/22 January 1905, St. Petersburg: troops fired on unarmed workers led by Father Georgii Gapon marching to petition Tsar Nicholas II, killing hundreds and starting the 1905 Revolution.
Bloody Sunday (1920)
Bloody Sunday 1920 (Domhnach na Fola): day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920 during the Irish War of Independence, when the IRA killed 14 suspected British intelligence officers, Crown forces killed 14 civilians at Croke Park, and three prisoners died in Dublin Castle.
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday (30 January 1972): British 1 Para soldiers shot 13 civil rights marchers dead in Derry's Bogside, a 14th dying later. The Widgery report exonerated troops; the 2010 Saville Inquiry found the killings unjustified, prompting David Cameron's apology.
Blue House raid
Blue House raid (1·21 사태): failed January 21, 1968 attempt by 31 North Korean Unit 124 commandos to assassinate President Park Chung Hee at Cheongwadae in Seoul; 28 killed, Kim Shin-jo captured, followed two days later by the USS Pueblo seizure.
Bobâlna revolt
The Bobâlna revolt (Romanian: Răscoala de la Bobâlna; Hungarian: bábolnai parasztfelkelés) was a Transylvanian peasant uprising against feudal obligations and church taxes, from 1437 into 1438.
Bocskai uprising
The Bocskai uprising (Hungarian: Bocskai-felkelés) was an anti-Habsburg revolt in Royal Hungary and Transylvania led by István Bocskai, elected prince of Transylvania, ending with the Peace of Vienna in 1606.
Bodo League massacre
Bodo League massacre (보도연맹 사건), also National Guidance Alliance massacre: summer 1950 executions of about 300,000-member South Korean re-education league members by ROK army and police; death toll estimates 10,000 to 200,000+; confirmed by Korea's 2009 truth commission.
Body count
Body count: a verified, case-by-case tally of deaths in armed conflict, as opposed to statistical estimation. Covers recording methods, Syria tolls from 191,369 documented to 656,493 estimated, and why counts disagree.
Boer–Pedi War
The Boer–Pedi War, also called the Sekhukhune War, was fought from 1876 to 1877 between the South African Republic and the Pedi kingdom of King Sekhukhune I in the eastern Transvaal.
Bogotazo
The Bogotazo was the wave of riots that swept Bogotá, Colombia, after Liberal Party leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was assassinated on 9 April 1948, leaving several thousand dead.