Wikipedia:Main Page history/2013 December 15

The Battle of Arawe was fought between Allied and Japanese forces during the New Britain Campaign of World War II. The battle was initiated by the Allies to divert Japanese attention away from the Cape Gloucester area of New Britain ahead of a major offensive there in late December 1943. A force built around the U.S. Army's 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team landed at Arawe on 15 December 1943 and rapidly overcame the area's small garrison. Japanese air units made large-scale raids against the Arawe area in the following days, and in late December elements of two Imperial Japanese Army battalions unsuccessfully counter-attacked the larger American force. In mid-January 1944 the 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team was reinforced with additional infantry and U.S. Marine Corps tanks, and launched a brief offensive that pushed the Japanese back. The Japanese units withdrew from the area towards the end of February as part of a general retreat from western New Britain. There is no consensus among historians on whether the Allied landing at Arawe was needed, with some arguing that it provided a useful diversion while others judge that it formed part of an unnecessary campaign. (Full article...)

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• Chang'e 3, carrying the Yutu rover, becomes the first spacecraft to land on the Moon since 1976.
• North Korean media announce the execution of senior government official Jang Sung-taek.
• Jamaat-e-Islami leader Abdul Quader Molla is executed for war crimes committed during the Bangladeshi War of Independence.
• Uruguay becomes the first country in the world to legalize the cultivation, sale, and use of cannabis.
• An exoplanet, HD 106906 b, is discovered with the most distant orbit around a single star, farther than thought possible.
• The World Trade Organization unanimously adopts the Bali Package, aimed at liberalizing world trade.
• Former President of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela (pictured) dies at the age of 95.

December 15: Kingdom Day in Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, and Sint Maarten (1954); Zamenhof Day in Esperanto culture

• 1256 – The Hashshashin stronghold at Alamut in present-day Iran was captured and destroyed by Hulagu Khan and the Mongols.
• 1467 – Troops under Stephen III of Moldavia defeated the forces of Matthias Corvinus of Hungary in present-day Baia, Romania.
• 1939 – The American historical epic film Gone With the Wind (poster pictured), adapted from Margaret Mitchell's Pulitzer-winning novel of the same name, made its premiere in Atlanta, Georgia.
• 1973 – The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders, the DSM-II.
• 1995 – The European Court of Justice handed down the Bosman ruling, allowing footballers in the European Union to freely transfer from one UEFA Federation to another at the end of their contracts.

More anniversaries: December 14 – December 15 – December 16

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Diagram: Hans Hillewaert