A victory that is so costly in terms of men and resources that it seems no different from losing. It comes from King Pyrrhus of Epirus, who was fighting against the Romans in the Pyrrhic Wars (c.280BCE). Pyrrhus is supposed to have said 'If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined' (Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 21:8).
Pyrrhic victory
Fact of the Day
In France around the year 1000, a pale complexion, squeamishness and vegetarianism were all signs of heresy.
Quote of the Day
"He so beautified the city [Rome] that he justly boasted that he found it brick and left it marble.
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~ Suetonius on Augustus
On This Day
1564 William Shakespeare was baptised in Stratford-upon-Avon. His actual birthday is unknown.
1865 John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of Abraham Lincoln, was shot and killed by a US Cavalry soldier in Virginia.
1933 The Gestapo, the secret police of Nazi Germany, was founded.
1937 At the request of the Spanish nationalist government, Nazi and Italian Fascist air forces deliberately targeted civilians in an aerial bombing of the Basque town Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
1945 Marshal Henri Petain, First World War hero and head of France's Vichy government during the Second World War, was arrested on charges of treason by the Allies. At trial he was found guilty and sentenced to death (although the sentence was never carried out).
1986 Thirty-one people died in the world’s worst nuclear disaster to date at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Kiev. The longer-term effects and deaths are still not known.
1999 TV presenter Jill Dando was murdered outside her home in Fulham. The crime is still unsolved.
2002 Robert Steinhäuser, a student expelled from the Gutenberg Gymnasium (school) in Erfurt shot and killed thirteen members of staff, two students, and one police officer, before turning the gun on himself.
2016 The jury at the Hillsborough inquests decided that the 96 Liverpool fans who died during the 1989 FA Cup Semi Final had been unlawfully killed.