The Greco-Turkish War is declared between Greece and the Ottoman Empire.

The Greco-Turkish War of 1897, also known as the Thirty Days’ War, was a brief conflict between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The war was primarily fueled by the Greek desire to expand its territory and liberate Greek-speaking populations under Ottoman rule, particularly in Crete and other parts of the Ottoman-occupied Balkans.
Causes

The immediate cause of the war was the Cretan Crisis. Crete had a large Christian population that was seeking either autonomy under Ottoman rule or union with Greece. Greek nationalism and public sentiment strongly supported these aspirations, and the Greek government eventually took military action in support of the insurgents in Crete, defying the Great Powers who had their own interests and plans for the region.
Key Events

January 1897: Tensions escalated when Greek forces landed in Crete to support the local Christian insurrection against Ottoman rule.
April 1897: Full-scale hostilities began. The Greek military, poorly equipped and badly led, quickly faced defeats on the Thessalian front.
May 1897: The Ottoman forces, better organized and more numerous, advanced into Greek territory, capturing key towns including Larissa and Trikala.

Outcome and Aftermath

The war was decisively won by the Ottomans. The Treaty of Constantinople was signed in December 1897, which imposed harsh terms on Greece:

Greece had to pay a large indemnity to the Ottoman Empire.
The Greek military was restricted in its operations near the Ottoman borders.
Territorial losses were minimal, but the defeat deeply embarrassed the Greek government and military.

The Great Powers intervened to enforce the peace and oversee the terms of the settlement. Their involvement highlighted the weakness of Greece and the Ottoman Empire in the face of European power politics.

Long-term Impact

It fostered a period of military and political reform in Greece, which eventually led to the modernization of the Greek army.
The issue of Cretan independence remained unresolved until the island was formally united with Greece after the Balkan Wars in 1913.
The defeat also set the stage for future Balkan conflicts, as the unresolved nationalistic and territorial disputes continued to fester in the region.

This conflict is often seen as a precursor to the larger Balkan Wars that took place in the early 20th century, reflecting the ongoing struggle for national identity and sovereignty in the region against the backdrop of declining Ottoman power.

The International Court of Justice holds its inaugural meeting in The Hague, Netherlands.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (UN). It was established in 1945 and is located in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICJ is responsible for settling legal disputes between states and giving advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized UN organs and specialized agencies.

The court has two main functions: to settle legal disputes between states and to give advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized UN organs and specialized agencies. It has jurisdiction over disputes between states that have accepted its jurisdiction and have submitted to its rulings. The court’s decisions are binding and final, and it has the power to order states to comply with its judgments.

The ICJ is composed of 15 judges who are elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council for a term of nine years. The court’s official languages are English and French, and its decisions are made by a majority vote of the judges. The ICJ has dealt with a wide range of legal issues, including territorial disputes, human rights, environmental law, and international criminal law.

American victory at the battle of Cerro Gordo opens the way for invasion of Mexico.

Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.

Yankee Stadium: “The House that Ruth Built” opens.

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Yankee Stadium is opened.

It was 50 years ago on April 18, 1923 that Yankee Stadium was opened for major league baseball. In the historic first game, the Yankees defeated the Boston Red Sox 4-1. It was historic because the Yanks were the American League champions, they had the leading gate attraction in Babe Ruth, and the new stadium had by far the largest seating capacity of all Big League parks.

The game moved slowly until the third inning when Ruth broke it open with a three-run homer off Howard Ehmke. The crowd of 74,000, largest in baseball history up to that time, went crazy with delight. The Babe beamed from ear to ear and waved his cap to his many admirers as he jogged down the home stretch. No wonder they called it the “House that Ruth Built.”

With two out in the ninth, the game was held up as the crowd swarmed on the field, around Ruth and others. Umpire Tom Connally finally let the game proceed and George Burns fanned for the final out.

A dozen of the 20 players in that game have passed on. Among the eight survivors are the rival pitchers, Ehmke, and Bob Shawkey, who won the first game in Yankee Stadium and scored the first run; Joe Dugan, who knocked in the first run; Bob Meusel, who hit the first double; and Red Sox first sacker Burns, who collected the first hit and made the first error.

Joan of Arc is beatified in Rome.

Joan of Arc was formally canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic Church on 16 May 1920 by Pope Benedict XV in his bull Divina Disponente, which concluded the canonization process that the Sacred Congregation of Rites instigated after a petition of 1869 of the French Catholic hierarchy. Although pro-English clergy had Joan burnt at the stake for heresy in 1431, she was rehabilitated in 1456 after a posthumous retrial. Subsequently she became a folk saint among French Catholics and soldiers inspired by her story of being commanded by God to fight for France against England. Many French regimes encouraged her cult, and the Third Republic was sympathetic to the canonization petition prior to the 1905 separation of church and state.

As with other saints who were excommunicated or investigated by ecclesiastic courts, such as Athanasius, Teresa of Ávila, and John of the Cross, Joan was put on trial by an Inquisitorial court. In her case, the court was influenced by the English, which occupied northern France, leading to her execution in the marketplace of Rouen. When the French retook Rouen in 1449, a series of investigations were launched. Her now-widowed mother Isabelle Romée and Joan’s brothers Jéan and Pierre, who were with Joan at the Siege of Orleans, petitioned Pope Nicholas V to reopen her case. The formal appeal was conducted in 1455 by Jean Bréhal, Inquisitor-General of France, under the aegis of Pope Callixtus III. Isabelle addressed the opening session of the appellate trial at Notre Dame with an impassioned plea to clear her daughter’s name. Joan was exonerated on 7 July 1456, with Bréhal’s summary of case evidence describing her as a martyr who had been executed by a court which itself had violated Church law. In 1457, Callixtus excommunicated the now-deceased Bishop Pierre Cauchon for his persecution and condemnation of Joan.

The city of Orléans had commemorated her death each year beginning in 1432, and from 1435 onward performed a religious play centered on the lifting of the siege. The play represented her as a divinely-sent savior guided by angels. In 1452, during one of the postwar investigations into her execution, Cardinal d’Estouteville declared that this play would merit qualification as a pilgrimage site by which attendees could gain an indulgence.

Not long after the appeal, Pope Pius II wrote an approving piece about her in his memoirs.

16th century
Joan was utilized as a symbol of the Catholic League, a group organized to fight against Protestant groups during the Wars of Religion. An anonymous author wrote a biography of Joan’s life, stating that it was compiled “By order of the King, Louis XII of that name” in circa 1500.

18th and 19th centuries
Joan’s cult of personality was opposed by the leaders of the French Revolution as she was a devout Catholic who had served the monarchy. They banned the yearly celebration of the lifting of the siege of Orleans, and Joan’s relics, including her sword and banner, were destroyed. A statue of Joan erected by the people of Orléans in 1571 was melted down and made into a cannon.
Recognizing he could use Joan for his nationalist purposes, Napoleon allowed Orléans to resume its yearly celebration of the lifting of the siege, commissioned Augustin Dupré to strike a commemorative coin, and had Jean-Antoine Chaptal inform the mayor of Orléans that he approved of a resolution by the municipal council for Edme-François-Étienne Gois to erect his statue of Joan:

“The illustrious career of Joan of Arc proves that there is no miracle French genius cannot perform in the face of a threat against national freedom.”

Gois’s work was relocated to Place Dauphiné in 1855, replaced with a statue of Joan by Denis Foyatier.

Although Nicolas Lenglet Du Fresnoy and Clément Charles François de Laverdy are credited with the first full-length biographies of Joan, several English authors ironically sparked a movement which lead to her canonization. Harvard University English literature professor Herschel Baker noted in his introduction to Henry VI for The Riverside Shakespeare how appalled William Warburton was by the depiction of Joan in Henry VI, Part 1, and that Edmond Malone sought in “Dissertation on the Three Parts of Henry VI” to prove Shakespeare had no hand in its authorship. Charles Lamb chided Samuel Taylor Coleridge for reducing Joan to “a pot girl” in the first drafts of The Destiny of Nations, initially part of Robert Southey’s Joan of Arc. She was the subject of essays by Lord Mahon for The Quarterly Review, and by Thomas De Quincey for Tait’s. In 1890, the Joan of Arc Church was dedicated to her.

As Joan found her way further into popular culture, the Government of France commissioned Emmanuel Frémiet to erect a statue of her in the Place des Pyramides — the only public commission of the state from 1870 to 1914. The French Navy dedicated four vessels to her: a 52-gun frigate; a 42-gun frigate; an ironclad corvette warship ; and an armored cruiser. Philippe-Alexandre Le Brun de Charmettes’s biography, and Jules Quicherat’s account of her trial and rehabilitation seemed to have inspired canonization efforts.

In 1869, to celebrate the 440th anniversary of Joan lifting the Siege of Orléans, Félix Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, invited the bishops whose dioceses included the towns which Joan entered or liberated during her career to Orléans. Supported by Henri-Alexandre Wallon, Dupanloup submitted a petition, signed by the attending dignitaries, to Pope Pius IX for Joan to be canonized, but the Franco-Prussian War postponed further action.

In 1874, depositions began to be collected, received by Cardinal Luigi Bilio in 1876. Dupanloup’s successor, Bishop Pierre-Hector Coullié, directed an inquest to authenticate her acts and testimony from her trial and rehabilitation. On January 27, 1894, the Curia voted unanimously that Pope Leo XIII sign the Commissio Introductionis Causæ Servæ Dei Joannæ d’Arc, which he did that afternoon.

An earthquake followed by a fire destroy most of San Francisco, California.

The cornerstone of the current Saint Peter’s Basilica is laid.