THURSDAY already!

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, fought in 1815 between the French Imperial Army under Napoleon I and two armies of the Seventh Coalition. One was a British-led force under the command of field marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The other comprised three corps of the Prussian army under Field Marshal Blücher.

Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo campaign and Napoleon’s last. It was the second-bloodiest single day battle of the Napoleonic Wars, after Borodino. According to Wellington, the battle was “the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life”. Napoleon abdicated four days later, and coalition forces entered Paris on 7 July. The defeat at Waterloo marked the end of Napoleon’s Hundred Days return from exile. In popular culture, the phrase “meeting one’s Waterloo” has become an expression for experiencing a catastrophic reversal or undoing.