The casualty figures I have are 473 Zulu dead counted by the British, many more would have died of their wounds later. 15 British killed in battle plus a further ten died of their wounds later.  

5 July 1643 - The Battle of Lansdown.

A battle in the English Civil War for control of the south west.

After the Royalist victory at Stratton in mid May an concerted effort was made to consolidate their position in the south west by launching an attack on the Parliamentarian held town of Bath.

Under the command of Sir Ralph Hopton 6300 Royalists moved on the town brushing aside a small Parliamentarian force on 3 July. The defenders in Bath, 4000 strong, took up positions on Lansdown Hill. Hopton's men succeeded in gaining the summit forcing the Parliamentarians to retreat into Bath. It had been a costly victory, Hopton lost around 250 dead including his infantry commander Sir Bevil Grenville. The following day Hopton was temporarily blinded by the explosion of an ammunition wagon, this plus the losses in battle compelled the Royalists to retreat and give up the plan to seize Bath. 

They didn’t feckabout in WW2, did they? Tojo warned the generals about this sleeping giant and knew what the conclusion would be after failing to sink the carriers at Pearl Harbour.

The Brooke dynasty ruled Sarawak until 1946 when the last White Rajah ceded his Kingdom to the British after they had liberated it from the Japanese.  

HMS Dido, eh? I misread it at first & thought.................err never mind. 

We've had seven ships named HMS Dido over the years, the most recent a frigate sold to New Zealand in 1973. 

6 July 1685 - The Battle of Sedgemoor.

King Charles II died in February 1685 to be succeeded by his brother the Catholic James II. However King Charles' eldest illegitimate son 36 year old the Protestant James, Duke of Monmouth in exile in The Netherlands announced that his parents had been secretly married and therefore he was the rightful King. 

In June he and 80 supporters landed at Lyme Regis in Dorset to claim the Throne. They initially marched on Bristol gathering followers as they went, but after a skirmish east of Bath Monmouth was forced to abandon the plan and head west towards Bridgewater which he reached on 3 July. Here he learnt that a Royalist army of 3000 under the Earl of Feversham was camped at Westonzoyland, so he decided on a desperate gamble - a night attack on the Royalist camp.

His 4000 men marched through the night but as they neared Feversham's lines they were detected and the camp alerted. Monmouth's undisciplined men were routed with heavy loss, over 1000 killed to the Royalists 27. Monmouth escaped the battlefield but was captured two days later and executed.

Many of his followers were tried at the Bloody Assizes held in a number of towns in the south west presided over by Judge Jeffreys. Hundreds were either executed or sent as indentured servants (effectively slaves) to the West Indies.      

HMS Dido, eh? I misread it at first & thought.................err never mind. 

So, this feller was a political empire builder? Was elimination of the well-entrenched slave trade his real motive? Was he some kind of a crusader or was it for personal enrichment?

7 July 1937 - The Marco Polo Bridge Incident.

The unplanned incident that sparked the Sino-Japanese War.

In 1931 Japanese troops invaded northern China and established the puppet state of Manchukuo in Chinese Manchuria. Over the following six years there were a number of border clashes and with civil war in China the Japanese were emboldened into greater acts of aggression. Japan had secured an agreement with China to allow troops to be stationed along the railway line from Peking to the port of Tianjin, using this concession the Japanese steadily expanded beyond its nominal border between China and Manchukuo and regularly conducted military exercises in the area.

On 7 July 1937 one such exercise near Wanping a town ten miles outside Peking concluded with a Japanese soldier reported missing. The Japanese demanded entry into Wanping to search for him, the Chinese authorities refused. As Japanese troops attempted to cross the Marco Polo Bridge across the river Yongding river shots rang out. By the following morning Japanese reinforcements attacked the town thus beginning the full scale Sino-Japanese War. 

The missing private in fact returned to his lines unharmed, he said he had become ill and had wandered into Wanping for help, another suggestion was that he had gone AWOL visiting a brothel.  Whatever the reason the minor incident played into Japanese hands who used it to start a war of conquest.