Another one

Another date that makes one suspect that there may be something to superstition (Courtesy Encyclopeida Britannica):

1831: Creation of French Foreign Legion
The Foreign Legion, whose unofficial motto is “Legio patria nostra” (“The legion is our fatherland”), was founded this day in 1831 by King Louis-Philippe as an aid in controlling French colonial possessions in Africa.

The Legion was ...seen as a convenient way to dispose of numerous recently-displaced foreign nationals (many of whom were thought to hold revolutionary political beliefs) by sending them to Algeria to fight in the French campaign of colonialization.

(Here are some Edith Piaf videos for any Legion fans out there...)

1862: The Battle of the Monitor and Merrimack, a duel between ironclads during the American Civil War, marked the beginning of a new era of naval warfare.

Yes, for any unreconstructed rebels out there I am aware that the Monitor's opponent was the CSS Virginia, built on the hull of the USS Merrimack, which was burnt to the waterline when the shipyards in Richmond were evacuated. Sue the historians...

1916: Pancho Villa's men killed more than a dozen in a raid on Columbus, New Mexico.

(Giving Lieutenant George Patton the opportunity to be--perhaps, according to some sources--the last guy to actually win a sword fight.)

1943: Bobby Fischer, 1971.American chess master Bobby Fischer was born in Chicago.

1945: General Curtis LeMay hosts The Great Tokyo Weenie Roast The U.S. Army Air Forces bombed Tokyo with napalm, causing fires that destroyed a quarter of the city and killed some 80,000 civilians.