Lepanto

 Today marks the 453rd anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, where Christian naval forces turned back the Ottomans in a decisive battle.  One interesting note is that Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was one of the soldiers on the ships, and apparently acquitted himself well in the battle.  It also marks the feast of the Holy Rosary, as Pope Pius V called for all of Europe to pray the Rosary for victory, and he then attributed the victory to the Rosary and pilgrimage.

Chesterton memorialized the battle in a poem- "Lepanto"

The first verse:

Lepanto

By G. K. Chesterton

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.