On this day...... 21 August

1740: Admiral Edward Vernon, known as "Old Grogram" after the material from which his cloak was made, ordered sailors' rum ration to be served mixed with water.  The mixture was quickly named grog.

1808: In Portugal, 15,000 British and Portuguese troops under Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, defeated 13,000 French under Junot at Vimeiro.  However, his success was thrown away by the incompetence of his superior officers in the theatre, Dalrymple and Burrard, who offered the French free evacuation home in British ships.

1857: At the Residency in Lucknow, besieged by mutineers, Captain Gore-Brown led a sortie by British and loyal Indian defenders to eliminate a dangerous enemy gun battery.  Although the guns were well protected behind field defences, Gore-Brown managed to break in and put them out of action.  He and his men were credited with inflicting over 100 casualties during their raid, and Gore-Brown was awarded the Victoria Cross.

1860:  British and French ships under Sir James Hope landed soldiers and Royal Marines to capture the Taku forts in China.  Seven Victoria Crosses were awarded:

• Lieutenant Rogers, 44th Regiment
• Lieutenant Burslem, 67th Regiment
• Lieutenant Lenon, 67th Regiment
• Ensign Chaplin, 67th Regiment
• Private McDougall, 44th Foot
• Private Lane, 67th Regiment
• Hospital Apprentice Fitzgibbon

At 15 years of age, Fitzgibbon was one of the two youngest holders of the VC.

1900: Two VCs were won during an action against Boers at Van Wyk's Vlei.  Sergeant Hampton of the King's Regiment extracted his outnumbered force with great skill, despite having suffered a serious head wound.  And Corporal Knight, with just four men, covered the withdrawal of a British company, holding off overwhelming numbers of enemy for over an hour, then carried a wounded man to safety over several miles.

1915: An offensive was launched by British forces at Suvla Bay, following the landings there on 6 August, in what proved to be effectively the last attempt to breakthrough on the Gallipoli peninsula; it failed.  Two soldiers of the Berkshire Yeomanry fell wounded directly in front of the Turkish trenches.  Having lain in the open for 48 hours with no prospect of help arriving, one of them, Private Potts, improvised a sledge from his shovel and webbing, and, despite his own leg wound and intense Turkish fire, slowly dragged his comrade back to the British lines.

1917:  Flight Sub-Lieutenant Smart, flying a Sopwith Pup fighter, took off from a platform mounted aboard the light cruiser HMS Yarmouth and succeeded in shooting down a German Navy Zeppelin airship off the Danish coast.

1918: During the British Army's hugely successful offensive on the Western Front, another two VCs were won.  Commander Beak, of the Royal Naval Division, led Drake Battalion with particular distinction in the attack, at one point taking command of the whole brigade after its commander was incapacitated by an injury.  And Lance-Sergeant Smith, Lancashire Fusiliers, ignored grenades and machine-gun fire to storm single-handed an enemy position, then led his platoon to the assistance of another, capturing a second position.

1940: The Luftwaffe launched numerous small raids.  The day's events are recorded on the RAF's Battle of Britain website. 

1941: The first of what was to prove many Arctic convoys set out for northern Russia carrying supplies to aid the Soviet war effort.