A decade and a half later, the Polish anthropology student, Bronisław Malinowski ( 1884 – 1942 ), was beginning what he expected to be a brief period of fieldwork in the old model, collecting lists of cultural items, when the outbreak of the First World War stranded him in New Guinea.

* 1915 – Tadeusz Kantor, Polish painter, set designer and theater director ( d. 1990 )

* 1930 – Michał Życzkowski, Polish technician ( d. 2006 )

* 1969 – Followers led by Charles Manson murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate ( wife of Roman Polanski ), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Polish actor Wojciech Frykowski, men's hairstylist Jay Sebring and recent high-school graduate Steven Parent.

* 1983 – Alicja Smietana, Polish violinist

* 1920 – Polish – Soviet War: the Battle of Warsaw begins and will last till August 25.

* 1979 – Kasia Smutniak, Polish actress

* 1972 – Justyna Steczkowska, Polish singer-songwriter and actress

The Green Flag: Polish Populist Politics, 1867 – 1970 ( 1976 ).

* 1901 – Stefan Wyszyński, Polish cardinal ( d. 1981 )

* 1978 – Mariusz Jop, Polish footballer

* 1773 – Stanisław Konarski, Polish writer ( b. 1700 )

* 1882 – Ladislas Starevich, Polish animator ( d. 1965 )

* 1989 – Aleksandra Szwed, Polish actress and singer

* 1919 – Polish – Soviet War: The Polish army launches the Vilna offensive to capture Vilnius in modern Lithuania.

* 1899 – Osman Achmatowicz, Polish chemist ( d. 1988 )

* 1984 – Paweł Kieszek, Polish footballer

* 1898 – Jan Brzechwa, Polish poet ( d. 1966 )

* 1921 – August Kowalczyk, Polish actor, director, and Holocaust survivor ( d. 2012 )

* 1938 – Janusz Zajdel, Polish writer

* 1974 – Tomasz Suwary, Polish footballer

There was the Polish Revolution which we misunderstood and then helped guide along a course favorable to Soviet interests.

* 1943 – World War II: The discovery of a mass grave of Polish prisoners of war killed by Soviet forces in the Katyń Forest Massacre is announced, causing a diplomatic rift between the Polish government in exile in London from the Soviet Union, which denies responsibility.

While most armies still maintained cavalry units at the outbreak of World War II in 1939, significant mounted action was largely restricted to the Polish, Balkan and Soviet campaigns.

98 % of the new inhabitants were Poles expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union or Polish peasants from central Poland.

* 1940 – The Soviet Union begins mass deportations of Polish citizens from occupied eastern Poland to Siberia.

The city is liberated by Soviet and Polish forces.

The tactics of guerrilla warfare were used successfully in the 20th century by — among others — the Soviet partisans and the Polish Home Army and the OSS in Burma in World War II ; Mao Zedong and the People's Liberation Army in the Second Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War.

After the German invasion of Poland that marked the start of WWII in Europe, the Soviet Union invaded and annexed eastern parts of the Second Polish Republic.

The Nazis began the systematic genocide of over 11 million people, including the majority of the Jews of Europe and Gypsies as well as millions of Polish and Soviet Slavs.

Polish – Soviet War, Battle of Warsaw ( 1920 ) | defenses near Warsaw, August 1920

Of the several border-settling conflicts that ensued, the Polish – Soviet War of 1919-1921 was the confrontation fought on a very large scale.

Their representative at the Peace of Riga talks opted for leaving Minsk, Berdychiv, Kamianets-Podilskyi and the surrounding areas on the Soviet side of the border, not wanting to allow population shifts National Democrats considered politically undesirable, including what would be a reduced proportion of citizens who were ethnically Polish.

The territories in the east won by 1921 would form the basis for a swap arranged and carried out by the Soviets in 1943-1945, who at that time compensated the reemerging Polish state for its eastern lands lost to the Soviet Union with conquered areas of eastern Germany.

The successful outcome of the Polish – Soviet War gave Poland a false sense of being a major and self-sufficient military power, and the government a justification for trying to resolve international problems through imposed unilateral solutions.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that parts of the current Polish population in historical eastern Germany are themselves expellees ( or descendants of expellees ) who were expelled from Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union and were forced to leave their homes and property behind as well.

Stalin also stated that the Polish government-in-exile demands for self-rule were not negotiable, such that the Soviet Union would keep the territory of eastern Poland they had already taken by invasion with German consent in 1939, and wanted the pro-Soviet Polish government installed.

* 1944 – World War II: Canadian and Polish units capture the strategically important town of Falaise, Calvados, France.

Category: People of the Polish – Teutonic War 1519 – 1521 ( German side )

* 1920 – Polish-Bolshevik War: a decisive Polish victory in the Battle of Komarów.

* 1944 – World War II: Polish insurgents liberate a German labor camp in Warsaw, freeing 348 Jewish prisoners.

Auschwitz concentration camp ( ) was a network of concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II.

However some cavalry still served during the Second World War, notably in the Red Army, Italian Royal Army and the Polish Army.

In 1411, the First Peace of Thorn ended the Polish – Lithuanian – Teutonic War, in which the Teutonic Knights fought the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Throughout the late 1720s Eugene's influence and skilful diplomacy managed to secure the Emperor powerful allies in his dynastic struggles with the Bourbon powers ; but physically and mentally fragile in his later years Eugene enjoyed less success as commander-in-chief of the army during his final conflict, the War of the Polish Succession.

During the War of the Polish Succession in 1734, Elbląg and Danzig ( Gdańsk ) were placed under military occupation by Russia and Saxony.

After World War I, most of West Prussia became part of the Second Polish Republic.

By the start of World War I the cinema in Poland was already in full swing, with numerous adaptations of major works of Polish literature screened ( notably the Dzieje grzechu, Meir Ezofowicz and Nad Niemnem.

The decision to build a major seaport at the Gdynia village was made by the Polish government in the winter of 1920, in the midst of the Polish-Soviet War ( 1919 – 1920 ).

Approximately 300, 000 Polish prisoners of war were captured by the USSR during and after the ' Polish Defensive War '.

Following the end of World War I, the Greater Poland Uprising ( 1918 – 1919 ) ensured that most of the region became part of the newly independent Polish state, forming most of Poznań Voivodeship ( 1921 – 1939 ).