** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:21 am
June 28th ~

1451 – An eclipse occurred that allegedly prevented the outbreak of war between the Mohawk and the Seneca Indians.

1776 – Jefferson’s document was placed before the Congress after some minor changes by Adams and Franklin. This event was immortalized in the painting by John Trumball.

1776 – Colonists repulsed a British sea attack on Charleston, South Carolina.

1776 – Thomas Hickey, American sergeant convicted of treason, was hanged.

1778 – “Molly Pitcher,” Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth, N.J. and, supposedly, took her husband’s place at his gun after he is overcome with heat.

1794 – Joshua Humphreys appointed master builder to build Navy ships at an annual salary of $2,000.

1814 – USS Wasp captures HMS Reindeer.

1836 – James Madison (85), the 4th president of the United States (1809-17), died in Montpelier, Va. His writings included the 29 Federalist essays.

1861 – Side-wheel steamer St. Nicholas, making scheduled run between Baltimore and Georgetown, D.C., was captured by Confederates who had boarded her posing as passengers at the steamer’s various stopping points on the Potomac River. Confederates were led by Captain George N. Hollins, CSN, who took command of St. Nicholas, and Colonel Richard Thomas, CSA, who boarded disguised as a woman. St. Nicholas then began search for U.S.S. Pawnee, but, not finding her, put out into the Chesapeake Bay, where she seized schooners Margaret and Mary Pierce and brig Monticello the following day, June 29th.

1862 – At Garnett’s and Golding’s farms, fighting continued for a 4th day between Union and Confederate forces during the Seven Days in Virginia.

1862 – A Confederate band makes a daring capture of a commercial vessel on Chesapeake Bay. The plan was the brainchild of George Hollins, a veteran of the War of 1812. Hollins joined the navy at age 15, and had a long and distinguished career. A Maryland native, he was commander of a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean when hostilities erupted in 1861, and returned to New York and resigned his commission. After a brief stop in his hometown, Baltimore, Hollins offered his services to the Confederacy and received a commission on June 21, 1861.

Soon after, Hollins met up with Richard Thomas Zarvona, a Marylander, former West Point attendee, and adventurer who had fought with pirates in China and revolutionaries in Italy. They hatched a plan to capture the St. Nicolas and use it to marshal other Yankee ships into Confederate service. Zarvona went to Baltimore and recruited a band of pirates, who boarded the St. Nicholas as paying passengers on June 28th. Using the name Madame La Force, Zarvona disguised himself as a flirtatious Frenchwoman.

Hollins then boarded the St. Nicholas at its first stop. The conspirators later retreated to the Frenchwoman’s cabin, where they armed themselves and then burst out to capture the surprised crew. Hollins took control of the vessel and stopped on the Virginia bank of the Chesapeake to pick up a crew of Confederate soldiers. They planned to capture a Union gunboat, the Pawnee, but it was called away.

Instead, the St. Nicholas and its pirate crew came upon a ship loaded with Brazilian coffee. Two more ships, carrying loads of ice and coal, soon fell to the St. Nicholas. These daring exploits earned Hollins a quick promotion from captain to commodore. At the end of July, Hollins was sent to take control of a fleet at New Orleans, Louisiana.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:23 am
June 28th ~ {continued...}

1863 – General Meade replaced General Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg. General George Gordon Meade said “Well, I’ve been tried and condemned without a hearing, and I suppose I shall have to go to execution,” in response to his appointment as head of the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. Within a week his army won the Battle of Gettysburg, assuring Meade of a record of success superior to all of his predecessors.

1863 – As the advance of General Robert E. Lee’s armies into Maryland (culminating in the Battle of Gettysburg) threatened Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, the U.S. Navy Department ordered Rear Admiral S.P. Lee to send ships immediately for the defense of the Capital and other cities. This was a move reminiscent of the opening days of the war when naval protection was vital to the holding of the area surrounding the seat of government.

1865 – CSS Shenandoah captures 11 American whalers in one day.

1902 – Congress passed the Spooner bill, authorizing a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama. The US purchased a concession to build Panama canal from French for $40 million.

1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, while riding in an Austro-Daimler that was chauffeured by Otto Merz, a Mercedes team driver. The assassination resulted in the outbreak of World War I. The archduke and his wife, Sophie, rode into Sarajevo in a motorcade consisting of four cars; the royals occupied the second. On the way to the City Hall as they crossed the Milijacka River at Cumuria Bridge, Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb at the Daimler carrying the archduke and his wife. Franz Ferdinand managed to deflect the bomb onto the street. About a dozen people, including Sophie, who was hit in the face with shrapnel, suffered injuries, but no one was killed.

The assassin swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped off the bridge. Unfortunately, he coughed up the pill and landed in only a foot of water. He was taken into custody. The first two cars of the motorcade continued on their way to the Sarajevo City Hall. Upon his arrival at the welcome ceremony, Franz Ferdinand interrupted the mayor’s speech, seizing him by the arm and crying, “One comes here to visit and is received with bombs. Mr. Mayor, what do you say?” He later calmed down and finished his own speech with a reaffirming pledge of his regard for the people of Sarajevo. After the speech, Franz Ferdinand ordered his chauffeur to carry him to the hospital to visit the victims of the bomb; Sophie accompanied him. Their driver took a wrong turn after crossing the Imperial Bridge and the car ended up on a street named after Franz Ferdinand’s father, Franz Josef.

Noticing his mistake, the driver applied the brakes and the car came to a halt a foot short of another Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Princip fired his pistol into the car, striking the archduke in the neck and his wife in the stomach. In shock and unaware that she had been wounded, Sophie cried to her husband, “For heaven’s sake, what’s happened to you?” Franz Ferdinand keeled over whispering “Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts…” A lengthy investigation into the conspiracy failed to prove any complicity in the plot on the part of the Serbian government. Nevertheless, the Austrians sent their army into Serbia and World War I was born.

1918 – The Chemical Warfare Service was established on June 28, 1918, combining activities that until then had been dispersed among five separate agencies of Government. It was made a permanent branch of the Regular Army by the National Defense Act of 1920. In 1945, it was redesignated the Chemical Corps.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:25 am
June 28th ~ {continued...}

1919 – At the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. By the fall of 1918, it was apparent to the leaders of Germany that defeat was inevitable in World War I. After four years of terrible attrition, Germany no longer had the men or resources to resist the Allies, who had been given a tremendous boost by the infusion of American manpower and supplies.

In order to avert an Allied invasion of Germany, the German government contacted U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in October 1918 and asked him to arrange a general armistice. Earlier that year, Wilson had proclaimed his “Fourteen Points,” which proposed terms for a “just and stable peace” between Germany and its enemies. The Germans asked that the armistice be established along these terms, and the Allies more or less complied, assuring Germany of a fair and unselfish final peace treaty.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and went into effect, and fighting in World War I came to an end. In January 1919, representatives traveled to the Paris Peace Conference. Germany had no role in the negotiations deciding its fate, and lesser Allied powers had little responsibility in the drafting of the final treaty. It soon became apparent that the treaty would bear only a faint resemblance to the Fourteen Points that had been proposed by Wilson and embraced by the Germans. Wilson, a great idealist, had few negotiating skills, and he soon buckled under the pressure of Clemenceau, who hoped to punish Germany as severely as it had punished France in the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Lloyd George took the middle ground between the two men, but he backed the French plan to force Germany to pay reparations for damages inflicted on Allied civilians and their property.

Since the treaty officially held Germany responsible for the outbreak of World War I (in reality it was only partially responsible), the Allies would not have to pay reparations for damages they inflicted on German civilians. The treaty that began to emerge was a thinly veiled Carthaginian Peace, an agreement that accomplished Clemenceau’s hope to crush France’s old rival. According to its terms, Germany was to relinquish 10 percent of its territory. It was to be disarmed, and its overseas empire taken over by the Allies.

Most detrimental to Germany’s immediate future, however, was the confiscation of its foreign financial holdings and its merchant carrier fleet. The German economy, already devastated by the war, was thus further crippled, and the stiff war reparations demanded ensured that it would not soon return to its feet. A final reparations figure was not agreed upon in the treaty, but estimates placed the amount in excess of $30 billion, far beyond Germany’s capacity to pay.

Germany would be subject to invasion if it fell behind on payments. The Germans initially refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and it took an ultimatum from the Allies to bring the German delegation to Paris on June 28th. It was five years to the day since the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which began the chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I. Clemenceau chose the location for the signing of the treaty: the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace, site of the signing of the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War.

At the ceremony, General Jan Christiaan Smuts, soon to be president of South Africa, was the only Allied leader to protest formally the Treaty of Versailles, saying it would do grave injury to the industrial revival of Europe. Germany soon fell hopelessly behind in its reparations payments, and in 1923 France and Belgium occupied the industrial Ruhr region as a means of forcing payment.

In protest, workers and employers closed down the factories in the region. Catastrophic inflation ensued, and Germany’s fragile economy began quickly to collapse. By the time the crash came in November 1923, a lifetime of savings could not buy a loaf of bread. That month, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler launched an abortive coup against Germany’s government. The Nazis were crushed and Hitler was imprisoned, but many resentful Germans sympathized with the Nazis and their hatred of the Treaty of Versailles. A decade later, Hitler would exploit this continuing bitterness among Germans to seize control of the German state.

In the 1930s, the Treaty of Versailles was significantly revised and altered in Germany’s favor, but this belated amendment could not stop the rise of German militarism and the subsequent outbreak of World War II.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:27 am
June 28th ~ {continued...}

1935 – FDR ordered a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

1941 – The US Army Bill for 1942 is passed by Congress.

1943 – More American forces occupy Kiriwina and Woodlark islands. Construction of airfields begins.

1944 – In the Cotentin Peninsula, American forces of US 1st Army prepare to eliminate German resistance in the direction of Cap de la Hague. The forces of British 2nd Army cross the Odon River on a 2 mile front near Mondrainville.

1944 – On Biak, the American divisional force, now commanded by General Doe, clears the Japanese-held caves in the western part of the island.

1945 – General MacArthur announces that the operations on Luzon are complete. It has been 5 months and 19 days since the American invasion began. An estimated 11,000 Japanese troops remain isolated in the Sierra Madre mountains and another 12,000 are trapped in the Kiangan-Bontoc (or Ifugao-Bontoc) area. The US 8th Army is assigned the task of mopping up on Luzon while the US 6th Army is reorganized for the invasion of Japan (Operation Olympic). Much of the mopping-up will be left to Filipino units. On Mindanao, mopping up operations continue.

1946 – Peacetime cruises for the cadets of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London Connecticut, were revived.

1949 – The last U.S. combat troops were called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.

1950 – General Douglas MacArthur arrived in South Korea as Seoul fell to the North Korean forces.

1950 – Sergeant Leroy Deans, Korean Military Advisory Group, received a wound in the eye thereby earning the first ground combat Purple Heart of the Korean War.

1950 – Detachment X, 35 men of the 507th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, was the first U.S. ground force unit to arrive in Korea. Within a short time the detachment shot down a Yak fighter with quad .50-caliber machine guns, suffering five wounded in the action.

1950 – Far East Air Force aircraft dropped the first psychological warfare leaflets over Korea.

1965 – In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces, 3,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade–in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese airborne unit–assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contact with the enemy. One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded. The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops.

1968 – Daniel Ellsberg was indicted for leaking the Pentagon Papers.

1968 – LTC Richard A. McMahon denounces the body count as a ‘dubious and dangerous’ method of determining the enemy’s combat potential.

1968 – Prince Souvanna Phouma declares that, until North Vietnam agrees to withdraw its forces from Laos, the United States should continue to reject Hanoi’s demands for a bombing halt.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:29 am
June 28th ~ {continued...}

1969 – US sources in Saigon say that North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam in January-May is 40% lower than the corresponding period in 1968.

1969 – A Gallup Poll shows that 42% of the American people favor a faster withdrawal of US troops than has been ordered by President Nixon, while 16% favor a slower rate. 29% favor a total withdrawal, 61% are opposed.

1969 – After several days of fighting around the US Special Forces base at Benhet, a 1,500-man South Vietnamese force begins new sweeps of the area. US forces remain in an advisory role and supply only air and artillery support. The US command considers the Benhet campaign a test of the ability of the South Vietnamese forces to stand up against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong.

1970 – Muhammed Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, stood before the Supreme Court regarding his refusal of induction into the Army during the Vietnam War.

1970 – USS James Madison (SSBN-627) completes conversion to Poseidon missile capability.

1971 – The Supreme Court overturned the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

1971 – Daniel Ellsburg was arrested for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the Press. In 2002 he authored “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and The Pentagon Papers.”

1972 – President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam.

1976 – The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.

1987 – Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he had found some of the recent revelations about the Iran-Contra affair “sickening,” but he defended the Reagan administration’s foreign policy.

1992 – In Afghanistan rebel leader Burhanuddin Rabbani became president, but factional fighting continued.

1993 – US helicopters attack Somali positions killing 2 gunmen.

1996 – The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 11:31 am
June 28th ~ {continued...}

1999 – It was reported that NATO scaled backed initial estimates of damage to the Yugoslav army in the 78-day air campaign.

1999 – In Kosovo KLA rebels handed over weapons to NATO troops. At the same time hundreds of Albanians, fired a decade ago by Milosevic, demanded their state jobs back.

2003 – After days of intense searching by ground and air, U.S. forces found the bodies of two soldiers missing north of Baghdad.

2003 – Malawi’s army was deployed to quell violent riots after demonstrators attacked an American children’s charity and several churches to protest the removal of five Muslim foreign nationals suspected of working for al-Qaida.

2004 – The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that detainees at Guantanamo must have access to the US legal system. The Court ruled that the war on terrorism did not give the government a “blank check” to hold a US citizen and foreign-born terror suspects in legal limbo.

2004 – America resumed direct diplomatic ties with Libya after a 24-year break.

2004 – Seven Afghan policemen were killed as NATO agreed to boost its troop contingent there to 10,000 ahead of September elections.

2004 – The US-led coalition in a surprise move, transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government two days early.

2004 – NATO leaders agreed to help train Iraq’s armed forces just hours after the new government in Baghdad took over sovereignty from the U.S.-led administration.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:24 am
June 29th ~

1502 – Christopher Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, on his 4th voyage to the new world. He requested harbor and advised Gov. Nicolas de Ovando of an approaching hurricane. Ovando denied the request and dispatched a treasure fleet to Spain. 20 ships sank in the storm, 9 returned to port and one made it to Spain.

1541 – The Spanish first crossed the Arkansas River. Francisco Vazquez de Coronado continued to explore the American southwest. He left New Mexico and crossed Texas, Oklahoma and east Kansas.

1652 – Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth.

1767 – The British Parliament approved the Townshend Revenue Acts, which imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America. Colonists bitterly protested the Acts, which were repealed in 1770.

1776 – The Virginia constitution was adopted and Patrick Henry was made governor.

1784 – Caesar Romney, US judge, Delaware representative as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died. He was later depicted on the Delaware state quarter.

1804 – Privates John Collins and Hugh Hall of the Lewis and Clark Expedition were found guilty by a court-martial consisting of members of the Corps of Discovery for getting drunk on duty. Collins receives 100 lashes on his back and Hall receives 50.

1820 – Revenue cutter Dallas captured the 12-gun brig-of-war General Ramirez, which was loaded with 280 slaves, off St. Augustine. The 8 July 1820 issue of the Savannah Republican noted: “On the 28th ultimo, while the Cutter DALLAS was lying in the St. Mary’s River, Captain Jackson received information that the Brig of war GENERAL RAMIREZ, supposed to be a piratical vessel was hovering off St. Augustine.

The Cutter forthwith got under way in pursuit of the Brig having first obtained 12 United States soldiers from Fernandina to strengthen the Cutter’s force. At half past three the next day, she hailed the Brig and received for answer, “This is the Patriot Brig GENERAL RAMIREZ—-.” Captain Jackson finding a number of blacks on board took possession of the vessel and brought her into St. Mary’s, arriving on the 1st instant. Captain Jackson found on the Brig about 280 African slaves. The Captain and crew, 28 in number, acknowledged themselves Americans.”

1835 – Determined to win independence for the Mexican State of Texas, William Travis raises a volunteer army of 25 soldiers and prepares to liberate the city of Anahuac. Born in South Carolina and raised in Alabama, William Travis moved to Mexican-controlled Texas in 1831 at the age of 22. He established a legal practice in Anahuac, a small frontier town about 40 miles east of Houston. From the start, Travis disliked Mexicans personally and resented Mexican rule of Texas politically.

In 1832, he clashed with local Mexican officials and was jailed for a month. When he was released, the growing Texan independence movement hailed him as a hero, strengthening his resolve to break away from Mexico by whatever means necessary. Early in 1835, the Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna overthrew the republican government and proclaimed himself dictator. Rightly fearing that some Texans would rebel as a result, Santa Anna quickly moved to reinforce Mexican control and dispatched troops to Anahuac, among other areas. Accustomed to enjoying a large degree of autonomy, some Texans resented the presence of Santa Anna’s troops, and they turned to Travis for leadership.

On this day in 1835, Travis raised a company of 25 volunteer soldiers. The next day, the small army easily captured Captain Antonio Tenorio, the leader of Santa Anna’s forces in Anahuac, and forced the troops to surrender. More radical Texans again proclaimed Travis a hero, but others condemned him for trying to foment war and maintained that Santa Anna could still be dealt with short of revolution.

By the fall of 1835, however, conflict had become inevitable, and Texans prepared to fight a war of independence. As soon as the rebels had formed an army, Travis was made a lieutenant colonel in command of the regular troops at San Antonio.

On February 23, 1836, Travis joined forces with Jim Bowie’s army of volunteers to occupy an old Spanish mission known as the Alamo. The following day, Santa Anna and about 4,000 of his men laid siege to the Alamo. With less than 200 soldiers, Travis and Bowie were able to hold off the Mexicans for 13 days.

On March 6th, Santa Anna’s soldiers stormed the Alamo and killed nearly every Texan defender, including Travis. In the months that followed, “Remember the Alamo” became a rallying cry as the Texans successfully drove the Mexican forces from their borders. By April, Texas had won its independence. Travis, who first hastened the war of independence and then became a martyr to the cause, became an enduring symbol of Texan courage and defiance.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:26 am
June 29th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee attacks Union General George McClellan as he is pulling his army away from Richmond, Virginia, in retreat during the Seven Days’ Battles. Although the Yankees lost 1,000 men—twice as many as the Rebels—they were able to successfully protect the retreat. George McClellan spent the spring of 1862 preparing the Army of the Potomac for a campaign up the James Peninsula toward Richmond.

For nearly three months, McClellan landed his troops at Fort Monroe, at the end of the peninsula, and worked northwest to Richmond. The Seven Days’ Battles were the climax of this attempt to take the Confederate capital. Although he had an advantage in numbers, McClellan squandered it and surrendered the initiative to Lee, who attacked the Yankees and began driving them away from Richmond. As McClelland retreated, Lee hounded his army. When the Union army moved past Savage’s Station—a stop on the Richmond and York River Railroad and the site of a Union hospital—Lee ordered an assault on the troops screening the retreat.

This was a chance to break McClellan’s flank and deal a shattering defeat to the Yankees. But although Lee’s strategy was sound, it was complicated, requiring precise timing on the part of several generals. The Confederates inflicted serious damage on the Northerners but were not able to break the rear guard. Fighting continued until nightfall, when a torrential rainstorm ended the battle.

1863 – Battle at Westminster, Maryland: Federal assault.

1863 – George A. Custer (23) was appointed Union Brevet Brig-general.

1863 – Lee ordered his forces to concentrate near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1864 – Converted ferryboat U.S.S. Hunchback, Lieutenant Joseph P. Fyffe, supported by single turretted monitor U.S.S. Saugus, Commander Colhoun, bombarded Confederate batteries at Deep Bottom on the James River and caused their eventual removal. Rear Admiral Lee reported: “The importance of holding our position at Deep Bottom is obvious. Without doing so our communications are cut there, and our wooden vessels can not remain above that point, and the monitors would be alone and exposed to the enemy’s light torpedo craft from above and out of Four Mile Creek. The enemy could then plant torpedoes there to prevent the monitors passing by for supplies.”

1918 – Marines landed at Vladivostok, Russia, to protect the American Consulate.

1942 – Chiang Kai-shek presents his Three Demands to General Stilwell: three US divisions before September, 500 combat planes, and a guaranteed monthly aerial supply of 5,000 tons. Chiang berates Stilwell, and hints that he might pull out of the war. Stilwell, as Chiang’s chief of staff, is not responsible for procurement of supplies. The tension between the two grows.

1943 – A squadron of American cruisers and destroyers shells the Japanese base at Shortland while other vessels lay mines in the area. A US convoy heading for New Georgia is sighted by the Japanese but it is mistakenly believed to be carrying supplies to Guadalcanal.

1943 – Germany began withdrawing U-boats from North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied invasion of Europe.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:28 am
June 29th ~ {continued...}

1944 – CDR Frank A. Erickson landed a helicopter on the flight deck of CGC Cobb. This was the first rotary-wing shipboard landing by Coast Guard personnel.

1944 – On Biak, American forces mop up lingering Japanese resistance.

1945 – President Truman approves the plan, devised by the joint chiefs of staff, to invade Japan. The plan calls for 5 million troops, mostly Americans. Kyushu is to be invaded on November 1st with some 13 divisions (Operation Olympic) and Honshu is to be invaded on March 1, 1946 with some 23 divisions (Operation Coronet), including forces of the US 1st Army from Europe. The British will deploy a very long range bomber force in support of the invasion.

1949 – US troops withdrew from Korea after WW II.

1950 – The Coast Guard adopted a Navy directive relative to security measures, including precautions against possible sabotage at installations and aboard ships.

1950 – President Truman authorized air operations against targets located in North Korea. Subsequently, the 3rd Bombardment Group flew the first air mission north of the 38th parallel against Heijo Airfield near Pyongyang. Staff Sergeant Nyle S. Mickley, a B-26 gunner, became the first gunner to shoot down an enemy aircraft, a Yak-3 fighter serving as the sole defender of the airfield.

1950 – While defending Suwon Airfield, Air Force Lieutenant Orrin R. Fox, 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, scored two Yak-9 kills and Lieutenants Richard J. Burns, 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, and Harry T. Sandlin, 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, each shot down a Yak fighter. These were the first aerial victories made by F-51 Mustang pilots in the Korean War. Interestingly, General MacArthur witnessed the air battle while conferring with Syngman Rhee.

1950 – President Truman ordered a naval blockade of the Korean coast. Meanwhile, the USS Juneau, fired on enemy shore targets in the first U.S. Naval engagement of the Korean War.

1950 – The North Korean People’s Army seized Seoul as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur flew to Korea to confer with ROK President Syngman Rhee. Meanwhile, U.S. B-29 Superfortresses of the 20th Air Force bombed Kimpo Airfield, now in communist hands.

1951 – The United States invited the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonson Harbor.

1951 – U.N. Forces Commander General Matthew Ridgway offered to meet with the communist commanders to discuss a cease-fire and armistice.

1954 – The Atomic Energy Commission voted against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s access to classified information.

1954 – At the conclusion of a five day conference, Churchill, Eden, Eisenhower and Dulles endorse partition and agree on seven points that offer a surprisingly accurate outline of the formal agreement at the conference.

1956 – The US Federal Highway Act authorized a 42,500 mile network linking major urban centers. 90% of the cost was to be borne by the federal government.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:30 am
June 29th ~ {continued...}

1966 – During the Vietnam War, U.S. aircraft bomb the major North Vietnamese population centers of Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time, destroying oil depots located near the two cities. The U.S. military hoped that by bombing Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and Haiphong, North Vietnam’s largest port, communist forces would be deprived of essential military supplies and thus the ability to wage war.

In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against communist forces. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam, and Congress authorized the use of U.S. ground troops.

By 1965, Vietcong and North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to more than 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history. However, as the Vietcong were able to fight with an average daily flow of only 20 tons of supplies from North Vietnam, and U.S. forces in Vietnam required 1,000 times as much, the bombing of communist industry and supply routes had little impact on the course of the war.

Nevertheless, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh placed the destruction of U.S. bombers in the forefront of his war effort, and by 1969 more than 5,000 American planes had been lost. In addition, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai turned many in the United States against the Vietnam War.

In 1973, representatives of the United States and North and South Vietnam signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War. On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed.

1968 – South Vietnamese Premier, Tran Van Huong expresses concern that, because of its impatience to end the war, the United States is making too many concessions at the peace talks, behavior which the North Vietnamese interpret as a sign of weakness.

1970 – U.S. ground combat troops end two months of operations in Cambodia and return to South Vietnam. Military officials reported 354 Americans had been killed and 1,689 were wounded in the operation. The South Vietnamese reported 866 killed and 3,724 wounded. About 34,000 South Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had launched a limited “incursion” into Cambodia to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967.

The incursion into Cambodia had given the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the crossing into Cambodia set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops, and another at Jackson State in Mississippi resulting in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president.

1972 – President Nixon agrees to the resumption of peace talks in Paris ‘on the assumption that the North Vietnamese are prepared to negotiate in a constructive and serious way.’ Talks will begin again on 13 July.

1973 – Congress agrees that bombing in Cambodia can continue until 15 August, after which spending for any military activity in Indochina must be approved by Congress.

1978 – Vietnam becomes a member of Comecon (The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), the Soviet-Bloc East European economic community.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 10:32 am
June 29th ~ {continued...}

1982 – The Soviet Union launched COSPAS I, the first search and rescue satellite ever launched. In combination with later SARSAT satellites, a new multi-agency, international, search and rescue service was made operational.

1991 – President Bush, speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out the possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its interference with U-N inspectors “very disturbing.”

1994 – US reopened Guantanamo Naval Base to process refugees.

1995 – The shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir docked, forming the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

1996 – U.S. allies backed President Clinton’s demand that Bosnian Serb leaders indicted for war crimes be forced “out of power and out of influence.”

1999 – In Chechnya Russian security forces freed Herbert Gregg (51), an American missionary kidnapped over 7 months ago. Part of his index finger had bee cut off in an attempt to extort ransom.

2000 – Iraq said US and British warplanes bombed North Rumeila and killed a woman shepherd and injured her husband.

2001 – In Okinawa a woman claimed that she was raped by an American. US Air Force sergeant Timothy B. Woodland was later charged. Sgt. Woodland was handed over to Japanese authorities on July 6th. Woodland was convicted Machr 27th and was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

2002 – Pakistan issued a “most wanted” list of 10 suspected Islamic militants and offered big rewards for their capture in connection with the killing of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl and the bombing of Western targets.

2003 – In Iraq US forces launched a massive operation to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime.

2007 – Four men were indicted on charges with conspiring to “cause death, serious bodily injury and extensive destruction” at New Yourk City’s JFK Airport. On August 6 a judge ordered three of the alleged plotters extradited to the United States. This was an alleged Islamist terrorist plot to blow up a system of jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines that feed fuel to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Queens, New York.

These pipelines travel throughout the undergrounds of New York City in densely populated areas. The alleged plot was foiled when an undercover law enforcement official was recruited to the homegrown terrorist cell. The suspects are Russell Defreitas, a United States citizen and native of Guyana who was the alleged ringleader and worked for a time at the airport; Abdul Kadir, a citizen of Guyana and former member of the Guyanaese National Assembly; Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago; and Abdel Nur, a citizen of Guyana and uncle of former world welterweight boxing champion Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis. Defreitas was a former employee of JFK and was arrested in Brooklyn, New York. Kadir and Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad on June 3, 2007. Nur surrendered to police two days later in Trinidad.

2009 – U.S. forces withdrew from Baghdad.

2014 – The establishment of a new caliphate was announced, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named as its caliph, and the group formally changed its name to the “Islamic State.” IS’s ideology originates in the branch of modern Islam that aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting later “innovations” in the religion which it believes corrupt its original spirit. It condemns later caliphates and the Ottoman empire for deviating from what it calls pure Islam and hence has been attempting to establish its own caliphate.

From its beginnings the establishment of a pure Islamic state has been one of the group’s main goals. According to journalist Sarah Birke, one of the “significant differences” between Al-Nusra Front and ISIS is that ISIS “tends to be more focused on establishing its own rule on conquered territory”. While both groups share the ambition to build an Islamic state, ISIS is “far more ruthless … carrying out sectarian attacks and imposing sharia law immediately”.

ISIS finally achieved its goal on 29 June 2014, when it removed “Iraq and the Levant” from its name, began to refer to itself as the Islamic State, and declared the territory which it occupied in Iraq and Syria a new caliphate. In mid-2014, the group released a video entitled “The End of Sykes–Picot” featuring an English-speaking Chilean national named Abu Safiyya. The video announced the group’s intention to eliminate all modern borders between Islamic Middle Eastern countries; this was a reference to the borders set by the Sykes–Picot Agreement during World War I.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:51 am
June 30th ~

1815 – USS Peacock takes HMS Nautilus, last action of the War of 1812.

1834 – Congress placed the Marine Corps under Navy jurisdiction.

1862 – The Seven Days’ Battles continues at Glendale (White Oak Swamp), Virginia, as Robert E. Lee has a chance to deal a decisive blow against George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had already won the Seven Days’ Battles, but the Confederates’ attempt to rout McClellan cost many Southern casualties. The Seven Days’ Battles were the climax of McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. For two months, the Union army sailed down Chesapeake Bay and then inched up the James Peninsula.

In late June, the two forces began a series of clashes in which McClellan became unnerved and began to retreat to his base at Harrison’s Landing on the James River. Lee hounded him on the retreat. On June 30, Lee plotted a complex attack on the Yankees as they backed down the peninsula. He hoped to hit the front, flank, and rear of the Union army to create confusion and jam the escape routes. Those attacks did not succeed, as they required precise timing. Lee’s own generals were confused, the attacks developed slowly, and they made only temporary ruptures in the Federal lines. Most disappointing for Lee was the performance of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.

Jackson was coming off a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, but he showed little of his skill during the Seven Days’ Battles. His corps halted at the edge of White Oak Swamp, and he focused his attention on taking a bridge from the Yankees. His officers located fords that would have allowed his men to bypass the bottleneck, but Jackson stayed put. This allowed the Union to move troops from Jackson’s sector of the battlefield to halt a Confederate attack in another area. Lee’s failure at Glendale permitted McClellan’s army to fall back to higher, more defensible locations.

The next day, July 1st, Lee assaulted Malvern Hill and his army suffered tremendous casualties in the face of a withering Union artillery barrage.

1863 – Union and Confederate cavalries clashed at Hanover, Pennsylvania.

1864 – Converted ferryboat U.S.S. Hunchback, Lieutenant Joseph P. Fyffe, supported by single turreted monitor U.S.S. Saugus, Commander Colhoun, bombarded Confederate batteries at Deep Bottom on the James River and caused their eventual removal. Rear Admiral Lee reported: “The importance of holding our position at Deep Bottom is obvious. Without doing so our communications are cut there, and our wooden vessels can not remain above that point, and the monitors would be alone and exposed to the enemy’s light torpedo craft from above and out of Four Mile Creek. The enemy could then plant torpedoes there to prevent the monitors passing by for supplies.”

1865 – Eight alleged conspirators in assassination of Lincoln were found guilty after kangaroo court-martial and brutal treatment by military officers.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:53 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1876 – After a slow two-day march, the wounded soldiers from the Battle of the Little Big Horn reach the steamboat Far West. The Far West had been leased by the U.S. Army for the duration of the 1876 campaign against the hostile Sioux and Cheyenne Indians of the Northern Plains. Under the command of the skilled civilian Captain Grant Marsh, the 190-foot vessel was ideal for navigating the shallow waters of the Upper Missouri River system.

The boat drew only 20 inches of water when fully laden and Marsh managed to steam up the shallow Big Horn River in southern Montana in June 1876. There, the boat became a headquarters for the army’s planned attack on a village of Sioux and Cheyenne they believed were camping on the nearby Little Big Horn River.

On June 28th, Captain Grant and several other men were fishing about a mile from the boat when a young Indian on horseback approached. “He wore an exceedingly dejected countenance,” one man later wrote. By signing and drawing on the ground, the Indian managed to convey that there had been a battle but the men did not understand its outcome.

In fact, the Indian was Curley, one of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s Crow scouts. Three days earlier, he had been the last man to see Custer and his 7th Cavalry battalion before they were wiped out during the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The following day, Grant received a dispatch from General Terry, who had found Custer’s destroyed battalion and the surviving soldiers of the 7th Cavalry. Terry ordered Grant to prepare to evacuate the wounded soldiers. Slowed by the burden of carrying the wounded men, Terry’s force did not arrive until June 30th.

Grant immediately received the 54 wounded soldiers and sped downstream as quickly as possible. With the Far West draped in black and flying her flag at half-mast, Grant delivered the wounded to Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, North Dakota, at 11:00 p.m. on July 5th. The fast and relatively comfortable transport of the wounded by steam power undoubtedly saved numerous lives. Yet, Grant was also the bearer of bad news. From Fort Abraham Lincoln, General Terry’s report of the disaster was telegraphed all over the country. Soon the entire nation learned that General Custer and more than 200 men had been massacred along the Little Big Horn River.

1882 – Charles Guiteau the assassin of President Garfield was hanged in a Washington jail.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:54 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1934 – In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready.

In the early 1920s, the ranks of Hitler’s Nazi Party swelled with resentful Germans who sympathized with the party’s bitter hatred of Germany’s democratic government, leftist politics, and Jews. In November 1923, after the German government resumed the payment of war reparations to Britain and France, the Nazis launched the “Beer Hall Putsch”–their first attempt at seizing the German government by force. Hitler hoped that his nationalist revolution in Bavaria would spread to the dissatisfied German army, which in turn would bring down the government in Berlin.

However, the uprising was immediately suppressed, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for high treason. Sent to Landsberg jail, he spent his time dictating his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and working on his oratorical skills. After nine months in prison, political pressure from supporters of the Nazi Party forced his release. During the next few years, Hitler and the other leading Nazis reorganized their party as a fanatical mass movement that was able to gain a majority in the German parliament–the Reichstag–by legal means in 1932.

In the same year, President Paul von Hindenburg defeated a presidential bid by Hitler, but in January 1933 he appointed Hitler chancellor, hoping that the powerful Nazi leader could be brought to heel as a member of the president’s cabinet. However, Hindenburg underestimated Hitler’s political audacity, and one of the new chancellor’s first acts was to use the burning of the Reichstag building as a pretext for calling general elections.

The police, under Nazi Hermann Goering, suppressed much of the party’s opposition before the election, and the Nazis won a bare majority. Shortly after, Hitler took on absolute power through the Enabling Acts. In 1934, Hindenburg died, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled, leaving Hitler the sole master of a nation intent on war and genocide.

1943 – General Douglas MacArthur launches Operation Cartwheel, a multi-pronged assault on Rabaul and several islands in the Solomon Sea in the South Pacific. The joint effort takes nine months to complete but succeeds in recapturing more Japanese-controlled territory, further eroding their supremacy in the East. The purpose of Cartwheel was to destroy the barrier formation Japan had created in the Bismark Archipelago, a collection of islands east of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea. The Japanese considered this area vital to the protection of their conquests in the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. For the Allies, Rabaul, in New Britain, was the key to winning control of this theater of operations, as it served as the Japanese naval headquarters and main base.

By establishing a “step-by-step” approach to invasion, the Allies unwittingly gave the Japanese time to regroup and establish their next line of defense. The Allies then decided that a new strategy was to be deployed, that of leaving certain islands, or parts thereof, to “wither on the vine,” rather than waste valuable time and manpower in fighting it out for marginal gains. A leapfrogging strategy was then employed by MacArthur, whereby he left in place smaller Japanese strongholds in order to concentrate on “bigger fish.”
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:55 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1943 – American forces land on several islands of the New Georgia group. Rendova island is targeted, in particular. All the landings are successful. There is heavy Japanese resistance on Vangunu. The American forces engaged for these landings are principally the 43rd Division (General Hester) with naval support by Task Force 31 (Admiral Turner) and land-based aircraft commanded by Admiral Fitch.

1943 – A mixed Australian and American unit known as McKechnie Force lands at Nassau Bay near Salamaua from Morobe. There is heavy Japanese resistance to the landing.

1944 – German resistance in the Cotentin Peninsula ends. The US 1st Army continues to battle on the approach to St. Lo; the British 2nd Army continues to battle toward Caen. Since D-Day, the Allies have landed 630,000 troops, 600,000 tons of supplies and 177,000 vehicles in the Normandy beachhead. They have suffered 62,000 dead and wounded.

1944 – Elements of US 5th Army are heavily engaged in Cecina. The main advance inland is slowed by a new German defensive line south of Siena and Arezzo.

1944 – The American 5th Amphibious Corps has captured over half of Saipan. Fighting north of Mount Tipo Pale and Mount Tapotchau continues. Death Valley and Purple Heart Ridge are cleared.

1944 – The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Finland.

1945 – On Okinawa, American forces complete mopping-up operations (June 23-30) in which 8,975 Japanese are reported killed and 2902 captured.

1946 – The general World War II demobilization task was completed with all Separation Centers decommissioned, resulting in a reduced Coast Guard personnel to 23,000 officers and enlisted personnel from a wartime peak of about 171,000 on 30 June 1945.

1946 – The U .S. Navy returned the Coast Guard’s eleven air stations to the operational control of the Coast Guard.

1948 – Bell Labs introduced the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on p.46 as a replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it secret for six months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first time. John Pierce proposed the name.

1950 – Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, President Harry S. Truman orders U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies. Truman’s dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War.

Over the next three years, the United States provided at least half of the U.N. ground forces in Korea and the vast majority of the air and sea forces used in the conflict against North Korea and, later, against communist China, which entered the war on the side of North Korea in late 1950. Nearly 55,000 Americans were killed in the war and over 100,000 were wounded. Cost estimates for the war ranged as high as $20 billion. In July 1953, an armistice was signed that ended the fighting and left Korea a divided nation.

1951 – Marine Corps Captain Edwin B. Long scored the first night kill of the Korean War and the first in a F7F Tigercat victory ever by downing a PO-2 near Kimpo.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:57 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1951 – On orders from Washington, General Matthew Ridgeway broadcast that the United Nations was willing to discuss an armistice with North Korea. In 1950, as U.S. Marines tried to fight their way out of a Chinese trap, Korea suffered its worst winter of the century.

1951 – Naval Administration of Marianas Island chain ends.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Buttleman, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 36th and youngest ace of the Korean War, having just turned 24. He accomplished this feat only 12 days after his first kill. (An ace has five kills.) Colonel James K. Johnson, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, qualified as the eighth “double ace” of the war, with 10 total kills.

1955 – The U.S. began funding West Germany’s rearmament.

1957 – The American occupation headquarters in Japan was dissolved.

1958 – Congress passed a law authorizing the admission of Alaska as the 49th state in the Union, the first new state since 1912.

1958 – The Communists have formed a coordinated command structure in the eastern Mekong Delta. Most of the 37 companies formed in October 1957 are located in the western Mekong Delta.

1960 – US stopped sugar imports from Cuba.

1965 – US forces in Vietnam are assigned to operate under the so-called enclave strategy. The marines are now at Danang, Phubai, and Chulai, and the Army at Vungtau. US forces are expected to defend these coastal areas, leaving ARVN troops to take the offensive in the rest of the country.

1966 – Congressional reaction to the Hanoi-Haiphong air attacks of the previous day ranges from applause to denunciation. In voicing his approval, Senator Richard Russell (R-GA) states that the raid will reduce American casualties. Sixteen Democratic Representatives issue a joint statement declaring that the expanded air strikes commit the US to ‘a profoundly dangerous policy of brinksmanship’ which challenges China. Peking, meanwhile calls the raids a serious escalation of the war, warning that it is prepared for any eventuality.

1967 – The South Vietnamese Armed Forces Council resolves rival claims to the presidency in favor of Nguyen Van Thieu, Chief of State. Former Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, who had announced on May 11th that he would run for president, was forced to accept second place on the presidential ticket.

1967 – Several sources report attacks by US planes on foreign ships in Haiphong harbor. The Soviet government charges that a second Russian merchant vessel, Mikhail Frunze, was bombed by US planes in Haiphong on June 29. A protest is delivered to the US embassy in Moscow on June 30th. The North Vietnamese news agency reports that two other foreign ships were also struck.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 8:59 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1970 – The Senate votes 58 to 37 in favor of adopting the Cooper-Church amendment to limit presidential power in Cambodia. The amendment barred funds to retain U.S. troops in Cambodia after July 1st or to supply military advisers, mercenaries, or to conduct “any combat activity in the air above Cambodia in direct support of Cambodian forces” without congressional approval. The amendment represented the first limitation ever passed in the Senate concerning the president’s powers as commander-in-chief during a war situation. The House of Representatives rejected the amendment on July 9th, and it was eventually dropped from the Foreign Military Sales Act.

1970 – In a written report on the U.S. incursion in Cambodia, President Nixon pronounced it a “successful” operation. Nixon ruled out the use of U.S. troops there in the future, suggesting that Cambodia’s defense would be left largely to Cambodia and its allies. Regarding the use of U.S. air power in Cambodia, Nixon stated that the United States would not provide air or logistical support for South Vietnamese forces in Cambodia, but would continue bombing enemy personnel and supply concentrations “with the approval of the Cambodian government.” Nixon noted that more than a year’s supply of weapons and ammunition had been captured and that 11,349 enemy soldiers were killed by Allied forces during the incursion into the area.

1971 – The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Pentagon Papers. On the same day Pres. Nixon told Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to break into the Brookings Institute and bring out files collected on the Vietnam War.

1971 – The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it. The amendment lowered the minimum voting age from 21 to 18. The amendment was authored by Senator Jennings Randolph (d.1998 at 96) of West Virginia.

1971 – In an attempt to knock out Communist rocket emplacements that have been shelling US and South Vietnamese bases south of the DMZ during the past two weeks, 14 US F-4 Phantom fighters hit the North Vietnamese region of the DMZ.

1977 – President Jimmy Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 bomber.

1985 – 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.

1991 – The federal base-closing commission voted to shut down 17 military bases, including the massive Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, in addition to seven facilities ordered closed two days earlier.

1993 – 13 US helicopters attack a Somali compound.

1998 – A US fighter jet fired a missile at an Iraqi anti-aircraft site after the site’s radar locked on a British warplane.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 9:01 am
June 30th ~ {continued...}

1998 – Officials confirmed that the remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.

2001 – NASA launched its 16-foot, 1,800-pound Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to orbit the Sun and to scan the universe for the faint afterglow of Creation by measuring variations in radiation temperature of up to 20 millionths of a degree. In 2003 it allowed scientists to calculate the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years.

2002 – The United States vetoed a resolution extending the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, then agreed to keep the mission alive three more days while the Security Council seeks a way to meet U.S. demands for immunity from a new global war crimes court.

2003 – American troops detained the U.S.-appointed mayor of Najaf, Iraq, accusing him of kidnapping and corruption.

2004 – The Cassini probe entered Saturn’s orbit for 4 years of explorations. Its 4-year mission included a close approach to Saturn’s 3rd moon Iapetus.

2007 – The Battle of Donkey Island was a skirmish that occurred on 30 June and 1 July 2007 between elements of the U.S. Army Task Force 1-77 Armor Regiment, the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines and a numerically superior force of al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents on the banks of a canal leading from Ramadi to Lake Habbaniyah in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq.

Official reports of the clash indicate that the U.S. force suffered 2 soldiers dead and 11 wounded, while an estimated 32 insurgents were killed (out of an estimated force of 40–70 fighters). The battle was a complete victory for the U.S. forces, which detected and defeated an insurgent force before it could launch a planned assault on Ramadi.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:43 am
July 1st ~

1656 – The 1st Quakers, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, arrived in Boston and were promptly arrested.

1776 – The Continental Congress, sitting as a committee, met on July 1, 1776, to debate a resolution submitted by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee on June 7. The resolution stated that the United Colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” The committee voted for the motion and, on July 2 in formal session took the final vote for independence.

1777 – British troops departed from their base at the Bouquet river to head toward Ticonderoga, New York.

1797 – Congress passed “An Act providing a Naval Armament,” empowered the President to “cause the said revenue cutters to be employed to defend the seacoast and to repel any hostility to their vessels and commerce, within their jurisdiction, having due regard to the duty of said cutters in the protection of the revenue.” The act also increased the complements of the cutters from ten men to a number “not exceeding 30 marines and seamen.”

1800 – First convoy duty; USS Essex escorts convoy of merchant ships from East Indies to U.S.

1801 – U.S. squadron under Commodore Dale enters Mediterranean to strike Barbary Pirates.

1850 – Naval School at Annapolis renamed Naval Academy.

1851 – Naval Academy adopts four year course of study.

1861 – The US War Department decreed that Kansas and Tennessee were to be canvassed for volunteers.

1862 – Congress gave the green light to the tax-centric Revenue Act. The legislation, which was soon signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, imposed a three-percent tax on people with incomes between $600 to $10,000; and also called for a five-percent levy on people with incomes reaching over $10,000. However, the Revenue Act was perhaps more notable for creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue, a government agency which was charged with collecting the revenue generated by the new taxes.

Though the Revenue Act and its attendant package of taxes were allowed to lapse into legislative oblivion after the Civil War, the Bureau of Internal Revenue eventually came back to haunt America's taxpaying citizens in 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. Along with sanctioning the income tax, the amendment paved the path for the opening of the Internal Revenue Service, which, in its role as the official clearing house for the nations taxes, proved to be the bureaucratic progeny of the Internal Revenue Service.

1862 – The US Congress outlawed polygamy for the 1st time. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Pres. Lincoln, made polygamy illegal in American territories. It led to the prosecution of over 1300 Mormons. It also granted large tracts of public land to the states with the directive to sell for the support of institutions teaching the mechanical and agricultural arts. It also obligated state male university students to military training. The education initiative resulted in 68 land-grant colleges.

1862 – In day 7 of the 7 Days Battle Union artillery stopped a Confederate attack at Malvern Hill, Virginia. Casualties totaled: US 15,249 and CS 17,583.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:45 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1863 – The largest military conflict in North American history begins this day when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg. The epic battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

Two months prior to Gettysburg, Lee had dealt a stunning defeat to the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. He then made plans for a Northern invasion in order to relieve pressure on war-weary Virginia and to seize the initiative from the Yankees. His army, numbering about 80,000, began moving on June 3. The Army of the Potomac, commanded by Joseph Hooker and numbering just under 100,000, began moving shortly thereafter, staying between Lee and Washington, D.C.

But on June 28th, frustrated by the Lincoln administration’s restrictions on his autonomy as commander, Hooker resigned and was replaced by George G. Meade. Meade took command of the Army of the Potomac as Lee’s army moved into Pennsylvania.

On the morning of July 1st, advance units of the forces came into contact with one another just outside of Gettysburg. The sound of battle attracted other units, and by noon the conflict was raging. During the first hours of battle, Union General John Reynolds was killed, and the Yankees found that they were outnumbered. The battle lines ran around the northwestern rim of Gettysburg. The Confederates applied pressure all along the Union front, and they slowly drove the Yankees through the town.

By evening, the Federal troops rallied on high ground on the southeastern edge of Gettysburg. As more troops arrived, Meade’s army formed a three-mile long, fishhook-shaped line running from Culp’s Hill on the right flank, along Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, to the base of Little Round Top. The Confederates held Gettysburg, and stretched along a six-mile arc around the Union position. For the next two days, Lee would batter each end of the Union position, and on July 3rd, he would launch Pickett’s charge against the Union center.

1863 – John Fulton Reynolds (42), Union general, died in battle at Gettysburg.

1864 – Battle of Petersburg, VA, began.

1898 – As part of their campaign to capture Spanish-held Santiago de Cuba on the southern coast of Cuba, the U.S. Army Fifth Corps engages Spanish forces at El Caney and San Juan Hill. In May 1898, one month after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, a Spanish fleet docked in the Santiago de Cuba harbor after racing across the Atlantic from Spain. A superior U.S. naval force arrived soon after and blockaded the harbor entrance.

In June, the U.S. Army Fifth Corps landed on Cuba with the aim of marching to Santiago and launching a coordinated land and sea assault on the Spanish stronghold. Included among the U.S. ground troops were the Theodore Roosevelt-led “Rough Riders,” a collection of Western cowboys and Eastern blue bloods officially known as the First U.S. Voluntary Cavalry. The U.S. Army Fifth Corps fought its way to Santiago’s outer defenses, and on July 1st, U.S. General William Shafter ordered an attack on the village of El Caney and San Juan Hill. Shafter hoped to capture El Caney before besieging the fortified heights of San Juan Hill, but the 500 Spanish defenders of the village put up a fierce resistance and held off 10 times their number for most of the day.

Although El Caney was not secure, some 8,000 Americans pressed forward toward San Juan Hill. Hundreds fell under Spanish gunfire before reaching the base of the heights, where the force split up into two flanks to take San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill. The Rough Riders were among the troops in the right flank attacking Kettle Hill. When the order was given by Lieutenant John Miley that “the heights must be taken at all hazards,” the Rough Riders, who had been forced to leave their horses behind because of transportation difficulties, led the charge up the hills.

The Rough Riders and the black soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments were the first up Kettle Hill, and San Juan Hill was taken soon after. From the crest, the Americans found themselves overlooking Santiago, and the next day they began a siege of the city.

On July 3rd, the Spanish fleet was destroyed off Santiago by U.S. warships under Admiral William Sampson, and on July 17th the Spanish surrendered the city–and thus Cuba–to the Americans.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:47 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1907 – World’s 1st air force was established as part of the US Army.

1911 – Trial of first Navy aircraft, Curtiss A-1. The designer, Glenn Curtiss, makes first flight in Navy’s first aircraft, A-1, at Lake Keuka, NY, then prepares LT Theodore G. Ellyson, the first naval aviator, for his two solo flights in A-1.

1916 – Establishment of informal school for officers assigned to submarines at New London, CT.

1917 – Race riots in East St. Louis, Illinois, and 40 to 200 were reported killed.

1918 – USS Covington hit without warning by two torpedoes from German Submarine U-86 and sank the next day.

1921 – The Coast Guard’s first air station, located at Morehead City, North Carolina, was closed due to a lack of funding.

1939 – Lighthouse Service of Department of Commerce transferred to Coast Guard under President Franklin Roosevelt’s Reorganization Plan No. 11. Under the President’s Reorganization Plan No. 11, made effective this date by Public Resolution No. 20, approved 7 June 1939, it was provided “that the Bureau of Lighthouses in the Department of Commerce and its functions be transferred to and consolidated with and administered as a part of the Coast Guard.

This consolidation made in the interest of efficiency and economy, will result in the transfer to and consolidation with the Coast Guard of the system of approximately 30,000 aids to navigation (including light vessels and lighthouses) maintained by the Lighthouse Service on the sea and lake coasts of the United States, on the rivers of the United States, and on the coasts of all other territory under the jurisdiction of the United States with the exception of the Philippine Island and Panama Canal proper.” Plans were put into effect, “Providing for a complete integration with the Coast Guard of the personnel of the Lighthouse Service numbering about 5,200, together with the auxiliary organization of 64 buoy tenders, 30 depots, and 17 district offices.”

1940 – Roosevelt signs a further Navy bill providing for the construction of 45 more ships and providing $550,000,000 to finance these and other projects.

1941 – Aircraft from the United States Navy start antisubmarine patrols from bases in Newfoundland.

1941 – Commercial black and white television broadcasting began in the US.

1943 – “Pay-as-you-go” income tax withholding began.

1944 – Elements of the US 5th Army capture Cecina on the west coast while Pomerance falls, further inland, in the advance to Volterra.

1944 – Delegates from 44 countries began meeting at Bretton Woods, N.H., where they agreed to establish the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The US hosted an international conference at Bretton Woods, N.H., to deal with international monetary and financial problems. The talks resulted in the creation of the IMF, International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank in 1945.

In 1997 Catherine Caufield wrote “Masters of Illusion: The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations.” The Bretton Woods institutions also include the United nations and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (renamed the World Trade organization). The agreement was a gold exchange standard and only the US was required to convert its currency into gold at a fixed rate, and only foreign central banks were allowed the privilege of redemption.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:49 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1945 – Some 550 B-29 Superfortress bombers — the greatest number yet to be engaged — drop 4000 tons of incendiary bombs on the Kure naval base, Shimonoseki, Ube and Kumanoto, on western Kyushu.

1946 – As a final step in the return of the Coast Guard to the Treasury Department from wartime operation under the Navy Department, the Navy directional control of the following Coast Guard functions was terminated: search and rescue functions, maintenance and operation of ocean weather stations and air-sea navigational aids in the Atlantic, continental United States, Alaska, and Pacific east of Pearl Harbor.

1946 – The United States exploded a 20-kiloton atomic bomb near Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The energy released by any one of the ten or so major earthquakes every year is about 1,000 times as much as the Bikini atomic bomb.

1947 – State Department official George Kennan, using the pseudonym “Mr. X,” publishes an article entitled “The Sources of Soviet Conduct” in the July edition of Foreign Affairs. The article focused on Kennan’s call for a policy of containment toward the Soviet Union and established the foundation for much of America’s early Cold War foreign policy. In February 1946, Kennan, then serving as the U.S. charge d’affaires in Moscow, wrote his famous “long telegram” to the Department of State. In the missive, he condemned the communist leadership of the Soviet Union and called on the United States to forcefully resist Russian expansion.

Encouraged by friends and colleagues, Kennan refined the telegram into an article, “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” and secured its publication in the July edition of Foreign Affairs. Kennan signed the article “Mr. X” to avoid any charge that he was presenting official U.S. government policy, but nearly everyone in the Department of State and White House recognized the piece as Kennan’s work. In the article, Kennan explained that the Soviet Union’s leaders were determined to spread the communist doctrine around the world, but were also extremely patient and pragmatic in pursuing such expansion.

In the “face of superior force,” Kennan said, the Russians would retreat and wait for a more propitious moment. The West, however, should not be lulled into complacency by temporary Soviet setbacks. Soviet foreign policy, Kennan claimed, “is a fluid stream which moves constantly, wherever it is permitted to move, toward a given goal.”

In terms of U.S. foreign policy, Kennan’s advice was clear: “The main element of any United States policy toward the Soviet Union must be that of a long-term, patient but firm and vigilant containment of Russian expansive tendencies.” Kennan’s article created a sensation in the United States, and the term “containment” instantly entered the Cold War lexicon. The administration of President Harry S. Truman embraced Kennan’s philosophy, and in the next few years attempted to “contain” Soviet expansion through a variety of programs, including the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Kennan’s star rose quickly in the Department of State and in 1952 he was named U.S. ambassador to Russia.

By the 1960s, with the United States hopelessly mired in the Vietnam War, Kennan began to question some of his own basic assumptions in the “Mr. X” article and became a vocal critic of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. In particular, he criticized U.S. policymakers during the 1950s and 1960s for putting too much emphasis on the military containment of the Soviet Union, rather than on political and economic programs.

1950 – Task Force Smith, two companies of the 24th Infantry Division’s 21st Infantry Regiment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Charles B. Smith and the first U.S. combat unit in Korea, arrived at Pusan. Major General William F. Dean, the 24th Infantry Division commander, was named commander of all U.S. forces in Korea.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:50 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1951 – North Korean leader Kim Il Sung and Peng Teh-huai, commander of the Chinese “Volunteers,” agreed to begin armistice discussions.

1956 – The Highway Revenue Act of 1956 was put into effect by Congress, outlining a policy of taxation with the aim of creating a fund for the construction of over 42,500 miles of interstate highways over a period of 13 years. The push for a national highway system began many years earlier, when the privately funded construction of the Lincoln Highway begun in 1919.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) did much to set into motion plans for a federally funded highway system, but his efforts were halted by the outbreak of World War II. With the end of the war came America’s industrial boom and a massive increase in automobile registration. Dwight D. Eisenhower, elected president in 1952, had been a supporter of a federally funded highway system ever since, as an Army Lieutenant in 1919, he led a military convoy from San Francisco to New York. His travels through Germany during World War II only increased his desire to replicate Germany’s autobahn system.

Eisenhower’s 1954 State of the Union address made clear his intentions to follow through on his interest. He declared the need to “protect the vital interests of every citizen in a safe, adequate highway system.” It wasn’t until 1956 that Eisenhower saw his vision pass through Congress. The scale of the plan was breathtaking: At a time when the total federal budget approached $71 billion, Eisenhower’s plan called for $50 billion over 13 years for highways.

To pay for the project a system of taxes, relying heavily on the taxation of gasoline, was implemented. Legislation has extended the Interstate Highway Revenue Act three times. Today consumers pay 18.3¢ per gallon on gasoline. Eisenhower thought of the Federal Interstate System as his greatest achievement. Today, revisionists question the solutions offered by our massive labyrinth of highways. Undoubtedly the interstate system changed America and made it what it is today, with suburbs and “edge cities” springing up across the country.

Employment increased, as well as the U.S. gross national product. Still, both state and federal governments struggle to appropriate the funds to expand our national road network and meet the demand of the ever-growing population of car owners. Many economists subscribe to Helen Levitt’s theory that “congestion rises to meet road capacity,” and anti-road activists are citing the loss of productive farmland, the demise of small business, the destruction of the environment, and the “urbanization” of American society. Truly, the grass is always greener on the other side of the highway.

1958 – The new Atlantic merchant vessel [known by the acronym AMVER] position reporting program was established. It was aimed at encouraging domestic and foreign merchant vessels to send voluntary position reports and navigational data to U.S. Coast Guard shore based radio stations and ocean station vessels. Relayed to a ships’ plot center in New York and processed by machine, these data provided updated position information for U.S. Coast Guard rescue coordination centers. The centers could then direct only those vessels which would be of effective aid to craft or persons in distress. This diversion of all merchant ships in a large area became unnecessary.

1960 – USSR shot down a US RB-47 reconnaissance plane.

1962 – Intelligence has been an essential element of Army operations during war as well as during periods of peace. In the past, requirements were met by personnel from the Army Intelligence and Army Security Reserve branches, two-year obligated tour officers, one-tour levies on the various branches, and Regular Army officers in the specialization programs. To meet the Army’s increased requirement for national and tactical intelligence, an Intelligence and Security Branch was established in the Army effective July 1, 1962, by General Orders No. 38, July 3, 1962. On July 1, 1967, the branch was re-designated as Military Intelligence.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:53 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1965 – Undersecretary of State George Ball submits a memo to President Lyndon B. Johnson titled “A Compromise Solution for South Vietnam.” It began bluntly: “The South Vietnamese are losing the war to the Viet Cong. No one can assure you that we can beat the Viet Cong, or even force them to the conference table on our terms, no matter how many hundred thousand white, foreign (U.S.) troops we deploy.” Ball advised that the United States not commit any more troops, restrict the combat role of those already in place, and seek to negotiate a way out of the war.

As Ball was submitting his memo, the U.S. air base at Da Nang came under attack by the Viet Cong for the first time. An enemy demolition team infiltrated the airfield and destroyed three planes and damaged three others. One U.S. airman was killed and three U.S. Marines were wounded. The attack on Da Nang, the increased aggressiveness of the Viet Cong, and the weakness of the Saigon regime convinced Johnson that he had to do something to stop the communists or they would soon take over South Vietnam.

While Ball recommended a negotiated settlement, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara urged the president to “expand promptly and substantially” the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam. Johnson, not wanting to lose South Vietnam to the communists, ultimately accepted McNamara’s recommendation. On July 22nd, he authorized a total of 44 U.S. battalions for commitment in South Vietnam, a decision that led to a massive escalation of the war. There were less than ten U.S. Army and Marine battalions in South Vietnam at this time. Eventually there would be more than 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.

1966 – The U.S. Marines launched Operation Holt in an attempt to finish off a Vietcong battalion in Thua Thien Province in Vietnam.

1966 – U.S. Air Force and Navy jets carry out a series of raids on fuel installations in the Hanoi-Haiphong area. The Dong Nam fuel dump, 15 miles northeast of Hanoi, with 9 percent of North Vietnam’s storage capacity, was struck on this day. The Do Son petroleum installation, 12 miles southeast of Haiphong, would be attacked on July 3rd. The raids continued for two more days, as petroleum facilities near Haiphong, Thanh Hoa, and Vinh were bombed, and fuel tanks in the Hanoi area were hit. These raids were part of Operation Rolling Thunder, which had begun in March 1965.

The attacks on the North Vietnamese fuel facilities represented a new level of bombing, since these sites had been previously off limits. However, the raids did not have a lasting impact because China and the Soviet Union replaced the destroyed petroleum assets fairly quickly. China reacted to these events by calling the bombings “barbarous and wanton acts that have further freed us from any bounds of restrictions in helping North Vietnam.” The World Council of Churches in Geneva sent a cable to President Lyndon B. Johnson saying that the latest bombing of North Vietnam was causing a “widespread reaction” of “resentment and alarm” among many Christians. Indian mobs protested the air raids on the Hanoi-Haiphong area with violent anti-American demonstrations in Delhi and several other cities.

1968 – The United States, Britain, the Soviet Union and 58 other nations signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

1972 – Date of rank of Rear Admiral Samuel Lee Gravely, Jr., who was first U.S. Navy Admiral of African-American descent.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 01, 2016 8:55 am
July 1st ~ {continued...)

1991 – A 14th Coast Guard District LEDET, all crewmen from the CGC Rush, deployed on board the U.S. Navy’s USS Ingersoll, made history when they seized the St. Vincent-registered M/V Lucky Star for carrying 70 tons of hashish; the largest hashish bust in Coast Guard history to date. The team, led by LTJG Mark Eyler, made the bust 600 miles west of Midway Island.

1991 – A high personnel retention level led the Commandant, ADM J. William Kime, to begin implementing a high-year tenure program, otherwise known as an “up or out” policy to “improve personnel flow and opportunities for advancement.” Two significant points of the program were that they limited enlisted careers to 30 years of active service and established “professional growth points” for pay grades E-4 through E-9, which had to be attained in order to remain on active duty. Up until this time, enlisted members could remain on active duty until age 62 — the only U.S. military work force with that option.

1992 – UNSCOM begins the destruction of large quantities of Iraqi chemical weapons and production facilities.

1993 – The space shuttle Endeavour returned from a 10-day mission.

1995 – As a result of UNSCOM’s investigations, Iraq admits for the first time the existence of an offensive biological weapons program, but denies weaponization.

1996 – The United States rejects an Iraqi plan for distributing food and medicine under United Nations Security Council Resolution 986. It would allow Saddam Hussein’s government to evade certain sanctions as well as to give it control over distribution of supplies to separatist Kurds in northern Iraq.

1996 – Twelve members of an Arizona anti-government group, the Viper Militia, were charged with plotting to blow up government buildings. The group was infiltrated by Drew Nolan, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF).

2001 – In China parts of the US spy plane were flown out from Hainan Island.

2002 – Jordan reported that 11 people, including a Palestinian-Jordanian who fled the American bombing on Osama bin Laden’s stronghold in Afghanistan, have been detained in connection with an alleged plot to attack American targets.

2003 – The US planned to suspend $48 million in aid to some 35 countries for failing to meet this day’s deadline for exempting Americans from prosecution before the new UN int’l. war crimes tribunal.

2004 – The US Coast Guard began boarding foreign vessels as int’l. security rules went into effect.

2004 – Historic Afghan elections scheduled for September were delayed because of wrangling among officials and political parties.

2004 – A defiant Saddam Hussein rejected charges of war crimes and genocide in a court appearance, telling a judge “this is all theater, the real criminal is Bush.”

2004 – In Iraq US jets pounded a suspected safehouse of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Fallujah.

2006 – A Web-posted message purportedly written by Osama bin Laden urged Somalis to build an Islamic state in the country and warned western states that his al-Qaeda network would fight against them if they intervened there.
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