TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
13 April
◆989 Battle of Abydos: Byzantine Emperor Basil II defeats usurper Bardas Phocas.
◆1241 Battle of the Theiss: The Mongols defeat King Béla IV of Hungary.
◆1471 The Battle of Leicester: King Edward IV defeats the Lancastrians.
◆1517 Turks capture Cairo from the Mamlukes.
◆1631 Gustavus Adolphus captures Frankfurt.
◆1721 John Hanson, first U.S. President under the Articles of Confederation, was born in Maryland.★
◆1743 Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell in Albemarle county, Virginia.★
◆1759 Battle of Bergen: The French defeat a combined British, Hanoverian, Hessian, & Brunswick force in central Germany.
◆1775 Lord North extended the New England Restraining Act to South Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland. The act forbade trade with any country other than Britain and Ireland.
◆1847 Naval Forces begin 5 day battle to capture several towns in Mexico.
◆1847 Marines captured LaPaz, Baja California, during the Mexican War.
◆1860 1st Pony Express reached Sacramento, Calif.
◆1861 After a thirty-three hour bombardment by Confederate cannon, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor surrenders.★
◆1862 In the Washington area volunteers led by Sarah J. Evans paid homage to the graves of Civil War soldiers. Villagers in Waterloo, NY, held their 1st Memorial Day service on May 5, 1866. In 1966 Pres. Johnson gave Waterloo, NY, the distinction of holding the 1st Memorial Day.
◆1863 Battle of Irish Bend, LA (Ft. Bisland).
◆1863 Hospital for Ruptured and Crippled in NY became the 1st orthopedic hospital.
◆1865 Union forces under Gen. Sherman began their devastating march through Georgia. Sherman’s troops took Raleigh, NC.
◆1885 Marines guarded the rail line to Panama City.
◆1904 Battle of Oviumbo: The Herero defeat the Germans.
◆1939 USS Astoria arrives in Japan under the command of Richard Kelly Turner in an attempt to photograph the Japanese battleships Yamato and Musashi.
◆1940 Second Battle of Narvik: Royal Navy BB 'Warspite' & destroyers sink eight German destroyers.
◆1941 Heavy German attack on Tobruk.
◆1941 The USSR and Japan sign a five year Neutrality Agreement.
◆1943 US bombers conduct day and night raids on Kiska Island.
◆1944 American and British tactical air forces conduct numerous attacks on German coastal batteries in Normandy.
◆1945 On Okinawa, elements of the US 6th Marine Division not engaged on the Motobu Peninsula continue to advance up the west coast of the island and reach the northwest tip at Hedo Point. Japanese Kamikaze attacks hit a destroyer. British carriers attack Sakashima Gunto.
◆1945 The Nazi concentration camps at Belsen and Buchenwald are liberated by British and American forces respectively. Jena is captured by US 3rd Army units. To the south, US 7th Army forces take Bamberg.
◆1945 In Manila Bay, American forces land on Fort Drum, known as “the Concrete Battleship”, and begin to pour 5,000 gallons of oil fuel into the fortifications. This is then set on fire and burns for five days, eliminating the Japanese garrison.
◆1945 Some 327 American B-29 Superfortress bombers attack Tokyo during the night, dropping some 2139 tons of incendiaries. The nominal target area is the arms manufacturing district.★
◆1960 Navy’s navigation satellite, Transit, placed into orbit from Cape Canaveral, FL and demonstrates ability to launch another satellite.
◆1970 Disaster strikes 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blows up on Apollo 13, the third manned lunar landing mission.★
◆1972 Three North Vietnamese divisions attack An Loc with infantry, tanks, heavy artillery and rockets, taking half the city after a day of close combat.★
◆1975 Military coup in Chad.
◆1980 US boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow.
◆1990 The Soviet government officially accepts blame for the Katyn Massacre of World War II, when nearly 5,000 Polish military officers were murdered and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest.★
◆1996 The US agreed to close the Futenma Air Station at Okinawa, Japan.
◆1999 NATO bombs were dropped on Pristina. Yugoslav infantry troops crossed into northeastern Albania for a short time and clashed with Albanian border police. Refugees in Albania reported gang-rapes and murders by Serbian soldiers.
◆2001 With the crew of a U.S. reconnaissance plane safely back in the United States, American officials gave their detailed version of what happened when the plane collided with a Chinese fighter on April 1; the United States said its plane was struck by the jet. China maintained that the U.S. plane rammed the fighter.
◆2002 Yasser Arafat issued a statement condemning terrorism and planned to meet with Colin Powell the next day. Hamas declared it had no intention of halting attacks.
◆2003 In the 26th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US troops pushed into Tikrit. Marines found 7 missing US troops, including Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, on the road between Baghdad and Tikrit. Army engineers worked to help restore electricity in Baghdad.
◆2004 A 2,500-strong U.S. force, backed by tanks and artillery, pushed to the outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Najaf for a showdown with a radical cleric. One soldier was killed enroute. US forces in Fallujah killed over 100 insurgents.