TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
16 April
◆1071 Robert the Weasel captures Bari from the Byzantines after a three year siege.
◆1746 Battle at Culloden: Troops of "James VIII & III" defeat Charles Stuart.
◆1777 Battle of Bennington-New England's Green Mountain Boys rout Brits.
◆1796 Battle of Ceva (Day 1): French v. Austro-Piedmontese.
◆1799 Battle of Mt. Tabor: Bonaparte's French defeat the Turks in Palestine.
◆1809 Battle of Sacile: The Austrians defeat the French.
◆1818 U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed US-Canada border.The Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.
◆1861 US president Lincoln outlawed business with confederate states.
◆1862 Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.
◆1863 BATTLE OF VICKSBURG.★
◆1916 The French Army forms the Escadrille Americaine.
◆1917 BOLSHEVIK REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA.
◆1922 Annie Oakley sets record by breaking 100 clay targets in a row.
◆1942 Japanese overcome all resistance on Cebu and land 4000 troops on Panay.
◆1944 The destroyer USS Laffey survived horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.
◆1945 US 7th Army units reach the outskirts of Nuremberg. The special prisoner of war camp at Colditz is liberated by other Allied units during the day.
◆1945 The US 77th Infantry Division lands on the small island of Ie Shima and encounters heavy Japanese resistance.
◆1945 American forces land on Fort Frank and find it abandoned. This completes the capture of the islands in Manila Bay.
◆1946 1st US launch of captured V-2 rocket was at White Sands, NM. It reached 8 km.
◆1947 Multimillionaire and financier Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term "Cold War" to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union.
◆1947 Act of Congress gives Navy Nurse Corps members commissioned rank.
◆1951 General and Mrs. MacArthur departed Haneda Airport for the United States. Nearly 500,000 Japanese turned out to say goodbye.
◆1953 During the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, the 17th and 31st Infantry Regiments of the 7th Infantry Division were hit hard by the Communist Chinese and sustained heavy casualties.
◆1961 Pres. Kennedy called off the CIA air strikes in Cuba. The message did not reach the 1,511 commandos headed for the Bay of Pigs.
◆1968 The Pentagon announced the “Vietnamization” of the war; troops will begin coming home.
◆1972 From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon.
◆1972 EASTER OFFENSIVE.★
◆1975 Cambodian Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh.
◆1977 The ban on women attending West Point was lifted.
◆1978 Lucius D. Clay (80), gen., gov. US zone W-Germany (airlift), died.
◆1991 President Bush announced that US forces would be sent into northern Iraq to assist Kurdish refugees.
◆1999 WAR IN THE BALKANS.★
◆2003 NATO agreed to take command of the UN peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.