TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
18 April
◆1483 Battle of the Ponte di Crevola: The Milanese defeat the Swiss.
◆1644 Thousands of Pamunky and allied Indians raid the Virginia Colony, killing c. 500 settlers, initiating the 32-months' long Second Tidewater War, in which the colonists triumph.
◆1676 Sudbury, Mass., attacked by Indians.
◆1775 In Massachusetts, British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington.★
◆1778 John Paul Jones attacked the British revenue cutter Husar near the Isle of Man, but it escaped. Soon thereafter he raided Whitehaven and burned one coal ship.
◆1805 The Revenue cutter Louisiana recaptured the merchant brig Felicity from privateers off the mouth of the Mississippi River.
◆1806 Hoping to locate sailors who had deserted the Royal Navy, the British began to impress American merchant ships.
◆1818 A regiment of Indians and blacks was defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War. 1838 Aug 18, A 6-ship American expedition sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, under Lt. Charles Wilkes to search for the continent of Antarctica.
◆1847 U.S. forces defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war.★
◆1848 U.S. Navy expedition to explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan, commanded by LT William F. Lynch, reaches the Dead Sea.
◆1861 Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union armies.
◆1861 Battle of Harpers Ferry, VA.
◆1862 SIEGE OF FORT JACKSON: Union mortar boats, Commander D. D. Porter, began a five day bombardment of Fort Jackson. Moored some 3,000 yards from Fort Jackson, they concentrated their heavy shells, up to 285 pounds, for six days and nights on this nearest fort from which they were hidden by intervening woods. The garrison heroically endured the fire and stuck to their guns.
◆1862 Confederate Congress, hoping to stem the constant sweeping of the seas and inland waters by the Union fleets, passed an act authorizing contracts for the purchase of not more than six ironclads to be paid for in cotton.
◆1864 Landing party from U.S.S. Commodore Read, Commander F. A. Parker, destroyed a Confederate base together with a quantity of equipment and supplies at Circus Point on the Rappahannock River, Virginia.
◆1865 Confederate Gen Joseph Johnston surrendered to Gen W.T. Sherman in North Carolina.
◆1934 Hitler named Joachim von Ribbentrop, ambassador for disarmament.
◆1942 First issue of the newspaper for U.S. armed forces, Stars and Stripes, was published.
◆1942 DOOLITTLE’S RAIDERS: From the decks of the USS Hornet, Col. Doolittle leads 16 B-25 bombers for a raid on Tokyo.★
◆1943 YAMAMOTO KILLED: An aircraft carrying the Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Yamamoto, is shot down by P-38 Lighting fighters over Bougainville.★
◆1943 A massive convoy of 100 transport aircraft leaves Sicily with supplies for the Axis forces. At least half the planes are shot down by Allied fighters.
◆1944 American B-17 and B-24 bombers attack the Heinkel works at Oranienburg and other targets near Berlin. British Mosquito bombers strike Berlin.
◆1945 Ernie Pyle was killed by enemy fire on the island of Ie Shima.
◆1945 The last German forces resisting in the Ruhr Pocket surrender. Field Marshal Model, commanding German Army Group B inside the pocket, commits suicide. About 325,000 German prisoners have been taken in this area by the Allied forces. Meanwhile, the US 9th Army captures Magdeburg and troops of US 3rd Army cross the Czechoslovakian border after a rapid advance.
◆1946 US recognized Tito's Yugoslavia govt.
◆1946 The League of Nations was dissolved.
◆1948 International Court of Justice opened at Hague, Netherlands.
◆1951 Having completed their tour of duty, the first 385 to rotate out of Korea, set sail from Korea to Japan and finally back to the United States.
◆1961 Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev sent a letter to Pres. Kennedy with an “urgent call” to end “aggression” against Cuba.
◆1978 The U.S. Senate voted 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on Dec. 31, 1999.
◆1988 Navy destroys 2 Iranian surveillance platforms, sinks one frigate and one patrol ships, and severely damages a second frigate in retaliation for attack on USS Samuel B. Roberts.
◆1989 REBELLION IN BEIJING: Thousands of Chinese students take to the streets in Beijing to protest government policies and issue a call for greater democracy in the communist People's Republic of China (PRC).★
◆1992 Serbia issued a protest to the United States, accusing Washington of siding with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in the Yugoslav crisis.
◆1996 The US government will deliver $368 million in military equipment to Pakistan that was paid for in the 1980’s. Pakistan will also get $120 mil in cash that it paid for weapons and spare parts that were never manufactured.
◆1999 NATO requested from Bulgaria the use of its airspace.
◆1999 In Yugoslavia NATO bombers hit refineries, bridges and other targets in the 25th straight day of attacks and the heaviest strikes to date. 70% of fuel storage capability was now destroyed and Yugoslavia no longer had the ability to refine oil. In Pancevo a refinery, fertilizer plant and American-built petrochemical complex were destroyed and a dense toxic cloud was released with potential long term consequences. Pancevo’s industrial zone was bombed over 20 times within a 2-month period and created an environmental disaster.
◆2001 US negotiators said China agreed to discuss the return of the US spy plane following a day of unproductive talks. Beijing and Washington staked out opposing positions on who was to blame for the incident.
◆2003 Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim (4 of clubs), a senior leader of the shattered Baath party, was handed over to US forces overnight by Iraqi Kurds near the northern city of Mosul. US troops in Baghdad uncovered numerous boxes of UC currency estimated at $650 million.
◆2003 North Korea said it was ready to begin reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. US experts said it will give the communist state enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs.
◆2003 Poland signed a deal to buy 48 US-made F-16 jet fighters for $3.5 billion, the biggest defense contract by a former Soviet bloc country since the end of the Cold War.