TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
28 April
◆1503 Battle of Cerignola: Gonzalvo de Cordoba routs the French.
◆1655 English fleet under Blake defeats the Tunisian corsairs.
◆1758 James Monroe (d.1831), later secretary of state and the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825), was born in Westmoreland County, Va. He created the Monroe Doctrine, warning Europe not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere.
◆1760 French forces besieging Quebec defeated the British in the second battle on the Plains of Abraham.
◆1789 Lt. William Bligh, RN, has occasion to say, "This is mutiny, Mr. Christian, mutiny."
◆1818 President Monroe proclaimed naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
◆1856 Yokut Indians repelled an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in California.
◆1862 Forts Jackson and St. Philip, isolated since being passed by Flag Officer Farragut's fleet and the fall of New Orleans, surrendered to the Navy.
◆1897 The Chickasaw and Choctaw, two of the Five Civilized Tribes, become the first to agree to abolish tribal government and communal ownership of land.
◆1898 U.S. warships engage Spanish gunboats and shore batteries at Cienfuegos, Cuba.
◆1919 The first jump with an Army Air Corps (rip-cord type) parachute was made by Les Irvin.
◆1943 The German 8th Panzer Regiment counterattacks the British forces that have occupied Djebel Bou Aoukaz. American forces make some gains in "Mousetrap Valley."
◆1944 Fast carrier task force (12 carriers) commence 2 day bombing of Truk.
◆1944 American and Japanese forces, moving west from Wewak, engage near Aitape in New Guinea.
◆1945 "Il Duce," Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.
◆1945 The US 7th Army captures Augsburg in its advance south toward Austria. Other Allied units are crossing the Elbe River in the north and others are advancing on Munich in the south.
◆1945 On Okinawa, fighting along the Shuri Line continues. American forces employ tanks, flame-throwers and artillery in an effort to destroy Japanese defensive positions.
◆1956 Last French troops left Vietnam.
◆1965 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC INTERVENTION.
◆1967 Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Army and was stripped of his boxing title.
◆1967 Gen. William C. Westmoreland told Congress the United States "would prevail in Vietnam."
◆1970 CAMBODIA INVASION.
◆1972 The North Vietnamese offensive continues as Fire Base Bastogne, 20 miles west of Hue, falls to the communists. Fire Base Birmingham, 4 miles to the east, was also under heavy attack. As fighting intensified all across the northern province of South Vietnam, much of Hue's civilian population tried to escape south to Da Nang. Farther south in the Central Highlands, 20,000 North Vietnamese troops converged on Kontum, encircling it and cutting it off. Only 65 miles north of Saigon, An Loc lay under siege and continued to take a pummeling from North Vietnamese artillery, rockets, and ground attacks. To the American command in Saigon, it appeared that South Vietnam was on the verge of total defeat by the North Vietnamese, but the South Vietnamese were able to hold out.
◆1975 Operation Frequent Wind evacuation from Vietnam begins.
◆1980 President Carter accepted the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (1917-2002), who had opposed the failed rescue mission aimed at freeing American hostages in Iran. The decision to proceed had been spearheaded by Zbigniev Brzeninski.
◆1987 Contra rebels in Nicaragua killed Benjamin Ernest Linder, an American engineer working on a hydroelectric project for the Sandinista government.
◆1989 President Bush announced the U.S. and Japan had concluded a deal on joint development of a new Japanese jet fighter, the FSX, despite concerns that U.S. technology secrets would be given away.
◆1993 Secretary of Defense Les Aspin issues a directive allowing women to fly fighter aircraft in combat. It only takes the Air Guard three days to bring its first female fighter pilot on board when Major Jackie Parker transfers from the Regular Air Force to New York’s 138th Fighter Squadron on May 1st. Other women will follow her example so that by January 2005 there are ten female fighter pilots flying Air Guard combat aircraft.
◆2003 The US moved an air operation center from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.
◆2003 The United States pledged $4 million to help keep peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast in addition to the $5 million it has already given to ECOWAS.
◆2003 The Soyuz space capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian space crew docked with the international space station.
◆2004 CBS broadcast photos on “60 Minutes” showing US abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
◆2004 In Iraq a series of explosions and gunfire rocked Fallujah in new fighting the day after a heavy battle in which U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded the city in a show of force against Sunni insurgents. Elsewhere 1 US and 2 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.