TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
29 April
◆89 BCE Social War: Sulla captures Stabiae from the Italiotes.
◆1091 Battle of Monte Levunium: Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus defeats the Pechenegs.
◆1289 Sultan Quala'un of Egypt captures Tripoli, Lebanon, from the Crusaders.
◆1429 Joan of Arc beats the English at Orleans.
◆1524 Battle of Sesia Romagnano: Spanish defeat the French.
◆1616 Naval Battle of Euboea: Tuscans defeat the Turks.
◆1814 USS Peacock captures HMS Epervier.
◆1856 During the Tule River War Yokut Indians repelled a second attack by the 'Petticoat Rangers,' a band of civilian Indian fighters-some wearing body armor-at Four Creeks, California.The Yokuts lived along the shores of Tulare Lake in the Central Valley, which disappeared by 1900 due to water diversion and farming.
◆1861 USS United States ordered commissioned as the first ship in the Virginia navy by Major General Robert E. Lee, Commander in Chief Military Forces of Virginia.
◆1862 100,000 federal troops prepared to march into Corinth, Miss.
◆1862 Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier.
◆1864 Major General Taylor, CSA, seeking to take full advantage of the vulnerable position of Rear Admiral Porter's gunboats above the Alexandria rapids sought "to convert one of the captured transports into a fire ship to burn the fleet now crowded above the upper falls."
◆1898 U.S. warships engage Spanish gunboats and shore batteries at Cienfuegos, Cuba.
◆1918 America's WWI Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, scored his first victory with the help of Captain James Norman Hall. He eventually racked up 26 victories before the end of the war.
◆1942 PACIFIC THEATER: Despite a desperate defense, the Japanese take Lashio, terminus of the Burma Road. All supplies to China must now go by air as China has been cut off by land. General Alexander decides to remove his troops to new position in the Chinwin and Irrawaddy Valley. On Mindanao, Filipino resistance continues but they are pushed back from their positions when the invading Japanese receive reinforcements and greater air support. The Japanese continue to bomb the remaining American troops who have retreated to Corregidor.
◆1944 Fast carrier task force (12 carriers) commence 2 day bombing of Truk.
◆1945 DACHAU CONCENTRATION CAMP LIBERATED.
◆1945 The US 185th Regiment (General Brush) lands near Padan Point with naval support by a destroyer force commanded by Admiral Struble. There is little Japanese resistance.
◆1945 The last convoy battle of the Second World War begins as 14 German U-boats attack convoy RA-66 which consists of 24 ships with an escort including 2 escort carriers, 1 cruiser, 9 destroyers and 13 other ships.
◆1948 Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force authorized a medal pendant to be established for the Commendation Ribbon.
◆1953 Marine Corps Colonel Katherine A. Towle, Director of Women Marines, became the first woman line officer to retire from U.S. military service upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 55.
◆1957 The 1st military nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
◆1970 US INVASION OF CAMBODIA.
◆1975 Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation on record, begins removing the last Americans from Saigon.
◆1990 Wrecking cranes began tearing down Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate.
◆1992 Deadly rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.
◆1998 The United States, Canada, and Mexico agreed to eliminate tariffs on items accounting for $1 billion in trade at a meeting in Paris of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
◆1998 The US and European powers decided to impose new sanctions and agreed to freeze the assets of Yugoslavia. A ban on investments would follow in 10 days if security police was not withdrawn from Kosova.
◆1999 The US decided to sell an early-warning radar system to Taiwan.
◆1999 US planes bombed sites in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq after being attacked by missiles and anti-aircraft fire. Iraq said 20 civilians were injured in Mosul and 4 in separate attacks in the south.
◆1999 NATO jets struck Yugoslav army headquarters in Belgrade and the federal interior ministry. A telecommunications tower was hit and knocked Serbian TV off the air.
◆2002 The 1st 20 of some 2000 US soldiers landed in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
◆2002 Britain decided to treat al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as prisoners of war and turn them over to the interim Afghan government.
◆2002 Turkey officially agreed to take command of the peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.
◆2003 The US said it would withdraw all combat forces from Saudi Arabia.
◆2003 The leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, all critics of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, agreed to beef up their military cooperation in an effort to make Europe's defense less reliant on the US.
◆2004 A national monument to the 16 million U.S. men and women who served during World War II opened to the public in Washington DC. Official dedication was set for May 29.
◆2004 U.S. Marines announced an agreement to end a bloody, nearly month long siege of Fallujah, saying American forces will pull back and allow an all-Iraqi force commanded by one of Saddam Hussein's generals to take over security.