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TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY

1 August

◆42 BCE Temple of Mars Ultor is dedicated in Rome.★
​◆626 Persians & Avars abandon siege of Constantinople (begun June 29).
◆902 The Arabs capture Taormina, the last Byzantine naval base in Sicily.
◆939 Battle of Simancas: Asturians defeat the Andalucian Arabs.
◆1209 Crusaders besiege Albigenian-held Carcassone (falls, 15th).
◆1423 Battle of Cravant: English longbowmen devastate attacking French.
◆1498 Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. 
◆1578 Battle of Rimenant: Dutch defeat the Spanish.
◆1664 Battle of Szentgotthard: Austrian crush Turkish invaders.
◆1675 Battle of Altenheim: The French defeat the Imperialists.
◆1759 Battle of Minden: English infantry attacks & routs French cavalry.★
◆1781 English army under Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.
◆1789 Already mindful of the markets, the freshly formed United States Government wheeled into action in 1789, passing the nation's first tariff legislation. The tariff was designed to protect America’s burgeoning interests in foreign trade.
◆1790 The first enumeration by the U.S. Census Bureau was completed. It showed a population of 3,939,326 located in 16 states and the Ohio territory with 697,624 slaves. Virginia was the most populous state with 747,610 inhabitants. The census compilation cost $44,377.
◆1801 The American schooner Enterprise captured the Barbary cruiser Tripoli.
◆1825 William Beaumont, a US Army assistant surgeon at Fort Mackinac in the Michigan territory, began experiments to study the digestive system of Alexis St. Martin, a fur trader who was accidentally shot in the abdomen in 1822.
◆1861 Captain John Baylor claims most of the territories of Arizona and New Mexico for the Confederacy after he routs a Union force at Fort Fillmore in southern New Mexico.
◆1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant appoints General Philip Sheridan commander of the Army of the Shenandoah. 
◆1876 Colorado was admitted as the 38th state. 
◆1914 WORLD WAR I -HOSTILITIES GROW: Four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany and Russia declare war against each other, France orders a general mobilization, and the first German army units cross into Luxembourg in preparation for the German invasion of France. During the next three days, Russia, France, Belgium, and Great Britain all lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the German army invaded Belgium.★
◆1921 Successful tests of gyroscopic high level bombsight (Norden Bombsight) at Torpedo Station, Yorktown, VA. Carl Norden developed the bombsight for the Bureau of Ordnance.
◆1933 The US National Recovery Administration (NRA) formed.
◆1941 Parade magazine called it "...the Army's most intriguing new gadget...a tiny truck which can do practically everything." The venerable Jeep.★
◆1941 The Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo plane made its first flight.
◆1941 President Roosevelt forbids the export of oil and aviation fuel from the United States except to Britain, the British Commonwealth countries and countries of the Western Hemisphere.This decision is aimed at Japan. Roosevelt's decision confirms steps taken recently when Japanese assets were frozen (on July 26th).
◆1941 As a consequence of the American restrictions on oil exports, Japan is left with only limited stocks of oil. The position is such that Japan must either change her foreign policy very radically or decide to go to war and try to secure access to oil from the East Indies.
◆1942 Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American beaches.
◆1943 Operation Tidal Wave: The American Eighth Air Force began staging a series of heavy bomber air raids against the oil fields and refineries around Ploesti. These fields furnished about 80% of the Nazis’ petroleum requirements and were a key military target. Of the 177 B-24 Liberator bombers, 50 are lost.
◆1943 A Japanese destroyer rams an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109, slicing it in two.The destruction is so massive other American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead.★
◆1944 The US 3rd Army (General Patton) becomes operational on the right flank and is tasked with clearing Brittany. American forces are now organized under US 12th Army Group (Bradley) and include US 1st Army (Hodges) as well as 3rd Army.
◆1944 After nine days of fighting in a battle termed "the perfect amphibious operation of World War II," MajGen Harry Schmidt, commander of V Amphibious Corps, declared the island of Tinian secured. The combination of surprise, heavy preassault bombardment, and effective logistical support was responsible for Tinian's recapture with a much lower casualty rate (344 killed and 1550 wounded) than had been experienced in previous landings.
◆1945 Allied mines, dropped by air, bring Japanese shipping on the Yangtze river to a halt. The Japanese have lost 36 ships (with 11 others damaged, for a total loss of 35,000 tons) as a result of Allied aerial mines.
◆1945 On Bougainville, Allied troops seal off Japanese forces at Buin, on the southern tip of the island.
◆1945 The American aircraft carrier Cabot attacks Japanese positions on Wake Island.
◆1946 President Truman established the Atomic Energy Commission. Physicist John Simpson (d.2000 at 83) helped develop the 1946 McMahon Act, which called for civilian control of atomic energy.
◆1946 Office of Naval Research established.
◆1950 Lead elements of the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division arrived in Korea from the United States.
◆1950 Control of Guam transferred from the Navy to the Department of Interior.
◆1950 Yakov Malik, Soviet delegate to the United Nations, ended Moscow's boycott of the organization and took over the presidency of the Security Council.
◆1950 Shipments of winter clothing and equipment to the Far East Command began.
◆1956 Captain Norma Parsons becomes the first woman to join the National Guard when she was sworn in as a nurse in the 106th Tactical Hospital, New York Air National Guard. Only two days earlier, and after much debate, Congress finally enacted Public Law 845 allowing the participation of women in the Guard. But there were serious restrictions. Only female officers were allowed and they could only serve as nurses or in medically-related specialties such as dietitians, physical therapists or laboratory technicians. The Army Guard’s first female member was First Lieutenant Sylvia Marie Saint Charles Law who joined Alabama’s 109th Evacuation Hospital in January 1957. Not until November 1967 did Congress amend this law to allow the enlistment of women in Guard. Starting with just a few nurse-officers in the 1950s, women have steadily increased their numbers and job opportunities so that by the close of FY 2003 female soldiers in the Army Guard comprised 12.4% of its total strength while 17.4% of the Air Guard was female.
◆1958 US atomic sub USS Nautilus 1st dove under the North Pole.
◆1964 The North Vietnamese government accuses South Vietnam and the United States of having authorized attacks on Hon Me and Hon Ngu, two of their islands in the Tonkin Gulf. 
◆1966 Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 16. 
◆1969 The U.S. command in Saigon announces that 27 American aircraft were lost in the previous week, bringing the total losses of aircraft in the conflict to date to 5,690.
◆1975 The United States, the Soviet Union, Canada and every European nation (except Albania) sign the Helsinki Final Act on the last day of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). 
◆1977 Francis Gary Powers (47), US U-2 pilot, died in fiery helicopter crash.
◆1995 NATO threatened major air strikes if any more "safe areas" were attacked in Bosnia.
◆2000 A US military court in Germany sentenced Army Staff Sergeant Frank Ronghi to life in prison without parole for sexually assaulting and killing Merita Shabiu, an eleven-year-old ethnic Albanian girl, while on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo.