TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
2 August
◆216 BCE Battle of Cannae: Hannibal crushes a Roman Army.★
◆47 BCE "Veni, Vidi, Vici"; Caesar defeats Pharnaces II of Pontus at Zela.
◆1530 Battle of Gavinara: Spanish-Medician forces defeat the Florentines.
◆1554 Battle of Marciano: Spanish-Medician forces defeat the Franco-Sienese near Florence.
◆1770 Battle of the Pruth: Russians defeat the Turks, who lose 20,000.
◆1776 In Philadelphia most members of the Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence.
◆1831 Dutch invade secessionist Belgium (withdraw Aug 12).
◆1832 Some 1,300 Illinois militia under General Henry Atkinson massacred Sauk Indian men, women and children who were followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrendered three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end.
◆1861 The United States Congress passes the first income tax to raise revenues for the war effort. Although never enacted, it was an important fiscal innovation that paved the way for growth of the government in the 20th century.
◆1862 The US Army Ambulance Corps was established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan.
◆1862 Union General John Pope captured Orange Court House, Virginia.
◆1864 After months of attempting to ready C.S.S. Rappahannock and negotiating her clearance from French authorities in Calais, Flag Officer Barron reluctantly concluded that she could not be taken to sea under the Confederate flag.
◆1865 The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war.★
◆1867 Wagon Box Fight: c. 30 army woodcutters defeat c. 1000 Sioux.
◆1870 Battle of Saarbrucken: French troops capture Saarbucken - the only victory of Napoleon III's Imperial Army in the Franco-Prussian War.
◆1909 What will become the US Army Air Corps formed as the Army Signal Corps took 1st delivery from the Wright Brothers.
◆1914 Russian troops invade Eastern Prussia.
◆1923 In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58.
◆1934 With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Reichsführer, or "Imperial Leader."
◆1939 Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.
◆1941 Lend-Lease aid begins to be sent to the Soviet Union.
◆1942 US troops are now being transported to the UK in the passenger liners Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Nieuw Amsterdam. These vessels are too fast for standard escorts. Their routes across the Atlantic are based on Admiralty intelligence on U-boat concentrations.
◆1943 The 10-day allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.
◆1943 American naval forces bombard Kiska Island, unaware that the Japanese garrison has been evacuated.
◆1943 On New Georgia, American forces have advanced to the edge of Munda airfield. The Japanese have decided not to reinforce the garrison on New Georgia. Some of its garrison are withdrawn to Kolombangara where the Japanese intend to make their next stand.
◆1944 The US 3rd Army advances. The 8th Corps reaches Dinan and the outskirts of Rennes, in Brittany. To the left, elements of US 1st Army capture Villedieu in an attack around Tessy toward Mortain.
◆1944 On Guam, US forces make progress in attacks on the west side of the island but American attacks on the east side are repulse by the Japanese garrison.
◆1945 During the night (August 1-2), 820 US B-29 Superfortress bombers drop a record total of 6632 tons of bombs on five Japanese cities including Hachioji, Nagaoka, Mito, Toyama and the petroleum center of Kawasaki. Most of Toyama is obliterated. Also, Americans claim to have sunk 26 ships in the raids.
◆1950 Amphibious force ships land Marine First Provisional Brigade at Pusan, Korea helping to save this last area of South Korea from capture.
◆1950 Korea suffered its worst winter of the century.
◆1950 By early August, 134 National Guard units had received activation orders.
◆1950 The Ford Motor Company created the Defense Products Division in order to handle the large number of government contracts related to the Korean War. The conversion from automobile manufacture to weapons production had already been made several times in history, including during World War II, when civilian automobile production in the U.S. virtually ceased as manufacturers began turning out tanks instead.
◆1956 Albert Woolson (109), last veteran US Union army, died.
◆1964 North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731).★
◆1965 Newsman Morley Safer filmed the destruction of a Vietnamese village by U.S. Marines.
◆1971 The Nixon administration officially acknowledges that the CIA is maintaining a force of 30,000 'irregulars' fighting the Communist Pathet Lao in Laos. The CIA trained and equipped this force of mountain tribesman, mostly from the Hmong tribe, to fight a secret war against the Communists and to sever the Ho Chi Minh Trail into South Vietnam. According to a once top-secret report released this date by the U.S. Defense and State Departments, U.S. financial involvement in Laos had totaled $284,200,000 in 1970.
◆1989 NASA confirmed Voyager 2's discovery of 3 more moons of Neptune designated temporarily 1989 N2, 1989 N3 and 1989 N24.
◆1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate.★
◆1990 By a vote of 14-0, the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and demanded in Resolution 660 the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
◆1990 Yasser Arafat supported Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. This resulted in the PLO’s isolation.
◆1991 UNSCOM uncovers a major Iraqi biological weapons program, including seed stocks of three biological warfare agents and threepotential warfare strains.
◆1995 China ordered the expulsion of two US Air Force officers it said were caught spying on military sites.
◆1999 The US Army THAAD missile, Theater High-Altitude Air Defense, was tested successfully over New Mexico for a 2nd time following a string of failures dating to 1995.
◆2003 Afghan troops backed by U.S. warplanes killed as many as 70 militants in a daylong battle near the Pakistani border.