TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
7 August
◆480 BCE The Battle of Thermopylae was fought between an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas of Sparta, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I over the course of three days, during the second Persian invasion of Greece.★
◆1479 Battle of Guinegate: Emperor Maximilian I defeats King Louis XI of France.
◆1594 Battle of the Biscuits: Irish defeat English, who abandon their rations.
◆1742 Nathanael Greene, American Revolutionary War General, was born.
◆1760 Ft. Loudon, Tennessee, surrendered to Cherokee Indians.
◆1789 The U.S. War Department was established by Congress.
◆1794 In the summer of 1794, irate farmers in the Monoghaela Valley of Pennsylvania rose up against the federal tax on liquor and stills. During the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, the farmers extracted their revenge by torching tax collector's homes, as well as "tarring and feathering revenue officers." The government moved quickly to quell the rebellion: President Washington called in 12,900 Federal troops from to surrounding states to forcefully usher the farmers back to their homes.
◆1836 Confederate General Evander Law is born in Darlington, South Carolina.★
◆1861 Two floating torpedoes (mines) in the Potomac River were picked up by U. S. S. Resolute, Acting Master W. Budd- the earliest known use of torpedoes by the Confederates. During the course of the war a variety of ingenious torpedoes destroyed or damaged some 40 Union ships, forecasting the vast growth to come in this aspect of underwater naval warfare.
◆1862 President Lincoln, with Secretaries Seward and Stanton, visited Captain Dahlgren at the Washington Navy Yard for a two hour demonstration of the "Rafael" repeating cannon. Later Dahlgren took the party on board a steamer to cool off and rest.
◆1864 Union troops captured part of Confederate General Jubal Early's army at Moorefield, West Virginia.
◆1876 Mata Hari was born, exotic dancer, spy, executed 1917.
◆1914 Germans under Ludendorf capture Liege.
◆1936 The United States declared non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
◆1941 The Senate passes an extension of the draft period from one year to thirty months (and a similar increase for service in the National Guard) after considerable debate.
◆1942 An American task force bombards the Japanese-held island of Kiska.
◆1942 The U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands.★★
◆1944 German forces begin a significant counterattack from east of Mortain, opposite US 1st Army (between US 7th and 14th Corps). Elements of German 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions spearhead the offensive. Mortain is recaptured. Heavy Allied air attacks prevent more significant advances by the German forces. Meanwhile, in Brittany, the US 8th Corps (part of US 1st Army) attacks the German garrisoned ports of Brest, St. Malo and Lorient.
◆1944 On Guam there is heavy fighting along the entire front as US forces attack Japanese positions.
◆1945 The first flight of the Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom) jet bomber takes place. The plane is based on the German Me262.
◆1945 More than 200 B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Yahata, Tokyo and Kukuyama.
◆1945 On Luzon, officers from the headquarters of the US 1st Army meet in readiness for the coming invasion of Japan.
◆1945 The secret of radio direction finding (RDF), now called radar, is made public.
◆1950 Lieutenant General Walton Walker launched Task Force Kean against the North Korean 6th Division to seize the Chinju Pass and establish a new line along the Nam River. Three regiments, the Army's 35th Infantry and 5th Regimental Combat Team and the 5th Marines, attacked abreast against a estimated 7,500 enemy troops. Unknown to the Eight Army planners was the presence of the North Korean 83rd Motorized Regiment of the 105th Armored Division supporting the 6th Division with T-34 tanks.
◆1953 SSgt Barbara Barnwell was the first woman Marine awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism. She was from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and a member of the Marine Reserve, saved a soldier from drowning in 1952.
◆1959 From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S. unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft, commonly known as the "Paddlewheel" satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture of the earth's surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles. The photo, received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit. Released by NASA in September, the first photograph ever taken of the earth by a U.S. satellite depicted a crescent shape of part of the planet in sunlight. It was Mexico, captured by Explorer 6 as it raced westward over the earth at speeds in excess of 20,000 miles an hour.
◆1961 Soviet premier Khrushchev predicted that the USSR economy would surpass that of the US.
◆1964 The United States Congress overwhelming approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose "communist aggression" in Southeast Asia.
◆1966 The United States lost seven planes over North Vietnam, the most in the war up to this point.
◆1976 Scientists in Pasadena, Calif., announced that the Viking 1 spacecraft had found the strongest indications to date of possible life on Mars.
◆1990 Operation Desert Shield: First American troops reach Saudi Arabia.
◆1990 President Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq. The US Persian Gulf War began. Operation Desert Shield ended Feb 28, 1991. It cost $8.1 billion and left 383 US casualties with 458 wounded.
◆1996 NASA researchers formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on Mars.
◆1997 The space shuttle Discovery was launched with a crew of six. A satellite was dropped off to study the Earth’s ozone layer.
◆1997 The US State Dept. expressed concern over reports of Chinese nuclear-capable M-11 missiles sold to Pakistan.
◆1998 At 10:30 a.m. local time, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.
◆2002 Ford Motor Co. and Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel cell technology.
◆2004 Clashes between US-led forces and fighters loyal to al-Sadr continued for a 3rd day in Najaf and Sadr City.
◆2011 MARS Special Operations Group creates their facebook page.