TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
18 August
◆480 BCE The Persian host arrives before Thermopylae [Trad].
◆1304 Battle of Mons-en-Peleve: The French defeat the Flemings.
◆1487 Spanish liberate Malaga from the Moors.
◆1587 In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare became parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia Dare, the first English child born on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C., then considered Walter Raleigh’s second settlement in Roanoke, Virginia. Virginia Dare, born to the daughter of John White, became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil.
◆1590 John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted.★
◆1690 Battle of Staffarda: French defeat the Piedmontese/Imperialists in Lombardy.
◆1691 Battle of Slankanem: Imperialists defeat the Turks.
◆1774 Meriwether Lewis, American explorer, was born in Charlottesville, VA. He led the Corps of Discovery with William Clark.
◆1805 Battle of Ivankovac: Serb insurgents inflict a crushing defeat on the Ottomans.
◆1812 First Battle of Pulotsk (Day 2): French defeat the Russians, to capture the city.
◆1812 Returning from a cruise into Canadian waters Captain Isaac Hull's USS Constitution of the fledgling U.S. Navy encountered British Captain Richard Dacre's HMS Guerriere about 750 miles out of Boston. After a frenzied 55-minute battle that left 101 dead, Guerriere rolled helplessly in the water, smashed beyond salvage. Dacre struck his colors and surrendered to Hull's boarding party. In contrast, Constitution suffered little damage and only 14 casualties. The fight's outcome shocked the British Admiralty while it heartened America through the dark days of the War of 1812. [see Aug 19]1813 Battle of the Medina River: Royalist forces defeat Mexican-American Republican volunteers with great slaughter south of San Antonio.
◆1835 The last Potawatomi Indians left Chicago.
◆1846 U.S. forces led by Gen. Stephen W. Kearney captured Santa Fe, NM.
◆1862 Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart’s headquarters was raided by Union troops of the 5th New York and 1st Michigan cavalries.
◆1864 Union Gen. William T. Sherman sent Gen. Judson Kilpatrick to raid Confederate lines of communication outside Atlanta. The raid was unsuccessful. Union General William Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick, his cavalry chief, 'a hell of a damn fool.'
◆1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant tries to cut a vital Confederate lifeline into Petersburg, Virginia, with an attack on the Weldon Railroad.★
◆1866 Battle of Pieve di Ledro: The Garibaldini defeat the Austrians.
◆1870 Battles of Mars-la-Tour: Prussians blockade the French in Metz.
◆1876 Japanese Imperial troops drive rebels from Kogoshima.
◆1911 First Navy Nurse Corps superintendent, Esther Voorhees Hasson, appointed.
◆1914 President Wilson issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, aimed at keeping the United States out of World War I.
◆1914 Germany declared war on Russia.
◆1920 The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land.
◆1942 Marines left Makin Island after destroying a seaplane base, two radio stations, a supply warehouse, and killing about 100 Japanese soldiers.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, Japanese reinforcements are landed at Taivu and a detachment of 1,000 troops under the leadership of Colonel Ichiki starts towards the American position. The Japanese believe there are only 3,000 Americans on the Island. There are actually 10,000 and the airstrip is now ready to receive aircraft.
◆1943 American cruisers and destroyers bombard Palmi and Gioai Taura in Italy.
◆1944 The Falaise gap is closed by a link up of Polish and American troops at Chambois.Considerable German forces remain trapped to the west. Allied fighter-bombers successfully harass the German columns attempting to withdraw to the east. To the south, patrols from US 3rd Army reach Versailles as the army advances toward the Seine River.
◆1944 The forces of US 7th Army continue advancing. The US 6th Corps is moving toward Aix-en-Provence and northward in the direction of Gap while the French 2nd Corps advances along the coast to Toulon and eventually Marseilles.
◆1945 Psychiatrists conclude that Clarence V. Bertucci is "mentally unbalanced." He is responsible for the massacre of German POWs at Camp Salina, Utah on July 8th.
◆1950 U.N. Command service personnel established the Korean Relief Center in Pusan to aid refugees.
◆1951 The Battle of Bloody Ridge began.★
◆1951 U.N. aircraft began Operation STRANGLE to interdict North Korean rail and supply lines.
◆1951 The 1st transcontinental wireless phone call was made from SF to NYC by Mark Sullivan, president of PT&T, and H.T. Killingworth of AT&T.
◆1965 After a deserter from the First Vietcong Regiment had revealed that an attack was imminent against the U.S. base at Chu Lai, the Marines launch Operation Starlite in the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai Province.★
◆1966 First ship-to-shore satellite radio message sent from USS Annapolis in South China Sea to Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Pearl Harbor.
◆1968 The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launch a limited offensive in the south with 19 separate attacks throughout South Vietnam. In the heaviest fighting in three months, Communist troops attacked key positions along the Cambodian border in Tay Ninh and Binh Long provinces, northwest of Saigon. In Tay Ninh, 600 Viet Cong, supported by elements of two North Vietnamese divisions, attacked the provincial capital, capturing several government installations. U.S. reinforcements from the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division were rushed to the scene and after a day of house-to-house fighting expelled the communists from the city.
◆1971 Australia and New Zealand announce the end of the year as the deadline for withdrawal of their respective contingents from Vietnam. The Australians had 6,000 men in South Vietnam and the New Zealanders numbered 264. Both nations agreed to leave behind small training contingents. Australian Prime Minister William McMahon proclaimed that the South Vietnamese forces were now able to assume Australia's role in Phuoc Tuy province, southeast of Saigon and that Australia would give South Vietnam $28 million over the next three years for civilian projects. Total Australian losses for the period of their commitment in Vietnam were 473 dead and 2,202 wounded; the monetary cost of the war was $182 million for military expenses and $16 million in civilian assistance to South Vietnam.
◆1976 Two U.S. Army officers were killed in Korea's demilitarized zone as a group of North Korean soldiers wielding axes and metal pikes attacked U.S. and South Korean soldiers. Major Arthur G. Bonifas was attacked and beaten to death by North Korean soldiers as he attempted to cut down a poplar tree in the DMZ.
◆1990 A US frigate fired warning shots across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman—apparently the first shots fired by the United States in the Persian Gulf crisis.
◆1990 The U.N. Security Council passes Resolution 664calling on Iraq to release all foreign citizens and warns Iraq against harming them.
◆1991 Hard-line elements of the Soviet government and military begin a coup attempt against President Mikhail Gorbachev.★
◆1997 In Virginia the VMI class of 2001 included 30 women among the 460 freshman students. Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute's 158-year history.
◆2002 US federal agents said they had seized over 2,300 unregistered missiles at a “counter-terrorism” school, High Energy Access Tools (HEAT), in Roswell, New Mexico, that was training students from Arab countries and arrested its Canadian leader.★
◆2004 U.S. forces clashed with insurgents southeast of Baghdad.