TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
21 August
◆1568 Battle of Nijmegen: Spanish defeat the Dutch.
◆1680 Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, N.M., after driving out the Spanish. They destroyed almost all of the Spanish churches in Taos and Santa Fe.
◆1800 U.S. Marine Corps Band gave its first concert in Washington, D.C.
◆1808 Battle of Vimiero: Wellington forces the French to abandon Portugal.
◆1814 Marines defended Washington, DC, at Bladensburg, Maryland, against the British.
◆1860 Anglo-French force captures the Taku Forts at Tientsin.
◆1861 U.S.S. Albatross, Commander Prentiss, engaged C.S.S. Beaufort, Lieutenant R. C. Duvall, in Oregon Inlet, North Carolina. Albatross, heavier gunned, forced Beau fort to withdraw.
◆1861 U.S. Marines commanded by Major Reynolds took part in the First Battle of Bull Run: 9 Marines killed, 19 wounded, 16 missing in action. Commander Dahlgren wrote of the loss of two naval howitzers in the battle. The Confederates also had a naval battery at Manassas.
◆1862 As the economy took a beating from the Civil War, the Treasury Department sprung into action by releasing fractional currency, alternately known as postage currency. The new 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent notes hit the streets on this day.
◆1863 The vicious guerrilla war in Missouri spills over into Kansas and precipitates one of the most appalling acts of violence during the war when 150 men in the abolitionist town of Lawrence are murdered in a raid by Southern partisans.★
◆1863 Confederate torpedo boat Torch, Pilot James Carlin, formerly a blockade runner, made a gallant night attempt to sink U.S.S. New Ironsides, Captain Stephen C. Rowan, in the channel near Morris Island.
◆1864 Confederate General A.P. Hill attacked Union troops south of Petersburg, Va., at the Weldon railroad. His attack was repulsed, resulting in heavy Confederate casualties.
◆1866 Battle of Bezzeca: The Garibaldini defeat the Austrians.
◆1883 The first installation of electric lights in a US Navy warship took place during the summer of 1883.
◆1914 Battle of Jaroslavice/Wolczkowce, Galicia: The Russian 10th Cavalry Division clashes with the Austro-Hungarian 4th Cavalry Division in the largest mounted battle of the Great War.
◆1915 Italy declared war on Turkey.
◆1920 Radio station built by U.S. Navy and French Government transmits first wireless message heard around the world. At time it was the most powerful radio station in the world.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, Japanese Colonel Ichiki's force of 1000 men attack the American positions across the Tenaru River. The American strength and defenses are unexpected and the Japanese force is destroyed. The Marines continue to receive shipments of supplies and some reinforcements.
◆1942 Battle of Ibsuschenskii: Italian cavalry routes a Russian infantry regiment.
◆1944 Allied armies advance northeast in pursuit of the broken and retreating German forces. The US 3rd Army develops its bridgeheads over the Seine River. The right flank of its advance reaches Sens.
◆1945 President Harry S. Truman ended the Lend-Lease program that had shipped some $50 billion in aid to America's Allies during World War II.
◆1951 First contract for nuclear-powered submarine awarded.
◆1952 The Commander in Chief, Far East Command, General Mark W. Clark, established the Korean Communications Zone as a major subordinate command of FEC. The Korean COMZ had responsibility for all activities south of a boundary at approximately the 37th parallel.
◆1963 South Vietnamese Special Forces loyal to President Diem's brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu, attack Buddhists pagodas, damaging many and arresting 1,400 Buddhists.
◆1965 Launch of Gemini 5, piloted by LCDR Charles Conrad Jr., USN, who completed 120 orbits in almost 8 days at an altitude of 349.8 km. Recovery was by helicopter from USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39).
◆1965 It is revealed by MACV headquarters (Headquarters Military Assistance Command Vietnam) in Saigon that U.S. pilots have received approval to destroy any Soviet-made missiles they see while raiding North Vietnam. This was a major change from previous orders that restricted them to bombing only previously approved targets.
◆1968 William Dana reached 80 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.
◆1968 After 5 years Russia once again jammed Voice of America radio.
◆1968 Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia because of the country's experiments with a more liberal government.
◆1972 US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus was launched.
◆1972 Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke explored the surface of the moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2.
◆1980 USS Truxtun rescues 42 Vietnamese refugees and USS Merrill rescues 62 Vietnamese refugees, over 200 miles southeast of Saigon.
◆1989 The U.S. space probe Voyager 2 fired its thrusters to bring it closer to Neptune's mysterious moon Triton.
◆1990 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a speech in which he defended the detaining of foreigners in his country, and promised "a major catastrophe" should fighting break out in the Persian Gulf.
◆1991 Just three days after it began, the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapses.
◆1993 In a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft on a $980 million mission. Its fate remains unknown.
◆2002 A new Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket launched a 4-ton French communications satellite into orbit.