TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
27 August
◆479 BCE Battle of Mycale: Greeks crush the Persians in Ionia [Trad].
◆479 BCE Battle of Plataea: Greeks crush the Persians in Boeotia [Trad].★
◆413 BCE A lunar eclipse visible in Sicily promtps the Athenians to postpone their attempt to escape from Syracuse harbor, dooming them to destruction.
◆1189 King Guy of Jerusalem besieges Acre.
◆1626 Battle of Lutter: Tilly's Imperials defeat Christian of Denmark.
◆1758 British capture Fort Frontenac, forcing the French out of Pennsylvania.
◆1776 The Americans were defeated by the British at the Battle of Long Island, New York. The American forces, composed of Continental Line and militia regiments from several states, attempted to hold back a well coordinated attack by the British Army. While most state units gave a poor showing, often running away upon the enemy approach, this was not always the case. American General Lord Sterling commanding a brigade of Maryland and Delaware regiments blunted their advance long enough for other troops to safely withdraw.
◆1780 Marines guarding workmen cutting masts for the Navy pursued Indians near Reading, Pennsylvania.
◆1781 Battle of Pollicore: outnumbered British defeat Mysore.
◆1813 Battle of Dresden, Day 2: Napoleon defeats the Allies.
◆1813 Battle of Leitskau: Prussians defeat the French.
◆1832 Black Hawk, leader of Sauk-Indians, gave himself up.
◆1862 As the Second Battle of Bull Run raged, Confederate soldiers attacked Loudoun County, Virginia.
◆1896 The Anglo-Zanzibari War: England defeats Zanzibar in a 38 minutes (0902-0940), the shortest war on record.★
◆1901 In Havana, Cuba, U.S. Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever. Days later, Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping his colleague, Army Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes can transmit the sometimes deadly disease.
◆1908 Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States (1963-1969), was born near Stonewall, Texas.
◆1916 Martha Raye was born, comedienne, who also served, died 1994.★
◆1916 Romania declares war on Austria-Hungary.
◆1917 Squadron of minesweepers departs U.S. for service off France.
◆1942 The Battle of the Eastern Solomons. Japanese submarine I-26 damages the USS Saratoga. It will remain out of action until October. The USS Wasp is now the only operational US carrier in the Pacific.
◆1943 American forces land on Arundel. Elements of the 43rd Division occupy Nauro Peninsula in the southeast of the island without opposition.
◆1944 British 21st Army Group and US 12th Army Group continue to advance beyond the Seine River. The US 3rd Army, on the right wing of the army groups, captures Chateau Thierry on the Marne River as well as reaching the Seine River at Troyes, farther inland.
◆1944 USS Stingray (SS-186) lands men and supplies on Luzon, Philippines to support guerilla operations against the Japanese.
◆1945 B-29 Superfortress bombers began to drop supplies into Allied prisoner of war camps in China.
◆1945 The Allied fleets anchor in Sagami (Tokyo) Bay within sight of Mount Fujiyama. Admiral Halsey, commander of the US 3rd Fleet, is present for what is probably the greatest display of naval might in history. The armada includes 23 aircraft carriers, 12 battleships, 26 cruisers, 116 destroyers and escorts, 12 submarines and 185 other vessels. In addition to the American and British ships, there are ships from Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Netherlands represented.
◆1945 President Truman says that the situation in the Pacific continues to have many elements of danger and urges Congress to continue conscription for a further two years.
◆1950 Fifth Air Force established a Rescue Liaison Office in the Joint Operations Center at Nagoya Air Base, Japan.
◆1959 Off Cape Canaveral, FL, USS Observation Island (EAG-154) makes first shipboard launching of a Polaris missile.
◆1962 The United States launched the Mariner 2 space probe with an Atlas D booster. On December 14, 1962, Mariner 2 passed within just over 20,000 miles of Venus, reporting an 800F surface temperature, high surface pressures, a predominantly carbon dioxide atmosphere, continuous cloud cover, and no detectable magnetic field.
◆1972 In the heaviest bombing in four years, U.S. aircraft flatten North Vietnamese barracks near Hanoi and Haiphong as part of ongoing Operation Linebacker I, part of President Nixon's response to the NVA Easter Offensive. Planes also hit bridges on the northeast railroad line to China. In an associated action, four U.S. ships raided the Haiphong port area after dark, shelling to within two miles of the city limits. As the U.S. ships withdrew from the area, the cruiser USS Newport News sank one of two North Vietnamese patrol boats in pursuit, and destroyer USS Rowan set the other on fire.
◆1984 President Reagan announced the Teacher in Space project.
◆1989 The first U.S. commercial satellite rocket was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Delta booster carrying a British communications satellite.
◆1989 Chuck Berry performed his tune Johnny B. Goode for NASA staff in celebration of Voyager II's encounter with the planet Neptune.
◆1993 Operation "Eyes Over Mogadishu" steps up helicopter flights over the capitol.
◆1997 There was a report on the US nuclear arsenal broken down to the number of nuclear weapons in each state. New Mexico was 1st with 2,850, Georgia 2nd with 2,000, and Washington State 3rd with 1,600. The total stockpile was totaled at 12,500 warheads, of which 8,750 were described as "operational."
◆2001 Intel unveiled a 2-GHz Pentium 4 chip.