TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
28 August
◆1105 Third Battle of Ramalah: Crusaders defeat the Fatimids.
◆1238 Jaime I of Aragon liberates Valencia from the Moors.
◆1364 Battle of Cascina: Florentines ambush Pisans while they are bathing in the Arno.
◆1513 Battle of Norham: King James IV of Scotland defeats the English.
◆1565 St Augustine Fla, oldest city in the US, was established.
◆1609 Henry Hudson discovered Delaware Bay.
◆1640 The Indian War in New England ended with the surrender of the Indians.
◆1640 Battle of Newburn: Scots defeat English to capture Newcastle.
◆1652 Naval Battle of Plymouth: de Ruyter's Dutch defeat the English.
◆1676 Indian chief King Philip, also known as Metacom, was killed by English soldiers, ending the war between Indians and colonists.
◆1739 Battle of Stavuchany: Russians drive the Turks into the Danube.
◆1814 The War of 1812 was still going strong, as the British continued their ransacking of America. By August 28, they had captured a large portion of the East Coast, including Washington, D.C., prompting New York banks to halt specie payments.
◆1861 Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, falls to Union troops after a two-day operation, closing an important outlet from Pamlico Sound for Confederate blockade runners.
◆1862 SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN (Day 1): Confederate General Robert E. Lee, by splitting his smaller army and using flanking maneuvers, succeeds in routing the Union Army under the command of General John Pope from field. Fought over much of the same area as the Battle of First Manassas a year earlier, the losses on both sides were much higher. Lee attempts to capitalize on this victory by marching into Maryland to take the war north. He was stopped at Antietam Creek in September.★
◆1862 The Battle of Thoroughfare Gap, VA.
◆1862 Confederate spy Belle Boyd was released from Old Capital Prison in Washington, DC.
◆1867 Captain William Reynolds of Lackawanna raises U.S. flag over Midway Island and took formal possession of these islands for the U.S.
◆1883 John Montgomery (d.1911 in a glider crash) made the first manned, controlled flight in the US in his "Gull" glider, whose design was inspired by watching birds.
◆1898 Marines defended American interests in Valparaiso, Chile.
◆1916 Germany declares war on Romania.
◆1916 Italy declares war on Germany.
◆1933 The government took steps to safeguard the nation's gold supplies as the Depression rolled on. On this day, an executive order was handed down that prohibited "hoarding" gold and placed limits on exports of precious metal.
◆1942 1st and 2nd Bn 7th Marines leave Pago Pago for combat.
◆1942 120 women, commissioned directly as ENS or LTJG, reported to "USS Northampton," Smith College for training.
◆1942 At Guadalcanal, the Japanese received more reinforcements brought in by Admiral Tanaka's 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, nicknamed the "Tokyo Express."
◆1943 Mussolini was transferred from La Maddalena Sardinia to Gran Sasso.
◆1944 Elements of US 1st Army cross the Marne River at Meaux. The US 3rd Army is approaching Reims.
◆1944 The German garrisons in Toulon and Marseilles surrender. In the Rhone valley, some elements of the German 19th Army have been cut off, to the south of Montelimar, by forces of the US 7th Army. Among those elements is the German 11th Panzer Division, which launches an attack northward and succeeds in breaking through the line with heavy losses from Allied artillery and ground attack aircraft.
◆1945 Goring, Ribbentrop, and 22 others former Nazi government officials are indicted as war criminals. Hermann Goring heads the list of 24. Rudolf Hess, formerly deputy to Hitler, who has been a prisoner in Britain since May 1941, is next on the list, followed by Martin Bormann, the secretary of the NSDAP, who disappeared from the Berlin bunker. Others include Konstantin von Neurath, the first foreign minister to Hitler; Gustav Krupp von Bohlen, the industrialist; Franz von Papen, the vice-chancellor in 1933-34; and, Hjalmar Schacht, who served as the minister of finance in the Nazi government until falling out of favor with Hitler.
◆1945 US forces under General George Marshall landed in Japan. This advance guard of 150 American technicians land at Atsugi airfield, near Yokohama. For the first time, the Allies set foot on Japanese soil. Their arrival has been delayed for 48 hours by the forecast of a typhoon.
◆1945 Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung arrived in Chunking to confer with Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek in a futile effort to avert civil war.
◆1952 Units on USS Boxer (CV-21) launch explosive-filled drone which explodes against railroad bridge near Hungnam, Korea. First guided missile launched from ship during Korean Conflict.
◆1965 Navy CDR Scott Carpenter and 9 aquanauts enter SeaLab II, 205 ft. below Southern California's waters to conduct underwater living and working tests.
◆1965 The Viet Cong were routed in the Mekong Delta by U.S. forces, with more than 50 killed.
◆1966 It is reported in three Soviet newspapers that North Vietnamese pilots are undergoing training in a secret Soviet air base to fly supersonic interceptors against U.S. aircraft. This only confirms earlier reports that the Soviets had initiated close relations with North Vietnam after a visit by Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin to Hanoi in February 1965 during which he signed economic and military treaties with the North, pledging full support for their war effort. The Soviets and North Vietnamese leadership planned military strategy and discussed North Vietnam's needs to prosecute such a strategy. The Soviets agreed to supply the necessary war materials, to include air defense weapons for the North and offensive weapons to be employed in the South. At one point in the war, the Soviets would supply 80 percent of all supplies reaching North Vietnam.
◆1972 The U.S. Air Force gets its first ace (a designation traditionally awarded for five enemy aircraft confirmed shot down) since the Korean War. Captain Richard S. Ritchie, flying with his "backseater" (radar intercept officer), Captain Charles B. DeBellevue, in an F-4 out of Udorn Air Base in Thailand, shoots down his fifth MiG near Hanoi. Two weeks later, Captain DeBellvue, flying with Captain John A. Madden, Jr., shot down his fifth and sixth MiGs. The U.S. Navy already had two aces, Lieutenants Randall Cunningham and Bill Driscoll. By this time in the war, there was only one U.S. fighter-bomber base left in South Vietnam at Bien Hoa. The rest of the air support was provided by aircraft flying from aircraft carriers or U.S. bases in Thailand. Also on this day: Back in the United States, President Nixon announces that the military draft will end by July 1973.
◆1990 Iraq declared occupied Kuwait the 19th province of Iraq, renamed Kuwait City Kadhima, and created a new district named after President Saddam Hussein. A puppet regime under Alaa Hussein was set up. Alaa Hussein was convicted of treason in 2000 and sentenced to death. Saddam Hussein, saying he sympathized with his foreign captives, pledged to free detained women and children.
◆1997 US troops clashed with Bosnian Serbs in Brcko. NATO forces rescued some 50 besieged UN police monitors as crowds, opposed to Pres. Plavsic, demanded the expulsion of Western peacekeepers. U.S. troops fired tear gas and warning shots to fend off rock-hurling Serb mobs. The attempt by US-led NATO forces to install Plavsic forces in police stations in 3 cities failed.