TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
2 December
◆1775 Congress orders first Navy officers commissions printed.
◆1776 George Washington's army began retreating across the Delaware River from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.
◆1777 British Gen. Howe plotted his attack on Washington's army for Dec 4.
◆1805 The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of Napoleon's greatest victories, where the French Empire effectively crushed the Third Coalition.★
◆1812 James Madison was re-elected president of US; E. Gerry was vice-pres.
◆1823 During his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the "Monroe Doctrine.
◆1840 William Henry Harrison was elected president of US.
◆1845 Making his first annual address to Congress, President James K. Polk belligerently reasserts the 1823 Monroe Doctrine and calls for aggressive American expansion into the West.
◆1861 U.S.S. Sabine, Captain Cadwalader Ringgold, rescued Major John G. Reynolds and a battalion of U.S. Marines under his command from U.S. transport Governor, unit of the Port Royal Sound Expedition, sinking off Georgetown, South Carolina.
◆1863 General Braxton Bragg turned over command of the Army of Tennessee to General William Hardee at Dalton, Ga.
◆1864 Major General Grenville M. Dodge was named to replace General Rosecrans as Commander of the Department of Missouri.1864 - Skirmish at Rocky Creek Church, Georgia.
◆1864 Confederate General Archibald Gracie, Jr., is killed in the trenches at Petersburg, Virginia, when an artillery shell explodes near him.
◆1899 Battle of Tirad Pass: Peyton March defeats a Filipino rearguard.
◆1914 Austrians capture Belgrade, Serbia, after several tries.
◆1925 Alexander Haig, American army general and Secretary of State for President Ronald Reagan (1981-82), was born in Bala-Cynwyd, Pa.
◆1941 Naval Intelligence ended the bugging of the Japanese consul.
◆1941 Yamamoto ordered his fleet to Pearl Harbor. A special code order "Climb Mount Niitaka" is transmitted by Japanese naval headquarters to their carrier force bound for Hawaii. This order confirms that negotiations have broken down and the attack on Pearl Harbor is to proceed.
◆1941 First Naval Armed Guard detachment (7 men under a coxswain) of World War II reports to Liberty ship, SS Dunboyne.
◆1942 General Eichelberger, sent by General MacArthur to investigate the lack of progress at Buna, New Guinea, decides to relieve General Harding of command of the US forces there.
◆1942 Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist, directs and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, ushering in the nuclear age.
◆1943 During the night (December 2-3) German bombers raid Bari, Italy. An ammunition ship in the harbor is hit and explodes, sinking 18 transports of 70,000 tons and 38,000 tons of supplies.
◆1944 Elements of the US 3rd Army reach Saarlautern. To the south, the US 7th Army advances to the Rhine river after the Germans have withdrawn across it at Kehl. The three available bridges are all demolished in the retreat.
◆1944 Two-day destroyer Battle of Ormoc Bay begins.★
◆1946 The U.S. and Britain merged the German occupation zones.
◆1950 In the Chosin/Changjin Reservoir Area, 1st Marine Division elements began the fighting withdrawal from Yudam-ni to Hagaru-ri. The subzero weather earned the area the title "Frozen Chosin" from the Marines and soldiers who fought there.
◆1954 The U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator.
◆1956 Fidel Castro landed on coast of Cuba. Castro landed with a small armed force to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista. Che Guevara was one of the few who survived the disastrous landing of the rebels’ boat, the Granma.
◆1961 Following a year of severely strained relations between the United States and Cuba, Cuban leader Fidel Castro openly declares that he is a Marxist-Leninist.
◆1963 The military junta, which took control of the South Vietnamese government following the November coup that resulted in the death of President Ngo Dinh Diem, orders a temporary halt to the strategic hamlet program.
◆1965 USS Enterprise (CVAN-65) and USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25) become first nuclear-powered task unit used in combat operations with launch of air strikes near Bien Hoa, Vietnam.
◆1979 Some 2,000 Libyans ransacked the US embassy at Tripoli, Libya, chanting support for the radical Islamic regime that took power in Iran earlier in the year.
◆1988 The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a secret four-day mission.
◆1992 The space shuttle Discovery blasted off with five astronauts and a spy satellite aboard.
◆1998 Macedonia agreed to provide a base for NATO to get to Kosovo it the need should arise.
◆1998 New Zealand agreed to lease a number of F-16 fighter jets from the US that were originally intended for Pakistan. Some $105 million was to be paid over 10 years.
◆2001 US bombers hit Taliban defenses around Kandahar.