TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
12 December
◆627 Battle of Nineveh: Hercalius' East Romans inflict a crushing defeat on the Sassanid Persians, effectively ending 26 years of war and Roman defeats, leaving both empires exhausted.
◆1098 Crusaders capture & plunder Mara, Syria.
◆1753 George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivered an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain’s claim to the entire Ohio river valley.Washington (22) was sent by Gov. Robert Dinwiddie to warn the French soldiers that they were trespassing on English territory.
◆1770 The British soldiers responsible for the “Boston Massacre” were acquitted on murder charges.
◆1776 The Armor branch traces its origin to the Cavalry.★
◆1781 Second Naval Battle of Ushant: A British squadron defeats the French.
◆1787 Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
◆1799 Two days before his death, George Washington composed his last letter, to Alexander Hamilton, his aide-de-camp during the Revolution and later his Secretary of the Treasury. In the letter he urged Hamilton to work for the establishment of a nationally military academy. Washington wrote that letter at the end of a long, cold day of snow, sleet and rain that he had spent out-of-doors. He remained outside for more than five hours, according to his secretary Tobias Lear, did not change out of his wet clothes or dry his hair when he returned home.
◆1800 Washington DC was established as the capital of US.
◆1862 U.S.S. Cairo, Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, on an expedition up the Yazoo River to destroy torpedoes (mines), was sunk by one of the infernal machines" and Selfridge reported: "The Cairo sunk in about twelve minutes after the explosion, going totally out of sight, except the top of her chimneys, in 6 fathoms of water."
◆1862 Naval force under Commander Murray including U.S.S. Delaware, Shawsheen, Lockwood, and Seymour with armed transports in the Neuse River supported an Army expedition to destroy railroad bridges and track near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Low water prevented the gunboats from advancing more than about 15 miles up the river.
◆1863 Orders were given in Richmond that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.
◆1876 First examination for Revenue Cutter cadets held in Washington, D.C.
◆1901 Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less.
◆1930 Last Allied troops left the Saar of Germany.
◆1931 Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigned as President of the Nanking Government but remained the head of the Nationalist government that held nominal rule over most of China.
◆1936 Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared war on Japan.
◆1937 During the battle for Nanking in the Sino-Japanese War, the U.S. gunboat Panay is attacked and sunk by Japanese warplanes in Chinese waters.★
◆1941 Naval Air Transport Service is established.
◆1941 Kimura Detachment and 2500 men of the Japanese 16th Infantry Division, land in south Luzon at Legaspi. Air attacks continue against any remaining American aircraft.
◆1941 U.S. Navy takes control of the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the seas at that time, France's Normandie, while it is docked at New York City.★
◆1943 The US 5th Army attacks continue. The US 36th Division of the 2nd Corps attacks Monte Lungo, near its former positions on Monte Maggiore.
◆1944 Forces of the US 1st Army battle towards Duren, through the Hurtgen Forest. The US 3rd Army establishes another crossing of the German frontier east of the Saar. To the south, in Alsace, the US 7th Army is fighting in Seltz.
◆1944 Bomber Command Lancaster bombers, escorted by Mustang fighters, attack Witten, the only city in the Ruhr industrial area that has not been bombed yet.
◆1950 The 1st Marine Division closed into Hungnam having cut its way through six Chinese divisions, killing approximately 20,000 of the enemy, on the way to the sea from Chosin/Changjin Reservoir. Legend has it that the division commander, Major General O. P. Smith, supposedly characterized the operation with, "Retreat? Hell, we're just attacking in a different direction!"
◆1950 U.N. General Assembly Resolution 483(V) established the United Nations Service Medal.
◆1951 First flight of helicopter with gas-turbine engine at Windsor Locks, CT, demonstrates adaptability of this engine to helicopters.
◆1953 Chuck Yeager reached Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.
◆1967 The U.S. ended the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.
◆1969 The Philippine Civic Action Group, a 1,350-man contingent from the Army of the Philippines, departs South Vietnam.
◆2001 David Criswell, director of the Univ. of Houston Space Systems Operations, proposed a “Lunar Solar Power System” to collect solar energy on the moon, convert it to microwaves, and beam it to Earth for electrical power.