TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
21 December
◆1598 Battle of Curalaba, Chile: Mapuche Indians defeat the Spanish.
◆1620 The Mayflower reached Plymouth, Mass. after a 63-day voyage. Pilgrims aboard the Mayflower went ashore for the first time at present-day Plymouth, Mass. The crew of the ship did not have enough beer to get to Virginia and back to England so they dropped the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock to preserve their beer stock.
◆1861 The Trent Affair: Lord Lyons, the British minister to the United States, meets with Secretary of State William Seward concerning the fate of James Mason and John Slidell, Confederate envoys arrested by the U.S. Navy aboard the British mail steamer Trent.★
◆1861 U.S. Congress authorized the Medal of Honor to be awarded to Navy personnel that had distinguished themselves by their gallantry in action.
◆1866 Determined to challenge the growing American military presence in their territory, Indians in northern Wyoming lure Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman and his soldiers into a deadly ambush on this day in 1866.★
◆1943 USS Grayling (SS-208) sinks fourth Japanese ship since 18 December.
◆1943 US 5th Army is heavily engaged near Monte Sammucro.
◆1944 In the north, US forces recapture Stavelot and bring the advance of the German 67th Corps (part of 6th SS Panzer Army), on the right flank of the German attack, to a halt from here to Monschau. To the south, the German 5th Panzer Army has nearly surrounded Bastogne while Houffalize has been secured.
◆1944 On Leyte, advances by US 10th Corps and US 24th Corps link up in the center of the Ormoc Valley. Isolated Japanese forces continue to resist in the area.
◆1944 US B-29 Superfortress bombers attacked Mukden in Manchuria.
◆1945 General George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. 3rd Army, dies from injuries suffered not in battle but in a freak car accident.★
◆1948 Seishiro Itagaki, Japanese General and minister of War, was hanged.
◆1950 Far East Air Force executed "Operation Kiddie Car" by transporting 1,000 Korean War orphans to the island of Cheju-do. Major Dean E. Hess, an F-51 Mustang pilot and military advisor considered the "Father of the ROK Air Force," organized and led a desperate cross-country trek from Osan to Kimpo Airport to bring the children to safety from the advancing communist forces.
◆1951 First helicopter landing aboard a hospital ship, USS Consolation.
◆1951 General Matthew Ridgway broadcast a message requesting that the Red Cross be allowed to inspect communist POW camps.
◆1968 Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon, is successfully launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell, Jr., and William Anders aboard.
◆1969 Thailand announces plans to withdraw its 12,000-man contingent from South Vietnam.
◆1988 Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, an hour after departure.
◆1991 In a final step signifying the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, 11 of the 12 Soviet republics declare that they are forming the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
◆2003 Time magazine's named The American soldier, who bears the duty of "living with and dying for a country's most fateful decisions," as Person of the Year.
◆2004 Janes’ Defense Weekly said the US will assign serving military officers to its de facto embassy in Taiwan for the first time since 1979 in a reversal of a longstanding policy.