TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
9 February
◆1098 Battle of Harenc: Arabs fail to break the Crusader siege of Antioch.
◆1307 Battle of Loch Ryan: Dugald Macdowell defeats Thomas & Alexander Bruce.
◆1649 Battle of Charenton: Conde defeats the Fronde rebels.
◆1674 English recapture NY from the Dutch.
◆1773 William Henry Harrison, the 9th president of the United States (March 4- April 4, 1841), was born in Charles City County, Va.
◆1775 English Parliament declared the Mass. colony was in rebellion.
◆1799 The USS Constellation captured the French frigate Insurgente.
◆1825 As no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes in the election of 1824, the U.S. House of Representatives votes to elect John Quincy Adams, who won fewer votes than Andrew Jackson in the popular election, as president of the United States.
◆1861 Confederate Provisional Congress declared all laws under the US Constitution were consistent with constitution of Confederate states. The Congress elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander H. Stephens vice president. Jefferson Davis' Mexican War exploits led him to the Confederate White House. In 2001 William C. Davis authored “The Union That Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs and Alexander H. Stephens.”
◆1861 Tennessee voted against secession.
◆1863 The Intl. Committee of Red Cross (Nobel 1917, 1944, 1963) was formed in Geneva, Switz.
◆1864 109 Union prisoners escaped through a tunnel from the Confederate Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., including Lt. James M. Wells of Michigan. In 1904 Wells published an account of the escape in the Jan. issue of McClure’s Magazine.
◆1870 The first National Weather Bureau is established by Act of Congress. It is designated as a part of the US Army Signal Corps. On July 1, 1891 it will be transferred to the Agriculture Department; on June 30, 1940 it will be merged into the Commerce Department.
◆1886 President Cleveland declared a state of emergency in Seattle because of anti-Chinese violence.
◆1904 Captain A. W. Catlin's 49 Marines established the first permanent Marine garrison in Honolulu. 1904 A surprise pre-dawn Japanese torpedo boat attack on the Russian Fleet outside Port Arthur is followed by a declaration of war, initiating the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
◆1909 The 1st US federal legislation prohibiting narcotics was directed at opium.
◆1918 Army chaplain school organized at Ft. Monroe, Va.
◆1942 The Normandie, regarded by many as the most elegant ocean liner ever built, burns and sinks in New York Harbor during its conversion to an Allied trip transport ship.★
◆1942 Chiang Kai-shek met with Sir Stafford Cripps, the British viceroy in India. Detachment 101 harried the Japanese in Burma and provided close support for regular Allied forces.
◆1943 FDR ordered a minimal 48 hour work week in war industry.
◆1943 The US 161st and 132nd Regiments link up at Tenaro, too late to prevent the Japanese evacuation. The Japanese have lost 10,000 killed and the Americans have lost 1600 killed. Losses in ships and planes have been about equal. Guadalcanal has be a strategic defeat for the Japanese.
◆1944 At the Anzio beachhead, German forces capture Aprilia from the British 1st Division which continues to hold "The Factory".
◆1945 As well as the fighting in Manila, there is an attack by the US 11th Airborne Division southeast of the city near Nichols and Nielsen Fields.
◆1945 American USAAF B-24 and B-29 bombers raid Iwo Jima in preparation for the landings later in the month. They drop a daily average of 450 tons of bombs over the course of 15 days (6800 tons).
◆1945 The US 3rd Army is attacking near Prum on its northern flank (US 8th Corps) while US 12th Corps to the south also makes gains. Farther south still, the resistance of the German forces around Colmar comes to an end.
◆1948 The first Marine helicopters (HO3S-1s) were delivered to the Corps.
◆1951 US, British, Australian, New Zealand and Dutch warships pounded the east and west coasts of Korea. The 1st Regiment of the ROK Capital Division entered Chumunjin.
◆1953 General Walter Bedell Smith, USA, ended term as 4th director of CIA. Allen W. Dulles, became acting director of CIA and served to 1961.
◆1953 The carriers USS Kearsarge, Philippine Sea and Oriskany renewed heavy air attacks against Wonsan with additional warships from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands in support.
◆1964 The U.S. embassy in Moscow was stoned by Chinese and Vietnamese students.
◆1965 A U.S. Marine Corps Hawk air defense missile battalion is deployed to Da Nang.★
◆1968 USCG vessels helped thwart a Communist attempt to run four trawlers through the Market Time blockade off the coast of South Vietnam. The defeat of this attempted re-supply was hailed as "the most significant naval victory of the Vietnam campaign."
◆1971 The "Apollo 14" spacecraft returned to Earth after man's third landing on the moon.
◆1972 The aircraft carrier USS Constellation joins aircraft carriers Coral Sea and Hancock off the coast of Vietnam.
◆1990 The Galileo satellite flew by Venus.
◆1994 NATO delivered an ultimatum to Bosnian Serbs to remove heavy guns encircling Sarajevo, or face air strikes. Hours before the ultimatum was issued, the Bosnian Serbs agreed to withdraw their artillery and mortars from around Sarajevo.
◆1998 The Pentagon announced that some 3,000 ground troops from Fort Hood, Texas, were to be sent to the Persian Gulf region over the next 10 days. The move was to discourage “creative thinking” on the part of Saddam Hussein of Iraq.