TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
12 February
◆1429 Battle of Rouray/Battle of the Herrings: Sir John Fastolf's supply column defeats a French ambush.
◆1430 Battle of Serchio: The Visconti defeat the Florentines.
◆1663 Cotton Mather (d.1728), American clergyman and witchcraft specialist, was born.
◆1706 Battle of Frauenstadt: 10,000 Swedes rout 20,000 Russians & Saxons in 15 minutes.
◆1733 English colonists led by James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, Ga. Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River with 144 English men, women and children and in the name of King George II chartered the Georgia Crown Colony. He created the town of Savannah, to establish an ideal colony where silk and wine would be produced, based on a grid of streets around six large squares.
◆1762 Admiral Rodney captures Martinique from the French.
◆1802 Revenue Marine (Revenue Cutter Service) has 38 commissioned officers in service, 9 captains, 10 first mates, 9 second mates and 10 third mates.
◆1806 The Senate, acting on President Madison’s reports on British naval hostilities, issues a resolution condemning British actions as “unprovoked aggression” and “a violation of neutral rights.” The resolution has no effect on British policies.
◆1806 French invest Gaeta (falls July 18).
◆1809 Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US, was born in Hardin County (present-day Larue County), Kentucky. Lincoln was president of the United States during one of the most turbulent times in American history. Although roundly criticized during his own time, he is recognized as one of history's greatest figures who preserved the Union during the Civil War and proved that democracy could be a lasting form of government. Lincoln entered national politics as a Whig congressman from Illinois, but he lost his seat after one term due to his unpopular position on the Mexican War and the extension of slavery into the territories. The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Senate gave him a national reputation. In 1860, Lincoln became the first president elected from the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865.
◆1825 William McIntosh, Chief of the Creek nation, signs the Treaty of Indian Springs ceding all Creek lands in Georgia to the United States and agreeing to vacate by 1 September 1826. A Creek mob, denouncing McIntosh as a traitor, kills him.
◆1836 Mexican General Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande en route to the Alamo.
◆1839 Aroostook War took place over a boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick.
◆1846 Mexican President, General Mariano Paredes, refuses to receive John Slidell of Louisiana who has been sent as an envoy by the United States.1861 - State troops seized US munitions in Napoleon, Ak.
◆1877 The 1st news dispatch by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.
◆1880 President Hayes issues a warning against illegal settlers in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The territory will be opened to settlement in 1889.
◆1893 Omar Nelson Bradley, U.S. army general during World War II and the nation's last 5-star general, is born.★
◆1895 Battle of Weihaiwei: the Japanese defeat the Chinese.
◆1918 WWI, Marines landed at Scapa Flow, Great Britain.
◆1924 President Calvin Coolidge made the 1st presidential radio speech.
◆1935 The USS Macon, the last U.S. Navy dirigible, crashed on its 55th flight off the coast of California, killing two people.★
◆1938 German troops entered Austria.
◆1938 Japan refused to reveal naval data requested by the U.S. and Britain.
◆1942 The Anzac Squadron is formed at Suva in Fiji. It includes the cruiser Australia, USS Chicago, Achilles and Leander as well as two American destroyers.
◆1944 On New Britain, US marines capture Gorissi, 25 miles east of Cape Gloucester. Meanwhile, Allied forces land on Rooke Island.
◆1944 Forces of the US 5th Army are redeployed. The New Zealand Corps replaces the US 2nd Corps opposite Cassino. At Anzio, there is a lull in the battle. The British 1st Division is withdrawn from the line because of heavy losses. American General Lucas, commanding Allied forces on the beachhead, organizes an inner defensive perimeter.
◆1945 The US 11th Corps has closed the neck of the Bataan Peninsula and is advancing southward to clear the Japanese forces from it.
◆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 USS Batfish (SS-310) sinks second Japanese submarine within three days.
◆1947 First launching of guided missile (Loon) from a submarine, USS Cusk.
◆1950 Senator Joe McCarthy claimed to have yet another list of 205 communist government employees.
◆1950 Albert Einstein warned against the hydrogen bomb.
◆1951 I Corps forces regrouped south of the Han River while the ROK Capital Division took Yangyang.
◆1955 President Eisenhower sent 1st US "advisors" to South Vietnam to aid the government under Ngo Dinh Diem.
◆1966 The South Vietnamese won two big battles in the Mekong Delta.
◆1972 About 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese.
◆1988 Two Soviet warships bump two U.S. navy vessels in waters claimed by the Soviet Union.★