TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
22 February
◆577 Emperor Wu captures Ye, unifying Northern China.
◆1071 Battle of Cassel: Robert I the Frisian defeats Arnulf III of Flanders.
◆1512 Amerigo Vespucci, who gave America its name, explorer, died at 61.
◆1630 Indians introduced pilgrims to popcorn at Thanksgiving.
◆1732 George Washington, Commander-in-chief of Continental forces during the American Revolution and first U.S. President, is born at Bridges Creek in the Virginia colony.★
◆1744 Battle of Toulon/Cape Sicie: Outnumbered Spanish fleet defeats the British off Provence.
◆1746 The French capture Brussels.
◆1786 In London, John Adams meets with the ambassador of Tripoli in order to negotiate a settlement to end piracy on American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. The negotiations fail.
◆1797 The Last Invasion of Britain: 1,500-strong Franco-Irish force lands near Fishguard, Wales; defeated by the 24th.
◆1812 Battle of Grado: Napoleon's Royal Italian Navy loses a 74 to Britain's Royal Navy - largest naval action in the Adriatic during the Napoleonic Wars.
◆1815 King Giacchino Murat of Naples invades northern Italy.
◆1819 Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sign the Florida Purchase Treaty (Adams-Onis Treaty), in which Spain agrees to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States.
◆1847 During the Mexican-American War, Mexican General Santa Anna surrounds the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demands an immediate surrender. The superior U.S. artillery was able to halt one of the two advancing Mexican divisions, while Jefferson Davis' Mississippi riflemen led the defense of the extreme left flank against the other Mexican advance. By five o'clock in the afternoon, the Mexicans begin to withdraw.★
◆1861 Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the permanent president of the Confederate States of America on Washington’s birthday. Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., following his inauguration in Alabama on Feb 18.
◆1862 Union naval vessels entered Savannah River through Wall's Cut, isolating Fort Pulaski.
◆1864 Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routs a Union force three times the size of his army in a battle that helped end Union General William T. Sherman's expedition into Alabama.★
◆1864 Battle at Dalton, Georgia.
◆1865 RADM Porter's gunboats' bombardment cause surrender of Wilmington, NC. The defenders evacuated Fort Anderson and Porter's ships steamed up to Wilmington, which earlier in the day had been occupied by General Terry's men after General Bragg had ordered the evacuation of the now defenseless city.
◆1865 Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.
◆1870 After arriving on USS Nipsic, and supported by USS Guard and USS Nyack, the Darien Expedition, commanded by CDR Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr., begins active operations ashore at Caldonia Bay to survery the Isthmus of Darien, Panama, for an interoceanic ship canal.
◆1881 President Hayes, whose wife is nicknamed Lemonade Lucy because she serves no alcohol in the White house, declares that no alcoholic beverages are to be sold on military posts.
◆1889 President Cleveland signed a bill to admit the Dakotas, Montana and Washington state to the Union.1891 Battle of Halat: Italians defeat Ras Sebath's Abyssinians.1896 Battle of Gulusit: Sudanese Mahdists defeat the Italians.
◆1900 Hawaii became a US territory.
◆1902 A fistfight broke out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffered a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.
◆1909 The Great White Fleet returned to Norfolk, Va., from an around-the-world show of naval power. 1st US fleet to circle the globe.
◆1915 Germany began "unrestricted" submarine warfare.
◆1932 The Purple Heart award was reinstituted.
◆1932 Adolf Hitler was the Nazi Party candidate for the presidential elections in Germany. The election of Hitler was supposed to mark the beginning of the Thousand-Year Reich.
◆1933 Nazi Herman Goring formed SA/SS-police.
◆1935 All plane flights over the White House were barred because they disturbed President Roosevelt's sleep.
◆1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapses.★
◆1943 The battleship USS Iowa, the first in the Navy’s 45,000 ton class, was commissioned. The ship carried Pres. Roosevelt to Tehran in Nov. Also noted as 1st in the 48,000 ton class.
◆1943 A night battle develops on the front before Thala (during night of February 21-22). Both sides suffer heavy losses. At the same time, an American artillery regiment (led by General Irwin) arrives after an 800 mile march from Oran achieved in 4 days. At dawn the British, with the newly arrived American artillery support, launch a limited counterattack. The German forces pull back in the afternoon. The improved flying weather on this day is generally noted as weighing in the Allies' favor.
◆1943 The USS Campbell, CG, rammed the U-606 in the North Atlantic after the U-boat was forced to surface after being attacked by the Polish destroyer Burza. The U-boat sank before a boarding party could reach the submarine. The Campbell rescued five of the U-606's crew. Due to the collision, Campbell's engine room was flooded and she lost power but was towed to safety, repaired, and returned to service.
◆1944 In the Marianas, Japanese bombers and torpedo planes attack the ships of US Task Force 58.
◆1944 General Truscott takes full command of VI Corps at Anzio, replacing General Lucas.
◆1944 US forces land on Parry Island, in the Eniwetok Atoll. There is heavy Japanese resistance.
◆1945 US 5th Army makes some gains in mountain fighting high up in the Reno Valley.
◆1945 The US 20th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) achieves most of its objectives in the area between the Saar and Moselle rivers.
◆1945 The naval gun and air bombardment (by US Task Forces 52, 54 and 58) continues. Elements of the US 5th Amphibious Corps continue to make slow progress toward Mount Suribachi to the south and the airfield to the north (most of which has now been captured). There are Japanese counterattacks and infiltration attempts during the night.
◆1945 German Ju88 bombers sink the SS Henry Bacon. This is the last Allied merchant ship to be sunk by German aircraft during the war.
◆1952 The U.S. signed a military aid pact with Peru.
◆1953 General Mark Clark, commander in chief U.N. Command, proposed an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners. The North Koreans charged the United Nations with germ warfare.
◆1954 U.S. was to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.
◆1955 In Operation Teapot’s second nuclear bomb, codenamed Moth, was detonated.★
◆1962 A Soviet bid for new Geneva arms talks was turned down by the U.S.
◆1963 Moscow warned the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.
◆1965 General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, cables Washington, D.C., to request that two battalions of U.S. Marines be sent to protect the U.S. airbase at Da Nang.★
◆1967 Operation Junction City is launched to ease pressure on Saigon.★
◆1972 President Nixon met with Mao Tse-tung in Peking and Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai in Beijing.
◆1974 LTJG Barbara Ann Allen becomes first Navy designated female aviator.
◆1984 President Reagan, in a press conference, said that the U.S. is committed to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open.
◆1991 President Bush and America’s Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the “shameful” US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the US had rejected.
◆1991 US soldiers were issued the drug pyridostigmine bromide (PB) to counter the effects of the nerve agents tabun and soman.★
◆1994 CIA operative Aldrich Ames is arrested for selling secrets to the Soviet Union.
◆2000 The space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of 6 returned to Cape Canaveral with over a weeks worth of radar images to map Earth.