TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
28 February
◆1610 The Virginia Company takes further steps to instituting absolutist rule when it appoints Thomas West, Lord Delaware, as the first lord-governor and captain-general of the Virginia colony. The broad political and military powers granted to Lord Delaware reflect the growing English concern with placing the colony on a sound footing in terms of both political and economic organization.
◆1653 Three day Naval Battle of Portland begins: Tromp's Dutch defeat Blake's English.
◆1667 The Dutch capture Surinam from the English.
◆1710 Battle of Helsingborg: The Swedes defeat a Danish invasion.
◆1786 In answer to the November 30, 1785 demand of John Adams, the British respond that they will not vacate their American military garrisons along the northwest frontier—including Detroit, Michilimackinac, Niagra, and Oswego—until the Americans carry out the provisions of the Treaty of Paris with regard to the treatment of Loyalists and the collection of debts.
◆1825 Quincy Adams Gillmore (d.1888), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.
◆1844 A 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others.
◆1847 Colonel Alexander Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted Volunteers rode to victory at the Battle of Sacramento during the Mexican War.
◆1848 The House of Representatives and the Senate, acting on the proposal of President-elect Polk, adopt a joint resolution for the annexation of Texas. This is essentially a procedure to bypass requirement of a two-thirds vote of the Senate alone to ratify a treaty. The resolution also authorizes the President to negotiate a new treaty with Texas, one that could be approved by either procedure, but the President does not immediately exercise this choice.
◆1861 With the region’s population booming because of the Pike’s Peak gold rush, Congress creates the new Territory of Colorado.
◆1864 A major Union cavalry raid begins when General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick leads 3,500 troopers south from Stevensburg, Virginia.
◆1893 Launching of USS Indiana (BB-1), first true battleship in U.S. Navy.
◆1900 Relief of Ladysmith: British troops break Boer siege.
◆1916 Haiti became the first U.S. protectorate.
◆1917 AP reported that Mexico and Japan would ally with Germany if US enters WW I.
◆1924 U.S. troops were sent to Honduras to protect American interests during an election conflict.
◆1928 Marines participated in the Battle of Bromaderos, Nicaragua.
◆1936 The Japanese Army restored order in Tokyo and arrested officers involved in a coup.
◆1940 English divers recover three rotors from the Enigma enciphering machine on board the scuttled U-33.
◆1942 U S. Maritime Service transferred to Coast Guard from War Shipping Administration.
◆1942 Japanese landed in Java, the last Allied bastion in Dutch East Indies.
◆1943 The Norsk Hydro power station near Ryukan is badly damaged by a sabotage team of Norwegian soldiers who have been parachuted in from Britain. This plant is known to be in use by the Germans to produce “heavy water” for atomic research.
◆1944 German forces launch a second offensive against the Anzio beachhead held by forces of the US 6th Corps (Truscott). Four German divisions attack on either side of the Cisterna-Anzio road, defended by the US 3rd Division. German forces fail to break through.
◆1945 There are America landings at Puerto Princesa on Palawan by 8000 men of 41st Infantry Division (ORARNG). Admiral Fechteler leads a bombardment group of cruisers and destroyers and there is also support from land-based aircraft. There is little Japanese resistance to the landings.
◆1945 U.S. tanks broke the natural defense line west of the Rhine and crossed the Erft River.
◆1946 The U.S. Army declared that it would use the V-2 rocket to test radar as an atomic rocket defense system.
◆1951 The last communist resistance south of the Han River collapsed.
◆1974 The United States and Egypt re-established diplomatic relations after a seven-year break.
◆1980 Blue crew of USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN-657) launches 4 Trident I (C-4) missiles in first C-4 Operational Test.1982 – The FALN, a Puerto Rican Nationalist Group, bombed Wall Street.
◆1983 M*A*S*H, the cynical situation comedy about doctors behind the front lines of the Korean War, airs its final episode on this day in 1983, after 11 seasons. The last episode drew 77 percent of the television viewing audience, the largest audience ever to watch a single TV show up to that time.
◆1990 Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on a secret mission to place a spy satellite in orbit.
◆1991 A cease-fire was announced in Kuwait. Allied and Iraqi forces suspended their attacks as Iraq pledged to accept all United Nations resolutions concerning Kuwait. Tariq Aziz announces Iraq’s acceptance of all relevant U.N. Security Council Resolutions. Saddam Hussein calls on his troops to cease fire.
◆1993 Agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raided the ranch of the Branch Davidian sect under David Koresh in Waco, Texas.★
◆1993 Three U.S. planes carried out the first mission to drop relief supplies over Bosnia-Herzegovina. The US Operations Deny Flight, Provide Promise, Deliberate Force, Decisive Edge, Joint Endeavour and others began in Bosnia and Macedonia. They cost $9.7 billion to date in 1999 and left 4 US casualties with 5 wounded.
◆1994 In the first military action in the 45-year history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. fighter planes shoot down four Serbian warplanes engaged in a bombing mission in violation of Bosnia’s no-fly zone.★
◆1995 U.S. Marines swept ashore in Somalia to protect retreating U.N. peacekeepers.
◆2003 Iraq agreed to begin destroying its Al Samoud 2 missiles within 24 hours.
◆2003 Pentagon officials say that satellite imagery has detected Iraqi Republican Guard units moving south from Mosul to Tikrit, about 160km north-west of Baghdad, while other units are moving into residential areas of Baghdad.