TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
24 January
◆41 The Praetorians haul Claudius from a closet & proclaim him Emperor (41-54).
◆661 Ali ibn Abu Talib, caliph of Islam (656-61), was murdered. Caliph Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed, was assassinated and his followers (Shiites) broke from the majority Muslim group.
◆1497 Battle of Soriano: The Orsini defeat Papal forces.
◆1597 Battle of Turnhout: Maurice of Nassau defeats the Spanish.
◆1639 Representatives from three Connecticut towns banded together to write the Fundamental Orders, the first constitution in the New World. [see Jan 14]
◆1712 Frederick II (d.1786), Frederick the Great, the Hohenzollern King of Prussia (1740-1786), was born. He was noted for his social reforms and leading Prussia in military victories. Among his military innovations was the professional General Staff. A model that would be adopted by all modern militaries.
◆1746 King Gustav III of Sweden was born (1771-92).
◆1776 Colonel Henry Knox arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with the 43 British Cannon and 16 mortars captured by Ethan Allen at Fort Ticonderoga. These artillery have been transported cross-country through the wilderness.
◆1826 The US signs the Treaty or Washington with the Creek Tribe, granting them the right to stay on their lands for two years.
◆1847 1,500 New Mexican Indians and Mexicans were defeated by US Col. Price.
◆1848 A millwright named James Marshall discovers gold along the banks of Sutter's Creek in California, forever changing the course of history in the American West.★
◆1861 Georgia troops seize the Federal arsenal in Augusta. The U. S. Arsenal on Walton Way is the only United States arsenal in the south, east of the Mississippi. In 1819 the 1st U.S. arsenal at Augusta was completed on the Savannah River near the present location at the King and Sibley mills. After a black fever epidemic it was moved to more healthy quarters on a 70-acre tract costing $ 6,000.00 on the sand hills, where the buildings were erected. Five days after the secession of Georgia from the union in 1861, the arsenal was surrendered to Georgia troops with a mere exchange of formal diplomacy between Captain Arnold Elzey who represented the United States and Colonel W. T. H. Walker who represented Governor Brown of Georgia. After the formalities the two men met at the mess hall for a convivial evening.
◆1879 War of the Pacific: Chileans capture Antofagasta from Bolivia, initiating hostilities.
◆1888 Ernst Heinrich Heinkel, aircraft designer was born.
◆1891 Walter Model was born, German Field Marshal, Nazi, suicide 1945.
◆1895 Hawaii’s Queen Lili’uokalani formally abdicated her throne and swore allegiance to the Republic of Hawaii.
◆1903 U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert created a joint commission to establish the Alaskan border.
◆1907 In Ormond Beach, Florida, Glenn Curtiss, an engineer who got his start building motors for bicycles, set an unofficial land-speed record on a self-built V-8 motorcycle on this day: 136.29mph. No automobile surpassed that speed until 1911. In 1907, four years after the Wilbur and Orville Wright accomplished the first successful airplane at Kitty Hawk, Curtiss established the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, the first airplane manufacturing company in the United States. In the next year, the "June Bug," an aircraft powered by a Curtiss engine, won the Scientific American Trophy for the first flight in the U.S. covering one kilometer. In 1909, Curtiss, piloting his own planes, won major flying events in Europe and America. Over the next five years, Curtiss continued to be an innovator in airplane design, and in January of 1911, built and demonstrated the world's first seaplane for the U.S. Navy.
◆1908 Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell's Scouting for Boys.
◆1911 U.S. Cavalry was sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War.
◆1915 Battle of Dogger Bank: Royal Navy defeats the Germans in the North Sea.
◆1915 Ernest Borgnine was born, USN (1935-1945), actor ("McHale's Navy" - for which he was made an honorary Chief Petty Officer).
◆1936 Congress passes the Adjusted Compensation Act by overriding President Roosevelt’s veto. The bill allows for immediate cash redemption of the bonus certificates held by veterans of World War I.
◆1942 A special court of inquiry into America's lack of preparedness for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor placed much of the blame on Rear Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders.
◆1942 Battle of Makassar Strait, destroyer attack on Japanese convoy in first surface action in the Pacific during World War II. Four Dutch and American destroyers attack Japanese troop transports off Balikpapan sinking five ships.
◆1942 In the Philippines, American forces begin withdrawals to their second line of defense.
◆1943 President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco. The Allied differences have been resolved by the Chiefs of Staff. The war against the U-boats and supplies for the USSR are to have priority. Preparations for a landing in western Europe are to proceed. Offensive operations in the Pacific are also to continue as is the campaign in Tunisia and North Africa. The forces in North Africa will proceed to Sicily and Italy following the completion of the North African campaign. At a press conference, Roosevelt states that the Allies are seeking the "unconditional surrender" of Germany, Italy and Japan. Churchill endorses this position.
◆1943 A US naval task force attacks Kolombangara Island in the New Georgia group of islands. On Guadalcanal, American forces push west of Kokumbona.
◆1944 The Anzio beachhead continues to expand, albeit, slowly. To the south, along the German defenses of the Gustav Line, the Free French Corps (part of US 5th Army) attacks Monte Santa Croce. The US 2nd Corps (also part of 5th Army) continues attacking over the Rapido River, toward Caira.
◆1945 In the Ardennes there are Allied advances north and south of St. Vith. US 3rd Army reaches the Clerf River. The British 2nd Army enters Heinsberg, about 3 miles west of the Roer River.
◆1945 Calapan is taken by the US forces on Mindoro. Japanese resistance on the island has been reduced to isolated pockets. Cabanatuan is taken by the US forces on Luzon.
◆1945 The US 14th Air Force has to abandon Suichuan airfield, in China, because of Japanese advances nearby.1946 - The UN established the International Atomic Energy Commission.
◆1951 General Matthew B. Ridgway and Major General Earl E. Partridge personally reconnoitered the front lines in a T-6 Texan aircraft prior to the Jan. 25 dawn attack on communist Chinese forces, Operation THUNDERBOLT.
◆1952 The U.S. 24th Infantry Division announced the first use in Korea of scout dogs.
◆1952 Air Force Captains Dolphin D. Overton III and Harold E. Fischer Jr., both of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 24th and 25th fifth aces of the war. They flew F-86's named "Dolph's Devil" and "Paper Tiger." In addition, Captain Overton set a record for becoming a jet ace in the shortest time of four days.
◆1958 After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms were bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in the 1st man-made nuclear fusion.
◆1966 In the largest search-and-destroy operation to date--Operation Masher/White Wing/Thang Phong II--the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), South Vietnamese, and Korean forces ssweep through Binh Dinh Province in the central lowlands along the coast. The purpose of the operation was to drive the North Vietnamese out of the province and destroy enemy supply areas. In late January, it became the first large unit operation conducted across corps boundaries when the cavalrymen linked up with Double Eagle, a U.S. Marine Corps operation intended to destroy the North Vietnamese 325A Division. Altogether, there were reported enemy casualties of 2,389 by the time the operation ended.
◆1972 After 28 years of hiding in the jungles of Guam, local farmers discover Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was unaware that World War II had ended.★
◆1980 In an action obviously designed as another in a series of very strong reactions to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. officials announce that America is ready to sell military equipment (excluding weapons) to communist China.
◆1982 A draft of Air Force history reported that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.
◆1991 A brief skirmish occurred high above the Persian Gulf as a Saudi warplane shot down two Iraqi jets.
◆1999 US jets attacked 2 Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries after encountering radar detection in the northern no-fly zone.
◆2000 Stanislav Lunev, a former Soviet spy, testified at a congressional hearing that Soviet operatives had placed weapons and communications caches in California and other states during and after the Cold War to destabilize the US in the event of war.★
◆2002 The US imposed sanctions on 3 Chinese entities accused of giving chemical and biological arms technology to Iran.
◆2003 The United States adds 20,000 reservists to those already on active duty.
◆2003 American warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense site, the 12th strike in the southern flight interdiction zone this month.
◆2004 A 2nd NASA rover was set to land on Mars.