TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
29 January
◆1574 Battle of Rommerswael: Dutch "Sea Beggars" take fifteen Spanish ships.
◆1587 Spanish capture Dutch towns of Deventer and Zutphen.
◆1737 Thomas Paine, political essayist, was born. He wrote "The Rights of Man" and "The Age of Reason."★
◆1756 Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee was born, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, cavalryman, reprobate, d. 1818; father to a more famous son, Robert E. Lee.
◆1779 Augusta, Georgia is captured by a British force led by Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell. 1814 Battle of Brienne: Napoleon defeats the Russo-Prussians.
◆1820 Ten years after mental illness forced him to retire from public life, King George III, the British king who lost the American colonies, dies at the age of 82.
◆1843 William McKinley, the 25th president of the United States (1897-1901), was born in Niles, Ohio.
◆1850 Henry Clay introduced in the Senate a compromise bill on slavery that included the admission of California into the Union as a free state.
◆1861 Secretaries of the Navy and War ordered that the Marines and troops on board U.S.S Brooklyn, Captain Walker, en route Pensacola, not be landed to reinforce Fort Pickens unless that work was taken under attack by the Confederates.
◆1865 William Quantrill and his Confederate raiders attack Danville, Kentucky.★
◆1886 1st successful gasoline-driven car was patented by Karl Benz in Karlsruhe.
◆1916 First German zeppelin raid on Paris.
◆1918 The Supreme Allied Council met at Versailles.
◆1914 U.S. Marines land in Haiti to protect U.S. consulate
◆1919 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages. Its enforcement was authorized by the National Prohibition Enforcement Act, otherwise known as the Volstead Act on 28 October 1919. The Coast Guard had been tasked with the prevention of the maritime importation of illegal alcohol. This led to the largest increase in the size and responsibilities of the service to date.
◆1942 US Task Force 18, under the command of Admiral Giffen, is attacked by Japanese aircraft off Rennel Island while providing covering escort to a supply operation to Guadalcanal. The heavy cruiser Chicago is sunk.
◆1943 Beginning of the 2 day battle of Rennell Island after which U.S. transports reached Guadalcanal.
◆1944 The fourth Missouri (BB-63), the last battleship completed by the United States, was laid down 6 January 1941 by New York Naval Shipyard; launched 29 January 1944; sponsored by Miss Margaret Truman, daughter of then Senator from Missouri Harry S Truman, later President; and commissioned 11 June 1944, Capt. William M. Callaghan in command.★
◆1944 At Anzio the Allied forces now number 69,000 troops with 508 guns and 237 tanks. General Lucas makes preparations for an offensive to break out of the beachhead. Meanwhile, the German cordon now consists of 8 divisions under 14th Army. There are German air strikes which result in 1 cruiser and 1 transport sunk. To the south, along the German-held Gustav Line, forces of the US 5th Army continue attacking. The 34th Division makes some progress in expanding the bridgehead over the Rapido River.
◆1944 US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) bombs and shells Japanese targets on Roi, Namur, Maloelap and Wotje. American land-based aircraft bomb Jaluit and Mille.
◆1945 The Coast Guard-manned attack cargo vessel USS Serpens exploded off Guadalcanal due to unknown causes. Only two men aboard survive. This was the single greatest Coast Guard loss of life in history.
◆1945 The US 1st Army reports the capture of the town of Bullingen, east of St. Vith. Forces of the US 3rd Army cross the Oure River at two points, 8 miles south of St. Vith.
◆1945 On Luzon, the US 11th Corps (General Hall) lands at San Antonio north of Subic Bay to join the American offensive. About 30,000 men go ashore on the first day of the landing. Their task is to advance across the neck of the Bataan Peninsula and clear it of Japanese resistance.
◆1952 The U.S. Air Force's 315th Air Division, Combat Cargo Command, airlifted its 1,000,000th passenger between Japan and Korea.
◆1964 Stanley Kubrick's black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb opens in theaters to both critical and popular acclaim.★
◆1991 A few hours after darkness fell on Jan. 29, a column of several dozen Iraqi tanks approached the abandoned Saudi town of Khafji.★