TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
3 July
◆323 Battle of Adrianople: Constantine defeats Licinius.
◆1448 Battle of Scutari: The Albanians defeat the Venetians.
◆1657 Naval Battle of the Dardanelles, Day 1: Venetians skirmish with the Turks.
◆1775 On Cambridge common in Massachusetts, George Washington rides out in front of the American troops gathered there, draws his sword, and formally takes command of the Continental Army.★
◆1778 The Wyoming Massacre occurred during the American Revolution in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. As part of a British campaign against settlers in the frontier during the war, 360 American settlers, including women and children, were killed at an outpost called Wintermoot's Fort after they were drawn out of the protection of the fort and ambushed.
◆1790 Naval Battle of Viborg: Swedish fleet breaks out of the Russian blockade (since May 22).
◆1844 Ambassador Caleb Cushing successfully negotiated a commercial treaty with China that opened five Chinese ports to U.S. merchants and protected the rights of American citizens in China.
◆1861 US Colonel Jackson received his CSA commission as brigadier general.
◆1863 Troops under Confederate General George Pickett begin a massive attack against the center of the Union lines at Gettysburg on the climactic third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the largest engagement of the war.★
◆1863 Major General Grant and Lieutenant General Pemberton, CSA, the gallant and tireless commander of the Vicksburg defenses, arranged an armistice to negotiate the terms of capitulation of the citadel. Only with the cessation of hostilities did the activity of the fleet under Rear Admiral Porter come to a halt off Vicksburg.
◆1863 Battle of Donaldsonville, LA.
◆1864 Battle of Chattahoochee River, GA, began and lasted until Jul 9.
◆1864 At Harpers Ferry, WV, Federals evacuated in face of Early's advance.
◆1898 The Spanish cruisers Cristóbal Colón, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya and Infanta Maria Teresa, and two torpedo-boat destroyers, lay bottled up in Santiago Harbor, with seven American ships maintaining a blockade just outside.★
◆1903 The first cable across the Pacific Ocean was spliced between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila. Teddy Roosevelt placed the atoll of Midway Island under Navy supervision. The Commercial Pacific Cable Co. (later AT&T) set cable across the Pacific via Midway Island and the first around the world message was sent. The message took 9 minutes to circle the globe.
◆1915 US military forces occupied Haiti, and remained until 1934.
◆1930 Congress created the U.S. Veterans Administration.
◆1943 During the day, the Australians link up with the Americans from the Nassau Bay landing force in the Bitoi River region.
◆1943 On New Georgia, American forces land at Zanana, about 8 miles east of Munda. There is no Japanese resistance and the beachhead is quickly consolidated.
◆1944 Forces of the US 1st Army launch an offensive drive south from the Cotentin Peninsula with the objective of reaching a line from Coutances to St. Lo. The difficult terrain and poor weather contribute to a limited advance during the day toward St. Jean de Daye and La Haye du Puits. German forces resist.
◆1944 Troops of the French Expeditionary Corps (part of US 5th Army) capture Siena. Other elements of the 5th Army reach Rosignano. Forces of the British 8th Army take Cortona.
◆1945 The first American occupation troops arrive in Berlin. Meanwhile, Ernst Wilhelm Bohle, nominated by Hitler in 1940 to be Gauleiter of Britain, is captured by Allied troops.
◆1945 American B-29 bombers attack Himeji, on Honshu, and the towns of Takamatsu, Tokushima and Kochi, on Shikoku Island, to the south of Honshu.
◆1947 An object crashed near Roswell, N.M. The Army Air Force later insisted it was a weather balloon, but eyewitness accounts gave rise to speculation it might have been an alien spacecraft.
◆1947 Soviet Union didn't partake in the Marshall Plan.
◆1950 USS Valley Forge and HMS Triumph participate in first carrier action of Korean Conflict. VF-51 aircraft (Valley Forge) shoot down 2 North Korean aircraft. The action is first combat test of F9F Panther and AD Skyraider.
◆1950 Lieutenant (Junior Grade) Leonard H. Plog, flying a F9F Panther jet fighter, shot down a Yak-9P, claiming the first U.S. Navy aerial victory of the Korean War.
◆1968 The U.S. command in Saigon releases figures showing that more Americans were killed during the first six months of 1968 than in all of 1967.
◆1988 In the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile Iranian fighter aircraft.
◆1996 Lockheed Martin Corp. won a $1 bil federal contract to build the next-generation space shuttle.
◆2001 The last parts of the US spy plane in China were flown out.
◆2003 US troops killed 11 Iraqis who ambushed a convoy outside Baghdad.