TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
4 July
INDEPENDENCE DAY
◆1187 Battle of Hattin: Saladin defeats the Crusaders .
◆1299 Battle of Cape Orlando: Roger de Lauria's Catalan fleet defeats the Angevin Sicilian fleet.
◆1301 Battle of Breukelen: Holland defeats Lichtenberg.
◆1547 Battle of Oglio: the French defeat the Spanish.
◆1642 Battle of Codigoro: Papal Army defeats the Venetians.
◆1657 Battle of the Dardanelles (Day 2): Venetian fleet defeats the Turks.
◆1708 Battle of Holowczin: The Swedes defeat the Russians.
◆1754 Lieutenant Colonel George Washington is compelled to surrender “Fort Necessity” to a French task force from Fort Duquesne (present day Pittsburgh). Washington had been dispatched by Virginia’s governor with a mixed force of soldiers of the Virginia Provincial Regiment and Virginia militiamen to remove the French from Duquesne which was located in an area claimed by colonial government. When his advanced was blocked by the French Washington had his troops build a quickly constructed log fort in hopes of holding the French at bay. However, he was soon surrounded and forced to surrender. The French commander granted him the “honors of war” by allowing him to march out with colors flying, retaining one piece of artillery and with his men under arms. This rebuff of the claim by Virginia, and by extension Britain, to this area led directly to the outbreak of war between France and Britain in 1756. Known in Europe as the Seven Year’s War in American it’s more popularly called the “French and Indian War.” The men serving in the Virginia Provincial Regiment were full-time paid soldiers, mostly enlisted from the county militias. They were paid and equipped by the colony and used to garrison small outposts and patrol its western frontier. It was one of the first “professional” military organizations in British North America.
◆1763 Ojibwa and Sauk Indians capture Ft. Michilimackinac from the British.
◆1776 The Continental Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John Hancock--President of the Continental Congress--and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary, without dissent.★
◆1777 John Paul Jones hoists first Stars and Stripes flag on Ranger at Portsmouth, NH.
◆1785 The first Fourth of July parade was held in Bristol, Rhode Island. It served as a prayerful walk to celebrate independence from England.
◆1796 First Independence Day celebration was held.
◆1800 The Marine Band played at Tun Tavern, Philadelphia, in their first public appearance.
◆1801 First Presidential Review of U.S. Marine Band and Marines at the White House.
◆1802 The United State Military Academy opened its doors at West Point, New York, welcoming the first 10 cadets.
◆1804 Staging the first-ever Fourth of July celebration west of the Mississippi River, Lewis and Clark fire the expedition cannon and order an extra ration of whiskey for the men.
◆1806 Battle of Maida: upset British victory over the French in Calabria.
◆1819 The Territory of Arkansas was created.
◆1826 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, die on this day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.★
◆1831 James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, died in New York City at age 73, making him the third ex-President to die on Independence Day.
◆1832 The song "America" was sung publicly for the first time at a Fourth of July celebration by a group of children at Park Street Church in Boston. The words were written on a scrap of paper in half an hour by Dr. Samuel Francis Smith, a Baptist minister, and were set to the music of "God Save the King."
◆1834 President Andrew Jackson ordered green and buff as the Corps' uniform colors.
◆1836 The territorial government of Wisconsin was established.
◆1842 First test of electrically operated underwater torpedo sinks gunboat Boxer.
◆1848 The Communist Manifesto was published.
◆1848 The Cornerstone of the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. was laid by President Polk. The white marble obelisk, which is 555 feet tall and 55 fee square at the base, was not completed until 1184. The public was admitted to the monument on October 9, 1888.
◆1861 Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.
◆1862 Battle at Green River, Ky. (Morgan's Ohio Raid).
◆1863 The Confederacy is torn in two when General John C. Pemberton surrenders to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Vicksburg.
◆1863 General Lee’s army limped toward Virginia after defeat at Gettysburg. 28,063 of 75,000 confederate soldiers were lost. General Meade’s army suffered 23,049 soldiers killed, wounded and missing.
◆1863 Paul Joseph Revere, US grandson of Paul Revere, Union brig-gen, died from wounds at Gettysburg.
◆1863 Failed Confederate assault on Helena, Arkansas, left 640 casualties.
◆1863 Skirmish at Smithburg, TN.
◆1864 U.S.S. Hastings, Acting Lieutenant J. S. Watson, engaged Confederate sharpshooters on the White River above St. Charles, Arkansas. Lieutenant Commander Phelps, embarked in the 300-ton, 8-gun Hastings, commented in his report to Rear Admiral Porter: "I had been at a loss to know how we should celebrate the Fourth, being underway and having so much of a convoy in charge, but this attack occurring about noon furnished the opportunity of at once punishing the enemy and celebrating the day by firing cannon." It had been a year before, on 4 July 1863, that Union forces had commemorated Independence Day with decisive victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the latter pivoting on the Union Navy. With control of the Western waters assured, the North was certain of victory."
◆1872 John Calvin Coolidge (d.1933) 30th President of the United States (1923-29), was born in Plymouth, Vermont.
◆1884 The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris, France.The 225-ton, 152-foot statue was a gift from France in commemoration of 100 years of American independence. Created by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was installed on Bedloe Island (now Liberty Island) in New York harbor in 1885. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886.★
◆1894 The Provisional Government under Judge Stanford B. Dole declared Hawaii a republic.
◆1898 A US flag was hoisted over Wake Island during the Spanish-American War.
◆1902 Pres. Roosevelt officially ended the Philippine-American War. Estimates for the civilian people killed ranged from 250,000 to 1 million. Creighton Miller in 1982 published "Benevolent Assimilation," a comprehensive account of the conflict.
◆1916 Tokyo Rose, (Iva Toguri D'Aquino), was born in Los Angeles. She did propaganda broadcasts against the U.S. from Japan during World War II.; imprisoned after the war, then received presidential pardon in 1977.
◆1917 During a ceremony in Paris honoring the French hero of the American Revolution, US Lt. Col. Charles E. Stanton declared, "Lafayette, we are here!"
◆1926 The NSDAP (Nazi) party formed in Weimar.
◆1942 Irving Berlin’s musical review "This Is the Army" opened at the Broadway Theater in New York.
◆1942 1st American bombing mission over enemy-occupied Europe (WW II). US air offensive against Nazi-Germany began. Six American planes join a RAF squadron attacking airfields in Holland.
◆1943 On New Georgia, US forces advancing from Zanana to Munda encounter heavy Japanese resistance. The Japanese land 1200 troops from 3 destroyers at Vila on Kolombangara.
◆1944 Attacks by the US 7th and 8th Corps (parts of US 1st Army) continue. The Canadian 3rd Division (part of British 2nd Army) captures the village of Carpiquet, west of Caen, but cannot secure the airfield.
◆1944 1,100 US guns fired 4th of July salute at German lines in Normandy.
◆1944 Elements of US Task Force 58 attack Guam Island with carrier aircraft.
◆1944 Elements of US Task Force 58 attack Chichi Jima Island with carrier aircraft.
◆1944 Elements of US Task Force 58 attack Iwo Jima Island with carrier aircraft.
◆1944 Japanese made their first kamikaze (god wind) attack on a US fleet near Iwo Jima.
◆1945 On Mindanao, the US 24th Division organizes an amphibious expeditionary force to liberate Sarangani Bay, in the south of the island, south of Davao. Filipino guerrilla forces assist in clearing out the Japanese pockets of resistance.
◆1946 The Philippines became independent of U.S. sovereignty.
◆1950 General MacArthur informed the communists that the U.N. expected all prisoners of war to be well treated.
◆1959 A 49-star flag was raised for the first time at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., in honor of Alaska which had become the 49th state in the Union on July 7, 1958.
◆1960 The 50-star flag made its debut in Philadelphia. A 50th star was added to the American flag in honor of Hawaii's admission into the Union on August 21, 1959.
◆1963 Gen. Tran Van Don informs Lucien Conein of the CIA that certain officers are planning a coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem, who had been supported by the Kennedy administration, had refused to make any meaningful reforms and had oppressed the Buddhist majority.
◆1976 The nation held a 200th anniversary party across the land in celebration of America's 200 years of independence. President Ford made stops in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and New York, where more than 200 ships paraded up the Hudson River in Operation Sail.
◆1997 After traveling 120 million miles in seven months, NASA's Mars Pathfinder becomes the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars in more than two decades. In an ingenious, cost-saving landing procedure, Pathfinder used parachutes to slow its approach to the Martian surface and then deployed airbags to cushion its impact. Colliding with the Ares Vallis floodplain at 40 miles an hour, the spacecraft bounced high into the Martian atmosphere 16 times before safely coming to rest. On July 5, the Pathfinder lander was renamed Sagan Memorial Station in honor of the late American astronomer, and the next day Sojourner, the first remote-control interplanetary rover, rolled off the station. Soujourner, which traveled a total of 171 feet during its 30-day mission, sent back a wealth of information about the chemical components of rock and soil in the area. In addition, nearly 10,000 images of the Martian landscape were taken. The Mars Pathfinder mission, which cost just $150 million, was hailed as a triumph for NASA, and millions of Internet users visited the official Pathfinder Web site to view images of the red planet.
◆1999 In Russia troops were forced to delay their departure for Kosovo after NATO blocked air corridors on their route.
◆2002 American warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense system after coming under attack from Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery.
◆2004 The Army's 1st Armored Division stowed its flags and prepared to head home after the longest tour in Iraq of any American combat command — 15 months.