TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
11 July
◆1244 The Khwarismian Turks take Jerusalem, amid great slaughter.
◆1269 Battle of the Val d'Elsa: Florentine Guelfs defeat the Sienese Ghibellines.
◆1289 Battle of Campaldino: Florentine Guelfs (including Dante) defeat the Arretine Ghibbelines.
◆1302 Battle of Courtrai/Battle of the Spurs: Flemish burgers defeat French knights.
◆1767 John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), was born in Braintree, Mass.
◆1786 Morocco agreed to stop attacking American ships in the Mediterranean for a payment of $10,000.
◆1792 Prussia invades France.
◆1798 President John Adams signed the bill that re-established the Marine Corps. The Continental Congress had disbanded the service in April of 1783 at the end of the American Revolution. The Marine Corps, however, recognizes its "official" birthday to be the date that the Second Continental Congress first authorized the establishment of the "Corps of Marines" on 10 November 1775. To add to the confusion of the Corps' actual "historical" birthday, on 1 July 1797 Congress authorized the Revenue cutters to carry, in addition to their regular crew, up to "30 marines." Congress directed the cutters to interdict French privateers operating off the coast during the Quasi-War with France and thought the additional firepower of 30 marines would be needed by the under-manned and under-gunned cutters. It is unknown if any "marines" were enlisted for service with the Revenue cutters during this time.
◆1804 A duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton leaves Hamilton dead.
◆1812 US invades Canada near Detroit.
◆1818 The Revenue Cutter Dallas seized and libeled the Venezuelan privateer Cerony off Savannah for having violated the nation's neutrality laws.
◆1846 The “Grizzly Bear” flag proclaiming the “California Republic” is lowered to be replaced by the Unites States flag as the former Mexican colony comes under American control.★
◆1861 Union troops under General George B. McClellan score a victory in the struggle for western Virginia at the Battle of Rich Mountain.
◆1862 President Abraham Lincoln appointed General Henry Halleck as general in chief of the Federal army.
◆1863 Rear Admiral Hiram Paulding, Commandant of the New York Navy Yard, stationed gunboats around Manhattan to assist in maintaining order during the Draft Riots.
◆1864 Confederate General Jubal Early's army arrived in Silver Spring, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and began to probe the Union line. Confederate forces led by Gen. Jubal Early began an invasion of Washington, D.C., turning back the next day.
◆1864 Landing party from U.S.S. James L. Davis, Acting Master Griswold, destroyed Confederate salt works near Tampa, Florida. The works were capable of producing some 150 bushels of salt per day. On 16 July a similar raid near Tampa was carried out in which a salt work consisting of four boilers was destroyed.
◆1869 Tall Bull, a prominent leader of the Cheyenne Dog Soldier warrior society, is killed during the Battle of Summit Springs in Colorado.★
◆1898 USN bombards Santiago harbor defenses.
◆1918 Enrico Caruso joined the war effort and recorded "Over There", the patriotic song written by George M. Cohan.
◆1934 President Roosevelt became the first chief executive to travel through the Panama Canal while in office.
◆1941 Roosevelt appoints William Donovan to head a new civilian intelligence agency with the title "coordinator of defense information." This appointment will lead to the creation of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which in turn will develop into the modern CIA.
◆1942 MCAS El Centro, California activated.1943 The British advance almost unopposed. Palazzolo is taken. On the coast, there is a halt late in the day at Priolo. The American forces encounter resistance in their advance. The German Panzer Division "Hermann Goring" strikes toward American held Gela from its positions around Caltagirone. Allied naval bombardment forces the German forces to retire.
◆1944 German forces counterattack the US 1st Army. The German Panzerlehr Division spearheads the assault against US 9th Division southwest of St. Jean de Daye. US forces hold.
◆1944 American forces around Aitape pull back from the Driniumor River under pressure from Japanese forces.
◆1944 President Roosevelt announces that the US will recognize the French Provisional Government, led by de Gualle, as the de facto authority for the civil administration of liberated territory in France. Roosevelt also tells a press conference that he will run for president again if the Democratic Party nominates him. He say, "If the people command me to continue in office... I have as little right as a soldier to leave his position in the line."
◆1945 Fulfilling agreements reached at various wartime conferences, the Soviet Union promises to hand power over to British and U.S. forces in West Berlin.
◆1945 The redeployment of 2118 4-engined bombers of the US 8th Air Force, to the USA (en route for the Pacific theater) begins. It is completed in 51 days.
◆1945 Napalm was first used. On Luzon, Americans forces drop thousands of napalm bombs on Japanese pockets on the Sierra Madre and in the Kiangan area.★
◆1950 A 10-man demolition party of sailors and Marines led by Commander William B. Porter conducted the first naval commando operation of the Korean War.
◆1952 Far East Air Force established a one-day record by flying 1,330 sorties.
◆1953 Lieutenant Colonel John F. Bolt became the 37th Korean War ace and the only U.S. Marine Corps pilot to qualify as an ace during the Korea War. He also has the distinction of being the only jet ace in Marine Corps history and the only U.S. Marine to become an ace in two wars (World War II and Korea). Bolt was flying an F-86 Sabre, "Darling Dottie," attached to the Air Force's 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing.
◆1955 The new US Air Force Academy was dedicated at Lowry Air Base in Colorado.
◆1962 The Telstar I satellite carried the first transatlantic TV transmission. It picked up broadcast signals from France and bounced them down to an antenna in Maine, delivering the first live television picture from Europe to America.
◆1979 Parts of Skylab, America's first space station, come crashing down on Australia and into the Indian Ocean five years after the last manned Skylab mission ended.
◆1986 President Ronald Reagan placed the Contras, who were fighting the government of Nicaragua, under CIA jurisdiction.