TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
24 July
◆1132 Battle of Nocera: Count Ranulf II of Alife defeats Roger II of Sicily.
◆1148 Second Crusaders besiege Damascus (withdraw the 28th).
◆1192 Saladin captures Jaffa.
◆1505 Portuguese fleet sacks and burns Kilwa, East Africa.
◆1683 The 1st settlers from Germany to US left aboard the ship Concord.
◆1692 Battle of Steinkirk: The French defeat William III of England.
◆1701 Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac established Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.
◆1758 George Washington was admitted to Virginia House of Burgesses.
◆1763 Ottawa Chief Pontiac led an uprising in the wild, distant lands that would one day become Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
◆1766 At Fort Ontario, Canada, Ottawa chief Pontiac and William Johnson signed a peace agreement.
◆1813 Sailing Master Elijah Mix attempts to blow up British warship Plantagenet with a torpedo (mine) near Cape Henry, Virginia.
◆1832 Benjamin Bonneville, an inept fur trader who some speculate may have actually been a spy, leads the first wagon train to cross the Rocky Mountains at Wyoming's South Pass.
◆1847 After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah's Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
◆1848 Skirmish at Salionze: Austrians defeat the Piedmontese.
◆1848 Skirmish at Staffalo: Piedmontese defeat the Austrians.
◆1861 Act "to provide for the temporary increase of the Navy" passed by Congress; gave President authority to take vessels into the Navy and appoint officers for them, to any extent deemed necessary; this confirmed action that had been taken by President Lincoln since April.
◆1862 Rear Admiral Farragut's fleet departed its station below Vicksburg, as the falling water level of the river and sickness among his ships' crews necessitated withdrawal to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Farragut's return to the lower Mississippi made abundantly clear the strategic significance of Vicksburg for, although the Navy held the vast majority of the river, Confederate control of Vicksburg enabled the South to continue to get some supplies for her armies in the East from Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. To prevent as much of this as possible, Rear Admiral Davis and Major General Samuel R. Curtis provided for combined Army-Navy expeditions along the banks of the Mississippi from Helena, Arkansas, to Vicksburg. Though supplies continued to move across the river, this action prevented the Confederates from maintaining and reinforcing batteries at strategic points, an important factor in the following year's operations.
◆1862 Martin Van Buren (79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook, N.Y.
◆1863 Battle at Battle Mountain, Virginia.
◆1863 Because of the French occupation of Mexico City some 6 weeks before and the apparently hostile attitude of Emperor Napoleon III toward the United States. General Banks at New Orleans was ordered to prepare an expedition to Texas.★
◆1864 Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops under General George Crook to keep the Shenandoah Valley clear of Yankees.★
◆1864 Confederate guerrillas captured and burned steamer Kingston, which had run aground the preceding day between Smith's Point and Windmill Point on the Virginia shore of Chesapeake Bay.
◆1866 Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.
◆1870 The 1st trans-US rail service began.
◆1897 African-American soldiers of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps arrived in St. Louis, Mo., after completing a 40-day bike ride from Missoula, Montana.
◆1929 President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.
◆1938 Instant coffee was invented. Nestle came up with the first instant coffee after 8 years of experiments.
◆1941 The U.S. government denounced Japanese actions in Indochina.
◆1943 The US 45th Division (OKARNG) captures Cefalu and Castelbouno, on the northern coast. Inland, American units advance on Nicosia.
◆1943 The U.S. submarine Tinosa fired 15 torpedoes at a lone Japanese merchant ship, but none detonated.
◆1943 British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own "Blitz Week."★
◆1944 Attacks of "Operation Cobra" by US 1st Army forces are scheduled to begin but are postponed due to poor weather and the consequent lack of air support.
◆1944 The V Amphibious Corps, commanded by Major General Harry Schmidt, landed on Tinian, in the Mariana Islands. The following morning, the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions began a shoulder-to-shoulder southward sweep of the island. Organized enemy resistance faded within a week, and on 1 August, MajGen Schmidt declared the island secure. Coast Guard-manned transports that participated included USS Cambria and Cavalier.
◆1945 At Potsdam, President Truman informs Stalin that a new and powerful weapon is now available for use against Japan but does not elaborate on the kind of weapon. He also authorizes the use of atomic bombs on Japan. Stalin is believed to be aware of the atomic bomb project, through the Soviet espionage network in the United States.
◆1945 British and American carriers continue attacks. There are 15 American and 4 British carriers available for air operations against targets in the Inland Sea area, including the naval base at Kure and Kobe. Some 1600 planes are engaged. In addition, there is an Allied naval bombardment during the night (July 24-25) aimed at Kushimoto and Shionomisaki. It is estimated that more than 100 Japanese ships are sunk.
◆1945 The Osaka-Nagoya area, the second largest population center in Japan, is bombed by 600 B-29 Superfortress bombers.
◆1950 The U.S. Fifth Air Force relocated from Japan to Korea.
◆1950 Units from the 2d Marine Division prepared to move from Camp Lejeune, N.C., to Camp Pendleton, Calif., to join the 1st Marine Division.
◆1952 Pres. Truman commuted Oscar Collazo’s death sentence to life imprisonment. On the same day he signed an act enlarging the self-government of Puerto Rico.
◆1958 Jack Kilby (1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating the 1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12 he made a working prototype.
◆1959 During the grand opening ceremony of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev engage in a heated debate about capitalism and communism in the middle of a model kitchen set up for the fair.★
◆1965 In the air war, four F-4C Phantom jets escorting a formation of U.S. bombers on a raid over munitions manufacturing facilities at Kang Chi, 55 miles northwest of Hanoi, are fired at from an unknown launching site. It was the first time the enemy had launched antiaircraft missiles at U.S. aircraft. One plane was destroyed and the other three damaged. The presence of ground-to-air antiaircraft missiles represented a rapidly improving air defense capability for the North Vietnamese. As the war progressed, North Vietnam, supplied by China and the Soviet Union, would fashion a very effective and integrated air defense system that proved to be a formidable challenge to American flyers conducting missions over North Vietnam.
◆1968 The 154th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron (TRS) from Arkansas arrives to begin its duties in patrolling the Sea of Japan. This squadron was one of 11 Air Guard units called to active duty in January 1968 in the partial mobilization prompted by the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo and the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam. Combined with the 165th (KY) and 192nd (NV) TRS to form the 123rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, each squadron worked on a rotation basis spending three months each at Itazuke, at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska and patrolling around the entrance of the Panama Canal while stationed at Howard Air Force Base, Panama. At the end of a 90-day tour they rotated to their new assignment. All three squadrons were released from active duty by June 1969.
◆1969 Muhammad Ali was convicted on appeal for refusing induction in US Army.★
◆1969 At 12:51 EDT, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely returns to Earth.
◆1975 An "Apollo" spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, completing a mission which included the first-ever docking with a "Soyuz" capsule from the Soviet Union.
◆1987 The re-flagged Kuwaiti supertanker Bridgeton was damaged after hitting a mine in the Persian Gulf.
◆1989 President Bush said he was "aggrieved" about allegations that veteran U.S. diplomat Felix S. Bloch might have spied for the Soviet Union.
◆1990 Iraq, accusing Kuwait of conspiring to harm its economy through oil overproduction, massed tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. US warships in Persian Gulf were placed on alert.