TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
3 June
◆1098 Crusaders seize Antioch.
◆1539 Hernando De Soto claimed Florida for Spain.
◆1621 The Dutch West India Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as New York.
◆1770 Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo was founded at Monterey along with the Presidio de Monterey.
◆1784 Congress creates the U.S. Army, forming the 1st American Regiment (now the 3rd Infantry Division) on a cadre of around 100 troops left over from the Continental Army.
◆1785 Order to sell last ship remaining in Continental Navy, frigate Alliance. No other Navy were ships authorized until 1794.
◆1800 John Adams, the second president of the United States, becomes the first president to reside in Washington, D.C., when he takes up residence at Union Tavern in Georgetown.
◆1808 Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederacy (1861-1865), was born in Christian County, Ky.
◆1861 In the first Civil War land battle, Union forces defeated Confederates at Philippi, in Western Virginia.
◆1863 Gen. Lee, with 75,000 Confederates, launched a second invasion of the North. Lee led his troops into Maryland and then Pennsylvania, to meet the Army of the Potomac again, this time around a small town called Gettysburg.
◆1864 COLD HARBOR: Union General Ulysses S. Grant makes what he later recognizes to be his greatest mistake by ordering a frontal assault on entrenched Confederates at Cold Harbor.
◆1898 Collier Merrimac sunk in channel leading to Santiago, Cuba in unsuccessful attempt to trap Spanish fleet. The crew was captured and later received the Medal of Honor.
◆1916 The National Defense Act of 1916 is signed into law. One of the most important pieces of Guard legislation in the nation’s history, it greatly increased federal supervision of, as well as federal pay for, the National Guard.
◆1918 The 4th Marine Brigade fought at Les Mares Farm, Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, France.
◆1940 Last British and French troops leave Dunkirk. During the day the German attacks around Dunkirk continue. The perimeter contracts, despite a brave counterattack, and German forces reach to within two miles of the harbor.
◆1942 The Midway Invasion Group and their naval support (Admiral Kondo) are discovered by air reconnaissance from Midway. A group of American B-17 Flying Fortresses are launched on an unsuccessful attack of the Japanese forces.
◆1942 In response to the surprise B-25 bomber attacks on Japan staged by Lieutenant Colonel Jimmy Dolittle in April 1942, the Japanese decided to capture Midway Island 1,000 miles northwest of Hawaii as a staging base to attack Hawaii itself.
◆1944 Forces of the US 5th Army continue advancing toward Rome. US 6th Corps captures Albano and Frascati. The US 2nd Corps and the French Expeditionary Corps advance along Route 6. To the southeast, the Canadian 1st Corps (now part of British 8th Army) captures Anagni. German forces withdraw from Rome, respecting its status as an "open city" in return for a temporary truce with Italian partisans.
◆1944 Japanese forces make an unsuccessful attempt to ship reinforcements to the garrison on Biak Island. US forces on Biak advance against heavy resistance.
◆1945 Captured maps of German minefields are distributed to all Allied governments, in Europe, by SHAEF. These maps are from the collection of approximately 4 tons of such maps captured by US 7th Army in Bavaria.
◆1945 On Okinawa, Japanese forces are isolated in the Oroku and Chinen peninsula.
◆1945 On Luzon, the US 37th Division overcomes weak Japanese resistance to advance about 6 miles north of Santa Fe.
◆1949 Wesley Anthony Brown became the 1st negro to graduate from US Naval Academy.
◆1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (89), Iran's spiritual and supreme leader, died.
◆1989 With protests for democratic reforms entering their seventh week, the Chinese government authorizes its soldiers and tanks to reclaim Beijing's Tiananmen Square at all costs.
◆1994 The US began consultations with South Korea, Japan and Russia on how to retaliate for North Korea's removal of vital evidence about its nuclear weapons capability.
◆1995 Bosnian Serb officials made contradictory statements about the whereabouts of an American pilot, a day after his Air Force jet was shot down. Bosnian Serb military sources claimed that the pilot, later identified as Captain Scott F. O'Grady, was in Bosnian Serb hands—a claim that proved false.
◆1996 During joint war games in the Pacific, a Japanese destroyer mistakenly shot down an American attack plane; two Navy aviators ejected safely.
◆1996 A recent announcement was made that Hughes Electronics will take over the Indianapolis Naval Air Warfare Center. The NAWC made the bombsights that helped win WW II.
◆1997 Reinforcements from a peace-keeping force in Liberia were sent in to help Nigerian troops against the insurrectionist troops of Sierra Leone. After a bloody coup, 1,200 foreigners fled Sierra Leone aboard an American warship.
◆1999 The 15-member EU announced plans to establish itself as a military power with a 60,000-troop force. A day later the EU named Javier Solana as the 1st foreign policy and security czar of the union.
◆1999 Pres. Milosevic agreed to end the Kosovo conflict on the 72nd day of bombing. The key elements included: an end to fighting in Kosovo; a quick and verifiable withdrawal of Yugoslav and Serb forces; deployment a security force "with essential NATO participation;" disarmament of the KLA; and the safe return of ethnic Albanian refugees. Separately it was reported that over 5,000 members of the Yugoslav security forces had been killed by NATO air strikes.
◆2002 It was reported that the US planned to resume manufacturing plutonium triggers for nuclear warheads at a new $4.4 billion plant in 2020.
◆2002 NASA launched the $159 million Contour space probe to study the composition of comets. Scientists lost contact on Aug 15.