TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
10 June
◆1179 Battle of Marj Ayun: Saladin defeats King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.
◆1201 Battle of Capua: Walter of Brienne defeats Dietpoldo di Acerra.
◆1328 Battle of Fucecchio: The Luccans defeat the Florentines.
◆1610 The first Dutch settlers arrived from NJ to colonize Manhattan Island.
◆1639 The first American log cabin at Fort Christina (Wilmington, Delaware).
◆1776 The Continental Congress appointed a committee to write a Declaration of Independence.
◆1801 The North African state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean. Tripoli declared war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute.
◆1807 Battle of Heilsberg: French defeat the Russians.
◆1826 Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II slaughters over 20,000 Janissaries.
◆1848 Third Battle of Vicenza: Austrians defeat Veneto-Papal forces.
◆1854 U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD, holds first formal graduation exercises. Previous classes graduated without ceremony.
◆1861 The Virginia village of Big Bethel became the site of the first major land battle of the Civil War. Private Henry L. Wyatt was the 1st Confederate soldier killed in a Civil War battle. 18 Union soldiers were killed.
◆1861 Lieutenant John Mercer Brooke, CSN. ordered to design ironclad C.S.S. Virginia (ex-U.S.S. Merrimack).
◆1862 Norfolk Navy Yard set afire before being evacuated by Confederate forces in a general withdrawal up the peninsula to defend Richmond. Union troops under Major General Wool crossed Hampton Roads from Fort Monroe, landed at Ocean View, and captured Norfolk.
◆1862 Ironclad steamer U.S.S. New Ironsides launched at Philadelphia.
◆1864 BATTLE OF BRICE’S CROSSROADS: Nathan Bedford Forrest's legend grows substantially when his Confederate cavalry routs a much larger Union force in Mississippi. When Union General William T. Sherman inched toward Atlanta, Georgia, in the summer of 1864, he left behind a vulnerable supply line through Tennessee.
◆1898 The First Marine Battalion, commanded by LtCol Robert W. Huntington, landed on the eastern side of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The next day, Lt Herbert L. Draper hoisted the American flag on a flag pole at Camp McCalla where it flew during the next eleven days. LtCol Huntington later sent the flag with an accompanying letter to Colonel Commandant Charles Heywood noting that "when bullets were flying, ...the sight of the flag upon the midnight sky has thrilled our hearts."
◆1905 Japan and Russia agreed to peace talks brokered by President Theodore Roosevelt.
◆1915 British and French troops secure German Cameroon, Africa.
◆1942 The carrier USS Wasp and battleship USS North Carolina accompanied by cruisers and destroyers pass through the canal to join the US Pacific Fleet after service in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. There are now four American fleet aircraft carriers in the Pacific theater.
◆1944 The U.S. VII and V corps, advancing from Normandy’s Utah and Omaha beaches, respectively, linked-up and began moving inland. The Utah and Omaha beaches are linked up by an advance of the US 2nd Armored Division (part of 5th Corps). The US 101st Airborne Division continues to be engaged around Carentan.
◆1944 Ouradour-sur-Glane: SS massacre 642 men, women, & children in a French village.
◆1944 In a diversionary action, British aircraft from Illustrious and Atheling raid Japanese positions on Sabang. The intent is to distract Japanese attention from American forces approaching the Mariana Islands.
◆1945 Australian troops land at Brunei Bay, Borneo.
◆1945 On Okinawa, fighting continues on the Oroku Peninsula, where the forces of the US 6th Marine Division have reduced the Japanese pocket to about 2000 square yards. Heavy Japanese losses are recorded in nighttime counterattacks. Meanwhile, on the south of the island, the US 1st Marine Division suffers heavy losses in the successful capture of a hill west of the town of Yuza. The US 24th Corps forces, to the left, launches a major offensive against the last Japanese defensive line, the Yaeju-Dake Line. Japanese resistance is evidently weakening.
◆1945 On Luzon, Japanese forces halt the advance of the US 37th Division near Orioung Pass.
◆1948 The news that the sound barrier has been broken is finally released to the public by the U.S. Air Force. Chuck Yeager, piloting the rocket airplane X-1, exceeded the speed of sound on October 14, 1947.
◆1953 During the siege of Outpost Harry, the 15th Infantry Regiment and the 5th Regimental Combat Team, both of the 3rd Infantry Division, repelled an assault by the Chinese 74th Division. The Chinese suffered an estimated 4,200 casualties.
◆1953 The Chinese opened an assault on ROK II Corps near Kumsong. By June 16, ROK II Corps had been pushed to a new main line of resistance.
◆1953 U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing bagged his third double MiG kill and qualified as the seventh "double ace" of the war, with a total of 10 kills.
◆1965 Some 1,500 Viet Cong start a mortar attack on the district capital of Dong Xoai, about 60 miles northeast of Saigon, and then quickly overrun the town's military headquarters and an adjoining militia compound.
◆1970 A fifteen-man group of special forces troops began training for Operation Kingpin, a POW rescue mission in North Vietnam. The daring rescue raid at the Son Tay prison camp deep within North Vietnam lacked only one essential ingredient--POWs.
◆1982 Israeli troops reach outskirts of Beirut.
◆1991 DESERT STORM VICTORY PARADE: For the second time in three days, the nation witnesses a “Victory Parade” to celebrate the quick defeat and expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait in Operation Desert Storm.
◆1995 US Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady, rescued after being shot down over Bosnia, described his six-day ordeal at a news conference at Aviano Air Base in Italy, saying he was no Rambo and no hero.
◆1996 Intel released its 200 Mhz Pentium chip.
◆1999 The UN Security Council authorized deployment of 50,000 NATO-led peacekeepers for Kosovo.
◆2003 NASA launched a Mars Exploration Rover named Spirit, the 1st of 2.