TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
23 June
◆1258 Naval Battle of Acre: Venetians defeat the Genoese,
◆1495 French take Gaeta from the Neapolitans amid great slaughter.
◆1683 William Penn signed a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania. It became the only treaty "not sworn to, nor broken."
◆1757 Battle of Plassey: 3,000 British troops under Robert Clive defeat a 50,000 strong Indian army under Siraj Ud Daulah at Plassey.*
◆1758 Seven Years' War: Battle of Krefeld –British forces defeat French troops at Krefeld in Germany.
◆1760 Seven Years' War: Battle of Landeshut – Austria defeats Prussia.
◆1776 The final draft of Declaration of Independence was submitted to US Congress.
◆1780 Battle of Springfield fought in and around Springfield, New Jersey.
◆1784 The 1st US balloon flight was made by Edward Warren (13).
◆1812 Marine Lt. John Heath became the first casualty of the War of 1812.
◆1817 The RC Active forced a South American privateer posing as an armed merchantman to leave the Chesapeake Bay and American waters.
◆1845 The congress of the Republic of Texas voted to accept annexation by the US after 10 years as an independent republic.
◆1861 Confederate Navy- began reconstruction of ex- U.S.S. Merrimack as ironclad C.S.S. Virginia at Norfolk.
◆1862 Confederate General Robert E. Lee meets with his corps commanders to plot an attack on General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac.
◆1863 Confederate forces overwhelmed a Union garrison at the Battle of Brasher City in Louisiana.
◆1865 Confederate General Stand Watie, who was also a Cherokee chief, surrendered the last sizable Confederate army at Fort Towson, in the Oklahoma Territory.
◆1915 First Battle of the Isonzo begins (to Jul 7).
◆1933 Commissioning of USS Macon, Navy's last dirigible.
◆1942 Rommel breaks the Gazala Line and drives on Egypt.
◆1943 American landings on Woodlark Island begin.
◆1944 The Soviet attack begins. There are four front-level commands engaged in the operation, under the STAVKA direction of Marshal Zhukov (the southern wing) and Marshal Vasilevsky (the northern wing).*
◆1944 American forces of the US 7th Corps (part of 1st Army) penetrate the outer defenses of Cherbourg. Elements of British 2nd Army also make gains. The British 5th Division captures St. Honorina, northwest of Caen.
◆1944 In one of the largest air strikes of the war, the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force sent 761 bombers against the oil refineries at Ploesti, Romania.*
◆1944 On Saipan, US 5th Amphibious Corps remains engaged in fighting. The 2nd Marine Division continues to battle for Mount Tapotchau.
◆1945 On Okinawa, the systematic mopping up of the island begins. General Stilwell takes command of the US 10th Army in place of General Geiger. Lt Gen Ushijima, Japanese commander, committed suicide.
◆1945 American paratroopers land near Aparri on the north coast of Luzon, at the mouth of the Cagayan River, without incident. They link up with a large force of Filipino guerrillas. The combined force advances southward to make contact with the US 37th Division.
◆1951 Soviet U.N. delegate Jacob Malik proposed cease-fire discussions in the Korean War.
◆1951 U.S. Air Force Captain and former fighter pilot Richard Heyman, 8th Bomber Squadron, was officially credited with the only B-26 Invader light bomber aerial victory of the war when he shot down a communist PO-2.
◆1952 More than 200 aircraft attacked four power complexes located along the Yalu River in the largest joint air operation since World War II. The combined Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps force flew over 1,200 sorties during the two-day operation.
◆1969 Ben Het, a U.S. Special Forces camp located 288 miles northeast of Saigon and six miles from the junction of the Cambodian, Laotian and South Vietnamese borders, is besieged and cut off by 2,000 North Vietnamese troops using artillery and mortars.*
◆2000 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, during a visit to South Korea, said American troops would remain in the country indefinitely to maintain strategic stability in the Pacific area.