TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
24 June
◆1128 Battle of S. Mamede: Pr. Afonso of Portugal defeats his mother Queen Theresa, overthrowing her regency.
◆1180 First Battle of Uji, starting the Genpei War in Japan.
◆1314 The Battle of Bannockburn (south of Stirling) begins.
◆1622 Portuguese repulse Dutch attack on Macau.
◆1664 New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.
◆1675 In colonial New England, King Philip's War begins when a band of Wampanoag warriors raid the border settlement of Swansee, Massachusetts, and massacre the English colonists there.
◆1762 Battle of Wilhelmstahl: The Prussians defeat the French.
◆1859 Battle of San Martino: Sardinians defeat the Austrians.
◆1859 Battle of Solferino: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1861 Federal gunboats attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.
◆1861 Tennessee became the 11th and last state to secede from US.
◆1862 U.S. intervention saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.
◆1863 Planning an invasion of Pennsylvania, Lee's army crossed the Potomac.
◆1864 Colorado Governor John Evans warns that all peaceful Indians in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the infamous Sand Creek Massacre.
◆1866 Second Battle of Custoza: Austrians defeat the Italians.
◆1898 American troops drove Spanish forces from La Guasimas, Cuba.
◆1908 The 22nd and 24th president (1893-1897) of the United States, Grover Cleveland, died in Princeton, N.J., at age 71.
◆1917 Russian Black Sea fleet mutinies at Sebastopol.
◆1918 After weeks of grinding infantry combat, the French command finally commits sufficient artillery to reduce Belleau Woods. The guns are brought in to prepare for a renewed assault.
◆1930 The first radar detection of planes was made at Anacostia, DC.
◆1941 President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.
◆1942 Japanese submarine 'I-25' shells Fort Stevens, Oregon.*
◆1943 Allies began a 10-day fire bombing of Hamburg.
◆1944 The battle for Cherbourg continues. American forces of US 7th Corps (part of 1st Army) continue to make progress. The German garrison commander, General Schlieben, refuses to surrender.
◆1944 The battle for Saipan continues as US 5th Amphibious Corps makes progress. The 27th Division clears the southern part of the island and most of the division moves northward. The 2nd Marine Division continues to battle for Mount Tapotchau.
◆1944 Japanese bases on Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima are raided by American carrier aircraft. The planes are from Hornet, Yorktown, Bataan and Belleau Wood (a force commanded by Admiral Clark). Japanese losses are 66 aircraft.
◆1945 Over Borneo, British and American aircraft drop 1000 tons of bombs on Japanese positions.
◆1945 The last of four German Ar234 jet bombers (collected by "Watson's Wizzers" of the USAAF) lands in Cherbourg, flying from Sola in Norway. These aircraft are to be loaded onboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Reaper, along with 34 other advanced German aircraft, for shipment to the United States.
◆1948 BERLIN BLOCKADE: One of the most dramatic standoffs in the history of the Cold War begins as the Soviet Union blocks all road and rail traffic to and from West Berlin.*
◆1955 Soviet MIG’s down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.
◆1957 A 37-kiloton nuclear fission bomb, code-named Priscilla, was exploded in the Nevada desert at Frenchman Flat. The security of a bank vault was tested in the experiment. At this time the US was manufacturing 10 nuclear bombs a day.*
◆1983 The space shuttle "Challenger," carrying America's first woman in space, Sally K. Ride, coasted to a safe landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.
◆1997 The Air Force released a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident," suggesting the alien bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.
◆2003 Pres. Bush met with Pakistan's Pres. Musharraf and promised a $3 billion aid package that did not included F-16s.
◆2004 Insurgents launched coordinated attacks against police and government buildings across Iraq. The strikes killed over 105 people, including three American soldiers. I