TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
25 June
◆841 Battle of Fontenay: Embroglio among Charlemagne's heirs.
◆1139 Battle of Ourique: Portugal's Afonso I defeats the Moors.
◆1386 Battle of Brentelle: The Carrano defeat the Scaligers.
◆1569 Battle of La Roche l'Abeille: French Huguenots defeat the Catholics.
◆1570 Battle of Arnay-le-duc: French Catholics defeat the Huguenots.
◆1788 Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution.
◆1798 US passed the Alien Act allowing president to deport dangerous aliens.
◆1862 The first day of the Seven Days Campaign began with fighting at Oak Grove, Virginia, with Robert E. Lee commanding the Confederate Army for the first time.*
◆1863 Pres. Lincoln chose US General George Meade to replace General Hooker, hoping he would be more aggressive.
◆1864 Pennsylvania troops begin digging a tunnel toward the Rebels at Petersburg, Virginia, in order to blow a hole in the Confederate lines and break the stalemate.
◆1867 The first barbed wire was patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio.
◆1876 Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated his telephone at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia.
◆1876 BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN: Determined to resist the efforts of the U.S. Army to force them onto reservations, Indians under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse wipe out Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and much of his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.*
◆1886 Henry (Hap) Arnold, commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, was born.*
◆1917 Navy convoy of troopships carrying American Expeditionary Forces arrives in France.
◆1918 At Belleau Woods, major fourteen hour bombardment starting at 0300 makes clearance of the remaining woods possible. The following attack swamps the remaining machine gun outposts of the enemy. Marines and Army machine-gunners participate in the assault.
◆1942 Following his arrival in London, Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower takes command of U.S. forces in Europe.
◆1942 Some 1,000 British Royal Air Force bombers raided Bremen, Germany, during World War II.
◆1944 The 3 divisions of the US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) penetrate into the suburbs of Cherbourg. Naval support includes 3 battleships, 4 cruisers and 11 destroyers. On the left wing of the Normandy front, elements of the British 30th Corps (part of British 2nd Army) attack toward Rauray.
◆1944 Elements of US 5th Army capture Piombino. Inland the French Expeditionary Corps (part of 5th Army) and the British 8th Army attack the German-held Albert Line west of Trasimeno Lake, around Chiusi.
◆1944 The US 5th Amphibious Corps continues to battle for Saipan. Mount Tapotchau is captured. Heavy fighting is recorded in the Hagman Peninsula and near the southwest tip of the island.
◆1945 On Luzon, Tuguegarao is captured by the American forces, of the US 37th Division, in the Cagayan valley. Gattaran is retaken in the southward advance of the American paratroopers dropped at Aparri, after the Japanese had expelled the Filipino guerrillas. Penablanca is also captured. The surviving Japanese units on the island, about 50,000 troops, are now concentrated in the Sierra Madre area to the east of the Cagayan valley.
◆1948 The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.
◆1950 KOREAN WAR IGNITED: Armed forces from communist North Korea smash into South Korea, setting off the Korean War. The United States, acting under the auspices of the United Nations, quickly sprang to the defense of South Korea and fought a bloody and frustrating war for the next three years.*
◆1969 The U.S. Navy turns 64 river patrol gunboats valued at $18.2 million over to the South Vietnamese Navy in what is described as the largest single transfer of military equipment in the war thus far.
◆1981 The Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.
◆1986 Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.
◆1988 American-born Mildred Gillars, better known during World War II as "Axis Sally" for her Nazi propaganda broadcasts, died in Columbus, Ohio, at age 87. Gillars had served 12 years in prison for treason.
◆2002 The Defense Department told Congress it planned to supply the Canadian navy with Raytheon Co. -built SM-2 Standard surface-to-air missiles and related gear valued at up to $19 million.