TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
1 March
◆ Festival of Mars, Roman God of War.★
◆86 BCE Sulla captures Athens, deposing the tyrant Aristion, but refrains from slaughtering thousands or making away with lots of loot, though he does take Aristotle's library.
◆1244 The Crusaders take Montsegur from the Albigensians.
◆1260 Hulagu Khan, grandson of Genghis, takes Damascus amid great slaughter.
◆1324 Naval Battle of Lutocisterna: The Aragonese defeat the Pisans.
◆1634 Battle of Smolensk: Poland's Wladyslaw IV defeats the Russians.
◆1642 Georgeana (York), Maine, became the first American city to incorporate.
◆1652 Vassy Massacre: The Duc de Guise slaughters c. 1000 Huguenots, initiating the French "First War of Religion."
◆1776 French minister Charles Gravier advised his Spanish counterpart to support the American rebels against the English.
◆1780 Pennsylvania became the first U.S. state to abolish slavery (for new-borns only). It was followed by Connecticut and Rhode Island in 1784, New York in 1785, and New Jersey in 1786. Massachusetts abolished slavery through a judicial decision in 1783.
◆1781 The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation.
◆1792 US Presidential Succession Act was passed.
◆1793 Republican France declares war on Britain & the Dutch Republic.
◆1836 Texas Convention meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos to consider Independence from Mexico.
◆1845 President Tyler signed a congressional resolution to annex the Republic of Texas.
◆1864 President Lincoln nominates Ulysses S. Grant for the newly revived rank of lieutenant general.
◆1867 Most of Nebraska became the 37th state. It was expanded later.
◆1893 The US Diplomatic Appropriation Act authorized the rank of ambassador.
◆1912 Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from an airplane at Jefferson barracks, Missouri. Captain Berry had a 36 ft. parachute packed into a metal case beneath the fuselage. The parachute had a trapeze bar for him to hold on to as he jumped and descended to the ground.
◆1913 The US Federal income tax took effect (16th amendment).
◆1916 Germany began attacking ships in the Atlantic.
◆1920 Arabs attack the Jewish settlement of Tel Mai.
◆1923 French & Belgian troops occupy the Rhineland, in an effort to force Germany to make reparations payments.
◆1927 A system of broadcasting weather reports by radio on four lightships on the Pacific Coast was put into effect.
◆1941 “Captain America” first appeared in a comic book.★
◆1941 Nazi extermination camps begin full operation. These include Auschwitz, Bamberg, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Chelmno, Jena, Sobibor and Treblinka. Over 2.600.000 Polish Jews are among those killed during the course of the war. Over 12.000 people would be killed daily at Auschwitz alone. By 1945 nearly 6 million Jews and more than 3 million Communists, gypsies, socialists and other dissidents will be exterminated.
◆1941 The US Navy forms a Support Force for the Atlantic Fleet. The main part of this unit is made up from three destroyer squadrons of 27 ships.
◆1941 German troops enter Bulgaria.
◆1941 Kufra, Libya: Italians surrender to Leclerc's Free French (besieged since Feb 7).
◆1942 American military authorities, angered over the destruction at Pearl Harbor, order Rear Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Maj. Gen. Walter Short, the top Navy and Army officers in Hawaii at the time, court-martialled. When cooler heads prevail, the Army and Navy create Boards of Inquiry to examine the case.
◆1942 U-656 becomes the first German submarine of World War II to be sunk by Naval air (VP-82). The attack was carried out by Ensign William Tepuni piloting a Hudson bomber with Patrol Squadron 82 (VP-82). Two weeks later VP-82 pilot, Chief Aviation Machinist’s Mate Donald Mason, sank U-503 southeast of the Virgin Rocks.
◆1942 Baseball decided that players in military can’t play when on furlough.
◆1942 The remainder of Doorman’s naval squadron withdraws from Java fighting rear guard actions in the Sunda Strait. The force loses three cruisers and four destroyers. Japanese forces land with little or no opposition on Java at Kragan, Merak and Eretenwetan.
◆1942 The “Flying Tigers” volunteer air force under the command of Claire Chennault, move to an RAF bomber base after their exceptional air defense of Rangoon.
◆1944 On Los Negros, US forces eliminate some small Japanese forces that infiltrated their lines during the night.
◆1945 President Roosevelt, back from the Yalta Conference, proclaimed the meeting a success when he addressed a joint session of Congress.
◆1945 Munchen-Gladbach and Neuss fall to the US 9th Army, which is now advancing rapidly toward the Rhine. The attacks of US 1st Army toward Cologne are continuing as are the efforts of US 3rd Army near the River Kyll and south of Trier.
◆1945 On Iwo Jima, forces of US 5th Amphibious Corps now hold both the first and second of the island’s airfields and have a foothold at the southern end of the third. There is intensive fighting all along the line.
◆1945 Japanese resistance in Manila is confined to a few blocks in the administrative area of the city. Nearer the landing area at Lingayen Gulf there are renewed efforts by US 1st Corps in the direction of Baguio and north along the coast.
◆1945 Part of US Task Force 58 conducts air strikes on targets on Okinawa and nearby shipping. Two small Japanese warships are sunk.
◆1951 U.N. forces opened a major attack on the central front west of Hoengsong.
◆1954 The US performed an atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island.★
◆1954 Ted Williams fractures collarbone in 1st game of spring training after flying 39 combat missions without injury in Korean War.
◆1955 The second detonation in the Operation Teapot nuclear tests is conducted. Codenamed Tesla, predicted yield was 3.5-7 kt. The explosive used was Cyclotol 75/25. The nuclear system was a small diameter system only 10 inches wide and 39.5 inches long and weighed 785 lb. Actual yield was 7kt.
◆1958 Doctors declared that President Eisenhower had fully recovered from his stroke.
◆1960 The Beaufort (South Carolina) Auxiliary Air Station was redesignated a Marine Corps Air Station.
◆1962 A US Army memorandum was put out titled “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba.”
◆US-British nuclear test experiment took place in Nevada.
◆1977 US extended territorial waters to 200 miles.
◆1984 NASA launched Landsat-D Prime (Landsat 5) to map the Earth.
◆1985 The Pentagon accepted the theory that an atomic war would block the sun, causing a “nuclear winter”.
◆1991 President Bush said “we’ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome once and for all” following the allied victory in the Gulf War.
◆1991 The US Embassy in Kuwait officially reopened.
◆1991 US military specialists surveyed and then detonated a bunker at Kamisiyah, Iraq.★
◆1999 US warplanes dropped over 30 laser-guided bombs on military targets in northern Iraq.
◆2002 NASA scientists said that vast ice fields had been detected under the surface of Mars with a gamma ray spectrometer on the Odyssey orbiter.