TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
2 March
◆537 Goths besiege Rome, held by Belisarius (relieved 12 March 538).
◆871 Battle of Marton: King Ethelred of Wessex defeats the Danes.
◆1476 Battle of Granson: The Swiss defeat the Burgundians.
◆1498 Vasco da Gama's fleet reaches Mozambique.
◆1579 Battle of Borgerhout: The Prince of Parma's Spaniards defeat the Dutch.
◆1776 Colonel Knox arrived near Boston with 80 sleds packed with cannons, mortars and other heavy equipment in February and General Washington saw his chance.★
◆1776 The Battle of the Rice Boats.★
◆1792 Congress authorized the revenue cutters to fire on merchant ships who refused to “bring to.”
◆1793 Samuel Houston, the first president of the independent Republic of Texas, is born in Rockbridge County, Virginia.★
◆1797 The Directory of Great Britain authorized vessels of war to board and seize neutral vessels, particularly if the ships were American.
◆1799 Congress standardized US weights and measures.
◆1815 To put an end to robberies by the Barbary pirates, the United States declared war on Algiers.
◆1819 Territory of Arkansas was organized.
◆1836 During the Texas Revolution, a convention of American Texans meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos and declares the independence of Texas from Mexico.★
◆1853 The Territory of Washington was organized after separating from Oregon Territory.
◆1859 Launch of Saginaw at Mare Island, first Navy ship built on West Coast of U.S.
◆1861 The Territory of Nevada was created by an act of Congress. The first elected governor of the state was Henry G. Blasdel. US Congress created the Dakota & Nevada Territories out of the Nebraska & Utah territories.
◆1861 U.S. Revenue Schooner Henry Dodge, First Lieutenant William F. Rogers, USRM, was seized at Galveston, as Texas joined the Confederacy.
◆1865 General Lee proposed peace to Grant. President Abraham Lincoln rejected Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s plea for peace talks, demanding unconditional surrender.
◆1867 Jacob Zeilin, Colonel Commandant of the Marine Corps from 30 June 1864, was this date promoted to the rank of Brigadier General Commandant, the first time Congress authorized this rank for the Marine Corps.★
◆1876 Birthday of Civil Engineer Corps.
◆1889 Congress passed the Indian Appropriations Bill, proclaiming unassigned lands in the public domain; the first step toward the famous Oklahoma Land Rush.
◆1899 President McKinley signed a measure creating the rank of Admiral of the Navy for Adm. George Dewey.
◆1901 Congress passed the Platt amendment, which limited Cuban autonomy as a condition for withdrawal of U.S. troops and makes Puerto Rico a protectorate.
◆1908 An international conference on arms reduction opened in London.
◆1915 Vladimir Jabotinsky forms a militia to defend Jewish settlements in Palestine.
◆1917 Congress passes the Jones Act, making Puerto Rico a United States Territory.
◆1925 The first nationwide highway numbering system was instituted by the joint board of state and federal highway officials appointed by the secretary of agriculture. In order to minimize confusion caused by the array of multiform state-appointed highway signs, the board created the shield-shaped highway number markers that have become a comforting sight to lost travelers in times since. Later, interstate highway numbering would be improved by colored signs and the odd-even demarcation that distinguishes between north-south and east-west travel respectively. As America got its kicks on Route 66, it did so under the aegis of the trusty shield. For instance, in the east, there is U.S. 1 that runs from New England to Florida and in the west, the corresponding highway, U.S. 101, from Tacoma, WA to San Diego, CA.
◆1931 Mikhail Gorbachev, last General Secretary of the CPUSSR (1985-1991) & last President of the USSR (1988-1991), 1990 Peace Nobelist.
◆1938 15th Infantry leaves China after 26 years in garrison at Tientsin & Peking.
◆1940 Soviet troops capture Tuppura Island from the Finns.
◆1942 Philippines: Japanese troops occupy Zamboanga.
◆1943 U.S. and Australian land-based planes begin an offensive against a convoy of Japanese ships in the Bismarck Sea, in the western Pacific.★
◆1943 US forces recover Sbeitla, Tunisia and advance toward Feriana. To their north, the British hold against Axis attacks.
◆1944 A second 1000 men from the US 5th Cavalry Regiment arrives at Los Negros. Meanwhile, the American forces already on the island capture Momote airfield with fire support from destroyers offshore.
◆1944 Lend-Lease aid to Turkey is cut off because it is reluctant to join the war on the Allied side or make any other contribution to the war effort.
◆1945 Trier is captured by units of US 20th Corps, part of US 3rd Army. The US 1st Army, to the north, is extending its advance beyond the Erft River toward Cologne and to the south. US 9th Army captures Roermond and Venlo on the Maas on the left flank of its advance while on the right, the Rhine River is reached opposite Dusseldorg.
◆1945 Elements of US Task Force 58, consisting of 4 cruisers and 15 destroyers, under the command of Admiral Whiting, bombard Okino Daito Jima.
◆1946 Ho Chi Minh was elected president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
◆1949 The Lucky Lady II (USAF B-50 Superfortress), landed at Fort Worth , Texas, after completing the first non-stop, round-the-world flight: 23,452-mis in 94 hours.★
◆1950 Silly Putty was invented. Silly Putty was accidentally invented by Earl Warrick, a Dow scientist, while searching for a silicone-based rubber substance during WW II.
◆1951 The U.S. Navy launched the K-1, the first modern submarine designed to hunt enemy submarines.
◆1953 The United Nations Command continued to reaffirm that it never engaged in germ warfare in Korea.
◆1962 JFK announced US will resume above ground nuclear testing.1962 Coup in Burma initiates an ongoing military regime.
◆1965 Operation Rolling Thunder begins with more than 100 United States Air Force jet bombers striking an ammunition depot at Xom Bang, 10 miles inside North Vietnam.★
◆1966 There were some 215,000 US soldiers in Vietnam.
◆1967 US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.
◆1968 The siege of Khe Sanh ended in Vietnam, the U.S. Marines stationed there were still in control of the mountain top.
◆1968 USAF displayed Lockheed C-5A Galaxy, biggest plane in the world.
◆1972 Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet.
◆1981 The United States planned to send 20 more advisors and $25 million in military aid to El Salvador.
◆1991 Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq and the Kurds rose up against Iraqi forces but were crushed by Iraqi armor that killed 50,000 and forced more than a million Kurds to flee to Turkey and Iran.
◆1993 Members of 10th Mountain Divisions Bravo Company 2/87 Infantry fight their way out of a crossfire in Kismaayo. 4 grunts, while pinned down, kill 9 Somalis. No US casualties.
◆1995 The space shuttle STS-67 (Endeavour 8) blasted off to study the far reaches of the universe.
◆2003 North Korea deployed 4 MiGs to intercept a US RC-135S spy plane some 150 miles off its coast.
◆2003 US officials say that US warplanes patrolling the southern no-fly zone in Iraq have attacked four military communications facilities and one air defense facility after Iraqi forces fired at US and British planes.
◆2004 NASA scientists reported that the Mars rover Opportunity had discovered evidence that water was once present on the surface.