TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
5 March
◆1259 Battle of Maes Maidog/Moydog: Earl of Warwick defeats Madog ap Llewellyn.
◆1279 Battle of Aizkraukle: The Lithuanians defeat the Livonian Knights.
◆1624 Class-based legislation was passed in the colony of Virginia, exempting the upper class from punishment by whipping.
◆1770 THE BOSTON MASSACRE: In the cold, snowy night, a mob of American colonists gathers at the Customs House in Boston and begins taunting the British soldiers guarding the building. ★
◆1766 France cedes Louisiana to Spain.
◆1781 General Howe orders the evacuation of Boston. On the 4th, the General had noticed how many cannon The Colonials had pointed at him and his troops from Dorchester Heights, South of Boston, he couldn’t believe how much work they had done in, what he believed to be, just one night. “The rebels have done more in one night than my whole army could do in months.” He didn’t realize it took two nights, because the Continentals hid the evidence of their first night’s work. General Washington and his troops had put their guns on Dorchester Heights where they could command Boston, threaten the British Army, and made the Boston Harbor unsafe for any British ship. First General Howe planned to attack to recapture Dorchester Heights. Then he decided to leave Boston and move his troops to New York, which was more important to both armies since it would control the traffic to and from Canada. A big storm came up that night giving the General an excuse for the evacuation.
◆1793 Austrians liberate Liege from the French.
◆1811 Battle of Barossa/Chiclana: Anglo-Spanish forces attempting to break the siege of Cadiz are ambushed by French troops to no avail.
◆1824 First Anglo-Burmese War begins.
◆1836 Samuel Colt manufactured the 1st pistol, a 34-caliber “Texas” model.
◆1864 Commander John Taylor Wood, CSN, led an early morning raid on the Union-held telegraph station at Cherrystone Point, Virginia. After crossing Chesapeake Bay at night with some 15 men in open barges, Wood landed and seized the station. Small Union Army steamers Aeolus and Titan, unaware that the station was in enemy hands, put into shore and each was captured by the daring Southerners. Wood then destroyed the telegraph station and surrounding warehouses, and disabled and bonded Aeolus before boarding Titan and steaming up the Piankatank River as far as possible. A joint Army-Navy expedition to recapture her was quickly organized, but Wood evaded U.S.S. Currituck and Tulip in the still early morning haze. A force of five gunboats under Commander F.A. Parker followed the Confederates up the river on the 7th, where Titan was found destroyed by Wood, “together with a number of large boats prepared for a raid.”
◆1864 General John C. Breckinridge takes control of Confederate forces in the Appalachian Mountains of western Virginia.
◆1868 The Senate was organized into a court of impeachment to decide charges against President Andrew Johnson.
◆1927 Some 1,000 US marines landed in China to “protect American property.”
◆1936 Maiden flight of the Supermarine Spitfire prototype.
◆1942 Name “Seabees” and insignia officially authorized. Seabees are members of the United States Navy construction battalions.★
◆1943 USS Bogue begins first anti-submarine operations by escort carrier.
◆1944 Two battalions of the US 126th Infantry Regiment land at Yalau Plantation, 30 miles west of Saidor. There is almost no Japanese opposition.
◆1944 On Los Negros the forces of the US 5th Cavalry Regiment move into the northern half of the island. Destroyers escorting a further 1400 American reinforcements provide fire support for the advance.
◆1945 Units of the US 8th Corps (part of US 1st Army) enter Cologne from the south and the east. The Allied advance continues along the entire line.
◆1946 In one of the most famous orations of the Cold War period, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill condemns the Soviet Union’s policies in Europe and declares, “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” ★
◆1947 The 7th Marine Regiment disbanded at Camp Pendleton following their return from China. Personnel and equipment were transferred to the 3rd Marine Brigade.
◆1951 The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, including the French Battalion, seized communist positions in the Pangnum area.
◆1953 Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union since 1924, dies in Moscow. ★
◆1953 Good weather permitted Fifth Air Force to complete 700 sorties. Sixteen F-84 ThunderJets attacked in northeastern Korea an industrial area at Chongjin, just sixty-three miles from the Siberian border, destroying buildings and two rail and two road bridges, damaging seven rail cars, and inflicting several rail and road cuts. Fighter-bombers flying ground support missions reported damage or destruction to fifty-six bunkers and gun positions, fourteen personnel shelters, and ten supply stacks.
◆1960 Elvis Presley is discharged from the army after a two-year stint. ★
◆1964 The Joint Chiefs of Staff order a U.S. Air Force air commando training advisory team to Thailand to train Lao pilots in counterinsurgency tactics.
◆1971 The U.S. 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, less its 2nd Squadron, withdraws from Vietnam. ★
◆1979 Voyager I’s closest approach to Jupiter (172,000 miles).
◆1984 US accused Iraq of using poison gas.
◆2002 The Battle of Takur Ghar was a short but intense military engagement between United States special operations forces and Taliban insurgents.★