TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
15 March
◆44 BCE Julius Caesar was assassinated in the senate, at 55 "Et tu, Brute?" The Ides of March.★
◆624 Battle of Badr: Mohammed defeats the Quriesh to capture Mecca.
◆933 Battle of Merseburg/Riade: King Henry V "the Fowler" of the Germans defeats the Hungarians.
◆1311 Battle of Halmyros/Cefiso: The Catalan Company captures the Duchy of Athens.
◆1330 Azzone Visconti stages a coup in Milan, which his descendants will rule until 1535.
◆1360 French raiders capture Winchelsea, England.
◆1493 Christopher Columbus returned to Spain, concluding his first voyage to the Western Hemisphere.
◆1521 Ferdinand Magellan discovered the Philippine Islands, where he was killed by natives the following month.
◆1697 A band of Abenaki Indians made a raid on Haverhill, Massachusetts.★
◆1744 After signing the Second Family Compact with Spain, France joins the Spanish war against England. Known in the American colonies as King George’s War, and in Europe as the War of the Austrian Succession, this conflict will last until 1748. Hostilities between the French and the English in North America will continue to escalate.
◆1767 Andrew Jackson is born in the Garden of the Waxhaws, South Carolina.★
◆1781 In the Battle of Guildford Courthouse, North Carolina, British General Cornwallis achieves a Phyrric victory over the American forces of General Greene and General Morgan.★
◆1862 General John Hunt Morgan began four days of raids near the city of Gallatin, Tenn. “The Yankees will never take me a prisoner again,” vowed Confederate General John Hunt Morgan.
◆1889 The Samoan Islands have been in the throes of a civil war since 1878 when the Hayes Administration negotiated a treaty for a US coaling station on Pago Pago.
◆1919 The American Legion is founded in Paris by 1000 veterans of the American Expeditionary Force who met to discuss transition to civilian life and what veterans could do to help each other adjust and to work together to further the rights of veterans.
◆1930 The USS Nautilus, the 1st streamlined submarine of US Navy, was launched.
◆1939 Hitler occupies the remnants of Czechoslovakia.
◆1941 In an important speech Roosevelt promises that the United States will supply Britain and the Allies “aid until victory” and that there will be an “end to compromise with tyranny.”
◆1942 Hawaii: NY's 27th Infantry Division arrives, first division to land overseas in WWII. 1942 Japanese begin intensive bombardment of forts guarding Manila Bay.
◆1943 The US 7th Fleet (Admiral Carpender) is formed to control naval operations around New Guinea.
◆1943 Third Battle of Kharkov: Germans under Manstein retake the city from the Soviets.
◆1944 Forces of the US 5th Army launches new attacks on Cassino.★
◆1944 On Bougainville, there are renewed attacks by Japanese forces against the American beachhead. US forces hold the effort.
◆1944 On Manus Island, elements of the US 7th and 8th Cavalry Divisions land on the north coast, near Lugos Mission. The Americans advance toward Lorengau along two routes.
◆1945 The US 7th Army launches attacks in the area around Saarbrucken and Bitche in a joint effort with US 3rd Army to eliminate German forces from the area between the Saar, Moselle and Rhine rivers.
◆1945 On Iwo Jima, US 5th Amphibious Corps continues to engage the Japanese forces which are now confined a small area in the northwest of the island.
◆1945 Admiral McCrea commands a squadron of American cruisers and destroyers in a bombardment of Matsuwa.
◆1947 Ensign John W. Lee becomes first African American officer commissioned in regular Navy. He was assigned to USS Kearsage.
◆1951 Eighth Army recaptured Seoul.
◆1951 U.S. Navy ships fired on Wonsan for a full seven minutes, killing an estimated 8,000 Chinese troops.
◆1955 The U.S. Air Force unveiled a self-guided missile.
◆1964 Cambodia was receiving military aid from Communist China.1969 Chinese-Russian border clash, hundreds die.
◆1973 President Nixon hints that the United States might intervene again in Vietnam to prevent communist violations of the truce.
◆1980 U.S. Navy reports critical shortage of qualified aircraft carrier pilots.
◆1997 Greek frogmen and U.S. Marines evacuated hundreds of foreigners trapped in Albania after that country’s descent into anarchy.
◆1997 Operation Gulf Shield begins. This operation is a counterpart to the counter narcotics operation Frontier Shield.
◆2000 In Iraq US and British warplanes hit southern Iraqi targets.
◆2003 American defense officials say a long-range B1-B bomber aircraft has been used for the first time against Iraqi targets in the no-fly zone in southern Iraq.