TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
17 March
◆49 BCE Pompey and his army sail for Greece from Brindisi, besieged by Caesar.
◆45 BCE Battle of Munda: Caesar defeats the last Pompeians, in Spain.
◆1431 Battle of Arzanello: The Visconti defeat the Florentines.
◆1521 Ferdinand Magellan reaches the Philippines.
◆1756 St. Patrick’s Day was 1st celebrated in NYC at Crown & Thistle Tavern.
◆1762 In New York City, the first parade honoring the Catholic feast day of St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is held by Irish soldiers serving in the British army.★
◆1766 Britain repeals the Stamp Act but passes the Declaratory Act, which asserts Great Britain’s right to pass any laws governing the American colonies.
◆1776 During the American War for Independence, British forces are forced to evacuate Boston following Patriot General George Washington’s successful placement of fortifications and cannons on Dorchester Heights, which overlooks the city from the south.★
◆1811 The USS New Orleans becomes the first practical sidewheel steamboat in the US.
◆1828 Patrick R. Cleburne, Confederate general is born.
◆1837 Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, N.J. He was the 22nd (1885-1889) and 24th (1893-1897) president of the United States, the only President elected for two nonconsecutive terms.
◆1862 First elements of the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan departed Alexandria, Vir¬ginia, for movement by water to Fort Monroe and the Navy- supported Peninsular Campaign aimed at capturing Richmond. His strategy was based on the mobility, flexibility, and massed gunfire support afforded by the Union Navy’s control of the Chesapeake; indeed, he was to be saved from annihilation by heavy naval guns.
◆1863 USRC Agassiz defended Fort Anderson at New Bern, North Carolina, from a Confederate attack.
◆1863 Union cavalry attack Confederate cavalry at Kelly’s Ford, Virginia.★
◆1876 Gen. Crook destroyed Cheyenne and Ogallala-Sioux Indian camps.
◆1884 John Joseph Montgomery made the first glider flight in Otay, Calif.
◆1886 The Carrollton Massacre in Mississippi occurred and 20 African Americans were killed.
◆1898 USS Holland, first practical submarine, launched.
◆1910 The Camp Fire Girls organization was formed in Lake Sebago, Maine. It was formally presented to the public exactly two years later.
◆1918 The 5th Marine Regiment was the first Marine unit to move into WW I front-line trenches.
◆1924 Four Douglas army aircraft leave Los Angeles for an around the world flight.
◆1930 James Benson Irwin, Col. USAF, astronaut (Apollo 15), was born in Pittsburgh, Penn.
◆1942 Gen. Douglas MacArthur arrived in Australia to become supreme commander of Allied forces in the southwest Pacific theater during World War II.
◆1942 United States Naval Forces Europe established to plan joint operations with British.
◆1944 The US Eighth Air Force bombed Vienna.
◆1944 The battle for Cassino continues. Indian and New Zealander troops of US 5th Army mount attacks on the southwest of the town and along Snake’s Head Ridge to Point 593. German forces mount attacks against Castle Hill and Hangman’s Hill.
◆1944 On Manus Island, US forces reach their primary objective and take Lorengau airfield.
◆1945 The Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River, at Remagen, collapses under the combined strain of bomb damage and heavy use but US Army engineers have built several other bridges nearby and the advance over the Rhine continues.★
◆1951 The Chinese threw two fresh armies against the U.N. forces in an attempt to delay their advance.
◆1951 The newly trained ROK 8th Division replaced the U.S. 1st Marine Division in the Punchbowl area. The 1st Marine Division was moved to the western corridor where it relieved the ROK 1st Division on March 25.
◆1958 Navy Vanguard rocket launches 3.25 pound sphere from Cape Canaveral. This first US artificial satellite was designed to measure the Earth’s shape.
◆1959 The USS Skate became the 1st submarine to surface at the North Pole. The ships crew held a funeral service and scattered the ashes of explorer Hubert Wilkins (d.1958), who had attempted the feat in 1931.
◆1960 Eisenhower formed anti-Castro-exile army under the CIA.
◆1961 The U.S. increased military aid and technicians to Laos.
◆1962 The Soviet Union asked the U.S. to pull out of South Vietnam.
◆1966 A U.S. midget submarine located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain.
◆1967 The first woman Marine to report to Vietnam for duty, Master Sergeant Barbara J. Dulinsky, began her 18-hour flight to Bien Hoa, 30 miles north of Saigon.★
◆1970 The United States cast its first veto in the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. killed a resolution that would have condemned Britain for failure to use force to overthrow the white-ruled government of Rhodesia.
◆1973 First POWs were released from the “Hanoi Hilton” in Hanoi, North Vietnam.
◆1988 Planeloads of U.S. soldiers arrived at Palmerola Air Base in Honduras in a show of strength ordered by President Reagan.