TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
19 March
◆1148 Second Crusade (led by Louis VII of France) reaches Antioch.
◆1279 Battle of Yamen: Mongols oust China's Song Dynasty.
◆1563 Peace of Amboise: ends the French First War of Religion (1562-1563).
◆1571 The Spanish capture Manila.
◆1687 French explorer Robert Cavelier (43), Sieur de La Salle, the first European to navigate the length of the Mississippi River, was murdered by mutineers while searching for the mouth of the Mississippi, along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico in present-day Texas.
◆1776 The Continental Congress authorizes privateering raids on British shipping. There was not much of a U.S .Navy during the Revolution. The U.S. forces at sea were primarily privateers, preying on British commerce. They were extremely effective in capturing British merchant ships, cutting off British supplies and raising insurance rates for shipping. Although they did not constitute a US Navy, American privateers were a significant presence at sea, and played an important role in the success of the Revolution.
◆1793 Battle of Le-Pont-Charron: Vendean rebels rout French Revolutionary troops by singing "La Marseillaise."
◆1815 Louis XVIII flees Paris, as Napoleon nears.
◆1822 Boston was incorporated as a city.
◆1862 Flag Officer Foote’s forces attacking Island No. 10 continued to meet with strong resistance from Confederate batteries. “This place, Island No. 10,” Foote observed, ”is harder to conquer than Columbus, as the island shores are lined with forts, each fort commanding the one above it. We are gradually approaching . . . The mortar shells have done fine execution.
◆1883 Joseph W. Stilwell, US general (China), was born.★
◆1892 James Alward Van Fleet was born in Coytesville, New Jersey and raised in Florida.
◆1898 USS Oregon departs San Francisco for 14,000 mile trip around South America to join U.S. Squadron off Cuba.
◆1903 The U.S. Senate ratified the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda.
◆1916 Eight Curtiss “Jenny” planes of the First Aero Squadron take off from Columbus, New Mexico, in the first combat air mission in U.S. history.★
◆1917 Navy Department authorizes enrollment of women in Naval Reserve with ratings of yeoman, radio electrician, or other essential ratings.
◆1918 Congress authorized time zones and approved Daylight Saving Time.
◆1918 A German seaplane was shot down for the first time by an American pilot.
◆1920 The U.S. Senate rejected for the second time the Treaty of Versailles by a vote of 49-35, falling short of the two-thirds majority needed for approval.
◆1924 U.S. troops are rushed to Tegucigalpa as rebel forces take the Honduran capital.★
◆1928 Marine planes bombed a bandit group at Nueve Segovia, Nicaragua.
◆1942 FDR ordered men between 45 and 64 to register for non military duty.
◆1942 SecNav gave Civil Engineering Corps command of Seabees.
◆1942 Central Burma: Japanese attack the Chinese 200th Division.
◆1945 US 7th Army forces complete the capture of Saarlouis. Fighting in Saarbrucken and the towns to the east continues. US 3rd Army continues to advance east and southeast toward the Rhine River. Worms is reached, while to the left and right other units are near Mainz and Kaiserslautern.
◆1945 In their northward attacks along the west coast, US 1st Corps captures Bauang, south of San Fernando, on Luzon.
◆1945 US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conducts air raids naval bases in the Inland Sea, with Kure specifically targeted.★
◆1945 Adolf Hitler issued his so-called “Nero Decree,” ordering the destruction of German facilities that could fall into Allied hands. Hitler ordered a scorched-earth policy. Hitler had decreed that Paris should be left a smoking ruin, but Dietrich von Choltitz thought better of his Führer’s order.
◆1949 In a precursor to the establishment of a separate, Soviet-dominated East Germany, the People’s Council of the Soviet Zone of Occupation approves a new constitution.
◆1952 The 1,000,000th Jeep was produced.★
◆1954 The 1st rocket-driven sled on rails was tested in Alamogordo, NM.
◆1963 In San Jose, Costa Rica, President John F. Kennedy and the presidents of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and El Salvador pledge to fight Communism.
◆1966 The South Korean Assembly votes to send 20,000 additional troops to Vietnam to join the 21,000 Republic of Korea (ROK) forces already serving in the war zone.
◆1970 The National Assembly grants “full power” to Premier Lon Nol, declares a state of emergency, and suspends four articles of the constitution, permitting arbitrary arrest and banning public assembly.
◆2003 Pres. Bush gives Saddam 24 days to leave Iraq or face invasion.