TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
23 March
◆625 Battle of Uhod: The Quriesh defeat the Muslims.
◆1630 French capture Pinerolo, Piedmont.
◆1713 The capture of the Tuscarora tribe’s stronghold of Fort Nohuke by South Carolinian forces ends Tuscarora raids. The tribe moves northward and joins the Iroquois Confederacy as the Sixth Indian Nation.
◆1775 During a speech before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry responds to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies by declaring, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”★
◆1780 British forces under Banastre Tarleton, moving to Charleston, scatter Colonial Militia at Bee’s Plantation, SC.
◆1806 After passing a wet and tedious winter near the Pacific Coast, Lewis and Clark happily leave behind Fort Clatsop and head east for home.
◆1806 French defeat Fra Diavolo at Santa Oliva, near Itri.
◆1815 USS Hornet captures HMS Penguin in battle lasting 22 minutes.
◆1849 Battle of Novara: Austrians defeat the Piedmontese.
◆1862 Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson attacks Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley fails.
◆1865 General Sherman and Cox’s troops reached Goldsboro, NC.
◆1879 Battle of Calama: Chileans defeat the Bolivians.
◆1882 SECNAV Hunt issues General Order No. 292 creating Office of Naval Intelligence.
◆1889 President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.
◆1901 A group of U.S. Army soldier led by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston captured Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.
◆1912 Werner von Braun, rocket expert (I Aim at the Stars), was born in Wirsitz, Germany. He led the development of the V-2 rocket during World War II.★
◆1917 Launching of USS New Mexico, first dreadnought with turboelectric drive.
◆1918 Paris shelled by German very-long range artillery.
◆1920 Britain denounced the U.S. because of their delay in joining the League of Nations.
◆1921 Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.
◆1933 The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers, i.e. the power to rule by decree. Hitler seized power in early 1933.
◆1942 During World War II, the U.S. government began moving Japanese-Americans from their West Coast homes to detention centers.
◆1943 Axis forces manage to hold the American advance near El Guettar.★
◆1944 On Bougainville, Japanese forces attack American positions without making any progress. Heavy Japanese losses are reported.
◆1944 US destroyers shell the Japanese seaplane base on Elouae in the St. Matthias Islands.
◆1945 US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conduct air raids on Okinawa. The American force includes 14 carriers organized in three groups. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the American ships.
◆1945 US 1st Army and the elements of US 3rd Army are extending their bridgeheads over the Rhine.
◆1945 Throughout March there have been small attacks by both US 2nd and 4th Corps of US 5th Army in the area around the Pistoia-Bologna road and to the west.
◆1945 On Luzon, San Fernando is taken by US 1st Corps with help from Filipino guerrillas.
◆1951 Operation TOMAHAWK, the second airborne operation of the war and the largest in one day, involved 120 C-119s and C-46s, escorted by sixteen F-51s.★
◆1957 US army sold its last homing pigeons.
◆1958 First launching of simulated Polaris missile from submerged tactical launcher facility off CA.
◆1960 Explorer 8 failed to reach Earth orbit.
◆1961 One of the first American casualties in Southeast Asia, an intelligence-gathering plane en route from Laos to Saigon is shot down over the Plain of Jars in central Laos.
◆1965 America’s first two-person space flight began as Gemini 3 blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard.★
◆1970 US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.*
◆1972 The U.S. called a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.
◆1973 US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.*
◆1978 US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.*
◆1983 In an address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan proposes that the United States embark on a program to develop antimissile technology that would make the country nearly impervious to attack by nuclear missiles.★
◆1985 US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.*
◆1988 President Reagan announced he would visit the Soviet Union for the first time, from May 29 until June 2, for his fourth summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.
◆1989 Fawn Hall, former secretary to onetime National Security Council aide Oliver North, completed two days of testimony at North’s Iran-Contra trial.
◆1999 The US Senate voted 58-41 to support US participation in a NATO bombing of Serbia.
◆1999 NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave the formal go-ahead for airstrikes against Serbian targets following the failure of Kosovo peace talks.
◆2002 Girls in Afghanistan celebrated their return to school for the first time in years.
◆2003 In the 5th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US-led warplanes and helicopters attacked Republican Guard units defending Baghdad while ground troops advanced to within 50 miles of the Iraqi capital. Pres. Bush put a $75 billion price tag on a down payment for the war. The 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed after it made a wrong turn into Nasiriya; 11 soldiers were killed, seven were captured. US and Iraqi officials say that Iraqi troops have halted an advance by US forces up the Euphrates river, engaging them in battle near the city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad. Iraqi state television says that an official of Iraq’s ruling Baath party has been killed in the fighting.