TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
2 May
◆73 The Romans occupy Masada, finding that the garrison has committed suicide.
◆1497 John Cabot departed for North America.
◆1501 Ermes Bentivoglio (19) initiates a massacre of the Marescotti at Bologna.
◆1519 Leonardo di Vinci, military engineer to the Borgia, friend to Machiavelli, artist, scientist, died at 67.
◆1645 Battle of Mergentheim: Franz von Mercy's Imperialists defeat Turenne's French.
◆1670 King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, made up of the group of French explorers who opened the lucrative North American fur trade to London merchants.
◆1776 France and Spain agreed to donate arms to American rebels.
◆1792 The Second Congress (1791-93) enacted the first Militia Act of 1792, which defined the authority of the President as Commander in Chief, to call out the militia.
◆1813 Battle of Lutzen: Napoleon defeats the Russo-Prussians.
◆1848 Battle of Chiapuzza: Italian Nationalists defeat the Austrians.
◆1862 Confederate forces evacuate Yorktown during the Peninsular campaign
◆1863 BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE (Day 2).
◆1890 The Oklahoma Territory was organized.
◆1892 Manfred Freiherr von Richthofen, the Red Baron, was born.
◆1926 US military "intervened" in Nicaragua.
◆1942 Admiral Chester J. Nimitz, convinced that the Japanese would attack Midway Island, visited the island to review its readiness.
◆1942 The Japanese begin the concentration of forces for what will become the battle of the Coral Sea.
◆1945 V-E DAY: At noon the German surrender becomes effective.
◆1945 The US 14th Corps units advancing west along the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon link up, near Naga, with units from the Legaspi area that have moved east. On this part of the island, Japanese forces have now been scattered.
◆1946 Marines from Treasure Island Marine Barracks, under the command of Warrant Officer Charles L. Buckner, aided in suppressing the three-day prison riot at Alcatraz Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay. WO Buckner, a veteran of the Bougainville and Guam campaigns, ably led his force of Marines without suffering a single casualty.
◆1968 The U.S. Army attacked Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and began a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.
◆1970 Student anti-war protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burned down the campus ROTC building. Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes ordered in the National Guard to take control of the campus.
◆1975 US Navy departs Vietnamese waters at end of evacuation.
◆1982 Falklands War: sub HMS 'Conqueror' sinks Argentine CL 'Belgrano', c. 300 die.
◆1999 NATO bombings struck the Obrenovac power plant in Belgrade and blacked out large areas of Serbia. A soft bomb (KIT-18) sprayed graphite over the power station and shorted its circuits.
◆2001 In China US technical experts examined the US spy plane on Hainan Island.
◆2011 Navy SEALs kill int’l terrorist Osama bin Laden.