TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
4 May
◆1471 Battle of Tewksbury: Yorkists defeat the Lancastrians, making Edward IV King of England.
◆1626 Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan Island. Peter Minuit became director-general of New Netherlands. Indians sold Manhattan Island for $24 (1839 dollars) in cloth and buttons. The 1999 value would be $345. The site of the deal was later marked by Peter Minuit Plaza at South Street and Whitehall Street.
◆1652 Battle of Etampes: Turenne's French Royal Army defeats the Fronde rebels.
◆1799 English capture Seringapatam, India.
◆1862 - Battle at Williamsburg, Virginia.
◆1863 Battle of Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.
◆1863 Porter departed Grand Gulf with his gunboat squadron and rendezvoused that evening with the Farragut fleet at the mouth of the Red River.
◆1864 BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS.
◆1916 Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.
◆1917 First Navy ships, Destroyer Division 8, arrive at Queenstown, Ireland, to provide convoy escorts against German U-boats.
◆1942 The U.S. began food rationing.
◆1942 The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Ernest J. King, ordered the Coast Guard Auxiliary to organize into a anti-submarine patrol force, which becomes known as the "Corsair Fleet" for service along the east coast.
◆1942 Fighting lessens on Mindanao. Japanese bombardment of the American forces on Corregidor is very intense.
◆1942 Aircraft from the USS Yorktown positioned 100 miles south of Guadalcanal, attack Japanese forces off Tulagi. The Yorktown then returns south to join the American Task Force 17 which is assembling to engage the Japanese. American actions are dictated by their code breaking which has revealed many of the Japanese plans to them.
◆1945 BATTLE OF OKINAWA: The Japanese 32nd Army counterattacks. Artillery that was formerly concealed is used to support infantry charges. The US 7th and 77th Divisions hold the assaults. Meanwhile, the US 1st Marine Division attacks Machinato airfield and suffers heavy losses. At sea, Kamikaze attacks sink 14 small ships and damage the escort carrier Sangamon, 1 destroyer, and other ships. Some 131 Japanese planes are claimed to be shot down. The British carrier Formidable is damaged by a Kamikaze attack off the Sakishima Islands.
◆1945 On Luzon, the US 25th Division, part of US 1st Corps, capture Mount Haruna, west of the Balete Pass. Northwest of Manila, elements of the US 11th Corps attack toward Guagua but are forced back by Japanese defenses. On Mindanao, the US 24th Division mops up in around Davao while elements of the US 31st Division patrol north of Zibawe. Elements of the US 41st Division reach Parang, north of Cotabato while other forces land north of Digos, near Santa Cruz. On Negros, the Americal Division attempts to reopen its supply lines, which have been cut by the Japanese forces, in the eastern part of the island.
◆1951 The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to raise the maximum strength of the Marine Corps to 400,000 -- double its strength at the time. The bill also made the Commandant of the Marine Corps a consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
◆1961 Pilot CDR Malcolm D. Ross, USNR, and medical observer LCDR Victor A. Prather, Jr., ascended in two hours to over 110,00 feet in Strato-Lab 5, a 411-foot hydrogen filled balloon launched from from the deck of USS Antietam. This was the highest altitude attained by man in an open gondola. Tragically, Prather drowned during the recovery.
◆1961 At a press conference, Secretary of State Dean Rusk reports that Viet Cong forces have grown to 12,000 men and that they had killed or kidnapped more than 3,000 persons in 1960.
◆1970 President Richard Nixon’s May 1st announcement of the American incursion into Cambodia leads to massive anti-Vietnam war protests on college campuses nationwide.
◆1972 The Vietcong formed revolutionary government in Quang Tri South Vietnam.
◆1989 US launched Magellan to Venus.
◆1993 The United States handed over control of the relief effort in Somalia to the United Nations.
◆1998 The Clinton administration invoked sanctions against North Korea and Pakistan for a secret 1997 missile deal. Pakistan’s military named the acquired missile, Ghauri, after a famous Muslim warrior who slew a Hindu emperor named Prithvi, the name of a Russian made Indian missile.
◆2001 US experts, following 3 days of inspections, said the US spy plane on China’s Hainan Island could be repaired and flown home.
◆2003 A Soyuz spacecraft safely delivered a three-man, US-Russian crew to Earth in the first landing since the Columbia space shuttle disaster.