TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
7 May
◆431 BCE Peloponessian War begins.
◆878 Battle of Ethandune: Alfred the Great defeats the Danes.
◆1429 Joan of Arc breaks the English siege of Orleans.
◆1592 Battle of Yvetot: Spanish defeat the French.
◆1748 French capture Maastricht.
◆1763 PONTIAC’S REBELLION begins when a confederacy of Native American warriors under Ottawa chief Pontiac attacks the British force at Detroit.
◆1769 Revolution was in the air on this day in 1769, as George Washington launched a legislative salvo at Great Britain's fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the American colonies.
◆1779 Continental Navy sloop Providence captures British brig Diligent off Cape Charles
◆1792 Capt. Robert Gray discovered Gray's Harbor in Washington state.
◆1862 At the Battle of Eltham's Landing in Virginia, Confederate troops struck Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley.
◆1864 BATTLE OF THE WILDERNESS (Day 4): Following two days of intense fighting in the Wilderness forest, the Army of the Potomac, under the command of Union General Ulysses S. Grant, moves south. Grant's forces had clashed with Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia in a pitched and confused two-day battle in which neither side gained a clear victory. Nonetheless, Lee could claim an advantage, since he inflicted more casualties and held off the Yankees, despite the fact that he was outnumbered.
◆1873 US marines attacked Panama.
◆1877 Indian chief Sitting Bull entered Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn.
◆1915 SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA: British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans.
◆1920 Russo-Polish War: The Poles capture Kiev.
◆1939 Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.
◆1940 FDR orders Pacific Fleet to remain in Hawaiian waters indefinitely.
◆1942 American Admiral Fletcher sends Task Force 44 to attack Japanese troop transports bound for Port Moresby. The Japanese retaliate with attacks from land based aircraft.
◆1943 Tunis and Bizerta are both captured in the afternoon by British and American forces, respectively. The Axis defenses can no longer contain the Allied pressure.
◆1943 Americans lay mines in the waters around New Georgia to prevent Japanese supplies reaching the island.
◆1944 The US 15th Air Force and British Bomber Command attack railway yards in Bucharest during the day and night, leaving the city in flames.
◆1944 The US 8th Air Force conducts a massive raid on Berlin with 1500 aircraft.
◆1944 The US 9th Air Force attacks the railway yards at Mezieres-Charleville with Marauders and P-38 Lightnings.
◆1944 Elements of the US 46th Division occupy Cape Hopkins Airfield in the Bismarck Archipelago. There is no Japanese resistance encountered.
◆1945 At 0141, General Alfred Jodl, signs the unconditional surrender of all German forces, East and West, at Reims, in northwestern France.
◆1945 On Luzon, the US 43rd Division advances about 5 miles toward Ipo. American troops attacking towards a ridge near Guagua are repulsed by Japanese defenders.
◆1945 On Okinawa, the US 7th Division completes the elimination of Japanese units that infiltrated into the Tanabaru area. Fruitless attacks on the Japanese held Shuri Line continue.
◆1947 General MacArthur approved the Japanese constitution.
◆1951 The Air Force's 3rd Air Rescue Squadron recovered its 50th behind-the-lines downed airman.
◆1954 US, Great Britain, and France rejected Russian membership in NATO.
◆1954 BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU: In northwest Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh forces decisively defeat the French at Dien Bien Phu, a French stronghold besieged by the Vietnamese communists for 57 days.
◆1963 The United States launched the Telstar II communications satellite. It made the first public transatlantic broadcast.
◆1975 President Ford formally declared an end to the "Vietnam era."
◆1975 The Viet Cong celebrated the takeover of Ho Chi Minh City -- formerly Saigon.
◆1984 A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who charged they had suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant. A consortium of Dow Chemical and other manufacturers paid $184 million to veterans from the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand but not South Korea.