TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
9 May
◆48 BCE Caesar retreats from Dyracchium.
◆1754 The first American newspaper political cartoon was published. The illustration in Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, "Join or die."
◆1812 Napoleon leaves Paris to join his army for the invasion of Russia.
◆1813 U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison rescued Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.
◆1846 - US forced Mexico back to Rio Grande in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.
◆1846 MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR: Gen. Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande and killed a number of US soldiers in a surprise attack. Mexico believed that France and Britain would support it in a war against the US.
◆1849 Battle of Palestrina: The Garibaldini defeat the Neapolitans.
◆1862 Battle of Ft. Pickens, FL (Pensacola), evacuated by CSA.
◆1862 Battle of Farmington, Missouri.
◆1863 Captain Case, commanding U.S.S. Iroquois, reported that the Confederates were mounting large caliber guns on the northern faces of Fort Fisher at Wilmington.
◆1864 Union General John Sedgwick was shot and killed by a confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania, Va. His last words before getting hit were "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
◆1864 Union troops secure a crucial pass during the Atlanta campaign.
◆1864 Battle of Cloyd's Mt. and Swift Creek, VA (Drewry’s Bluff, Ft. Darling).
◆1864 Naval battle of Helgoland: Tegethoff's Austrians defeat the Danes.
◆1915 Battle of Artois begins.
◆1916 President Woodrow Wilson mobilizes the National Guard of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to patrol their borders with Mexico as Brigadier General John J. Pershing led an Army expedition into northern Mexico to try to capture or kill the bandit leader Pancho Villa and his group.
◆1926 Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole.
◆1941 The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by the Royal Navy, revealing considerable Enigma material. Enigma was the German machine used to encrypt messages during World War II.
◆1942 USS Icarus, CG, sank the U-352 off Charleston and took 33 prisoners, the first German prisoners taken in combat by any US force in World War II.
◆1942 64 Spitfires are successfully delivered to Malta by naval forces including the USS Wasp and the HMS Eagle. This time, the planes are quickly refueled and rearmed and there is no destruction on the ground as with the previous delivery. The USS Wasp returns to service in the United States after this operation.
◆1944 Japanese forces skirmish with American forces on the beachheads around Hollandia.
◆1944 Allied air forces begin large scale raids on airbases in France as part of the preparation for the D-Day invasion.
◆1945 On Luzon, forces of the US 145th Infantry Regiment, an element of US 11th Corps, captures Mount Binicayan and patrols into the Guagua area. On Mindanao, the US 24th Division continues to defend its bridgehead over the Talomo river against Japanese counterattacks but fails to build a bridge. The US 31st Division breaks off its attacks in the Colgan woods to allow air and artillery strikes on the Japanese positions.
◆1945 On Okinawa, the US 1st Marine Division captures Height 60 after eliminating Japanese positions on Nan Hill. The US 77th Division continues attacks on Japanese strong points north of Shuri. The Kochi Crest area has been secured by American forces.
◆1945 V-E Day (Victory-Europe) officially recognized.
◆1951 Three hundred and twelve Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy planes hit Sinuiju Airfield in one of the largest air raids of the war.
◆1955 Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe.
◆1962 A laser beam was successfully bounced off Moon for the first time.
◆1999 NATO struck artillery and mortar positions along with armored vehicles and Serbian troops in Kosovo.
◆2004 In Chad 2 days of fighting broke out as the army battled Islamic militants near a remote village on the country's western border with Niger, killing 43 "terrorists" of a group suspected of links with al-Qaida. Chad’s defense minister said hundreds of Arab militiamen from Sudan had raided a village inside Chad, setting off gun battles with the army that killed dozens of fighters.
◆2004 U.S. and British troops clashed with forces of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for a second day. 4 Iraqis were killed in an explosion in a Baghdad market. Militants loyal to al-Sadr took over Sadr City.