TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
20 May
◆685 Battle of Nechtansmere/Dunnichen Moss: King Bruide of the Picts defeats King Ecgfrith of Northumbria.
◆1217 Battle of Lincoln: Earl of Pembroke defeats the French.
◆1498 Vasco da Gama reaches Calicut, India.
◆1520 Battle of Vera Cruz: Cortes defeats Panfilo de Narvaez.
◆1521 Battle of Pamplona: The French oust the Spanish.
◆1591 The Dutch capture Zutphen from the Spanish.
◆1635 Battle of Avein: French defeat the Spanish.
◆1774 The British Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts closed the port of Boston (on Mar 28).
◆1775 North Carolina became the first colony to declare its independence. Citizens of Mecklenburg County, NC, declared independence from Britain.
◆1801 Four warships sent to Mediterranean to protect American commerce form Barbary pirates.
◆1815 Commodore Stephen Decatur (Frigate Guerriere) sails with 10 ships to suppress Mediterranean pirates' raids on U.S. shipping.
◆1844 USS Constitution sails from New York on round the world cruise.
◆1861 North Carolina voted to secede from the Union and became the 11th and last state to do so.
◆1861 The capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, Ala., to Richmond, Va.
◆1862 Union gunboats occupied the Stono River above Cole's Island, South Carolina, and shelled Confederate positions there.
◆1864 Battle at Ware Bottom Church, Virginia, killed or injured 1,400.
◆1864 Spotsylvania-campaign ended after 10,920 were killed or injured person.
◆1902 The United States ended its three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma. Theodore Roosevelt had criticized the government’s sluggish withdrawal of disease-stricken US troops from Cuba.
◆1918 The 1st electrically propelled warship (New Mexico).
◆1930 The first airplane, piloted by Charles Nicholson, was catapulted from a dirigible.
◆1939 Regular trans-Atlantic air service began as a Pan American Airways plane, the Yankee Clipper, took off from Port Washington, N.Y., bound for Marseilles, France.
◆1942 Carlos Hathcock was born, USMC sniper.
◆1943 Establishment of Tenth Fleet in Washington, DC, under command of ADM King to coordinate U.S. antisubmarine operations in Atlantic.
◆1943 On Attu, fighting continues in the Clevesy Pass. Japanese forces hold the high ground and offer determined resistance to the American attacks.
◆1944 A V2, on a test flight, lands near the Bug River about 80 miles east of Warsaw. Polish resistance workers hide the rocket before German forces arrive to recover it.
◆1944 Forces of the US 5th Army assault the German-held Senger Line. The French Expeditionary Corps attacks Pico; the Canadian 1st Corps attacks Pontecorvo; and the Polish 2nd Corps attacks Piedimonte San Germano.
◆1944 American forces have eliminated the Japanese garrison on Wadke. On the mainland, nearby, Japanese forces conduct weak attacks near Arare.
◆1944 American aircraft the carriers of Task Group 58.2 (Admiral Montgomery) conduct a raid.
◆1945 On Okinawa, American troops secure Chocolate Drop Hill after fighting in the interconnecting tunnels.
◆1945 On Mindanao, the US 31st Division, part of US 10th Corps, advances northward and occupies positions near the town of Malaybalay and encounter Japanese artillery fire. Other units advance north of Davao and resist nighttime counterattacks.
◆1951 Air Force Captain James Jabara, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the first Korean War ace and the first jet ace in aviation history after downing his fifth MiG. He accomplished this feat in an F-86 Sabre with one hung drop tank.
◆1951 North of Kansong on the east coast, the flagship of the U.S. 7th Fleet, the battleship USS New Jersey, fired for the first time in the Korean War.
◆1953 The U.S. National Security Council decided that if "conditions arise," air and ground operations would be extended to China and ground operations in Korea would be intensified.
◆1956 BIKINI ATOLL: The United States conducts the first airborne test of an improved hydrogen bomb, dropping it from a plane over the tiny island of Namu in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
◆1969 HAMBURGER HILL CAPTURED: After 10 days and 10 bloody assaults, Hill 937 in South Vietnam is finally captured by U.S. and South Vietnamese troops. The Americans who fought there cynically dubbed Hill 937 "Hamburger Hill" because the battle and its high casualty rate reminded them of a meat grinder.
◆1985 US began broadcasts to Cuba on Radio Marti.
◆1987 The commander of the U.S. frigate Stark, who lost 37 of his sailors in an Iraqi missile attack, broke his silence. Captain Glenn Brindel said he was warned only seconds before the missiles struck, and that he'd had no time to activate the ship's defense system.
◆1989 China declared martial law in Beijing. During the pro-democracy protests, Beijing officials ordered CBS and CNN to end their live on-scene reports.