TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
21 May
◆427 BCE Plato, wrestler, hoplite, philosopher, born.
◆1511 Battle of Casalecchio: French defeat the Papal Army.
◆1542 On the banks of the Mississippi River in present-day Louisiana, Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto dies, ending a three-year journey for gold that took him halfway across what is now the United States.
◆1850 Washington Navy Yard begins work on first castings for the Dahlgren guns.
◆1856 Lawrence, Kansas, was captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
◆1863 Nathaniel Banks, commander of the Union Department of the Gulf, surrounds the Confederate stronghold at Port Hudson and attacks.
◆1863 Under Lieutenant Commander J. G. Walker, U.S.S. Baron De Kalb, Choctaw, Forest Rose, Linden, and Petrel pushed up the Yazoo River from Haynes' Bluff to Yazoo City, Mississippi.
◆1864 Gen. David Hunter took command of Dept. of West Virginia.
◆1864 Gunfire from ironclad steamer U.S.S. Atlanta, Acting Lieutenant Thomas J. Woodward, and U.S.S. Dawn, Acting Lieutenant John W. Simmons, dispersed Confederate cavalry attacking Fort Powhatan on the James River, Virginia.
◆1881 In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.
◆1917 USS Ericsson fires first US torpedo of World War I.
◆1940 Nazis surrounded the British Army at Dunkirk.
◆1941 The first U.S. ship, the SS Robin Moor, was sunk by a U-boat. Roosevelt describes the sinking of the Robin Moor as "an act of intimidation" to which "we do not propose to yield."
◆1944 A small American force lands at Sperlonga, having embarked at Gaeta. Meanwhile, forces of the US 5th Army continue attacking. The US 2nd Corps captures Fondi while the French Expeditionary Corps takes Campodimele. German resistance in the Liri Valley and around Pico prevents significant gains in these areas.
◆1944 The American beachhead at Arare is reinforced and the airfield at Wadke is repaired.
◆1945 On Okinawa, US 3rd Amphibious Corps reports advances near the Horseshoe, Half Moon and Wana positions, on the western flank. On the east-side, US 7th and 96th Divisions (parts of US 24th Corps) attack near Yonabaru. Japanese forces begin to pull out of the Shuri Line.
◆1945 The Japanese supply base at Malaybalay on Mindanao is captured by elements of the US 31st Division.
◆1951 The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacked to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.
◆1961 Governor Patterson declared martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
◆1964 The Navy initiates a standing carrier presence at “Yankee Station” in the South China Sea.
◆1968 The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, was last heard from. The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
◆1970 The National Guard was mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
◆1980 Ensign Jean Marie Butler became the first woman to graduate from a U.S. service academy as she accepted her degree and commission from the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.