TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
2 November
◆1355 Edward III lands at Calais in a new campaign against the French.
◆1519 Cortes meets Montezuma in Tenochtitlan.
◆1642 Battle of Breitenfeld: Swedes defeat the Imperialists.
◆1743 Daniel Boone was born, militiaman, frontiersman, died 1820.
◆1772 The first Committees of Correspondence were formed in Massachusetts under Samuel Adams.
◆1783 Gen. George Washington issued his "Farewell Address to the Army" near Princeton, N.J.
◆1795 James Knox Polk, the 11th president of the United States, was born in Mecklenburg County, N.C.
◆1820 The Revenue cutter Louisiana captured five pirate vessels during a cruise from Florida to Cuba.
◆1835 Sam Houston is chosen C-in-C of the Texas Army.
◆1824 Popular presidential vote was 1st recorded; Jackson beat J.Q. Adams.
◆1852 Franklin Pierce was elected US president over Gen’l. Winfield Scott, who ran as a Whig. In 1852, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution giving Scott the pay and rank of a lieutenant general. Scott was the first to hold this rank since George Washington.
◆1861 Controversial Union General John C. Fremont is relieved of command in the Western Department and replaced by David Hunter.
◆1865 Warren Gamaliel Harding, the 29th president of the United States (1921-1923), was born near Corsica, Ohio.
◆1867 Battle of Tahi: Brazilians partially encircle the Paraguayan fortress at Humaita.
◆1880 James A. Garfield was elected 20th president. During the Civil War, Garfield was a commander at the bloody fight at Chickamauga.
◆1889 North Dakota was made the 39th state.
◆1889 South Dakota is made the 40th state.
◆1892 Lawmen and soldiers surrounded outlaws Ned Christie and Arch Wolf near Tahlequah, Indian Country (present-day Oklahoma). It would take dynamite and a cannon to dislodge the two from their cabin.
◆1914 "Battle of the Bees": A British attempt to capture Tanga, German East Africa, from the sea is defeated by the 5th, partially due to counterattacks by African bees.
◆1917 In the Lansing-Ishii Agreement the US recognized Japan's privileges in China.
◆1918 Americans capture Buzancy. The 2nd Division marches right through the enemy positions and advances another five miles.
◆1920 Warren G. Harding was elected 29th president.
◆1920 Pittsburgh radio station KDKA broadcast the results of the 1920 presidential race between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox. This was the first significant public radio news broadcast. The following year, Americans spent $10 million on radios. By 1922, some 500 radio stations were broadcasting programs, and the era of electronic entertainment had begun.
◆1923 US Navy aviator, H.J. Brown, set new world speed record of 259 mph in a Curtiss racer.
◆1931 VS-14M on the USS Saratoga and VS-15M on the USS Lexington were the first Marine carrier-based squadrons.1942 - Lt. General Dwight D. Eisenhower arrived in Gibraltar to set up an American command post for the invasion of North Africa, Operation Torch.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, the "Tokyo Express," the flotilla of Japanese destroyers supplying their forces, begins to be very active. The American advance in the west continues slowly with some successes.
◆1943 The Battle of Empress Augusta Bay in Bougainville ended in U.S. Navy victory over Japan. US Task Force 39 detects the approach of the Japanese cruiser squadron led by Admiral Omori (steaming from Rabaul in New Britain Island to Bougainville), shortly after midnight. In the engagement that follows the Japanese lose 1 cruiser and 1 destroyer and most of the other ships are damaged. The Americans suffer damage to 2 cruisers and 2 destroyers. However, the Japanese force abandons its mission. On Bougainville, the US 3rd Marine Division expands its beachhead. During the day, Japanese aircraft attack the ships of US Task Force 39 without success. Aircraft from US Task Force 38 raid Buna and Buka. Meanwhile, the US 2nd Marine Parachute Battalion on Choiseul continues to engage Japanese forces. This is a diversion from the attack on Bougainville.
◆1943 The Japanese base at Rabaul on New Britain is raided by about 160 land-based aircraft of the US 5th Air Force. About 20 planes on each side. Three ships are sunk in the harbor.
◆1943 On the west coast of the Trigno River in Italy, the US 5th Army continues its slow advance. Elements of the British 10th Corps reach Garigliano.1944 - Auschwitz began gassing inmates.
◆1944 Elements of the US 5th Army take Casseta, south of Bologna.
◆1944 During the day, the US 8th Air Force attacks the Leuna synthetic oil plant at Merseburg. The Americans claim 183 German fighters (including 4 jets) destroyed for the loss of 40 bombers and 28 fighters (including losses to antiaircraft defenses). During the night, Bomber Command attacks Dusseldorf with 992 bombers as well as sending smaller forces to strike other targets. A total of 20 planes are reported lost in all operations.★
◆1948 President Truman was elected 33rd president in an upset for prognosticators.
◆1950 After offering stiff resistance to troops of the 7th Marines south of the Chosin (Changjin) Reservoir, the Chinese 124th Division withdrew into the mountains.
◆1962 Pres. Kennedy reported that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
◆1962 Lt. Col. John H. Glenn (first American to orbit the earth and the world's only septuagenarian astronaut) became first recipient of the Alfred A. Cunningham Trophy for outstanding Marine pilots.
◆1963 Following the overthrow of his government by South Vietnamese military forces the day before, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother are captured and killed by a group of soldiers.
◆1967 President Johnson holds a secret meeting with some of the nation's most prestigious leaders, who were collectively called "the Wise Men."
◆1968 Operation Search Turn began in Mekong Delta. The first of the SEA LORDS barrier campaigns was a five-day US and Vietnamese Navy operation to interdict the waterways and canals in Kien Giang Province along the Cambodian border and to secure the canals running between Ha Tien and Rach Gia.
◆1976 Former Georgia Gov. (James Earl) Jimmy Carter defeated Republican incumbent Gerald R. Ford.
◆1990 The White House announced that President Bush planned to spend Thanksgiving with American GI’s in Saudi Arabia.