TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
1 October
◆331 BCE Alexander the Great trounces the Persians at Gaugamela. The Battle took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a decisive victory for the Macedonians and led to the fall of the Persian Empire.★
◆1285 Battle of the Col de Panissars: Peter III of Aragón defeats Philip III of France.
◆1496 Battle of Eboli: The French defeat the Neapolitans.
◆1756 Battle of Lobositz: Prussians defeat the Austrians.
◆1768 English troops under General Gage landed in Boston. Soldiers drawn chiefly from the 14th and 29th Infantry Regiments, and numbering about 700 men, landed at Boston without opposition.
◆1800 U.S. Schooner Experiment captures French Schooner Diana.
◆1800 Spain cedes Louisiana to France in return for Tuscany, but retains the right of first refusal should Napoleon chose to dispose of the place.
◆1835 Battle of Guadalupe Ford: Texians defeat the Mexicans.
◆1837 A treaty was made with the Winnebago Indians.
◆1864 The Condor ran aground at the mouth of the Cape Fear River near Wilmington, North Carolina. A Union gunboat had been pursuing the ship.
◆1874 Supply Corps purser, LT J. Q. Barton, given leave to enter service of new Japanese Navy to organize a Pay Department and instruct Japanese about accounts. He served until 1 October 1877 when he again became a purser in the U.S. Navy. In 1878, the Emperor of Japan conferred on him the Fourth Class of Rising Sun for his service.
◆1878 General Lew Wallace was sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, Billy the Kid and wrote Ben-Hur.
◆1880 John Philip Sousa started his 12-year tour as director of the US Marine Band. He premiered many of his marches and produced the first commercial phonograph recordings.
◆1924 Jimmy Carter, 39th president of the U.S. (1977-1981), was born in Plains, Georgia.
◆1928 First class at school for enlisted Navy and Marine Corps Radio intercept operators (The "On the roof gang")
◆1934 Adolph Hitler expanded the German army and navy and created an air force, violating Treaty of Versailles.
◆1936 General Francisco Franco was proclaimed the head of an insurgent Spanish state.
◆1938 Germany annexed Sudetenland (1/3 of Czech Republic) as a result of the Munich Conference between Germany, England and France.
◆1942 Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter, 1st US jet, made its maiden flight.
◆1942 In New Guinea, GEN MacArthur issues orders for the Allied advance on Gona and Buna. Australian forces have already begun to move forward along the Kokoda Trail. A US force is to move over the parallel Kapa Kapa Trail to join the Australians in cutting off the Japanese retreat at the Kumusi River. There are also to be landings along the north coast between Milne bay and Cape nelson, especially in Wanigela.
◆1942 Fuel oil is now rationed in most parts of the US.
◆1943 Allied forces captured Naples during World War II. British troops in Italy entered Naples and occupied Foggia airfield. In response Hitler orders Kesselring to hold a line south of Rome during the coming months rather than retire farther north.
◆1944 The U.S. First Army began the siege Aachen, Germany.
◆1945 The 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment landed and occupied Chinwangtao, China.
◆1950 The ROK 3rd Infantry Division crossed the 38th parallel in pursuit of the retreating In Mun Gun, the North Korean Army. The U.S. Army's Puerto Rican 65th Infantry Regiment arrived in Korea and was assigned to the 3rd Infantry Division. The USS Magpie struck a mine while sweeping a channel two miles off Chuksan, becoming the first U.S. Navy vessel to be sunk during the war. Twenty-one members of her 33-man-crew were lost.
◆1955 Commissioning of USS Forrestal (CVA-59), first of postwar supercarriers.
◆1979 US returned the Canal Zone, but not the canal, to Panama after 75 years.
◆1990 Air Force General and VP candidate Curtis E. LeMay died at March Air Force Base, California, at age 83.★
◆1990 USS Independence (CV-62) enters Persian Gulf (first carrier in Persian Gulf since 1974)
◆1992 The U.S. Senate voted 93-to-6 to approve the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
◆1993 US troop strength in Somalia 5,675 (4,228 under UN command and 1,447 in the Quick Reaction Force).
◆1995 France detonated another nuclear device, 5 times more powerful than the last one, on Fangatouga Atoll in the South Pacific.
◆1997 In Bosnia NATO seized 4 key Bosnian Serb television transmitters.
◆1997 The first African-American female colonel in the Marine Corps was promoted to that rank during a ceremony at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. Colonel Gilda A. Jackson, a native of Columbus, Ohio, made Marine Corps history when she achieved the rank of colonel. She was serving as Special Projects Officer, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing at the time of her promotion.
◆1998 The US Dept. of Defense said that it would spend an estimated $50 million this year to provide Viagra to soldiers, sailors, fliers, retirees and their dependents.