TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
7 October
◆316 Battle of Cibalae: Constantine defeats Licinius, supposedly with divine aid.
◆1492 Columbus missed Florida when he changed course.
◆1513 Battle of La Motta/Schio/Vicenza: Heavily outnumbered Spaniards defeat the Venetians.
◆1542 Explorer Cabrillo discovered Catalina Island off the Southern California coast.
◆1571 Battle of Lepanto: Turkish fleet defeated by an Italo-Spanish fleet.
◆1683 First Battle of Barkam: Poles & Imperialists defeat the Turk.
◆1690 English attack on Quebec fails.
◆1763 George III of Great Britain issued Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement.
◆1777 The second Battle of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. During the battle General Benedict Arnold was shot in the leg. Another bullet killed his horse, which fell on Arnold, crushing his leg.★
◆1780 Colonial patriots slaughtered a loyalist group at the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina.
◆1835 Brigadier General William H. Jackson, one of the most prominent soldiers of Tennessee, was born at Paris, TN.
◆1864 General Phil Sheridan wired General Ulysses Grant that he had destroyed so much between Winchester and Staunton that the area "will have little in it for man or beast."
◆1864 USS Washusett captures Confederate raider CSS Florida in harbor of Bahia, Brazil.
◆1864 Oct 7 -13, Battle of Darbytown Road, Va. More a protracted series of skirmishes than a battle.
◆1900 Heinrich Himmler, chicken farmer who became the head of the German Gestapo in Hitler's Germany, was born.
◆1943 Approximately 100 U.S. prisoners of war remaining on Wake Island were executed by the Japanese.
◆1949 Soviets establish the German Democratic Republic.
◆1950 The United Nations General Assembly approved an advance by UN forces north of the 38th Parallel in the Korean Conflict. Eighth Army, including British, Australian and Philippine units, relieved X Corps of tactical responsibility for the Seoul area. This action freed X Corps for operations on Korea's East Coast.
◆1963 President Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a limited nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. Testing was outlawed in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space.
◆1975 President Gerald Ford signs law allowing admission of women into service academies (Public Law 94 -106).
◆1985 The United States announced it would no longer automatically comply with World Court decisions.
◆1993 President Clinton ordered more troops, heavy armor and naval firepower to Somalia, but also announced he would pull out all Americans by the end of March 1994.
◆2001 Operation Enduring Freedom begins with carrier air strikes, and ship and submarine Tomahawk strikes.★
◆2001 In Afghanistan the Northern Alliance moved its front line artillery and infantry units against the Taliban.