TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
14 October
◆633 Battle of Haethfelth: Kings Penda of Mercia & Cadwallon of Gwynedd defeat Edwin of Northumbria.
◆1066 Battle of Hastings: William the Conqueror wins England. ★
◆1282 Battle of Nicotera: Catalan fleet defeats the Angevins.
◆1431 Battle of Waidhofen: The Hapsburgs defeat the Hussites.
◆1734 Francis Lightfoot Lee, US farmer and signer of the Declaration of Independence), was born.
◆1758 Battle of Hochkirch: Austrian Marshal Daun defeats Frederick the Great.
◆1773 Britain's East India Company tea ships' cargo was burned at Annapolis, Md.
◆1805 Battle of Elchingen: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1806 Battle of Auerstadt: Davout's outnumbered French defeat the Prussians.
◆1806 Battle of Jena: Napoleon's French defeat the outnumbered Prussians.
◆1832 Blackfeet Indians attacked American Fur Company trappers near Montana’s Jefferson River, killing one.
◆1890 Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States (1953-1961), was born in Denison, Texas.★
◆1917 Marines 1st Aeronautic Co. prepared for Azores duty at Cape May, New Jersey.
◆1918 Naval Aviators of Marine Day Squadron 9 make first raid-in-force for the Northern Bombing Group in World War I when they bombed German railroad at Thielt Rivy, Belgium.
◆1942 On Guadalcanal, despite the damage from the night's shelling by the Japanese, American aircraft take off from Henderson Field. They damage three Japanese transports unloading at Tassafaronga.
◆1943 The American 8th Air Force conducts a raid on the German ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt. The force of 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses does considerable damage to the target but lose 60 planes with others damaged. The loss rate is too high to maintain so the USAAF abandons long-range, unescorted daylight raids.
◆1943 Along the Volturno River in Italy, the US 5th Army offensive continues. The 6th Corps continues to advance while elements of the British 10th Corps cross the river and continue to push forward. In the east, the Canadian 1st Division (part of British 13th Corps, 8th Army) captures Campobasso.
◆1944 German Field Marshal Rommel (52) died.★
◆1944 On Peleliu, the US 81st Infantry Division replaces the US 1st Marine Division in the front line on the island. American authorities announce that the occupation of Angaur has been completed but Japanese remnant forces continue to resist in the north of the island.
◆1944 US Task Group 38.4 conducts air strikes on Aparri Airfield on Luzon.
◆1944 One group from US Task Force 38 (Admiral Mitscher) continues to launch air strikes on Japanese positions. The 246 American planes engaged suffer 23 aircraft lost. The cruiser USS Houston is also crippled in a torpedo attack. Meanwhile, American B-29 Superfortress bombers, operating from bases in China, bomb the island.
◆1947 Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager broke the sound barrier for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.★
◆1949 Leaders of the American Communist Party were convicted of conspiracy to advocate the violent overthrow of the US government under provisions of the Smith Act. They were sentenced with fines and imprisonment.
◆1950 North Korean aircraft bombed Kimpo Airfield and Inchon Harbor.
◆1952 Operation SHOWDOWN commenced as the 7th Infantry Division and the ROK 2nd Infantry Division attempted to seize the Sniper Ridge complex and improve IX Corps' defensive line north of Kumwha.
◆1962 The CIA U-2 mission detected Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba.★
◆1966 175 US airplanes bombed North Vietnam.
◆1968 The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.
◆2001 US warplanes hit Afghanistan targets around Kabul and knocked out the overseas telephone exchange. Bombs also hit the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar, Jalalabad and Heart. Abu Baseer al-Masri, al Qaeda fighter and Egyptian militant, was killed near Jalalabad.
◆2003 It was reported that Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers proposed an elevator reaching 62,000 miles into the sky to launch payloads into space.