TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
16 October
◆1447 Battle of Bosco Marengo: Bartolomeo Colleoni's Ventians defeat the French.
◆1492 Columbus' fleet anchored at "Fernandina" (Long Island, Bahamas).
◆1710 British troops occupied Port Royal, Nova Scotia.
◆1775 Portland, Maine, burned by the British.
◆1813 Battle of Leipzig, Day 1: Austrians, Russians, Prussians, concentrate on Napoleon.
◆1813 Battle of Lindenau: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1859 On Sunday evening radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13 white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).
◆1861 The Confederacy started selling postage stamps.
◆1940 Registration begins for the draft according to the provisions of the Selective Service Act. The first drafts will be balloted on October 29th. This is the first peacetime draft in US history.
◆1942 Near Guadalcanal, American aircraft from the carrier USS Hornet raid supply bases on Santa Isabel. On Guadalcanal, the Japanese increase their bombardment of American positions in preparation for a major attack.1943 - As the US 5th Army offensive continues, German forces conduct a fighting withdrawal to the Barbara Line, in accordance with Kesselring's orders.
◆1944 Around Aachen, troops of the US 19th and 8th Corps (elements of US 1st Army) link up to the east of the city, completing its encirclement. Farther south, the US 6th Corps (part of US 7th Army) encounters heavy German resistance around Bruyeres on the Moselle River. To the south, the French 1st Army begins new attacks.
◆1944 Land-based aircraft of US 13th and 5th Air Forces, from Biak, Sansapor and Morotai, attack targets on Mindanao. US Task Group 77.4 (Admiral TF Sprague), with 18 escort carriers, launches air strikes on Leyte, Cebu and Mindanao.
◆1962 The Cuban missile crisis began as President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba.Kennedy organized the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. These 19 men will help him through the coming crisis.
◆1964 Red China detonated its first atomic bomb and became the world's 4th nuclear power.1990 US forces in the Persian Gulf reach 200,000.
◆2001 A wing of the US Senate building was closed following confirmation that a letter to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., carried anthrax. It was later found that the anthrax contained the additive bentonite to enhance suspension in air. 12 Senate offices were closed as hundreds of staffers underwent anthrax tests.
◆2002 Congress gives President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq to locate and destroy Saddam Hussein’s suspected stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the authorization encourages Bush to seek UN support for such action it did not require him to have it in order to attack Iraq. The war, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, starts in March 2003.