TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
20 October
◆1494 French sack of Mordano, Papal States.
◆1803 The US Senate voted to ratify Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase.
◆1818 The United States and Britain established the 49th Parallel as the boundary between Canada and the United States.
◆1820 Spain sold a part of Florida to US for $5 million.
◆1824 U.S. Schooner Porpoise captures four pirate ships off Cuba.
◆1842 US Marines and sailors make an amphibious landing on Monterey, California and capture it.
◆1903 The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, ruled in favor of the United States. The deciding vote was Britain's, which embittered Canada. The United States gained ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.
◆1926 President Calvin Coolidge ordered Marines to guard the U. S. Mail.
◆1939 The German government warns that neutral merchant ships joining Allied convoys will be sunk without warning. It is also announced that Hitler has signed a decree by which 3,000,000 Jews now living in Poland will get their own territory in eastern Poland, with a Jewish capital at Lublin.
◆1942 The United States Congress passes the largest tax bill in the country's history. It will raise $6,881,000,000 in tax revenue.
◆1943 Elements of US 5th Army take Piedimonte d'Alife while other elements are advancing along the Volturno River.
◆1944 Seventh Fleet lands over 60,000 Army troops on Leyte, Philippines while Japanese aircraft attack. Elements of the US 6th Army (Krueger) land on the east coast of Leyte.★
◆1944 A carrier fleet, including 1 large carrier, 1 small carrier, 2 seaplane carriers, and 2 hybrid carrier-battleships as well as small ships, sails for the Philippines as part of Operation Sho-go. This force, the Northern Force (Admiral Ozawa) is intended to draw off the main American naval forces operating around the Philippines, to the northeast. Meanwhile, the 2nd Striking Force (Admiral Shima) sets sail with 3 cruisers and 7 destroyers.
◆1944 The US 19th Tactical Air Force breaches the dam at Dieuze, France, causing extensive flooding to the rear of German 1st Army, opposite US 3rd Army.
◆1945 Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon formed the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. A representative of Palestinian Arabs, although he did not sign the charter because he represented no recognized government, was given full status and a vote in the Arab League. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was granted full membership in 1976. Other current members include Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea (pending in 1999), Kuwait, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates.
◆1950 President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order "activating" the Magnuson Act, which had been passed by Congress earlier that month. This act, authorizing the president to invoke the Espionage Act of 1917, tasked the Coast Guard with the port security mission.
◆1950 In the first airborne operation of the Korean War, 2,860 paratroopers of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team jumped between Sukchon and Sunchon, 25 miles north of Pyongyang. Far East Air Force C-119s and C-47s transported the assault force and F-80 and F-51 fighters provided air cover.
◆1952 Task Force 77 establishes ECM Hunter/Killer Teams of 2 ECM equipped aircraft and an armed escort of 4 Skyraiders and 4 Corsairs.
◆1952 The destroyer escort Lewis was hit by shore fire off the West Coast of Korea. Seven sailors were killed and one wounded.
◆1955 "No Time for Sergeants," starring Andy Griffith, opened on Broadway.
◆1967 Operation Coronado VII began in Mekong Delta, Vietnam.★
◆1983 Due to political strife, USS Independence (CV-59) ordered to Grenada.
◆1994 The Pentagon announced that more than 100,000 U.S. troops were being taken off alert for possible movement to the Persian Gulf because the Iraqi threat to Kuwait had abated.
◆1995 France, the United States and Britain announced a treaty banning atomic blasts in the South Pacific—but only after France finished testing there the following year.
◆1999 The Cold War (1951-1977) locations of nuclear weapons minus their nuclear charges was partly revealed in a 1978 top secret Pentagon document titled "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons."
◆2001 US Special Forces struck 2 targets in Afghanistan that included an airfield and a command complex near Kandahar.