TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
30 October
◆69 Following the Second Battle of Bedriacum, Vespasian's victorious troops sack Cremona.
◆1137 Battle of Rignano: Count Ranulf II of Alife defeats King Roger II of Sicily.
◆1281 Battle of Homs: The Mamlukes defeat the Mongols.
◆1340 Battle of Rio Salado: Afonso IV of Portugal & Alfonso XI of Castile defeat Abu al-Hasan 'Ali the Marinid & Yusuf I the Nasrid.
◆1735 John Adams, second president of the United States (1797-1801), was born in Braintree (Quincy), Mass. In three remarkable careers as a foe of British oppression and champion of independence (1761 77), as an American diplomat in Europe (1778 88), and as the first vice-president (1789 97) and then the second president of the United States (1797 1801) John Adams was a founder of the United States.
◆1775 Congress authorizes four, by adding two to the pair authorized on 13 october, vessels for the defense of the United Colonies one to carry twenty guns, the other thirty-six, and increasing the membership of the Marine Committee to eleven.
◆1799 William Balch becomes Navy's first commissioned Chaplain.
◆1805 Second Battle of Caldiero: French defeat the Austrians.
◆1808 Battle of Durango: French defeat the Spanish.
◆1813 Battle of Hanau: Napoleon defeats the Austro-Bavarians.
◆1862 Dr. Richard Gatling patented a machine gun. The Gatling Gun consisted of six barrels mounted in a revolving frame.★
◆1882 William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr., American admiral, was born. He played an instrumental role in the defeat of Japan during World War II.★
◆1918 Germany sent a note to the U.S.A. stating Armistice terms are being awaited.
◆1922 Mussolini sent his black shirts into Rome and formed a government. The Fascist takeover was almost without bloodshed.
◆1939 German U boat failed in an attack of English battleship Nelson with Winston Churchill, Dudley Pound and Charles Forbes aboard.
◆1941 President Roosevelt, determined to keep the United States out of the war while helping those allies already mired in it, approves $1 billion in Lend-Lease loans to the Soviet Union.
◆1943 The US 5th Army captures Mondragone on the west coast after penetrating the German Barbara Line defenses in the area. Other elements of the army, further inland, continue their advance.
◆1944 Last transport for Auschwitz arrived in Birkenau.
◆1944 On land around the Leyte Gulf, troops of US 7th Infantry Division (part of US 24th Corps) take Dagami. As sea, two carriers are badly damaged by Kamikaze attacks as the ships of US Task Force 38 begin to withdraw toward Ulithi.
◆1950 The First Marine Division was ordered to replace the entire South Korean I Corps at the Chosin Reservoir area.
◆1950 Gen'l. Douglas McArthur ordered a combined Marine and Army outfit to cross the 38th parallel and "mop up" remaining North Korean soldiers. 12,000 Marines found themselves surrounded by 8 Chinese divisions. The marines lost 4,000 men and the Chinese lost 37,500.
◆1953 Gen. George C. Marshall was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Dr. Albert Schweitzer received his 1952 Peace Prize.
◆1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally approves National Security Council Paper No. 162/2 (NSC 162/2).
◆1965 Just miles from Da Nang, U.S. Marines repel an intense attack by successive waves of Viet Cong troops and kill 56 guerrillas.
◆1970 Fighting in the five northern-most provinces of Vietnam comes to a virtual halt as the worst monsoon rains in six years strikes the region. The resultant floods killed 293 people and left more than 200,000 homeless.
◆2001 NASA's 2001 Mars Odyssey snapped its first picture of Mars, one week after the spacecraft safely arrived in orbit around the Red Planet.