This Date in Military History:

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1900 – The United States announced it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.

1900 – A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

1917 – During World War I, the first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops land in France at the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines, but by the time the Americans had lined up to take their first salute on French soil, an enthusiastic crowd had gathered to welcome them. However, the “Doughboys,” as the British referred to the green American troops, were untrained, ill-equipped, and far from ready for the difficulties of fighting along the Western Front. One of U.S. General John J. Pershing’s first duties as commander of the American Expeditionary Force was to set up training camps in France and establish communication and supply networks. Four months later, on October 21, the first Americans entered combat when units from the U.S. Army’s First Division were assigned to Allied trenches in the Luneville sector near Nancy, France. Each American unit was attached to a corresponding French unit. Two days later, Corporal Robert Bralet of the Sixth Artillery became the first U.S. soldier to fire a shot in the war when he discharged a French 75mm gun into a German trench a half mile away. On November 2, Corporal James Gresham and privates Thomas Enright and Merle Hay of the 16th Infantry became the first American soldiers to die when Germans raided their trenches near Bathelemont, France. After four years of bloody stalemate along the Western Front, the entrance of America’s well-supplied forces into the conflict was a major turning point in the war. When the war finally ended on November 11, 1918, more than two million American soldiers had served on the battlefields of Western Europe, and more than 50,000 of these men had lost their lives.

1918 – At Belleau Woods, France... after beating off some early morning counterattacks, Major Maurice Shearer sends signal, “Woods now entirely -US Marine Corps.”

1924 – After eight years of occupation, American troops left the Dominican Republic.

1926 – A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France was unveiled at St. Nazaire.

1927 – Direct commercial radio service between the Philippines and the US was inaugurated with a message from Manila to SF.

1936 – The 1st flight of Fw61 helicopter.

1942 – The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter flew for the first time.

1944 – Coast Guard LCDR Quentin R. Walsh and his small commando/reconnaissance unit forced the surrender of Fort du Homet, a Nazi stronghold at Cherbourg, France, and captured 300 German soldiers and liberated 50 U.S. paratroopers who had been captured on D-Day. For his heroic actions Walsh was awarded the Navy Cross.

1944 – Most of Cherbourg, except the port, is now occupied by US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army). The German garrison commander, General Schlieben and the naval commander, Admiral Hennecke, are taken prisoner. Meanwhile, British 2nd Army forces attacking toward Caen recieve naval support from HMS Rodney, the monitor Roberts and 3 cruisers.

1944 – The French Expeditionary Corps (part of the US 5th Army) advances north of Radicofani while South African elements of the British 8th Army, to the right, capture Chiusi.

1944 – The American 5th Amphibious Corps continues attacking on Saipan. A small Japanese reinforcement convoy heading for the island is met and forced away by US forces.

1944 – Admiral Small leads a cruiser and destroyer group to bombard Japanese positions on Matsuwa.

1945 – In the Herbst Theater auditorium in San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations sign the United Nations Charter, establishing the world body as a means of saving “succeeding generations from the scourge of war.” The Charter was ratified on October 24, and the first U.N. General Assembly met in London on January 10, 1946. Despite the failure of the League of Nations in arbitrating the conflicts that led up to World War II, the Allies as early as 1941 proposed establishing a new international body to maintain peace in the postwar world. The idea of the United Nations began to be articulated in August 1941, when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter, which proposed a set of principles for international collaboration in maintaining peace and security. Later that year, Roosevelt coined “United Nations” to describe the nations allied against the Axis powers–Germany, Italy, and Japan. The term was first officially used on January 1, 1942, when representatives of 26 Allied nations met in Washington, D.C., and signed the Declaration by the United Nations, which endorsed the Atlantic Charter and presented the united war aims of the Allies.

In October 1943, the major Allied powers–Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China–met in Moscow and issued the Moscow Declaration, which officially stated the need for an international organization to replace the League of Nations. That goal was reaffirmed at the Allied conference in Tehran in December 1943, and in August 1944 Great Britain, the United States, the USSR, and China met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., to lay the groundwork for the United Nations. Over seven weeks, the delegates sketched out the form of the world body but often disagreed over issues of membership and voting. Compromise was reached by the “Big Three”–the United States, Britain, and the USSR–at the Yalta Conference in February 1945, and all countries that had adhered to the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations were invited to the United Nations founding conference. On April 25, 1945, the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened in San Francisco with 50 nations represented. Three months later, during which time Germany had surrendered, the final Charter of the United Nations was unanimously adopted by the delegates.

On June 26, it was signed. The Charter, which consisted of a preamble and 19 chapters divided into 111 articles, called for the U.N. to maintain international peace and security, promote social progress and better standards of life, strengthen international law, and promote the expansion of human rights. The principal organs of the U.N., as specified in the Charter, were the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council. On October 24, 1945, the U.N. Charter came into force upon its ratification by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. The first U.N. General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, opened in London on January 10, 1946. On October 24, 1949, exactly four years after the United Nations Charter went into effect, the cornerstone was laid for the present United Nations headquarters, located in New York City. Since 1945, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded five times to the United Nations and its organizations and five times to individual U.N. officials.

1945 – US Marines land on Kume Island, where a new radar station is installed.

1945 – On Luzon, the American paratroopers dropped near Aparri link up with the US 37th Division. The divisional headquarters now takes command of the parachute battalion and the regimental task force, sent north earlier, as well as the Filipino guerrillas operating in the area.

1945 – American B-29 Superfortress bombers launch the first in a series of nighttime raids against Japanese oil refineries.

1948 – In order to implement the expanded postwar activities of the Coast Guard in the field of aids to navigation, Congress approved Public Law 786. It provided legislative authority for the Coast Guard to establish and operate maritime aids for the armed forces and LORAN stations essential for the armed forces and maritime and air commerce of the United States.

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1948 – In response to the Soviet blockade of land routes into West Berlin, the United States begins a massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people in West Berlin. On June 24, 1948, the Soviet Union blocked all road and rail travel to and from West Berlin, which was located within the Soviet zone of occupation in Germany. The Soviet action was in response to the refusal of American and British officials to allow Russia more say in the economic future of Germany. The U.S. government was shocked by the provocative Soviet move, and some in President Harry S. Truman’s administration called for a direct military response. Truman, however, did not want to cause World War III. Instead, he ordered a massive airlift of supplies into West Berlin.

On June 26, 1948, the first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany and landed in West Berlin. It was a daunting logistical task to provide food, clothing, water, medicine, and other necessities of life for the over 2 million fearful citizens of the city. For nearly a year, American planes landed around the clock. Over 200,000 planes carried in more than one-and-a-half million tons of supplies. The Soviets persisted with the blockade until May 1949. By then, however, it was apparent to everyone concerned that the blockade had been a diplomatic fiasco for the Russians. Around the world, the Soviets were portrayed as international bullies, holding men, women, and children hostage in West Berlin and threatening them with starvation. The unbelievably successful American airlift also backfired against the Russians by highlighting the technological superiority of the United States. By the time the Soviets ended the blockade, West Germany had become a separate and independent nation and the Russian failure was complete.

1950 – Far East Air Forces cargo planes began the evacuation of 700 U.S. State Department and Korean Military Advisory Group employees and their families. FEAF also sent ten F-51 Mustang fighters to the ROK forces.

1951 – The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.

1959 – In a ceremony presided over by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, the St. Lawrence Seaway is officially opened, creating a navigational channel from the Atlantic Ocean to all the Great Lakes. The seaway, made up of a system of canals, locks, and dredged waterways, extends a distance of nearly 2,500 miles, from the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Duluth, Minnesota, on Lake Superior. Work on the massive project was initiated by a joint U.S.-Canadian commission in 1954, and five years later, in April 1959, the icebreaker D’Iberville began the first transit of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Since its official opening, more than two billion tons of cargo, with an estimated worth of more than $300 billion, have moved along its canals and channels. Twenty-eight Naval vessels sail from Atlantic to Great Lakes, arrive to mark the formal opening of Saint Lawrence Seaway to seagoing ships.

1962 – NAVFAC Cape Hatteras makes first Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) detection of a Soviet diesel submarine.

1963 – President Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he made his famous declaration: “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) at the Berlin Wall.

1964 – A bomb explodes in an airport hangar near where General Westmoreland is addressing US servicemen returning to the United States. Two servicemen are injured, Westmoreland is not.

1965 – Hanoi Radio announces that the Vietcong now have ‘death lists,’ headed by the names of Ambassador Taylor, his deputy Alexis Johnson, Premier Ky, and General Thieu.

1965 – General William Westmoreland, senior U.S. military commander in Vietnam, is given formal authority to commit American troops to battle when he decides they are necessary “to strengthen the relative position of the GVN [Government of Vietnam] forces.” This authorization permitted Westmoreland to put his forces on the offensive. Heretofore, U.S. combat forces had been restricted to protecting U.S. airbases and other facilities.

1967 – An unarmed US Phantom jet strays off course and is shot down by Chinese planes near Hainan Island. The two crewmen eject safely and are rescued from the China Sea by a US Navy helicopter.

1968 – Speaking on behalf of the South Vietnamese House of Representatives, Duong Van Ba demands that Saigon be given a role in the Paris peace talks, asserting that ‘we should tell the United States government and the United States people that we suspect that there is now a plot to sell out South Vietnam to the Communists.’

1968 – Cyrus Vance, deputy US delegate to the peace talks, seeks to break a continuing impasse in the negotiations by appealing to North Vietnam for some sign that it is taking steps to scale down the level of military violence. Although this is the first time that US negotiators have urged military reciprocity in such broad terms, Xuan Thuy rejects the initiative and repeats Hanoi’s demand that all US bombing raids on North Vietnam be unconditionally terminated. Thuy also insists that the Saigon government be replaced by a coalition regime committed to a neutral foreign policy and eventual reunification.

1970 – Secretary of State Laird affirms the US plans to continue bombing raids inside Cambodia after 30 June. Laird makes clear the ‘primary emphasis’ of the raids will be the denial of routes for enemy troops and supplies, but refuses to rule out air support for allied ground combat troops.

1971 – The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers. The infamous Pentagon Papers gave insights into the Johnson administration’s thinking on the Vietnam War.

1972 – The United States establishes a 25-mile-wide buffer zone along Vietnam’s border with China, within which it will not bomb.


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1972 – The shift of fighter-bomber squadrons, involving up to 150 U.S. planes and more than 2,000 pilots from Da Nang, to bases in Thailand is completed. The shift was necessitated by the pending withdrawal of the U.S. infantry brigade that provided security for flyers at Da Nang. The departure of the U.S. unit was part of President Richard Nixon’s Vietnamization program that he had instituted in June 1969. Under this program, the responsibility for the war was to be gradually transferred to the South Vietnamese so U.S. forces could be withdrawn.

1973 – Navy Task Force 78 completes minesweeping of North Vietnamese ports.

1975 – There was a firefight on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota as FBI agents pursued a robbery suspect. In 1977 Leonard Peltier, an Ojibwa-Sioux Indian, was found guilty of murdering 2 FBI agents, Ronald Williams and Jack Coler as they lay wounded. In 1983 Peter Matthiessen wrote “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,” that described the related events. The book was pulled out of bookstores after an FBI agent and a former governor sued him for libel. Matthiessen claims to have spoken to the man who actually shot the agents.

1991 – A Kentucky medical examiner announced that test results showed President Zachary Taylor had died in 1850 of natural causes—and not arsenic poisoning, as speculated by a writer. Taylor’s remains were exhumed so that tissue samples could be taken.

1992 – Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III resigned, accepting responsibility for a “leadership failure” that resulted in the Tailhook sex-abuse scandal.

1993 – In retaliation for an Iraqi plot to assassinate former U.S. President George Bush during his April visit to Kuwait, President Bill Clinton orders U.S. warships to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in downtown Baghdad. On April 13, 1993, the day before George Bush was scheduled to visit Kuwait and be honored for his victory in the Persian Gulf War, Kuwaiti authorities foiled a car-bomb plot to assassinate him. Fourteen suspects, most of them Iraqi nationals, were arrested, and the next day their massive car bomb was discovered in Kuwait City. Citing “compelling evidence” of the direct involvement of Iraqi intelligence in the assassination attempt, President Clinton ordered a retaliatory attack against their alleged headquarters in the Iraqi capital on June 26. Twenty-three Tomahawk missiles, each costing more than a million dollars, were fired off the USS Peterson in the Red Sea and the cruiser USS Chancellorsville in the Persian Gulf, destroying the building and, according to Iraqi accounts, killing several civilians.

1996 – The Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Academy to admit women or forgo state support.

1996 – The US Senate Science, Technology and Space subcommittee sent a live audio feed over the Internet for the first time. The proceedings were on online commerce and encryption software.

1996 – The $1.6 billion Galileo spacecraft was expected to fly to within 527 miles of Ganymede, the largest moon of Jupiter. It was scheduled to photograph Jupiter and four of its 16 moons.

1996 – Guerrilla leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was sworn in as prime minister in Afghanistan as the Taliban militia launched an assault that killed 54 and wounded 118 people. Hekmatyar is a member of the dominant Pashtun group, unlike Rabanni and military commander Ahmad Shah Massoud who belong to the Tajik ethnic group.

1998 – In Thailand four Pakistanis were reported to have been arrested in Bangkok. They were suspected of planning to assassinate US Ambassador William Itoh and to launch a terrorist strike against the US embassy.

1999 – NATO reopened the main airport in Kosovo, 10 miles west of Pristina. The first flight was a Russian cargo plane. An advance contingent of Russian troops flew into Kosovo to help reopen a strategic airport and join an uneasy alliance with NATO peacekeepers.

2001 – Pres. Bush met with Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon who resisted pressure to move faster on a US backed cease-fire accord. Sharon insisted on a complete halt to Palestinian hostilities.

2001 – George Trofimoff (74), a retired US Army Reserve officer, was convicted in Tampa for spying for Moscow for 22 years while serving as a civilian interrogator of refugees and defectors in Germany. He was sentenced to life in prison on Sep 27. Trofimoff, who maintains his innocence, was sentenced to life in prison.

2002 – Ten Pakistani soldiers and two suspected al Qaeda militants were killed in a gun battle in the lawless tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

2004 – Taliban remnants claimed responsibility for the bomb attack that killed two Afghani United Nations election workers in eastern Afghanistan.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

WILLIAMS, JOHN
Rank and organization: Captain of the Maintop, U.S. Navy. Born: 1828, New Orleans, La. Accredited to: Louisiana. G.O. No.: 11, 3 April 1863. Citation: Serving as captain of the maintop of the U.S.S. Pawnee in the attack upon Mathias Point, 26 June 1861, Williams told his men, while lying off in the boat, that every man must die on his thwart sooner than leave a man behind. Although wounded by a musket ball in the thigh he retained the charge of his boat; and when the staff was shot away, held the stump in his hand, with the flag, until alongside the Freeborn.

CALLEN, THOMAS J.
Rank and organization: Private, Company B, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date. At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25-26 June 1876. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 24 October 1896. Citatlon: Volunteered and succeeded in obtaining water for the wounded of the command; also displayed conspicuously good conduct in assistlng to drive away the Indians.

GOLDIN, THEODORE W.
Rank and organization: Private, Troop G, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 26 June 1876. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 25 July 1855, Avon, Rock County, Wis. Date of issue: 21 December 1895. Citation: One of a party of volunteers who, under a heavy fire from the Indians, went for and brought water to the wounded .

GREAVES, CLINTON
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company C, 9th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Florida Mountains, N. Mex., 24 January 1877. Entered service at: Prince Georges County, Md. Birth: Madison County, Va. Date of issue: 26 June 1879. Citation: While part of a small detachment to persuade a band of renegade Apache Indians to surrender, his group was surrounded. Cpl. Greaves in the center of the savage hand-to-hand fighting, managed to shoot and bash a gap through the swarming Apaches, permitting his companions to break free .

SCOTT, GEORGE D.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25-26 June 1876. Entered service at: Mt. Vernon, Ky. Birth: Lancaster County, Ky. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire.

STIVERS, THOMAS W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25-26 June 1876. Entered service at: Mt. Vernon, Ky. Birth: Madison County, Ky. Date of issue: 5 October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire.

WELCH, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company D, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Little Big Horn, Mont., 25-26 June 1876. Entered service at: Ft. Snelling, Minn. Birth: New York, N.Y. Date of issue 5 October 1878. Citation: Voluntarily brought water to the wounded under fire.

*MURANAGA, KIYOSHI K.
Private First Class Kiyoshi K. Muranaga distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism in action on 26 June 1944, near Suvereto, Italy. Private First Class Muranaga’s company encountered a strong enemy force in commanding positions and with superior firepower. An enemy 88mm self-propelled gun opened direct fire on the company, causing the men to disperse and seek cover. Private First Class Muranaga’s mortar squad was ordered to action, but the terrain made it impossible to set up their weapons. The squad leader, realizing the vulnerability of the mortar position, moved his men away from the gun to positions of relative safety. Because of the heavy casualties being inflicted on his company, Private First Class Muranaga, who served as a gunner, attempted to neutralize the 88mm weapon alone.

Voluntarily remaining at his gun position, Private First Class Muranaga manned the mortar himself and opened fire on the enemy gun at a range of approximately 400 yards. With his third round, he was able to correct his fire so that the shell landed directly in front of the enemy gun. Meanwhile, the enemy crew, immediately aware of the source of mortar fire, turned their 88mm weapon directly on Private First Class Muranaga’s position. Before Private First Class Muranaga could fire a fourth round, an 88mm shell scored a direct hit on his position, killing him instantly. Because of the accuracy of Private First Class Muranaga’s previous fire, the enemy soldiers decided not to risk further exposure and immediately abandoned their position. Private First Class Muranaga’s extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit, and the United States Army.


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27 June

1776 – Thomas Hickey, who plotted to hand George Washington over to British, was hanged.

1778 – The Liberty Bell came home to Philadelphia after the British left.

1829 – In Genoa, Italy, English scientist James Smithson dies after a long illness, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson’s curious bequest to a country that he had never visited aroused significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Smithson had been a fellow of the venerable Royal Society of London from the age of 22, publishing numerous scientific papers on mineral composition, geology, and chemistry. In 1802, he overturned popular scientific opinion by proving that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals, and one type of zinc carbonate was later named smithsonite in his honor. Six years after his death, his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, indeed died without children, and on July 1, 1836, the U.S. Congress authorized acceptance of Smithson’s gift.

President Andrew Jackson sent diplomat Richard Rush to England to negotiate for transfer of the funds, and two years later Rush set sail for home with 11 boxes containing a total of 104,960 gold sovereigns, eight shillings, and seven pence, as well as Smithson’s mineral collection, library, scientific notes, and personal effects. After the gold was melted down, it amounted to a fortune worth well over $500,000. After considering a series of recommendations, including the creation of a national university, a public library, or an astronomical observatory, Congress agreed that the bequest would support the creation of a museum, a library, and a program of research, publication, and collection in the sciences, arts, and history.

On August 10, 1846, the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution was signed into law by President James K. Polk. Today, the Smithsonian is composed of 18 museums and galleries and many research facilities throughout the United States and the world. Besides the original Smithsonian Institution Building, popularly known as the “Castle,” visitors to Washington, D.C., tour the National Museum of Natural History, which houses the natural science collections, the National Zoological Park, and the National Portrait Gallery. The National Museum of American History houses the original Star-Spangled Banner and other artifacts of U.S. history. The National Air and Space Museum has the distinction of being the most visited museum in the world, exhibiting marvels of aviation and space history such as the Wright brothers’ plane and Freedom 7, the space capsule that took the first American into space. John Smithson, the Smithsonian Institution’s great benefactor, is interred in a tomb in the Smithsonian Building.

1862 – Confederates broke through the Union lines at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill on the 3rd day of the Seven Days Battle in Virginia.

1863 – There was a skirmish at Fairfax Courthouse in Virginia.

1864 – Union General William T. Sherman launches a major attack on Confederate General Joseph Johnston’s army at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in Georgia. Beginning in early May, Sherman began a slow advance down the 100-mile corridor from Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Atlanta, refraining from making any large-scale assaults. The campaign was marked by many smaller battles and constant skirmishes but no decisive encounters. Johnston was losing ground, but he was also buying time for the Confederates. With Sherman frustrated in Georgia, and Ulysses S. Grant unable to knock out Robert E. Lee’s army in Virginia, the Union war effort was stalled, casualty rates were high, and the re-election of Abraham Lincoln appeared unlikely. In the days leading up to the assault at Kennesaw Mountain, Sherman tried to flank Johnston. Since one of Johnston’s generals, John Bell Hood, attacked at Kolb’s Farm and lost 1,500 precious Confederate soldiers, Sherman believed that Johnston’s line was stretched thin and that an assault would break the Rebels. So he changed his tactics and planned a move against the center of the Confederate lines around Kennesaw Mountain. He feigned attacks on both of Johnston’s flanks, then hurled 8,000 men at the Confederate center. It was a disaster. Entrenched Southerners bombarded the Yankees, who were attacking uphill. Three thousand Union troops fell, compared to just 500 Confederates. The battle was only a marginal Confederate victory. Sherman remained in place for four more days, but one of the decoy attacks on the Confederate flanks did, in fact, place the Union troops in a position to cut into Johnston’s rear. On July 2, Johnston had to vacate his Kennesaw Mountain lines and retreat toward Atlanta. Sherman followed, and the slow campaign lurched on into the Georgia summer.

1874 – Using new high-powered rifles to devastating effect, 28 buffalo hunters repulse a much larger force of attacking Indians at an old trading post in the Texas panhandle called Adobe Walls. The Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne Indians living in western Texas had long resented the advancement of white settlement in their territories. In 1867, some of the Indians accepted the terms of the Treaty of Medicine Lodge, which required them to move to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) but also reserved much of the Texas Panhandle as their exclusive hunting grounds. Many white Texans, however, maintained that the treaty had ignored their legitimate claims to the area. These white buffalo hunters, who had already greatly reduced the once massive herds, continued to hunt in the territory. By the early 1870s, Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne hunters were finding it harder to locate buffalo, and they blamed the illegal white buffalo hunters. When the federal government failed to take adequate measures to stop the white buffalo hunters, the great chief Quanah Parker and others began to argue for war. In the spring 1874, a group of white merchants occupied an old trading post called Adobe Walls near the South Canadian River in the Indian’s hunting territory. The merchants quickly transformed the site into a regional center for the buffalo-hide trade. Angered by this blatant violation of the treaty, Chief Quanah Parker and Lone Wolf amassed a force of about 700 Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne braves.

On this day in 1874, the Indians attacked Adobe Walls. Only 28 hunters and traders occupied Adobe Walls, but they had two advantages over the Indians: the thick walls of the adobe structure were impenetrable to arrows and bullets, and the occupants had a number of high-powered rifles normally used on buffalo. The hunters .50 caliber Sharps rifles represented the latest technology in long-range, rapid firing weaponry. Already skilled marksmen, the buffalo hunters used the rifles to deadly effect, decimating the warriors before they came close enough even to return effective fire. On the second day of the siege, one hunter reportedly hit an Indian warrior at a distance of eight-tenths of a mile. Despite their overwhelmingly superior numbers, after three days the Indians concluded that Adobe Walls could not be taken and withdrew. The defenders had lost only four men in the attack, and they later estimated that the Indians had lost 13. Enraged by their defeat, several Indian bands subsequently took their revenge on poorly defended targets. Fearful settlers demanded military protection, leading to the outbreak of the Red River War. By the time the war ended in 1875, the Comanche and Kiowa had been badly beaten and Indian resistance on the Southern Plains had effectively collapsed.

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1905 – The dawn of the twentieth century witnessed a sustained burst of progressive activities as various disenfranchised elements of American society pushed to assert their rights. This was especially true in the world of organized labor, as workers marshaled their forces in the battle against Big Business. Along with heading to the picket line, workers formed new and increasingly more strident unions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was formally consecrated in Chicago on this day in 1905. Organized by industrial labor’s more militant members, including Eugene Debs, William D. Haywood (also known as ‘Big Bill’ Haywood) and the long-stymied Socialist segment of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), the IWW tilted at the formidable windmills of industrial capitalism and its caste-like wage system. As Haywood told the union’s first convention, the IWW’s “purpose” was the “emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism.” Towards that end, the IWW’s leaders sought to build a massive union that, rather than give in to labor’s nativist tendencies, built its numbers by pooling members from all races and ethnicites. Once the IWW became large enough, its leaders planned to call an apocalyptic strike that would effectively fell the capitalist system. Though the IWW did score some key victories, including leading a successful strike by textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts (1912), it also drew heavy fire from business leaders, government officials and conservative sectors of the union movement alike.

1914 – US signed a treaty of commerce with Ethiopia.

1916 – The 4th Marine Regiment defeated Dominican rebels in a stand-up bayonet attack.

1927 – The U.S. Marines adopted the English bulldog as their mascot.

1929 – Scientists at Bell Laboratories in New York revealed a system for transmitting television pictures.

1940 – A confidential meeting is held between British and Australian representatives and the United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull. The British and Australians ask for help in standing up to Japan. They wish the USA to take economic measures or to move more units of the fleet to Malaysian and Philippine waters or to offer to mediate between China and Japan. Hull is unable to agree to any of these moves which would involve a more active foreign policy than the American public is prepared to contemplate at this time.

1940 – The Germans set up two-way radio communication in their newly occupied French territory, employing their most sophisticated coding machine, Enigma, to transmit information. The Germans set up radio stations in Brest and the port town of Cherbourg. Signals would be transmitted to German bombers so as to direct them to targets in Britain. The Enigma coding machine, invented in 1919 by Hugo Koch, a Dutchman, looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes. The German army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. The Brits had broken the code as early as the German invasion of Poland and had intercepted virtually every message sent through the system. Britain nicknamed the intercepted messages Ultra.

1942 – The FBI announced the capture of eight Nazi saboteurs who had been put ashore from 2 submarines, one off New York’s Long Island and the other off of Florida. The men were tried by a military court and 6 were secretly executed in a DC jail. Ernest Burger and George Dasch were sentenced to 30 years in prison for their help in revealing the plot. They were pardoned in 1948 by President H.S. Truman.

1944 – American forces of 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) complete the capture of Cherbourg. The port, however, is not presently operational. To the left, the British 2nd Army continues attacks. Forces of the British 30th Corps capture Rauray, near Caen, and British 8th Corps launches new attacks.

1945 – On Luzon, units of the US 37th Division, part of US 1st Corps, reach Aparri, on the north coast. With the occupation of the whole of the Cagayan valley, the campaign for the recapture of the island is now effectively complete. The remaining Japanese forces are isolated in remote parts of Luzon and lack supplies or medical care.

1945 – The American carrier USS Bunker Hill is struck by a Kamikaze plane, killing 373 men.

1945 – The FCC allocates airwaves for 13 TV stations. Before World War II, a few experimental TV shows had been broadcast in New York, but the war postponed the development of commercial television. With the allocation of airwaves, commercial TV began to spread. The first regularly scheduled network series appeared in 1946, and many Americans viewed television for the first time in 1947, when NBC broadcast the World Series. Since privately owned television sets were still rare, most of the series’ estimated 3.9 million viewers watched the games from a bar.

1950 – President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam. At the Yalta Conference towards the end of World War II, the United States, the USSR, and Great Britain agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones. The country was split along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces occupying the northern zone and Americans stationed in the south.

In 1947, the United States and Great Britain called for free elections throughout Korea, but the Soviets refused to comply. In May 1948 the Korean Democratic People’s Republic–a communist state–was proclaimed in North Korea. In August, the democratic Republic of Korea was established in South Korea. By 1949, both the United States and the USSR had withdrawn the majority of their troops from the Korean Peninsula. At dawn on June 25, 1950 (June 24 in the United States and Europe), 90,000 communist troops of the North Korean People’s Army invaded South Korea across the 38th parallel, catching the Republic of Korea’s forces completely off guard and throwing them into a hasty southern retreat.

On the afternoon of June 25, the U.N. Security Council met in an emergency session and approved a U.S. resolution calling for an “immediate cessation of hostilities” and the withdrawal of North Korean forces to the 38th parallel. At the time, the USSR was boycotting the Security Council over the U.N.’s refusal to admit the People’s Republic of China and so missed its chance to veto this and other crucial U.N. resolutions.

On June 27, President Truman announced to the nation and the world that America would intervene in the Korean conflict in order to prevent the conquest of an independent nation by communism. Truman was suggesting that the USSR was behind the North Korean invasion, and in fact the Soviets had given tacit approval to the invasion, which was carried out with Soviet-made tanks and weapons. Despite the fear that U.S. intervention in Korea might lead to open warfare between the United States and Russia after years of “cold war,” Truman’s decision was met with overwhelming approval from Congress and the U.S. public. Truman did not ask for a declaration of war, but Congress voted to extend the draft and authorized Truman to call up reservists.

On June 28th, the Security Council met again and in the continued absence of the Soviet Union passed a U.S. resolution approving the use of force against North Korea.

On June 30th, Truman agreed to send U.S. ground forces to Korea, and on July 7 the Security Council recommended that all U.N. forces sent to Korea be put under U.S. command. The next day, General Douglas MacArthur was named commander of all U.N. forces in Korea. In the opening months of the war, the U.S.-led U.N. forces rapidly advanced against the North Koreans, but Chinese communist troops entered the fray in October, throwing the Allies into a hasty retreat. In April 1951, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command after he publicly threatened to bomb China in defiance of Truman’s stated war policy. Truman feared that an escalation of fighting with China would draw the Soviet Union into the Korean War. By May 1951, the communists were pushed back to the 38th parallel, and the battle line remained in that vicinity for the remainder of the war.

On July 27, 1953, after two years of negotiation, an armistice was signed, ending the war and reestablishing the 1945 division of Korea that still exists today. Approximately 150,000 troops from South Korea, the United States, and participating U.N. nations were killed in the Korean War, and as many as one million South Korean civilians perished. An estimated 800,000 communist soldiers were killed, and more than 200,000 North Korean civilians died.

The original figure of American troops lost–54,246 killed–became controversial when the Pentagon acknowledged in 2000 that all U.S. troops killed around the world during the period of the Korean War were incorporated into that number. For example, any American soldier killed in an car accident anywhere in the world from June 1950 to July 1953 was considered a casualty of the Korean War. If these deaths are subtracted from the 54,000 total, leaving just the Americans who died (from whatever cause) in the Korean theater of operations, the total U.S. dead in the Korean War numbers 36,516.

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[SHOOTER13]

1950 – Just two days after communist North Korean forces invaded South Korea, the United Nations Security Council approves a resolution put forward by the United States calling for armed force to repel the North Korean invaders. The action provided the pretext for U.S. intervention in the conflict and was the first time the Security Council had ever approved the use of military force. On June 25, 1950, communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Although some U.S. military personnel were in South Korea, the North Korean forces made rapid headway. Almost immediately, the U.N. Security Council issued a resolution calling for a cease-fire and an end to North Korean aggression. North Korea dismissed the resolution as “illegal.”

On June 27, Warren Austin, the U.S. representative on the Security Council, proposed a resolution. It noted that North Korea had ignored the earlier cease-fire resolution and that South Korea was pleading for assistance. Therefore, the resolution asked that “the members of the United Nations furnish such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area.” The resolution passed by a vote of 7 to 1. Yugoslavia was the only dissenting vote; Egypt and India abstained. The Soviet Union, as a permanent member of the Security Council, could have easily vetoed the resolution, but the Russian representative was boycotting Security Council meetings until the communist People’s Republic of China was admitted to the United Nations. The Security Council vote meant that any member nation could now come to the assistance of South Korea, though it left unstated how the efforts of various nations might be coordinated. For the United States, the resolution was all that was needed to provide a foundation for American military intervention. Just three days after the resolution was passed, President Harry S. Truman dispatched land, sea, and air forces to beat back the North Korean attack. That action led to three years of U.S. involvement in the Korean War and over 50,000 U.S. servicemen were killed in the conflict. An armistice signed in July 1953 left Korea a divided nation.

1950 – Flying a F-82G Twin Mustang in a defensive mission over Kimpo Airfield, Lieutenant William G. “Skeeter” Hudson, 68th Fighter (All-Weather) Squadron, destroyed a Yak-7U fighter and was officially credited with the first aerial victory of the Korean War. Lieutenant Carl Fraser occupied the second cockpit as copilot.

1950 – A patrol of F80C Shooting Stars from the 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadron intercepted eight Ilyushin IL-10 fighters over Kimpo. Captain Raymond E. Schillereff and Lieutenant Robert H. Dewald each scored single victories while Lieutenant Robert E. Wayne claimed a pair IL-10s. These were the first air-to-air victories achieved by jet fighters in U.S. Air Force history.

1950 – President Truman announces he is accelerating the program of military aid for Vietnam he began in April. This includes a military mission and military advisors. Aid is funneled through Paris. The United States has been indirectly supporting a buildup of an anti-Communist Vietnamese Army since 146. Fifteen million dollars is granted in military aid to the French for the war in Indochina on 26 July. By November 1952, the United States will be carrying between one half and one third of the financial burden for the Indochina War.

1951 – Sidney M. Gutierrez, Major USAF, astronaut (STS 40), was born in Albuquerque, NM.

1954 – CIA-sponsored rebels overthrew the elected government of Guatemala. A US supported force of Guatemalan mercenaries invaded from Honduras. President Arbenz was toppled and replaced by 30 years of military rule. He spent much of his exile in Cuba. Arbenz died in 1971 in Mexico City. It was disclosed in 1997 to have been motivated by US economic interests with 58 Guatemalan politicians put on a list of potential targets for political killing.

1958 – Cuban rebel forces kidnapped 29 US sailors and Marines and held them until July 18th.

1962 – NASA civilian pilot Joseph Walker took the X-15 to 6,606 kph, 37,700 m.

1963 – USAF Major Robert A. Rushworth in X-15 reached 86,900 m.

1963 – President Kennedy appoints Henry Cabot Lodge, his former Republican political opponent, to succeed Nolting as ambassador to Vietnam. In Washington the Kennedy administration begins seriously speculating on a coup against Diem.

1967 – There was a race riot in Buffalo, NY, and 200 were arrested.

1968 – The U.S. command in Saigon confirms that U.S. forces have begun to evacuate the military base at Khe Sanh, 14 miles below the Demilitarized Zone and six miles from the Laotian border. The command statement attributed the pullback to a change in the military situation. To cope with increased North Vietnamese infiltration and activity in the area, Allied forces were adopting a more “mobile posture,” thus making retention of the outpost at Khe Sanh unnecessary. The new western anchor of the U.S. base system in the northern region would be located 10 miles east of Khe Sanh. The siege of Khe Sanh during the 1968 Tet Offensive had been one of the most publicized battles of the war because of the similarities it shared with the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954, in which the communist Viet Minh forces had decisively defeated the French and forced them from the war. Many in the American media had portrayed the battle for Khe Sanh as potentially “another Dien Bien Phu.”

The battle began on January 22 with a brisk firefight involving the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines and a North Vietnamese battalion entrenched between two hills northwest of the base. An incessant barrage kept Khe Sanh’s Marine defenders–which included three battalions from the 26th Marines, elements of the 9th Marine Regiment, and the South Vietnamese 37th Ranger Battalion–pinned down in their trenches and bunkers. During the 66-day siege, U.S. planes, dropping 5,000 bombs daily, exploded the equivalent of five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs in the area. The relief of Khe Sanh, called Operation Pegasus, began in early April as the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) and a South Vietnamese battalion approached the base from the east and south, while the Marines pushed westward to re-open Route 9.

The siege was finally lifted on April 6, when the cavalrymen linked up with the 9th Marines south of the Khe Sanh airstrip. In a final clash a week later, the 3rd Battalion, 26th Marines drove enemy forces from Hill 881 North. Gen. William Westmoreland, commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, contended that Khe Sanh played a vital blocking role at the western end of the Demilitarized Zone, and asserted that if the base had fallen, North Vietnamese forces could have outflanked Marine defenses along the buffer zone. Various statements in the North Vietnamese Communist Party newspaper suggested that Hanoi saw the battle as an opportunity to re-enact its famous victory at Dien Bien Phu. There was much controversy over the battle at Khe Sanh, as both sides claimed victory. The North Vietnamese, although they failed to take the base, claimed that they had tied down a lot of U.S. combat assets that could have been used elsewhere in South Vietnam. This is true, but the North Vietnamese failed to achieve the decisive victory at Khe Sanh that they had won against the French at Dien Bien Phu. For their part, the Americans claimed victory because they had held the base against the North Vietnamese onslaught. It was a costly battle for both sides.

The official casualty count for the Battle of Khe Sanh was 205 Marines killed in action and over 1,600 wounded (this figure did not include the American and South Vietnamese soldiers killed in other battles in the region). The U.S. military headquarters in Saigon estimated that the North Vietnamese lost between 10,000 and 15,000 men in the fighting at Khe Sanh.

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[SHOOTER13]

1973 – Nixon vetoed a Senate ban on Cambodia bombing.

1978 – US Seasat 1, the 1st oceanographic satellite, was launched into polar orbit.

1980 – President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.

1982 – The 4th Space Shuttle, Mission-Columbia 4, was launched.

1983 – NASA launched space vehicle S-205.

1985 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted to limit the use of combat troops in Nicaragua.

1986 – US informed New Zealand it will not defend it against attack.

1990 – NASA announced that a flaw in the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope was preventing the instrument from achieving optimum focus.

1993 – In Somalia, Two GIs are WIA while clearing debris from 21 October Road.

1993 – US warships fired 24 Tomahawk cruise missiles at intelligence headquarters in Baghdad in retaliation for the assassination plot. The Iraqis claimed 8 dead. Iraqis pulled their dead from the rubble of buildings wrecked by U.S. missiles during an early morning raid ordered by President Clinton in reprisal for an alleged assassination plot against former President Bush.

1994 – U.S. Coast Guard cutters intercepted 1,330 Haitian boat people on the high seas in one of the busiest days since refugees began leaving Haiti following a 1991 military coup.

1995 – The space shuttle “Atlantis” blasted off on a historic flight to link up with Russia’s space station “Mir” and bring home American astronaut Norman Thagard.

1995 – The San Francisco Chronicle received a message from the Unabomber threatening to blow up a plane by the July Fourth weekend. The Unabomber later called the threat a prank.

1996 – President Clinton and other Group of Seven leaders meeting in Lyon, France, pledged solidarity against terrorism following a truck bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans.

2000 – US House Republicans cut a deal to allow direct sales of food to Cuba for the first time in four decades.

2002 – A US Air Force pilot was killed when his A10 “Warthog” crashed during a training mission in eastern France.

2003 – The Coast Guard cutter Walnut, homeported in Honolulu, returned home after being deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. She deployed to the North Arabian Gulf in January with an oil spill recovery system in the event the regime of Saddam Hussein committed any acts of environmental terrorism. When those threats did not materialize, the cutter conducted maritime interception operations enforcing U.N. Security Council resolutions, participated in the search for two downed United Kingdom helicopters, and patrolled and provided assistance to captured Iraqi offshore oil terminals being secured by Coast Guard port security personnel. The cutter’s crew completely replaced 30 buoys and repaired an additional five along the 41-mile Khawr Abd Allah Waterway. This ATON mission vastly improved the navigational safety of the waterway for humanitarian aid, commercial, and military vessels sailing to the port and was a critical step to economic recovery for the people of Iraq.

2004 – Insurgents threatened to behead Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a U.S. Marine who’d vanished in Iraq, in a videotaped that aired on Arab television. However, Hassoun contacted American officials in his native Lebanon the following month; after being reunited with his family in Utah, Hassoun disappeared in December.

2004 – Turkey rejected the demands of Islamic militants who are threatening to behead three of its kidnapped citizens during a visit by President Bush to Turkey.

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[SHOOTER13]

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BUTTERFIELD, DANIEL
Rank and organization: Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at: Washington, D.C. Born: 31 October 1831, Utica, N.Y. Date of issue: 26 September 1892. Citation: Seized the colors of the 83d Pennsylvania Volunteers at a critical moment and, under a galling fire of the enemy, encouraged the depleted ranks to renewed exertion.

DAVIS, CHARLES C.
Rank and organization: Major, 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Shelbyville, Tenn., 27 June 1863. Entered service at: Harrisburg, Pa. Born: 15 August 1830, Harrisburg, Pa. Date of issue: 14 June 1894. Citation: Led one of the most desperate and successful charges of the war.

HALL, HENRY SEYMOUR
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, Company G, 27th New York Infantry; and Captain, Company F, 121st New York Infantry. Place and date. At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. At Rappallannock Station, Va., 7 November 1863. Entered service at: New York. Birth: New York. Date of issue: 17 August 1891. Citation: Although wounded at Gaines Mill, Va., he remained on duty and participated in the battle with his company. At Rappahannock Station, Va., while acting as aide, rendered gallant and prompt assistance in reforming the regiments inside the enemy’s works.

HOPKINS, CHARLES F.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company I, 1st New Jersey Infantry. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at:——. Birth: Warren County, N.J. Date of issue: 9 July 1892. Citation: Voluntarily carried a wounded comrade, under heavy fire, to a place of safety; though twice wounded in the act, he continued in action until again severely wounded.

KAISER, JOHN
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 2d U.S. Artillery. Place and date: At Richmond, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 2 April 1878. Citation: Gallant and meritorious service during the 7 days’ battles before Richmond, Va.

MOFFITT, JOHN H.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company C, 16th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at: Plattsburg, N.Y. Born. 8 January 1843, Chazy, Clinton County, N.Y. Date of issue: 3 March 1891. Citation: Voluntarily took up the regimental colors after several color bearers had been shot down and carried them until himself wounded.

SIDMAN, GEORGE E.
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 16th Michigan Infantry. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at: Owosso, Mich. Born: 25 November 1844, Rochester, N.Y. Date of issue: 6 April 1892. Citation: Distinguished bravery in battle. Rallied his comrades to charge vastly superior force until wounded in the hip. He was a 16_year_old drummer.

VON VEGESACK, ERNEST
Rank and organization: Major and Aide_de_Camp, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: Sweden. Date of issue: 23 August 1893. Citation: While voluntarily serving as aide_de_camp, successfully and advantageously charged the position of troops under fire.

WEBBER, ALASON P.
Rank and organization: Musician, 86th Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Kenesaw Mountain, Ga., 27 June 1864. Entered service at: Illinois. Birth: Greene County, N.Y. Date of issue: 22 June 1896. Citation: Voluntarily joined in a charge against the enemy, which was repulsed, and by his rapid firing in the face of the enemy enabled many of the wounded to return to the Federal lines; with others, held the advance of the enemy while temporary works were being constructed.

WILLIAMS, GEORGE C.
Rank and organization: Quartermaster Sergeant, 1st Battalion, 14th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Gaines Mill, Va., 27 June 1862. Entered service at:——. Birth: England. Date of issue: 28 August 1897. Citation: While on duty with the wagon train as quartermaster sergeant he voluntarily left his place of safety in the rear, joined a company, and fought with distinguished gallantry through the action.

THOMPSON, HENRY
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Biography not available. Citation: For rescuing a man from drowning at Mare Island, Calif., 27 June 1878.

BOWEN, HAMMETT L., JR.
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company C, 2d Battalion, 14th Infantry, 25th Infantry Division. Place and date: Binh Duong Province, Republic of Vietnam, 27 June 1969. Entered service at: Jacksonville, Fla. Born: 30 November 1947, Lagrange, Ga. Citation: S/Sgt. Bowen distinguished himself while serving as a platoon sergeant during combat operations in Binh Duong Province, Republic of Vietnam. S/Sgt. Bowen’s platoon was advancing on a reconnaissance mission into enemy controlled terrain when it came under the withering crossfire of small arms and grenades from an enemy ambush force. S/Sgt. Bowen placed heavy suppressive fire on the enemy positions and ordered his men to fall back. As the platoon was moving back, an enemy grenade was thrown amid S/Sgt. Bowen and 3 of his men. Sensing the danger to his comrades, S/Sgt. Bowen shouted a warning to his men and hurled himself on the grenade, absorbing the explosion with his body while saving the lives of his fellow soldiers. S/Sgt. Bowen’s extraordinary courage and concern for his men at the cost of his life served as an inspiration to his comrades and are in the highest traditions of the military service and the U.S. Army.

*MURPHY, MICHAEL P.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1, Naval Special Warfare Task Unit. Place and Date: Asadabad, Konar Province, Afghanistan, 27 – 28 June 2005. Entered Service at: Patchogue, New York. Born: 7 May 1976, Smithtown, New York Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as the leader of a special reconnaissance element with Naval Special Warfare Task Unit Afghanistan on 27 and 28 June 2005. While leading a mission to locate a high-level anti-coalition militia leader, Lieutenant Murphy demonstrated extraordinary heroism in the face of grave danger in the vicinity of Asadabad, Konar Province, Afghanistan.

On 28 June 2005, operating in an extremely rugged enemy-controlled area, Lieutenant Murphy’s team was discovered by anti-coalition militia sympathizers, who revealed their position to Taliban fighters. As a result, between 30 and 40 enemy fighters besieged his four-member team. Demonstrating exceptional resolve, Lieutenant Murphy valiantly led his men in engaging the large enemy force. The ensuing fierce firefight resulted in numerous enemy casualties, as well as the wounding of all four members of the team. Ignoring his own wounds and demonstrating exceptional composure, Lieutenant Murphy continued to lead and encourage his men. When the primary communicator fell mortally wounded, Lieutenant Murphy repeatedly attempted to call for assistance for his beleaguered teammates. Realizing the impossibility of communicating in the extreme terrain, and in the face of almost certain death, he fought his way into open terrain to gain a better position to transmit a call. This deliberate, heroic act deprived him of cover, exposing him to direct enemy fire. Finally achieving contact with his headquarters, Lieutenant Murphy maintained his exposed position while he provided his location and requested immediate support for his team. In his final act of bravery, he continued to engage the enemy until he was mortally wounded, gallantly giving his life for his country and for the cause of freedom. By his selfless leadership, courageous actions, and extraordinary devotion to duty, Lieutenant Murphy reflected great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

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[Dutchboy]

Just l

 

[Dutchboy]

Oops, wrong post............my bad!

 

[Dutchboy]

Oops wrong post.......so sorry!

 

[SHOOTER13]

... ...

4 o'clock syndrome...?!

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[SHOOTER13]

28 June

1451 – An eclipse occurred that allegedly prevented the outbreak of war between the Mohawk and the Seneca Indians.

1776 – Jefferson’s document was placed before the Congress after some minor changes by Adams and Franklin. This event was immortalized in the painting by John Trumball.

1776 – Colonists repulsed a British sea attack on Charleston, South Carolina.

1776 – Thomas Hickey, American sergeant convicted of treason, was hanged.

1778 – “Molly Pitcher,” Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth, N.J. and, supposedly, took her husband’s place at his gun after he is overcome with heat.

1794 – Joshua Humphreys appointed master builder to build Navy ships at an annual salary of $2,000.

1814 – USS Wasp captures HMS Reindeer.

1836 – James Madison (85), the 4th president of the United States (1809-17), died in Montpelier, Va. His writings included the 29 Federalist essays.

1861 – Side-wheel steamer St. Nicholas, making scheduled run between Baltimore and Georgetown, D.C., was captured by Confederates who had boarded her posing as passengers at the steamer’s various stopping points on the Potomac River. Confederates were led by Captain George N. Hollins, CSN, who took command of St. Nicholas, and Colonel Richard Thomas, CSA, who boarded disguised as a woman. St. Nicholas then began search for U.S.S. Pawnee, but, not finding her, put out into the Chesapeake Bay, where she seized schooners Margaret and Mary Pierce and brig Monticello the following day, 29 June.

1862 – At Garnett’s and Golding’s farms, fighting continued for a 4th day between Union and Confederate forces during the Seven Days in Virginia.

1862 – A Confederate band makes a daring capture of a commercial vessel on Chesapeake Bay. The plan was the brainchild of George Hollins, a veteran of the War of 1812. Hollins joined the navy at age 15, and had a long and distinguished career. A Maryland native, he was commander of a U.S. warship in the Mediterranean when hostilities erupted in 1861, and returned to New York and resigned his commission. After a brief stop in his hometown, Baltimore, Hollins offered his services to the Confederacy and received a commission on June 21, 1861. Soon after, Hollins met up with Richard Thomas Zarvona, a Marylander, former West Point attendee, and adventurer who had fought with pirates in China and revolutionaries in Italy. They hatched a plan to capture the St. Nicolas and use it to marshal other Yankee ships into Confederate service. Zarvona went to Baltimore and recruited a band of pirates, who boarded the St. Nicholas as paying passengers on June 28th.

Using the name Madame La Force, Zarvona disguised himself as a flirtatious Frenchwoman. Hollins then boarded the St. Nicholas at its first stop. The conspirators later retreated to the Frenchwoman’s cabin, where they armed themselves and then burst out to capture the surprised crew. Hollins took control of the vessel and stopped on the Virginia bank of the Chesapeake to pick up a crew of Confederate soldiers. They planned to capture a Union gunboat, the Pawnee, but it was called away. Instead, the St. Nicholas and its pirate crew came upon a ship loaded with Brazilian coffee. Two more ships, carrying loads of ice and coal, soon fell to the St. Nicholas. These daring exploits earned Hollins a quick promotion from captain to commodore. At the end of July, Hollins was sent to take control of a fleet at New Orleans, Louisiana.

1863 – General Meade replaced General Hooker three days before the Battle of Gettysburg. General George Gordon Meade said “Well, I’ve been tried and condemned without a hearing, and I suppose I shall have to go to execution,” in response to his appointment as head of the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War. Within a week his army won the Battle of Gettysburg, assuring Meade of a record of success superior to all of his predecessors.

1863 – As the advance of General Robert E. Lee’s armies into Maryland (culminating in the Battle of Gettysburg) threatened Washington, Baltimore, and Annapolis, the U.S. Navy Department ordered Rear Admiral S.P. Lee to send ships immediately for the defense of the Capital and other cities. This was a move reminiscent of the opening days of the war when naval protection was vital to the holding of the area surrounding the seat of government.

1865 – CSS Shenandoah captures 11 American whalers in one day.

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[SHOOTER13]

1902 – Congress passed the Spooner bill, authorizing a canal to be built across the isthmus of Panama. The US purchased a concession to build Panama canal from French for $40 million.

1914 – Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia, while riding in an Austro-Daimler that was chauffeured by Otto Merz, a Mercedes team driver. The assassination resulted in the outbreak of World War I. The archduke and his wife, Sophie, rode into Sarajevo in a motorcade consisting of four cars; the royals occupied the second. On the way to the City Hall as they crossed the Milijacka River at Cumuria Bridge, Serbian nationalist Nedjelko Cabrinovic threw a bomb at the Daimler carrying the archduke and his wife. Franz Ferdinand managed to deflect the bomb onto the street. About a dozen people, including Sophie, who was hit in the face with shrapnel, suffered injuries, but no one was killed. The assassin swallowed a cyanide pill and jumped off the bridge. Unfortunately, he coughed up the pill and landed in only a foot of water. He was taken into custody. The first two cars of the motorcade continued on their way to the Sarajevo City Hall. Upon his arrival at the welcome ceremony, Franz Ferdinand interrupted the mayor’s speech, seizing him by the arm and crying, “One comes here to visit and is received with bombs. Mr. Mayor, what do you say?” He later calmed down and finished his own speech with a reaffirming pledge of his regard for the people of Sarajevo.

After the speech, Franz Ferdinand ordered his chauffeur to carry him to the hospital to visit the victims of the bomb; Sophie accompanied him. Their driver took a wrong turn after crossing the Imperial Bridge and the car ended up on a street named after Franz Ferdinand’s father, Franz Josef. Noticing his mistake, the driver applied the brakes and the car came to a halt a foot short of another Serbian nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. Princip fired his pistol into the car, striking the archduke in the neck and his wife in the stomach. In shock and unaware that she had been wounded, Sophie cried to her husband, “For heaven’s sake, what’s happened to you?” Franz Ferdinand keeled over whispering “Es ist nichts, Es ist nichts…” A lengthy investigation into the conspiracy failed to prove any complicity in the plot on the part of the Serbian government. Nevertheless, the Austrians sent their army into Serbia and World War I was born.

1918 – The Chemical Warfare Service was established on June 28, 1918, combining activities that until then had been dispersed among five separate agencies of Government. It was made a permanent branch of the Regular Army by the National Defense Act of 1920. In 1945, it was redesignated the Chemical Corps.

1919 – At the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, Germany signs the Treaty of Versailles with the Allies, officially ending World War I. By the fall of 1918, it was apparent to the leaders of Germany that defeat was inevitable in World War I. After four years of terrible attrition, Germany no longer had the men or resources to resist the Allies, who had been given a tremendous boost by the infusion of American manpower and supplies. In order to avert an Allied invasion of Germany, the German government contacted U.S. President Woodrow Wilson in October 1918 and asked him to arrange a general armistice. Earlier that year, Wilson had proclaimed his “Fourteen Points,” which proposed terms for a “just and stable peace” between Germany and its enemies. The Germans asked that the armistice be established along these terms, and the Allies more or less complied, assuring Germany of a fair and unselfish final peace treaty.

On November 11, 1918, the armistice was signed and went into effect, and fighting in World War I came to an end. In January 1919, representatives traveled to the Paris Peace Conference. Germany had no role in the negotiations deciding its fate, and lesser Allied powers had little responsibility in the drafting of the final treaty. It soon became apparent that the treaty would bear only a faint resemblance to the Fourteen Points that had been proposed by Wilson and embraced by the Germans. Wilson, a great idealist, had few negotiating skills, and he soon buckled under the pressure of Clemenceau, who hoped to punish Germany as severely as it had punished France in the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War in 1871. Lloyd George took the middle ground between the two men, but he backed the French plan to force Germany to pay reparations for damages inflicted on Allied civilians and their property. Since the treaty officially held Germany responsible for the outbreak of World War I (in reality it was only partially responsible), the Allies would not have to pay reparations for damages they inflicted on German civilians.

The treaty that began to emerge was a thinly veiled Carthaginian Peace, an agreement that accomplished Clemenceau’s hope to crush France’s old rival. According to its terms, Germany was to relinquish 10 percent of its territory. It was to be disarmed, and its overseas empire taken over by the Allies. Most detrimental to Germany’s immediate future, however, was the confiscation of its foreign financial holdings and its merchant carrier fleet. The German economy, already devastated by the war, was thus further crippled, and the stiff war reparations demanded ensured that it would not soon return to its feet. A final reparations figure was not agreed upon in the treaty, but estimates placed the amount in excess of $30 billion, far beyond Germany’s capacity to pay. Germany would be subject to invasion if it fell behind on payments. The Germans initially refused to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and it took an ultimatum from the Allies to bring the German delegation to Paris on June 28th. It was five years to the day since the assassination of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, which began the chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I.

Clemenceau chose the location for the signing of the treaty: the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace, site of the signing of the Treaty of Frankfurt that ended the Franco-Prussian War. At the ceremony, General Jan Christiaan Smuts, soon to be president of South Africa, was the only Allied leader to protest formally the Treaty of Versailles, saying it would do grave injury to the industrial revival of Europe. Germany soon fell hopelessly behind in its reparations payments, and in 1923 France and Belgium occupied the industrial Ruhr region as a means of forcing payment. In protest, workers and employers closed down the factories in the region. Catastrophic inflation ensued, and Germany’s fragile economy began quickly to collapse.

By the time the crash came in November 1923, a lifetime of savings could not buy a loaf of bread. That month, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler launched an abortive coup against Germany’s government. The Nazis were crushed and Hitler was imprisoned, but many resentful Germans sympathized with the Nazis and their hatred of the Treaty of Versailles. A decade later, Hitler would exploit this continuing bitterness among Germans to seize control of the German state.

In the 1930s, the Treaty of Versailles was significantly revised and altered in Germany’s favor, but this belated amendment could not stop the rise of German militarism and the subsequent outbreak of World War II.

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1935 – FDR ordered a federal gold vault to be built at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

1941 – The US Army Bill for 1942 is passed by Congress.

1943 – More American forces occupy Kiriwina and Woodlark islands. Construction of airfields begins.

1944 – In the Cotentin Peninsula, American forces of US 1st Army prepare to eliminate German resistance in the direction of Cap de la Hague. The forces of British 2nd Army cross the Odon River on a 2 mile front near Mondrainville.

1944 – On Biak, the American divisional force, now commanded by General Doe, clears the Japanese-held caves in the western part of the island.

1945 – General MacArthur announces that the operations on Luzon are complete. It has been 5 months and 19 days since the American invasion began. An estimated 11,000 Japanese troops remain isolated in the Sierra Madre mountains and another 12,000 are trapped in the Kiangan-Bontoc (or Ifugao-Bontoc) area. The US 8th Army is assigned the task of mopping up on Luzon while the US 6th Army is reorganized for the invasion of Japan (Operation Olympic). Much of the mopping-up will be left to Filipino units. On Mindanao, mopping up operations continue.

1946 – Peacetime cruises for the cadets of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London Connecticut, were revived.

1949 – The last U.S. combat troops were called home from Korea, leaving only 500 advisers.

1950 – General Douglas MacArthur arrived in South Korea as Seoul fell to the North Korean forces.

1950 – Sergeant Leroy Deans, Korean Military Advisory Group, received a wound in the eye thereby earning the first ground combat Purple Heart of the Korean War.

1950 – Detachment X, 35 men of the 507th Antiaircraft Artillery Automatic Weapons Battalion, was the first U.S. ground force unit to arrive in Korea. Within a short time the detachment shot down a Yak fighter with quad .50-caliber machine guns, suffering five wounded in the action.

1950 – Far East Air Force aircraft dropped the first psychological warfare leaflets over Korea.

1965 – In the first major offensive ordered for U.S. forces, 3,000 troops of the 173rd Airborne Brigade–in conjunction with 800 Australian soldiers and a Vietnamese airborne unit–assault a jungle area known as Viet Cong Zone D, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The operation was called off after three days when it failed to make any major contact with the enemy. One American was killed and nine Americans and four Australians were wounded. The State Department assured the American public that the operation was in accord with Johnson administration policy on the role of U.S. troops.

1968 – Daniel Ellsberg was indicted for leaking the Pentagon Papers.

1968 – LTC Richard A. McMahon denounces the body count as a ‘dubious and dangerous’ method of determining the enemy’s combat potential.

1968 – Prince Souvanna Phouma declares that, until North Vietnam agrees to withdraw its forces from Laos, the United States should continue to reject Hanoi’s demands for a bombing halt.

1969 – US sources in Saigon say that North Vietnamese infiltration into South Vietnam in January-May is 40% lower than the corresponding period in 1968.

1969 – A Gallup Poll shows that 42% of the American people favor a faster withdrawal of US troops than has been ordered by President Nixon, while 16% favor a slower rate. 29% favor a total withdrawal, 61% are opposed.

1969 – After several days of fighting around the US Special Forces base at Benhet, a 1,500-man South Vietnamese force begins new sweeps of the area. US forces remain in an advisory role and supply only air and artillery support. The US command considers the Benhet campaign a test of the ability of the South Vietnamese forces to stand up against the North Vietnamese and Vietcong.

1970 – Muhammed Ali, formerly Cassius Clay, stood before the Supreme Court regarding his refusal of induction into the Army during the Vietnam War.

1970 – USS James Madison (SSBN-627) completes conversion to Poseidon missile capability.

1971 – The Supreme Court overturned the draft evasion conviction of Muhammad Ali.

1971 – Daniel Ellsburg was arrested for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the Press. In 2002 he authored “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and The Pentagon Papers.”

1972 – President Nixon announces that no more draftees will be sent to Vietnam unless they volunteer for such duty. He also announced that a force of 10,000 troops would be withdrawn by September 1, which would leave a total of 39,000 in Vietnam.

1976 – The first women entered the U.S. Air Force Academy.

1987 – Secretary of State George P. Shultz said he had found some of the recent revelations about the Iran-Contra affair “sickening,” but he defended the Reagan administration’s foreign policy.

1992 – In Afghanistan rebel leader Burhanuddin Rabbani became president, but factional fighting continued.

1993 – US helicopters attack Somali positions killing 2 gunmen.

1996 – The Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the South Carolina military school.

1999 – It was reported that NATO scaled backed initial estimates of damage to the Yugoslav army in the 78-day air campaign.

1999 – In Kosovo KLA rebels handed over weapons to NATO troops. At the same time hundreds of Albanians, fired a decade ago by Milosevic, demanded their state jobs back.

2003 – After days of intense searching by ground and air, U.S. forces found the bodies of two soldiers missing north of Baghdad.

2003 – Malawi’s army was deployed to quell violent riots after demonstrators attacked an American children’s charity and several churches to protest the removal of five Muslim foreign nationals suspected of working for al-Qaida.

2004 – The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that detainees at Guantanamo must have access to the US legal system. The Court ruled that the war on terrorism did not give the government a “blank check” to hold a US citizen and foreign-born terror suspects in legal limbo.

2004 – America resumed direct diplomatic ties with Libya after a 24-year break.

2004 – Seven Afghan policemen were killed as NATO agreed to boost its troop contingent there to 10,000 ahead of September elections.

2004 – The US-led coalition in a surprise move, transferred sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government two days early.

2004 – NATO leaders agreed to help train Iraq’s armed forces just hours after the new government in Baghdad took over sovereignty from the U.S.-led administration.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HATHAWAY, EDWARD W.
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Entered service at: Plymouth, Mass. Born: 9 July 1838, Plymouth, Mass. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Sciota prior to the battle Vicksburg, on 28 June 1862. Struck by a bullet which severed his left arm above the elbow, Hathaway displayed exceptional courage as his ship sustained numerous damaging hits from stem to stern while proceeding down the river to fight the battle of Vicksburg.

ANDERSON, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1852, Sweden. Accredited to: New York. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Powhatan, 28 June 1878. Acting courageously, Anderson rescued from drowning W. H. Moffatt, first class boy.

*SANTIAGO-COLON, HECTOR
Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Place and date: Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam, 28 June 1968. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 20 December 1942, Salinas, Puerto Rico. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Santiago-Colon distinguished himself at the cost of his life while serving as a gunner in the mortar platoon of Company B. While serving as a perimeter sentry, Sp4c. Santiago-Colon heard distinct movement in the heavily wooded area to his front and flanks. Immediately he alerted his fellow sentries in the area to move to their foxholes and remain alert for any enemy probing forces. From the wooded area around his position heavy enemy automatic weapons and small-arms fire suddenly broke out, but extreme darkness rendered difficult the precise location and identification of the hostile force. Only the muzzle flashes from enemy weapons indicated their position. Sp4c. Santiago-Colon and the other members of his position immediately began to repel the attackers, utilizing hand grenades, antipersonnel mines and small-arms fire. Due to the heavy volume of enemy fire and exploding grenades around them, a North Vietnamese soldier was able to crawl, undetected, to their position. Suddenly, the enemy soldier lobbed a hand grenade into Sp4c. Santiago-Colon’s foxhole. Realizing that there was no time to throw the grenade out of his position, Sp4c. Santiago-Colon retrieved the grenade, tucked it in to his stomach and, turning away from his comrades, absorbed the full impact of the blast. His heroic self-sacrifice saved the lives of those who occupied the foxhole with him, and provided them with the inspiration to continue fighting until they had forced the enemy to retreat from the perimeter. By his gallantry at the cost of his life and in the highest traditions of the military service, Sp4c. Santiago-Colon has reflected great credit upon himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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[threetango]

Santiago-Colon tucked the grenade in.
I made a decision a long time ago that no matter what I would try to throw the grenade low and as far as possible away from anyone close.
A grenade blows up and out, so I would take my chances rather than hugging it. If you have time to hug, it's possible to throw it or scoop it away.
These are just my personal thoughts and thankfully never had to test it.
I would like to be able to post a picture of what happened to a NVA soldier during TET 68 who was about to throw the potato masher but it might be considered a bit too graphic.

 

[havasu]

No doubt Colon was a hero, but is this a summary as to what happened from witness accounts, or was everything analyzed later? How do they know this occurred as written, when it was already so dark that they could not even see the NV soldier?

Thanks for posting this Kev, and Top, we are big boys, and most understand the reality of war. Just throw a caution with the post, and leave it as only a thumbnail pic, so unless you open the pic, it is too small to be too graphic.

 

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Copy Mark...

 

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29 June

1502 – Christopher Columbus arrived at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola, on his 4th voyage to the new world. He requested harbor and advised Gov. Nicolas de Ovando of an approaching hurricane. Ovando denied the request and dispatched a treasure fleet to Spain. 20 ships sank in the storm, 9 returned to port and one made it to Spain.

1541 – The Spanish first crossed the Arkansas River. Francisco Vazquez de Coronado continued to explore the American southwest. He left New Mexico and crossed Texas, Oklahoma and east Kansas.

1652 – Massachusetts declared itself an independent commonwealth.

1767 – The British Parliament approved the Townshend Revenue Acts, which imposed import duties on glass, lead, paint, paper and tea shipped to America. Colonists bitterly protested the Acts, which were repealed in 1770.

1776 – The Virginia constitution was adopted and Patrick Henry was made governor.

1784 – Caesar Romney (b.1728), US judge, Delaware representative as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, died. He was later depicted on the Delaware state quarter

1804 – Privates John Collins and Hugh Hall of the Lewis and Clark Expedition were found guilty by a court-martial consisting of members of the Corps of Discovery for getting drunk on duty. Collins receives 100 lashes on his back and Hall receives 50.

1820 – Revenue cutter Dallas captured the 12-gun brig-of-war General Ramirez, which was loaded with 280 slaves, off St. Augustine. The 8 July 1820 issue of the Savannah Republican noted: “On the 28th ultimo, while the Cutter DALLAS was lying in the St. Mary’s River, Captain Jackson received information that the Brig of war GENERAL RAMIREZ, supposed to be a piratical vessel was hovering off St. Augustine. The Cutter forthwith got under way in pursuit of the Brig having first obtained 12 United States soldiers from Fernandina to strengthen the Cutter’s force. At half past three the next day, she hailed the Brig and received for answer, “This is the Patriot Brig GENERAL RAMIREZ—-.” Captain Jackson finding a number of blacks on board took possession of the vessel and brought her into St. Mary’s, arriving on the 1st instant. Captain Jackson found on the Brig about 280 African slaves. The Captain and crew, 28 in number, acknowledged themselves Americans.”

1835 – Determined to win independence for the Mexican State of Texas, William Travis raises a volunteer army of 25 soldiers and prepares to liberate the city of Anahuac. Born in South Carolina and raised in Alabama, William Travis moved to Mexican-controlled Texas in 1831 at the age of 22. He established a legal practice in Anahuac, a small frontier town about 40 miles east of Houston. From the start, Travis disliked Mexicans personally and resented Mexican rule of Texas politically. In 1832, he clashed with local Mexican officials and was jailed for a month. When he was released, the growing Texan independence movement hailed him as a hero, strengthening his resolve to break away from Mexico by whatever means necessary. Early in 1835, the Mexican President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna overthrew the republican government and proclaimed himself dictator. Rightly fearing that some Texans would rebel as a result, Santa Anna quickly moved to reinforce Mexican control and dispatched troops to Anahuac, among other areas. Accustomed to enjoying a large degree of autonomy, some Texans resented the presence of Santa Anna’s troops, and they turned to Travis for leadership.

On this day in 1835, Travis raised a company of 25 volunteer soldiers. The next day, the small army easily captured Captain Antonio Tenorio, the leader of Santa Anna’s forces in Anahuac, and forced the troops to surrender. More radical Texans again proclaimed Travis a hero, but others condemned him for trying to foment war and maintained that Santa Anna could still be dealt with short of revolution. By the fall of 1835, however, conflict had become inevitable, and Texans prepared to fight a war of independence. As soon as the rebels had formed an army, Travis was made a lieutenant colonel in command of the regular troops at San Antonio. On February 23, 1836, Travis joined forces with Jim Bowie’s army of volunteers to occupy an old Spanish mission known as the Alamo. The following day, Santa Anna and about 4,000 of his men laid siege to the Alamo. With less than 200 soldiers, Travis and Bowie were able to hold off the Mexicans for 13 days. On March 6, Santa Anna’s soldiers stormed the Alamo and killed nearly every Texan defender, including Travis. In the months that followed, “Remember the Alamo” became a rallying cry as the Texans successfully drove the Mexican forces from their borders. By April, Texas had won its independence. Travis, who first hastened the war of independence and then became a martyr to the cause, became an enduring symbol of Texan courage and defiance.

1862 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee attacks Union General George McClellan as he is pulling his army away from Richmond, Virginia, in retreat during the Seven Days’ Battles. Although the Yankees lost 1,000 men—twice as many as the Rebels—they were able to successfully protect the retreat. George McClellan spent the spring of 1862 preparing the Army of the Potomac for a campaign up the James Peninsula toward Richmond. For nearly three months, McClellan landed his troops at Fort Monroe, at the end of the peninsula, and worked northwest to Richmond. The Seven Days’ Battles were the climax of this attempt to take the Confederate capital. Although he had an advantage in numbers, McClellan squandered it and surrendered the initiative to Lee, who attacked the Yankees and began driving them away from Richmond. As McClelland retreated, Lee hounded his army. When the Union army moved past Savage’s Station—a stop on the Richmond and York River Railroad and the site of a Union hospital—Lee ordered an assault on the troops screening the retreat. This was a chance to break McClellan’s flank and deal a shattering defeat to the Yankees. But although Lee’s strategy was sound, it was complicated, requiring precise timing on the part of several generals. The Confederates inflicted serious damage on the Northerners but were not able to break the rear guard. Fighting continued until nightfall, when a torrential rainstorm ended the battle.

1863 – Battle at Westminster, Maryland: Federal assault.

1863 – George A. Custer (23) was appointed Union Brevet Brigadier General.

1863 – Lee ordered his forces to concentrate near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

1864 – Converted ferryboat U.S.S. Hunchback, Lieutenant Joseph P. Fyffe, supported by single turretted monitor U.S.S. Saugus, Commander Colhoun, bombarded Confederate batteries at Deep Bottom on the James River and caused their eventual removal. Rear Admiral Lee reported: “The importance of holding our position at Deep Bottom is obvious. Without doing so our communications are cut there, and our wooden vessels can not remain above that point, and the monitors would be alone and exposed to the enemy’s light torpedo craft from above and out of Four Mile Creek. The enemy could then plant torpedoes there to prevent the monitors passing by for supplies.”

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1918 – Marines landed at Vladivostok, Russia, to protect the American Consulate.

1942 – Chiang Kai-shek presents his Three Demands to General Stilwell: three US divisions before September, 500 combat planes, and a guaranteed monthly aerial supply of 5,000 tons. Chiang berates Stilwell, and hints that he might pull out of the war. Stilwell, as Chiang’s chief of staff, is not responsible for procurement of supplies. The tension between the two grows.

1943 – A squadron of American cruisers and destroyers shells the Japanese base at Shortland while other vessels lay mines in the area. A US convoy heading for New Georgia is sighted by the Japanese but it is mistakenly believed to be carrying supplies to Guadalcanal.

1943 – Germany began withdrawing U-boats from North Atlantic in anticipation of the Allied invasion of Europe.

1944 – CDR Frank A. Erickson landed a helicopter on the flight deck of CGC Cobb. This was the first rotary-wing shipboard landing by Coast Guard personnel.

1944 – On Biak, American forces mop up lingering Japanese resistance.

1945 – President Truman approves the plan, devised by the joint chiefs of staff, to invade Japan. The plan calls for 5 million troops, mostly Americans. Kyushu is to be invaded on November 1st with some 13 divisions (Operation Olympic) and Honshu is to be invaded on March 1, 1946 with some 23 divisions (Operation Coronet), including forces of the US 1st Army from Europe. The British will deploy a very long range bomber force in support of the invasion.

1949 – US troops withdrew from Korea after WW II.

1950 – The Coast Guard adopted a Navy directive relative to security measures, including precautions against possible sabotage at installations and aboard ships.

1950 – President Truman authorized air operations against targets located in North Korea. Subsequently, the 3rd Bombardment Group flew the first air mission north of the 38th parallel against Heijo Airfield near Pyongyang. Staff Sergeant Nyle S. Mickley, a B-26 gunner, became the first gunner to shoot down an enemy aircraft, a Yak-3 fighter serving as the sole defender of the airfield.

1950 – While defending Suwon Airfield, Air Force Lieutenant Orrin R. Fox, 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, scored two Yak-9 kills and Lieutenants Richard J. Burns, 35th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, and Harry T. Sandlin, 80th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, each shot down a Yak fighter. These were the first aerial victories made by F-51 Mustang pilots in the Korean War. Interestingly, General MacArthur witnessed the air battle while conferring with Syngman Rhee.

1950 – President Truman ordered a naval blockade of the Korean coast. Meanwhile, the USS Juneau, fired on enemy shore targets in the first U.S. Naval engagement of the Korean War.

1950 – The North Korean People’s Army seized Seoul as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur flew to Korea to confer with ROK President Syngman Rhee. Meanwhile, U.S. B-29 Superfortresses of the 20th Air Force bombed Kimpo Airfield, now in communist hands.

1951 – The United States invited the Soviet Union to the Korean peace talks on a ship in Wonson Harbor.

1951 – U.N. Forces Commander General Matthew Ridgway offered to meet with the communist commanders to discuss a cease-fire and armistice.

1954 – The Atomic Energy Commission voted against reinstating Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s access to classified information.

1954 – At the conclusion of a five day conference, Churchill, Eden, Eisenhower and Dulles endorse partition and agree on seven points that offer a surprisingly accurate outline of the formal agreement at the conference.

1956 – The US Federal Highway Act authorized a 42,500 mile network linking major urban centers. 90% of the cost was to be borne by the federal government.

1966 – During the Vietnam War, U.S. aircraft bomb the major North Vietnamese population centers of Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time, destroying oil depots located near the two cities. The U.S. military hoped that by bombing Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, and Haiphong, North Vietnam’s largest port, communist forces would be deprived of essential military supplies and thus the ability to wage war. In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy sent the first large force of U.S. military personnel to Vietnam to bolster the ineffectual autocratic regime of South Vietnam against communist forces. Three years later, with the South Vietnamese government crumbling, President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered limited bombing raids on North Vietnam, and Congress authorized the use of U.S. ground troops.

By 1965, Vietcong and North Vietnamese offensives left President Johnson with two choices: escalate U.S. involvement or withdraw. Johnson ordered the former, and troop levels soon jumped to more than 300,000 as U.S. air forces commenced the largest bombing campaign in history. However, as the Vietcong were able to fight with an average daily flow of only 20 tons of supplies from North Vietnam, and U.S. forces in Vietnam required 1,000 times as much, the bombing of communist industry and supply routes had little impact on the course of the war. Nevertheless, North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh placed the destruction of U.S. bombers in the forefront of his war effort, and by 1969 more than 5,000 American planes had been lost. In addition, the extended length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai turned many in the United States against the Vietnam War. In 1973, representatives of the United States and North and South Vietnam signed a peace agreement in Paris, ending the U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War.

On April 30, 1975, the last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of the country as Saigon fell to communist forces. The Vietnam War was the longest and most unpopular foreign war in U.S. history and cost 58,000 American lives. As many as two million Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were killed.

1968 – South Vietnamese Premier, Tran Van Huong expresses concern that, because of its impatience to end the war, the United States is making too many concessions at the peace talks, behavior which the North Vietnamese interpret as a sign of weakness.

1970 – U.S. ground combat troops end two months of operations in Cambodia and return to South Vietnam. Military officials reported 354 Americans had been killed and 1,689 were wounded in the operation. The South Vietnamese reported 866 killed and 3,724 wounded. About 34,000 South Vietnamese troops remained in Cambodia. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces had launched a limited “incursion” into Cambodia to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The incursion into Cambodia had given the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point.

News of the crossing into Cambodia set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops, and another at Jackson State in Mississippi resulting in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president.

1972 – President Nixon agrees to the resumption of peace talks in Paris ‘on the assumption that the North Vietnamese are prepared to negotiate in a constructive and serious way.’ Talks will begin again on 13 July.

1973 – Congress agrees that bombing in Cambodia can continue until 15 August, after which spending for any military activity in Indochina must be approved by Congress.

1978 – Vietnam becomes a member of COMECON (The Council of Mutual Economic Assistance), the Soviet-Bloc East European economic community.

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1982 – The Soviet Union launched COSPAS I, the first search and rescue satellite ever launched. In combination with later SARSAT satellites, a new multi-agency, international, search and rescue service was made operational.

1991 – President Bush, speaking to reporters in Kennebunkport, Maine, refused to rule out the possibility of renewed military action against Iraq, calling its interference with U-N inspectors “very disturbing.”

1994 – US reopened Guantanamo Naval Base to process refugees.

1995 – The shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir docked, forming the largest man-made satellite ever to orbit the Earth.

1996 – U.S. allies backed President Clinton’s demand that Bosnian Serb leaders indicted for war crimes be forced “out of power and out of influence.”

1999 – In Chechnya Russian security forces freed Herbert Gregg (51), an American missionary kidnapped over 7 months ago. Part of his index finger had bee cut off in an attempt to extort ransom.

2000 – Iraq said US and British warplanes bombed North Rumeila and killed a woman shepherd and injured her husband.

2001 – In Okinawa a woman claimed that she was raped by an American. US Air Force sergeant Timothy B. Woodland was later charged. Sgt. Woodland was handed over to Japanese authorities on July 6. Woodland was convicted Mar 27 and was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

2002 – Pakistan issued a “most wanted” list of 10 suspected Islamic militants and offered big rewards for their capture in connection with the killing of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl and the bombing of Western targets.

2003 – In Iraq US forces launched a massive operation to crush insurgents and capture senior figures from the ousted regime.

2007 – Four men were indicted on charges with conspiring to “cause death, serious bodily injury and extensive destruction” at New Yourk City’s JFK Airport. On August 6 a judge ordered three of the alleged plotters extradited to the United States. This was an alleged Islamist terrorist plot to blow up a system of jet fuel supply tanks and pipelines that feed fuel to John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in Queens, New York. These pipelines travel throughout the undergrounds of New York City in densely populated areas. The alleged plot was foiled when an undercover law enforcement official was recruited to the homegrown terrorist cell. The suspects are Russell Defreitas, a United States citizen and native of Guyana who was the alleged ringleader and worked for a time at the airport; Abdul Kadir, a citizen of Guyana and former member of the Guyanaese National Assembly; Kareem Ibrahim, a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago; and Abdel Nur, a citizen of Guyana and uncle of former world welterweight boxing champion Andrew “Six Heads” Lewis. Defreitas was a former employee of JFK and was arrested in Brooklyn, New York. Kadir and Ibrahim were arrested in Trinidad on June 3, 2007. Nur surrendered to police two days later in Trinidad.

2009 – U.S. forces withdrew from Baghdad.

2014 – The establishment of a new caliphate was announced, with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named as its caliph, and the group formally changed its name to the “Islamic State.” IS’s ideology originates in the branch of modern Islam that aims to return to the early days of Islam, rejecting later “innovations” in the religion which it believes corrupt its original spirit. It condemns later caliphates and the Ottoman empire for deviating from what it calls pure Islam and hence has been attempting to establish its own caliphate. From its beginnings the establishment of a pure Islamic state has been one of the group’s main goals. According to journalist Sarah Birke, one of the “significant differences” between Al-Nusra Front and ISIS is that ISIS “tends to be more focused on establishing its own rule on conquered territory”.

While both groups share the ambition to build an Islamic state, ISIS is “far more ruthless … carrying out sectarian attacks and imposing sharia law immediately”. ISIS finally achieved its goal on 29 June 2014, when it removed “Iraq and the Levant” from its name, began to refer to itself as the Islamic State, and declared the territory which it occupied in Iraq and Syria a new caliphate. In mid-2014, the group released a video entitled “The End of Sykes–Picot” featuring an English-speaking Chilean national named Abu Safiyya. The video announced the group’s intention to eliminate all modern borders between Islamic Middle Eastern countries; this was a reference to the borders set by the Sykes–Picot Agreement during World War I.

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[SHOOTER13]

Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HICKEY, DENNIS W.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 2d New York Cavalry. Place and date: At Stony Creek Bridge, Va., 29 June 1864. Entered service at:——. Birth: Troy, N.Y. Date of issue: 18 April 1891. Citation: With a detachment of 3 men, tore up the bridge at Stony Creek being the last man on the bridge and covering the retreat until he was shot down.

QUINLAN, JAMES
Rank and organization: Major, 88th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Savage Station, Va., 29 June 1862. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 13 September 1833, Ireland. Date of issue: 18 February 1891. Citation: Led his regiment on the enemy’s battery, silenced the guns, held the position against overwhelming numbers, and covered the retreat of the 2d Army Corps.

WHITAKER, EDWARD W.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company E, 1st Connecticut Cavalry. Place and date: At Reams Station, Va., 29 June 1864. Entered service at: Ashford, Conn. Born: 15 June 1841, Killingly, Conn. Date of issue: 2 April 1898. Citation: While acting as an aide voluntarily carried dispatches from the commanding general to Gen. Meade, forcing his way with a single troop of Cavalry, through an Infantry division of the enemy in the most distinguished manner, though he lost half his escort.

SALE, ALBERT
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 8th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Santa Maria River, Ariz., 29 June 1869. Entered service at:——. Birth: Broome County, N.Y. Date of issue: 3 March 1870. Citation: Gallantry in killing an Indian warrior and capturing pony and effects.

*BENNETT, STEVEN L.
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Air Force. 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, Pacific Air Forces. Place and date: Quang Tri, Republic of Vietnam, 29 June 1972. Entered service at: Lafayette, La. Born: 22 April 1946, Palestine, Tex. Citation: Capt. Bennett was the pilot of a light aircraft flying an artillery adjustment mission along a heavily defended segment of route structure. A large concentration of enemy troops was massing for an attack on a friendly unit. Capt. Bennett requested tactical air support but was advised that none was available. He also requested artillery support but this too was denied due to the close proximity of friendly troops to the target. Capt. Bennett was determined to aid the endangered unit and elected to strafe the hostile positions. After 4 such passes, the enemy force began to retreat. Capt. Bennett continued the attack, but, as he completed his fifth strafing pass, his aircraft was struck by a surface-to-air missile, which severely damaged the left engine and the left main landing gear. As fire spread in the left engine, Capt. Bennett realized that recovery at a friendly airfield was impossible. He instructed his observer to prepare for an ejection, but was informed by the observer that his parachute had been shredded by the force of the impacting missile. Although Capt. Bennett had a good parachute, he knew that if he ejected, the observer would have no chance of survival. With complete disregard for his own life, Capt. Bennett elected to ditch the aircraft into the Gulf of Tonkin, even though he realized that a pilot of this type aircraft had never survived a ditching. The ensuing impact upon the water caused the aircraft to cartwheel and severely damaged the front cockpit, making escape for Capt. Bennett impossible. The observer successfully made his way out of the aircraft and was rescued. Capt. Bennett’s unparalleled concern for his companion, extraordinary heroism and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, at the cost of his life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.

HERDA, FRANK A.
Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company A, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Place and date: Near Dak To, Quang Trang Province, Republic of Vietnam, 29 June 1968. Entered service at: Cleveland, Ohio. Born: 13 September 1947, Cleveland, Ohio. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Herda (then Pfc.) distinguished himself while serving as a grenadier with Company A. Company A was part of a battalion-size night defensive perimeter when a large enemy force initiated an attack on the friendly units. While other enemy elements provided diversionary fire and indirect weapons fire to the west, a sapper force of approximately 30 men armed with hand grenades and small charges attacked Company A’s perimeter from the east. As the sappers were making a last, violent assault, 5 of them charged the position defended by Sp4c. Herda and 2 comrades, 1 of whom was wounded and lay helpless in the bottom of the foxhole. Sp4c. Herda fired at the aggressors until they were within 10 feet of his position and 1 of their grenades landed in the foxhole. He fired 1 last round from his grenade launcher, hitting 1 of the enemy soldiers in the head, and then, with no concern for his safety, Sp4c. Herda immediately covered the blast of the grenade with his body. The explosion wounded him grievously, but his selfless action prevented his 2 comrades from being seriously injured or killed and enabled the remaining defender to kill the other sappers. By his gallantry at the risk of his life in the highest traditions of the military service, Sp4c. Herda has reflected great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

MORRIS, CHARLES B.
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant (then Sgt.), U.S. Army, Company A, 2d Battalion (Airborne), 503d Infantry, 173d Airborne Brigade (Separate). Place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 29 June 1966. Entered service at: Roanoke, Va. Born: 29 December 1931, Carroll County, Va. C.O. No.: 51, 14 December 1967. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Seeing indications of the enemy’s presence in the area, S/Sgt. Morris deployed his squad and continued forward alone to make a reconnaissance. He unknowingly crawled within 20 meters of an enemy machinegun, whereupon the gunner fired, wounding him in the chest. S/Sgt. Morris instantly returned the fire and killed the gunner. Continuing to crawl within a few feet of the gun, he hurled a grenade and killed the remainder of the enemy crew. Although in pain and bleeding profusely, S/Sgt. Morris continued his reconnaissance. Returning to the platoon area, he reported the results of his reconnaissance to the platoon leader. As he spoke, the platoon came under heavy fire. Refusing medical attention for himself, he deployed his men in better firing positions confronting the entrenched enemy to his front. Then for 8 hours the platoon engaged the numerically superior enemy force. Withdrawal was impossible without abandoning many wounded and dead.

Finding the platoon medic dead, S/Sgt. Morris administered first aid to himself and was returning to treat the wounded members of his squad with the medic’s first aid kit when he was again wounded. Knocked down and stunned, he regained consciousness and continued to treat the wounded, reposition his men, and inspire and encourage their efforts. Wounded again when an enemy grenade shattered his left hand, nonetheless he personally took up the fight and armed and threw several grenades which killed a number of enemy soldiers. Seeing that an enemy machinegun had maneuvered behind his platoon and was delivering the fire upon his men, S/Sgt. Morris and another man crawled toward the gun to knock it out. His comrade was killed and S/Sgt. Morris sustained another wound, but, firing his rifle with 1 hand, he silenced the enemy machinegun. Returning to the platoon, he courageously exposed himself to the devastating enemy fire to drag the wounded to a protected area, and with utter disregard for his personal safety and the pain he suffered, he continued to lead and direct the efforts of his men until relief arrived.

Upon termination of the battle, important documents were found among the enemy dead revealing a planned ambush of a Republic of Vietnam battalion. Use of this information prevented the ambush and saved many lives. S/Sgt. Morris’ gallantry was instrumental in the successful defeat of the enemy, saved many lives, and was in the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

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30 June

1815 – USS Peacock takes HMS Nautilus, last action of the War of 1812.

1834 – Congress placed the Marine Corps under Navy jurisdiction.

1862 – The Seven Days’ Battles continues at Glendale (White Oak Swamp), Virginia, as Robert E. Lee has a chance to deal a decisive blow against George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had already won the Seven Days’ Battles, but the Confederates’ attempt to rout McClellan cost many Southern casualties. The Seven Days’ Battles were the climax of McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. For two months, the Union army sailed down Chesapeake Bay and then inched up the James Peninsula. In late June, the two forces began a series of clashes in which McClellan became unnerved and began to retreat to his base at Harrison’s Landing on the James River. Lee hounded him on the retreat.

On June 30, Lee plotted a complex attack on the Yankees as they backed down the peninsula. He hoped to hit the front, flank, and rear of the Union army to create confusion and jam the escape routes. Those attacks did not succeed, as they required precise timing. Lee’s own generals were confused, the attacks developed slowly, and they made only temporary ruptures in the Federal lines. Most disappointing for Lee was the performance of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Jackson was coming off a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, but he showed little of his skill during the Seven Days’ Battles. His corps halted at the edge of White Oak Swamp, and he focused his attention on taking a bridge from the Yankees. His officers located fords that would have allowed his men to bypass the bottleneck, but Jackson stayed put. This allowed the Union to move troops from Jackson’s sector of the battlefield to halt a Confederate attack in another area. Lee’s failure at Glendale permitted McClellan’s army to fall back to higher, more defensible locations. The next day, July 1, Lee assaulted Malvern Hill and his army suffered tremendous casualties in the face of a withering Union artillery barrage.

1863 – Union and Confederate cavalries clashed at Hanover, Pennsylvania.

1864 – Converted ferryboat U.S.S. Hunchback, Lieutenant Joseph P. Fyffe, supported by single turretted monitor U.S.S. Saugus, Commander Colhoun, bombarded Confederate batteries at Deep Bottom on the James River and caused their eventual removal. Rear Admiral Lee reported: “The importance of holding our position at Deep Bottom is obvious. Without doing so our communications are cut there, and our wooden vessels can not remain above that point, and the monitors would be alone and exposed to the enemy’s light torpedo craft from above and out of Four Mile Creek. The enemy could then plant torpedoes there to prevent the monitors passing by for supplies.”

1865 – Eight alleged conspirators in assassination of Lincoln were found guilty after kangaroo court-martial and brutal treatment by military officers.

1876 – After a slow two-day march, the wounded soldiers from the Battle of the Little Big Horn reach the steamboat Far West. The Far West had been leased by the U.S. Army for the duration of the 1876 campaign against the hostile Sioux and Cheyenne Indians of the Northern Plains. Under the command of the skilled civilian Captain Grant Marsh, the 190-foot vessel was ideal for navigating the shallow waters of the Upper Missouri River system. The boat drew only 20 inches of water when fully laden and Marsh managed to steam up the shallow Big Horn River in southern Montana in June 1876. There, the boat became a headquarters for the army’s planned attack on a village of Sioux and Cheyenne they believed were camping on the nearby Little Big Horn River.

On June 28, Captain Grant and several other men were fishing about a mile from the boat when a young Indian on horseback approached. “He wore an exceedingly dejected countenance,” one man later wrote. By signing and drawing on the ground, the Indian managed to convey that there had been a battle but the men did not understand its outcome. In fact, the Indian was Curley, one of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s Crow scouts. Three days earlier, he had been the last man to see Custer and his 7th Cavalry battalion before they were wiped out during the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The following day, Grant received a dispatch from General Terry, who had found Custer’s destroyed battalion and the surviving soldiers of the 7th Cavalry. Terry ordered Grant to prepare to evacuate the wounded soldiers. Slowed by the burden of carrying the wounded men, Terry’s force did not arrive until June 30th. Grant immediately received the 54 wounded soldiers and sped downstream as quickly as possible. With the Far West draped in black and flying her flag at half-mast, Grant delivered the wounded to Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, North Dakota, at 11:00 p.m. on July 5th. The fast and relatively comfortable transport of the wounded by steam power undoubtedly saved numerous lives. Yet, Grant was also the bearer of bad news. From Fort Abraham Lincoln, General Terry’s report of the disaster was telegraphed all over the country. Soon the entire nation learned that General Custer and more than 200 men had been massacred along the Little Big Horn River.

1882 – Charles Guiteau the assassin of President Garfield was hanged in a Washington jail.

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1934 – In Germany, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future. The leadership of the Nazi Storm Troopers (SA), whose four million members had helped bring Hitler to power in the early 1930s, was especially targeted. Hitler feared that some of his followers had taken his early “National Socialism” propaganda too seriously and thus might compromise his plan to suppress workers’ rights in exchange for German industry making the country war-ready. In the early 1920s, the ranks of Hitler’s Nazi Party swelled with resentful Germans who sympathized with the party’s bitter hatred of Germany’s democratic government, leftist politics, and Jews. In November 1923, after the German government resumed the payment of war reparations to Britain and France, the Nazis launched the “Beer Hall Putsch”–their first attempt at seizing the German government by force. Hitler hoped that his nationalist revolution in Bavaria would spread to the dissatisfied German army, which in turn would bring down the government in Berlin. However, the uprising was immediately suppressed, and Hitler was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for high treason. Sent to Landsberg jail, he spent his time dictating his autobiography, Mein Kampf, and working on his oratorical skills. After nine months in prison, political pressure from supporters of the Nazi Party forced his release.

During the next few years, Hitler and the other leading Nazis reorganized their party as a fanatical mass movement that was able to gain a majority in the German parliament–the Reichstag–by legal means in 1932. In the same year, President Paul von Hindenburg defeated a presidential bid by Hitler, but in January 1933 he appointed Hitler chancellor, hoping that the powerful Nazi leader could be brought to heel as a member of the president’s cabinet. However, Hindenburg underestimated Hitler’s political audacity, and one of the new chancellor’s first acts was to use the burning of the Reichstag building as a pretext for calling general elections. The police, under Nazi Hermann Goering, suppressed much of the party’s opposition before the election, and the Nazis won a bare majority. Shortly after, Hitler took on absolute power through the Enabling Acts. In 1934, Hindenburg died, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled, leaving Hitler the sole master of a nation intent on war and genocide.

1943 – General Douglas MacArthur launches Operation Cartwheel, a multi-pronged assault on Rabaul and several islands in the Solomon Sea in the South Pacific. The joint effort takes nine months to complete but succeeds in recapturing more Japanese-controlled territory, further eroding their supremacy in the East. The purpose of Cartwheel was to destroy the barrier formation Japan had created in the Bismark Archipelago, a collection of islands east of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea. The Japanese considered this area vital to the protection of their conquests in the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines. For the Allies, Rabaul, in New Britain, was the key to winning control of this theater of operations, as it served as the Japanese naval headquarters and main base.

On June 30th, General MacArthur, strategic commander of the area, launched a simultaneous attack, on New Guinea and on New Georgia, as a setup and staging maneuver for the ultimate assault, that on Rabaul. The landing on New Georgia, led by Admiral William Halsey, proved particularly difficult, given the large Japanese garrison stationed there and the harsh climate and topography. Substantial reinforcements were needed before the region could be controlled, in August. One consequence of Cartwheel was a lesson in future strategy. By establishing a “step-by-step” approach to invasion, the Allies unwittingly gave the Japanese time to regroup and establish their next line of defense. The Allies then decided that a new strategy was to be deployed, that of leaving certain islands, or parts thereof, to “wither on the vine,” rather than waste valuable time and manpower in fighting it out for marginal gains. A leapfrogging strategy was then employed by MacArthur, whereby he left in place smaller Japanese strongholds in order to concentrate on “bigger fish.”

1943 – American forces land on several islands of the New Georgia group. Rendova island is targeted, in particular. All the landings are successful. There is heavy Japanese resistance on Vangunu. The American forces engaged for these landings are principally the 43rd Division (General Hester) with naval support by Task Force 31 (Admiral Turner) and land-based aircraft commanded by Admiral Fitch.

1943 – A mixed Australian and American unit known as McKechnie Force lands at Nassau Bay near Salamaua from Morobe. There is heavy Japanese resistance to the landing.

1944 – German resistance in the Cotentin Peninsula ends. The US 1st Army continues to battle on the approach to St. Lo; the British 2nd Army continues to battle toward Caen. Since D-Day, the Allies have landed 630,000 troops, 600,000 tons of supplies and 177,000 vehicles in the Normandy beachhead. They have suffered 62,000 dead and wounded.

1944 – Elements of US 5th Army are heavily engaged in Cecina. The main advance inland is slowed by a new German defensive line south of Siena and Arezzo.

1944 – The American 5th Amphibious Corps has captured over half of Saipan. Fighting north of Mount Tipo Pale and Mount Tapotchau continues. Death Valley and Purple Heart Ridge are cleared.

1944 – The United States breaks diplomatic relations with Finland.

1945 – On Okinawa, American forces complete mopping-up operations (June 23-30) in which 8975 Japanese are reported killed and 2902 captured.

1946 – The general World War II demobilization task was completed with all Separation Centers decommissioned, resulting in a reduced Coast Guard personnel to 23,000 officers and enlisted personnel from a wartime peak of about 171,000 on 30 June 1945.

1946 – The U .S. Navy returned the Coast Guard’s eleven air stations to the operational control of the Coast Guard.

1948 – Bell Labs introduced the point-contact transistor in the New York Times on p.46 as a replacement for the vacuum tube. Bell Labs had kept it secret for six months. John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley demonstrated their invention, the transistor, for the first time. John Pierce (d.2002) proposed the name.

1950 – Just three days after the United Nations Security Council voted to provide military assistance to South Korea, President Harry S. Truman orders U.S. armed forces to assist in defending that nation from invading North Korean armies. Truman’s dramatic step marked the official entry of the United States into the Korean War. On June 25, 1950, military forces from communist North Korea invaded South Korea. South Korean forces and the small number of U.S. troops stationed in the nation reeled under the surprise attack. On June 27, the United States asked the Security Council in the United Nations to pass a resolution calling on member states of the United Nations to assist South Korea. With the Soviets boycotting the meeting for other reasons, the resolution passed. Three days later, President Truman ordered U.S. ground forces into South Korea and the troops entered South Korea that same day. At the same time, Truman ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb military targets in North Korea and directed the U.S. Navy to blockade the North Korean coast.

Truman’s action signaled the beginning of official and large-scale U.S. participation in the Korean War. Over the next three years, the United States provided at least half of the U.N. ground forces in Korea and the vast majority of the air and sea forces used in the conflict against North Korea and, later, against communist China, which entered the war on the side of North Korea in late 1950. Nearly 55,000 Americans were killed in the war and over 100,000 were wounded. Cost estimates for the war ranged as high as $20 billion. In July 1953, an armistice was signed that ended the fighting and left Korea a divided nation.

1951 – Marine Corps Captain Edwin B. Long scored the first night kill of the Korean War and the first in a F7F Tiger Cat victory ever by downing a PO-2 near Kimpo.

1951 – On orders from Washington, General Matthew Ridgeway broadcast that the United Nations was willing to discuss an armistice with North Korea. In 1950, as U.S. Marines tried to fight their way out of a Chinese trap, Korea suffered its worst winter of the century.

1951 – Naval Administration of Marianas ends.

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1953 – U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Henry “Hank” Buttleman, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 36th and youngest ace of the Korean War, having just turned 24. He accomplished this feat only 12 days after his first kill. (An ace has five kills.) Colonel James K. Johnson, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, qualified as the eighth “double ace” of the war, with 10 total kills.

1955 – The U.S. began funding West Germany’s rearmament.

1957 – The American occupation headquarters in Japan was dissolved.

1958 – Congress passed a law authorizing the admission of Alaska as the 49th state in the Union, the first new state since 1912.

1958 – The Communists have formed a coordinated command structure in the eastern Mekong Delta. Most of the 37 companies formed in October 1957 are located in the western Mekong Delta.

1960 – US stopped sugar imports from Cuba.

1965 – US forces in Vietnam are assigned to operate under the so-called enclave strategy. The marines are now at Danang, Phubai, and Chulai, and the Army at Vungtau. US forces are expected to defend these coastal areas, leaving ARVN troops to take the offensive in the rest of the country.

1966 – Congressional reaction to the Hanoi-Haiphong air attacks of the previous day ranges from applause to denunciation. In voicing his approval, Senator Richard Russell (R-GA) states that the raid will reduce American casualties. Sixteen Democratic Representatives issue a joint statement declaring that the expanded air strikes commit the US to ‘a profoundly dangerous policy of brinksmanship’ which challenges China. Peking, meanwhile calls the raids a serious escalation of the war, warning that it is prepared for any eventuality.

1967 – The South Vietnamese Armed Forces Council resolves rival claims to the presidency in favor of Nguyen Van Thieu, Chief of State. Former Premier Nguyen Cao Ky, who had announced on May 11 that he would run for president, was forced to accept second place on the presidential ticket. Thieu had been an Army officer in command of the 5th Infantry Division near Saigon when he and other senior South Vietnamese officers led a coup against President Ngo Dinh Diem. Following the coup, a series of groups jockeyed for power. In June 1965, another coup against the civilian government momentarily in power resulted in a 10-man Military National Leadership Committee, which elected Ky as premier and Thieu as Chairman and Chief of State. When elections were held in 1967, the situation was reversed and Thieu became president.

In 1971, Ky would choose not to run against Thieu and Thieu would be re-elected to the presidency, although charges of a rigged election surfaced. Pressured by the United States to agree to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, which left the North Vietnamese in control of large segments of South Vietnam, President Thieu’s position was further undermined when the U.S. Congress cut promised military aid. After an open North Vietnamese attack on Phuoc Long Province in November 1974, President Gerald Ford failed to honor U.S. promises to come to the aid of the South Vietnamese in the case of such an attack. With four North Vietnamese corps closing in on Saigon and all hope of outside assistance gone, President Thieu resigned, and on April 25, 1975, he left South Vietnam, flying to Taiwan and then to Great Britain.
1967 – Several sources report attacks by US planes on foreign ships in Haiphong harbor. The Soviet government charges that a second Russian merchant vessel, Mikhail Frunze, was bombed by US planes in Haiphong on June 29. A protest is delivered to the US embassy in Moscow on June 30. The North Vietnamese news agency reports that two other foreign ships were also struck.

1970 – The Senate votes 58 to 37 in favor of adopting the Cooper-Church amendment to limit presidential power in Cambodia. The amendment barred funds to retain U.S. troops in Cambodia after July 1 or to supply military advisers, mercenaries, or to conduct “any combat activity in the air above Cambodia in direct support of Cambodian forces” without congressional approval. The amendment represented the first limitation ever passed in the Senate concerning the president’s powers as commander-in-chief during a war situation. The House of Representatives rejected the amendment on July 9, and it was eventually dropped from the Foreign Military Sales Act.

1970 – In a written report on the U.S. incursion in Cambodia, President Nixon pronounced it a “successful” operation. Nixon ruled out the use of U.S. troops there in the future, suggesting that Cambodia’s defense would be left largely to Cambodia and its allies. Regarding the use of U.S. air power in Cambodia, Nixon stated that the United States would not provide air or logistical support for South Vietnamese forces in Cambodia, but would continue bombing enemy personnel and supply concentrations “with the approval of the Cambodian government.” Nixon noted that more than a year’s supply of weapons and ammunition had been captured and that 11,349 enemy soldiers were killed by Allied forces during the incursion into the area.

1971 – The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Pentagon Papers. On the same day President Nixon told Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman to break into the Brookings Institute and bring out files collected on the Vietnam War.

1971 – The 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified as Ohio became the 38th state to approve it. The amendment lowered the minimum voting age from 21 to 18. The amendment was authored by Senator Jennings Randolph (died 1998 at 96) of West Virginia.

1971 – In an attempt to knock out Communist rocket emplacements that have been shelling US and South Vietnamese bases south of the DMZ during the past two weeks, 14 US F-4 Phantom fighters hit the North Vietnamese region of the DMZ.

1977 – President Jimmy Carter announced his opposition to the B-1 bomber.

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1985 – 39 American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held for 17 days.

1991 – The federal base-closing commission voted to shut down 17 military bases, including the massive Philadelphia Navy Shipyard, in addition to seven facilities ordered closed two days earlier.

1993 – 13 US helicopters attack a Somali compound.

1998 – A US fighter jet fired a missile at an Iraqi anti-aircraft site after the site’s radar locked on a British warplane.

1998 – Officials confirmed that the remains of a Vietnam War serviceman buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery were identified as those of Air Force pilot Michael J. Blassie.

2001 – NASA launched its 16-foot, 1,800-pound Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to orbit the Sun and to scan the universe for the faint afterglow of Creation by measuring variations in radiation temperature of up to 20 millionths of a degree. In 2003 it allowed scientists to calculate the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years.

2002 – The United States vetoed a resolution extending the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia, then agreed to keep the mission alive three more days while the Security Council seeks a way to meet U.S. demands for immunity from a new global war crimes court.

2003 – American troops detained the U.S.-appointed mayor of Najaf, Iraq, accusing him of kidnapping and corruption.

2004 – The Cassini probe entered Saturn’s orbit for 4 years of explorations. Its 4-year mission included a close approach to Saturn’s 3rd moon Iapetus.

2007 – The Battle of Donkey Island was a skirmish that occurred on 30 June and 1 July 2007 between elements of the U.S. Army Task Force 1-77 Armor Regiment, the 2nd Battalion 5th Marines and a numerically superior force of al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgents on the banks of a canal leading from Ramadi to Lake Habbaniyah in the Al-Anbar province of Iraq. Official reports of the clash indicate that the U.S. force suffered 2 soldiers dead and 11 wounded, while an estimated 32 insurgents were killed (out of an estimated force of 40–70 fighters). The battle was a complete victory for the U.S. forces, which detected and defeated an insurgent force before it could launch a planned assault on Ramadi.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BRONNER, AUGUST F.
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 1st New York Artillery. Place and date: At White Oak Swamp, Va., 30 June 1862. At Malvern Hill, Va., 1 July 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: Unknown. Citation: Continued to fight after being severely wounded.

BURKE, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 5th New York Cavalry. Place and date: At Hanover Courthouse, Va., 30 June 1863. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 11 February 1878. Citation: Capture of battle flag.

HOWARD, HENDERSON C.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company B, 11th Pennsylvania Reserves. Place and date: At Glendale, Va., 30 June 1862. Entered service at: Indiana, Pa. Birth:——. Date of issue: 30 March 1898. Citation: While pursuing one of the enemy’s sharpshooters, encountered 2 others, whom he bayoneted in hand-to-hand encounters; was 3 times wounded in action.

KING, RUFUS, JR.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 4th U.S. Artillery. Place and date: At White Oak Swamp Bridge, Va., 30 June 1862. Entered service at: New York. Birth: New York. Date of issue: 2 April 1898. Citation: This officer, when his captain was wounded, succeeded to the command of two batteries while engaged against a superior force of the enemy and fought his guns most gallantly until compelled to retire.

LEVY, BENJAMIN
Rank and organization: Private, Company B, 1st New York Infantry. Place and date: At Glendale, Va., 30 June 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: New York, N.Y. Date of issue: 1 March 1865. Citation: This soldier, a drummer boy, took the gun of a sick comrade, went into the fight, and when the color bearers were shot down, carried the colors and saved them from capture.

McMAHON, MARTIN T.
Rank and organization: Captain, and aide_de_camp U.S. Volunteers Place and date: At White Oak Swamp, Va., 30 June i862. Entered service at: California. Born: 21 March 1838, Canada. Date of issue: 10 March 1891. Citation: Under fire of the enemy, successfully destroyed a valuable train that had been abandoned and prevented it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

SHAMBAUGH, CHARLES
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company D, 11th Pennsylvania Reserves. Place and date: At Charles City Crossroads, Va., 30 June 1862. Entered service at: Indiana County, Pa. Birth: Prussia. Date of issue: 17 July 1866. Citation: Capture of flag.

UHRL, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Light Battery F, 5th U.S. Artillery. Place and date: At White Oak Swamp Bridge, Va.. 30 June 1862. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 4 April 1898. Citation: Was 1 of a party of 3 who, under heavy fire of advancing enemy, voluntarily secured and saved from capture a field gun belonging to another battery, and which had been deserted by its officers and men.

BELL, DENNIS
Rank and organization: Private, Troop H, 10th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Tayabacoa, Cuba, 30 June 1898. Entered service at: Washington, D.C. Birth: Washington, D.C. Date of issue: 23 June 1899. Citation: Voluntarily went ashore in the face of the enemy and aided in the rescue of his wounded comrades; this after several previous attempts at rescue had been frustrated.

LEE, FITZ
Rank and organization: Private, Troop M, 10th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Tayabacoa, Cuba, 30 June 1898. Entered service at: Dinwiddie County, Va. Birth: Dinwiddie County, Va. Date of issue: 23 June 1899. Citation: Voluntarily went ashore in the face of the enemy and aided in the rescue of his wounded comrades; this after several previous attempts had been frustrated.

MULLER, FREDERICK
Rank and organization: Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 29 March 1861, Copenhagen, Denmark. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 45, 30 April 1901. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Wompatuck, Manzanillo, Cuba, 30 June 1898. Serving under the fire of the enemy, Muller displayed heroism and gallantry during this period.

THOMPKINS, WILLIAM H.
Rank and organization: Private, Troop G, 10th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Tayabacoa, Cuba, 30 June 1898. Entered service at: Paterson, N.J. Birth: Paterson, N.J. Date of issue: 23 June 1899. Citation. Voluntarily went ashore in the face of the enemy and aided in the rescue of his wounded comrades; this after several previous attempts at rescue had been frustrated.

WANTON, GEORGE H. (First black man to receive Medal of Honor )
Rank and organization: Private, Troop M, 10th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Tayabacoa, Cuba, 30 June 1898. Entered service at: Paterson, N.J. Birth: Paterson, N.J. Date of issue: 23 June 1899. Citation: Voluntarily went ashore in the face of the enemy and aided in the rescue of his wounded comrades; this after several previous attempts at rescue had been frustrated.

FADDEN, HARRY D.
Rand and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 17 September 1882, Oregon. Accredited to: Washington. G.O. No.: 138, 31 July 1903. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Adams, for gallantry, rescuing O.C. Hawthorne, landsman for training, from drowning at sea, 30 June 1903.

*LONG, DONALD RUSSELL
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Troop C, 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division. place and date: Republic of Vietnam, 30 June 1966. Entered service at: Ashland, Ky. Born: 27 August 1939, Blackfork, Ohio. G.O. No.: 13, 4 April 1968. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Troops B and C, while conducting a reconnaissance mission along a road were suddenly attacked by a Viet Cong regiment, supported by mortars, recoilless rifles and machine guns, from concealed positions astride the road. Sgt. Long abandoned the relative safety of his armored personnel carrier and braved a withering hail of enemy fire to carry wounded men to evacuation helicopters. As the platoon fought its way forward to resupply advanced elements, Sgt. Long repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire at point blank range to provide the needed supplies. While assaulting the Viet Cong position, Sgt. Long inspired his comrades by fearlessly standing unprotected to repel the enemy with rifle fire and grenades as they attempted to mount his carrier. When the enemy threatened to overrun a disabled carrier nearby, Sgt. Long again disregarded his own safety to help the severely wounded crew to safety. As he was handing arms to the less seriously wounded and reorganizing them to press the attack, an enemy grenade was hurled onto the carrier deck. Immediately recognizing the imminent danger, he instinctively shouted a warning to the crew and pushed to safety one man who had not heard his warning over the roar of battle. Realizing that these actions would not fully protect the exposed crewmen from the deadly explosion, he threw himself over the grenade to absorb the blast and thereby saved the lives of 8 of his comrades at the expense of his life. Throughout the battle, Sgt. Long’s extraordinary heroism, courage and supreme devotion to his men were in the finest tradition of the military service, and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

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[SHOOTER13]

1 July

1656 – The 1st Quakers, Mary Fisher and Ann Austin, arrived in Boston and were promptly arrested.

1776 – The Continental Congress, sitting as a committee, met on July 1, 1776, to debate a resolution submitted by Virginia delegate Richard Henry Lee on June 7. The resolution stated that the United Colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States.” The committee voted for the motion and, on July 2 in formal session took the final vote for independence.

1777 – British troops departed from their base at the Bouquet river to head toward Ticonderoga, New York.

1797 – Congress passed “An Act providing a Naval Armament,” empowered the President to “cause the said revenue cutters to be employed to defend the seacoast and to repel any hostility to their vessels and commerce, within their jurisdiction, having due regard to the duty of said cutters in the protection of the revenue.” The act also increased the complements of the cutters from ten men to a number “not exceeding 30 marines and seamen.”

1800 – First convoy duty; USS Essex escorts convoy of merchant ships from East Indies to U.S.

1801 – U.S. squadron under Commodore Dale enters Mediterranean to strike Barbary Pirates.

1850 – Naval School at Annapolis renamed Naval Academy.

1851 – Naval Academy adopts four year course of study.

1861 – The US War Department decreed that Kansas and Tennessee were to be canvassed for volunteers.

1862 – Congress gave the green light to the tax-centric Revenue Act. The legislation, which was soon signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln, imposed a three-percent tax on people with incomes between $600 to $10,000; and also called for a five-percent levy on people with incomes reaching over $10,000. However, the Revenue Act was perhaps more notable for creating the Bureau of Internal Revenue, a government agency which was charged with collecting the revenue generated by the new taxes. Though the Revenue Act and its attendant package of taxes were allowed to lapse into legislative oblivion after the Civil War, the Bureau of Internal Revenue eventually came back to haunt Americaýs taxpaying citizens in 1913, when the Sixteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. Along with sanctioning the income tax, the amendment paved the path for the opening of the Internal Revenue Service, which, in its role as the official clearing house for the nationýs taxes, proved to be the bureaucratic progeny of the Internal Revenue Service

1862 – The US Congress outlawed polygamy for the 1st time. The Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act, signed by Pres. Lincoln, made polygamy illegal in American territories. It led to the prosecution of over 1300 Mormons. It also granted large tracts of public land to the states with the directive to sell for the support of institutions teaching the mechanical and agricultural arts. It also obligated state male university students to military training. The education initiative resulted in 68 land-grant colleges.

1862 – In day 7 of the 7 Days Battle Union artillery stopped a Confederate attack at Malvern Hill, Virginia. Casualties totaled: US 15,249 and CS 17,583.

1863 – The largest military conflict in North American history begins this day when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg. The epic battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Two months prior to Gettysburg, Lee had dealt a stunning defeat to the Army of the Potomac at Chancellorsville. He then made plans for a Northern invasion in order to relieve pressure on war-weary Virginia and to seize the initiative from the Yankees. His army, numbering about 80,000, began moving on June 3rd. The Army of the Potomac, commanded by Joseph Hooker and numbering just under 100,000, began moving shortly thereafter, staying between Lee and Washington, D.C. But on June 28, frustrated by the Lincoln administration’s restrictions on his autonomy as commander, Hooker resigned and was replaced by George G. Meade. Meade took command of the Army of the Potomac as Lee’s army moved into Pennsylvania.

On the morning of July 1st, advance units of the forces came into contact with one another just outside of Gettysburg. The sound of battle attracted other units, and by noon the conflict was raging. During the first hours of battle, Union General John Reynolds was killed, and the Yankees found that they were outnumbered. The battle lines ran around the northwestern rim of Gettysburg. The Confederates applied pressure all along the Union front, and they slowly drove the Yankees through the town. By evening, the Federal troops rallied on high ground on the southeastern edge of Gettysburg. As more troops arrived, Meade’s army formed a three-mile long, fishhook-shaped line running from Culp’s Hill on the right flank, along Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, to the base of Little Round Top. The Confederates held Gettysburg, and stretched along a six-mile arc around the Union position. For the next two days, Lee would batter each end of the Union position, and on July 3rd, he would launch Pickett’s charge against the Union center.

1863 – John Fulton Reynolds (42), Union general, died in battle at Gettysburg.

1864 – Battle of Petersburg, VA, began.

1898 – As part of their campaign to capture Spanish-held Santiago de Cuba on the southern coast of Cuba, the U.S. Army Fifth Corps engages Spanish forces at El Caney and San Juan Hill. In May 1898, one month after the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, a Spanish fleet docked in the Santiago de Cuba harbor after racing across the Atlantic from Spain. A superior U.S. naval force arrived soon after and blockaded the harbor entrance. In June, the U.S. Army Fifth Corps landed on Cuba with the aim of marching to Santiago and launching a coordinated land and sea assault on the Spanish stronghold. Included among the U.S. ground troops were the Theodore Roosevelt-led “Rough Riders,” a collection of Western cowboys and Eastern blue bloods officially known as the First U.S. Voluntary Cavalry.

The U.S. Army Fifth Corps fought its way to Santiago’s outer defenses, and on July 1st, U.S. General William Shafter ordered an attack on the village of El Caney and San Juan Hill. Shafter hoped to capture El Caney before besieging the fortified heights of San Juan Hill, but the 500 Spanish defenders of the village put up a fierce resistance and held off 10 times their number for most of the day. Although El Caney was not secure, some 8,000 Americans pressed forward toward San Juan Hill. Hundreds fell under Spanish gunfire before reaching the base of the heights, where the force split up into two flanks to take San Juan Hill and Kettle Hill. The Rough Riders were among the troops in the right flank attacking Kettle Hill. When the order was given by Lieutenant John Miley that “the heights must be taken at all hazards,” the Rough Riders, who had been forced to leave their horses behind because of transportation difficulties, led the charge up the hills. The Rough Riders and the black soldiers of the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments were the first up Kettle Hill, and San Juan Hill was taken soon after. From the crest, the Americans found themselves overlooking Santiago, and the next day they began a siege of the city. On July 3, the Spanish fleet was destroyed off Santiago by U.S. warships under Admiral William Sampson, and on July 17 the Spanish surrendered the city–and thus Cuba–to the Americans.

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