This Date in Military History:

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HEARD, JOHN W.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 3d U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Mouth of Manimani River, west of Bahia Honda, Cuba, 23 July 1898. Entered service at: Mississippi. Birth: Mississippi. r)ate of issue: 21 June 1899. Citation: After 2 men had been shot down by Spaniards while transmitting orders to the engine-room on the Wanderer, the ship having become disabled, this officer took the position held by them and personally transmitted the orders, remaining at his post until the ship was out of danger.

BRADLEY, WILLIS WINTER, JR.
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy. Born: 28 June 1884, Ransomville, N.Y. Appointed from: North Dakota. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty while serving on the U.S.S. Pittsburgh, at the time of an accidental explosion of ammunition on that vessel. On 23 July 1917, some saluting cartridge cases were being reloaded in the after casemate: through an accident an explosion occurred. Comdr. Bradley (then Lieutenant), who was about to enter the casemate, was blown back by the explosion and rendered momentarily unconscious, but while still dazed, crawled into the casemate to extinguish burning materials in dangerous proximity to a considerable amount of powder, thus preventing further explosions.

GRAVES, ORA
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 26 July 1896, Los Animas, Colo. Accredited to: Nebraska. G.O. No.: 366, 1918. Citation: For extraordinary heroism on 23 July 1917, while the U.S.S. Pittsburgh was proceeding to Buenos Aires, Argentina. A 3-inch saluting charge exploded, causing the death of C. T. Lyles, seaman. Upon the explosion, Graves was blown to the deck, but soon recovered and discovered burning waste on the deck. He put out the burning waste while the casemate was filled with clouds of smoke, knowing that there was more powder there which might explode.

*BOYCE, GEORGE W. G., JR.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 112th Cavalry Regimental Combat Team. Place and date. Near Afua, New Guinea, 23 July 1944. Entered service at: Town of Cornwall, Orange County, N.Y. Birth: New York City, N.Y. G.O. No.: 25, 7 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty near Afua, New Guinea, on 23 July 1944. 2d Lt. Boyce’s troop, having been ordered to the relief of another unit surrounded by superior enemy forces, moved out, and upon gaining contact with the enemy, the two leading platoons deployed and built up a firing line. 2d Lt. Boyce was ordered to attack with his platoon and make the main effort on the right of the troop. He launched his attack but after a short advance encountered such intense rifle, machinegun, and mortar fire that the forward movement of his platoon was temporarily halted. A shallow depression offered a route of advance and he worked his squad up this avenue of approach in order to close with the enemy. He was promptly met by a volley of hand grenades, 1 falling between himself and the men immediately following. Realizing at once that the explosion would kill or wound several of his men, he promptly threw himself upon the grenade and smothered the blast with his own body. By thus deliberately sacrificing his life to save those of his men, this officer exemplified the highest traditions of the U.S. Armed Forces.

*EUBANKS, RAY E.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company D, 503d Parachute Infantry. Place and date: At Noemfoor Island, Dutch New Guinea, 23 July 1944. Entered service at: LaGrange, N.C. Born: 6 February 1922, Snow Hill, N.C. G.O. No.: 20, 29 March 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty at Noemfoor Island, Dutch New Guinea, 23 July 1944. While moving to the relief of a platoon isolated by the enemy, his company encountered a strong enemy position supported by machinegun, rifle, and mortar fire. Sgt. Eubanks was ordered to make an attack with 1 squad to neutralize the enemy by fire in order to assist the advance of his company. He maneuvered his squad to within 30 yards of the enemy where heavy fire checked his advance. Directing his men to maintain their fire, he and 2 scouts worked their way forward up a shallow depression to within 25 yards of the enemy. Directing the scouts to remain in place, Sgt. Eubanks armed himself with an automatic rifle and worked himself forward over terrain swept by intense fire to within 15 yards of the enemy position when he opened fire with telling effect. The enemy, having located his position, concentrated their fire with the result that he was wounded and a bullet rendered his rifle useless. In spite of his painful wounds he immediately charged the enemy and using his weapon as a club killed 4 of the enemy before he was himself again hit and killed. Sgt. Eubanks’ heroic action, courage, and example in leadership so inspired his men that their advance was successful. They killed 45 of the enemy and drove the remainder from the position, thus effecting the relief of our beleaguered troops.

RUBIN, TIBOR
Corporal Tibor Rubin distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism during the period from July 23, 1950, to April 20, 1953, while serving as a rifleman with Company I, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division in the Republic of Korea. While his unit was retreating to the Pusan Perimeter, Corporal Rubin was assigned to stay behind to keep open the vital Taegu-Pusan Road link used by his withdrawing unit. During the ensuing battle, overwhelming numbers of North Korean troops assaulted a hill defended solely by Corporal Rubin. He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully. Following the breakout from the Pusan Perimeter, the 8th Cavalry Regiment proceeded northward and advanced into North Korea. During the advance, he helped capture several hundred North Korean soldiers. On October 30, 1950, Chinese forces attacked his unit at Unsan, North Korea, during a massive nighttime assault. That night and throughout the next day, he manned a .30 caliber machine gun at the south end of the unit’s line after three previous gunners became casualties. He continued to man his machine gun until his ammunition was exhausted. His determined stand slowed the pace of the enemy advance in his sector, permitting the remnants of his unit to retreat southward. As the battle raged, Corporal Rubin was severely wounded and captured by the Chinese. Choosing to remain in the prison camp despite offers from the Chinese to return him to his native Hungary, Corporal Rubin disregarded his own personal safety and immediately began sneaking out of the camp at night in search of food for his comrades. Breaking into enemy food storehouses and gardens, he risked certain torture or death if caught. Corporal Rubin provided not only food to the starving Soldiers, but also desperately needed medical care and moral support for the sick and wounded of the POW camp. His brave, selfless efforts were directly attributed to saving the lives of as many as forty of his fellow prisoners. Corporal Rubin’s gallant actions in close contact with the enemy and unyielding courage and bravery while a prisoner of war are in the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army.

*LUCAS, ANDRE C.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, 2d Battalion, 506th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. place and date: Fire Support Base Ripcord, Republic of Vietnam, 1 to 23 July 1970. Entered service at: West point, N.Y. Born: 2 October 1930, Washington D.C. Citation: Lt. Col. Lucas distinguished himself by extraordinary heroism while serving as the commanding officer of the 2d Battalion. Although the fire base was constantly subjected to heavy attacks by a numerically superior enemy force throughout this period, Lt. Col. Lucas, forsaking his own safety, performed numerous acts of extraordinary valor in directing the defense of the allied position. On 1 occasion, he flew in a helicopter at treetop level above an entrenched enemy directing the fire of 1 of his companies for over 3 hours. Even though his helicopter was heavily damaged by enemy fire, he remained in an exposed position until the company expended its supply of grenades. He then transferred to another helicopter, dropped critically needed grenades to the troops, and resumed his perilous mission of directing fire on the enemy. These courageous actions by Lt. Col. Lucas prevented the company from being encircled and destroyed by a larger enemy force. On another occasion, Lt. Col. Lucas attempted to rescue a crewman trapped in a burning helicopter. As the flames in the. aircraft spread, and enemy fire became intense, Lt. Col. Lucas ordered all members of the rescue party to safety. Then, at great personal risk, he continued the rescue effort amid concentrated enemy mortar fire, intense heat, and exploding ammunition until the aircraft was completely engulfed in flames. Lt. Col. Lucas was mortally wounded while directing the successful withdrawal of his battalion from the fire base. His actions throughout this extended period inspired his men to heroic efforts, and were instrumental in saving the lives of many of his fellow soldiers while inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy. Lt. Col. Lucas’ conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action, at the cost of his own life, were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on him, his unit and the U.S. Army.

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24 July

1683 – The 1st settlers from Germany to US left aboard the ship Concord.

1701 – Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac established Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.

1758 – George Washington was admitted to Virginia House of Burgesses.

1763 – Ottawa Chief Pontiac led an uprising in the wild, distant lands that would one day become Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

1766 – At Fort Ontario, Canada, Ottawa chief Pontiac and William Johnson signed a peace agreement.

1813 – Sailing Master Elijah Mix attempts to blow up British warship Plantagenet with a torpedo (mine) near Cape Henry, Virginia.

1832 – Benjamin Bonneville, an inept fur trader who some speculate may have actually been a spy, leads the first wagon train to cross the Rocky Mountains at Wyoming’s South Pass. The motivations for Bonneville’s western expeditions have always remained somewhat mysterious. A native of France, Bonneville came to the United States in 1803 at the age of seven. He later graduated from West Point, and he served at frontier posts in Arkansas, Texas, and Indian Territory. According to one view, Bonneville simply observed the rapid growth of the western fur trade at these posts and conceived a bold plan to mount his own fur trading expedition. However, others suggest Bonneville’s true goal for the expedition may have been to serve as a Far Western spy for the U.S. government. The circumstances of Bonneville’s entry into the fur business were indeed somewhat odd. Despite his complete lack of experience as a mountain man, a group of Manhattan businessmen agreed to back his expedition with ample funds. It was also strange that a career military man should ask for, and quickly receive, a two-year leave of absence from the army to pursue a strictly commercial adventure. Bonneville began his expedition in May 1832, and that summer he and his men built an imposing trading post along Wyoming’s Green River. Bonneville proved to be an incompetent fur trader, yet he seemed unconcerned about making a profit. By contrast, he seemed very interested in exploring the vast territory.

Shortly after arriving in Wyoming, he mounted an expedition to the Columbia River country of Oregon, although he was well aware that the powerful British-owned Hudson’s Bay Company dominated the region. On this day in 1832, Bonneville led 110 men and 20 wagons across South Pass, the first-ever wagon crossing of that critical route connecting the existing United States to the northwest region of the continent. During the next two decades, thousands of American settlers would take their wagons across South Pass as they followed the Oregon Trail. In 1835, Bonneville returned to Washington, where President Andrew Jackson personally oversaw his reinstatement as a captain in the army. Some historians speculate that Bonneville might have actually been a spy for a U.S. government, which was eager to collect information on the British strength in the Northwest. No historical records have ever been found to substantiate this speculation, though, and it is possible that Bonneville was simply an inept fur trader whose dreams exceeded his grasp.

1847 – After 17 months and many miles of travel, Brigham Young leads 148 Mormon pioneers into Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake. Gazing over the parched earth of the remote location, Young declared, “This is the place,” and the pioneers began preparations for the thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow. Seeking religious and political freedom, the Mormons began planning their great migration from the east after the murder of Joseph Smith, the Christian sect’s founder and first leader. Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, in 1805. In 1827, he declared that he had been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni, who showed him an ancient Hebrew text that had been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native American prophet named Mormon in the fifth century A.D., told the story of Israelite peoples who had lived in America in ancient times. During the next few years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830 The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ–later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–in Fayette, New York. The religion rapidly gained converts, and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. However, the Christian sect was also heavily criticized for its unorthodox practices, which included polygamy.

In 1844, the threat of mob violence prompted Smith to call out a militia in the Mormon town of Nauvoo, Illinois. He was charged with treason by Illinois authorities and imprisoned with his brother Hyrum in the Carthage city jail. On June 27, 1844, an anti-Mormon mob with blackened faces stormed in and murdered the brothers. Two years later, Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo along the western wagon trails in search of a sanctuary in “a place on this earth that nobody else wants.” The expedition, more than 10,000 pioneers strong, set up camp in present-day western Iowa while Young led a vanguard company across the Rocky Mountains to investigate Utah’s Great Salt Lake Valley, an arid and isolated spot devoid of human presence. On July 22, 1947, most of the party reached the Great Salt Lake, but Young, delayed by illness, did not arrive until July 24. Upon viewing the land, he immediately confirmed the valley to be the new homeland of the Latter-day Saints. Within days, Young and his companions began building the future Salt Lake City at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. Later that year, Young rejoined the main body of pioneers in Iowa, who named him president and prophet of the church. Having formally inherited the authority of Joseph Smith, he led thousands of more Mormons to the Great Salt Lake in 1848. Other large waves of Mormon pioneers followed.

By 1852, 16,000 Mormons had come to the valley, some in wagons and some dragging handcarts. After early difficulties, Salt Lake City began to flourish. By 1869, 80,000 Mormons had made the trek to their promised land. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore named Brigham Young the first governor of the U.S. territory of Utah, and the territory enjoyed relative autonomy for several years. Relations became strained, however, when reports reached Washington that Mormon leaders were disregarding federal law and had publicly sanctioned the practice of polygamy. In 1857, President James Buchanan removed Young, who had 20 wives, from his position as governor and sent U.S. Army troops to Utah to establish federal authority. Young died in Salt Lake City in 1877 and was succeeded by John Taylor as president of the church. Tensions between the territory of Utah and the federal government continued until Wilford Woodruff, the new president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto in 1890, renouncing the traditional practice of polygamy and reducing the domination of the church over Utah communities. Six years later, the territory of Utah entered the Union as the 45th state.

1861 – Act “to provide for the temporary increase of the Navy” passed by Congress; gave President authority to take vessels into the Navy and appoint officers for them, to any extent deemed necessary; this confirmed action that had been taken by President Lincoln since April.

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1862 – Rear Admiral Farragut’s fleet departed its station below Vicksburg, as the falling water level of the river and sickness among his ships’ crews necessitated withdrawal to Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Farragut’s return to the lower Mississippi made abundantly clear the strategic significance of Vicksburg for, although the Navy held the vast majority of the river, Confederate control of Vicksburg enabled the South to continue to get some supplies for her armies in the East from Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana. To prevent as much of this as possible, Rear Admiral Davis and Major General Samuel R. Curtis provided for combined Army-Navy expeditions along the banks of the Mississippi from Helena, Arkansas, to Vicksburg. Though supplies continued to move across the river, this action prevented the Confederates from maintaining and reinforcing batteries at strategic points, an important factor in the following year’s operations.

1862 – Martin Van Buren (79), the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook, N.Y.

1863 – Battle at Battle Mountain, Virginia.

1863 – Rear Admiral Dahlgren’s ironclads and gunboats, including U.S.S. New Ironsides, Weehauken, Patapsco, Montauk, Catskill, Nantucket, Paul Jones, Ottawa, Seneca, and Dai Ching, bombarded Fort Wagner in support of Army operations ashore. Dahlgren reported the effort a success, noting that the ship’s fire “silenced the guns of Wagner and drove its garrison to shelter. This enabled our army to progress with the works which they had advanced during the night and to arm them.” The Admiral added in his diary that “General Gillmore telegraphed that his operation had suc-ceeded, and thanked me for the very efficient fire of the vessels.” The next day, learning from Gillmore that a Confederate offensive was planned for the 26th, Dahlgren quickly brought his forces afloat into action once again. Issuing detailed instructions to prevent an attack, Dahlgren added: “The enemy must not obtain the advantage he seeks, nor attempt it with impunity.”

1863 – Because of the French occupation of Mexico City some 6 weeks before and the apparently hostile attitude of Emperor Napoleon III toward the United States. General Banks at New Orleans was ordered to prepare an expedition to Texas. For some time Secretary Welles had advocated a similar move in order to halt the extensive blockade running via Matamoras and the legally neutral Rio Grande River. ”The use of the Rio Grande to evade the blockade,” he recorded in his diary, “and the establishment of regular lines of steamers to Matamoras did not disturb some of our people, but certain movements and recent givings-out of the French have alarmed Seward, who says Louis Napoleon is making an effort to get Texas; he therefore urges the immediate occupation of Galveston and also some other point.” The expedition could take two routes: striking by amphibious assault along the Texas coast, or via the Red River into the interior. In either case, a joint Army-Navy assault would be necessary. The expedition, after a beginning marked by delays and frustrations, got underway early in 1864.

1864 – Confederate General Jubal Early defeats Union troops under General George Crook to keep the Shenandoah Valley clear of Yankees. On June 13, 1864, General Robert E. Lee sent Early north from Petersburg to clear the Shenandoah of Union troops and relieve pressure on his own beleaguered force. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had been pinned in Petersburg after a bloody six-week campaign with General Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac. The campaign mimicked that of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s in 1862, when the Confederates successfully relieved pressure on Richmond and held off several Union armies in the Valley. Early moved into Maryland in July and even threatened Washington before moving back up the Potomac and into the valley with Yankee troops in pursuit.

On July 23rd, General Early’s troops engaged the Union force under Crook near Kernstown, with no clear victory for either side. The next day, Early struck Crook with his entire force and found the Federals in a vulnerable position. The Yankees were routed and fled back down the valley. Early’s victory led to significant changes in the Union approach to the Shenandoah Valley. President Abraham Lincoln urged Grant to secure the area once and for all. Grant sent General Philip Sheridan to command the district in early August, and in the fall Sheridan dealt a series of defeats to Early and pacified the valley.

1864 – Confederate guerrillas captured and burned steamer Kingston, which had run aground the preceding day between Smith’s Point and Windmill Point on the Virginia shore of Chesapeake Bay.

1866 – Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the Civil War.

1870 – The 1st trans-US rail service began.

1897 – African-American soldiers of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps arrived in St. Louis, Mo., after completing a 40-day bike ride from Missoula, Montana.

1929 – President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.

1936 – CGC Cayuga was ordered to San Sebastian, Spain as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War necessitated the evacuation of U.S. citizens. While on this deployment the U.S. ambassador to Spain and his staff came on board and the ship then served as the U.S. embassy in Spain.

1938 – Instant coffee was invented. Nestle came up with the first instant coffee after 8 years of experiments.

1941 – The U.S. government denounced Japanese actions in Indochina.

1943 – The US 45th Division (OKARNG) captures Cefalu and Castelbouno, on the northern coast. Inland, American units advance on Nicosia.

1943 – The U.S. submarine Tinosa fired 15 torpedoes at a lone Japanese merchant ship, but none detonated.

1943 – British bombers raid Hamburg, Germany, by night in Operation Gomorrah, while Americans bomb it by day in its own “Blitz Week.” Britain had suffered the deaths of 167 civilians as a result of German bombing raids in July. Now the tables were going to turn. The evening of July 24 saw British aircraft drop 2,300 tons of incendiary bombs on Hamburg in just a few hours. The explosive power was the equivalent of what German bombers had dropped on London in their five most destructive raids. More than 1,500 German civilians were killed in that first British raid. Britain lost only 12 aircraft in this raid (791 flew), thanks to a new radar-jamming device called “Window,” which consisted of strips of aluminum foil dropped by the bombers en route to their target. These Window strips confused German radar, which mistook the strips for dozens and dozens of aircraft, diverting them from the trajectory of the actual bombers.

To make matters worse for Germany, the U.S. Eighth Air Force began a more comprehensive bombing run of northern Germany, which included two raids on Hamburg during daylight hours. British attacks on Hamburg continued until November of that year. Although the percentage of British bombers lost increased with each raid as the Germans became more adept at distinguishing between Window diversions and actual bombers, Operation Gomorrah proved devastating to Hamburg-not to mention German morale. When it was over, 17,000 bomber sorties dropped more than 9,000 tons of explosives, killing more than 30,000 people and destroying 280,000 buildings, including industrial and munitions plants. The effect on Hitler, too, was significant. He refused to visit the burned-out cities, as the ruins bespoke nothing but the end of the war for him. Diary entries of high German officials from this period describe a similar despair, as they sought to come to terms with defeat.

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1944 – Attacks of “Operation Cobra” by US 1st Army forces are scheduled to begin but are postponed due to poor weather and the consequent lack of air support.

1944 – The V Amphibious Corps, commanded by Major General Harry Schmidt, landed on Tinian, in the Mariana Islands. The following morning, the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions began a shoulder-to-shoulder southward sweep of the island. Organized enemy resistance faded within a week, and on 1 August, MajGen Schmidt declared the island secure. Coast Guard-manned transports that participated included USS Cambria and Cavalier.

1945 – At Potsdam, President Truman informs Stalin that a new and powerful weapon is now available for use against Japan but does not elaborate on the kind of weapon. He also authorizes the use of atomic bombs on Japan. Stalin is believed to be aware of the atomic bomb project, through the Soviet espionage network in the United States.

1945 – British and American carriers continue attacks. There are 15 American and 4 British carriers available for air operations against targets in the Inland Sea area, including the naval base at Kure and Kobe. Some 1600 planes are engaged. In addition, there is an Allied naval bombardment during the night (July 24-25) aimed at Kushimoto and Shionomisaki. It is estimated that more than 100 Japanese ships are sunk.

1945 – The Osaka-Nagoya area, the second largest population center in Japan, is bombed by 600 B-29 Superfortress bombers.

1950 – The U.S. Fifth Air Force relocated from Japan to Korea.

1950 – Units from the 2d Marine Division prepared to move from Camp Lejeune, N.C., to Camp Pendleton, Calif., to join the 1st Marine Division.

1952 – Pres. Truman commuted Oscar Collazo’s death sentence to life imprisonment. On the same day he signed an act enlarging the self-government of Puerto Rico.

1958 – Jack Kilby (1923-2005) of Texas Instruments came up with the idea for creating the 1st integrated circuit on a piece of silicon. By September 12th he made a working prototype.

1959 – During the grand opening ceremony of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev engage in a heated debate about capitalism and communism in the middle of a model kitchen set up for the fair. The so-called “kitchen debate” became one of the most famous episodes of the Cold War. In late 1958, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed to set up national exhibitions in each other’s nation as part of their new emphasis on cultural exchanges. The Soviet exhibition opened in New York City in June 1959; the U.S. exhibition opened in Sokolniki Park in Moscow in July. On July 24, before the Moscow exhibition was officially opened to the public, Vice President Nixon served as a host for a visit by Soviet leader Khrushchev. As Nixon led Khrushchev through the American exhibition, the Soviet leader’s famous temper began to flare. When Nixon demonstrated some new American color television sets, Khrushchev launched into an attack on the so-called “Captive Nations Resolution” passed by the U.S. Congress just days before. The resolution condemned the Soviet control of the “captive” peoples of Eastern Europe and asked all Americans to pray for their deliverance. After denouncing the resolution, Khrushchev then sneered at the U.S. technology on display, proclaiming that the Soviet Union would have the same sort of gadgets and appliances within a few years. Nixon, never one to shy away from a debate, goaded Khrushchev by stating that the Russian leader should “not be afraid of ideas. After all, you don’t know everything.” The Soviet leader snapped at Nixon, “You don’t know anything about communism–except fear of it.”

With a small army of reporters and photographers following them, Nixon and Khrushchev continued their argument in the kitchen of a model home built in the exhibition. With their voices rising and fingers pointing, the two men went at each other. Nixon suggested that Khrushchev’s constant threats of using nuclear missiles could lead to war, and he chided the Soviet for constantly interrupting him while he was speaking. Taking these words as a threat, Khrushchev warned of “very bad consequences.” Perhaps feeling that the exchange had gone too far, the Soviet leader then noted that he simply wanted “peace with all other nations, especially America.” Nixon rather sheepishly stated that he had not “been a very good host.” The “kitchen debate” was front-page news in the United States the next day. For a few moments, in the confines of a “modern” kitchen, the diplomatic gloves had come off and America and the Soviet Union had verbally jousted over which system was superior–communism or capitalism. As with so many Cold War battles, however, there was no clear winner–except perhaps for the U.S. media, which had a field day with the dramatic encounter.

1961 – A US commercial plane was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.

1964 – A race riot took place in Rochester, New York, and 4 people were killed. Violence and looting in Rochester spanned a period of approximately sixty hours, resulting in four deaths, at least 350 injuries, over 800 arrests, and property damage totalling more than a million dollars. The National Guard was called in to keep the peace. The riot was precipitated by the arrest of an allegedly drunk and disorderly African- American man at a Joseph Avenue street dance.

1965 – In the air war, four F-4C Phantom jets escorting a formation of U.S. bombers on a raid over munitions manufacturing facilities at Kang Chi, 55 miles northwest of Hanoi, are fired at from an unknown launching site. It was the first time the enemy had launched antiaircraft missiles at U.S. aircraft. One plane was destroyed and the other three damaged. The presence of ground-to-air antiaircraft missiles represented a rapidly improving air defense capability for the North Vietnamese. As the war progressed, North Vietnam, supplied by China and the Soviet Union, would fashion a very effective and integrated air defense system that proved to be a formidable challenge to American flyers conducting missions over North Vietnam.

1968 – The 154th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron (TRS) from Arkansas arrives to begin its duties in patrolling the Sea of Japan. This squadron was one of 11 Air Guard units called to active duty in January 1968 in the partial mobilization prompted by the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo and the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam. Combined with the 165th (KY) and 192nd (NV) TRS to form the 123rd Tactical Reconnaissance Wing, each squadron worked on a rotation basis spending three months each at Itazuke, at Elmendorf Air Force Base, Alaska and patrolling around the entrance of the Panama Canal while stationed at Howard Air Force Base, Panama. At the end of a 90-day tour they rotated to their new assignment. All three squadrons were released from active duty by June 1969.

1969 – Muhammad Ali was convicted on appeal for refusing induction in US Army.

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1969 – At 12:51 EDT, Apollo 11, the U.S. spacecraft that had taken the first astronauts to the surface of the moon, safely returns to Earth. The American effort to send astronauts to the moon had its origins in a famous appeal President John F. Kennedy made to a special joint session of Congress on May 25, 1961: “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth.”

Eight years later, on July 16, 1969, the world watched as Apollo 11 took off from Kennedy Space Center with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins aboard. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19. The next day, at 1:46 p.m., the lunar module Eagle, manned by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, separated from the command module, where a third astronaut, Michael Collins, remained. Two hours later, the Eagle began its descent to the lunar surface, and at 4:18 p.m. the craft touched down on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility. Armstrong immediately radioed to Mission Control in Houston a famous message: “The Eagle has landed.”

At 10:39 p.m., five hours ahead of the original schedule, Armstrong opened the hatch of the lunar module. Seventeen minutes later, at 10:56 p.m., Armstrong spoke the following words to millions listening at home: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” A moment later, he stepped off the lunar module’s ladder, becoming the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. Aldrin joined him on the moon’s surface at 11:11 p.m., and together they took photographs of the terrain, planted a U.S. flag, ran a few simple scientific tests, and spoke with President Richard M. Nixon via Houston. By 1:11 a.m. on July 21, both astronauts were back in the lunar module and the hatch was closed. The two men slept that night on the surface of the moon, and at 1:54 p.m. the Eagle began its ascent back to the command module.

Among the items left on the surface of the moon was a plaque that read: “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon–July 1969 A.D–We came in peace for all mankind.” At 5:35 p.m., Armstrong and Aldrin successfully docked and rejoined Collins, and at 12:56 a.m. on July 22 Apollo 11 began its journey home, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 12:51 p.m. on July 24.

There would be five more successful lunar landing missions, and one unplanned lunar swing-by, Apollo 13. The last men to walk on the moon, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt of the Apollo 17 mission, left the lunar surface on December 14, 1972.

1970 – In Laos Capt. Donald Bloodworth and his pilot were lost on a night reconnaissance mission in a F-4D fighter-bomber. Bloodworth’s remains were returned to the US in 1998.

1974 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1975 – An “Apollo” spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific, completing a mission which included the first-ever docking with a “Soyuz” capsule from the Soviet Union.

1983 – The Space Shuttle Challenger landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, making Sally Ride the first American woman in space.

1987 – The re-flagged Kuwaiti supertanker Bridgeton was damaged after hitting a mine in the Persian Gulf.

1989 – President Bush said he was “aggrieved” about allegations that veteran U.S. diplomat Felix S. Bloch might have spied for the Soviet Union.

1990 – Iraq, accusing Kuwait of conspiring to harm its economy through oil overproduction, massed tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks along the Iraqi-Kuwaiti border. US warships in Persian Gulf were placed on alert.

1993 – In Somalia, two Green Berets are WIA when their HUMVEEs are ambushed.

1998 – A gunman burst past a metal detector at the US Capital and killed 2 policemen, officers Jacob Chestnut and John Gibson, and wounded a visitor. Russell Eugene Weston Jr. (41) was captured after being shot.

2001 – A Chinese court sentenced two U.S. residents to 10 years in prison on charges of spying for Taiwan. China released Gao Zhan and Qin Guangguang two days later.

2003 – The House and Senate intelligence committees issued their final report on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The report cited blunders, oversights and miscalculations that prevented authorities from stopping the attackers but failed to address these issues in the recommendations it made.

2004 – An online statement by a group representing itself as al-Qaida’s European branch threatened to turn Australia into “pools of blood” if it doesn’t withdraw its troops from Iraq.

2014 – ISIS blew up the Mosque and tomb of the Prophet Yunus (Jonah) in Mosul, with no reported casualties. Residents in the area said that ISIS had erased a piece of Iraqi heritage.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HASTINGS, SMITH H.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company M, 5th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Newbys Crossroads, Va., 24 July 1863. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Quincy, Mich. Date of issue: 2 August 1897. Citation: While in command of a squadron in rear guard of a cavalry division, then retiring before the advance of a corps of infantry, was attacked by the enemy and, orders having been given to abandon the guns of a section of field artillery with the rear guard that were in imminent danger of capture, he disregarded the orders received and aided in repelling the attack and saving the guns.

WOODRUFF, CARLE A.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 2d U.S. Artillery. Place and date: At Newbys Crossroads, Va., 24 July 1863. Entered service at: Washington, D.C. Born: Buffalo, N.Y. Date of issue: 1 September 1893. Citation: While in command of a section of a battery constituting a portion of the rear guard of a division then retiring before the advance of a corps of Infantry was attacked by the enemy and ordered to abandon his guns. Lt. Woodruff disregarded the orders received and aided in repelling the attack and saving the guns.

PITTMAN, RICHARD A.
Rank and organization: Sergeant (then L/Cpl.), U.S. Marine Corps, Company 1, 3d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein) FMF. Place and date: near the Demilitarized Zone, Republic of Vietnam, 24 July 1966. Entered service at: Stockton, Calif. Born: 26 May 1945, French Camp, San Joaquin, Calif. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. While Company 1 was conducting an operation along the axis of a narrow jungle trail, the leading company elements suffered numerous casualties when they suddenly came under heavy fire from a well concealed and numerically superior enemy force. Hearing the engaged marines’ calls for more firepower, Sgt. Pittman quickly exchanged his rifle for a machinegun and several belts of ammunition, left the relative safety of his platoon, and unhesitatingly rushed forward to aid his comrades. Taken under intense enemy small-arms fire at point blank range during his advance, he returned the fire, silencing the enemy position. As Sgt. Pittman continued to forge forward to aid members of the leading platoon, he again came under heavy fire from 2 automatic weapons which he promptly destroyed. Learning that there were additional wounded marines 50 yards further along the trail, he braved a withering hail of enemy mortar and small-arms fire to continue onward. As he reached the position where the leading marines had fallen, he was suddenly confronted with a bold frontal attack by 30 to 40 enemy. Totally disregarding his safety, he calmly established a position in the middle of the trail and raked the advancing enemy with devastating machinegun fire. His weapon rendered ineffective, he picked up an enemy submachinegun and, together with a pistol seized from a fallen comrade, continued his lethal fire until the enemy force had withdrawn. Having exhausted his ammunition except for a grenade which he hurled at the enemy, he then rejoined his platoon. Sgt. Pittman’s daring initiative, bold fighting spirit and selfless devotion to duty inflicted many enemy casualties, disrupted the enemy attack and saved the lives of many of his wounded comrades. His personal valor at grave risk to himself reflects the highest credit upon himself, the Marine Corps, and the U.S. Naval Service.

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25 July

1729 – North Carolina became a royal colony.

1759 – British forces defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada. During their 7 Years’ War.

1775 – Maryland issued currency depicting George III trampling the Magna Carta.

1779 – Amphibious expedition against British in Penobscot Bay, ME.

1797 – Presidente Fermin Francisco de Lasuen founded Mission San Miguel Archangel, the 16th California mission. He took possession of the land on behalf of Viceroy Branciforte. The mission facilitated travel between Mission San Luis Obispo and Mission San Antonio.

1805 – Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.

1814 – An American army under the command of Major General Jacob Brown, having won a victory at Chippewa on July 5th, was now compelled by an advancing British army, to retreat toward Fort Erie, on the Canadian side of the Niagara River. Brown decided to offer battle at Lundy’s Lane due to good places to position his brigades and artillery. After several hours of fighting, the costliest of any in the War of 1812 (excluding the Battle of New Orleans which was actually fought after the peace treaty was signed but before word of it arrived in America) the U.S. forces withdrew to Fort Erie and later back across the river into New York. While most of the American units were Regular Army regiments, this army did contain a brigade consisting of the 5th Pennsylvania Regiment and a mixed force of New York militia along with some New York volunteer dragoons (totaling about 600 men) under the command of Brigadier General Peter Porter of New York.

British losses totaled 49 officers and 827 enlisted men either killed, wounded, captured or missing; while American losses were 70 officers and 789 enlisted men. Though the militia did not play an important role during the battle, being part of the reserve, its mere presence was significant never-the-less. During this war, it was very uncommon to find militia units crossing from the U.S. into enemy territory. Under existing laws they could not be compelled to do so. In fact, there were instances where the militia of one state refused to cross a state line to serve in defending their neighbors. These actions would be found to various degrees until passage of the 1903 Militia Act bring the militia (now National Guard) under federal control in time of war.

1850 – Gold was discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon, extending the quest for gold up the Pacific coast.

1861 – The Crittenden-Johnson Resolution passes, declaring that the war is being waged for the reunion of the states and not to interfere with the institutions of the South, namely slavery. The measure was important in keeping the pivotal states of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the Union. This resolution should not be confused with the Crittenden Compromise—a plan circulated after the Southern states began seceding from the Union that proposed to protect slavery as an enticement to keep the Southern states from leaving—which was defeated in Congress. At the beginning of the war, many Northerners supported a war for to keep the Union together, but had no interest in advancing the cause of abolition. The Crittenden-Johnson plan was passed in 1861 to distinguish the issue of emancipation from the war’s purpose. The common denominator of the two plans was Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky. Crittenden carried the torch of compromise borne so ably by another Kentucky senator, Henry Clay, who brokered such important deals as the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise of 1850 to keep the nation together. Clay died in 1852, but Crittenden carried on the spirit befitting the representative of a state deeply divided over the issue of slavery. Although the measure was passed in Congress, it meant little when, just two weeks later, President Lincoln signed a confiscation act, allowing for the seizure of property—including slaves—from rebellious citizens. Still, for the first year and a half of the Civil War, reunification of the United States was the official goal of the North. It was not until Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862 that slavery became a goal.

1861 – John LaMountain began balloon reconnaissance ascensions at Fort Monroe, Virginia.

1863 – U.S. Squadron bombards Fort Wagner, NC.

1864 – As Union naval forces in Albemarle Sound kept a close watch on the powerful ram C.S.S. Albemarle, Acting Master’s Mate John Woodman with three companions made the first of his three daring reconnaissance expeditions up the Roanoke River to Plymouth, North Carolina. Reported Woodman: “The town appeared very quiet; very few persons were moving about; I could hear the blacksmiths and carpenters at work in the town near the river.” The ram, he added, was “lying at the wharf near the steam sawmill.” The danger posed by the Confederate ship was to be a prime object of Northern concern for several more months, and prevented the Union forces from aggressive operations in the Plymouth area.

1864 – Boats from U.S.S. Hartford, Monongahela, and Sebago, commanded by Rear Admiral Farragut’s flag lieutenant, J. C. Watson, reconnoitered the Mobile Bay area in an attempt to discover the type and number of water mines laid by Confederates off Fort Morgan. Watson and his men located and cut loose many of the torpedoes; they were aided by the fact that a number were inoperative. This hazardous work was indispensable to the success of the Navy’s coming operations against Mobile. Several similar night operations were conducted.

1866 – Rank of Admiral created. David G. Farragut is appointed the first Admiral in the U.S. Navy.

1866 – Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army, the first officer to hold the rank.

1868 – Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory.

1898 – During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launch their invasion of Puerto Rico, the 108-mile-long, 40-mile-wide island that was one of Spain’s two principal possessions in the Caribbean. With little resistance and only seven deaths, U.S. troops under General Nelson A. Miles were able to secure the island by mid-August.

1912 – First specifications for naval aircraft published.

1914 – The Serbians, while mobilizing their armed forces, agree to meet all but one of the ten demands outlined in the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum. The Austro-Hungarians find this unacceptable and Emperor Franz Joseph orders the mobilization of his forces to begin on the following day. Russia’s Czar Nicholas II and his minister of war, Grand Duke Nicholas, agree to partly mobilize their forces to protect Serbia from any Austro-Hungarian invasion. Germany, along with Italy, one of Austria-Hungary’s allies in the Triple Alliance, threatens to begin mobilizing its forces if Britain and France, Russia’s allies, do not succeed in curbing Russia’s war preparations.

1932 – Paul J. Weitz, astronaut (Skylab 2, STS 6), was born in Erie, Pennsylvania.

1934 – First President to visit Hawaii, Franklin D. Roosevelt, reaches Hilo on board the USS Houston.

1940 – The United States prohibits the export of oil and metal products in certain categories, unless under license, to countries outside the Americas generally and to Britain. This move is seen as an anti-Japanese measure, particularly because of Japan’s needs for foreign oil. From this time Japanese fuel stocks begin to decline. There are similar problems with other raw materials. Japanese attention is, therefore, drawn south from China to the resources of the Netherlands East Indies and Malaysia.

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1941 – Bureau of Ordnance issues first Navy “E” certificates (for excellence) for industry.

1941 – The U.S. government froze Japanese and Chinese assets.

1943 – Mussolini is summoned to meet with the King of Italy in the afternoon and relieved of his offices. He is arrest upon leaving the meeting. Marshal Badoglio is selected to form a new government.

1943 – American forces in north encounter heavy resistance to further advances. British and Canadian forces launch converging attacks on Agira, in the central region. Allied reinforcemtns, including the US 9th Division and Britsh 78th Divisions arrive from North Africa.

1943 – A new American offensive begins. The US 43rd and 37th Divisions are supplemented with the 25th Division. Some progress is made near Bartley Ridge.

1943 – Launching of USS Harmon (DE-72), first ship named for African-American.

1944 – The US 1st Army begins “Operation Cobra”. The main attack is made west of St. Lo by the US 7th Corps with 8th Corps on the right flank and 13th Corps on the left flank. A massive bombardment precedes the assault. More than 3000 planes are involved, including 1500 heavy bombers of the US 8th Air Force. Some American casualties result from the bombers releasing their loads short of their target. Regardless, the American forces make good progress.

1944 – On Guam the American marine forces are still unable to link up the two beachheads. On the southern landing, there is also fighting on the Orote Peninsula. On Tinian, the forces of US 5th Amphibious Corps advance cautiously southward after repulsing Japanese counterattacks.

1944 – Two carrier groups from Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) attack Palau while a third attacks Yap, Ulithi, Ngulu, Tais and Sorol.

1945 – The Potsdam conference recesses for the British delegation to leave for the announcement of the election results. Churchill, Eden and Atlee fly home. Meanwhile, Truman orders the atomic bomb to be dropped on Japan as soon as possible after August 3rd.

1945 – American cruisers Pasadena, Springfield, Wilkes-Barre and Astoria bombard Japanese air bases in southern Honshu. Meanwhile, aircraft from the US 3rd Fleet attack Kure naval base and the airfields at Nagoya, Osaka and Miho for a second day. The battleships Hyuga, Ise, and Haruna, the escort carrier Kaiyo and the heavy cruisers Aoba and Iwate are all sunk. There is not noticeable Japanese resistance to the strikes.

1945 – On Mindanao, all organized Japanese resistance comes to an end in the Sarangani Bay area. American mopping up operations begin.

1946 – The United States detonated a 2nd atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device.

1947 – The Women’s Reserve of the Coast Guard Reserve (SPARS) was disestablished.

1950 – The independent U.S. 29th Infantry Regimental Combat Team was committed to action near Chinju. The North Koreans ambushed its 3rd Battalion at Hadong, killing 313 and capturing 100.

1950 – Thailand, the first Pacific nation to do so, offered to send 4,000 ground troops to Korea.

1952 – Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.

1953 – Naval Task Force 77 aircraft flew 538 offensive and 62 defensive sorties, a record number for a single day.

1963 – The United States, the Soviet Union and Britain initialed a treaty in Moscow prohibiting the testing of nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, in space or underwater.

1964 – Following a meeting of the National Security Council to discuss the deteriorating situation in Saigon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff draw up a memo proposing air strikes against North Vietnam. These missions were to be conducted in unmarked planes flown by South Vietnamese and Thai crews. There was no action taken on this recommendation. However, the situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed 416 to 0 in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate. The resolution gave the president approval to “take all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” Using the resolution, Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam by U.S. aircraft in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incident. In 1965, as the situation continued to deteriorate in South Vietnam, Johnson initiated a major commitment of U.S. troops to South Vietnam, which ultimately totaled more than 540,000 by 1968.

1967 – US Navy Lt. Commander Donald Davis crashed his jet on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Searchers later recovered fragments of his remains for return to the US.

1969 – President Richard Nixon announces that henceforth the United States will expect its Asian allies to tend to their own military defense. The Nixon Doctrine, as the president’s statement came to be known, clearly indicated his determination to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam War. When Richard Nixon took office in early 1969, the United States had been at war in Vietnam for nearly four years. The bloody conflict had already claimed the lives of more than 25,000 American troops and countless Vietnamese. Despite its best efforts, the United States was no closer to victory than before. At home, antiwar protesters were a constant presence in American cities and on college campuses. Nixon campaigned in 1968 with the promise of “peace with honor” in Vietnam.

In July 1969, an important part of his plan for Vietnam became evident. During a stopover in Guam during a multination tour, the president issued a statement. It was time, he declared, for the United States to be “quite emphatic on two points” in dealing with its Asian allies. First, he assured America’s friends in Asia that “We will keep our treaty commitments.” However, “as far as the problems of military defense, except for the threat of a major power involving nuclear weapons,” the United States would be adopting a different stance. In relation to military defense, America would now “encourage and has a right to expect that this problem will be increasingly handled by, and the responsibility for it taken by, the Asian nations themselves.” He concluded that his recent talks with several Asian leaders indicated, “They are going to be willing to undertake this responsibility.” The Nixon Doctrine marked the formal announcement of the president’s “Vietnamization” plan, whereby American troops would be slowly withdrawn from the conflict in Southeast Asia and be replaced by South Vietnamese troops.

Over the course of his first term in office, Nixon held true to this doctrine by withdrawing a substantial portion of America’s fighting forces from Vietnam. In 1973, the United States and North Vietnam signed a peace treaty formally bringing the Vietnam War to a conclusion. Two years later, North Vietnamese forces crushed the South Vietnamese army and succeeded in reuniting the divided country under a communist regime.

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1978 – The Viking 2 Orbiter to Mars was powered down after 706 orbits.

1981 – Voyager 2 encountered Saturn.

1990 – The US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to discuss Iraq’s economic dispute with Kuwait.

1991 – A deadline for Iraq to provide full details of its weapons of mass destruction passed, with US officials indicating military action was not imminent.

1992 – Iraq agrees to allow U.N. monitors into the building to which access was previously refused.

1995 – A LEDET under the command of LTJG Robert Landolfi out of Mobile first boarded the Panamanian registered fishing vessel Nataly I. The LEDET later seized the Nataly I when the team discovered 24,325 pounds of cocaine hidden on board, making this the largest U.S. maritime seizure of cocaine to date.

1998 – The new nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, USS Harry S. Truman, was commissioned by Pres. Clinton. The 97,000 ton ship cost $4.5 billion.

1998 – It was reported that the US dropped secret plans to seize Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic in Bosnia.

1998 – The governor of Puerto Rico called for a December referendum on statehood.

1999 – The US and Vietnam agreed to normalize relations after 3 years of negotiations. Commercial ties were expected to follow.

2001 – The space shuttle Atlantis landed in Florida.

2002 – Zacarias Moussaoui declared he was guilty of conspiracy in the Sept. 11 attacks, then dramatically withdrew his plea at his arraignment in Alexandria, Va.

2002 – The Spanish government welcomed a British proposal to turn its military base in Gibraltar into a NATO facility, a move that would open it to all alliance members including Spain.

2003 – President Bush ordered a naval amphibious force from the Mediterranean to position itself off the coast of Liberia.

2004 – American and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents in a battle that escalated from gunfire to artillery barrages north of Baghdad, killing 13 Iraqi militants.

2004 – Pakistan arrested Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian al-Qaida suspect, wanted by the United States in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

2010 – The release of 91,731 classified documents from the Wikileaks organization was made public. The documents cover U.S. military incident and intelligence reports from January 2004 to December 2009. The leaked documents also contain reports of Pakistan collusion with the Taliban. According to Der Spiegel, “the documents clearly show that the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (usually known as the ISI) is the most important accomplice the Taliban has outside of Afghanistan.”

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

LUCAS, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 3d Missouri Cavalry. Place and date: At Benton, Ark., 25 July 1864. Entered service at: Mt. Sterling, Brown County, Ill. Birth: Adams County, Ill. Date of issue: December 1864. Citation: Pursued and killed Confederate Brig. Gen. George M. Holt, Arkansas Militia, capturing his arms and horse.

PARKER, ALEXANDER
Rank and organization: Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1832, Kensington, N.J. Accredited to: New Jersey. G.O. No.: 215, 9 August 1876. Citation: For gallant conduct in attempting to save a shipmate from drowning at the Navy Yard, Mare Island, Calif., on 25 July 1876.

*GUILLEN, AMBROSIO
Rank and organization: Staff Sergeant, U.S. Marine Corps, Company F, 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein.). Place and date: Near Songuch-on, Korea, 25 July 1953. Entered service at: El Paso, Tex. Born: 7 December 1929, La Junta, Colo. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a platoon sergeant of Company F in action against enemy aggressor forces. Participating in the defense of an outpost forward of the main line of resistance, S/Sgt. Guillen maneuvered his platoon over unfamiliar terrain in the face of hostile fire and placed his men in fighting positions. With his unit pinned down when the outpost was attacked under cover of darkness by an estimated force of 2 enemy battalions supported by mortar and artillery fire, he deliberately exposed himself to the heavy barrage and attacks to direct his men in defending their positions and personally supervise the treatment and evacuation of the wounded. Inspired by his leadership, the platoon quickly rallied and engaged the enemy in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Although critically wounded during the course of the battle, S/Sgt. Guillen refused medical aid and continued to direct his men throughout the remainder of the engagement until the enemy was defeated and thrown into disorderly retreat. Succumbing to his wounds within a few hours, S/Sgt. Guillen, by his outstanding courage and indomitable fighting spirit, was directly responsible for the success of his platoon in repelling a numerically superior enemy force. His personal valor reflects the highest credit upon himself and enhances the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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26 July

1526 – The Spaniard Lucas Vasquez de Ayllon and his colonists left Santo Domingo in the Caribbean for Florida.

1759 – The French relinquished Fort Ticonderoga in New York to the British under General Jeffrey Amherst.

1579 – Francis Drake left San Francisco to cross Pacific Ocean.

1788 – New York became the 11th state to ratify the Constitution.

1790 – US passed the Assumption bill making it responsible for state debts.

1812 – Frigate Essex captures British brig Leander.

1846 – USRC Woodbury put down a mutiny on board the troop ship Middlesex during the Mexican War.

1847 – The Republic of Liberia, formerly a colony of the American Colonization Society, declares its independence. Under pressure from Britain, the United States hesitantly accepted Liberian sovereignty, making the West African nation the first democratic republic in African history. A constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution was approved, and in 1848 Joseph Jenkins Roberts was elected Liberia’s first president. The American Colonization Society was founded in 1816 by American Robert Finley to return freed African American slaves to Africa. In 1820, the first former U.S. slaves arrived at the British colony of Sierra Leone from the United States, and in 1821 the American Colonization Society founded the colony of Liberia south of Sierra Leone as a homeland for former slaves outside British jurisdiction. The American Colonization Society came under attack from U.S. abolitionists, who charged that the removal of freed slaves from the United States strengthened the institution of slavery. In addition, most Americans of African descent were not enthusiastic to abandon their native lands in the United States for the harsh West African coast. Nevertheless, between 1822 and the American Civil War, some 15,000 African Americans settled in Liberia. Independence was granted by the United States in 1847, and Liberia aided Britain in its efforts to end the illegal West African slave trade. Official U.S. diplomatic recognition came in 1862. With the backing of the United States, Liberia kept its independence though the turmoil of the 20th century. A costly civil war began in 1989 and lasted until 1997, when Charles Taylor was elected Liberian president in free elections. His administration has been criticized for supporting the rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone. Some three million people live in Liberia today.

1861 – George McClellan assumes command of the Army of the Potomac after the disaster at Bull Run five days prior. McClellan built the army into a powerhouse in the winter of 1861-62, although he proved to be a weak field commander.

1863 – Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan and 360 of his men are captured at Salineville, Ohio, during a spectacular raid on the North. Morgan made four major raids on Northern or Northern-held territory starting in July 1862. Although they were of limited strategic significance, they served as a boost to Southern morale and captured much-needed supplies. Morgan’s fourth raid began on July 2, 1863, when he and 2,400 troopers left Tennessee and headed for the Ohio River. Morgan hoped to divert the attention of William Rosecrans, who was driving for Chattanooga. He reached the river on July 8, using stolen steamboats to ferry his force across to Indiana. For the next two and a half weeks, Morgan rampaged through Indiana and Ohio, feigning toward Cincinnati, then riding across southern Ohio. His force met little resistance, but scattered some local militias who faced them.

With Union cavalry in hot pursuit, Morgan headed for Pennsylvania. For more than a week they spent 21 hours per day in the saddle. At Pomeroy, Ohio, Morgan lost over 800 men when the Yankees caught up with him and captured a large part of his force. He and the remaining members of his command were forced further north, and on July 26, the exhausted men were forced to surrender. In the end, only 400 of Morgan’s troopers made it safely back to the South. Those captured were scattered around Northern prison camps. Morgan and his officers were sent to the newly opened Ohio State Penitentiary. He and his men tunneled out on November 26, 1863, but he was killed in battle a year later.

1871 – Ferdinand Hayden (1830-1887) and his government sponsored team arrived at the Yellowstone Lake and the geyser fields.

1912 – First airborne radio communications from naval aircraft to ship (LT John Rodgers to USS Stringham).

1918 – A group of former Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war known as the Czech legion occupy Yekaterinburg. They has been expecting to be repatriated but the plan has been blocked by the Bolsheviks. The troops of the Czech Legion respond by taking arms from Bolshevik units in order to force their way back to their homeland. They will, however, become embroiled in the Russian Civil War, fighting with anti-Bolshevik forces.

1918 – New York’s 27th Division, assigned to the British XIX Corps, which had begun relieving the French 71st Division on July 5th, completes it movement into the front lines. During its service in World War I the 27th would participate in two campaigns, the Ypres-Lys and Somme Offensive and have seven of its soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor.

1926 – Philippines government asked the US for a plebiscite for independence.

1941 – President Franklin Roosevelt seizes all Japanese assets in the United States in retaliation for the Japanese occupation of French Indo-China. On July 24, Tokyo decided to strengthen its position in terms of its invasion of China by moving through Southeast Asia. Given that France had long occupied parts of the region, and Germany, a Japanese ally, now controlled most of France through Petain’s puppet government, France “agreed” to the occupation of its Indo-China colonies. Japan followed up by occupying Cam Ranh naval base, 800 miles from the Philippines, where Americans had troops, and the British base at Singapore. President Roosevelt swung into action by freezing all Japanese assets in America. Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Japan’s oil reserves were only sufficient to last three years, and only half that time if it went to war and consumed fuel at a more frenzied pace. Japan’s immediate response was to occupy Saigon, again with Vichy France’s acquiescence. If Japan could gain control of Southeast Asia, including Malaya, it could also control the region’s rubber and tin production–a serious blow to the West, which imported such materials from the East. Japan was now faced with a dilemma: back off of its occupation of Southeast Asia and hope the oil embargo would be eased–or seize the oil and further antagonize the West, even into war.

1942 – About 400 miles southeast of Fiji, the American aircraft carriers Wasp, Enterprise and Saratoga rendezvous with the invasion force for Guadalcanal. It is the most powerful force the US Navy has yet assembled in the Pacific.

1942 – CAPT Joy Bright Hancock appointed Director, Women’s Naval Reserve.

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1942 – Actor Gene Autry is sworn into the Army Air Corps on the air, during his regular radio show, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch. He served as an officer until 1945, when he resumed his show. Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, in 1907, the son of a livestock and horse trader who was also a Baptist minister. The family later moved to Oklahoma. In high school, Autry worked as a railway telegrapher at the local railroad depot, where he spent slow moments strumming his $8 guitar and singing. Passing through the depot one day, a stranger-who turned out to be Will Rogers-suggested that Autry try singing on the radio. Inspired, Autry traveled to New York City to look for a singing job but had no luck. Back home, he began working for a local radio station and found success as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy.” Eventually, Autry and railroad dispatcher Jim Long wrote several country songs, including the world’s first gold record, “That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine.” Autry became a regular on National Barn Dance, the forerunner of the Grand Ole Opry. In 1934, producer Nat Levine was looking for an actor who could sing and ride a horse. Autry wasn’t an actor but had already established a loyal radio audience, so Levine put him in numerous B-grade westerns. Playing the lead role in a long-running series of Saturday matinee films, Autry became America’s favorite singing cowboy.

In 1940, his musical-variety radio show, Gene Autry’s Melody Ranch, debuted; it ran until 1956. He became America’s favorite TV cowboy in 1950 when he debuted The Gene Autry Show, which ran through 1956. In each episode, he and his sidekick, Pat Buttram, rode from town to town, maintaining law and order. From “Back in the Saddle Again” to yuletide mainstays such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” Autry’s music became part of American life. He was also an entrepreneur, owning hotels, gas stations, and the California Angels baseball team, among other ventures. He also owned a television production company and was proud of discovering “Annie Oakley” star Gail Davis, whom he featured in dozens of his movies and television program episodes and who had performed in his traveling rodeo. Her appearances spun off into her own series, which Autry’s company produced. Autry was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1969. Autry died in 1998.

1943 – Marshal Badoglio forms a new government and declares martial law. He publicly claims loyalty to the Axis alliance with Germany.

1943 – n the Solomons, US forces continue to make slow progress with heavy air and artillery support. Tanks and flame throwers are also used.

1944 – Roosevelt meets with MacArthur and Nimitz to discuss strategy in the Pacific theater. MacArthur argues for an attack on the Philippines. Nimitz and the naval staff suggest the Philippines can be by-passed and Formosa should be the next major target.

1944 – The attacks of US 1st Army continue. The US 7th Corps captures Marigny and St. Gilles. To the west, US 8th Corps crosses the Lessay-Periers road.

1945 – The Potsdam Declaration is issued in a radio broadcast demanding the immediate and unconditional surrender of Japan. It also threatens the “prompt and utter destruction” of the Japanese homeland, if the government of Japan fails to do so.

1945 – The heavy cruiser USS Indianapolis delivers the consignment of Uranium-235, needed to assemble the first operational atomic bomb, to the American base on Tinian.

1945 – The US, Britain and China issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan that she surrender unconditionally. Two days later Japanese Premier Kantaro Suzuki announced to the Japanese press that the Potsdam declaration is to be ignored.

1947 – President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act, which becomes one of the most important pieces of Cold War legislation. The act established much of the bureaucratic framework for foreign policymaking for the next 40-plus years of the Cold War. By July 1947, the Cold War was in full swing. The United States and the Soviet Union, once allies during World War II, now faced off as ideological enemies. In the preceding months, the administration of President Truman had argued for, and secured, military and economic aid to Greece and Turkey to assist in their struggles against communist insurgents. In addition, the Marshall Plan, which called for billions of dollars in U.S. aid to help rebuild war-torn Western Europe and strengthen it against possible communist aggression, had also taken shape. As the magnitude of the Cold War increased, however, so too did the need for a more efficient and manageable foreign policymaking bureaucracy in the United States. The National Security Act was the solution.

The National Security Act had three main parts. First, it streamlined and unified the nation’s military establishment by bringing together the Navy Department and War Department under a new Department of Defense. This department would facilitate control and utilization of the nation’s growing military. Second, the act established the National Security Council (NSC). Based in the White House, the NSC was supposed to serve as a coordinating agency, sifting through the increasing flow of diplomatic and intelligence information in order to provide the president with brief but detailed reports. Finally, the act set up the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA replaced the Central Intelligence Group, which had been established in 1946 to coordinate the intelligence-gathering activities of the various military branches and the Department of State. The CIA, however, was to be much more–it was a separate agency, designed not only to gather intelligence but also to carry out covert operations in foreign nations. The National Security Act formally took effect in September 1947.

Since that time, the Department of Defense, NSC, and CIA have grown steadily in terms of size, budgets, and power. The Department of Defense, housed in the Pentagon, controls a budget that many Third World nations would envy. The NSC rapidly became not simply an information organizing agency, but one that was active in the formation of foreign policy. The CIA also grew in power over the course of the Cold War, becoming involved in numerous covert operations. Most notable of these was the failed Bay of Pigs operation of 1961, in which Cuban refugees, trained and armed by the CIA, were unleashed against the communist regime of Fidel Castro. The mission was a disaster, with most of the attackers either killed or captured in a short time. Though it had both successes and failures, the National Security Act indicated just how seriously the U.S. government took the Cold War threat.

1948 – President Harry Truman In Executive Order No. 9981 called for “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed forces without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.”

1950 – Up to 300 South Korean refugees trapped under a bridge at No Gun Ri were killed by small arms fire. The villagers had been gathered there by US troops. Official review in 1999 was unable to verify or rule out the claims of surviving refugees that they were fired on by US troops.

1951 – Communist and U.N. negotiators agreed to an agenda for armistice talks.

1951– The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division’s 38th Infantry Regiment attacked in the Taeusan area along the edge of the Punchbowl, securing the objective by the July 30.

1954 – 3 aircraft from USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47) shoot down 2 Chinese fighters that fired on them while they were providing air cover for rescue operations for a U.K. airliner shot down by a Chinese aircraft.

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1956 – The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which connects the Mediterranean and Red Seas across Egypt, was completed by French engineers in 1869. For the next 87 years, it remained largely under British and French control, and Europe depended on it as an inexpensive shipping route for oil from the Middle East. After World War II, Egypt pressed for evacuation of British troops from the Suez Canal Zone, and in July 1956 President Nasser nationalized the canal, hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of a massive dam on the Nile River. In response, Israel invaded in late October, and British and French troops landed in early November, occupying the canal zone. Under Soviet, U.S., and U.N. pressure, Britain and France withdrew in December, and Israeli forces departed in March 1957. That month, Egypt took control of the canal and reopened it to commercial shipping. Ten years later, Egypt shut down the canal again following the Six Day War and Israel’s occupation of the Sinai peninsula. For the next eight years, the Suez Canal, which separates the Sinai from the rest of Egypt, existed as the front line between the Egyptian and Israeli armies. In 1975, Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal as a gesture of peace after talks with Israel. Today, an average of 50 ships navigate the canal daily, carrying more than 300 million tons of goods a year.

1971 – Apollo 15 was launched from Cape Kennedy.

1972 – Although South Vietnamese paratroopers hoist their flag over Quang Tri Citadel, they prove unable to hold the Citadel for long or to secure Quang Tri City. Fighting outside the city remained intense. Farther to the south, South Vietnamese troops under heavy shelling were forced to abandon Fire Base Bastogne, which protected the southwest approach to Hue. North Vietnamese troops had captured Quang Tri City on May 1 as part of their Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the “Easter Offensive”), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces that had been launched on March 31. The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south. Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders were almost overwhelmed, particularly in the northernmost provinces, where they abandoned their positions in Quang Tri. At Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese were more successful in defending against the attacks, but only after weeks of bitter fighting. Although the defenders suffered heavy casualties, they managed to hold their own with the aid of U.S. advisors and American airpower. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months. The heavy fighting would continue in the area of Quang Tri and Hue until September, when the South Vietnamese forces finally succeeded in recapturing Quang Tri. With the communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his “Vietnamization” program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so U.S. troops could be withdrawn.

1983 – The United States warns of action to preserve navigation in the Persian Gulf.

1986 – Kidnappers in Lebanon released the Reverend Lawrence Martin Jenco, an American hostage held for nearly 19 months.

1987 – Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said the Navy’s anti-mine capabilities would be improved in the Persian Gulf in the wake of a mine explosion that damaged the tanker Bridgeton.

1992 – Iraq agreed to permit weapons inspectors to search the Agriculture Ministry in Baghdad.

1993 – Ret. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway (98), US Army Chief of Staff (1953-55), died in Fox Chapel, Pa.

2000 – The US Navy reported that an F-14 Tomcat jet crashed in Saudi Arabia during a training flight. Iraqi air defense later reported that Iraqi units had shot down a US Air Force F-14 over southern Iraq in mid July and claimed that the Navy report was a cover up. The U.S. Air Force does not fly F-14s.

2001 – China granted parole to two U.S.-based scholars convicted of spying for Taiwan.

2004 – Afghan President Hamid Karzai formally filed his candidacy for October presidential elections and chose a brother of late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Masoud as his running mate for vice president.

2004 – An Egyptian diplomat held hostage by militants in Iraq for three days was released and was in good condition.

2004 – Al-Qaida-linked Islamic militants threatened to “shake the earth” everywhere in Italy if Rome does not withdraw troops from Iraq. The Internet statement, attributed to the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, was the 2nd such threat against the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in two weeks.

2014 – ISIS blew up the Nabi Shiyt (Prophet Seth) shrine in Mosul. Sami al-Massoudi, deputy head of the Shia endowment agency which oversees holy sites, confirmed the destruction and added that ISIS had taken artifacts from the shrine to an unknown location.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

COREY, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Landsman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1853, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 215, 9 August 1876. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Plymouth, Navy Yard, New York, 26 July 1876. Showing heroic conduct, Corey endeavored to save the life of one of the crew of that ship who had fallen overboard from aloft.

GIDDING, CHARLES
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1853, Bangor, Maine. Accredited to: Maine. G.O. No.: 215, 9 August 1876. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Plymouth, Gidding showed heroic conduct in trying to save the life of one of the crew of that ship, who had fallen overboard from aloft at the Navy Yard, New York, 26 July 1876.

KERSEY, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1847, St. Johns, Newfoundland. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 215, 9 August 1876. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Plymouth at the Navy Yard, New York, 26 July 1876, Kersey displayed bravery and presence of mind in rescuing from drowning one of the crew of that vessel.

BATSON, MATTHEW A.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 4th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Calamba, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 26 July 1899. Entered service at: Carbondale, Ill. Birth: Anna, Ill. Date of issue: 8 March 1902. Citation: Swam the San Juan River in the face of the enemy’s fire and drove him from his entrenchments.

McGRATH, HUGH J.
Rank and organization: Captain, 4th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Calamba, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 26 July 1899. Entered service at: Eau Claire, Wis. Birth: Fond du Lac, Wis. Date of issue: 29 April 1902. Citation: Swam the San Juan River in the face of the enemy’s fire and drove him from his entrenchments.

WILSON, LOUIS HUGH, JR.
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding Rifle Company, 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division. Place and date: Fonte Hill, Guam, 25-26 July 1944. Entered service at: Mississippi. Born: 11 February 1920, Brandon, Miss. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of a rifle company attached to the 2d Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces at Fonte Hill, Guam, 25-26 July 1944. Ordered to take that portion of the hill within his zone of action, Capt. Wilson initiated his attack in mid-afternoon, pushed up the rugged, open terrain against terrific machinegun and rifle fire for 300 yards and successfully captured the objective. Promptly assuming command of other disorganized units and motorized equipment in addition to his own company and 1 reinforcing platoon, he organized his night defenses in the face of continuous hostile fire and, although wounded 3 times during this 5-hour period, completed his disposition of men and guns before retiring to the company command post for medical attention. Shortly thereafter, when the enemy launched the first of a series of savage counterattacks lasting all night, he voluntarily rejoined his besieged units and repeatedly exposed himself to the merciless hail of shrapnel and bullets, dashing 50 yards into the open on 1 occasion to rescue a wounded marine Iying helpless beyond the frontlines.

Fighting fiercely in hand-to-hand encounters, he led his men in furiously waged battle for approximately 10 hours, tenaciously holding his line and repelling the fanatically renewed counterthrusts until he succeeded in crushing the last efforts of the hard-pressed Japanese early the following morning. Then organizing a 17-man patrol, he immediately advanced upon a strategic slope essential to the security of his position and, boldly defying intense mortar, machinegun, and rifle fire which struck down 13 of his men, drove relentlessly forward with the remnants of his patrol to seize the vital ground. By his indomitable leadership, daring combat tactics, and valor in the face of overwhelming odds, Capt. Wilson succeeded in capturing and holding the strategic high ground in his regimental sector, thereby contributing essentially to the success of his regimental mission and to the annihilation of 350 Japanese troops. His inspiring conduct throughout the critical periods of this decisive action sustains and enhances the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

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27 July

1663 – British Parliament passed a second Navigation Act, requiring all goods bound for the colonies be sent in British ships from British ports.

1775 – The Army Medical Department and the Medical Corps trace their origins to July 27, 1775, when the Continental Congress established the Army hospital headed by a “Director General and Chief Physician.” Congress provided a medical organization of the Army only in time of war or emergency until 1818, which marked the inception of a permanent and continuous Medical Department. The Army Nurse Corps dates from 1901, the Dental Corps from 1911, the Veterinary Corps from 1916, the Medical Service Corps from 1917, and the Army Medical Specialist Corps from 1947. The Army Organization Act of 1950 renamed the Medical Department as the Army Medical Service. On June 4, 1968, the Army Medical Service was redesignated the Army Medical Department.

1777 – The Marquis of Lafayette arrived in New England to help the rebellious colonists fight the British.

1778 – British and French fleets fought to a standoff in the first Battle of Ushant. The British had 30 ships of the line commanded by Admiral the Honorable Augustus Keppel in HMS Victory. The French had 29 ships commanded by Admiral the Comte d’Orvilliers. The two fleets manoeuvered during shifting winds and a heavy rain squall until a battle became inevitable with the British more or less in column and the French in some confusion. However, the French managed to pass along the British line to windward with their most advanced ships. At about a quarter to twelve HMS Victory opened fire on Bretagne, 110, followed by Ville de Paris, 90. The British van escaped with little loss but Sir Hugh Palliser’s rear division suffered considerably. Keppel made the signal to wear and follow the French but Palliser did not conform and the action was not resumed. Keppel was court-martialled and cleared and Palliser criticised by an enquiry before the affair turned into a squabble of party politics.

1789 – Congress established the Department of Foreign Affairs, the forerunner of the Department of State.

1806 – Attempting to stop a band of young Blackfoot Indians from stealing his horses, Meriwether Lewis shoots an Indian in the stomach. The voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the West began in May 1804 when the two captains and 27 men headed up the Missouri River. They reached the Pacific Ocean the following year, and on March 23, 1806, began the return journey. After crossing the worst section of the Rocky Mountains, the expedition split up. Clark took most of the men and explored the Yellowstone River country to the south. Lewis, with nine men, headed west to the Great Falls of the Missouri River where he split the small party still further. Six men remained behind to make the portage around the Great Falls. Lewis took the remaining three and headed north to explore the Marias River country of present-day northwestern Montana. It was a risky, perhaps even irresponsible, decision. Lewis knew the Marias River country was the home of the Blackfoot Indians, one of the fiercest tribes of the Great Plains. Lewis hoped he could meet peacefully with the Blackfoot and encourage their cooperation with the United States. Yet, if they met a hostile Blackfoot band and a fight began, the four explorers would be badly outnumbered.

On July 26, Lewis encountered a party of eight young Blackfoot braves. At first, the meeting went well, and the Indians seemed pleased with Lewis’ gifts of a medal, flag, and handkerchief. Lulled into a false sense of security, Lewis invited the Indians to camp with them. In the early morning of this day in 1806, Lewis awoke to the shouts of one his men–the Indians were attempting to steal their rifles and horses. Lewis sped after two Indians who were running off with several of the horses, calling out for them to stop or he would shoot. One Indian, armed with an old British musket, turned toward Lewis. Apparently fearing that thee Indian was about to shoot, Lewis fired first and hit him in the stomach. The Indians retreated, and the men quickly gathered their horses. Lewis then learned that one of his men had also fatally stabbed another of the Blackfoot. Fearing the survivors would soon return with reinforcements, Lewis and his men immediately broke camp. They rode south quickly and managed to escape any retribution from the Blackfoot. Lewis’ diplomatic mission, however, had turned into a debacle. By killing at least one Indian, and probably two, Lewis had guaranteed that the already hostile Blackfoot would be unlikely to deal peacefully with Americans in the future.

1816 – US troops destroyed the Seminole Fort Apalachicola, to punish the Indians for harboring runaway slaves.

1861 – President Abraham Lincoln replaced General Irwin McDowell with General George B. McClellen as head of the Army of the Potomac.

1861 – Battle of Mathias Point, VA. Rebel forces repelled a Federal landing.

1863 – General Beauregard asked Captain Tucker, commanding Confederate naval forces at Charleston, to ”place your two ships, the ironclads, in a position immediately contiguous to Cumming’s Point. . . .” Beauregard noted that the addition of the ironclads would “materially strengthen our means of defense” and the Confederate hold on Morris Island. Tucker subsequently replied: “Flag Officer Ingraham, commanding station, Charleston, has informed me officially that he has but 80 tons of coal to meet all demands, including the ironclads, and has admonished me of the necessity of economy in consumption.” However, a fresh supply of coal arrived in August in time to enable the ironclads to help evacuate Fort Wagner. Critical shortages of coal hampered Southern efforts afloat and even that which was obtained was “soft” rather than “hard” coal. It burned with a heavy smoke and was much less efficient than anthracite coal.

1863 – U.S.S. Clifton, Lieutenant Crocker, with U.S.S. Estrella, Hollyhock, and Sachem in company on a reconnaissance of the Atchafalaya River to the mouth of Bayou Teche, Louisiana, engaged Confederate batteries.

1864 – Battle of Darbytown, VA (Deep Bottom, Newmarket Road) (Strawberry Plains).

1864 – Pickets from U.S.S. Shokokon, Acting Master Sheldon, were attacked ashore by Confederate sharpshooters at Turkey Bend, in the James River. Shokokon, a 710–ton double-ender mounting 5 guns, supported the embattled landing party with gunfire, and succeeded in preventing its capture. Next day, Shokokon engaged a Confederate battery at the same point on the River.

1866 – Cyrus W. Field succeeded after two failures in laying the first underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe, 1,686 miles long.

1898 – Marines from the USS Dixie were the first to raise the American flag over Puerto Rico.

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1909 – Orville Wright tested the U.S. Army’s first airplane, flying himself and a passenger for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer, Virginia.

1920 – A radio compass was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.

1923 – John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall. Years later, Dillinger’s reputation was forged in a single 12-month period, during which he robbed more banks than Jesse James did in 15 years and became the most wanted fugitive in the nation. Dillinger didn’t last in the Navy very long. Within months he had gone AWOL several times-the last time in December 1923. Making his way back to Indiana, he was arrested for armed robbery the following summer. Dillinger pled guilty, thinking that he would receive a light sentence, but instead got 10 to 20 years. His first words to the warden at the prison were, “I won’t cause you any trouble except to escape.” A man of his word, Dillinger had attempted to escape three times by the end of the year. Between escape attempts, Dillinger became friendly with some of the more professional thieves in the prison.

After he was finally paroled in May 1933, Dillinger hooked up with his new friends and began robbing banks throughout the Midwest. He also began planning to break his friends out of prison. In September, he smuggled guns in to Harry Pierpont, who led a 10-man break from the Michigan City prison. Dillinger’s assistance turned out to be fortuitous because as his friends were breaking out, Dillinger himself was captured and arrested for bank robbery in Lima, Ohio. Pierpont and the others returned the favor and broke Dillinger out in October, killing a sheriff in the process. The gang was now in full force. A week later, they raided a police arsenal in Peru, Indiana. The arrogant bandits pretended to be tourists who wanted to see what weapons the police were going to use to capture the Dillinger gang. Given the remarkable string of armed robberies and acts of violence in such a short period of time, police departments throughout the Midwest set up special units to capture Dillinger. Ironically, his eventual arrest was the result of pure luck. While hiding out in Tucson, Arizona, Dillinger was caught in a fire that broke out in his hotel. Firefighters became suspicious when two gang members offered them a large sum of money to save two heavy suitcases. When they found a small arsenal of guns inside, everyone was taken into custody. Dillinger was extradited to Indiana and held in what was believed to be an escape-proof jail, with extra guards posted to protect against outside attacks. But on March 3, 1934, Dillinger used a fake pistol that he had carved out of wood and painted black to escape.

For the next several months, Dillinger and his gang went on a bank-robbing spree with the FBI one step behind at all times. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, reportedly put out an order that agents should shoot Dillinger on sight. An illegal immigrant named Anna Sage offered to set the outlaw up if deportation proceedings against her were dropped. On July 22, 1934, detective Martin Zarkovich shot a man identified by the FBI as Dillinger as was leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Some historians believe that the man killed that day was not Dillinger, but Jimmy Lawrence. They think that Dillinger engineered the setup to drop out of sight. If so, he was successful-no further record of Dillinger exists.

1940 – Bugs Bunny made his official debut in the Warner Bros. animated cartoon “A Wild Hare.” Three years later, Bugs would be made an honorary Corporal of the US Marine Corps after ther release of the short Super Rabbit in which he is portrayed as a parody of Superman. Bugs abandons his colorful costume, faces the camera, and proclaims that “This looks like a job for a real Superman!” Then he reappears from the phone booth wearing a uniform of the United States Marine Corps. His former antagonists snap to attention and salute Bugs as he marches into the horizon singing the Marine Corps Hymn.

1944 – US 1st Army continues its offensive. The US 8th Corps breaks through between Lessy and Periers, capturing both towns. As large numbers of German soldiers are killed or surrender and their armored equipment is destroyed by constant air attack Operation COBRA, the planned Allied breakout from Normandy, continues. This operation, which was supposed to start with a massive aerial bombardment of the German defensive lines along the Vire River on July 24th led instead to one of the worst incidents of “friendly fire” during World War II. Due to poor visibility the bomber strike was called off; however, some of the squadrons did not get the word and dropped their loads on top of North Carolina’s 120th Infantry, an element of the 30th Infantry Division composed of Guard units North and South Carolina and Tennessee. Because word of the cancelled attack had also not reached the frontline soldiers the Guardsmen of the 120th instead of being ‘dug in’ were exposed waiting for the word to advance. More than 150 men were killed or wounded in this mistake. Cobra started the next day, again with some Americans being stuck by our own bombs, but with more hitting the enemy. The 30th Division and other American units punched through the Nazis lines and by early August the Allied armies would break out of Normandy completely, liberating Paris on August 25th.

1944 – On Guam, the US 77th Division prepares to attack Mount Tenjo. On Tinian, Americans being work on a new airfield at Ushi Point.

1945 – British and American carriers conduct extensive air strikes. During the night (July 27-28), US B-29 bombers drop some 600,000 leaflets over 11 Japanese cities which warn inhabitants that the cities are on the target list for bombing raids.

1945 – US Communist Party formed.

1950 – The 3rd Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, attached to the 19th Infantry Regiment, U.S. 24th Infantry Division, was ambushed at Hadong. One half of the battalion was reported killed or missing in action.

1950 – Australia, New Zealand and Turkey all offered ground troops for Korea.

1953 – Air Force Captain Ralph S. Parr, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, achieved the last air victory of the Korean War when he destroyed an Il-12 transport plane. In addition, the victory qualified him as the 11th and last double ace of the war, with a total of 10 kills.

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1953 – After three years of a bloody and frustrating war, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea agree to an armistice, bringing the Korean War to an end. The armistice ended America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war.” The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Almost immediately, the United States secured a resolution from the United Nations calling for the military defense of South Korea against the North Korean aggression. In a matter of days, U.S. land, air, and sea forces had joined the battle. The U.S. intervention turned the tide of the war, and soon the U.S. and South Korean forces were pushing into North Korea and toward that nation’s border with China. In November and December 1951, hundreds of thousands of troops from the People’s Republic of China began heavy assaults against the American and South Korea forces. The war eventually bogged down into a battle of attrition. In the U.S. presidential election of 1952, Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower strongly criticized President Harry S. Truman’s handling of the war. After his victory, Eisenhower adhered to his promise to “go to Korea.” His trip convinced him that something new was needed to break the diplomatic logjam at the peace talks that had begun in July 1951. Eisenhower began to publicly hint that the United States might make use of its nuclear arsenal to break the military stalemate in Korea. He allowed the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan to begin harassing air raids on mainland China. The president also put pressure on his South Korean ally to drop some of its demands in order to speed the peace process. Whether or not Eisenhower’s threats of nuclear attacks helped, by July 1953 all sides involved in the conflict were ready to sign an agreement ending the bloodshed.

The armistice, signed on July 27, established a committee of representatives from neutral countries to decide the fate of the thousands of prisoners of war on both sides. It was eventually decided that the POWs could choose their own fate–stay where they were or return to their homelands. A new border between North and South Korea was drawn, which gave South Korea some additional territory and demilitarized the zone between the two nations. The war cost the lives of millions of Koreans and Chinese, as well as over 50,000 Americans. It had been a frustrating war for Americans, who were used to forcing the unconditional surrender of their enemies. Many also could not understand why the United States had not expanded the war into China or used its nuclear arsenal. As government officials were well aware, however, such actions would likely have prompted World War III. Korea remains in an armistice status without a formal peace treaty to this day. Sergeant Harold R. Cross, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regimental Combat Team, was killed by a mortar blast at 2040, the last American soldier killed in action in the Korean War.

1964 – It is announced that the United States will send an additional 5,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam, bringing the total number of U.S. forces in Vietnam to 21,000. Military spokesmen and Washington officials insisted that this did not represent any change in policy, and that new troops would only intensify existing U.S. efforts. However, the situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed unanimously in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate. The resolution gave the president approval to “take all necessary measures to repel an armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” Using the resolution, Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incident.

In 1965, Johnson was faced with a rapidly deteriorating situation in Vietnam. The Viet Cong had increased the level of combat and there were indications that Hanoi was sending troops to fight in the south. It was apparent that the South Vietnamese were in danger of being overwhelmed. Johnson had sent Marines and paratroopers to protect American installations, but he had become convinced that more had to be done to stop the communists or they would soon overwhelm South Vietnam. While some advisers, such as Undersecretary of State George Ball, recommended a negotiated settlement, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara urged the president to “expand promptly and substantially” the U.S. military presence in South Vietnam. Johnson, not wanting to “lose” Vietnam to the communists, ultimately accepted McNamara’s recommendation. This decision led to a massive escalation of the war.

1965 – Forty-six U.S. F-105 fighter-bombers attack the missile installation that had fired at U.S. planes on July 24. They also attacked another missile installation 40 miles northwest of Hanoi. One missile launcher was destroyed and another was damaged, but five U.S. planes were shot down in the effort. On July 24, U.S. bombers on a raid over munitions manufacturing facilities at Kang Chi, 55 miles northwest of Hanoi, were fired at from an unknown launching site. It was the first time the enemy had launched antiaircraft missiles at U.S. aircraft. The presence of ground-to-air antiaircraft missiles represented a rapidly improving air defense capability for the North Vietnamese. As the war progressed, North Vietnam, supplied by China and the Soviet Union, would fashion a very effective and integrated air defense system, which became a formidable challenge to American flyers conducting missions over North Vietnam.

1974 – The House Judiciary Committee voted 27-11 to recommend President Nixon’s impeachment on a charge that he had personally engaged in a “course of conduct” designed to obstruct justice in the Watergate case.

1976 – Air Force veteran Ray Brennan became the first person to die of so-called “Legionnaire’s Disease” following an American Legion convention in Philadelphia.

1980 – On day 267 of the Iranian hostage crisis, the deposed Shah of Iran (1941-1979) died at a military hospital outside Cairo, Egypt, at age 60. Mohammad Reza was enthroned as shah of Iran in 1941, after his father was forced to abdicate by British and Soviet troops. The new shah promised to act as a constitutional monarch but often meddled in the elected government’s affairs. After a communist plot against him was thwarted in 1949, he took on even more powers. However, in the early 1950s, the shah was eclipsed by Mohammad Mosaddeq, a zealous Iranian nationalist who convinced the Parliament to nationalize Britain’s extensive oil interests in Iran. Mohammad Reza, who maintained close relations with Britain and the United States, opposed the decision. Nevertheless, he was forced in 1951 to appoint Mosaddeq premier, and two years of tension followed. In August 1953, Mohammad Reza attempted to dismiss Mosaddeq, but the premier’s popular support was so great that the shah himself was forced out of Iran. A few days later, British and U.S. intelligence agents orchestrated a stunning coup d’etat against Mosaddeq, and the shah returned to take power as the sole leader of Iran. He repealed Mosaddeq’s legislation and became a close Cold War ally of the United States in the Middle East.

In 1963, the shah launched his “White Revolution,” a broad government program that included land reform, infrastructure development, voting rights for women, and the reduction of illiteracy. Although these programs were applauded by many in Iran, Islamic leaders were critical of what they saw as the westernization of Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric, was particularly vocal in his criticism and called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1964, Khomeini was exiled and settled across the border in Iraq, where he sent radio messages to incite his supporters. The shah saw himself foremost as a Persian king and in 1971 held an extravagant celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy.

In 1976, he formally replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. Religious discontent grew, and the shah became more repressive, using his brutal secret police force to suppress opposition. This alienated students and intellectuals in Iran, and support for the exiled Khomeini increased. Discontent was also rampant in the poor and middle classes, who felt that the economic developments of the White Revolution had only benefited the ruling elite. In 1978, anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran’s major cities. On September 8, 1978, the shah’s security force fired on a large group of demonstrators, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Two months later, thousands took to the streets of Tehran, rioting and destroying symbols of westernization, such as banks and liquor stores. Khomeini called for the shah’s immediate overthrow, and on December 11 a group of soldiers mutinied and attacked the shah’s security officers.

His regime collapsed, and on January 16, 1979, he fled the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran. The shah traveled to several countries before entering the United States in October 1979 for medical treatment of his cancer. In Tehran, Islamic militants responded on November 4 by storming the U.S. embassy and taking the staff hostage. With the approval of Khomeini, the militants demanded the return of the shah to Iran to stand trial for his crimes. The United States refused to negotiate, and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died in Egypt in July 1980.


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1995 – The Korean War Veterans Memorial was dedicated in Washington by President Clinton and South Korean President Kim Young-sam.

1996 – In Atlanta, Georgia, the XXVI Summer Olympiad is disrupted by the explosion of a nail-laden pipe bomb in Centennial Olympic Park. The bombing, which occurred during a free concert, killed a mother who had brought her daughter to hear the rock music and injured more than 100 others, including a Turkish cameraman who suffered a fatal heart attack after the blast. Police were warned of the bombing in advance, but the bomb exploded before the anonymous caller said it would, leading authorities to suspect that the law enforcement officers who descended on the park were indirectly targeted. Within a few days, Richard Jewell, a security guard at the concert, was charged with the crime. However, evidence against him was dubious at best, and in October he was fully cleared of all responsibility in the bombing.

On January 16, 1997, another bomb exploded outside an abortion clinic in suburban Atlanta, blowing a hole in the building’s wall. An hour later, while police and ambulance workers were still at the scene, a second blast went off near a large trash bin, injuring seven people. As at Centennial Park, a nail-laden bomb was used and authorities were targeted. Then, only five days later, also in Atlanta, a nail-laden bomb exploded near the patio area of a crowded gay and lesbian nightclub, injuring five people. A second bomb in a backpack was found outside after the first explosion, but police safely detonated it. Federal investigators linked the bombings, but no suspect was arrested.

On January 29, 1998, an abortion clinic was bombed in Birmingham, Alabama, killing an off-duty police officer and critically wounding a nurse. An automobile reported at the crime scene was later found abandoned near the Georgia state line, and investigators traced it to Eric Robert Rudolph, a 31-year-old carpenter. Although Rudolph was not found, authorities positively identified him as the culprit in the Birmingham and Atlanta bombings, and an extensive manhunt began. Despite being one of the FBI’s most wanted fugitives, Rudolph eluded the authorities for five years by hiding in the mountains in western North Carolina before finally being captured on May 31, 2003.

1999 – The US eased sanctions against Iran, Libya and Sudan to allow the sale of food, medicine and medical equipment.

1999 – The Columbia space shuttle landed at Cape Canaveral after a 3 day mission to deploy the Chandra X-ray telescope. With Air Force Colonel Eileen Collins at the controls, space shuttle “Columbia” returned to Earth, ending a five-day mission.

2002 – South American leaders ended a two-day summit with an agreement to strengthen cooperation to better negotiate with the United States a free-trade zone for the hemisphere. In a document called the “Guayaquil Consensus,” the 10 presidents said it was important to fortify cooperation between the region’s two major trade blocs (Mercosur, made up of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, with Chile and Bolivia as associated members, and the Andean pact, composed of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia) to permit South America to proceed successfully with negotiations for a hemispheric-wide free-trade zone.

2003 – Bob Hope (b.1903), master of the one-liner and favorite comedian of servicemen and presidents alike, died at his home in Toluca Lake, Ca. He was born Leslie Townes Hope on May 29, 1903, in Eltham, England, the 5th of 7 sons of a British stonemason and a Welsh singer of light opera.

2004 – A Baghdad mortar barrage killed an Iraqi garbage collector and injured 14 coalition soldiers.

2004 – The chief executive of a Jordanian firm working for the U.S. military in Iraq said he was withdrawing from the country to secure the release of two employees who have been kidnapped by militants.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

MORIN, WILLIAM H.
Rank and organization: Boatswain’s Mate Second Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 23 May 1869, England. G.O. No.: 500, 14 December 1898. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Marblehead at the approaches to Caimanera, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 26 and 27 July 1898. Displaying heroism, Morin took part in the perilous work of sweeping for and disabling 27 contact mines during this period.

SPICER, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Gunner’s Mate First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 28 May 1864, England. Accredited to. New York. G.O. No.: 500, 14 December 1898. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Marblehead at the approaches to Caimanera, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 26 and 27 July 1898. Displaying heroism, Spicer took part in the perilous work of sweeping for and disabling 27 contact mines during this period.

SUNDQUIST, AXEL
Rank and organization: Chief Carpenter’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 26 May 1867, Furland, Russia. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 500, 19 December 1898. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Marblehead at the approaches to Caimanera, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 26 and 27 July 1898. Displaying heroism, Sundquist took part in the perilous work of sweeping for and disabling 27 contact mines during this period.

TRIPLETT, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 18 December 1869, Chenokeeke, Kans. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 500, 14 December 1898. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Marblehead at the approaches to Caimanera, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 26 and 27 July 1898. Displaying heroism, Triplett took part in the perilous work of sweeping for and disabling 27 contact mines during this period.

*PETRARCA, FRANK J.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Medical Detachment, 145th Infantry, 37th Infantry Division. Place and date: At Horseshoe Hill, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 27 July 1943. Entered service at: Cleveland, Ohio. Birth: Cleveland, Ohio. G.O. No.: 86, 23 December 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Petrarca advanced with the leading troop element to within 100 yards of the enemy fortifications where mortar and small-arms fire caused a number of casualties. Singling out the most seriously wounded, he worked his way to the aid of Pfc. Scott, Iying within 75 yards of the enemy, whose wounds were so serious that he could not even be moved out of the direct line of fire Pfc Petrarca fearlessly administered first aid to Pfc. Scott and 2 other soldiers and shielded the former until his death. On 29 July 1943, Pfc. Petrarca. during an intense mortar barrage, went to the aid of his sergeant who had been partly buried in a foxhole under the debris of a shell explosion, dug him out, restored him to consciousness and caused his evacuation. On 31 July 1943 and against the warning of a fellow soldier, he went to the aid of a mortar fragment casualty where his path over the crest of a hill exposed him to enemy observation from only 20 yards distance. A target for intense knee mortar and automatic fire, he resolutely worked his way to within 2 yards of his objective where he was mortally wounded by hostile mortar fire. Even on the threshold of death he continued to display valor and contempt for the foe, raising himself to his knees, this intrepid soldier shouted defiance at the enemy, made a last attempt to reach his wounded comrade and fell in glorious death.

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28 July

1746 – Thomas Heyward, soldier, signed Declaration of Independence, was born.

1863 – Confederate John Mosby began a series of attacks against General Meade’s Army of the Potomac as it tried to pursue General Robert E. Lee in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby was known as “The Gray Ghost.” The rather ordinary looking Mosby led his Partisan Rangers in guerilla warfare operations that continually confounded Union commanders in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Learn more about Mosby‘s Confederacy in Faquier and Loudoun counties.

1863 – Under the command of Lieutenant Commander English, U.S.S. Beauregard and Oleander and boats from U.S.S. Sagamore and Para attacked New Smyrna, Florida. After shelling the town, the Union force “captured one sloop loaded with cotton, one schooner not laden; caused them to destroy several vessels, some of which were loaded with cotton and about ready to sail. They burned large quantities of it on shore. . . . Landed a strong force, destroyed all the buildings that had been occupied by troops.” The Union Navy’s capability to strike swiftly and effectively at any point on the South’s sea perimeter kept the Confederacy off balance.

1864 – Confederates under General John Bell Hood make a third attempt to break General William T. Sherman’s hold on Atlanta. Like the first two, this attack failed, destroying the Confederate Army of Tennessee’s offensive capabilities. Hood had replaced Joseph Johnston as commander of the Army of Tennessee on July 18, 1864, because Johnston had failed to keep Sherman away from Atlanta. Upon assuming command of the army, Hood quickly scrapped Johnston’s defensive strategy and attacked Sherman, first on July 20 at Peachtree Creek, and then on July 22 at the Battle of Atlanta. Both failed, but that did not deter Hood from making another attempt to break the Union hold on the important Southern city. When Sherman sent General Oliver O. Howard southeast of Atlanta to cut the Macon and Western Railroad, one of the remaining supply lines, Hood sent Stephen D. Lee’s corps to block the move. Lee attacked at Ezra Church, but the battle did not go as planned for the Confederates. Instead of striking the Union flank, Lee’s corps hit the Union center, where the Yankee troops were positioned behind barricades made from logs and pews taken from the church. Throughout the afternoon, Lee made several attacks on the Union lines. Each was turned back, and Lee was not able to get around the Union flank. The battle was costly for an army that was already outnumbered. Lee lost 3,000 men to the Union’s 630. More important, Hood lost his offensive capability. For the next month, he could do no more than sit in trenches around Atlanta and wait for Sherman to deal him the knockout blow.

1864 – Large side-wheel double-enders U.S.S. Mendota, Commander Nichols, and U.S.S. Agawam, temporarily commanded by Lieutenant George Dewey, shelled Confederate positions across Four Mile Creek, on the James River. Action was in support of Union moves to clear the area and restore full Northern use of the river at that Point.

1866 – Metric system became a legal measurement system in US.

1868 – Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws.”

In the decades after its adoption, the equal protection clause was cited by a number of African American activists who argued that racial segregation denied them the equal protection of law. However, in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that states could constitutionally provide segregated facilities for African Americans, so long as they were equal to those afforded white persons. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which announced federal toleration of the so-called “separate but equal” doctrine, was eventually used to justify segregating all public facilities, including railroad cars, restaurants, hospitals, and schools. However, “colored” facilities were never equal to their white counterparts, and African Americans suffered through decades of debilitating discrimination in the South and elsewhere. In 1954, Plessy v. Ferguson was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in its ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

1868 – Pres. Johnson signed the Burlingame Treaty. It was negotiated by Anson Burlingame, who represented the interests of China, and committed the US to a policy of noninterference in Chinese affairs. It also established commercial ties and provided unrestricted immigration of Chinese to the US.

1896 – The city of Miami, Fla., was incorporated.

1898 – Spain, through the offices of the French embassy in Washington, D.C., requested peace terms in its war with the United States.

1914 – Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia at noon.

1914 – The British government orders its warships to their various war bases. The main force, the Home Fleet, begins to assemble at its anchorages in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys off the northeast coast of Scotland from where it can dominate the North Sea and block the German fleet’s access to the world’s oceans.

1915 – US forces invaded Haiti and stayed until 1924.

1916 – Navy establishes a Code and Signal Section which initially worked against German ciphers and tested the security of communications during U.S. naval training maneuvers.

1918 – Marine Corps BGen John A. Lejeune assumed command of the 2d U.S. Army Division in France.

1920 – Revolutionary and bandit Pancho Villa surrendered to the Mexican government.

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1923 – Best known today for his inadvertent role in the death of Sitting Bull, the prominent Indian agent James McLaughlin dies in Washington, D.C. Unlike some Indian agents of the later 19th century, McLaughlin genuinely liked and respected his charges. His wife was half Sioux, and she taught her husband to speak her native language reasonably well. In 1871, this valuable skill won McLaughlin a position at the Devils Lake Indian Agency in Dakota Territory and he eventually became the chief agent. At Devils Lake, McLaughlin gained a reputation for fair and sympathetic treatment of Indians. His appreciation for Indians was strictly limited, however. Like most Indian agents of the day, McLaughlin believed that his mission was to “civilize” the Indians by forcing them to adopt white ways. McLaughlin viewed traditional Indian practices like the Sun Dance and buffalo hunting as obstacles to the inevitable assimilation of the Native Americans into white society. Thus, while he worked hard to improve Indian living conditions, he simultaneously tried to stamp out their culture by promoting the use of English and the adoption of sedentary farming. In 1881, McLaughlin was transferred to the larger Sioux reservation at Standing Rock, South Dakota. Two years later, the great Sioux Chief Sitting Bull was assigned to the reservation. McLaughlin worried about Sitting Bull. The chief was infamous for his role in the defeat of Custer’s 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. He was also among the last of the Sioux to accept confinement to a reservation, and his disdain for white ways was well known. For several years, McLaughlin and Sitting Bull enjoyed a strained but peaceful relationship.

In 1890, however, a popular religious movement known as the Ghost Dance swept through the Standing Rock reservation. The Ghost Dancers believed that an apocalyptic day was approaching when all whites would be wiped out, the buffalo would return, and the Indians could return to their traditional ways. McLaughlin wrongly suspected that Sitting Bull was a leader of the Ghost Dance movement. In December 1890, he ordered the arrest of the old chief, believing this might calm the tense situation on the reservation. Unfortunately, during the arrest, a fight broke out and McLaughlin’s policemen killed Sitting Bull. The murder only exacerbated the climate of fear and mistrust, which contributed to the tragic massacre of 146 Indians by U.S. soldiers at Wounded Knee later that month. In 1895, McLaughlin moved to Washington, D.C., where he became an inspector for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He eventually became familiar with Indians all around the nation, leading him to write a 1910 memoir entitled, My Friend the Indian. He died in Washington in 1923 at the age of 81 and was buried at the South Dakota reservation town that bears his name.

1926 – Team of scientists from Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and Carnegie Institution determine height of the Ionosphere through use of radio pulse transmitter developed by NRL.

1931 – Congress made “The Star-Spangled Banner” our 2nd national anthem.

1932 – During the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover orders the U.S. Army under General Douglas MacArthur to evict by force the Bonus Marchers from the nation’s capital. Two months before, the so-called “Bonus Expeditionary Force,” a group of some 1,000 World War I veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans’ bonus certificates, had arrived in Washington, D.C. Most of the marchers were unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. In June, other veteran groups spontaneously made their way to the nation’s capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demanded passage of the veterans’ payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman. While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans conducted themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill passed in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate infuriated the marchers, who refused to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government provided money for the protesters’ trip home, but 2,000 refused the offer and continued to protest. On July 28, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to evict them forcibly. General MacArthur’s men set their camps on fire, and the veterans were driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation’s many poor, was much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.

1941 – Japanese forces begin to occupy bases in southern Indochina. It is clear that the main use for such bases would be in an invasion of Malyasia, the East Indies or the Philippines.

1941 – American and British assets in Japan are frozen in retaliation for similar measures in the USA and UK on July 26th. Japanese assets in the Dutch East Indies are frozen and the oil deals cancelled.

1942 – Coast Guard J4F Widgeon, CG tail number V-214, piloted by Chief Aviation Pilot Henry White and carrying crewman RM1c Henderson Boggs, attacked a surfaced German submarine off the coast of Louisiana with a single depth charge. After the war, the US Navy credited V-214 with sinking the Nazi sub U-166. White was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and Boggs was awarded the Air Medal. Nevertheless the U-166 was later learned to have been sunk a few days earlier by a Navy patrol craft. White had actually attacked the U-171, which reported in her war diary as having been attacked by an unidentified aircraft in the very location that White reported attacking a U-boat. The U-171 escaped with no damage.

1943 – President Roosevelt announced the end of coffee rationing.

1943 – On New Georgia the American attack continues. The present objective is Horseshoe Hill. Two Japanese destroyers are sunk by aircraft near Rabaul.

1943 – The Japanese evacuate most of their garrison on Kiska Island with being detected by American forces.

1943 – Nicosia is captured by American troops and Agira is taken by Canadians.

1944 – The first objective of “Operation Cobra” is reached by elements of US 1st Army. The US 4th Armored Division enters Coutances.

1944 – On Guam, American marines occupy much of the Orote Peninsula. Other US forces take Mount Chachao and Mount Alutom in the continuing effort to link up the beachheads.

1944 – LTJG Clarence Samuels became the first African-American to command a “major” Coast Guard vessel since Michael Healy and the first to achieve command of a Coast Guard vessel “during wartime” when he assumed command of the Light Vessel No. 115 on 28 July 1944.

1945 – Premier Suzuki holds a press conference in which he says that the government of Japan will “take no notice” of the Potsdam Declaration. While it is possible that the wording he used was intended to mean “make no comment on for the moment,” it is clear that the Japanese government does not intend to surrender immediately and unconditionally, which is the implicit expectation of the Allied declaration.

1945 – Some 2000 Allied planes bomb Kure, Kobe and targets in the Inland Sea. The air strikes sink the Japanese aircraft carrier Amagi, the old cruiser Izumo, the light cruiser Oyodo and a destroyer.

1945 – In a ringing declaration indicating that America’s pre-World War II isolation was truly at an end, the U.S. Senate approves the charter establishing the United Nations. In the years to come, the United Nations would be the scene of some of the most memorable Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union.

1945 – The Japanese attack American ships around Okinawa, in response to the Allied strikes on Japan. The American destroyer Callaghan is sunk by a Japanese suicide plane. It is the last ship to be destroyed by a Kamikaze attack.

1945 – The Potsdam conference resumes. The new British prime minister, Atlee, and foreign secretary, Bevin, arrive in Potsdam to resume the conference with American and Soviet leaders.

1945 – A twin-engine U.S. Army B-25 bomber crashed into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors and killed 14 [13] people. The plane’s propellers severed elevator cables and sent one on a 38-story fall in which the operator survived.

1952 – Vice Admiral J. J. Clark, commander of the 7th Fleet, authorized the destroyer USS Orleck to assume the classification “DTS” – “Destroyer, Train Smasher” – after the Orleck destroyed a North Korean train with gunfire.

1959 – In preparation for statehood, Hawaiians voted to send the first Chinese-American, Hiram L. Fong, to the Senate and the first Japanese-American, Daniel K. Inouye, Medal of Honor recipient, to the House of Representatives. Hiram Fong served 3 terms.

1961 – Scott E. Parazynski, MD, astronaut, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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1962 – Mariner I, launched to Mars, fell into the Atlantic Ocean.

1964 – Ranger 7 was launched toward the Moon. It sent back 4308 TV pictures.

1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson announces that he has ordered an increase in U.S. military forces in Vietnam, from the present 75,000 to 125,000. Johnson also said that he would order additional increases if necessary. He pointed out that to fill the increase in military manpower needs, the monthly draft calls would be raised from 17,000 to 35,000. At the same time, Johnson reaffirmed U.S. readiness to seek a negotiated end to the war, and appealed to the United Nations and any of its member states to help further this goal. There was an immediate reaction throughout the world to this latest escalation, with communist leaders attacking Johnson for his decision to send more troops to Vietnam. Most members of Congress were reported to favor Johnson’s decision, while most U.S. state governors, convening for their annual conference, also supported a resolution backing Johnson. This decision to send more troops was regarded as a major turning point, as it effectively guaranteed U.S. military leaders a blank check to pursue the war.

1972 – In response to Soviet accusations that the United States had conducted a two-month bombing campaign intentionally to destroy the dikes and dams of the Tonkin Delta in North Vietnam, a CIA report is made public by the Nixon administration. The report revealed that U.S. bombing at 12 locations had in fact caused accidental minor damage to North Vietnam’s dikes, but the damage was unintentional and the dikes were not the intended targets of the bombings. The nearly 2,000 miles of dikes on the Tonkin plain, and more than 2,000 along the sea, made civilized life possible in the Red River Delta. Had the dikes been intentionally targeted, their destruction would have destroyed centuries of patient work and caused the drowning or starvation of hundreds of thousands of peasants. Bombing the dikes had been advocated by some U.S. strategists since the beginning of U.S. involvement in the war, but had been rejected outright by U.S. presidents sitting during the war as an act of terrorism.

1973 – Launch of Skylab 3, the second manned mission to the first U.S. manned space station, was piloted by MAJ Jack R. Lousma, USMC with CAPT Alan L. Bean, USN as the Commander of the mission and former Navy electronics officer, Owen K. Garriott as Science Pilot. The mission lasted 59 days, 11 hours and included 858 Earth orbits. Recovery by USS New Orleans (LPH-11).

1986 – NASA released the transcript from doomed Challenger. Pilot Michael Smith could be heard saying, “Uh-oh!” as spacecraft disintegrated.

1987 – Attorney General Edwin Meese told the congressional Iran-Contra committees that President Reagan was “quite surprised” the previous November when Meese told him about the diversion of Iran arms-sales profits for use by the Contra rebels.

1991 – President Bush warned Iraq it would be making “an enormous mistake” if it failed to disclose its nuclear weapons program to United Nations inspectors.

1992 – Iraq opened its Agricultural Ministry to U.N. weapons experts after a three-week standoff.

1993 – President Clinton declared himself ready to provide air power to protect peacekeepers in Bosnia if he received a request from the United Nations.

1995 – Guard members of the “Sinai Battalion” return home having completed their six month tour of peace keeping duty along the border between Israel and Egypt. The battalion, which included 401 Guard volunteers from 24 states, was part of the on-going Multinational Force established by the 1978 Peace Accords ending the war between the two nations. The Regular Army commander of the Force praised them as the “best prepared U.S. battalion to rotate to the Sinai.”

1996 – Federal investigators reported “very good leads” in the hunt for the Olympic bomber, a day after the explosion in Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta. President Clinton, addressing a veterans convention in New Orleans, called on Congress to pass expanded anti-terrorism measures.

1999 – Defense Sec. William Cohen announced that NATO commander Army Gen’l. Wesley Clark would be replaced by Air Force Gen’l. Joseph Ralston.

1999 – In Afghanistan Taliban fighters launched an offensive to crush warlord Ahmed Shah Massood following weeks of preparations.

2001 – US Sec. of State Colin Powell met with China’s Pres. Zemin and reached agreement to restart a formal dialogue with the US on human rights and weapons proliferation.

2001 – Samir Ait Mohamed (32) was detained in Vancouver on immigration charges. On Nov 15 he was arrested on US charges for plotting to bomb the Los Angeles airport during millennium festivities.

2001 – Jamal Beghal (36), a French-Algerian, was arrested in Dubai, UAR, with a false French passport while traveling to Europe from Afghanistan. He was extradited to France in Sep 30. He told police of a plans to bomb the US Embassy in Paris on orders from Abu Zubaydah, a top bin Laden lieutenant.

2002 – Aircraft from U.S.-British air patrols over southern Iraq bombed an Iraqi communications site, the sixth strike this month in retaliation for what the Pentagon says were hostile actions by Iraq.

2003 – In Saudi Arabia 6 suspected terrorists were killed in a firefight with Saudi police, who raided a farm where they were hiding out. Two police also were killed.

2004 – A bomb exploded in a mosque where Afghans were registering for upcoming elections, killing six people including two U.N. staffers.

2004 – A suicide car bomb exploded on a downtown boulevard in Baqouba, shredding a bus full of passengers and nearby shops and killing at least 68 people, almost all Iraqi civilians.

2004 – A fierce battle between insurgents and Iraqi soldiers fighting alongside multinational forces in the south-central city of Suwariyah left 7 Iraqi soldiers and 35 insurgents dead.

2009 – Australia withdrew its combat forces as the Australian military presence in Iraq ended, per an agreement with the Iraqi government.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CLARK, JOHN W.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant and Regimental Quartermaster, 6th Vermont Infantry. Place and date: Near Warrenton, Va., 28 July 1863. Entered service at: Vermont. Born: 21 October 1830, Montpelier, Vt. Date of issue: 17 August 1891. Citation: Defended the division train against a vastly superior force of the enemy; he was severely wounded, but remained in the saddle for 20 hours afterward until he had brought his train through in safety.

MURPHY, ROBINSON B.
Rank and organization: Musician, Company A, 127th Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Atlanta, Ga., 28 July 1864. Entered service at: Oswego, Kendall County, Ill. Birth: Oswego, Kendall County, Ill. Date of issue: 22 July 1890. Citation: Being orderly to the brigade commander, he voluntarily led two regiments as reinforcements into line of battle, where he had his horse shot under him.

TORGLER, ERNST
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company G, 37th Ohio Infantry Place and date: At Ezra Chapel, Ga., 28 July 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 10 May 1894. Citation: At great hazard of his life he saved his commanding officer, then badly wounded, from capture.

MANNING, SIDNEY E.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army Company G, 167th Infantry, 42d Division. Place and date: Near Breuvannes, France, 28 July 1918. Entering service at: Flomaton, Ala. Born: 17 July 1892, Butler County, Ala. G.O. No.: 44, W.D., 1919. Citation: When his platoon commander and platoon sergeant had both become casualties soon after the beginning of an assault on strongly fortified heights overlooking the Ourcq River, Cpl. Manning took command of his platoon, which was near the center of the attacking line. Though himself severely wounded he led forward the 35 men remaining in the platoon and finally succeeded in gaining a foothold on the enemy’s position, during which time he had received more wounds and all but 7 of his men had fallen. Directing the consolidation of the position, he held off a large body of the enemy only 50 yards away by fire from his automatic rifle. He declined to take cover until his line had been entirely consolidated with the line of the platoon on the front when he dragged himself to shelter, suffering from 9 wounds in all parts of the body.

MORGAN, JOHN C. (Air Mission)
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army Air Corps, 326th Bomber Squadron, 92d Bomber Group. Place and date: Over Europe, 28 July 1943. Entered service at: London, England. Born: 24 August 1914, Vernon, Tex. G.O. No.: 85, 17 December 1943. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, while participating on a bombing mission over enemy-occupied continental Europe, 28 July 1943. Prior to reaching the German coast on the way to the target, the B17 airplane in which 2d Lt. Morgan was serving as copilot was attacked by a large force of enemy fighters, during which the oxygen system to the tail, waist, and radio gun positions was knocked out. A frontal attack placed a cannon shell through the windshield, totally shattering it, and the pilot’s skull was split open by a .303 caliber shell, leaving him in a crazed condition. The pilot fell over the steering wheel, tightly clamping his arms around it. 2d Lt. Morgan at once grasped the controls from his side and, by sheer strength, pulled the airplane back into formation despite the frantic struggles of the semiconscious pilot. The interphone had been destroyed, rendering it impossible to call for help. At this time the top turret gunner fell to the floor and down through the hatch with his arm shot off at the shoulder and a gaping wound in his side. The waist, tail, and radio gunners had lost consciousness from lack of oxygen and, hearing no fire from their guns, the copilot believed they had bailed out. The wounded pilot still offered desperate resistance in his crazed attempts to fly the airplane. There remained the prospect of flying to and over the target and back to a friendly base wholly unassisted. In the face of this desperate situation, 2d Lt. Officer Morgan made his decision to continue the flight and protect any members of the crew who might still be in the ship and for 2 hours he flew in formation with one hand at the controls and the other holding off the struggling pilot before the navigator entered the steering compartment and relieved the situation. The miraculous and heroic performance of 2d Lt. Morgan on this occasion resulted in the successful completion of a vital bombing mission and the safe return of his airplane and crew.

*CARON, WAYNE MAURICE
Rank and organization: Hospital Corpsman Third Class, U.S. Navy, Headquarters and Service Company, 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein), FMF. Place and date: Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam, 28 July 1968. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Born: 2 November 1946, Middleboro, Mass. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as platoon corpsman with Company K, during combat operations against enemy forces. While on a sweep through an open rice field HC3c. Caron’s unit started receiving enemy small arms fire. Upon seeing 2 marine casualties fall, he immediately ran forward to render first aid, but found that they were dead. At this time, the platoon was taken under intense small-arms and automatic weapons fire, sustaining additional casualties. As he moved to the aid of his wounded comrades, HC3c. Caron was hit in the arm by enemy fire. Although knocked to the ground, he regained his feet and continued to the injured marines. He rendered medical assistance to the first marine he reached, who was grievously wounded, and undoubtedly was instrumental in saving the man’s life. HC3c. Caron then ran toward the second wounded marine, but was again hit by enemy fire, this time in the leg. Nonetheless, he crawled the remaining distance and provided medical aid for this severely wounded man. HC3c. Caron started to make his way to yet another injured comrade, when he was again struck by enemy small-arms fire. Courageously and with unbelievable determination, HC3c. Caron continued his attempt to reach the third marine until he was killed by an enemy rocket round. His inspiring valor, steadfast determination and selfless dedication in the face of extreme danger, sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

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29 July

1603 – Bartholomew Gilbert was killed in the colony of Virginia by Indians, during a search for the missing Roanoke colonists.

1676 – Nathaniel Bacon was declared a rebel for assembling frontiersmen to protect settlers from Indians.

1775 – The legal origin of the Army Chaplains Corps is found in a resolution of the Continental Congress, adopted July 29, 1775, which made provision for the pay of chaplains. The Office of the Chief of Chaplains was created by the National Defense Act of 1920.

1775 – The Office of Judge Advocate of the Army may be deemed to have been created on July 29, 1775, and has generally paralleled the origin and development of the American system of military justice. The Judge Advocate General’s Department, by that name, was established in 1884. Its present designation as a corps was enacted in 1948.

1776 – Silvestre de Escalante and Francisco Dominguez, two Spanish Franciscan priests, leave Santa Fe for an epic journey through the Southwest. Escalante and Dominguez hoped to blaze a trail from New Mexico to Monterey, California, but their main goal was to visit with the native inhabitants and convert as many as possible to the Catholic faith. On this day in 1776, the two priests and seven men left the Spanish frontier town of Santa Fe and headed northwest into what is today the state of Colorado. They continued north, exploring the rugged Great Basin and canyon land country of Utah. Initially, the priests made good time, and by mid-September, they had reached Utah Lake, just to the south of the Great Salt Lake in northern Utah. There, they found Indians who Dominguez described as “the most docile and affable nation of all that have been known in these regions.” They quickly set about preaching the Gospel, reportedly with “such happy results that they are awaiting Spaniards so that they might become Christians.”

By early October, winter was approaching. Traveling through high mountain passes, Escalante and Dominguez began to encounter fierce snowstorms. Accustomed to desert living, the priests were unequipped to deal with snow and bitter cold, and they soon ran short of provisions. They abandoned the goal of reaching California and headed back for Santa Fe. During the long journey home, they very nearly starved to death. The men ate their horses first. When the horseflesh was gone, they ate only prickly pear cactus. On January 2, 1777, the exhausted men staggered into Santa Fe. They had traveled nearly 1,700 miles in just 159 days through some of the roughest country in the southwest, yet all nine members of the party made it home safely. Escalante and Dominguez had failed in their goal of finding a route to Monterey, and to their keen disappointment, the New Mexican missionaries showed little interest in following up their initial proselytizing with the Utah Indians. Nonetheless, the two intrepid priests were the first to explore extensively the Great Basin country of the Southwest. Escalante’s written account of the expedition became an essential guide to future explorers.

1846 – Sailors and Marines from U.S. sloop Cyane capture San Diego, CA.

1858 – Japan signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the United States.

1862 – At Moore’s Mill in Missouri, the Confederates were routed by Union guerrillas.

1862 – Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war. The Virginian-born Boyd was just 17 when the war began. She was from a prominent slaveholding family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1861, she shot and killed a Union solider for insulting her mother and threatening to search their house. Union officers investigated and decided the shooting was justified. Soon after the shooting incident, Boyd began spying for the Confederacy. She used her charms to engage Union soldiers and officers in conversations and acquire information about Federal military affairs. Suspecting her of spying, Union officers banished Boyd further south in the Shenandoah, to Front Royal Virginia, in March 1862. Just two months later, Boyd personally delivered crucial information to General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson during his campaign in the Valley that allowed the Confederates to defeat General Nathaniel Banks’s forces at the Battle of Winchester.

In another incident, Boyd turned two chivalrous Union cavalrymen who had escorted her back home across Union lines over to Confederate pickets as prisoners of war. Boyd was detained on several occasions, and on July 29 she was placed in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington. But her incarceration was evidently of limited hardship. She was given many special considerations, and she became engaged to a fellow prisoner. Upon her release one month later, she was given a trousseau by the prison’s superintendent and shipped under a flag of truce to Richmond. Boyd was arrested again in 1863 and held for three months. After this second imprisonment, she became a courier of secret messages to Great Britain. In 1864, her ship was captured off the coast of North Carolina, and the ship and crew were taken to New York. Captain Samuel Hardinge commanded the Union ship that captured Boyd’s vessel, and the two were seen shopping together in New York. He followed her to London, and they were married soon after. Boyd was widowed soon after the end of the war, but the union produced one child. Still just 21, Boyd parlayed her spying experiences into a book and an acting career. She died in Wisconsin in 1900.

1864 – During the Civil War, Union forces tried to take Petersburg, Va., by exploding a mine under Confederate defense lines. The attack failed.

1864 – 3rd and last day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia.

1864 – Battle of Macon, GA (Stoneman’s Raid).

1883 – Benito Mussolini, dictator of Fascist Italy (1922-1943), was born.

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1914 – Transcontinental telephone service began with the first phone conversation between New York and San Francisco.

1914 – Germany is ordered to mobilize. This includes the main force, the High Seas Fleet, which begins to assemble along the Jade River.

1919 – A detachment of Marines from the USS New Orleans prepared to land at Tyutuke Bay (near Vladivostok), Russia, to protect American interests during a period of political disturbances.

1921 – Adolf Hitler became the president of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis).

1932 – The Great Depression sent poverty-stricken Americans scrambling for any available source of income. Veterans of World War I certainly felt pinched, and cast about for ways to haul in cash, but, unlike Americans who hadn’t fought in the war, the veterans seemingly had a solution: in the wake of the war, the government had promised to hand out handsome cash bonuses to all servicemen. The catch was the bonuses were to be paid out in 1945. In dire need of money, veterans called on legislators during the spring and summer of 1932 to speed up payment of the bonuses. In May, a group of veterans from Portland, Oregon, staged the “Bonus March” and headed to Washington, D.C., to plead their case. The March fast became a mini-movement, and by June a “Bonus Army” of 20,000 vets had set up shop in Washington. At first all seemed to go well for the veterans, as the House of Representatives passed the Patman Bonus Bill, which called for the early payment of bonuses. The Senate, however, put the kibosh on the movement and killed the Patman legislation. Though chunks of the Bonus Army fled Washington after the bill’s defeat, a hefty handful of veterans stayed on through late July. President Herbert Hoover ordered the ousting of the vets who had decamped in government quarters. When the eviction proceedings turned ugly, and two veterans were killed, Hoover called on the army to disperse the remaining Bonus protesters. General Douglas MacArthur, and his young assistant Dwight Eisenhower, marshaled troops, tanks and tear gas in their war to send the stragglers home. Duly persuaded by this gross show of force, the remaining members of the Bonus Army headed home on July 29, 1932.

1942 – A combined British and American Production and Resources Board is established in London to control allocations of material and industrial priorities. Mr. Harriman, the American Lend-Lease representative in Britain, and Mr. Lyttleton, the British Minister of Production, are to be the senior members.

1944 – The advance of US 1st Army continues. On the left flank, the US 19th Corps approaches Torigny and Tessy. The 7th Corps reaches Percy. On the right flank, the 8th Corps crosses the Sienne River and moves toward Granville.

1944 – On Tinian, the American forces now occupy more than half the island. Japanese resistance is increasing.

1944 – On Biak the last pocket of organized Japanese resistance, around Ibdi, is eliminated. On the mainland, near Aitape, American forces fall back at Afua under pressure from Japanese forces.

1945 – An Allied naval bombardment 5 battleships and several cruisers and destroyers targets the aircraft factories at Hamamutsu in southern Honshu.

1946 – Elements of 11th Marines clash with Chinese communists at Anping, China.

1950 – As the U.N. forces formed the 100-mile by 50-mile Pusan Perimeter, Lieutenant General Walton Walker issued his controversial “stand or die” order to Eighth Army, declaring, “there will be no Dunkirk, there will be no Bataan.”

1957 – The International Atomic Energy Agency was established.

1958 – The United States Congress passes legislation formally inaugurating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The establishment of NASA was a sign that the United States was committed to winning the “space race” against the Soviets. In October 1957, the Soviet Union shocked the world, and particularly the American public, by launching the first satellite into orbit around the earth. Called Sputnik, the small spacecraft was an embarrassment to the United States, which prided itself on its leadership in the field of technology. Sputnik also provided the Soviets with an important propaganda advantage in terms of reaching out to underdeveloped Third World nations that were looking for scientific and technological assistance. The initial U.S. response to this challenge was not altogether successful. The Eisenhower administration passed the National Defense Education Act that provided federal funds for improving the teaching of science and mathematics in America’s public schools.

In December 1957, the United States attempted to launch its own satellite. Named Vanguard, the “spaceship” got a few feet off the ground and then blew up. America had better luck with Explorer I a month later–the satellite completed its orbit of the earth. It was obvious to many U.S. officials, though, that a more organized and focused effort was needed. In July 1958, Congress passed legislation establishing NASA as the coordinating body of the U.S. space program. During the next decade, NASA became synonymous with the space race. In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that the United States should set a goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Eight years and billions of dollars later, Neil Armstrong stepped out of the lunar module Eagle and onto the moon’s surface on July 20, 1969. The great space race was over.

1965 – The first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump immediately after arriving, observed by Gen. William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Westmoreland were both former commanders of the division, which was known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The 101st Airborne Division has a long and storied history, including combat jumps during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the subsequent Market-Garden airborne operation in the Netherlands. Later, the division distinguished itself by its defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. The 1st Brigade fought as a separate brigade until 1967, when the remainder of the division arrived in Vietnam. The combat elements of the division consisted of 10 battalions of airmobile infantry, six battalions of artillery, an aerial rocket artillery unit armed with rocket-firing helicopters, and an air reconnaissance unit. Another unique feature of the division was its aviation group, which consisted of three aviation battalions of assault helicopters and gunships.

The majority of the 101st Airborne Division’s tactical operations were in the Central Highlands and in the A Shau Valley farther north. Among its major operations was the brutal fight for Ap Bia Mountain, known as the “Hamburger Hill” battle. The last Army division to leave Vietnam, the remaining elements of the 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where today it is the Army’s only airmobile division. During the war, troopers from the 101st won 17 Medals of Honor for bravery in combat. The division suffered almost 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action in Vietnam, over twice as many as the 9,328 casualties it suffered in World War II.

1967 – Fire sweeps the U.S. aircraft carrier Forrestal off the coast of North Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. It was the worst U.S. naval disaster in a combat zone since World War II. The accident took the lives of 134 crewmen and injured 62 more. Of the carrier’s 80 planes, 21 were destroyed and 42 were damaged.

1970 – 6 days of race rioting began in Hartford, Ct.

1970 – The CGC Vigorous became the first 210-foot cutter to cross the Arctic Circle. This took place while she was part of the 1970 Cadet Cruise Squadron. At the time CDR George Wagner, USCG, was the commanding officer.

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1970 – Volunteers of Pennsylvania’s 193rd Tactical Electronic Warfare Group settle into their quarters having just arrived to begin their secret mission of propaganda broadcasts over enemy held territory. The 193rd was a fairly new organization, having been reorganized from Pennsylvania’s 168th Air Transport Group in 1967. During the 1965 operation of the U.S. military in quelling the unrest in the Dominican Republic, the Defense Department decided it need some way to communicate by AM radio with the populace our intentions and instructions to help reduce needless deaths. With the Vietnam War costing billions of dollars already, the Air Force said it could not organize such a specialized unit on a full-time basis. Major General Winston Wilson, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, offered to have an Air Guard unit reorganized to perform this mission. As the 168th was reorganized into the 193rd its mission was redefined more to broadcast the American position on events to enemy soldiers than to communicate with local civilians. Soon after the U.S. incursion into Cambodia from Vietnam in May 1970, it was decided to deploy the 193rd to Thailand to fly over Cambodia broadcasting to Communists forces attempting to overthrow the pro-American government. By 1970 it was apparent that the U.S was withdrawing its forces from Vietnam. The last thing the Pentagon wanted was newspaper stories about a Guard unit again being mobilized for duty in Southeast Asia. The last of the Guardsmen mobilized in 1968 had only been released from active duty in November 1969. And with memories of the Guard’s involvement in the Kent State shootings that had just occurred in May 1970, the public’s impression of the Guard was not favorable. So it was decided to deploy the unit staffed entirely with volunteers on ‘short tours’ of 60-90 days before they returned home, replaced by new volunteers for another 60-90 days.

According to Technical Sergeant James Bankes, who was in the first group to go, this rotation schedule applied to all, pilots as well as ground support personnel. With little notice by the press the unit took only two of their specially-modified EC-121 Super Constellation aircraft. Each day one plane would fly, usually for about 7 hours, while the other was serviced and prepared for the next day’s mission. Bankes said that the planes broadcast AM radio programs in a foreign language prepared by somebody who delivered them to the unit each morning in time for that day’s flight. The crew had no idea what they said. One pilot joked it was probably “Shoot down the first three-tailed aircraft you see!” After 144 days of continuous missions (without missing one day due to malfunction or weather) the unit and its planes returned home with no fanfare. The 193rd suffered no losses. This first test for the unit proved successful and it has been among the first unit deployed in every military action undertaken by the U.S. since Vietnam. In fact, the 193rd (now redesignated as Special Operations Wing) is the only such unit in the entire Air Force and was flying over Afghanistan broadcasting on the first day of the air war against the Taliban in 2001 and over Iraq in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

1972 – Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark visits North Vietnam as a member of the International Commission of Inquiry into U.S. War Crimes in Indochina. This commission was formed to investigate alleged U.S. bombing of non-military targets in North Vietnam. Clark reported over Hanoi radio that he had seen damage to hospitals, dikes, schools, and civilian areas. His visit stirred intense controversy at home. Nothing ever came of Clark’s claims, but he was lauded by antiwar activists for pointing out the damage done by the U.S. bombing attacks. Other Americans condemned Clark as a traitor to the United States.

1974 – The 2nd impeachment vote against Nixon was by the House Judiciary Committee.

1975 – President Ford became the first U.S. president to visit the site of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz in Poland as he paid tribute to the camp’s victims.

1987 – Testifying for a second day before the Iran-Contra congressional committees, Attorney General Edwin Meese strongly defended his inquiry into the affair.

1988 – NASA officials delayed a critical test-firing of the space shuttle Discovery’s main engines another three days. The test on Aug. 10 was judged a success.

1991 – President Bush arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that included the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

1999 – US warplanes struck targets in northern and southern Iraq after anti-aircraft artillery shot at them. Iraq reported 8 people killed.

2001 – In Puerto Rico the residents of Vieques island voted on stopping the practice bombing by the US military. Opponents of the navy bombing gathered 68% of the vote.

2002 – On a mission to stamp out Islamic militancy in Southeast Asia, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held talks with Thai leaders, who deny their country is facing a Muslim insurgency.

2002 – In Afghanistan, a man identified by authorities as a would-be suicide bomber with more than a half-ton of explosives in his car was stopped by a chance traffic accident just 300 yards from the U.S. Embassy.

2003 – President Bush refused to release a congressional report on possible links between Saudi Arabian officials and the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying disclosure “would help the enemy” by revealing intelligence sources and methods.

2003 – American soldiers in Tikrit overpowered and arrested a bodyguard who rarely left Saddam Hussein’s side.

2004 – Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi met with Secretary of State Colin Powell in Saudi Arabia and urged Muslim nations to dispatch troops to Iraq to help defeat an insurgency that he said threatens all Islamic countries.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HEALEY, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company E, 5th lowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Newnan, Ga., 29 July 1864. Entered service at: Dubuque, lowa. Birth: Dubuque, lowa. Date of issue: 13 January 1899. Citation: When nearly surrounded by the enemy, captured a Confederate soldier, and with the aid of a comrade who joined him later, captured 4 other Confederate soldiers, disarmed the 5 prisoners, and brought them all into the Union lines.

MAYFIELD, MELVIN
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company D, 20th Infantry, 6th Infantry Division. Place and date: Cordillera Mountains, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 29 July 1945. Entered service at: Nashport, Ohio. Birth: Salem, W. Va. G.O. No.: 49, 31 May 1946. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty while fighting in the Cordillera Mountains of Luzon, Philippine Islands. When 2 Filipino companies were pinned down under a torrent of enemy fire that converged on them from a circular ridge commanding their position, Cpl. Mayfield, in a gallant single-handed effort to aid them, rushed from shell hole to shell hole until he reached 4 enemy caves atop the barren fire-swept hill. With grenades and his carbine, he assaulted each of the caves while enemy fire pounded about him. However, before he annihilated the last hostile redoubt, a machinegun bullet destroyed his weapon and slashed his left hand. Disregarding his wound, he secured more grenades and dauntlessly charged again into the face of pointblank fire to help destroy a hostile observation post. By his gallant determination and heroic leadership, Cpl. Mayfield inspired the men to eliminate all remaining pockets of resistance in the area and to press the advance against the enemy.

SCOTT, ROBERT S.
Rank and organization: Captain (then Lieutenant), U.S. Army, 172d Infantry, 43d Infantry Division. Place and date. Near Munda Air Strip, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, 29 July 1943. Entered service at. Santa Fe, N. Mex. Birth: Washington, D.C. G.O. No.: 81, 14 October 1944. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty near Munda Airstrip, New Georgia, Solomon Islands, on 29 July 1943. After 27 days of bitter fighting, the enemy held a hilltop salient which commanded the approach to Munda Airstrip. Our troops were exhausted from prolonged battle and heavy casualties, but Lt. Scott advanced with the leading platoon of his company to attack the enemy position, urging his men forward in the face of enemy rifle and enemy machinegun fire. He had pushed forward alone to a point midway across the barren hilltop within 75 yards of the enemy when the enemy launched a desperate counterattack, which f successful would have gained undisputed possession of the hill. Enemy riflemen charged out on the plateau, firing and throwing grenades as they moved to engage our troops. The company withdrew, but Lt. Scott, with only a blasted tree stump for cover, stood his ground against the wild enemy assault. By firing his carbine and throwing the grenades in his possession he momentarily stopped the enemy advance using the brief respite to obtain more grenades. Disregarding small-arms fire and exploding grenades aimed at him, suffering a bullet wound in the left hand and a painful shrapnel wound in the head after his carbine had been shot from his hand, he threw grenade after grenade with devastating accuracy until the beaten enemy withdrew. Our troops, inspired to renewed effort by Lt. Scott’s intrepid stand and incomparable courage, swept across the plateau to capture the hill, and from this strategic position 4 days later captured Munda Airstrip.

WHITTINGTON, HULON B.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, 41st Armored Infantry 2d Armored Division. Place and date: Near Grimesnil, France, 29 July 1944. Entered service at: Bastrop, La. Born: 9 July 1921, Bogalusa, La. G.O. No.: 32, 23 April 1945. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty. On the night of 29 July 1944, near Grimesnil, France, during an enemy armored attack, Sgt. Whittington, a squad leader, assumed command of his platoon when the platoon leader and platoon sergeant became missing in action. He reorganized the defense and, under fire, courageously crawled between gun positions to check the actions of his men. When the advancing enemy attempted to penetrate a roadblock, Sgt. Whittington, completely disregarding intense enemy action, mounted a tank and by shouting through the turret, directed it into position to fire pointblank at the leading Mark V German tank. The destruction of this vehicle blocked all movement of the remaining enemy column consisting of over 100 vehicles of a Panzer unit. The blocked vehicles were then destroyed by handgrenades, bazooka, tank, and artillery fire and large numbers of enemy personnel were wiped out by a bold and resolute bayonet charge inspired by Sgt. Whittington. When the medical aid man had become a casualty, Sgt. Whittington personally administered first aid to his wounded men. The dynamic leadership, the inspiring example, and the dauntless courage of Sgt. Whittington, above and beyond the call of duty, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service.

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30 July

1619 – The first representative assembly in America the House of Burgesses, became the first legislative assembly in America when it convened at Jamestown, Va. Composed of the governor and 21 other members, 17 of whom were elected by the land-owning males, this body enacted laws for the colony. Among these would be rules regulating the militia, from its arming and training to who could serve. For instance slaves and indentured servants were forbidden to bear arms but “free negroes” were expected to serve and, like their white counterparts, even furnish their own weapons. Earlier that year, the London Company, which had established the Jamestown settlement 12 years before, directed Virginia Governor Sir George Yeardley to summon a “General Assembly” elected by the settlers, with every free adult male voting. Twenty-two representatives from the 11 Jamestown boroughs were chosen, and Master John Pory was appointed the assembly’s speaker. On July 30, the House of Burgesses (an English word for “citizens”) convened for the first time. Its first law, which, like all of its laws, would have to be approved by the London Company, required tobacco to be sold for at least three shillings per pound. Other laws passed during its first six-day session included prohibitions against gambling, drunkenness, and idleness, and a measure that made Sabbath observance mandatory. The creation of the House of Burgesses, along with other progressive measures, made Sir George Yeardley exceptionally popular among the colonists, and he served two terms as Virginia governor.

1729 – The city of Baltimore was founded.

1733 – Society of Freemasons opened their 1st American lodge in Boston.

1839 – Slave rebels took over the slave ship Amistad.

1863 – Pres. Lincoln issued his “eye-for-eye” order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot.

1863 – George Crockett Strong (29), US Union Gen-Maj, died of injuries.

1863 – The Shoshone chief Pocatello signs the Treaty of Box Elder, bringing peace to the emigrant trails of southern Idaho and northern Utah. Pocatello was a Bannock Shoshone, one of the two major Shoshone tribes that dominated modern-day southern Idaho. Once a large and very powerful people, the Shoshone lost thousands to a smallpox epidemic in 1781. The fierce Blackfoot Indians took further advantage of the badly weakened Shoshone to push them off the plains and into the mountains. The first representatives of a people who would soon prove even more dangerous than the Blackfoot arrived in August 1805: The expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Anxious to establish good relations with the Americans in hopes of someday obtaining guns to fight the dreaded Blackfoot, the Shoshone welcomed Lewis and Clark and gave them the horses they needed to cross the Rocky Mountains. However, by the time Pocatello had become a chief 50 years later, the Shoshone realized the white people were more of a threat than the Blackfoot.

By 1857, Pocatello was a young chief who controlled an extensive territory around present-day Pocatello, Idaho. Pocatello was greatly alarmed by the growing number of Mormons who were traveling north from Salt Lake City and settling in Shoshone territory. The Indians and Mormons increasingly clashed, with both sides committing brutal and unjustified murders. Pocatello was determined to resist the white settlement. He led several attacks on the Mormons, killing or wounding several of them and stealing their horses. In 1863, the U.S. government sent Colonel Patrick Connor and a company of soldiers into the region to protect American telegraph lines and, secondarily, the Mormon settlers. That May, Connor set out to track down Pocatello and his followers, but the Shoshone chief managed to evade the soldiers. On his own initiative, Pocatello then proposed a peace agreement. If the Mormons provided the Shoshone with compensation for lost game and land, Pocatello promised to cease his attacks. The Mormons accepted his terms. On this day in 1863, Pocatello signed his “X” on the Treaty of Box Elder and the overt hostilities ended. As the Anglo settlers in the region grew more numerous and gained the support of the U.S. government, the Shoshone were confined to a reservation within their traditional territory. Pocatello died on the reservation in 1884. The nearby Idaho city of Pocatello was named for him.

1864 – The Union’s ingenious attempt to break the Confederate lines at Petersburg by blowing up a tunnel that had been dug under the Rebel trenches fails. Although the explosion created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly planned Yankee attack wasted the effort and the result was an eight-month continuation of the siege. The bloody campaign between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate Robert E. Lee ground to a halt in mid-June, when the two armies dug in at Petersburg, south of Richmond. For the previous six weeks, Grant had pounded away at Lee, producing little results other than frightful casualties. A series of battles and flanking maneuvers brought Grant to Petersburg, where he opted for a siege rather than another costly frontal assault. In late June, a Union regiment from the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry began digging a tunnel under the Rebel fortifications. The soldiers, experienced miners from Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal regions, dug for nearly a month to construct a horizontal shaft over 500 feet long. At the end of the tunnel, they ran two drifts, or side tunnels, totaling 75 feet along the Confederate lines to maximize the destruction. Four tons of gunpowder filled the drifts, and the stage was set. Union soldiers lit the fuse before dawn on July 30. The explosion that came just before 5:00 a.m. blew up a Confederate battery and most of one infantry regiment, creating a crater 170 feet long, 60 to 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. As one Southern soldier wrote, “Several hundred yards of earth work with men and cannon was literally hurled a hundred feet in the air.”

However, the Union was woefully unprepared to exploit the gap. The Yankees were slow to exit the trenches, and when they did the 15,000 attacking troops ran into the crater rather than around it. Part of the Rebel line was captured, but the Confederates that gathered from each side fired down on the Yankees. The Union troops could not maintain the beachhead, and by early afternoon they retreated back to their original trenches. This failure led to finger pointing among the Union command. General Ambrose Burnside, the corps commander of the troops involved, had ordered regiments from the United States Colored Troops to lead the attack, but the commander of the Army of the Potomac, George G. Meade, nixed that plan shortly before the attack was scheduled. Fearing that it may be perceived as a ploy to use African-American soldiers as cannon fodder, Meade ordered that white troops lead the charge. With little time for training, General James H. Ledlie was left to command the attack. The Battle of the Crater essentially marked the end of Burnside’s military career, and on April 15, 1865, he resigned from the army.

1864 – Confederate troops attack Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The town was burned by Union forces under McCausland.

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1864 – Boat crew commanded by Lieutenant J.C. Watson made daylight reconnaissances of the Mobile Bay channel. Watson and his men, towed into the bay by the small tug Cowslip, sounded the outer channel and marked the outside limits of the Confederate torpedo fields with buoys for the coming attack on the defenses of the bay.

1864 – Landing party from U.S.S. Potomska, Acting Lieutenant Robert P. Swann, destroyed two large Confederate salt works near the Back River, Georgia. Returning to Potomska, Swann and his men were taken under fire by Confederates and a sharp battle ensued. ‘Our arms,” Swann re-ported, “the Spencer rifles, saved us all from destruction, as the rapidity with which we fired caused the enemy to lie low, and their firing was after the first volley very wild. . . . We fought them three-quarters of an hour, some of the time up to our knees in mud, trying to land and capture them, and some of the time in the water with the boats for a breastwork.” Finally able to regain the Potomska, Swann’s party received a commendation from Rear Admiral Dahlgren for the bravery and skill they had demonstrated on the expedition.

1916 – German saboteurs blew up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. Now a section of Liberty State Park (along Morris Pesin road including the park office and Flag Plaza), Black Tom was originally a small island in New York Harbor not far from Liberty Island. Between 1860 and 1880, Black Tom was connected to the mainland by a causeway and rail lines terminating at a freight facility with docks. The area between the island and the mainland was filled in sometime between 1905 and 1916 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad as part of its Jersey City facility. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Black Tom was serving as a major munitions depot. Before the United States entered the First World War, American businessmen would sell their supplies to any buyer. However, by 1915, the British Navy had established a blockade effectively keeping the Germans from being able to buy from the American merchants. The German government, on July 30, 1916, orchestrated the sabotage of freight cars at Black Tom, which were loaded with munitions for the Allies in Europe.

According to a recent study, the resulting explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale. Windows within a 25-mile radius were broken, the outside wall of Jersey City’s City Hall was cracked and pieces of metal damaged the skirt of the Statue of Liberty (it is because of this explosion that the Lady’s torch has been closed off to visitors). Most of the immigrants on Ellis Island were temporarily evacuated. Losses were estimate at $20 million and seven people were killed. After the war, a commission appointed to resolve American claims against Germany was established. It took years before a decision was made, finally in June of 1939, the commission ruled that the German Government had authorized the sabotage. However, World War II interrupted any chances of arranging for restitution. In 1953 the two governments finally settled on terms that the German government would pay a total of $95 million for a number of claims including Black Tom. The final payment was received in 1979.

1918 – Units of First Marine Aviation Force arrive at Brest, France.

1919 – Federal troops were called out to put down Chicago race riots.

1928 – George Eastman showed the 1st color motion pictures in the US.

1941 – Japanese aircraft bomb USS Tutuila (PR-4) at Chungking, China; First Navy ship damaged by Axis during World War II. Japan apologizes for the incident but it does nothing to ease the strained relations between the US and Japan.

1942 – President Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the Navy known as “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” or WAVES for short.

1942 – The US passenger-freighter Robert E. Lee with 268 passengers was sunk by the German U-166 submarine. 15 crew members and 10 passengers died. In 2001 wreckage of the U-166 was found in the Gulf of Mexico and it appeared that it was sunk by Coast Guard PC-566 right after the attack. U-166 had 52 crew members.

1943 – US forces are engaged on the outskirts of Santo Stefano and Troina.

1944 – The US 6th Division (Sibert) lands unopposed on the islands of Amsterdam and Middleburg, off Cape Sansapor. Task Force 78 (Admiral Berkey) provides naval support.

1944 – Advancing elements of US 1st Army seize Granville and enter Avranches, capturing bridges over the See River. The left flank is counterattacked by German forces of the 2nd Parachute Corps at Percy and Villedieu.

1944 – On Tinian, the main town of Tinian is captured by American forces. The southern half of Guam has been secured by US troops.

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1945 – Japanese warships sink the American cruiser Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen in the worst loss in the history of the U.S. Navy. As a prelude to a proposed invasion of the Japanese mainland, scheduled for November 1, U.S. forces bombed the Japanese home islands from sea and air, as well as blowing Japanese warships out of the water. The end was near for Imperial Japan, but it was determined to go down fighting. Just before midnight of the 29th, the Indianapolis, an American cruiser that was the flagship of the Fifth Fleet, was on its way, unescorted, to Guam, then Okinawa. It never made it. It was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Interestingly, the sub was commanded by a lieutenant who had also participated in the Pearl Harbor invasion. There were 1,196 crewmen onboard the Indianapolis; over 350 died upon impact of the torpedo or went down with the ship. More than 800 fell into the Pacific. Of those, approximately 50 died that first night in the water from injuries suffered in the torpedo explosion; the remaining seamen were left to flounder in the Pacific, fend off sharks, drink sea water (which drove some insane), and wait to be rescued.

Because there was no time for a distress signal before the Indianapolis went down, it was 84 hours before help arrived. This was despite the fact that American naval headquarters had intercepted a message on July 30 from the Japanese sub commander responsible for sinking the Indianapolis, describing the type of ship sunk and its location. (The Americans assumed it was an exaggerated boast and didn’t bother to follow up.) Only 318 survived; the rest were eaten by sharks or drowned. The Indianapolis’s commander, Captain Charles McVay, was the only officer ever to be court-martialed for the loss of a ship during wartime in the history of the U.S. Navy. Had the attack happened only three days earlier, the Indianapolis would have been sunk carrying special cargo-the atom bomb, which it delivered to Tinian Island, northeast of Guam, for scientists to assemble.

1945 – British and American carrier aircraft continue attacks. Kobe, Kure and Honshu are bombed. Several of the remaining large ships in the Japanese navy have been hit and badly damaged in the last week, including 3 battleships and 4 aircraft carriers.

1945 – Food shortages lead the government to call on the civilian population of Japan to collect 2.5 million bushels of acorns to be converted into eating material. The average Japanese is presently surviving on a daily intake of about 1680 calories, or 78 percent of what is considered the minimum necessary to survive.

1945 – In spite of the Japanese rejection of the Potsdam ultimatum, General Marshall gives instructions to General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz to coordinate plans in readiness for an early surrender by the enemy.

1950 – The U.S. 2nd Infantry Division from Fort Lewis, Wash., began debarking at Pusan.

1952 – President Truman promotes the American Legation in Saigon to an embassy. One sovereign country is dealing with another.

1952 – The largest single target bomber strike of the war occurred when 63 B-29s attacked the industrial complex near Sinuiju.

1956 – US motto “In God We Trust” was authorized.

1964 – At about midnight, six “Swifts,” special torpedo boats used by the South Vietnamese for covert raids, attack the islands of Hon Me and Hon Ngu in the Tonkin Gulf. Although unable to land any commandos, the boats fired on island installations. Radar and radio transmissions were monitored by an American destroyer, the USS Maddox, which was stationed about 120 miles away. The South Vietnamese attacks were part of a covert operation called Oplan 34A, which involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under American orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program, Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

On August 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the Maddox, which had been conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened or not, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The resolution became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.

1966 – US airplanes bombed the demilitarized zone in Vietnam.

1967 – General William Westmoreland claimed that he was winning the war in Vietnam but needed more men.

1967 – There was a race riot in Milwaukee and 4 people were killed. The disturbance lasted until August 3rd and the National Guard was called in. On July 31, 1967 the 1st Battalion and the 3rd Battalion of the 121st Field Artillery were called to state duty for a Milwaukee riot. The battalions were released on August 2, 1962, then recalled for an additional day on August 7, 1967. Four persons were killed.

1969 – During his first overseas trip as president–which included stops in Guam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, Romania, and Britain–Richard Nixon makes an unscheduled five-and-a-half hour visit to South Vietnam. On the South Vietnam stopover, Nixon met with President Nguyen Van Thieu to discuss U.S. troop withdrawals and later met with senior U.S. military commanders to discuss possible changes in military tactics. Nixon also visited U.S. troops of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division at Di An, 12 miles south of Saigon.

1971 – US Apollo 15 with astronauts Scott and Irwin landed at Mare Imbrium on the Moon.

1974 – Under coercion from the U.S. Supreme Court, President Richard M. Nixon releases subpoenaed White House recordings–suspected to prove his guilt in the Watergate cover-up–to special prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The same day, the House Judiciary Committee voted a third article of impeachment against the president: contempt of Congress in hindering the impeachment process. The previous two impeachment articles voted against Nixon by the committee were obstruction of justice and abuse of presidential powers. On June 17, 1972, five men, including a salaried security coordinator for President Nixon’s reelection committee, were arrested for breaking into and illegally wiretapping the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C.’s Watergate complex. Soon after, two other former White House aides were implicated in the break-in, but the Nixon administration denied any involvement. Later that year, reporters Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of The Washington Post discovered a higher-echelon conspiracy surrounding the incident, and a political scandal of unprecedented magnitude erupted. On May 17, 1973, the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, began televised proceedings on the rapidly escalating Watergate affair. One week later, Harvard Law professor Archibald Cox was sworn in as special Watergate prosecutor. During the Senate hearings, former White House legal counsel John Dean testified that the Watergate break-in had been approved by former Attorney General John Mitchell, with the knowledge of White House advisers John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman, and that President Nixon had been aware of the cover-up.

Public confidence in the president rapidly waned, and by the end of July 1974 the House Judiciary Committee had adopted three articles of impeachment against President Nixon. On July 30, under coercion from the Supreme Court, Nixon finally released the Watergate tapes. On August 5, transcripts of the recordings were released, including a segment in which the president was heard instructing Haldeman to order the FBI to halt the Watergate investigation. Four days later, Nixon became the first president in U.S. history to resign. On September 8, his successor, President Gerald Ford, pardoned him from any criminal charges.

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