1902 – The French offered to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.
1910 – Commissioning of USS Michigan (BB-27), the first U.S. dreadnought battleship.
1921 – Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid struggling farmers.
1928 – Marines participated in the Battle of Quilali during the occupation of Nicaragua.
1941 – On the Greek-Albanian front, the Greeks launch an attack towards Valona from Berat to Klisura against the Italians.
1942 – Japanese forces begin the evacuation of Guadalcanal. The Japanese base at Munda is bombarded by the US TF 67. A second group of cruisers and destroyers is in support.
1943 – US Task Force 67, commanded by Admiral Ainsworth, bombards the Japanese base at Munda, on New Georgia. A second group of cruisers and destroyers is in support of the effort. Proximity fuses for antiaircraft ammunition is used for the first time by one of the vessels involved in the bombardment.
1944 – Operation Carpetbagger: U.S. aircraft begin dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe. The action demonstrated that the U.S. believed guerrillas were a vital support to the formal armies of the Allies in their battle against the Axis powers. Virtually every country that experienced Axis invasion raised a guerrilla force; they were especially effective and numerous in Italy, France, China, Greece, the Philippines, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Also referred to as a “partisan force,” a guerrilla army is defined roughly as a member of a small-scale “irregular” fighting force that relies on the limited and quick engagements of a conventional fighting force. Their main weapon is sabotage-in addition to killing enemy soldiers, the goal is to incapacitate or destroy communication lines, transportation centers, and supply lines. In Italy, the partisan resistance to fascism began with assaults against Mussolini and his “black shirts.” Upon Italy’s surrender, the guerrillas turned their attention to the German occupiers, especially in the north. By the summer of 1944, resistance fighters immobilized eight of the 26 German divisions in northern Italy. By the end of the war, Italian guerillas controlled Venice, Milan, and Genoa, but at a considerable cost—all told, the Italian resistance lost roughly 50,000 fighters. Perhaps the most renowned wartime guerrilla force was the French Resistance – also known as the “Free French” force – which began as two separate groups. One faction was organized and led by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, who left France upon the Vichy/Petain armistice with Germany but rallied his forces via the British airwaves. The other arm of the movement began in Africa under the direction of the commander in chief of the French forces in North Africa, Gen. Henri Giraud. De Gaulle eventually joined Giraud in Africa after tension began to build between de Gaulle and the British. Initially, de Gaulle agreed to share power with Giraud in the organization and control of the exiled French forces, but Giraud resigned in 1943, apparently unwilling to stand in de Gaulle’s shadow or struggle against his deft political maneuvering. The Allies realized that guerrilla activity was essential to ending the war and supported the patriots with airdrops. The American support was critical, because guerrillas fought admirably in difficult conditions. Those partisans who were captured by the enemy were invariably treated barbarically (torture was not uncommon), as were any civilians who had aided them in their mission. Tens of thousands of guerillas died in the course of the war, but were never awarded the formal recognition given the “official” fighting forces, despite the enormous risks and sacrifices.
1944 – Admiral Sherman’s carrier group attacks Kavieng. The Japanese destroyer Fujimitsu is damaged.
1944 – Fifth Army launches new attacks on a ten-mile from along the south end of the Gustav line in Italy.
1945 – The fighting in the Ardennes continues; a German counterattack near Bastogne is repulsed by troops of US 3rd Army. There are attacks by US 8th and 3rd Corps and by the British 30th Corps. Some of the units of the 6th SS Panzer Army (Dietrich) are withdrawn and sent to the Eastern Front. In Alsace, the German attacks in the Bitche area continue.
1945 – Americans B-24 Liberator bombers attack Clark Field in Manila, on Luzon and claim to destroy 20 Japanese aircraft. Shipping near Luzon is also attacked. It is claimed that 35 Japanese vessels have been sunk or severely damaged.
1945 – US jeep-aircraft carrier Ommaney Bay sinks after kamikaze attack.
1951 – For the third time in six months, Seoul changed hands as CCF troops moved in. The last USAF aircraft left Kimpo Airfield. Eighth Army regrouped behind the Pyongtaek-Wonju-Samchok line as Seoul fell to the communists for the second time in the war. Britain’s 27th Commonwealth Infantry Brigade covered the U.N. withdrawal, then blew the bridges over the Han River. Naval guns of Task Force 90 held the communists at bay while 69,000 U.N. troops withdrew by sea from the port of Inchon on Amphibious Group 3 vessels.
1952 – The French Army in Indochina launches Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.
1953 – Fifth Air Force mounted a 124-plane strike against the Huichon supply center.
1955 – The United States agrees to pay Japan two million dollars in damages resulting from atomic testing in the Marshall Islands.
1965 – Johnson reaffirms commitment to South Vietnam: In his State of the Union message, President Lyndon B. Johnson reaffirms U.S. commitment to support South Vietnam in fighting communist aggression. In justifying the continued support to Saigon, Johnson pointed outthat U.S. presidents had been giving the South Vietnamese help for 10 years, and, he said, “Our own security is tied to the peace of Asia.”
1974 – Thieu announces war has resumed: South Vietnamese troops report that 55 soldiers have been killed in two clashes with communist forces. Claiming that the war had “restarted,” South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu asserted, “We cannot allow the communists a situation in which…they can launch harassing attacks against us,” and ordered his forces to launch a counter-offensive to retake lost territory. The announcement essentially marked the end of attempts to adhere to the agreements of the Paris Peace Accords. A cease-fire had been initiated in Vietnam on January 28, 1973, under the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords. These most recent battles were only the latest rounds in ongoing fighting that had followed the brief lull provided by the cease-fire. A large part of the problem was that the Peace Accords had left an estimated 200,000 North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. Renewed fighting broke out after the cease-fire as both sides jockeyed for control of territory in South Vietnam. Each side held that military operations were justified by the other side’s violations of the cease-fire. What resulted was an almost endless chain of retaliations. During the period between the initiation of the cease-fire and the end of 1973, there were an average of 2,980 combat incidents per month in South Vietnam. Most of these were generally low-intensity harassing attacks by the North Vietnamese designed to wear down the South Vietnamese forces, but the communists intensified their efforts in the Central Highlands in September when they attacked government positions with tanks west of Pleiku. As a result of these post-cease-fire actions, the South Vietnamese lost an estimated 25,473 soldiers in battle in 1973.
1974 – President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. Marking the beginning of the end of his Presidency, Nixon would resign from office in disgrace eight months later.
1975 – The Khmer Rouge launches its newest assault in its five-year war in Phnom Penh. The war in Cambodia would go on until the spring of 1975.
1979 – Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.
1980 – President Carter announces US boycott of Moscow Olympics.
1989 – Aircraft (VF-32) from USS John F. Kennedy shoot down 2 hostile Libyan Migs over the Mediterranean.
1991 – With a week and a-half left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United States since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.
1991 – Marines evacuated 260 U.S. and foreign citizens from the American Embassy, Mogadishu, Somalia, during Operation Eastern Exit.
1992 – President Bush, visiting Singapore as part of a Pacific trade tour, announced plans to shift to Singapore the Navy logistics command that was being evicted from the Philippines.
1996 – Bowing to pressure from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians who had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared roads in Bosnia open to all.
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