7 August
1742 – Nathanael Greene, American Revolutionary War General, was born.
1760 – Ft. Loudon, Tennessee, surrendered to Cherokee Indians.
1782 – At his headquarters in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the “Badge for Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched across the face in silver. The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed in a “Book of Merit.” Washington’s “Purple Heart” was awarded to only three known soldiers during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown, and Daniel Bissell, Jr. The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the Badge of Military Merit.” In 1931, Summerall’s successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington’s 200th birthday, the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the “Order of the Purple Heart.” In addition to aspects of Washington’s original design, the new Purple Heart also displays a bust of Washington and his coat of arms. The Order of the Purple Heart, the oldest American military decoration for military merit, is awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces who have been killed or wounded in action against an enemy. It is also awarded to soldiers who have suffered maltreatment as prisoners of war.
1789 – The U.S. War Department was established by Congress. The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army. The War Department also bore responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798 and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force in 1947. The Secretary of War headed the war department throughout its existence. The War Department existed until September 18, 1947, when it split into Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force and joined the Department of the Navy as part of the new joint National Military Establishment (NME), renamed the United States Department of Defense in 1949. The Secretary of War, a civilian with such responsibilities as finance and purchases and a minor role in directing military affairs, headed the War Department.
1791 – The Battle of Kenapacomaqua, also called the Battle of Old Town, was a raid by United States forces under the command of Lieutenant Colonel (later Brigadier General) James Wilkinson on the Miami (Wea) town of Kenapacomaqua on the Eel River approximately six miles upstream from present-day Logansport, Indiana. Under the overall command of Brigadier General Charles Scott, Wilkinson led a force of more than 500 Kentucky militia. They attacked Kenapacomaqua. Two Kentuckians and nine Miami died in the encounter. By Wilkinson’s own account, the Miami dead included only six warriors. Two of the dead were women. One was a child. Thirty-four Miami prisoners were taken and one U.S. captive was released.
1794 – In the summer of 1794, irate farmers in the Monoghaela Valley of Pennsylvania rose up against the federal tax on liquor and stills. During the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, the farmers extracted their revenge by torching tax collector’s homes, as well as “tarring and feathering revenue officers.” The government moved quickly to quell the rebellion: President Washington called in 12,900 Federal troops from to surrounding states to forcefully usher the farmers back to their homes.
1833 – Powell Clayton, Brig. General (Union volunteers), (Gov-R-Ark), was born in Pa.
1836 – Confederate General Evander Law is born in Darlington, South Carolina. Law had a distinguished career in the Confederate army and earned a reputation as a brave and effective field commander. Law, who attended the Citadel and studied law after his graduation, built a prewar career as a military instructor. After teaching briefly at the Citadel, Law instructed at King’s Mountain Military Academy in South Carolina. He then moved to Tuskeegee, Alabama, to open a new military school. When the war broke out, Law became a lieutenant colonel in the Fourth Alabama Infantry. Law’s unit saw immediate action at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. He was wounded, but was promoted to colonel shortly afterward, and fought at the Seven Days’ Battles, Second Bull Run, and Antietam. His leadership at Antietam earned him a promotion to brigadier general in October 1862. He was also cited for bravery at Fredericksburg, where he led his troops on foot after his horse was shot out from under him. Although he advanced quickly in the army, he also feuded with his corps commander, James Longstreet. Law served in General John Bell Hood’s division, and led the attack on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. He assumed command of the division when Hood was seriously wounded. Law and his troops, along with the rest of Longstreet’s corps, were sent to assist fighting in the west. At Chickamauga, he took over after Hood was again wounded in battle. He then returned to Virginia, and fought in the campaign of 1864 before suffering a serious wound himself at the Battle of Cold Harbor. He spent most of 1864 recovering, and at the end of the war was in General Joseph Johnston’s army, which surrendered to General William T. Sherman in North Carolina. After the war, Law returned to his career as a military instructor, primarily at a school he founded in Bartow, Florida. He was the last surviving Confederate general before his death in 1920.
1861 – Two floating torpedoes (mines) in the Potomac River were picked up by U. S. S. Resolute, Acting Master W. Budd- the earliest known use of torpedoes by the Confederates. During the course of the war a variety of ingenious torpedoes destroyed or damaged some 40 Union ships, forecasting the vast growth to come in this aspect of underwater naval warfare.
1862 – President Lincoln, with Secretaries Seward and Stanton, visited Captain Dahlgren at the Washington Navy Yard for a two hour demonstration of the “Rafael” repeating cannon. Later Dahlgren took the party on board a steamer to cool off and rest.
1864 – Union troops captured part of Confederate General Jubal Early’s army at Moorefield, West Virginia.
1864 – Colonel Charles D. Anderson, CSA, commanding Fort Gaines at Mobile Bay, proposed the surrender of his command to Rear Admiral Farragut. U.S.S. Chickasaw, Lieutenant Commander Perkins, had bombarded the fort the day before, and Anderson wrote: “Feeling my inability to maintain my present position longer than you may see fit to open upon me with your fleet, and feeling also the uselessness of entailing upon ourselves further destruction of life, I have the honor to propose the surrender of Fort Gaines, its garrison, stores, etc.” Before 10 a.m., 8 August, the Stars and Stripes were flying over the works.
1927 – Horace Alderman, a rumrunner, murdered two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent after his vessel was stopped by patrol boat CG-249 off the coast of Florida. Alderman was eventually subdued by the remaining crew of CG-249 and arrested. He was later tried, convicted, and hung at the Coast Guard station at Bahia Mar, Florida.
1936 – The United States declared non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
1941 – The Senate passes an extension of the draft period from one year to thirty months (and a similar increase for service in the National Guard) after considerable debate.
1942 – An American task force bombards the Japanese-held island of Kiska.
1942 – The U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands. On July 6, 1942, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal Island and began constructing an airfield there. Operation Watchtower was the codename for the U.S. plan to invade Guadalcanal and the surrounding islands. During the attack, American troops landed on five islands within the Solomon chain. Although the invasion came as a complete surprise to the Japanese (bad weather had grounded their scouting aircraft), the landings on Florida, Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tananbogo met much initial opposition from the Japanese defenders. But the Americans who landed on Guadalcanal met little resistance-at least at first. More than 11,000 Marines had landed, and 24 hours had passed, before the Japanese manning the garrison there knew of the attack. The U.S. forces quickly took their main objective, the airfield, and the outnumbered Japanese troops retreated, but not for long. Reinforcements were brought in, and fierce hand-to-hand jungle fighting ensued. “I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting,” wrote one American major general on the scene. “These people refuse to surrender.” The Americans were at a particular disadvantage, being assaulted from both the sea and air. But the U.S. Navy was able to reinforce its troops to a greater extent, and by February 1943, the Japanese had retreated on secret orders of their emperor (so secret, the Americans did not even know it had taken place until they began happening upon abandoned positions, empty boats, and discarded supplies). In total, the Japanese had lost more than 25,000 men, compared with a loss of 1,600 by the Americans. Each side lost 24 warships. The first Medal of Honor given to a Marine was awarded to Sgt. John Basilone for his fighting during Operation Watchtower. According to the recommendation for his medal, he “contributed materially to the defeat and virtually the annihilation of a Japanese regiment.”
1942 – Landings at Tulagi and Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands commenced. This first Allied invasion in the Pacific proved to be a critical battle. Coast Guard manned transports, including the USS Hunter Liggett, participated in the invasion. Many of the landing craft were crewed by Coast Guardsmen. A Coast Guard officer, LCDR Dwight H. Dexter, and 25 Coast Guardsmen went ashore from the Liggett with their landing craft to set up a naval operating base on Lunga Point. Signalman 1/c Douglas Munro, later killed at Guadalcanal, was a member of Dexter’s command. The Liggett rescued 686 survivors of the Navy cruisers USS Vincennes, Astoria, and Quincy and the Australian cruiser HMAS Canberra that had been sunk in the Battle of Savo Island on the night of 9 August 1942.
1944 – German forces begin a significant counterattack from east of Mortain, opposite US 1st Army (between US 7th and 14th Corps). Elements of German 2nd and 116th Panzer Divisions spearhead the offensive. Mortain is recaptured. Heavy Allied air attacks prevent more significant advances by the German forces. Meanwhile, in Brittany, the US 8th Corps (part of US 1st Army) attacks the German garrisoned ports of Brest, St. Malo and Lorient.
1944 – On Guam there is heavy fighting along the entire front as US forces attack Japanese positions.
1944 – The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), began computations for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships in May and was officially presented to the university. It was called Mark I by Harvard University’s staff, and was a general purpose electro-mechanical computer that was used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was initiated on 29 March 1944 by John von Neumann, who worked on the Manhattan project at the time, and needed to determine whether implosion was a viable choice to detonate the atomic bomb that would be used a year later. The Mark I also computed and printed mathematical tables, which was Charles Babbage’s initial goal for his analytical engine. The Mark I was officially retired, after 15 years of service, in 1959.
1945 – The first flight of the Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom) jet bomber takes place. The plane is based on the German Me262.
1945 – More than 200 B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Yahata, Tokyo and Kukuyama.
1945 – On Luzon, officers from the headquarters of the US 1st Army meet in readiness for the coming invasion of Japan.
1945 – The secret of radio direction finding (RDF), now called radar, is made public.
1950 – Lieutenant General Walton Walker launched Task Force Kean against the North Korean 6th Division to seize the Chinju Pass and establish a new line along the Nam River. Three regiments, the Army’s 35th Infantry and 5th Regimental Combat Team and the 5th Marines, attacked abreast against a estimated 7,500 enemy troops. Unknown to the Eight Army planners was the presence of the North Korean 83rd Motorized Regiment of the 105th Armored Division supporting the 6th Division with T-34 tanks.
1953 – SSgt Barbara Barnwell was the first woman Marine awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism. She was from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and a member of the Marine Reserve, saved a soldier from drowning in 1952.
1959 – From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S. unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft, commonly known as the “Paddlewheel” satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture of the earth’s surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles. The photo, received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit. Released by NASA in September, the first photograph ever taken of the earth by a U.S. satellite depicted a crescent shape of part of the planet in sunlight. It was Mexico, captured by Explorer 6 as it raced westward over the earth at speeds in excess of 20,000 miles an hour.
1961 – Soviet premier Khrushchev predicted that the USSR economy would surpass that of the US.
1964 – The United States Congress overwhelming approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly unlimited powers to oppose “communist aggression” in Southeast Asia. The resolution marked the beginning of an expanded military role for the United States in the Cold War battlefields of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. By 1964, America’s ally, South Vietnam, was in serious danger of falling to a communist insurgency. The insurgents, aided by communist North Vietnam, controlled large areas of South Vietnam, and no amount of U.S. military aid and training seemed able to save the southern regime. During the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, hundreds-and then thousands-of U.S. military advisers had been sent to South Vietnam to train that nation’s military forces. In addition, hundreds of millions of dollars in military and economic assistance had been given to South Vietnam. The administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson made the decision that only direct U.S. military intervention in the conflict could turn the tide. However, Johnson was campaigning in the presidential election of 1964 as the “responsible” candidate who would not send American troops to fight and die in Asia. In early August, a series of events occurred that allowed Johnson to appear statesmanlike while simultaneously expanding the U.S. role in Vietnam. On August 2, North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin. Johnson responded by sending in another destroyer. On August 4, the two destroyers reported that they were under attack. This time, Johnson authorized retaliatory air attacks against North Vietnam. He also asked Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. This resolution declared, “The United States regards as vital to its national interest and to world peace the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia.” It also gave Johnson the right to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” The House passed the resolution by a unanimous vote; the vote in the Senate was 88 to 2. Johnson’s popularity soared in response to his “restrained” handling of the crisis. The Johnson administration went on to use the resolution as a pretext to begin heavy bombing of North Vietnam in early 1965 and to introduce U.S. combat troops in March 1965. Thus began a nearly eight-year war in which over 58,000 U.S. troops died. In a wider sense, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution can be considered America’s Cold War policy toward all of Southeast Asia at the time. The resolution was also another example of the American government’s less than candid discussion of “national security” matters during the Cold War. Unspoken during the Congressional debate over the resolution was the fact that the commanders of the U.S. destroyers could not state with absolute accuracy that their ships had actually been attacked on the night of August 4, nor was any mention made of the fact that the U.S. destroyers had been assisting South Vietnamese commandos in their attacks on North Vietnamese military installations. By the late 1960s, the tangle of government deceptions and lies began to unravel as public confidence in both Johnson and the American military effort in Vietnam began to erode.
1966 – The United States lost seven planes over North Vietnam, the most in the war up to this point.
1970 – At a hearing for the “Soledad Brothers,” Jonathon P. Jackson (17), the younger brother of George L. Jackson, attempted an armed rescue attempt at the Marin Civic Center. A shootout in the parking lot followed and 4 people were killed and 5 injured. Among the dead were Jackson, Judge Harold Haley, Black Panther James McClain, and convict William A. Christmas. Angela Davis was charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy, but was acquitted in 1972 after spending a year in jail. An attempt by black militant James David McClain to escape his trial in Marin County, California, ended in a shootout with police that claimed the lives of McClain, two of three cohorts, and Judge Harold J. Daley, one of several hostages.
1976 – Scientists in Pasadena, Calif., announced that the Viking 1 spacecraft had found the strongest indications to date of possible life on Mars.
1990 – President Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq. The US Persian Gulf War began. Operation Desert Shield ended Feb 28, 1991. It cost $8.1 billion and left 383 US casualties with 458 wounded.
1991 – The five permanent members of the UN Security Council agreed to authorize Iraq to sell as much as $1.6 billion in oil over six months to pay for food, humanitarian supplies and war reparations; however, Baghdad rejected the resolution.
1993 – US convoy is attacked and 5 Somalis are killed in an hour-long battle near village of Afgoy. US helicopters assist.
1996 – NASA researchers formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on Mars.
1997 – The space shuttle Discovery was launched with a crew of six. A satellite was dropped off to study the Earth’s ozone layer.
1997 – The US State Dept. expressed concern over reports of Chinese nuclear-capable M-11 missiles sold to Pakistan.
1998 – At 10:30 a.m. local time, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Minutes later, another truck bomb detonated outside the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of neighboring Tanzania. The dual terrorist attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded more than 4,500. The United States accused Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, a proponent of international terrorism against America, of masterminding the bombings. On August 20, President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles launched against bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where bin Laden allegedly made or distributed chemical weapons. Osama bin Laden was born in 1957 into one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest and most prominent families. His father, an immigrant from South Yemen, had built a small construction business into a multibillion-dollar company. When his father died in 1968, bin Laden inherited an estimated $30 million but for the next decade drifted without focus and lived a jet-setting lifestyle. In 1979, however, everything changed when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Like tens of thousands of other Arabs, bin Laden volunteered to aid Afghanistan in repulsing what he saw as the godless communist invaders of the Muslim country. For the first few years of the Afghan War, he traveled around Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf raising money for the anti-Soviet Afghan fighters. In 1982, he traveled to the front lines of the war for the first time, where he donated construction equipment for the war effort. Bin Laden directly participated in a handful of battles, but his primary role in the anti-Soviet jihad was as financier. During the war, he made contact with numerous Islamic militants, many of whom who were as anti-Western as they were anti-Soviet. In 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, and bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. He grew increasingly critical of the ruling Saudi family, especially after hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops were welcomed onto Saudi soil during the Persian Gulf War. Although his passport was taken away, he slipped out of Saudi Arabia in 1991 and settled in the Sudan. From there, he spoke out against the Saudi government and the continuing U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, which he likened to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, the United States began to suspect that bin Laden was involved in international terrorism against the United States. The military organization he built during the Afghan War–al Qaeda, or “the Base”–was still in existence, and U.S. intelligence believed he was transforming it into an anti-U.S. terrorist network. In 1995, bin Laden called for guerrilla attacks against U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia, and three months later a terrorist attack against a U.S. military installation killed five Americans. Under U.S. and Saudi pressure he was expelled from the Sudan in May 1996. One month later, a truck bomb killed 19 U.S. servicemen in Saudi Arabia. Whether or not bin Laden was involved in planning these attacks has not been established. With 200 of his followers, bin Laden returned to Afghanistan, which was then falling under the control of the Taliban, a faction of extreme Islamic fundamentalists. Bin Laden provided funding for the Taliban military campaign against the city of Kabul, which fell to the militia in September 1996. Soon after his arrival in Afghanistan, bin Laden issued a fatwah, or religious decree, calling for war on Americans in the Persian Gulf and the overthrow of the Saudi government. In February 1998, he issued another fatwah stating that Muslims should kill Americans, including civilians, anywhere in the world. On August 7, 1998–the eighth anniversary of the deployment of U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia–two U.S. embassies in East Africa were bombed almost simultaneously. The attack at the Nairobi embassy, which was located in a busy downtown area, caused the greater devastation and loss of life. There, a truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of TNT forced its way to the back entrance of the embassy and was detonated, shattering the embassy, demolishing the nearby Ufundi Coop House, and gutting the 17-story Cooperative Bank. By the time rescue operations came to an end, 213 people were dead, including 12 Americans. Thousands of people were wounded, and hundreds were maimed or blinded. The attack against the U.S. embassy in Dar es Saalam killed 11 and injured 85. By 1997, American intelligence officers knew that bin Laden operatives were active in East Africa but were unable to break up the terrorist cell before the embassies were attacked. They had even heard of a possible plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Nairobi but failed to recommend an increase in security before the attack. Meanwhile, Prudence Bushnell, the U.S. ambassador to Kenya, independently asked the State Department to move the Nairobi embassy because of its exposed location, but the request was not granted. Revelations of these pre-bombing security issues provoked much controversy and concern about the United States’ vulnerability abroad. Few, however, voiced concern that the proliferation of terrorists eager to kill innocent civilians and themselves in order to strike a blow against the U.S. would soon shatter America’s sense of invulnerability at home. Within days of the August 7 bombings, two bin Laden associates were arrested and charged with the attacks. However, with bin Laden and other key suspects still at large, President Clinton ordered a retaliatory military strike on August 20. In Afghanistan, some 70 American cruise missiles hit three alleged bin Laden training camps. An estimated 24 people were killed, but bin Laden was not present. Thirteen cruise missiles hit a pharmaceutical plant in the Sudan, and the night watchman was killed. The United States later backed away from its contention that the pharmaceutical plant was making or distributing chemical weapons for al Qaeda. In November 1998, the United States indicted bin Laden and 21 others, charging them with bombing the two U.S. embassies and conspiring to commit other acts of terrorism against Americans abroad. To date, nine of the al Qaeda members named in the indictments have been captured; six are in the United States, and three are in Britain fighting extradition to the United States. In February 2001, four of the suspects went on trial in New York on 302 criminal counts stemming from the embassy attacks. On May 29, all four were convicted on all counts. Saudi citizen Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-‘Owhali and Tanzanian Khalfan Khamis Mohamed admitted to directly taking part in the terrorist attacks but claimed they did not knowingly engage in a conspiracy against the United States. Lebanese-born U.S. citizen Wadih El-Hage and Jordanian Mohammed Saddiq Odeh admitted ties to bin Laden but denied involvement in any terrorist acts. All four were sentenced to life in prison without parole. On September 11, 2001, the world learned that the U.S. embassy attacks were merely a prelude to a far more devastating strike against the United States. On that day, 19 al Qaeda terrorists deftly exploited weaknesses in U.S. domestic security and hijacked four U.S. airliners that they flew into the World Trade Center towers in New York; the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and a rural field in western Pennsylvania. Four thousand people were killed in the almost simultaneous attacks and 10,000 were wounded. On October 7, America struck back with Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led international effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, destroy the al Qaeda network based there, and capture bin Laden dead or alive.
1998 – In 2000 Ali Mohamed, a former US Army sergeant, pleaded guilty for his role in the bombing under the direction of Osama bin Laden.
1998 – In Pakistan Sadik Howaida (34), later named as Mohammed Saddiq Odeh, was detained at the Karachi airport. He reportedly confessed to participating in the bombing in Nairobi. He said that he and 2 coconspirators had left Nairobi and planned to enter Afghanistan a few days before the bombing. He acknowledged that the team was recruited and financed by Osama bin Laden who was ensconced in a fortress-style hideout in Kandahar. Odeh later refused to admit responsibility to American officials.
1998 – Immediately after the bombing of 2 US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Sudanese authorities arrested 2 men suspected of being involved in the plot. [see Aug 21]
1999 – In China Song Yongyi, a research librarian at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., was imprisoned while collecting data on the Cultural Revolution. On Dec 12 he was charged with “the purchase and illegal provision of intelligence to foreigners.” Yongyi was released on Jan 28, 2000.
2002 – Ford Motor Co. and Canadian fuel cell developer Ballard Power Systems Inc. jointly unveiled a hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine-driven generator they said could help pave the way toward the commercialization of fuel cell technology.
2002 – A U.S. Air Force cargo plane crashed on a Puerto Rican mountaintop with at least 10 military personnel on board, and all were feared dead.
2002 – In Afghanistan at least 15 people were killed south of Kabul in a shootout between police and recently escaped Pakistani members of al Qaeda.
2002 – Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud said his country had made it clear to Washington, publicly and privately, that the U.S. military will not be allowed to use the kingdom’s soil in any way for an attack on Iraq. Saud said the longtime U.S. ally does not plan to expel American forces from an air base used for flights to monitor Iraq.
2003 – In Afghanistan some 40 suspected Taliban fighters killed 6 Afghan soldiers and a driver for a US aid organization.
2003 – In Iraq a car bomb shattered a street outside the walled Jordanian Embassy, killed 17 people — including two children.
2004 – Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi signed a long-awaited amnesty law that would pardon Iraqis who have played minor roles in the country’s 15-month-long insurgency. The Iraqi government closed the Iraqi offices of the Arab television station Al-Jazeera for 30 days, accusing it of inciting violence.
2004 – Clashes between US-led forces and fighters loyal to al-Sadr continued for a 3rd day in Najaf and Sadr City. 23 civilians were killed and 121 wounded in the day’s fighting.
2014 – IS fighters took control of the town of Qaraqosh in the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq, which forced its large Christian population to flee.
2014 – President Obama authorized targeted airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS, along with airdrops of aid. The UK offered the US assistance with surveillance and refuelling, and planned humanitarian airdrops to Iraqi refugees.
Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2005/08/08/august-7/
