This Day in History

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1747.  Marshal Maurice de Race leads a French army to victory in Lauffelt.  The Marshal was a hypochondriac and always traveled with his personal physician.
Anyway, one day in 1745, while besieging Tournai, Saxe was riding along the lines of investment in his coach, with the ever-present Dr. Senac at his side. Espying something that piqued his curiosity, the marshal ordered his coachman to drive closer to the trenches. Then, ordering the driver to stop, he leaped out, saying, “I shall not be absent many minutes."

The good doctor, startled to find himself in close proximity to a battery that was firing on the enemy, who might respond at any moment, immediately mentioned the danger to the marshal, who promptly replied, “Oh, never mind, if they fire, pull up the windows."

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1541.  French ambassador to the Grande Turk and the French emmisary to the Most Serene Republic are assassinated by agents of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V.

Busy day for George Washington.
1754.  Fort Necessity surrenders to the French.  The experience of combat was exhilarating to the young officer. A few days later he wrote to his brother John, “I have heard the bullet whistle, and believe me, there is something charming in the sound.” Nevertheless, confronted by superior numbers, he was forced to fall back to the improvised Fort Necessity, where, on June 4th, Washington surrendered his command.
Meanwhile, his line about the “charm” of the bullet’s whistle had been widely circulated, turning Washington into something of a celebrity. The phrase even crossed the Atlantic, eventually reaching the ears of King George II. No stranger to the battlefield, for he had soldiered for much of his life and was the last King of England to command an army in combat, having won the Battle of Dettingen on June 27, 1743, the King commented on Washington’s phrase with a short, but pithy, “He would not say so, had he Been used to hear many"
1775. General Washington arrives to take command of the siege of Boston.
1798 Coming out of retirement, he assumes the rank of Lieutenant General for the Quasi War with France, the old enemy.  His main work was to prepare for a land war.  The army was authorized for 52,000, which for the population was a huge effort.
Almost as soon as the crisis was past, Congress reduced the armed forces, slashing the army to about 4,400 men, laying up much of the fleet, and cutting the Marine Corps by about 40-percent.  The following year, in 1802, the Jefferson Administration effected even greater cuts, slashing the army a further 20-percent and laying up most of what was left of the navy, thus insuring that in a period of significant international tension, the United States was wholly unprepared.

1915 Erich Muentar sets off a bomb in the Senate reception room.

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326 BC.  Epaminondas of Thebes dies on the field of his victory over Sparta at Mantinea.  George Patton writes that he was the greatest of all the Greeks.  He freed an entire nation held in slavery, the Messenians.
1776  Horatio Hornblower, future admiral of the Blue, is born.
1777.  John Paul Jones hoists the Stars and Stripes on the Sloop Ranger at Portsmouth, NH.
1848. The Communist Manifesto is published, leading to immense slaughter.
2009. Bela Kiraly, Hungarian national hero, American academic, one of the Righteous, in his sleep at 97, despite the best efforts of Hitler, Stalin, & Khruschev to have him executed

1450. James Fiennes, 1st Lord Saye and Sele, 56, Royal Treasurer, beheaded at London to appease Kentish rebels.

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1802 Brigadier General Dan Morgan dies.  Very early in the Revolutionary War, Congress resolved to recruit a regiment of riflemen from the rugged frontier folk of Virginia and Pennsylvania. An enormous number of men came forward to offer their services. Too many, in fact.
When the officers appointed to organize the two companies allocated to Virginia arrived at the appointed rendezvous, they found 500 men ready to serve, far more than the approximately 200 required. Now the volunteers were all good men. And a mite touchy lest some preference be shown to another. So merely picking 200 men out of the mass of volunteers would not do.
To resolve the dilemma, one of the recruiting officers devised a simple test.
Taking a board one foot square, he chalked upon it the profile of a face. He then nailed the board to a tree and paced off 150 yards, where he drew a line in dirt. Each volunteer was asked to put a round in the target, as close to the nose as he could.
The first 50 men to step forward obliterated the nose, requiring a replacement. In this way the Virginia companies were filled with little difficulty and, under Daniel Morgan, later one of the most successful American commanders of the war, almost immediately set out to join George Washington’s army in front of Boston.

Dan Morgan is best remembered for his victory at Cowpens, the most complete victory of the war.  The US navy commemorated this by naming a ship Cowpens. An Independence class light carrier in WWII.
Very few sailors knew anything about the battle of Cowpens.  Admiral Springs was taking his daily walk around the deck of his flagship.
He heard an old chief ask, "What the deck is a cowpens?  That's no name for a ship."
Stopping, the admiral explained the battle and that the term referred to a place that a farmer kept his cattle.
"Well, it's a good thing he didn't raise pigs."

[Sir Slash]

  Spot-on!

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716 BC. Romulus Silvius, Founder of Rome and first king becomes a god.

1898.  German marines seize Subic Bay in the Philippines.  In no time at all they infuriate the Spanish, the Philippino nationalists, and US admiral Georgia Dewey.  Tempers were rising and the German commodore was spoiling for a fight.  Affairs calmed down when the British Far Eastern squadron informed the Germans, that they would stand with the Americans.

[Sir Slash]

Dewey's famous line to the Germans, "Put-up or shut-up". 

[Staggerwing]

Dewey's famous line to the Germans, "Put-up or shut-up". 

I thought that he said "Gridley, go nuts when you feel the time's right"

[Sir Slash]

Yeah. I think Dewey's PR people may have cleaned-up his original quote, "Gridley, hand me that Can-Of-Whup-Ass will you"? Donno why, seems perfectly acceptable to me. 

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1500. Count Giacomo V Caetani of Sermoneta, poisoned by the Borgias, at 50.

1790  Start of 2 day Battle of Svensksund. A Swedish fleet of 176 ships, under King Gustav III and Carl Olof Cronstedt, defeated a Russian fleet of 135 ships, under Prince Charles of Nassau-Siegen.

1827.  a certain drummer in the British garrison at Gibraltar had, in 14 years of service, accumulated - and survive - a remarkable 25,000 lashes, roughly one for every 4.9 hours he had been in the Crown's service.

[Sir Slash]

   I don't know who that drummer was, but I think I maybe related to him.

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1584. Prince William I "the Silent" of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, & Friesland (1559-1584), 54, leader of the Dutch Revolution, shot by Balthasar Gérard at Delft, in history's first assassination by firearm

1946. One beneficial side effect of the elimination of horses from armies is that troops are no longer susceptible to mange, glanders, or any of the other dozens of equine diseases which can infect people, not to mention having to shovel all that fresh manure.

[Staggerwing]

1584. Prince William I "the Silent" of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, & Friesland (1559-1584), 54, leader of the Dutch Revolution, shot by Balthasar Gérard at Delft, in history's first assassination by firearm

FWIW, I actually named my oldest son Willem after 'Willem de Zweiger (William the Silent)'.

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1872. Battle of the Hotel d'Europe, Alexandria, Egypr: the American Consul and his party have a shoot out with some former Confederate officers serving in the Egyptian Army, everyone demonstrating bad aim

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61BC.  Julius Caesar is designated propraetor of Further Spain.  The Roman forces include two veteran legions.  Faced with raids by Lusitanian- Portuguese hill tribes, he raises a third legion to conquer them.
Caesar’s Legions. There were four legions in the Spanish provinces in 61 BC, and a case has been made that they were designated the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th (well, actually VI, VII, VIII, and VIIII) two of which were in Caesar’s bailiwick. So when Caesar raised a new one, it would logically have been designated the 10th. Now there’s no question that when he became proconsul of Narbonnensis and Cisalpine Gaul in 58 BC he was given “four veteran legions”, numbered 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th. So if the hypothesis about the numbering of the legions in Spain is correct, Caesar would have already commanded some of these troops during his Lusitanian campaign. This would certainly help explain the enormous confidence he had in his legions – and they in him – later that year during his initial campaigns in Gaul against the Helvetii and the Germans under Ariovistus.

1801. British squadron, under Rear-Admiral Sir James Saumarez, engaged Franco-Spanish squadron, under Rear-Admiral Linois, off Gibraltar as they took the captured HMS Hannibal (74) to Cadiz. In darkness HMS Superb (74), Cptn. Richard Goodwin Keats, engaged Real Carlos (112), Cptn Don J. Esquerra, with some shot hitting San Hermenegildo (112), Cptn Don J. Emparran. In the confusion the two Spanish ships engaged one another, collided and a fire spread to both resulting in their loss. Superb went on to take San Antonio (74).