Portal:Military of the United States/Selected anniversaries/January

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Selected anniversaries in January

January 1

• 1863 - American Civil War: The Emancipation Proclamation takes effect in Confederate territory.
• 1945 - In retaliation of the Malmedy massacre,U.S. troops massacre 30 SS prisoners at Chenogne.
• 1947 - The American and British occupation zones in Germany, after the World War II, merge to form the Bizone, that later became the Federal Republic of Germany.
• 1962 - US Navy SEAL teams established.

January 2

• 1941 - World War II: The U.S. government announces its Liberty ship program with a stated goal of building 200 freighters. Over 2,700 ships will eventually be constructed by the end of the war.
• 1942 - World War II: Manila is captured by Japanese forces.
• 1942 - The United States Navy opens a blimp base at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

January 3

• 1777 - American general George Washington defeats British general Charles Cornwallis at the Battle of Princeton.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Delaware votes not to secede from the United States.
• 1945 - Admiral Chester W Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. Naval forces in preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Japan itself.
• 1993 - In Moscow, George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

January 4

• 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Monte Cassino begins.
• 1951 - Korean War: Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul.

January 5

• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia, is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold.

January 6

• 1941 - Keel of USS Missouri (BB-63) is laid at New York Navy Yard in Brooklyn
• 1967 - United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch "Operation Deckhouse Five" in the Mekong River delta.

January 7

• 1942 - World War II: Siege of the Bataan Peninsula begins.
• 1945 - World War II: British General Bernard Montgomery holds a press conference in which he claims credit for victory in the Battle of the Bulge.
• 1953 - President Harry Truman announces that the United States has developed a hydrogen bomb.

January 8

• 1815 - War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans - Andrew Jackson leads American forces in victory over the British.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Second Battle of Springfield.
• 1877 - Crazy Horse and his warriors fight their last battle with the United States Cavalry (Montana).
• 1900 - United States President William McKinley places Alaska under military rule.

January 9

• 1861 - American Civil War: The "Star of the West" incident occurs near Charleston, South Carolina. It is considered by some historians to be the "First Shots of the American Civil War.")
• 1863 - American Civil War: the Battle of Fort Hindman occurs in Arkansas.
• 1912 - United States Marines invade Honduras.
• 1945 - The United States invades Luzon in the Philippines.
• 1964 - Several Panamanian youths try to put up the Panamanian flag on the US-controlled Panama Canal Zone, during the fight the Panama flag is torn, setting off four days of fighting between US armed forces and civilian Panamanians around the country. This day is known as Martyrs' Day.

January 10

• 1776 - Thomas Paine publishes Common Sense.
• 1861 - American Civil War: Florida secedes from the US.

January 11

• 1861 - Alabama secedes from the United States.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post - General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union.

January 12

• 1942 - President Franklin Roosevelt creates the National War Labor Board.
• 1966 - Lyndon B. Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communist aggression there is ended.
• 1991 - Persian Gulf War: An act of the U.S. Congress authorizes the use of military force to drive Iraq out of Kuwait.

January 13

• 1847 - The Treaty of Cahuenga ends the Mexican-American War in California.
• 1893 - US Marines land in Honolulu from the U.S.S. Boston to prevent the queen from abrogating the Bayonet Constitution.
• 1942 - The United States begins Japanese American internment.

January 14

• 1784 - American Revolutionary War: The United States ratifies a peace treaty with England.
• 1943 - World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill begin Casablanca Conference to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war.
• 1969 - An explosion aboard the USS Enterprise near Hawaii kills 27 people.

January 15

• 1777 - American Revolutionary War: New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence.
• 1943 - World War II: Japanese driven off Guadalcanal.
• 1973 - Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, President of the United States Richard Nixon announces the suspension of offensive action in North Vietnam.
• 1991 - The United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi forces from occupied Kuwait expires, preparing the way for the start of Operation Desert Storm.

January 16

• 1780 - American Revolution: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
• 1917 - German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States.

January 17

• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cowpens - Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the battle in South Carolina.
• 1873 - First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.
• 1966 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and another one into the sea.
• 1966 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, during the h-bomb recovery suffers an accident on deck which crushes his leg, which is later amputated.
• 1991 - Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

January 18

• 1861 - American Civil War - Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in secession from the United States.
• 1911 - Eugene B. Ely lands on the deck of the USS Pennsylvania stationed in San Francisco harbor, marking the first time an aircraft landed on a ship.

January 19

• 1840 - Captain Charles Wilkes circumnavigates Antarctica, claiming what became known as Wilkes Land for the United States.
• 1862 - American Civil War: Battle of Mill Springs - The Confederate States of America suffers its first significant defeat in the conflict.
• 1946 - General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals.
• 1977 - President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D'Aquino (a.k.a. "Tokyo Rose").
• 1981 - Iran Hostage Crisis: United States and Iranian officials sign an agreement to release 52 American hostages after 14 months of captivity.

January 20

• 1783 - The Kingdom of Great Britain signs a peace treaty with France and Spain, officially ending hostilities in the Revolutionary War.
• 1887 - The United States Senate allows the Navy to lease Pearl Harbor as a naval base.

January 21

• 1861 - American Civil War: Jefferson Davis resigns from the United States Senate.
• 1954 - The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, is launched in Groton, Connecticut by Mamie Eisenhower, then the First Lady of the United States.
• 1968 - Vietnam War: Battle of Khe Sanh - One of the most publicized and controversial battles of the war begins.
• 1977 - President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all American Vietnam War draft evaders, some of whom had emigrated to Canada.

January 22

• 1917 - World War I: President Woodrow Wilson calls for "peace without victory" in Europe.
• 1944 - World War II: Allies begin Operation Shingle (an assault on Anzio, Italy).

January 23

• 1870 - In Montana, U.S. cavalrymen kill 173 Indians, most women and children, in the Marias Massacre.
• 1943 - World War II: Australian and American forces finally defeat the Japanese army in Papua. This turning point in the Pacific War marks the beginning of the end of Japanese aggression.
• 1960 - The bathyscaphe USS Trieste breaks a depth record by descending to the deepest point in the Pacific Ocean. The depth was measured to be 35,813 feet (10,916 m) but later measurements show it to be 35,798 feet (10,911 m).
• 1968 - North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated their territorial waters while spying.
• 1973 - President Richard Nixon announces that a peace accord has been reached in Vietnam.
• 2002 - "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh returns to the United States under FBI custody.

January 24

• 1776 – Henry Knox arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts with the artillery that he has transported from Fort Ticonderoga.
• 1943 - World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill conclude a conference in Casablanca
• 1972 - Japanese Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi is found hiding in a Guam jungle, where he had been in hiding since 1944, when U.S. forces liberated the island during World War II.

January 25

• 1787 - American Daniel Shays leads rebellion to seize Federal arsenal to protest debtor prisons.
• 1942 - Thailand declares war on the United States and United Kingdom.
• 1945 - Battle of the Bulge ends.
• 1969 - US-North Vietnamese peace talks begin in Paris.

January 26

• 1861 - American Civil War: The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.
• 1863 - American Civil War: General Ambrose Burnside is relieved of command of the Army of the Potomac after the disastrous Fredericksburg campaign. He is replaced by Joseph Hooker.
• 1863 - American Civil War: Massachusetts Governor receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.
• 1870 - American Civil War: Virginia rejoins the Union.
• 1942 - World War II: The first American forces arrive in Europe landing in Northern Ireland.
• 2005 - A helicopter crash in eastern Iraq kills 31 United States soldiers.

January 27

• 1825 - U.S. Congress approves Indian Territory, clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."
• 1900 - Boxer Rebellion: Foreign diplomats in Peking, China demand that the Boxer rebels be disciplined.
• 1915 - United States Marines occupy Haiti.
• 1939 - First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.
• 1943 - World War II: Fifty bombers mount the first entirely American air raid against Germany, targeting Wilhelmshaven.
• 1951 - Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats.
• 1967 - More than sixty nations sign the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.
• 1973 - Paris Peace Accords officially end the Vietnam War, Colonel William Nolde falls, becoming the conflict's last recorded American combat casualty.

January 28

• 1909 - United States troops leave Cuba after being there since the Spanish-American War.
• 1915 - An act of the U.S. Congress creates the United States Coast Guard.
• 1917 - United States ends search for Pancho Villa.
• 1982 - US Army general James L. Dozier is rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces after 42 days of captivity under the Red Brigades.

January 29

• 1834 - US President Andrew Jackson orders first use of federal soldiers to suppress a labor dispute.
• 1850 - Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the U.S. Congress.
• 1863 - Bear River Massacre.
• 1943 - The first day of the Battle of Rennell Island, U.S. cruiser Chicago is torpedoed and heavily damaged by Japanese bombers.
• 1944 - The battleship USS Missouri is launched.
• 1944 - World War II: The Battle of Cisterna takes place in central Italy.

January 30

• 1862 - The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor is launched.
• 1911 - The destroyer USS Terry makes the first airplane rescue at sea saving the life of James McCurdy 10 miles from Havana, Cuba.
• 1943 - Second day of the Battle of Rennell Island. U.S. cruiser Chicago is sunk and a U.S. destroyer is heavily damaged by Japanese torpedo bombers.
• 1944 - United States troops invade Majuro, Marshall Islands.
• 1968 - Vietnam War: The Tet Offensive begins when Viet Cong forces launch a series of surprise attacks in South Vietnam.

January 31

• 1865 - American Civil War: Confederate General Robert E. Lee becomes general-in-chief.
• 1917 - World War I: Germany announces its U-boats will engage in unrestricted submarine warfare.
• 1944 - World War II: American forces land on Kwajalein Atoll and other islands in the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.
• 1945 - US Army private Eddie Slovik is executed, the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion.
• 1950 - President Harry S. Truman announces a program to develop the hydrogen bomb.
• 1957 - Three students on a junior high school playground in Pacoima, California are among the eight persons killed following the mid-air collision between a Douglas DC-7 airliner and a Northrop F-89 Scorpion fighter jet above the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles.
• 1968 - Viet Cong attack the United States embassy in Saigon.
• 1971 - The Winter Soldier Investigation, organized by the Vietnam Veterans Against the War to publicize war crimes and atrocities by Americans and allies in Vietnam, begin in Detroit, Michigan.