March 8th

1944: The US 8th Air Force carries out another heavy attack against Berlin.
1945: Beginning of secret negotiations at Bern, Switzerland, between representatives of the American OSS (Allan Dulles) and the German High Command in Italy (General von Vietinghoff and SS General Wolff) for an early surrender of German forces in Italy. In the East, the Red Army penetrates into the southern suburbs of Breslau.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1942: Lae and Salamaua were occupied by the Japanese to provide defensive depth for their important air and sea base at Rabaul.
1942: 7th Division AIF arrives in Adelaide from the Middle East. Elements of the Division had been sent to Java where they soon became prisoners of the Japanese.source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1942: The Dutch surrender to Japanese forces on Java. Japan captures Rangoon, Burma.
1943: Japanese troops counter-attack American forces on Hill 700 in Bougainville in a battle that will last five days.
1965: 3,500 United States Marines arrive in South Vietnam, becoming the first American combat troops in Vietnam.
1966: Australia announces it is going to substantially increase its number of troops in Vietnam.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_8

1901: Halifax Nova Scotia - Samuel Benfield Steele 1849-1919 commanding Lord Strathcona's Horse, arrives back in Halifax with his regiment after fighting the Boers in South Africa.
1993: Somali Republic - Canadian Navy supply ship HMCS Preserver heads home after three-month tour of Somalia; her three Sea King helicopters airlifted 430 tonnes of supplies into Mogadishu.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_this_day?mth=Mar&day=08

1975: South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu orders the withdrawal of South Vietnamese forces from the Central Highlands. In late January 1975, just two years after the cease-fire had been established by the Paris Peace Accords, the North Vietnamese launched Campaign 275. The objective of this campaign was the capture of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The battle began on March 4 and the North Vietnamese quickly encircled the city. As it became clear that the communists would take the city and probably the entire Darlac province, Thieu decided to withdraw his forces in order to protect the more critical populous areas. Accordingly, he ordered his forces in the Central Highlands to pull back from their positions. Abandoning Pleiku and Kontum, the South Vietnamese forces began to move toward the sea, but what began as an orderly withdrawal soon turned into panic. The South Vietnamese forces rapidly fell apart. The North Vietnamese were successful in both the Central Highlands and further north at Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang. The South Vietnamese soon collapsed as a cogent fighting force and the North Vietnamese continued the attack all the way to Saigon. South Vietnam surrendered unconditionally on April 30.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih

1940: Heavy fighting is reported at the outskirts to Viipuri, as the Red Army continues its attempt to capture the city. This prompts the Finns to seek an immediate armistice, which the Russians refuse. Therefore the Finnish delegation in Moscow is instructed to sue for peace.
1942: Rangoon falls to the Japanese as the British forces escape to the north. The 17th Indian Division was now holding the Irrawaddy area and the 1st Burma Division the upper Sittang valley. The Chinese Expeditionary Force were farther north, with the Fifth Chinese Army defending Mandalay and the 6th Chinese Army was at Toungoo and defending the Burmese province of Shan.
1943: The RAF use GEE for the first time for target marking during a raid on Essen. The technique was known as 'Shaker' and consisted of aircraft marking the target with flares, allowing aircraft further behind to see the target more clearly. However the results of the raid were disappointing.
1944: The US 8th Air Force carries out another heavy attack against Berlin.
1945: The Red Army penetrates into the southern suburbs of Breslau. Beginning of secret negotiations at Bern, Switzerland, between representatives of the American OSS (Allan Dulles) and the German High Command in Italy (General von Vietinghoff and SS General Wolff) for an early surrender of German forces in Italy. British and Canadian troops involved in Operation 'Blockbuster' enter Xanten on the Rhine after several days of heavy fighting, further to the South, U.S. troops enter Bonn.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1862 - Ironclad ram CSS Virginia destroys USS Cumberland and Congress
1945 - Phyllis Daley becomes first African-American Ensign, Navy Nurse Corps
1958 - Battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is decommissioned, leaving the Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1895.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

March 7 - April 4
Operation RIPPER. Drives the Communists back to the 38th Parallel and retakes Seoul. Seven U.S. divisions participate (U.S. Army's 1st Cavalry Division, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, and the 1st Marine Division.)

March 12th

1900: Australians arrive at Bloemfontein, South Africa - Members of the New South Wales Mounted Rifles, under Lord Roberts, reached Bloemfontein, the capital of the Orange Free State, under Roberts' strategy of taking the war into the Boer Republics.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

538: Witiges, king of the Ostrogoths ends his siege of Rome and retreats to Ravenna, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Roman general, Belisarius.
1938: Anschluss: German troops occupy Austria; annexation declared the following day.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_12

1940: A peace treaty is concluded between Finland and Russia, that formally ends the "Winter War". The terms of this treaty are harsh for Finland, who are forced to cede the entire Karelia Isthmus, and the city of Viipuri, which is renamed Vyborg. The also lose parts of eastern Karelia, Lake Ladoga, the Rybachiy Peninsula and the Petsamo area. The also have to grant the Russian a 30 year lease of the Hangö Peninsula. However, the ever 'generous' Russians drop their recognition of the Kuusinen puppet government in Moscow. The British finalise their plans for the invasion of Norway. Landings are to be made at Narvik and Trondheim in order to secure the rail line to Sweden and the large iron-ore fields.
1942: US troops occupy New Caledonia. The British evacuate their garrison from the Andaman Islands, just off the Burmese coast south of Rangoon. Convoy PQ-12 arrives unscathed at Murmansk, earning the distinction of being the last PQ convoy to sail without losses.
1943: German troops evacuate Vyazma.
1944: The Swedes announce an investigation of the ‘mysterious object which crashed out of the sky’ (a ‘flying torpedo’ V1) from a German research station, 40 miles away.
1945: RAF Bomber Command sets another new record for single target, when 4,851 tons are dropped on Dortmund.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1917 - All American merchant ships to be armed in war zones
1942 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt designates Admiral Ernest J. King to serve as the Chief of Naval Operations, as well as the Commander-in-Chief, United States Fleet to which he was appointed on 30 December 1941.
1956 - In first overseas deployment of Navy missile squadron, VA-83 left on USS Intrepid
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

March 13th

1941: The Luftwaffe carries out heavy raids against the British ports of Glasgow and Liverpool.
1942: The Red Army launches an attack against Heeresgruppe B (von Manstein) from the Kerch peninsula in the eastern Crimea.
1944: The Red Army recaptures Cherson at the mouth of the Dnestr river on the Black Sea.
1945: The Soviet 1st Belorussian Front (Zhukov) captures the Oder fortress of Küstrin, 70 miles east of Berlin, while the 2nd Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky) launches an offensive against the Braunsberg pocket south of Königsberg. Following a 600-bomber raid by the US 8th Air Force, the RAF (with 800 bombers) attacks Swinemünde north of Stettin, a major port of disembarkation for German escapees from the East, causing heavy damage to the docks and killing hundreds of refugees.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1943: Japanese reconnaissance flight over Darwin - In addition to the 64 air raids on Darwin the Japanese made numerous reconnaissance flights over northern Australia.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1895: Award of first submarine building contract to John P. Holland Torpedo Boat Co.
1917: Armed merchant ships authorized to take action against U-boats.
1959: Naval Research Laboratory takes first ultraviolet pictures of sun.
1963: USS Albany (CG-10) and aircraft from Navy Airborne Early Warning Squadron Four from Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico aid five ill crewmembers of Norwegian freighter Jotunfjell.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

1884 - The siege of Khartoum, Sudan begins (ends on January 26, 1885).
1900 - Boer War: British forces occupy Bloemfontein, Orange Free State.
1940 - Russo-Finnish Winter War ended.
1943 - World War II: In Bougainville, Japanese troops end their assault on American forces at Hill 700.
1954 - Battle of Điện Biên Phủ: Viet Minh forces attack the French.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_13

1915: British forces end their three-day assault on the German trenches near the village of Neuve Chapelle in northern France, the first offensive launched by the British in the spring of 1915.
source: http://www.historychannel.com/tdih

1940: Hostilities between the Soviet Union and Finland cease. The Finns have lost 25,000 killed and 45,000 wounded, while the Russians have lost an estimated 200,000 killed and an unknown number of wounded.
1941: The Luftwaffe carries out a heavy raid against Clydebank, near Glasgow. 35,000 of the towns population of 47,000 are made homeless.
1942: The Red Army launches an major attack against Army Group B from the Kerch peninsula in the eastern Crimea.
1943: A Chinese counter-attack throws the Japanese back across the Yangtze River.
1944: British troops take the ‘Golden Fortress’ (Razabil) in Arakan, Burma. U.S. submarine Sandlance sinks a Japanese troopship convoy en route to the Marianas. The Russians announce the capture of Kherson in the southern Ukraine.
1945: A surprise armoured thrust by the British in central Burma, cuts off 3,000 Japanese in Mandalay. Following a 600-bomber raid by the US 8th Air Force, the RAF with 800 bombers attacks Swinemünde North of Stettin, a major port of disembarkation for German refugees from eastern Germany, causing heavy damage to the docks and killing hundreds of civilians. The 2nd Belorussian Front launches an offensive against the Braunsberg pocket to the South of Königsberg.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

March 15th

1944: The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front breaks through German defenses and reaches the Bug river, a 1941 German starting line for Operation Barbarossa.
1945: The Soviet 1st Ukrainian Front begins an offensive in the Ratibor area of Upper Silesia. In the West, attacks by troops of the US First Army to expand the Remagen bridgehead meet with little success.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1943 - Numbered fleet system established
1947 - Ensign John W. Lee becomes first African American officer commissioned in regular Navy. He was assigned to USS Kearsage.
1957 - Airship ZPG-2 lands NAS Key West after 11 day non-stop flight across the Atlantic
1966 - Establishment of River Squadron Five in Vietnam
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

1940:First two women from the Voluntary Aid Detachments organisation enlist in the AIF - Most Voluntary Aids transferred after August 1942 into the new Australian Army Women's Medical Service. Over 200 Voluntary Aids served in the Middle East and Ceylon during the Second World War.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

933: After a ten-year truce, German King Henry I defeats a Hungarian army at the Battle of Riade near the river Unstrut.
1311: Battle of Halmyros: The Catalan Company defeats Walter V of Brienne to take control of the Duchy of Athens, a Crusader state in Greece.
1781: American Revolutionary War: Battle of Guilford Courthouse - Near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina, 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeat an American force numbering 4,400.
1939: World War II: Nazi troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceases to exist.
1943: World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov - the Germans retake the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.
1944: World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino - Allied aircraft bomb the Nazi-held monastery and stage an assault.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_15

1744: France declares war on Britain, in War of the Austrian Succession; called King William's War in North America; to Oct. 14, 1748.
1943: Freetown, Sierra Leone - Canadian Pacific steamer, Empress of Canada, torpedoed by German U-Boat and sunk off the coast of West Africa, with the loss of 400 lives.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Mar&day=15

1941: The British 'Northern Force' having concentrated the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions begin their offensive for Italian fortress of Keren in Eritrea.
1942: U-503 is sunk near the Grand Banks, off Newfoundland, by another aircraft from the US squadron, VP-82.
1944: The Japanese begin crossing the Chindwin for an advance against Kohima. The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division lands on Manus in the Admiralty Islands. The heaviest RAF raid of war is made against Stuttgart, with 3,000 tons dropped from 863 bombers, for the loss of only 36 planes. The allies pound Cassino, dropping 1,250 tons of bombs and firing 195,969 shells in 7 and a half hours, but the troops make slow headway.
1945: U.S. troops report slow progress on Luzon in the Philippines.

Gen. Harold K. Johnson, Army Chief of Staff, reports on his recent visit to Vietnam to President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. He admitted that the recent air raids ordered by President Johnson had not affected the course of the war and said he would like to assign an American division to hold coastal enclaves and defend the Central Highlands. General Johnson also advocated creating a four-division force of Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and U.S. troops to patrol the Demilitarized Zone along the border separating North and South Vietnam and Laos. Nothing ever came of General Johnson's recommendation on the SEATO troops, but President Johnson ordered the 173rd Airborne Brigade to Vietnam in May 1965 and followed it with the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) in September of the same year. These forces, along with the first contingent of U.S. Marines--which had arrived in March--were only the first of a massive American build up. By 1969, there were more than 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?actio...yId=vietnamwar

March 17th - Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all!

1945: The US Third Army (Patton) captures Koblenz on the Rhine. The Ludendorff bridge at Remagen, seized by US troops on March 7, suddenly collapses, killing dozens of US Army engineers working to reenforce it.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1917: Australians occupy Bapaume, Western Front - Originally the objective for the first day of the Somme campaign, Bapaume was occupied by the 5th Division after fighting rearguards from the German retreat of early 1917.
1942: General MacArthur flies to Darwin - Having left the Philippines after the Japanese invasion, General MacArthur was appointed to command the newly created South West Pacific Area. Australia became the base from which he would launch offensive action against the Japanese in the Pacific.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1898 - USS Holland, first practical submarine, launched
1942 - United States Naval Forces Europe established to plan joint operations with British
1959 - USS Skate ( SSN-578 ) surfaces at North Pole
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

45 BC - In his last victory, Julius Caesar defeats the Pompeian forces of Titus Labienus and Pompey the Younger in the Battle of Munda.
624 - Muhammad wins a key victory over his Meccan adversaries in the Battle of Badr.
1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts after George Washington and Henry Knox place artillery overlooking the city.
1913 - The Uruguayan Air Force is founded.
1939 - Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945): The Battle of Nanchang between the Kuomintang and the Japanese breaks out.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_17

1765: Quebec City - First Canadian St. Patrick's Day celebrated by Irish troops serving in the British Army at Quebec.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Mar&day=17

1863: Battle of Kelly's Ford, Virginia - Union cavalry attack Confederate cavalry at Kelly's Ford, Virginia. Although the Yankees were pushed back and failed to take any ground, the engagement proved that the Federal troopers could hold their own against their Rebel counterparts.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do

1941: The 11th African Division captures Jijiga in central Abyssinia, having advanced 744 miles up the Italian built Strada Imperiale in just seventeen days.
1943: The Japanese attack British positions in Arakan, western Burma.
1944: The British blow up the Manipur bridge South of Imphal. New Zealand troops take Cassino railway station.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

2008: Gas-Laden Bombs Sicken Hundreds in Iraq]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070317/D8NU51NG0.html

March 18th

1940: Hitler and Mussolini meet at the Brenner Pass in northern Italy, Mussolini agreeing to Italy's entry into the war "at an opportune moment".
1945: In the East, the Soviet 2nd Belorussian Front (Rokossovsky) captures the fortress city of Kolberg after 68,000 civilian refugees have been evacuated by sea. The US Third Army captures Boppard on the Rhine.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1915: Allied fleet attempts to force the Dardanelles - This was the second allied attempt to force a naval break through of the Turkish defences in the Dardanelles.
1943: Admiral Yamamoto, Imperial Japanese Navy, killed - American Intelligence decoded signals that provided the timetable for Yamamoto's flight. His aircraft was intercepted and shot down near Bougainville by American Lightnings from Guadalcanal. Yamamoto, Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, was the architect of the attack on Pearl Harbour.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1945 - Carriers begin 3 month Okinawa Campaign by destroying aircraft on Kyushu, Japan
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm

1915 - World War I: Massive naval attack in Battle of Gallipoli. Three battleships are sunk during a failed British & French naval attack on the Dardanelles.
2003 - US enters war in Iraq. About $1 billion was taken from Iraq's Central Bank by Saddam Hussein and his family, just hours before the United States began bombing Iraq, biggest bank robbery in history.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_18

1942: Canadian forces establish unified military commands in Atlantic, Newfoundland, Pacific areas. Dawson Creek, BC - US Army Engineers start building Alcan (Alaska) Highway to supply the North West in case of Japanese invasion.
source: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Mar&day=18

1942: US forces occupy the New Hebrides in order to help protect Australia's west coast from direct Japanese invasion.
1943: Chindit forces cross the Irrawaddy in Burma.
1944: A New Zealand tank attack on Monte Cassino is repulsed, with the loss of all 17 tanks. The Germans conduct their heaviest night raid on London since 1941 as the Luftwaffe intensifies the ‘Little Blitz’.
1945: The US Navy hits Kure naval base in the Inland Sea, Southwest of Tokyo. Kolberg falls to the Polish 1st Army, of the 2nd Belorussian Front, although the Germans manage to evacuate 80,000 refugees and wounded first.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

interesting.

March 24th

1941: In Libya, the newly arrived Afrikakorps under Generaloberst Rommel begins an offensive and recaptures El Agheila, the farthest point reached by the British 8th Army (Wavell) in February.
1944: The Luftwaffe attacks London with 90 medium bombers (He-111s and Ju-88s), while the RAF bombs Berlin with 810 heavy Lancasters. In Italy, the US Fifth Army's (Clark) bridgehead at Anzio is bombarded by German heavy long-range guns (Screaming Mimies) and Luftwaffe aircraft using guided bombs, causing severe casualties in men, ships, and equipment. Persistent US and British attacks against the Gustav Line at Cassino are repulsed by the German defenders.
1945: In a major effort (Operation Plunder), units of the British Second Army (Dempsey) cross the lower Rhine at Wesel, followed by 40,000 US and British airborne troops (Operation Varsity). The US Third Army captures Speyer and Ludwigshafen on the upper Rhine. In the East, the 1st Ukrainian Front captures Neisse in Upper Silesia.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1901: Veldfontein - Australians capture Boer convoy and guns at Veldfontein 1942: Port Moresby bombed by Japanese - The Japanese had hoped to occupy Port Moresby as a base from which to cut off shipping to Eastern Australia. Their defeat in the Battle of the Coral Sea thwarted the planned naval attack and invasion against Port Moresby.
source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1918: German forces cross the Somme River, achieving their first goal of the major spring offensive begun three days earlier on the Western Front. Operation “Michael,” engineered by the German chief of the general staff, Erich von Ludendorff, aimed to decisively break through the Allied lines on the Western Front and destroy the British and French forces. The offensive began on the morning of March 21, 1918, with an aggressive bombardment.
1944: Wingate dies in Burma - Maj. Gen. Orde Wingate, leader of the 77th Indian Brigade, also called the Chindits, dies in a transport plane crash. He was 41 years old.
1975: North Vietnamese launch "Ho Chi Minh Campaign" - The North Vietnamese "Ho Chi Minh Campaign" begins. Despite the 1973 Paris Peace Accords cease fire, the fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They successfully overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975. President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese committed a major violation of the Peace Accords. However, by the time the communists had taken Phuoc Long, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon's promises to Saigon.
source: http://www.history.com/tdih.do?

1765 - American Revolutionary War: The Kingdom of Great Britain passes the Quartering Act that requires the 13 American colonies to house British troops.
1944 - In an event later dramatized in the movie The Great Escape, 76 prisoners begin breaking out of Stalag Luft III.
1999 - Kosovo War: NATO commences air bombardment against Yugoslavia, marking the first time NATO has attacked a sovereign country. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_24

1945: Netherlands - Canadian Corporal Fred Topham wins VC for bravery as Canadian paratroopers and air support help Canadian Army cross the Rhine in Operation Varsity; start of the liberation of the Netherlands.
SOURCE: http://www1.sympatico.ca/cgi-bin/on_...mth=Mar&day=24

March 25th

1941: Yugoslavia joins the Tripartite Pact.
1945: The British Second Army captures Wesel which has been nearly 100% destroyed by Allied bombing.
source: http://www.feldgrau.com/march.html

1945: Chowne, VC - Lieutenant Chowne, 2/2 Battalion AIF, originally from Sydney, New South Wales, wins the Victoria Cross posthumously at Dagua, New Guinea. source: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/thismonth/index.asp

1802 - The Treaty of Amiens is signed as a "Definitive Treaty of Peace" between France and United Kingdom.
1821 - Greece declares its independence from the Ottoman Empire, beginning the Greek War of Independence.
1865 - American Civil War: In Virginia, Confederate forces capture Fort Stedman from the Union in a bloody battle.
1971 - Bangladesh Liberation War: Beginning of Operation Searchlight of Pakistan Army against East Pakistani civilians.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_25

1968: Johnson meets with the "Wise Men" - After being told by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that the Vietnam War is a "real loser," President Johnson, still uncertain about his course of action, decides to convene a nine-man panel of retired presidential advisors. The group, which became known as the "Wise Men," included the respected generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, distinguished State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security advisor to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. After two days of deliberation the group reached a consensus: they advised against any further troop increases and recommended that the administration seek a negotiated peace. Although Johnson was initially furious at their conclusions, he quickly came to believe that they were right. On March 31, Johnson announced on television that he was restricting the bombing of North Vietnam to the area just north of the Demilitarized Zone. Additionally, he committed the United States to discuss peace at any time or place. Then Johnson announced that he would not pursue reelection for the presidency. source: http://www.historychannel.com/

1942: US troops occupy the Society Islands.
1944: Manstein persuades Hitler to allow the First Panzer Army to break out to the west of Lvov, not south.
1945: The U.S. Navy begins the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa firing more than half a million shells and rockets in a week. Greek partisans temporarily take over Samos Island from the Italian garrison. The U.S. First Army breaks out of the Remagen bridgehead.
source: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/timelines-index.htm

1813 - USS Essex takes Neryeda, first capture by U.S. Navy in Pacific
1898 - Assist. SECNAV Theodore Roosevelt proposes Navy investigate military application of Samuel Langley's flying machine, beginning naval aviation.
source: http://www.history.navy.mil/wars/datesmar.htm