Birthday of the Marine Corps.
November 10, 1775(congress raises 2 battalions of Marines.)

Birth Place of the Marine Corps.
Tun Tavern, Philadelphia, PA.

First Marine Corps Officer/Commandant.
Captain Samuel L. Nicholas.

Marines before the Revolution.
4 battalions of Marines led by British officers.
3,000 volunteers.
1763 French and Indian War.
Boston Tea Party.

Marines mission aboard ships.
Gunners, Sharpshooter, Train landing/boarding parties, Protect officers.

First amphibious landing.
March 3, 1776 New Providence Bahamas in the town of Nassau.
Marines left from the U.S.S. Alfort/220 Marines/50 Sailors.

Marine Corps uniform/ term Leatherneck.
Uniform was announced after Treaty of Paris was signed.
Term Leatherneck was given to the Marines for the leather strap worn around their necks to stay protected from sword slashes to the neck.

Serving with General George Washington.
April 1776, 2Lt. John Fitzpatrick, the first Marine to be killed in combat.
Major Samuel Nicholas/300 Marines fought at the battle of Trenton.

July 4, 1776.
Independence Day.

Treaty of Paris April 11, 1783.
Ended the Revolutionary War.

Marine Corps after the Revolutionary War.
Only 4 warships remained that were still servicable.
1785-1798 the Marine Corps was disbanded.

Re-establishing of the Marine Corps.
France seizes American ships.
This starts an unofficial war.
July 11, 1798 John Adams declares the Marine Corps back service.

Lt.Col. William Ward Burrows.
July 12, 1798 John Adams appoints Lt.Col. William Ward Burrows as the first official Commandant of the Marine Corps, but second Commandant overall.

HQMC moved to Washington D.C.
July 1801, the HQ of the Marine Corps was moved from Philadelphia to Washington D.C.
Also the "Presidents Own" band was created.

War with France 178-1801.
Marines were the main fighting force.

President Thomas Jefferson - U.S. refuses to pay 2 million dollars to the Barbary Pirates.
Barbary Pirates blockade Tripoli.
Pirates declare war on U.S. for not paying.

Lt. Presley O'Bannon - Captures Fortress at Tripoli.
1805 Presley O'Bannon assaulted the fortess at Tripoli and the capitol city.
He secures the fortress and raises the Stars and Stripes in the old world.
400 Marines participated in the attack.

Marine Corps officers sword - Mameluke.
Given to Presley O'Bannon as a gift for defeating the blockade.

War of 1812 with Britain.
10 officers and 483 Marines defeated the British on both land and sea.
The British no longer had control over the Great Lakes.

Battle of Bladensburg and New Orleans.
The British assaulted through Maryland and burned Washington D.C. to the ground.
The Commandants house was not burned because the British respected the valor of the Marines.
Marines first fight under the command of Army officers.

1820 Col. Archibald Henderson, Commandant 1820 - 1859(38 years)
Served for more years than any Commandant in Marine Corps history.

Florida Indian Wars.
1835 Trail of Tears

Mexican War.
1846 the largest amphibious landing in history at Vera Cruz, Mexico City.
1847 the battle of Chapultepec.
The Stripe was given to the Marines that fought in that battle because this was the iest battle of the war.

Harpers Ferry.
October 16, 1859 John Brown invaded the armory at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

Civil War.
April 12, 1861 Confederates attacked Fort Sumpter.
3,900 Marines participated in the attack.
Cpl. John Mackie, first to win the Medal of Honor.
During the course of the war 17 more soldiers would receive the Medal of Honor.

Semper Fi!

Awesome!

One story you didn't get to on there was how the term "Devil Dogs" came to be... ah, I love sharing that story with friends who think Marines are bullet sponges and nothing else.

Mexican War.
1846 the largest amphibious landing in history at Vera Cruz, Mexico City.
1847 the battle of Chapultepec.
The Stripe was given to the Marines that fought in that battle because this was the iest battle of the war.

Went to the fort at Chapultepec last week while in Mexico City!!

Semper Fi.

Errors in post on Marine History:

In the Quasi war with France Marines were not the main fighting force. The battles were all naval battles. The US Navy was the main fighting force.

The US captured the city of Derna in the war with Tripoli, not the main fortress of Tripoli. The force of 500 mercenaries was recruited by retired Army officer William Eaton. Only eight Marines participated in the capture of Derna, Lt. O'Bannon, one sergeant and six privates.

Errors in post on Marine History:

In the Quasi war with France Marines were not the main fighting force. The battles were all naval battles. The US Navy was the main fighting force.

The US captured the city of Derna in the war with Tripoli, not the main fortress of Tripoli. The force of 500 mercenaries was recruited by retired Army officer William Eaton. Only eight Marines participated in the capture of Derna, Lt. O'Bannon, one sergeant and six privates.

More notes about Marine Corps History, specifically the War of 1812:

The Marine Corps involvement in the War of 1812 on the Great Lakes and in Canada was minimal. They did not participate in the Battle of the Thames, the battles on the Niagara Peninsula or the Battle of Plattsburgh. Oliver Hazard Perry's "marines" in the Battle of Lake Erie were Kentucky riflemen from William Henry Harrison's army. Soldiers from Alexander Macomb's force served as the "marines" in Thomas MacDonough's squadron in the Battle of Lake Champlain.

In the British attempt on Baltimore, which was the main part of the British invasion of the Chesapeake, Marines did not participate in the Battle of Godly Wood. Godly Wood was a battle which stalled the advance of the British ground force on Baltimore. 3000 American Militiamen opposed a force of 4500 British regulars, marines and sailors. Technically they were defeated and driven from the field. They did delay the advance of the British ground force on Baltimore, inflicted about 300 casualties on the British(nearly twice as many suffered by the Americans, and, most significantly, killed Major General Robert Ross, commander of the British ground force. The death of General Ross dampened the momentum of the British attack.

Fort McHenry, which blocked the entrance of the British fleet into Baltimore Harbor, was a US Army force. It was the US Army which defended the Star Spangled Banner.

Clarification on the Mexican War:

The landing at Vera Cruz was an Army/Navy operation. The Navy provided the transports and landing craft. About 10000 to 12000 Soldiers, commanded by Army General Winfield Scott landed and began the siege of Vera Cruz. The Navy landed a battery of heavy guns to provide fire power the Army needed. Marines were part of the gun crews for those guns.

After Vera Cruz surrendered, About 8000 to 9000 Soldiers under General Scott advanced inland. They encountered a numerically superior Mexican force entrenched at the pass of Cerro Gordo. Scott's Army routed the Mexicans and then advanced to Jalapa.

Scott had to release several thousand troops whose enlistments had expired. He was reinforced to a strength of 12000 to 13000. The reinforcements included one battalion of Marines which numbered fewer than 400 officers and men. Scott's Division Commanders were Generals William Worth, David Twiggs, Gideon Pillow and John Quitman.The Marine Battalion was assigned to Qultman's Division.

Scott then advanced on Mexico City. Scott's soldiers fought and won three battles against numerically superior Mexican forces, Contreras, Churusbuco, and El Molino del Rey. Quitman's division was not involved in any of those battles. Quitman's division guarded Scott's supply wagons.

Quitman's Division and Pillow's Division were given the mission of assaulting Chapultepec Castle. Units from Worth's Division were designated to support Pillow. Quitman's division was led by two storming parties, one including 40 marines, the other commanded by Marine Major Levi Twiggs who was related to General David Twiggs.

The Mexicans initially stopped the attacks of Pillow and Quitman. Troops from Worth's division joined the attack. Soldiers from the three divisions, Quiltman, Pillow and Worth, finally scaled the walls. One company of Marines was with them. However, the majority of the troops who scaled the walls, fought and subdued the garrison and raised the American flag.

According to THE BATTLE HISTORY OF THE US MARINES: A FELLOWSHIP OF VALOR by Joseph H. Alexander, Don Horan, and Norman C. Stahl, pg. 12-13, the performance of the Marine Battalion at Chapultepec overall was not particularly distinguished. Parts of this book may be read on Google Books.

Regarding the Civil War:

From SniperWannabee: "April 12, 1861 Confederates attacked Fort Sumpter(sic).
3,900 Marines participated in the attack."

This is a quote from an online article, THE CONFEDERATE MARINE CORPS, the url of which http://militaryhistory.suite101.com/...e_marine_corps.

"Never stronger than six hundred men, they[the Confederate Marine Corps] fought as grey coated leathernecks to the honor of the Corps."

Perhaps Sniperwannabe meant that 3900 United States Marines fought for the Union in the Civil War. To put this in perspective, The Army of the Potomac, which was not the only Army the Union had in the field at the time, numbered almost 94,000 at the Battle of Gettysburg. They suffered 3155 deaths in that one Battle.

The only Union troops at Fort Sumter were the 80 to 90 Soldiers in the garrison commanded by Army Major Robert Anderson.

Correction about the Revolutionary War.

No Marines fought at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776.

On January 2, 1777, General Cornwallis advanced on Trenton from Princeton. He was opposed by a force under Army Colonel Edward Hand. Colonel Hand's force included the Marine Battalion. It was a unit of Soldiers, Pennsylvania riflemen, who played the major part. At stream crossings, the riflemen would open fire on the British at a range which exceeded the range of the British muskets. The British would deploy, advance on the riflemen who would fall back. The British would reform and then march on the next crossing where the action would be repeated. The British finally entered Trenton to find Washington's Army entrenched behind Assunpink Creek. The British assaulted the American position and were beaten back. All told, the British took several hundred casualties during this second Battle of Trenton. The casualties, the fatigue of his troops caused by the action during the day, the repulse at Assunpink Creek and the lateness of the hour all resulted in Cornwallis' decision to delay the attack on Washington until 3 January 1777.

During the night of 2 to 3 January, Washington slipped around Cornwallis' flank and attacked the British rear guard at Princeton, winning a second victory over the British. Washington then moved his Army to winter quarters in Morristown, NJ. The victories at Trenton and Princeton forced the British to abandon all of New Jersey save for a few outposts near New York.

The Marine Battalion fought at Princeton. it took many casualties and was eventuially disbanded with the survivors being integrated into the Army.