This Week in (War) History

[Roland99]

Just a little historial FYI....


* June 25, 1876: Determined to resist the efforts of the U.S. Army to force them onto reservations, Indians under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse wipe out Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and much of his 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The Battle of the Little Big Horn was the Indians' greatest victory and the army's worst defeat in the long and bloody Plains Indian War. The Indians were not allowed to revel in the victory for long, however. The army redoubled its efforts and within five years almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. Crazy Horse was killed in 1877 after leaving the reservation without permission. Sitting Bull was shot and killed three years later in 1890 by a Lakota policeman.

* June 27, 1950: On June 27, 1950, President Harry S. Truman announces that he is ordering U.S. air and naval forces to South Korea to aid the democratic nation in repulsing an invasion by communist North Korea. The United States was undertaking the major military operation, he explained, to enforce a United Nations resolution calling for an end to hostilities, and to stem the spread of communism in Asia. In addition to ordering U.S. forces to Korea, Truman also deployed the U.S. 7th Fleet to Formosa (Taiwan) to guard against invasion by communist China and ordered an acceleration of military aid to French forces fighting communist guerrillas in Vietnam.

* July 1, 1863: The largest military conflict in North American history begins this day when Union and Confederate forces collide at Gettysburg. The battle lasted three days and resulted in a retreat to Virginia by Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia.