The Continental Congress creates the Continental Army when it votes to raise ten companies of riflemen, two each from Maryland and Virginia and six from Pennsylvania, as well as taking responsibility for all New England forces.
The Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, ends in humiliating surrender with no honors of war. 3,371 Continentals and militia are captured, including Major General Benjamin Lincoln and six other general officers.
Former Kentucky militiaman Meriwether Lewis joins the 2d Sub-legion as an infantry ensign.
During the Second Barbary War, Company H, Corps of Artillery, under the command of Captain Samuel B. Archer serve aboard Commodore Stephen Decatur’s flagship, USS Guerriere, when it captures the Algerian flagship and sails into Algiers harbor to demand release of American prisoners. Among the officers are Lieutenant James Monroe, nephew of the future President.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders the Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The terms are generous, and Lee’s surrender all but brings the Civil War to an end.
The siege of the foreign legations in Peking (today’s Beijing), China, by the anti-foreigner Boxers begins. An international relief force will form that includes American soldiers and marines to relieve the siege.
Former U.S. Army surgeon Leonard Wood is promoted to lieutenant general and named Chief of Staff of the Army.
The German High Command surrenders all land, sea, and air forces unconditionally to the Allies with all hostilities officially terminated. The Germans surrender to the Soviets the following day in Berlin.
Occupation of West Germany ends with the new nation’s entry into NATO.
The M60 tank goes into production and serves as the Army’s main battle tank for the next twenty years.
The first combat troops arrive in South Vietnam with the 173d Airborne Brigade deploying from Okinawa.
U.S. and South Vietnamese forces cross the border into Cambodia to destroy enemy logistical bases in Operation ROCKCRUSHER.
In Operation FREQUENT WIND, the largest helicopter evacuation in history, eighty-one helicopters carry 978 Americans and almost 1,100 Vietnamese to ships offshore as Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese.
Operation EAGLE CLAW, a joint service effort to rescue American hostages held at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran, is aborted when some of the mission’s helicopters suffer mechanical failure. After the order to abort the mission is issued, an RH-53 helicopter and EC-130 airplane collide, killing eight Americans and injuring several others.
An engagement between Company C, 2d Battalion, 503d Infantry, in northern Zabul, Afghanistan, only ends when the Taliban can no longer continue resistance, having lost seventy-six fighters. This signifies to the incoming new commander of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, Lieutenant General Karl Eikenberry, that the Taliban had been reconstituting its forces while allied troops were focused on governance and development of Afghanistan.
Army Forces Cyber Command, soon renamed Army Cyber Command, becomes the Army’s contribution to U.S. Cyber Command.
Captain Douglas Linn Hickok, New Jersey Army National Guardsman and physician assistant, is the first U.S. service member to die of the novel coronavirus.
