1838:
Mexico declares war on France.
1864:
The once proud Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers a devastating defeat when its commander, General John Bell Hood, orders a frontal assault on strong Union positions around Franklin, Tennessee. The loss cost Hood six of his finest generals and nearly a third of his force.
1939:
The Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation.
1942:
During the Battle of Tassafaronga, the last major naval action in the Solomons, U.S. forces prevent the Japanese attempt to reprovision Japanese troops on Guadalcanal. Six U.S. ships are damaged during the action.
1945:
Russian forces take Danzig in Poland and invade Austria.
1950:
President Truman declares that the United States will use the A-bomb to get peace in Korea.
1950:
Lieutenant General Edward Almond, X Corps commander, ordered X Corps to withdraw south to Hungnam.
1965:
Following a visit to South Vietnam, Defense Secretary McNamara reports in a memorandum to President Lyndon B. Johnson that the South Vietnamese government of Nguyen Cao Ky "is surviving, but not acquiring wide support or generating actions."
1972:
Defense Department sources say there will not be a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam until a final truce agreement is signed, and that such an agreement would not affect the 54,000 U.S. servicemen in Thailand or the 60,000 aboard 7th Fleet ships off the Vietnamese coast.
