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• Mar 11 1863 - Civil War: Union troops under General Ulysess S. Grant give up their preparations to take Vicksburg after failing to pass Fort Pemberton north of Vicksburg.

• Mar 11 1865 - Civil War: Union General William Sherman and his forces occupy Fayetteville N.C.

• Mar 11 1942 - WWI: General Douglas MacArthur leaves Bataan for Australia.

• Mar 12 1920 - USS H-1 (SS-28) foundered and sunk off Santa Margarita Island, California. 4 died.

• Mar 14 1947 The United States signs a 99-year lease on naval bases in the Philippines.

• Mar 14 1951 - Korean War: U.N. forces recapture Seoul for the second time during the Korean War.

• Mar 14 1954 - The Viet Minh launch an assault against the French Colonial Forces at Dien Bien Phu.

• Mar 14 1943 - WWII: The Kraków Ghetto is 'liquidated'.

• Mar 14 1864 - Civil War: Union troops occupy Fort de Russy, Louisiana.

• Mar 14 1915 - WWI: German cruiser Dresden blows itself up near coast of Chile.

• Mar 14 1916 - WWI: Battle of Verdun - German attack on Mort-Homme ridge West of Verdun.

• Mar 15 1781 - Revolutionary War: Battle of Guilford Court House, SC 1,900 British troops under General Charles Cornwallis defeat an American force numbering 4,400.


• Mar 15 1916 - President Woodrow Wilson sends 12,000 United States troops over the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue Pancho Villa.


• Mar 15 1939 - World War II: German troops occupy the remaining part of Bohemia and Moravia; Czechoslovakia ceases to exist.


• Mar 15 1943 - WWII: USS Triton (SS-201) sunk either by Japanese destroyer Satsuki or submarine chaser Ch 24 north of Admiralty Islands. 74 killed.


• Mar 15 1943 - World War II: Third Battle of Kharkov - the Germans retake the city of Kharkov from the Soviet armies in bitter street fighting.


• Mar 15 1944 - WWII: Battle of Monte Cassino. Cassino, Italy is destroyed by Allied bombing.

• Mar 15 1989 - VA elevated to a Cabinet-level agency under Public Law 100-527.

• Mar 16 1935 - Adolf Hitler orders Germany to rearm herself in violation of the Versailles Treaty.


• Mar 16 1802 - The Army Corps of Engineers is established to found and operate West Point Academy.


• Mar 16 1942 - WWII: The first V-2 rocket test launch. It explodes at liftoff.


• Mar 16 1945 - WWII: The Battle of Iwo Jima ends but small pockets of Japanese resistance persist.


• Mar 16 1968 - Vietnam: In the My Lai massacre, between 350 and 500 Vietnamese villagers: men, women, and children are killed by American troops.


• Mar 17 1776 - American Revolution: British forces evacuate Boston, Massachusetts.

  •  Mar 17 1942 - WWII: Holocaust: The first Jews from the Lviv Ghetto (western Ukraine) are gassed at the Belzec death camp (eastern Poland).

• Mar 17 1945 - WWII: The Ludendorff Bridge in Remagen, Germany collapses, ten days after its capture.


• Mar 17 1973 - Vietnam: First POWs are released from the "Hanoi Hilton" in Hanoi, North Vietnam.


• Mar 18 1945 - WWII: 1,250 U.S. bombers attack Berlin.


• Mar 19 1944 - WWII: The German 352nd Infantry Division deploys along the coast of France.


• Mar 19 1945 - WWII: Adolf Hitler issues his "Nero Decree" ordering all industries, military installations, shops, transportation facilities and communications facilities in Germany to be destroyed.


• Mar 19 1945 - WWII: Off the coast of Japan, a dive bomber hits the aircraft carrier USS Franklin, killing 724 of her crew. Badly damaged, the ship is able to return to the U.S. under her own power.


• Mar 19 2002 - Afghanistan: Operation Anaconda ends (started on March 2) after killing 500 Taliban and al Qaeda fighters with 11 allied troop fatalities.


• Mar 20 1942 - Holocaust: in Rohatyn, western Ukraine, the German SS murder 3,000 Jews, including 600 children, annihilating 70% of Rohatyn's Jewish ghetto.

• Mar 20 1942 - WW II: General Douglas MacArthur, at Terowie, South Australia, makes his famous speech regarding the fall of the Philippines, in which he says: "I came out of Bataan and I shall return".

• Mar 20 1945 - WWII: USS Kete (SS-369) missing. Most likely sunk by a mine or a Japanese submarine perhaps RO 41) east of Okinawa. 87 killed.


• Mar 20 1969 - Vietnam: U.S president Nixon proclaims he will end Vietnam war in 1970.


• Mar 20 2003 - Iraq: Invasion of Iraq by American and British led coalition begins without United Nations support and in defiance of world opinion.

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