July 28 in U.S. military history

1779: 40 Continental Marines and Massachusetts Militia, including their leader, Marine Capt. John Welsh, are killed in an unsuccessful assault on Britain’s Fort George at Penobscot Bay, Maine.

1914: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, beginning World War I. Nearly 20 million military and civilians will be dead by conflict’s end four years later.

1915: 340 Marines and sailors land at Port au Prince, Hayti, beginning an occupation that would last until 1934.

1918: Brig. Gen. John A. Lejeune assumes command of the 2d U.S. Army Division in France – becoming the second Marine to command an Army Division (Brig. Gen. Charles A. Doyen was the first).

1932: Following an unsuccessful attempt to remove “Bonus Army” marchers from the nation’s capital by Washington, D.C. police, President Herbert Hoover orders Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Douglas A. MacArthur, to evict the protestors by force. Other notable officers participating were Majors George S. Patton (in command of tanks) and Dwight D. Eisenhower (junior aide to MacArthur).

1943: Eight square miles of Hamburg, Germany and 42,000 citizens are consumed in a firestorm caused by thousands of British incendiary bombs.

1945: A B-25 Mitchell bomber, flying through thick fog over New York City, slams into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building, killing the plane’s three crewmembers, 11 occupants and igniting a four-story blaze.

1965: Pres. Lyndon Johnson sends 50,000 troops to Vietnam, bringing the number to 125,000. To meet the requirements, monthly draft calls are increased from 17,000 to 35,000 – the highest since the Korean War.