Military History

June 25 in U.S. military history

Chris Carter
Colonel Lewis B. Puller, USMC. Studies the terrain before advancing to another enemy objective, during operations beyond Inchon, Korea, circa September 1950. He was in command of the Marine Regimental Combat Team One of the First Marine Division. Courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, NHHC Photograph Collection, NH 93034.
Col. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC, studies the terrain before advancing to another enemy objective, during operations beyond Inchon, Korea, circa September 1950. Puller was in command of the Marine Regimental Combat Team One of the First Marine Division. (Photo courtesy of the U.S. Naval Institute)

1917: The first convoy of troop transport ships carrying the American Expeditionary Force arrives in France. More than two million Americans will serve on the battlefields of Western Europe, and over 50,000 will lose their lives during World War I.

1876: A 3,000-strong Native American allied force led by Lakota chief Sitting Bull wipes out five companies of cavalry led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer near the Little Bighorn River in modern-day Montana.

1918: After what Gen. John J. Pershing called “the most considerable engagement American troops had ever had with a foreign enemy,” Marines finally secure Belleau Wood.

1950: North Korean infantry, tanks, and aircraft cross the 38th Parallel into South Korea, launching the Korean War.

1996: Islamists detonate a massive truck bomb outside the Khobar Towers near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American airmen and wounding hundreds more.

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