1370: Teutonic knights under Grand Master Winnich von Kniprode defeat the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the Battle of Rudau, although Kniprode's own heavy losses include two Komturen (commanders), including Marschall Henning Schindekopf from a mortal spear wound.
1500: King Johann of Denmark and the Kalmar Union, and Friedrich, co-duke (with brother John) of Schleswig-Holstein, try to suppress a revolt, which had established a "peasants' republic" of Dithmarschen, but they are soundly defeated by the peasants, led by Wulf Isebrand, in the Battle of Hemmingstadt.
1859: Amid the Cochinchina campaign the French navy takes the citadel of Saigon.
1864: CSS H. L. Hunley becomes the first submarine in history to sink an enemy ship when its spar torpedo sinks the screw sloop of war USS Housatonic in Charleston's outer harbor, and killed five of its crew. H.L. Hunley is lost shortly afterward; however, along with all eight of its third crew.
1865: Columbus is burned in the face of the oncoming Yankees as its Confederate defenders abandon the South Carolinian capital.
1871: The victorious Prussian army parades through Paris. The humiliated French swear that that will never happen again.
1944: U.S. Marines and Army troops land on Eniwetok, which will fall in five days, providing the U.S. Navy with a vital Central Pacific harbor and staging base. At the same time, U.S. Navy Task Force 58 strikes at the Japanese Central Pacific base at Truk Atoll in Operation Hailstone, rendering it virtually impotent for the rest of World War II in a matter of two days.
1978: The Troubles continue as the Provisional Irish Republican Army sets off an incendiary bomb at the La Mon restaurant near Belfast, killing 12 and injuring 30 Protestant Irish.
1979: China launches a punitive expedition into the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, starting a short but bloody monthlong war.
