Jun 18, 1815: Napoleon defeated at Waterloo
At Waterloo in Belgium, Napoleon Bonaparte suffers defeat at the hands of the Duke of Wellington, bringing an end to the Napoleonic era of European history.
The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reigns of the French government and save his nation from collapse. After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 was crowned emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral. By 1807, Napoleon controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.
Beginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsula War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. Exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean, he escaped to France in early 1815 and set up a new regime. As allied troops mustered on the French frontiers, he raised a new Grand Army and marched into Belgium. He intended to defeat the allied armies one by one before they could launch a united attack.
On June 16, 1815, he defeated the Prussians under Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher at Ligny, and sent 33,000 men, or about one-third of his total force, in pursuit of the retreating Prussians. On June 18, Napoleon led his remaining 72,000 troops against the Duke of Wellington's 68,000-man allied army, which had taken up a strong position 12 miles south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo. In a fatal blunder, Napoleon waited until mid-day to give the command to attack in order to let the ground dry. The delay in fighting gave Blucher's troops, who had eluded their pursuers, time to march to Waterloo and join the battle by the late afternoon.
In repeated attacks, Napoleon failed to break the center of the allied center. Meanwhile, the Prussians gradually arrived and put pressure on Napoleon's eastern flank. At 6 p.m., the French under Marshal Michel Ney managed to capture a farmhouse in the allied center and began decimating Wellington's troops with artillery. Napoleon, however, was preoccupied with the 30,000 Prussians attacking his flank and did not release troops to aid Ney's attack until after 7 p.m. By that time, Wellington had reorganized his defenses, and the French attack was repulsed. Fifteen minutes later, the allied army launched a general advance, and the Prussians attacked in the east, throwing the French troops into panic and then a disorganized retreat. The Prussians pursued the remnants of the French army, and Napoleon left the field. French casualties in the Battle of Waterloo were 25,000 men killed and wounded and 9,000 captured, while the allies lost about 23,000.
Napoleon returned to Paris and on June 22 abdicated in favor of his son. He decided to leave France before counterrevolutionary forces could rally against him, and on July 15 he surrendered to British protection at the port of Rochefort. He hoped to travel to the United States, but the British instead sent him to Saint Helena, a remote island in the Atlantic off the coast of Africa. Napoleon protested but had no choice but to accept the exile. With a group of followers, he lived quietly on St. Helena for six years. In May 1821, he died, most likely of stomach cancer. He was only 51 years old. In 1840, his body was returned to Paris, and a magnificent funeral was held. Napoleon's body was conveyed through the Arc de Triomphe and entombed under the dome of the Invalides.
Jun 18, 1812: War of 1812 begins
The day after the Senate followed the House of Representatives in voting to declare war against Great Britain, President James Madison signs the declaration into law--and the War of 1812 begins. The American war declaration, opposed by a sizable minority in Congress, had been called in response to the British economic blockade of France, the induction of American seaman into the British Royal Navy against their will, and the British support of hostile Indian tribes along the Great Lakes frontier. A faction of Congress known as the "War Hawks" had been advocating war with Britain for several years and had not hidden their hopes that a U.S. invasion of Canada might result in significant territorial land gains for the United States.
In the months after President Madison proclaimed the state of war to be in effect, American forces launched a three-point invasion of Canada, all of which were decisively unsuccessful. In 1814, with Napoleon Bonaparte's French Empire collapsing, the British were able to allocate more military resources to the American war, and Washington, D.C., fell to the British in August. In Washington, British troops burned the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in retaliation for the earlier burning of government buildings in Canada by U.S. soldiers.
In September, the tide of the war turned when Thomas Macdonough's American naval force won a decisive victory at the Battle of Plattsburg Bay on Lake Champlain. The invading British army was forced to retreat back into Canada. The American victory on Lake Champlain led to the conclusion of U.S.-British peace negotiations in Belgium, and on December 24, 1814, the Treaty of Ghent was signed, formally ending the War of 1812. By the terms of the agreement, all conquered territory was to be returned, and a commission would be established to settle the boundary of the United States and Canada.
British forces assailing the Gulf Coast were not informed of the treaty in time, and on January 8, 1815, the U.S. forces under Andrew Jackson achieved the greatest American victory of the war at the Battle of New Orleans. The American public heard of Jackson's victory and the Treaty of Ghent at approximately the same time, fostering a greater sentiment of self-confidence and shared identity throughout the young republic.
Jun 18, 1778: British abandon Philadelphia
On this day in 1778, after almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia, the former U.S. capital.
The British had captured Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, following General George Washington's defeats at the Battle of Brandywine and the Battle of the Clouds. British General William Howe had made Philadelphia, the seat of the Continental Congress, the focus of his campaign, but the Patriot government had deprived him of the decisive victory he hoped for by moving its operations to the more secure site of York one week before the city was taken.
While Howe and the British officer corps spent the winter enjoying the luxury of Philadelphia's finest homes, the Continental Army froze and suffered appalling deprivation at Valley Forge. Fortunately for the Patriots, an infusion of capable European strategists, including the Prussian Baron von Steuben; the Frenchmen Marquis de Lafayette and Johann, Baron de Kalb; and Poles Thaddeus Kosciuszko and Casimir, Count Pulaski, aided Washington in the creation of a well-drilled, professional force capable of fighting the British.
The British position in Philadelphia became untenable after France's entrance into the war on the side of the Americans. To avoid the French fleet, General Clinton was forced to lead his British-Hessian force to New York City by land. Loyalists in the city sailed down the Delaware River to escape the Patriots, who returned to Philadelphia the day after the British departure. U.S. General Benedict Arnold, who led the force that reclaimed the city without bloodshed, was appointed military governor. On June 24, the Continental Congress returned to the city from its temporary quarters at York, Pennsylvania.
Jun 18, 1940: Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich
On this day in 1940, Benito Mussolini arrives in Munich with his foreign minister, Count Ciano, to discuss immediate plans with the Fuhrer, and doesn't like what he hears.
Embarrassed over the late entry of Italy in the war against the Allies, and its rather tepid performance since, Mussolini met with Hitler determined to convince his Axis partner to exploit the advantage he had in France by demanding total surrender and occupying the southern portion still free. The Italian dictator clearly wanted "in" on the spoils, and this was a way of reaping rewards with a minimum of risk. But Hitler, too, was in no mood to risk, and was determined to put forward rather mild terms for peace with France. He needed to ensure that the French fleet remained neutral and that a government-in-exile was not formed in North Africa or London determined to further prosecute the war. He also denied Mussolini's request that Italian troops occupy the Rhone Valley, and that Corsica, Tunisia, and Djibouti (adjacent to Italian-occupied Ethiopia) be disarmed.
Ciano recorded in his diary that Mussolini left the meeting frustrated and "very much embarrassed," feeling "that his role is secondary." Ciano also records a newfound respect for Hitler: "Today he speaks with a reserve and perspicacity which, after such a victory, are really astonishing."
Jun 18, 1915: French troops halt fighting in Artois region
After several weeks of heavy fighting, including savage hand-to-hand combat, with little success, French troops halt their attacks on the German trenches in the Artois region of France on June 18, 1915.
Artois, located in northern France between Picardy and Flanders, near the English Channel, was a strategically important battlefield during World War I and saw heavy fighting throughout the conflict. Over the course of 1915, the most significant Allied offensives on the Western Front all took place in Artois. On May 9, French and British troops launched a two-pronged offensive around Vimy Ridge and Aubers Ridge respectively. Known as the Second Battle of Artois, the French attack was modestly successful, though the Germans retreated to better lines while inflicting significant casualties. More importantly, the battle convinced French and British commanders alike that the key to breaking through the German lines was twofold: attacking with sufficient artillery along a broad front, and having supporting formations move in behind the lead troops to carry the attack beyond the front lines, enabling the breakthrough to happen in one swift thrust.
The French consequently began to build up a force of 900 heavy guns, over 1,000 field guns and 37 divisions for another major Artois offensive that fall. Meanwhile, fighting continued throughout May and into June, with the French opening up a diversionary assault on the Somme River, some 40 kilometers to the south, in an attempt to secure the village of Serre. In Artois, the town of Neuville St. Vaast finally fell to the French 5th Army on June 9. On June 16, hoping to press their advantage, the French launched further assaults on the German lines in Artois. Over the next 24 hours, French artillery fired over 300,000 shells around Neuville St. Vaast; the Germans still managed to outgun them, as the higher altitude of their lines allowed them to fire on French positions with greater ease. On June 18, the French command called off the battle in Artois, after many small advances and changes of control of territory, as well as some 18,000 French casualties.
Jun 18, 1983: First American woman in space
From Cape Canaveral, Florida, the space shuttle Challenger is launched into space on its second mission. Aboard the shuttle was Dr. Sally Ride, who as a mission specialist became the first American woman to travel into space. During the six-day mission, Ride, an astrophysicist from Stanford University, operated the shuttle's robot arm, which she had helped design.
Her historic journey was preceded almost 20 years to the day by cosmonaut Valentina V. Tereshkova of the Soviet Union, who on June 16, 1963, became the first woman ever to travel into space. The United States had screened a group of female pilots in 1959 and 1960 for possible astronaut training but later decided to restrict astronaut qualification to men. In 1978, NASA changed its policy and announced that it had approved six women to become the first female astronauts in the U.S. space program. The new astronauts were chosen out of some 3,000 original applicants. Among the six were Sally Ride and Shannon Lucid, who in 1996 set a new space endurance record for an American and a world endurance record for a woman during her 188-day sojourn on the Russian space station Mir.
Jun 18, 1979: Carter and Brezhnev sign the SALT-II treaty
During a summit meeting in Vienna, President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev sign the SALT-II agreement dealing with limitations and guidelines for nuclear weapons. The treaty, which never formally went into effect, proved to be one of the most controversial U.S.-Soviet agreements of the Cold War.
The SALT-II agreement was the result of many nagging issues left over from the successful SALT-I treaty of 1972. Though the 1972 treaty limited a wide variety of nuclear weapons, many issues remained unresolved. Talks between the United States and the Soviet Union began almost immediately after SALT-I was ratified by both nations in 1972. Those talks failed to achieve any new breakthroughs, however. By 1979, both the United States and Soviet Union were eager to revitalize the process. For the United States, fear that the Soviets were leaping ahead in the arms race was the primary motivator. For the Soviet Union, the increasingly close relationship between America and communist China was a cause for growing concern.
In June 1979, Carter and Brezhnev met in Vienna and signed the SALT-II agreement. The treaty basically established numerical equality between the two nations in terms of nuclear weapons delivery systems. It also limited the number of MIRV missiles (missiles with multiple, independent nuclear warheads). In truth, the treaty did little or nothing to stop, or even substantially slow down, the arms race. Nevertheless, it met with unrelenting criticism in the United States. The treaty was denounced as a "sellout" to the Soviets, one that would leave America virtually defenseless against a whole range of new weapons not mentioned in the agreement. Even supporters of arms control were less than enthusiastic about the treaty, since it did little to actually control arms.
Debate over SALT-II in the U.S. Congress continued for months. In December 1979, however, the Soviets launched an invasion of Afghanistan. The Soviet attack effectively killed any chance of SALT-II being passed, and Carter ensured this by withdrawing the treaty from the Senate in January 1980. SALT-II thus remained signed, but unratified. During the 1980s, both nations agreed to respect the agreement until such time as new arms negotiations could take place.
Here's a more detailed look at events that transpired on this date throughout history:
British Botanist Charles Darwin
Statue of soldier, author and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Parliament Square, London
1155 - Frederick I Barbarossa was crowned emperor of Rome. 1429 - French forces defeated the English at the battle of Patay. The English had been retreating after the siege of Orleans. 1621 - The first duel in America took place in the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. 1667 - The Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames toward London. 1778 - Britain evacuated Philadelphia during the U.S. Revolutionary War. 1812 - The War of 1812 began as the U.S. declared war against Great Britain. The conflict began over trade restrictions. 1815 - At the Battle of Waterloo Napoleon was defeated by an international army under the Duke of Wellington. Napoleon abdicated on June 22. 1817 - London's Waterloo Bridge opened. The bridge, designed by John Rennie, was built over the River Thames. 1861 - The first American fly-casting tournament was held in Utica, NY. 1873 - Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote for a U.S. President. 1898 - Atlantic City, NJ, opened its Steel Pier. 1915 - During World War I, the second battle of Artois ended. 1918 - Allied forces on the Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the German army. (World War I) 1925 - The first degree in landscape architecture was granted by Harvard University. 1927 - The U.S. Post Office offered a special 10-cent postage stamp for sale. The stamp was of Charles Lindbergh’s "Spirit of St. Louis." 1928 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean as she completed a flight from Newfoundland to Wales. 1936 - The first bicycle traffic court was established in Racine, WI. 1939 - The CBS radio network aired "Ellery Queen" for the first time. 1942 - The U.S. Navy commissioned its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson. 1948 - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights. 1951 - General Vo Nguyen Giap ended his Red River Campaign against the French in Indochina. 1953 - Seventeen major league baseball records were tied or broken in a game between the Boston Red Sox and the Detroit Tigers. 1953 - Egypt was proclaimed to be a republic with General Neguib as its first president. 1959 - A Federal Court annulled the Arkansas law allowing school closings to prevent integration. 1959 - The first telecast received from England was broadcast in the U.S. over NBC-TV. 1961 - "Gunsmoke" was broadcast for the last time on CBS radio. 1966 - Samuel Nabrit became the first African American to serve on the Atomic Energy Commission. 1975 - Fred Lynn of the Boston Red Sox hit three home runs, a triple and a single in a game against the Detroit Tigers. 1979 - In Vienna, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) 2. 1982 - The U.S. Senate approved the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act for an additional twenty-five years. 1983 - Dr. Sally Ride became the first American woman in space aboard the space shuttle Challenger. 1998 - The Walt Disney Co. purchased a 43% stake in the Web search engine company Infoseek Corp. Disney movies, music and books 1998 - Nine commemorative U.S. postage stamps were reissued. The stamps were considered to be classically beautiful examples of stamp engraving. 1998 - "The Boston Globe" asked Patricia Smith to resign after she admitted to inventing people and quotes in four of her recent columns. 1999 - Walt Disney's "Tarzan" opened. Disney movies, music and books 2000 - In Algiers, Algeria, the foreign ministers of Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a preliminary cease-fire accord and agreed to work toward a permanent settlement of their two-year border war. 2009 - NASA launched the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter/LCROSS probes to the Moon. It was the first American lunar mission since Lunar Prospector in 1998. 2009 - Greenland assumed control over its law enforcement, judicial affairs, and natural resources from the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenlandic became the official language.
1812 The War of 1812 began. 1815 Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by British, German, and Dutch forces. 1873 Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election. 1928 Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. She completed the flight from Newfoundland to Wales in about 21 hours. 1948 The United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted its International Declaration of Human Rights. The General Assembly would give it final approval on Dec. 10, 1948. 1983 Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.
The following links are to web sites that were used to complete this blog entry:
http://www.historyorb.com/today/events.php
http://on-this-day.com/onthisday/thedays/alldays/jun18.htm
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history
http://www.infoplease.com/dayinhistory
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