Massive German Artillery barrages made the terrain of Hill 60 the classic pothole terrain of No Man's Land.
Anthony Quinn was born in Chihuahua. The great actor was raised in El Paso, Texas and East Los Angeles.
Prior to being an actor, he was a boxer and then an architect.
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Operation Babylift concluded.
Congressional staff members, Richard Moose and Charles Miessner, back from South Vietnam released a report stating that "no one including the Vietnamese military believes that more aid could reverse the flow of events."
Their report further stated that evacuation of Americans from Saigon was being resisted by Ambassador Graham Martin and other senior officials.
The cover of Time featured a crying Vietnamese child and the words "Collapse in Viet Nam".
Soviet power lifter Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Widely admired all over the globe, he died at age 69 of heart problems, something not all that uncommon for the very bulky.
The Federal Election Commission commenced operating.
Sikkim voted to merge into India.
Actor Fredric March passed away at age 77. He acted for many years, but is best recalled by me for his role in The Best Years Of Our Lives.
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President Ford ordered the evacuation of Americans from Phnom Penh.
Operation Babylift began as a U.S. effort to bring South Vietnamese orphans to the United States. Widely lauded today (it would be unlikely to take place, frankly, under the current administration), there was some criticism at the time on the assertion that not all the children were actually orphans, and that it was a cultural based decision given that young people were being taken out of their native land to avoid communism.
Gen. Weyand met with President Thiệu in Saigon and promised more American aid to South Vietnam, but declined Thiệu's request for a renewal of American bombing of North Vietnamese forces. As they both well knew, without U.S. air support there was no hope for the ARVN.
South Vietnamese Prime Minister Trần Thiện Khiêm resigned. He would take up exile in France and then the United States, converting to Catholicism there. He died in 2021.
Israel and South Africa signed SECMENT, a secret mutual defense agreement.
Bobby Fischer refused to play a chess match against Anatoly Karpov, and thereby ceded the title of chess champion.
Actress Mary Ure, most famous for her role in Where Eagles Dare, and the wife of Robert Shaw, died of an overdose of alcohol and barbiturates at age 42.
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Huế fell to the NVA, with many of its residents, having endured the horror of NVA and VC occupation during the Tet Offensive, having evacuated the city.
Time's cover featured a ARVN soldier with the caption "How Much Longer?"
Chuck Wepner put in a good performance agains tMuhammad Ali in a fight promoted by Sylvester Stallone.
The beaver became the symbol of Canada.
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Franklin Roosevelt stated in a press conference that Americans would need to sacrifice so that food could be shipped to countries devastated by war.
The 41st Infantry Division landed on Basilan, Philippines
The U-367 hit a mine and sank northeast of Danzig.
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The Mayflower Hotel opened in Washington D.C. It's still operating.
Actor George Kennedy, who entered the Army during World War Two and completed sixteen years of an intended military career before a medical discharge, was born. He died in 2016 at age 91.
It's odd to think that in the planning scene in The Dirty Dozen every single actor actually had been in the service. Kennedy in the Army, Marvin in the Marine Corps, Ryan in the Marine Corps and Borgnine in the Navy.
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The Lost World premiered.
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Parliamentary elections were held in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes with the People's Radical Party (Narodna radikalna stranka or NRS), led by Prime Minister Nikola Pašić gaining 15 seats. The populist party had evolved from a radical populist socialist party into a conservative one.
Actor Jack Lemmon was born in an elevator in Newton, Massachusetts.
Lemmon was a great actor, but personally highly insecure, something that perhaps reflects itself in his portrayal of worried characters, of which there are some very notable performances. He died in 2001 at age 76.
Radical environmentalist Alice Mabel Gray died at age 43.
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The serum run ended in success with Balto and Kassen, and team, coming in at 5:30 a.m.
President Coolidge signed the Air Mail Act of 1925 turning over air mail to private contractors, which in turn was a boon for US civil aviation.
Up to then mail order entity Sears, Roebuck, & Co. opened its first department store at 8:30 a.m. in the morning at its its headquarters at Homan Avenue and Arthington Street in Chicago.
Actress Elaine Stritch was born in Detroit.
I don't think there's any thrill in the world like doing work you're good at.
Elaine Stritch
M'eh.
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The 3d Belorussian Front attacked Königsberg, or "the Kings Mountain" in German. The Lithuanian city is now occupied by Russia as a Baltic access enclave and called Kaliningrad.
Dresden was taken by the Red Army.
The U-763 was scuttled after being damaged in a Soviet air raid.
The US 1st Army took Bullingen.
Erich von Manstein attempted to meet with Hitler, who refused to receive him. Von Manstein was now himself part of the refugee Prussian population.
Tom Selleck was born in Detroit.
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The Przyszowice massacre began in Upper Silesia, Poland. It carried into the next day, during which the Red Army killed between 54 and 69 civilian Poles in the community. The Soviets may have mistaken the Poles for Germans, which still wouldn't justify their actions.
The Battle of the Heiligenbeil Pocket began on the Eastern Front.
The Battle for the Kapelsche Veer began in the Netherlands.
Lt. Audie Murphy performed the actions that resulted in his winning the Medal of Honor. His citation reads:
2d Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machinegun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.
Murphy is famous, of course, for having been the most highly decorated US soldier of World War Two, although that is no longer the case or at least not clearly the case. He was, undoubtedly, heroic.
His life was, overall, quite sad. He came from an impoverished background in which his father abandoned his large family. He acquired hunting skills as a child in part for that reason, as that provided necessary food for the table. His education ended at the 5th Grade level. Seemingly a natural born soldier, he wanted to stay in the post war Army and even contemplated trying to attend West Point, but his lack of an education and physical injuries precluded it. He did remain in the Texas National Guard. He had an explosive temper even as a child, and suffered from PTSD after the war.
After the war, he worked as an actor and songwriter.
He died in 1971 in an airplane crash. His father outlived him, dying in 1975. His beloved mother died in 1941.
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The great American actor Paul Newman was born.
Hitler granted von Rundstedt permission to carry out a drastic retreat in the Ardennes.
The Americans won the Battle of Foy.
The US 8th Air Force resumed strategic operations after a month-long pause caused by the Battle of the Bulge. Their missions encounter heavy German fighter resistance in spite of German losses over the past month.
The Red Army engaged in offensive action nearly everywhere on the Eastern Front, save for Hungary where the Germans were still attempting to relieve Budapest.
The Battle of Ramree Island began off Burma.
The British Second Army began Operation Blackcock with the goal of clearing the Germans from the Dutch towns of Roermond and Sittard and the German town of Heinsberg.
The Twin Star Rocket entered service with the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. It was the only new streamlined train permitted to enter service in the US during World War Two.
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The Jackson-Vanik amendment was signed into law. The amendment was to the Trade Act of 1974 and impacted countries with non market (socialist) countries which restricted freedom of Jewish emigration and other human rights. It stated:
(a) Actions of nonmarket economy countries making them ineligible for normal trade relations, programs of credits, credit guarantees, or investment guarantees, or commercial agreements To assure the continued dedication of the United States to fundamental human rights, and notwithstanding any other provision of law, on or after January 3, 1975, products from any nonmarket economy country shall not be eligible to receive nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations), such country shall not participate in any program of the Government of the United States which extends credits or credit guarantees or investment guarantees, directly or indirectly, and the President of the United States shall not conclude any commercial agreement with any such country, during the period beginning with the date on which the President determines that such country -
(1) denies its citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate;
(2) imposes more than a nominal tax on emigration or on the visas or other documents required for emigration, for any purpose or cause whatsoever; or
(3) imposes more than a nominal tax, levy, fine, fee, or other charge on any citizen as a consequence of the desire of such citizen to emigrate to the country of his choice,
and ending on the date on which the President determines that such country is no longer in violation of paragraph (1), (2), or (3).
The Soviet Union would retaliate by increasing military aid to North Vietnam.
250 square miles of the Grand Canyon National Monument was deeded back to the Havasupai people, while enlarging the part by 687,000 acres.
Danica McKellar, who became famous as child and then teenage actress for her role in The Wonder Years, was born. The series was set in the years 1968 to 1973 and ran from 1988 to 1993.
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