April 16 in Military History

British government forces under the Duke of Cumberland decisively defeated the Jacobite army of Bonnie Prince Charlie on Drummossie Moor near Inverness, Scotland. The battle lasted barely an hour and ended the Jacobite rising of 1745, the last pitched battle fought on British soil.

The Confederate Congress passed the first conscription act in American history, drafting white men aged 18-35 for three years of military service. The act was deeply controversial and included provisions allowing wealthy men to hire substitutes.

French General Robert Nivelle launched a massive offensive along the Aisne River against entrenched German positions on the Chemin des Dames ridge. The attack would collapse within days and trigger widespread mutinies in the French Army.

Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann accidentally discovered the psychoactive effects of LSD-25 at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel. The compound became the subject of intense Cold War military and intelligence interest, from the U.S. Army Chemical Corps Edgewood Arsenal program to the CIA's MKULTRA, before being classified as having no accepted military use.

Soviet forces under Marshal Zhukov launched a massive assault on the Seelow Heights, the last major defensive line before Berlin. Over one million Soviet troops attacked in one of the bloodiest battles of WWII's final weeks.

The destroyer USS Laffey (DD-724) survived 22 individual kamikaze attacks and conventional bomb strikes off Okinawa, earning the nickname "The Ship That Would Not Die." Despite being hit by six kamikazes and four bombs, the crew kept fighting and the ship remained afloat.

The British Second Army's XXX Corps captured the German naval base at Wilhelmshaven, home of the surviving major warships of the Kriegsmarine. German admirals began scuttling vessels to prevent their capture.

A massive explosion of ammonium nitrate aboard the cargo ship SS Grandcamp in Texas City killed nearly 600 people and injured thousands. Many of the dead were volunteer firefighters and spectators. It remains one of the deadliest industrial accidents in US history.

USS Oklahoma City and USS Worden led a surface action group that bombarded North Vietnamese military installations at Dong Hoi, Hon La, and Vinh in response to the Easter Offensive. The operation was the first major surface bombardment of North Vietnam since 1968.

U.S. Navy surface action groups and carrier USS Enterprise moved into final positions for Operation Praying Mantis, the retaliatory strike against Iranian naval and oil platform targets set for April 18.