August 4 in Military History

Twenty-one-year-old George Washington received his commission as a major in the Virginia militia, beginning the military career that would lead him through the French and Indian War, the Continental Army, and the presidency. His early service surveying the Ohio frontier shaped American colonial military doctrine for the next quarter century.

Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton established the Revenue Cutter Service, the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard. The service was created to enforce tariff laws and prevent smuggling, the new nation's primary source of revenue. It was the only armed maritime service until the Navy was reestablished in 1798.

The U.S. Coast Survey completed detailed mapping of San Francisco Bay, providing the navigational charts that would be essential for the rapid military and commercial expansion of the American Pacific coast during the Gold Rush era and subsequent westward military operations.

Britain declared war on Germany after the expiration of an ultimatum demanding German withdrawal from Belgium, bringing the British Empire and its vast global resources into World War I and transforming a European conflict into a truly global war.

After Germany invaded neutral Belgium in violation of the 1839 Treaty of London, Britain declared war on Germany at 11:00 PM London time. The declaration brought the full weight of the Royal Navy, the British Expeditionary Force, and the resources of the British Empire into what would become the First World War.

The Gestapo raided the secret annex at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam and arrested Anne Frank, her family, and four others who had been hiding for over two years. Anne was deported to Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen, where she died in February 1945. Her diary, published after the war, became the most widely read account of the Holocaust.

The British Eighth Army entered Florence, Italy, though fierce German resistance continued in the city. The Germans had destroyed all of Florence's bridges except the Ponte Vecchio, which was blocked with rubble. The liberation of Florence marked a milestone in the Allied advance up the Italian peninsula.

After two years in hiding in the Secret Annex at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam, Anne Frank and seven others were discovered and arrested by the Sicherheitsdienst. The raid, carried out by German and Dutch security police, represented the Nazi occupation infrastructure that Allied forces would dismantle in the coming months through Operations Market Garden and the liberation of the Netherlands.

USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy reported a second attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. Evidence for this second attack was always disputed, sonar operators may have been tracking phantom contacts in rough seas. Nevertheless, President Johnson used both incidents to secure the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution from Congress, authorizing military force in Southeast Asia.

The destroyers USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy reported torpedo attacks by North Vietnamese patrol boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, two days after an earlier engagement. The reported second attack, whose reality remains disputed, prompted Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing American escalation in Vietnam.