July 9 in Military History

British General Edward Braddock's force is ambushed and destroyed by French and Indian forces near Fort Duquesne. A young George Washington helps lead the survivors to safety, learning lessons he will later apply in the Revolution.

George Washington orders the Declaration of Independence read aloud to the Continental Army in New York, and that evening a mob topples the equestrian statue of King George III on Bowling Green.

The All England Lawn Tennis Club holds the first Wimbledon Championship, a genteel sporting event against a backdrop of the sweeping Cardwell Reforms that were reshaping the British Army from a purchase system into a modern professional force.

Two passenger trains collide head-on near Nashville, Tennessee, killing 101 people, the deadliest rail disaster in U.S. history. The tragedy accelerates railroad safety reforms that benefit military logistics.

Allied forces expand their beachheads on Sicily on the second day of Operation Husky, the largest amphibious operation of the Mediterranean campaign.

After the largest Japanese banzai charge of the war, with 4,300 Japanese soldiers attacking in a suicidal assault, the Battle of Saipan officially ends, giving the U.S. airbases within B-29 range of Japan.

U.S. Air Force C-54 Skymasters flying into Tempelhof Air Base set new single-day tonnage records for the Berlin Airlift, proving the feasibility of supplying an entire city by air indefinitely.

Lieutenant General Walton Walker arrives in Korea to command the U.S. Eighth Army, inheriting the desperate task of stopping the North Korean advance before the Pusan perimeter collapses.

Bosnian Serb forces under General Ratko Mladic launch the final offensive against the UN-designated safe area of Srebrenica, beginning a military advance that would end in the worst atrocity of the Bosnian War.

South Sudan declares independence from Sudan after decades of civil war that killed over 2 million people, becoming the world's newest nation, though civil war would erupt again in 2013.