May 12 in Military History

Major General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered Charleston, South Carolina, to the British along with approximately 5,500 Continental troops, the largest American surrender until Bataan in 1942. The loss devastated the Patriot cause in the South and shifted the war's focus to partisan warfare led by Francis Marion and others.

Nearly 20 hours of continuous hand-to-hand combat at Spotsylvania Court House, the most intense close-quarters fighting in American military history.

Union and Confederate forces fought the final land engagement of the Civil War at Palmito Ranch, Texas, more than a month after Lee's surrender at Appomattox. Ironically, the Confederates won this last battle, though it had no strategic significance.

The semi-rigid airship Norge, commanded by Umberto Nobile with Roald Amundsen aboard, overflew the North Pole during the first confirmed crossing of the Arctic Ocean by air, a feat that demonstrated the long-range potential of lighter-than-air military craft.

Over 230,000 German and Italian troops surrendered in Tunisia, ending the North African campaign. The "Tunisgrad," as the Germans called it, was the largest Axis surrender after Stalingrad and cleared the way for the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy.

The Soviet Union lifted its blockade of West Berlin after 11 months, conceding defeat in the first major crisis of the Cold War. The Berlin Airlift had delivered over 2.3 million tons of supplies in 278,000 flights, proving that the Western Allies would not abandon their commitments.

Khmer Rouge forces seized the American container ship SS Mayaguez in international waters off Cambodia. President Ford ordered a military rescue, and Marines assaulted Koh Tang Island in the last official combat of the Vietnam War. Forty-one Americans died in the operation, more than the 39 crew members rescued.

Khmer Rouge naval patrol boats seized the U.S.-flagged container ship SS Mayaguez in international waters off the Cambodian coast, initiating the three-day crisis that ended with the last American combat action of the Vietnam era.

VMFA-314 "Black Knights" at Marine Corps Air Station El Toro became the first operational fleet squadron to receive the F/A-18A Hornet, beginning the transition away from the F-4 Phantom in Marine tactical aviation.

The guided-missile destroyer USS Cole, damaged by an al-Qaeda suicide boat bomb in Aden harbor on October 12, 2000, completed her 14-month repair period at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi and returned to operational service.