September 4 in Military History

Forty-four Spanish settlers, escorted by a military guard from the nearby presidio of San Gabriel, founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, the settlement that would become Los Angeles. The founding was part of Spain's military strategy to colonize Alta California and protect its Pacific territories from British and Russian encroachment.

Captain Zachary Taylor, the future twelfth President of the United States, commanded a tiny garrison at Fort Harrison in the Indiana Territory that repulsed a Shawnee and Kickapoo attack led by warriors allied with Tecumseh. Taylor had only 15 effective soldiers, many sick with malaria, when the attackers set fire to a blockhouse. The successful defense was the first US land victory in the War of 1812.

General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia began crossing the Potomac River into Maryland, launching the Confederacy's first invasion of the North. Lee hoped a decisive victory on Union soil would encourage European recognition of the Confederacy and demoralize the Northern public before the November elections. The campaign would culminate in the bloodiest single day in American military history at Antietam on September 17.

The Apache war leader Geronimo surrendered to Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon in southeastern Arizona Territory, ending the last major armed conflict between Native Americans and the United States military.

Twenty nine Royal Air Force Blenheim and Wellington bombers attacked German warships at Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbuttel, the first British air raid on Germany in the Second World War. The attack damaged the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer and the cruiser Emden but cost seven aircraft and revealed serious weaknesses in RAF bombing doctrine. The results shaped the shift to night area bombing over the following year.

President Franklin Roosevelt transferred fifty obsolete U.S. Navy destroyers to the Royal Navy in exchange for 99-year leases on British military bases in the Western Hemisphere. The agreement, made by executive order without Congressional approval, was a crucial step toward American involvement in World War II. It provided desperately needed escorts for Atlantic convoys and gave the U.S. forward bases from Newfoundland to British Guiana.

The destroyer USS Greer exchanged fire with German submarine U-652 south of Iceland, marking the first combat engagement between US and German forces in the Second World War. The Greer had been tracking the U-boat for a British patrol aircraft when U-652 fired two torpedoes at the destroyer, which responded with depth charges. The incident provided President Roosevelt the justification for his shoot on sight order against Axis vessels in US defensive waters.

British forces of the 11th Armoured Division captured the Belgian port city of Antwerp with its vital harbor facilities largely intact. However, the Allies failed to immediately secure the Scheldt Estuary leading to the port, allowing German forces to fortify both banks. This oversight meant Antwerp could not be used as a supply port until late November, contributing to severe logistical shortages that slowed the Allied advance into Germany.

Finland ceased hostilities against the Soviet Union at 7 AM, ending three years of the Continuation War. Under the preliminary terms, Finland had to cede Petsamo and the Karelian Isthmus, pay 300 million dollars in war reparations, and expel all German troops from Finnish territory. The resulting Lapland War pitted former Finnish allies against the Wehrmacht in a hard seven-month winter campaign.

U.S. Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines launched Operation Swift in the Que Son Valley of South Vietnam after a North Vietnamese regiment ambushed a Marine company. The resulting five-day battle was one of the bloodiest engagements for the Marines in 1967, with 127 Marines killed and 362 wounded against an estimated 571 enemy killed.