On June 18, 1863 – After repeated acts of insubordination, General John McClernand was relieved by General Ulysses S. Grant during the siege of Vicksburg.

1864 – Union war hero Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is severely wounded at Petersburg, Virginia, while leading an attack on a Confederate position. Chamberlain, a college professor from Maine, took a sabbatical to enlist in the Union army. As commander of the 20th Maine, he earned distinction at Gettysburg when he shored up the Union left flank and helped save Little Round Top for the Federals. His bold counterattack against the Confederates earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. His wound at Petersburg was the most serious of the six he received during the war. Doctors in the field hospital pronounced his injury fatal, and Union General Ulysses S. Grant promoted him to brigadier general as a tribute to his service and bravery. Miraculously, he survived and spent the rest of the Petersburg campaign convalescing at his Maine home. He returned to the Army of the Potomac in time for Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, and he was given the honor of accepting the arms of the Confederate infantry. Chamberlain returned to Maine after the war and served four terms as governor. He then became president of Bowdoin College—the institution that had refused to release him for military service—and held the position until 1883. Chamberlain remained active in veterans’ affairs and, like many soldiers, attended regimental reunions and kept alive the camaraderie created during the war. He was present for the 50th anniversary of Gettysburg in 1913, one year before he died of an infection from the wound he suffered at Petersburg.

1903 – 1st transcontinental auto trip began in SF and arrived in NY 3-months later. [see Jul 26]

1918 – Allied forces on the Western Front began their largest counter-attack against the spent German army.

1942 – The U.S. Navy commissioned its first black officer, Harvard University medical student Bernard Whitfield Robinson.

1945 – On instructions from Emperor Hirohito, Prime Minister Suzuki tells the Japanese Supreme Council that it is the intention of Hirohito to seek peace with the Allies as soon as possible.

1945 – On Okinawa, the remnants of the Japanese 32nd Army continue to offer determined resistance to attacks of the US 3rd Amphibious Corps and the US 24th Corps. Lt. General Simon Bolivar Buckner, commanding US 10th Army, is killed by Japanese artillery fire while he is on a visit to the front line, inspecting troops of the US 8th Marine Division. He is temporarily replaced by General Geiger, commanding the US 3rd Amphibious Corps.

1945 – Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower received a tumultuous welcome in Washington, where he addressed a joint session of Congress. Eisenhower went on to meet Pres. Harry Truman and the 2 men established a warm relationship that later soured. In 2001 Steve Neal authored “Harry and Ike: The Relationship That Remade the Postwar World.”

1965 – For the first time, 28 B-52s fly-bomb a Viet Cong concentration in a heavily forested area of Binh Duong Province northwest of Saigon.

1983 – From Cape Canaveral, Florida, the space shuttle Challenger is launched into space on its second mission with Dr. Sally Ride, who as a mission specialist became the first American woman to travel into space.

1996 – Federal prosecutors in California charged Theodor J. Kaczynski, the UNABOM suspect, in four of the Unabomber attacks He was indicted by a federal grand jury for two killings in Sacramento.