MAY 18
1798 Ethan Allen Hitchcock (May 18, 1798 â August 5, 1870) was a career United States Army officer and author who had War Department assignments in Washington, D.C., during the American Civil War, in which he served as a major general.
1817 James William “Jim” Denver (October 23, 1817 â August 9, 1892) was an American politician, soldier and lawyer. He served in the California state government, as an officer in the United States Army in two wars, and as a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from California. He served as secretary and Governor of the Kansas Territory during the struggle over whether or not Kansas would be open to slavery. The city of Denver, Colorado, is named after him.
1869 Rupprecht or Rupert, Crown Prince of Bavaria (German language: Kronprinz Rupprecht von Bayern) (18 May 1869 â 2 August 1955) was the last Bavarian Crown Prince. Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, Duke of Bavaria, Franconia and in Swabia, Count Palatine by Rhine, was the last heir apparent to the Bavarian throne. During the first half of the First World War he commanded the 6th Army on the Western Front. From August 1916, he commanded Army Group Rupprecht of Bavaria, which occupied the sector of the front opposite the British Expeditionary Force.
1888 General William Hood Simpson (May 18, 1888 â August 15, 1980) was a senior United States Army officer who served with distinction in both World War I and World War II. He is best known for being the Commanding General of the Ninth United States Army in northwest Europe during World War II. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, where he was ranked 101st out of 103 in the class of 1909, Simpson served in the Philippines, where he participated in suppression of the Moro Rebellion, and in Mexico with the Pancho Villa Expedition in 1916. During World War I he saw active service in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front on the staff of the 33rd Division, for which he was awarded the Army Distinguished Service Medal and Silver Citation Star. Between the wars he served on staff postings, attended the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College, and commanded the 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry Regiment.
1895 Augusto C. Sandino, full name Augusto Nicolás Calderón de Sandino y José de MarÃa Sandino, (May 18, 1895 ⢠Feb 21, 1934) was a Nicaraguan revolutionary and leader of a rebellion between 1927 and 1933 against the United States occupation of Nicaragua. Despite being referred to as a “bandit” by the United States government, his exploits made him a hero throughout much of Latin America, where he became a symbol of resistance to American imperialism. Sandino drew units of the United States Marine Corps into an undeclared guerrilla war. The United States troops withdrew from the country in 1933 after overseeing the election and inauguration of President Juan Bautista Sacasa, who had returned from exile.
1897 Frank Russell Capra (born Francesco Rosario Capra; May 18, 1897 â September 3, 1991) Frank Capra was born in Italy and immigrated to the United States in 1903, at age 5, with his family .After the U.S. Congress declared War on Germany on April 6, 1917, Capra enlisted in the Army, and while he was not a naturalized citizen yet, he was allowed to join the military as part of the Coastal Artillery. Capra became a supply officer for the student soldiers at Throop, who have been enrolled in a Reserve Officers Training Corps program. At his enlistment, Capra discovered he was not an American citizen; he became naturalized in 1920. Within four days after the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Capra quit his successful directing career in Hollywood and received a commission as a major in the United States Army. He also gave up his presidency of the Screen Directors Guild. Being 44 years of age, he was not asked to enlist, but, notes Friedman, “Capra had an intense desire to prove his patriotism to his adopted land.”
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