July 12, 1862

President Lincoln signs a measure into law providing for awarding a Medal of Honor on behalf of the Army. Earlier, Public Resolution 82, containing a provision for a Navy Medal of Valor, was signed into law by Lincoln on December 21, 1861. The Navy Medal of Valor also became known as the Medal of Honor. When originally enacted, the medal was only prescribed for enlisted ranks.

July 13 1943:

The Battle of Kursk, involving some 6,000 tanks, two million men, and 5,000 aircraft,
ends with the German offensive repulsed by the Soviets at heavy cost.

In early July, Germany and the USSR concentrated their forces near the city of Kursk in western Russia,
site of a 150-mile-wide Soviet pocket that jutted 100 miles into the German lines.
The German attack began on July 5, and 38 divisions, nearly half of which were armored, began moving from the south and the north.
However, the Soviets had better tanks and air support than in previous battles,
and in bitter fighting Soviet antitank artillery destroyed as much as 40 percent of the German armor,
which included their new Mark VI Tiger tanks.
After six days of warfare concentrated near Prokhorovka, south of Kursk,
the German Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge called off the offensive,
and by July 23 the Soviets had forced the Germans back to their original positions.

In the beginning of August, the Soviets began a major offensive around the Kursk salient,
and within a few weeks the Germans were in retreat all along the eastern front.

July 14, 1969

On this date, Honduras and El Salvador went to war. The 100 hour war took 6000 lives, 12,000 were wounded, and 50,000 people rendered homeless The cause was ostensibly the World Cup matches between Honduras and El Salvador qualifying for Mexico '70.

Early on the morning of July 14, 1969, concerted military action began in what came to be known as the Soccer War. The Salvadoran air force attacked targets inside Honduras and the Salvadoran army launched major offensives along the main road connecting the two nations and against the Honduran islands in the Golfo de Fonseca. At first, the Salvadorans made fairly rapid progress. By the evening of July 15, the Salvadoran army, which was considerably larger and better equipped than its Honduran opponent, pushed the Honduran army back over eight kilometers and captured the departmental capital of Nueva Ocotepeque. Thereafter, the attack bogged down, and the Salvadorans began to experience fuel and ammunition shortages. A major reason for the fuel shortage was the action of the Honduran air force, which--in addition to largely destroying the smaller Salvadoran air force--had severely damaged El Salvador's oil storage facilities.

A ceasefire was called by the OAS the next day but El Salvador resisted the call and the war went on. Finally, with the Salvadoran army bogging down, a cease-fire was arranged on the night of July 18; it took full effect only on July 20.

July 14, 1789 : French revolutionaries storm Bastille

Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops storm and dismantle the
Bastille, a royal fortress that had come to symbolize the tyranny of
the Bourbon monarchs. This dramatic action signaled the beginning of
the French Revolution, a decade of political turmoil and terror in
which King Louis XVI was overthrown and tens of thousands of people,
including the king and his wife Marie Antoinette, were executed.

The Bastille was originally constructed in 1370 as a bastide, or
"fortification," to protect the walled city of Paris from English
attack. It was later made into an independent stronghold, and its
name--bastide--was corrupted to Bastille. The Bastille was first used
as a state prison in the 17th century, and its cells were reserved for
upper-class felons, political troublemakers, and spies. Most prisoners
there were imprisoned without a trial under direct orders of the king.
Standing 100 feet tall and surrounded by a moat more than 80 feet
wide, the Bastille was an imposing structure in the Parisian
landscape.

By the summer of 1789, France was moving quickly toward revolution.
There were severe food shortages in France that year, and popular
resentment against the rule of King Louis XVI was turning to fury. In
June, the Third Estate, which represented commoners and the lower
clergy, declared itself the National Assembly and called for the
drafting of a constitution. Initially seeming to yield, Louis
legalized the National Assembly but then surrounded Paris with troops
and dismissed Jacques Necker, a popular minister of state who had
supported reforms. In response, mobs began rioting in Paris at the
instigation of revolutionary leaders.

Bernard-Jordan de Launay, the military governor of the Bastille,
feared that his fortress would be a target for the revolutionaries and
so requested reinforcements. A company of Swiss mercenary soldiers
arrived on July 7 to bolster his garrison of 82 soldiers. The Marquis
de Sade, one of the few prisoners in the Bastille at the time, was
transferred to an insane asylum after he attempted to incite a crowd
outside his window by yelling: "They are massacring the prisoners; you
must come and free them." On July 12, royal authorities transferred
250 barrels of gunpowder to the Bastille from the Paris Arsenal, which
was more vulnerable to attack. Launay brought his men into the
Bastille and raised its two drawbridges.

On July 13, revolutionaries with muskets began firing at soldiers
standing guard on the Bastille's towers and then took cover in the
Bastille's courtyard when Launay's men fired back. That evening, mobs
stormed the Paris Arsenal and another armory and acquired thousands of
muskets. At dawn on July 14, a great crowd armed with muskets, swords,
and various makeshift weapons began to gather around the Bastille.

Launay received a delegation of revolutionary leaders but refused to
surrender the fortress and its munitions as they requested. He later
received a second delegation and promised he would not open fire on
the crowd. To convince the revolutionaries, he showed them that his
cannons were not loaded. Instead of calming the agitated crowd, news
of the unloaded cannons emboldened a group of men to climb over the
outer wall of the courtyard and lower a drawbridge. Three hundred
revolutionaries rushed in, and Launay's men took up a defensive
position. When the mob outside began trying to lower the second
drawbridge, Launay ordered his men to open fire. One hundred rioters
were killed or wounded.

Launay's men were able to hold the mob back, but more and more
Parisians were converging on the Bastille. Around 3 p.m., a company of
deserters from the French army arrived. The soldiers, hidden by smoke
from fires set by the mob, dragged five cannons into the courtyard and
aimed them at the Bastille. Launay raised a white flag of surrender
over the fortress. Launay and his men were taken into custody, the
gunpowder and cannons were seized, and the seven prisoners of the
Bastille were freed. Upon arriving at the Hotel de Ville, where Launay
was to be arrested by a revolutionary council, the governor was pulled
away from his escort by a mob and murdered.

The capture of the Bastille symbolized the end of the ancien regime
and provided the French revolutionary cause with an irresistible
momentum. Joined by four-fifths of the French army, the
revolutionaries seized control of Paris and then the French
countryside, forcing King Louis XVI to accept a constitutional
government. In 1792, the monarchy was abolished and Louis and his wife
Marie-Antoinette were sent to the guillotine for treason in 1793.

By order of the new revolutionary government, the Bastille was torn
down. On February 6, 1790, the last stone of the hated prison-fortress
was presented to the National Assembly. Today, July 14--Bastille
Day--is celebrated as a national holiday in France.

July 15 1971:

During a live television and radio broadcast,
President Richard Nixon stuns the nation by announcing that he will visit communist China the following year.
The statement marked a dramatic turning point in U.S.-Chinese relations.