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Union gunboats bombarding Confederate defenses
The Battle of Grand Gulf American Civil War . Union Army forces commanded by Ulysses S. Grant had failed several times to bypass or capture the Confederate -held city of Vicksburg, Mississippi . Grant decided to move his army south of Vicksburg, cross the Mississippi River , and then advance on the city. A Confederate division under John S. Bowen prepared defenses—Forts Wade and Cobun—at Grand Gulf, Mississippi . To clear the way for a Union crossing, seven ironclad warships from the Mississippi Squadron of the Union Navy commanded by Admiral David Dixon Porter bombarded the Confederate defenses at Grand Gulf. Union fire silenced Fort Wade, but the overall Confederate position held. Grant decided to cross the river elsewhere. The next day, Union forces crossed the river at Bruinsburg, Mississippi . The position at Grand Gulf was abandoned and became a Union supply point. The Grand Gulf battlefield is preserved in Grand Gulf Military State Park . (Full article...
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1770 – On his first voyage , British explorer James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour (pictured) landed at Botany Bay , making the first recorded European landfall on the eastern coast of Australia.1903 – A rockslide Frank under 110 million tonnes of rock, killing around 70 people.1944 – Second World War : British agent Nancy Wake Auvergne , France, becoming a liaison between the Special Operations Executive and the local Maquis group.1968 – The controversial Broadway musical Hair counterculture of the 1960s , opened, with its songs becoming anthems of the anti-Vietnam War movement .2006 – Cyclone Mala Thandwe , Myanmar, causing 37 deaths.
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