User:Hawkeye7/War/Selected anniversaries/August 7

August 7

 * 1782 - George Washington orders the creation of the Badge of Military Merit to honor soldiers wounded in battle. It is later renamed to the more poetic Purple Heart.
 * 1789 - The United States War Department is established.
 * 1819 - Simón Bolívar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá.
 * 1942 - World War II: Battle of Guadalcanal begins - U.S. Marines initiate the first American offensive of the war with a landing on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.
 * 1945 - President Harry Truman announces the successful bombing of Hiroshima with an atomic bomb while returning from the Potsdam Conference aboard the heavy cruiser USS Augusta (CA-31) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
 * 1964 - Vietnam War: The U.S. Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving US President Lyndon B. Johnson broad war powers to deal with North Vietnamese attacks on American forces.