Today in 1862, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment defeats the Confederates at Island Mound, Missouri. The battle marks the first engagement by an African-American unit fighting under the Union banner. By 1865, a tenth of all Federal troops (nearly 180,000 men) are Black.
On this day in 1950, the Korean War began.
North Korean forces crossed the 38th Parallel, launching a full-scale invasion of South Korea.
This marked the start of a brutal three-year conflict that shaped the future of the Korean Peninsula.
🎥 Watch how the war unfolded.
On this day in 1876, George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the U.S. Army's 7th Cavalry — 268 men in all — are wiped out at Little Bighorn by Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho forces.