Sunday · September 27, 2026
Get the app
Edited daily
American history, reported as it happened
Made for the 250th
The events of July 5 · Read the full edition → · More from July 5 →
19501776 Club

Task Force Smith breaks at Osan; 540 Americans scatter before North Korean tanks their bazookas cannot stop

Lt. Col. Smith's men held a rainy hillside 25 miles south of Seoul for seven hours against a column of 5,000 before the line gave way.

Ten days after North Korean troops crossed the 38th parallel, the first American soldiers of the Korean War took position on a rainy hillside 25 miles south of Seoul. On July 5, 1950, Task Force Smith, 540 men under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Bradford Smith, faced a North Korean column nearly 5,000 strong backed by Soviet T-34 tanks their bazookas could not stop. The Americans broke and scattered within hours, but the fight bought seven hours the retreating South Korean and American lines badly needed…

1776 Club

This story is held for members.

Members read every story of the day — and tomorrow's, and the next.

Join the 1776 Club
$17.76 your first year · then $39.99/yr · cancel anytime
More from July 5
1814

Scott's regulars break Riall's line at Chippawa; the British general had taken them for militia

After 25 minutes of volley fire on open ground near the Niagara, the Right Division's lines collapse and American regulars prove they can stand against British veterans.
1775

Congress sends King George a loyalty oath and a list of grievances; the delegates call it their olive branch

Hancock and the full Congress sign the petition in Philadelphia, and envoys Richard Penn and Arthur Lee are bound for London with the appeal.
1859

Captain Brooks claims a mid-Pacific atoll for the United States; he calls it the Middlebrook Islands

The sealing ship Gambia raised the flag under the Guano Islands Act, planting a U.S. claim a third of the way between Honolulu and Tokyo.
18521776 Club
Speaking the day after Independence Day at Corinthian Hall, he calls slavery "the great sin and shame of America" before a mostly white crowd invited by the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.
Read this as a member →
Read the full July 5 edition →Everything that happened on July 5 →
More from Cold War America
1972

Nixon tells Haldeman to use the CIA to block the FBI's Watergate inquiry

Six days after the break-in at Democratic headquarters, the Oval Office recording system captures the President invoking national security to shut down investigators.
1948

Stalin seals Berlin; two million people are cut off from the West

Soviet forces close all rail and barge routes into the Western sectors, 110 miles inside Soviet territory, over the Allies' plan to introduce the Deutsche Mark.
1948

Clay orders supply flights into Tempelhof; the question now is whether the air can feed two million

Stalin sealed every land route into West Berlin days ago, betting the Allies would negotiate their way out rather than try to sustain a city from the sky.
1950

American fighters meet North Korean Yaks above Suwon; three shot down, none lost

F-82s and F-80Cs scrambled to cover civilian evacuation flights out of Seoul, two days after North Korean forces crossed the 38th parallel.
The Daily Record · free by email

Tomorrow's edition in your inbox — one featured story, one quote, and today's flag status. Free, every morning.

The full experience

Read every story, narrated, in the app.

Take this story with you.

The complete daily edition, the deep-cut narration, and a library that's yours — the 1776 Club lives in the app.

Your membership comes with you — every event, narrated, with flag alerts, CarPlay, and your saved library.

Download on the App Store