April 13th ~ {continued...}

1972 – Three North Vietnamese divisions attack An Loc with infantry, tanks, heavy artillery and rockets, taking half the city after a day of close combat. An Loc, the capital of Binh Long Province, was located 65 miles northwest of Saigon. This attack was the southernmost thrust of the three-pronged Nguyen Hue Offensive (later more commonly known as the “Easter Offensive”), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the knockout blow that would win the war for the communists.

The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to An Loc in the south, were Quang Tri in the north, and Kontum in the Central Highlands. Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders in each case were almost overwhelmed, particularly in the northernmost provinces, where the South Vietnamese abandoned their positions in Quang Tri and fled south in the face of the enemy onslaught.

In Binh Long, the North Vietnamese forces crossed into South Vietnam from Cambodia to strike first at Loc Ninh on April 5, then quickly encircled An Loc, holding it under siege for almost three months while they made repeated attempts to take the city. The defenders suffered heavy casualties, including 2,300 dead or missing, but with the aid of U.S. advisors and American airpower, they managed to hold An Loc against vastly superior odds until the siege was lifted on June 18.

Fighting continued all over South Vietnam throughout the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders, even retaking Quang Tri in September. With the communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his Vietnamization program, instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces.

1974 – Western Union (in cooperation with NASA and Hughes Aircraft) launches the United States’ first commercial geosynchronous communications satellite, Westar 1.

1980 – US boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow.

1990 – The Soviet government officially accepts blame for the Katyn Massacre of World War II, when nearly 5,000 Polish military officers were murdered and buried in mass graves in the Katyn Forest. The admission was part of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s promise to be more forthcoming and candid concerning Soviet history.

In 1939, Poland had been invaded from the west by Nazi forces and from the east by Soviet troops. Sometime in the spring of 1940, thousands of Polish military officers were rounded up by Soviet secret police forces, taken to the Katyn Forest outside of Smolensk, massacred, and buried in a mass grave.

In 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and pushed into the Polish territory once held by the Russians. In 1943, with the war against Russia going badly, the Germans announced that they had unearthed thousands of corpses in the Katyn Forest. Representatives from the Polish government-in-exile (situated in London) visited the site and decided that the Soviets, not the Nazis, were responsible for the killings. These representatives, however, were pressured by U.S. and British officials to keep their report secret for the time being, since they did not want to risk a diplomatic rupture with the Soviets.

As World War II came to an end, German propaganda lashed out at the Soviets, using the Katyn Massacre as an example of Russian atrocities. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin flatly denied the charges and claimed that the Nazis were responsible for the slaughter. The matter was not revisited for 40 years. By 1990, however, two factors pushed the Soviets to admit their culpability. First was Gorbachev’s much publicized policy of “openness” in Soviet politics. This included a more candid appraisal of Soviet history, particularly concerning the Stalin period. Second was the state of Polish-Soviet relations in 1990. The Soviet Union was losing much of its power to hold onto its satellites in Eastern Europe, but the Russians hoped to retain as much influence as possible.

In Poland, Lech Walesa’s Solidarity movement was steadily eroding the power of the communist regime. The Katyn Massacre issue had been a sore spot in relations with Poland for over four decades, and it is possible that Soviet officials believed that a frank admission and apology would help ease the increasing diplomatic tensions. The Soviet government issued the following statement: “The Soviet side expresses deep regret over the tragedy, and assesses it as one of the worst Stalinist outrages.”

Whether the Soviet admission had any impact is difficult to ascertain. The communist regime in Poland crumbled by the end of 1990, and Lech Walesa was elected president of Poland in December of that year. Gorbachev resigned in December 1991, which brought an effective end to the Soviet Union.

April 13th ~ {continued...}

1991 – Speaking at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, President Bush warned Iraq the United States would “not tolerate any interference” with the international relief effort for Kurdish refugees.

1993 – The day before a visit by Pres. Bush, fourteen people were arrested in Kuwait for plotting to assassinate him. Kuwaiti officials said the plot was organized by Iraqi intelligence.

1993 – NATO forces began combat patrols over Bosnia to enforce a UN ban on flights.

1996 – The US agreed to close the Futenma Air Station at Okinawa, Japan. The 1200 acre base is surrounded by the densely populated city of Ginowan. Marine Corps Air Station, Futenma began in 1945 as a bomber base. Construction of hangars and barracks began in 1958. The airfield was commissioned as a “Marine Corps Air Facility” in 1960 and became an Air Station in 1976. Located within Ginowan City, Okinawa, the Air Station is home to approximately 4,000 Marines and Sailors. It is capable of supporting most aircraft and serves as the base for Marine Aircraft Group 36, Marine Air Control Group 18, and Marine Wing Support Squadron 172. The Air Station provides support for the III Marine Expeditionary Force and for Marine Corps Base, Camp Butler. Since 15 January 1969 MCAS Futenma serves as a United Nations air facility and a divert base for Air Force and Naval aircraft operating in the vicinity of Okinawa.

1999 – NATO bombs were dropped on Pristina. Yugoslav infantry troops crossed into northeastern Albania for a short time and clashed with Albanian border police. Refugees in Albania reported gang-rapes and murders by Serbian soldiers.

2001 – With the crew of a U.S. spy plane safely back in the United States, American officials gave their detailed version of what happened when the plane collided with a Chinese fighter on April 1; the United States said its plane was struck by the jet. China maintained that the U.S. plane rammed the fighter.

2002 – Yasser Arafat issued a statement condemning terrorism and planned to meet with Colin Powell the next day. Hamas declared it had no intention of halting attacks.

2003 – In the 26th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US troops pushed into Tikrit. Marines found 7 missing US troops, including Army Specialist Shoshana Johnson, on the road between Baghdad and Tikrit. Army engineers worked to help restore electricity in Baghdad.

2003 – U.S.-led forces announced the capture of Watban Ibrahim Hasan, a half-brother of and adviser to Saddam Hussein. Watban is one of three of Saddam’s half-brothers (both share the same mother). During his tenure as Interior Minister, he is accused of having overseen the deportations, torture, and executions of hundred of prisoners. Some of those executions were reportedly taped with copies kept at the ministry. Despite his family ties to Saddam and his position, Watban was not thought to be fully trusted by Saddam Hussein. Watban is believed to have been shot in the leg by Uday Husein during a party in 1995. British SAS troops were believed to have orchestrated the capture of Watban Ibrahim Hasan Al-Tikriti near the town of Rabia, on the road between the city of Mosul and the Syrian border, as he was attempting to flee to Syria. He is the 5 of Spades on the Most-Wanted-Deck-of-Cards.

2004 – President Bush defended his Iraq policy, vowed no retreat and conceded the need for UN help in a televised press conference.

2004 – Cuba agreed to buy $13 million in food from American companies and reached a tentative deal for up to $10 million in farm goods from California.

2004 – A 2,500-strong U.S. force, backed by tanks and artillery, pushed to the outskirts of the Shiite holy city of Najaf for a showdown with a radical cleric. One soldier was killed enroute. US forces in Fallujah killed over 100 insurgents.

2009 – The U.S. federal government rescinds travel and gift restrictions to Cuba.

April 14th ~

1715 – The Yamasee War begins in South Carolina. The Yamasee War (also spelled Yemassee War) (1715–1717) was a conflict between British settlers of colonial South Carolina and various Native American tribes, including the Yamasee, Muscogee, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Catawba, Apalachee, Apalachicola, Yuchi, Savannah River Shawnee, Congaree, Waxhaw, Pee Dee, Cape Fear, Cheraw, and others. Some of the Native American Indian groups played a minor role while others launched attacks throughout South Carolina in an attempt to destroy the colony. Native Americans killed hundreds of colonists and destroyed many settlements. Traders “in the field” were killed throughout what is now southeastern United States.

Abandoning settled frontiers, people fled to Charles Town, where starvation set in as supplies ran low. The survival of the South Carolina colony was in question during 1715. The tide turned in early 1716 when the Cherokee sided with the colonists against the Creek, their traditional enemy. The last of South Carolina’s major Native American foes withdrew from the conflict in 1717, bringing a fragile peace to the colony. The Yamasee War was one of the most disruptive and transformational conflicts of colonial America. It was one of the American Indians’ most serious challenges to European dominance. For over a year the colony faced the possibility of annihilation. About 7% of South Carolina’s white citizenry was killed, making the war bloodier than King Philip’s War, which is often cited as North America’s bloodiest war involving Native Americans.

The geopolitical situation for British, Spanish, and French colonies, as well as the Indian groups of the southeast, was radically altered. The war marks the end of the early colonial era of the American South. The Yamasee War and its aftermath contributed to the emergence of new Indian confederated nations, such as the Muscogee Creek and Catawba. The origin of the war was complex. Reasons for fighting differed among the many Indian groups who participated. Commitment differed as well. Factors included land encroachment by Europeans, the trading system, trader abuses, the Indian slave trade, the depletion of deer, increasing Indian debts in contrast to increasing wealth among some colonists, the spread of rice plantation agriculture, French power in Louisiana offering an alternative to British trade, long-established Indian links to Spanish Florida, the vying for power among Indian groups, as well as an increasingly large-scale and robust inter-tribal communication network, and recent experiences in military collaboration among previously distant tribes.

1775 – The first abolition society in North America is established. The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage is organized in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush.

1775 – General Thomas Gage, commander of British forces in North America, received orders from Parliament authorizing him to use aggressive military force against the American rebels.

1777 – NY adopted a new constitution as an independent state. Governeur Morris was the chief writer of the state constitution.

1860 – First Pony Express rider arrived in San Francisco with mail originating in St. Joseph, Missouri.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1861 – Robert E. Lee resigned from Union Army.

1862 – Union mortar boats of Flag Officer Foote’s force commenced regular bombardment of Fort Pillow, Tennessee the next Army-Navy objective on the drive down the Mississippi.

1865 – John Wilkes Booth shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington. Five days earlier, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. The war was nearly over, although there were still Confederate forces yet to surrender. The president had recently visited the captured Rebel capital of Richmond, and now Lincoln sought a relaxing evening by attending a production of Our American Cousin starring Laura Keene.

Ford’s Theater, seven blocks from the White House, was crammed with people trying to catch a glimpse of Grant, who was rumored to be in attendance. The general and his wife had cancelled abruptly for an out-of-town trip. Lincoln occupied a booth above the stage with his wife; Henry Rathbone, a young army officer; and his fiancée, Clara Harris, daughter of New York Senator Ira Harris. The Lincolns arrived late for the comedy, but the president was in a fine mood and laughed heartily during the production.

At 10:15, Booth slipped into the box and fired his .44-caliber single-shot derringer into the back of Lincoln’s head. Rathbone rushed Booth, who stabbed the soldier in the shoulder. Booth then leapt from the president’s box to the stage below, breaking his leg as he landed. He shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus ever to tyrants!”–the Virginia state motto) and ran from the stage. There was a pause, as the crowd initially thought the unfolding drama was part of the production, but a scream from Mrs. Lincoln told them otherwise. The stricken president was carried from the box to a house across the street, where he died the following morning.

1865 – John WIlkes Booth was a well-regarded actor who, along with friends Samuel Arnold, Michael O’Laughlin, and John Surratt, conspired to kidnap Lincoln and deliver him to the South. On March 17, along with George Atzerodt, David Herold, and Lewis Paine, the group met in a Washington bar to plot the abduction of the president three days later.

However, when the president changed his plans, the scheme was scuttled. Shortly afterward, the South surrendered to the Union and the conspirators altered their plan. They decided to kill Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and Secretary of State William Seward on the same evening. When April 14 came around, Atzerodt backed out of his part to kill Johnson. Lewis Paine, however, forced his way into William Seward’s house and stabbed the secretary of state several times before fleeing.

Booth rode to Virginia with David Herold and stopped at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd, who placed splints on Booth’s legs. They hid in a barn on Richard Garrett’s farm as thousands of Union troops combed the area looking for them. The other conspirators were captured, except for John Surratt, who fled to Canada.

1865 – C.S.S. Shenandoah, Lieutenant James I. Waddell, departed Ascension Island, Eastern Carolinas and set a northerly course for the Kurile Islands. Unaware that General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox on the 9th, Shenandoah would inflict crippling damage to the American whaling fleet in the North Pacific. The havoc wrought on Union commerce by Confederate raiders dealt the whaling industry a blow from which it never recovered.

1865 – In one of his last legislative acts before being assassinated, President Abraham Lincoln green-lighted a proposal to create the Secret Service on this day in 1865. Ironically enough, the new agency was formed to fight the rise of counterfeit cash, rather than to protect the president. However, by the 1890s, the Secret Service was increasingly called on to play its more familiar role of guarding the nation’s commander in chief; in 1901, presidential protection was officially adopted as one of the agency’s chief duties. Along the way, the Secret Service’s job description was also expanded to include quelling frauds against the government.

1865 – Mobile, Alabama, was captured.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1874 – The increasingly heated battle over greenbacks, the paper notes first printed to support the Union during the Civil War, took another turn as Congress passed The Legal Tender Act. Derisively known in some circles as the “Inflation Bill,” the legislation called for $18 million worth of greenbacks to be pumped into the economy. The Legal Tender Act also certified the hefty chunk of paper notes that had been released during the previous year. All told, the bill authorized $400 million in greenbacks as legal tender.

But, like other bits of legislation associated with greenbacks, the Legal Tender Act quickly became embroiled in controversy. A mere week after Congress weighed in with its decision, President Ulysses S. Grant moved to kill the bill, arguing that it would unleash a tidal wave of inflation. But the House would not be denied: in June of 1874, pro-paper forces successfully pushed another version of the Legal Tender Act into the law books. The passage of the revised bill brought the amount of greenbacks in circulation up to $382 million.

1898 – Commissioning of first Post Civil War hospital ship, USS Solace.

1918 – Six days after being assigned for the first time to the western front, two American pilots from the U.S. First Aero Squadron engaged in America’s first aerial dogfight with enemy aircraft. In a battle fought almost directly over the Allied Squadron Aerodome at Toul, France, U.S. fliers Douglas Campbell and Alan Winslow succeeded in shooting down two German two-seaters. By the end of May, Campbell had shot down five enemy aircraft, making him the first American to qualify as a “flying ace” in World War I.

The First Aero Squadron, organized in 1914 after the outbreak of World War I, undertook its first combat mission on March 19, 1917, in support of the 7,000 U.S. troops that invaded Mexico to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. Despite numerous mechanical and navigational problems, the American fliers flew hundreds of scouting missions for U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing and gained important experience that would later be used over the battlefields of Europe in World War I.

1918 – French General Ferdinand Foch is officially promoted to the position of commander-in-chief of all forces of whatever nationality opposing Germany on the Western Front.

1941 – There are secret talks between Americans and the Icelandic consul. The Icelandic officials agree to do nothing to resist an American occupation to replace the present British force.

1942 – The American destroyer Roper sinks German U-boat U-85. This is the first sinking of an German submarine by an American ship.

1943 – Joseph C. Jenkins graduates as ensign in the Coast Guard Reserve, becoming the first commissioned African-American officer in the Coast Guard.

1945 – Robert Dole, later US senator and 1996 presidential candidate, was severely crippled by an artillery shell. During World War II, Robert Dole served in the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. While stationed in Italy he participated in Operation Craftsman where he was wounded during a firefight with German troops. Dole spent nearly 40 months in army hospitals and lost most of the use of his right arm as a result.

1945 – US 7th Army and allies forces captured Nuremberg and Stuttgart, Germany. The US 3rd Army captures Bayreuth.

1945 – Reichsfuhrer SS Himmler orders that no prisoners at Dachau “shall be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy alive.”

1945 – Allied forces conduct Operation Teardrop. Two carrier task groups carry out an extensive search for Seawolf U-boats suspected of transporting V2 rockets to be launched against New York City.

1945 – The US 14th Corps continues its advance onto the Bicol Peninsula in the southwest of Luzon. Calauag is taken. In north Luzon, US 1st Corps continues attacking near Baguio but fails to make significant progress.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1945 – Japanese Kamikaze attacks damage the battleship USS New York. On Okinawa, American forces attack strong Japanese defenses in the hilly Motobu Peninsula in the north.

1945 – B-29’s damaged the Imperial Palace during firebombing raid over Tokyo.

1945 – The Fifth Army, now under Lucian K. Truscott (General Mark Clark, former commander of the Fifth, was made commander of the Allied armies in Italy), began pushing its way up the peninsula, capturing Massa and crossing the Frigido River. After meeting considerable German resistance in the mountains, the Fifth sent the Germans running once the battle took to open country. Bologna became the next target, falling to the Fifth one week after engaging the enemy in Italy. Ferrara, Bondeno, and Modena succumbed shortly thereafter, Genoa on the 27th, and Milan on the 29th–an agenda of assaults that mimicked Napoleon’s Italian campaigns.

Helping the U.S. effort was the work of Italian guerilla partisan groups, who had successfully taken control of the area west of the Como-Milan-Genoa line. By the time of the unconditional surrender of the Germans, signed at Caserta on April 29, almost 660,000 Axis troops lay dead–compared with 321,000 Allied dead.

1949 – The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg’s made its last judgment.

1950 – President Harry S. Truman receives National Security Council Paper Number 68 (NSC-68). The report was a group effort, created with input from the Defense Department, the State Department, the CIA, and other interested agencies; NSC-68 formed the basis for America’s Cold War policy for the next two decades.

In the face of U.S. foreign policy concerns, most notably the Soviet explosion of an atomic device in September 1949 and China’s fall to communism the following October, President Truman requested a complete review and re-evaluation of America’s Cold War diplomacy strategy. The result was NSC-68, a report that took four months to compile and was completed in April 1950. The report began by noting that the United States was facing a completely changed world. World War II had devastated Germany and Japan, and France and Great Britain had suffered terrific losses. This situation left the United States and the Soviet Union as the only two great world powers.

The Soviet Union posed a new and frightening threat to U.S. power. Animated by “a new fanatic faith” in communism, the Soviet Union sought nothing less than the imposition of “its absolute authority over the rest of the world.” Clashes with the United States were, therefore, inevitable. According to the report, the development of nuclear weapons meant, “Every individual faces the ever-present possibility of annihilation,” and, as a result, “the integrity and vitality of our system is in greater jeopardy than ever before in our history.”

According to the report, the United States should vigorously pursue a policy of “containing” Soviet expansion. NSC-68 recommended that the United States embark on rapid military expansion of conventional forces and the nuclear arsenal, including the development of the new hydrogen bomb. In addition, massive increases in military aid to U.S. allies were necessary as well as more effective use of “covert” means to achieve U.S. goals. The price of these measures was estimated to be about $50 billion; at the time the report was issued, America was spending just $13 billion on defense.

Truman was somewhat taken aback at the costs associated with the report’s recommendations. As a politician, he hesitated to publicly support a program that would result in heavy tax increases for the American public, particularly since the increase would be spent on defending the United States during a time of peace.

The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, however, prompted action. Truman signed NSC-68 into policy in September 1950. As one State Department official noted, “Thank God Korea came along,” since this act of communist aggression was believed to be crucial in convincing the public to support increased military spending. NSC-68 remained the foundation of U.S. Cold War policy until at least the 1970s. The document itself remained top secret until historians successfully lobbied for its declassification in 1975.

1951 – U.N. Forces reached the Kansas Line as Operation DAUNTLESS continued to push the communists northward.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1951 – Since Dec. 15, Bomber Command B-29s had destroyed 48 out of 60 assigned bridges and 27 of 39 listed marshaling yards under Interdiction Campaign No. 4, but at a loss of eight bombers and their crews from combat and operational causes.

1953 – Viet Minh invaded Laos with 40,00 troops in their war against French colonial forces.

1960 – The 1st underwater launching of Polaris missile.

1961 – Cuban-American invasion army departed Nicaragua.

1961 – The Soviet Union made its first live television broadcast.

1964 – The US announces that the US Military Advisory Group (MAG) in Vietnam will be combined with the Military Assistance Command (MAC) to cut duplication of effort and make more efficient use of US service personnel.

1965 – The Joint Chiefs of Staff order the deployment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade from Okinawa to South Vietnam. The 173rd arrived in Vietnam in May 1965 and was the first major U.S. Army ground combat unit committed to the war. Headquartered at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon from May 1965 to October 1967, the brigade conducted combat operations in the region surrounding Saigon.

In November 1967, the brigade fought a major battle with North Vietnamese Army forces at Dak To in the Central Highlands, winning the Presidential Union Citation for bravery in action. After more than six years in South Vietnam, the 173rd was withdrawn from Vietnam in August 1971 as part of President Richard Nixon’s troop withdrawal program. During combat service in Vietnam, 12 troopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade won the Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery; 1,606 were killed in action; and 8,435 were wounded in action.

1965 – Thirty US Air Force planes bomb the radar installations on Honmatt Island.

1967 – In the Vietnam War, US planes bombed Haiphong for 1st time.

1969 – US troops kill 198 Communist soldiers in a massive enemy attack against an infantry camp 33 miles northwest of Saigon. Thirteen Americans are reported killed and three wounded.

1969 – North Korean aircraft shoots down Navy EC-121 reconnaissance aircraft from VQ-1 over the Sea of Japan.

1971 – President Nixon ended a blockade against People’s Republic of China.

1971 – In a follow up to Operation Lam Son 719, 5000 South Vietnamese troops, accompanied by 400 US Soldiers begin a push on the Communist held Ashau Valley along the Laotian border, but make no major contact.

1972 – Danang, Saigon, and other targets in South Vietnam are hit by terrorist attacks including rockets fired on Saigon and Tansonnhut Airport.

1972 – Orders for B-52 strikes against diplomatic, political, and military objectives throughout the 200-mile long southern panhandle of North Vietnam are the most extensive use of B-52s thus far in the war.

1973 – Acting FBI director L. Patrick Gray resigned after admitting he destroyed evidence in the Watergate scandal.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1975 – The American airlift of Vietnamese orphans to the United States ends after 2,600 children are transported to America. The operation began disastrously on April 4 when an Air Force cargo jet crashed shortly after take-off from Tan Son Nhut airbase in Saigon. More than 138 of the passengers, mostly children, were killed. Operation Baby Lift was initiated to bring South Vietnamese orphans to the United States for adoption by American parents. Baby Lift lasted 10 days and was carried out during the final, desperate phase of the war, as North Vietnamese forces were closing in on Saigon. Although the first flight ended in tragedy, all other flights took place without incident, and Baby Lift aircraft ferried orphans across the Pacific until the mission concluded on April 14, only 16 days before the fall of Saigon and the end of the war.

1980 – Mariel Boat Lift: The second major Cuban exodus began. The Coast Guard coordinated a three-wave operation. Coast Guard high endurance cutters operated closest to Cuba. U.S. Navy ships operated in the inner-wave and Coast Guard small cutters, 95 and 82-footers, served the waters closest to Florida. Over 660 Coast Guard Reservists were called to replace boat crews, and maintenance and repair teams. The Coast Guard Auxiliary lent support in many areas, including radio communications. Over 117,000 people in more than 5,000 boats were assisted by the Coast Guard and Navy forces.

1981 – The first test flight, STS-1, of America’s first operational space shuttle, the Columbia 1, ended successfully with a landing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

1986 – United States launches air strikes against Libya in retaliation for the Libyan sponsorship of terrorism against American troops and citizens. The raid, which began shortly before 7 p.m. EST (2 a.m., April 15 in Libya), involved more than 100 U.S. Air Force and Navy aircraft, and was over within an hour. Five military targets and “terrorism centers” were hit, including the headquarters of Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi. During the 1970s and ’80s, Qaddafi’s government financed a wide variety of Muslim and anti-U.S. and anti-British terrorist groups worldwide, from Palestinian guerrillas and Philippine Muslim rebels to the Irish Republican Army and the Black Panthers.

In response, the U.S. imposed sanctions against Libya, and relations between the two nations steadily deteriorated. In 1981, Libya fired at a U.S. aircraft that passed into the Gulf of Sidra, which Qaddafi had claimed in 1973 as Libyan territorial waters. That year, the U.S. uncovered evidence of Libyan-sponsored terrorist plots against the United States, including planned assassination attempts against U.S. officials and the bombing of a U.S. embassy-sponsored dance in Khartoum, Sudan. In December 1985, five American citizens were killed in simultaneous terrorist attacks at the Rome and Vienna airports. Libya was blamed, and U.S. President Ronald Reagan ordered expanded sanctions and froze Libyan assets in the United States.

On March 24, 1986, U.S. and Libyan forces clashed in the Gulf of Sidra, and four Libyan attack boats were sunk. Then, on April 5, terrorists bombed a West Berlin dance hall known to be frequented by U.S. servicemen. One U.S. serviceman and a Turkish woman were killed, and more than 200 people were wounded, including 50 other U.S. servicemen. U.S. intelligence reportedly intercepted radio messages sent from Libya to its diplomats in East Berlin ordering the April 5 attack on the LaBelle discotheque. On April 14, the United States struck back with dramatic air strikes against Tripoli and Banghazi. The attacks were mounted by 14 A-6E navy attack jets based in the Mediterranean and 18 FB-111 bombers from bases in England. Numerous other support aircraft were also involved. France refused to allow the F-111s to fly over French territory, which added 2,600 total nautical miles to the journey from England and back.

Three military barracks were hit, along with the military facilities at Tripoli’s main airport and the Benina air base southeast of Benghazi. All targets except one were reportedly chosen because of their direct connection to terrorist activity. The Benina military airfield was hit to preempt Libyan interceptors from taking off and attacking the incoming U.S. bombers. Even before the operation had ended, President Reagan went on national television to discuss the air strikes. “When our citizens are abused or attacked anywhere in the world,” he said, “we will respond in self-defense. Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.”

Operation El Dorado Canyon, as it was code-named, was called a success by U.S. officials. Qaddafi’s 15-month-old adopted daughter was killed in the attack on his residence, and two of his young sons were injured. Although he has never admitted it publicly, there is speculation that Qaddafi was also wounded in the bombing. Fire from Libyan surface-to-air missiles and conventional anti-aircraft artillery was heavy during the attack, and one F-111, along with its two-member crew, were lost in unknown circumstances. Several residential buildings were inadvertently bombed during the raid, and 15 Libyan civilians were reported killed. The French embassy in Tripoli was also accidentally hit, but no one was injured.

On April 15, Libyan patrol boats fired missiles at a U.S. Navy communications station on the Italian island of Lamedusa, but the missiles fell short. There was no other major terrorist attack linked to Libya until the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 747 over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 passengers and crew of that flight were killed, and 11 people on the ground perished.

In 1999, Qaddafi, seeking to lead Libya out of its long international isolation, agreed to turn over to the West two suspects wanted for the Lockerbie attack. In response, Europe lifted sanctions against Libya. The United States maintained sanctions, even after one of the Lockerbie suspects was convicted in 2001.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1987 – Secretary of State George P. Shultz met at the Kremlin with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who proposed the elimination of short-range nuclear missiles in East Germany and Czechoslovakia as part of an arms control agreement with the United States.

1988 – Representatives of the USSR, Afghanistan, the United States, and Pakistan sign an agreement calling for the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan. In exchange for an end to the disputed Soviet occupation, the United States agreed to end its arms support for the Afghan anti-Soviet factions, and Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed not to interfere in each other’s affairs. In 1978, a Soviet-backed coup in Afghanistan installed a new communist government under Nur Mohammad Taraki. However, in 1979, a second coup toppled Taraki’s government in favor of Hafizullah Amin, a Muslim leader less favorable to the Soviets.

In December 1979, Soviet tanks and troops invaded Afghanistan, and Amin was murdered in a Soviet-backed coup. Babrak Karmal, a product of the KGB, was installed in his place. Despite early gains, the Soviet army met with unanticipated resistance from Muslim guerrillas, who launched a jihad, or “holy war,” against the foreign atheists. Armed by the United States, Britain, China, and several Muslim nations, the muhajadeen, or “holy warriors,” inflicted heavy casualties on the Russians. In the USSR, the Red Army’s failure to suppress the guerrillas, and the high cost of the war in Russian lives and resources, caused significant discord in the Communist Party and Soviet society.

In April 1988, after years of stalemate, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a peace accord with Afghanistan. In February 1989, the last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan, where civil war continued until the Taliban’s seizure of power in the late 1990s.

1988 – The USS Samuel B. Roberts strikes a mine in the Persian Gulf during Operation Earnest Will. The Roberts had arrived in the Persian Gulf and was heading for a refueling rendezvous with USS San Jose on 14 April when the ship struck an M-08 naval mine in the central Persian Gulf, an area she had safely transited a few days previously. The mine blew a 15-foot (5 m) hole in the hull, flooded the engine room, and knocked the two gas turbines from their mounts.

The blast also broke the keel of the ship; such structural damage is almost always fatal to most vessels. The crew fought fire and flooding for five hours and saved the ship. Among other steps, sailors cinched cables on the cracked superstructure in an effort to stabilize it. She used her auxiliary thrusters to get out of the mine field at 5kts. She never lost combat capability with her radars and Mk13 missile launcher.

Ten sailors were medevaced by HC-5 CH-46s embarked in USS San Jose for injuries sustained in the blast, six returned to the Roberts in a day or so. Four burn victims were sent for treatment to a military hospital in Germany, and eventually to medical facilities in the United States. Four days later, U.S. forces retaliated against Iran in Operation Praying Mantis, a one-day campaign that was the largest American surface engagement since World War II.

U.S. ships, aircraft, and troops destroyed two Iranian oil platforms allegedly used to control Iranian naval forces in the Persian Gulf, sank one Iranian frigate, damaged another, and sent at least three armed, high-speed boats to the bottom. The U.S. lost one Marine helicopter and its crew of two airmen in what appeared to be a night maneuver accident rather than a result of hostile operations.

1989 – Testimony concluded in the Iran-Contra trial of former National Security Council staff member Oliver L. North.

1991 – The final withdrawal of American combat troops from southern Iraq began, 88 days after the United States launched its massive offensive to drive Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.

1992 – Libya cut itself off from the world for 24 hours to mark the sixth anniversary of the U.S. air raid, the same day the World Court rejected Libya’s appeal to prevent sanctions against it for refusing to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

April 14th ~ {continued...}

1994 – Two American F-15 warplanes inadvertently shot down two U.S. helicopters over northern Iraq, killing 26 people, including 15 Americans.

1995 – The UN Security Council (Resolution 986) gave permission to Iraq, still under sanctions for its invasion of Kuwait, to sell $2 billion dollars’ worth of oil to buy food, medicine and other supplies. Iraq later rejected the offer.

1997 – An Iraqi Oil Ministry official reports that Iraq expects to earn more than $80 billion from its contract with Russia for the development of the West Qurna oil field in southern Iraq. The contract, which was approved by Iraq’s National Assembly on April 13, calls for 560 wells which will produce 4.4 billion barrels over 23 years. According to the official, the part of the field being developed with Russia has 11.5 billion barrels in reserves and the entire West Qurna field has reserves of 38 billion barrels. The official states that production will begin “soon”(initially about 250,000 barrels per day, increasing to 600,000 barrels per day).

1998 – The Clinton administration agreed to create a Persian-language radio service to transmit anti-government propaganda into Iran. $1 million was also pledged to Voice of America for non-propaganda Persian-language programming.

1998 – FMC Corp. was hit with a $125 million verdict for misleading the US Army about the safety of its Bradley Fighting Vehicle. A 1986 lawsuit by former employee Henry Boisvert complained that the vehicles did not pass all the tests the company claimed it did.

1999 – The German capital began to be moved from Bonn to Berlin.

1999 – NATO warplanes mistakenly struck refugee vehicles and some 60-75 ethnic Albanians were reported killed near Djakovica in Kosovo. NATO acknowledged the next day that a civilian vehicle had been hit and broadcast a taped interview with the US pilot who carried out the mission. A week later NATO acknowledged that 2 separate groups of vehicles were hit.

1999 – The US pledged $37 million to help the Kenyan victims of the 1998 US Embassy bombing in Nairobi.

2001 – The 21 men and 3 women crew of the US spy plane who were held in China for 11 days landed at their home base, Whidbey Island Naval Air Station in Washington, where they were greeted by thousands of friends, family members and other well-wishers.

2003 – In the 27th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US troops poured into Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit and fought pockets of hard-core defenders. Iraqis and US troops began jointly patrolling the streets of Baghdad to quell the lawlessness.

2003 – US commandos in Baghdad captured Abu Abbas, the leader of the violent Palestinian group that killed an American on the hijacked cruise liner Achille Lauro in 1985. Abbas died in 2004 while in U.S. custody.

2003 – Four Islamic militants were convicted in a deadly bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan.

2004 – In Iraq U.S. warplanes and helicopters hammered gunmen in Fallujah, straining a truce there. A 2,500-strong U.S. force massed on the outskirts of the holy city of Najaf for a showdown with radical cleric al-Sadr.

2004 – The UN emissary to Iraq proposed a caretaker government to replace the Governing Council on June 30 to shepherd the country to free election in Jan 2005.

2008 – The United States begins occupying its new US$736 million embassy in Iraq, one of the largest embassies in the world. Presently under construction, it is approximately as large as the Vatican City and will permanently employ thousands of Americans, including a Marine detachment.

April 15th ~

1715 – The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina. When the warnings about a possible Ochese Creek uprising reached the South Carolina government, they listened and acted. The government sent a party to the main Upper Yamasee town of Pocotaligo (near present-day Yemassee, South Carolina). They hoped to obtain Yamasee assistance in arranging an emergency summit with the Ochese Creek leaders.

The delegation’s visit to Pocotaligo triggered the start of the war. The delegation that visited Pocotaligo consisted of Samuel Warner and William Bray, sent by the Board of Commissioners. They were joined by Thomas Nairne and John Wright, two of the most important people of South Carolina’s Indian trading system. Two others, Seymour Burroughs and an unknown South Carolinian, also joined. On the evening of April 14, 1715, the day before Good Friday, the men spoke to an assembly of Yamasee. They promised to make special efforts to redress Yamasee grievances. They also said that Governor Craven was on the way to the village.

During the night, as the South Carolinians slept, the Yamasee debated over what to do. There were some who were not fully pledged to a war, but in the end the choice was made. After applying war paint, the Yamasee woke the Carolinians and attacked them. Two of the six men escaped. Seymour Burroughs fled and, although shot twice, raised an alarm in the Port Royal settlements. The Yamasee killed Nairne, Wright, Warner, and Bray. The unknown South Carolinian hid in a nearby swamp, from which he witnessed the ritual death-by-torture of Nairne.

1783 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.

1791 – Surveyor General Andrew Ellicott consecrated the southern tip of the triangular District of Columbia at Jones Point.

1813 – U.S. troops under James Wilkinson sieged the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.

1820 – Evander McNair, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1902, was born.

1837 – Horace Porter (d.1921), Bvt Brig General (Union Army), was born.

1850 – The city of San Francisco was incorporated.

1861 – Three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., President Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War.

1864 – General Steele’s Union troops occupied Camden, Arkansas.

1865 – President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, dies from an assassin’s bullet. Shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington the night before, Lincoln lived for nine hours before succumbing to the severe head wound he sustained. Lincoln’s death came just after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lincoln had just served the most difficult presidency in history, successfully leading the country through civil war. His job was exhausting and overwhelming at times. He had to manage a tremendous military effort, deal with diverse opinions in his own Republican party, counter his Democratic critics, maintain morale on the northern home front, and keep foreign countries such as France and Great Britain from recognizing the Confederacy.

He did all of this, and changed American history when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, converting the war goal from reunion of the nation to a crusade to end slavery. Now, the great man was dead. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said, “Now, he belongs to the ages.” Word spread quickly across the nation, stunning a people who were still celebrating the Union victory. Troops in the field wept, as did General Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Union commander. Perhaps no group was more grief stricken than the freed slaves.

Although abolitionists considered Lincoln slow in moving against slavery, many freedmen saw “Father Abraham” as their savior. They faced an uncertain world, and now had lost their most powerful proponent. Lincoln’s funeral was held on April 19, before a funeral train carried his body back to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois.

During the two-week journey, hundreds of thousands gathered along the railroad tracks to pay their respects, and the casket was unloaded for public viewing at several stops. He and his son, Willie, who died in the White House of typhoid fever in 1862, were interred on May 4th.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

1885 – Naval forces land at Panama to protect American interests during revolution.

1889 – A marshal’s posse killed and captured a group of Sooners, settlers who stole onto the Public Domain territory in Oklahoma in hopes of claiming it legally, just nine days before the official start of the land rush.

1900 – Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines. The Siege of Catubig was a long and bloody engagement in which Filipino guerrillas launched a surprise attack against a detachment of U.S. infantry, and then forced them to abandon the town after a four-day siege. The attack was very similar to the Balangiga Massacre farther south of Catubig a year later.

1912 – USS Chester and USS Salem sailed from MA to assist RMS Titanic survivors.

1918 – First Marine Aviation Force formed at Marine Flying Field, Miami, FL.

1919 – Jane Arminda Delano (b.1862), founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service, died in France while on a Red Cross mission and was buried there. She was posthumously awarded the US Distinguished Service Medal, the 1st female recipient. In 1920 She was brought back to the U.S. and re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

1920 – Two security guards are killed during a mid-afternoon armed robbery of a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Out of this rather unremarkable crime grew one of the most famous trials in American history and a landmark case in forensic crime detection. Both Fred Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli were shot several times as they attempted to move the payroll boxes of their New England shoe company. The two armed thieves, identified by witnesses as “Italian-looking,” fled in a Buick. The car was found abandoned in the woods several days later.

Through evidence found in the car, police suspected that a man named Mike Boda was involved. However, Boda was one step ahead of the authorities, and he fled to Italy. Police did manage to catch Boda’s colleagues, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were each carrying loaded weapons at the time of their arrest. Sacco had a .32 caliber handgun-the same type as was used to kill the security guards-and bullets from the same manufacturer as those recovered from the shooting. Vanzetti was identified as a participant in a previous robbery attempt of a different shoe company.

Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists, believing that social justice would come only through the destruction of governments. In the early 1920s, mainstream America was starting to develop a fear of communism and radical politics. Sacco and Vanzetti, recognizing the uphill battle ahead, tried to put this fear to their advantage by drumming up support from the left wing with claims that the prosecution was politically motivated. Millions of dollars were raised for their defense by the radical left around the world. American embassies were even bombed in response to the Sacco-Vanzetti case.

The well-funded defense put up a good fight, bringing forth nearly 100 witnesses to testify on the defendants’ behalf. Ultimately, eyewitness identification wasn’t the crucial issue; rather, it was the ballistics tests on the murder weapon. Prosecution experts, with rather primitive instruments, testified that Sacco’s gun was the murder weapon. Defense experts claimed just the opposite. In the end, on July 14, 1921, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty and sentenced to die. However, the ballistics issue refused to go away as Sacco and Vanzetti waited on death row. In addition, a jailhouse confession by another criminal fueled the controversy.

In 1927, Massachusetts Governor A. T. Fuller ordered another inquiry to advise him on the clemency request of the two anarchists. In the meantime, there had been many scientific advances in the field of forensics. The comparison microscope was now available for new ballistics tests and proved beyond a doubt that Sacco’s gun was indeed the murder weapon. A defense expert was even reported to have remarked upon seeing the new results, “Well, what do you know about that?” Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in August 1927, but even the new evidence didn’t completely quell the controversy.

In October 1961, and again in March 1983, new investigations were conducted into the matter, but both revealed that Sacco’s revolver was indeed the one that fired the bullet and killed the security guards.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

1922 – Wyoming Democratic Senator John Kendrick introduced a resolution that set in motion one of the most significant investigations in Senate history. On the previous day, the Wall Street Journal had reported an unprecedented secret arrangement in which the Secretary of the Interior, without competitive bidding, had leased the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming’s Teapot Dome to a private oil company. Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert La Follette arranged for the Senate Committee on Public Lands to investigate the matter. His suspicions deepened after someone ransacked his Russell Building office.

1943 – US forces prepare for an invasion of the Aleutian Island, Attu, held by the Japanese. The US 7th Division, preparing for deployment in North Africa, is earmarked for the operation.

1944 – The US 15th Air Force sends 500 sorties to Bucharest and Ploesti.

1944 – U.S. plans Operation Wedlock, an invasion of the Kurile Islands of northern Japan. American and Canadian troops, aided by the Ninth Fleet and American bombers ordered to bomb the islands every day, prepare to occupy the islands long disputed between Japan and Russia. The plan was a fiction. There was no invasion–or a Ninth Fleet. It was all a ruse to divert Japanese attention away from the Marianas Islands, the Allies’ true target. Operation Forager, the real thing, was launched on June 15, 1944, with a landing on Saipan, one of the three Marianas Islands. It was a U.S. success, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Japanese–both from combat and ritual suicide–including that of the Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito.

1945 – US troops occupied the concentration camp at Colditz.

1945 – Commenting on the death of American President Franklin Roosevelt in his Order of the Day, Adolf Hitler proclaimed: “Now that fate has removed from the earth the greatest war criminal of all time, the turning point of this war will be decided.”

1945 – On Okinawa, the US 6th Marine Division assaults Yae Hill but is driven back by the Japanese defense.

1945 – Units of the US 9th Army, which have crossed the Elbe River near Magdeburg, are forced to retreat. The US 1st Army takes Leuna. Meanwhile, Operation Venerable is launched against the German garrison in the fortress of Royan, at the mouth of the Gironde River; heavy napalm bomb attacks by the US 8th Air Force and shelling by the Free French battleship Lorraine are followed by an attack by Free French and American forces.

1945 – In Italy, both US 5th and British 8th Armies continue their attacks. Elements of the Polish 2nd Corps (part of British 8th Army) has reached the Sillario River after crossing the Santero River.

1951 – Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet took command of Eighth Army. Van Fleet, a 1915 West Point graduate with the class “the stars fell on,” commanded a machine gun battalion in World War I, led the 8th Infantry Regiment ashore at Normandy and by the end of World War II was a major general commanding a corps. In the late 1940s he was head of a joint U.S. military advisory group in Greece where he advised Greek forces in successfully stopping a communist-supported insurgency.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

1952 – President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.

1952 – The 1st B-52 prototype test flight was made. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) since the 1950s. The bomber is capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds (32,000 kg) of weapons. Beginning with the successful contract bid in June 1946, the B-52 design evolved from a straight-wing aircraft powered by six turboprop engines to the final prototype YB-52 with eight turbojet engines and swept wings.

Built to carry nuclear weapons for Cold War-era deterrence missions, the B-52 Stratofortress replaced the Convair B-36. A veteran of several wars, the B-52 has dropped only conventional munitions in combat. The B-52’s official name Stratofortress is rarely used in informal circumstances, and it has become common to refer to the aircraft as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fucker). The B-52 has been in active service with the USAF since 1955. As of 2012, 85 were in active service with nine in reserve.

The bombers flew under the Strategic Air Command (SAC) until it was inactivated in 1992 and its aircraft absorbed into the Air Combat Command (ACC); in 2010 all B-52 Stratofortresses were transferred from the ACC to the new Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). Superior performance at high subsonic speeds and relatively low operating costs have kept the B-52 in service despite the advent of later, more advanced aircraft, including the canceled Mach 3 B-70 Valkyrie, the variable-geometry B-1 Lancer, and the stealth B-2 Spirit. The B-52 completed fifty years of continuous service with its original operator in 2005; after being upgraded between 2013 and 2015, it is expected to serve into the 2040s.

1959 – Four months after leading a successful revolution in Cuba, Fidel Castro visits the United States. The visit was marked by tensions between Castro and the American government. On January 1, 1959, Castro’s revolutionary forces overthrew the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. From the beginning of the new regime in Cuba, U.S. officials worried about the bearded revolutionary.

Castro’s anti-American rhetoric, his stated plans to nationalize foreign properties in Cuba, and his association with a number of suspected leftists (including his second-in-command, Che Guevara) prompted American diplomats to keep a wary eye on him. Though he worried politicians, American reporters adored him–his tales of the days spent fighting a guerrilla war in Cuba, the fatigues and combat boots he favored, and his bushy beard cut a striking figure.

In April 1959, Castro accepted an invitation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors to visit the U.S. The trip got off to an inauspicious start when it became clear that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had no intention of meeting with Castro. Instead, Eisenhower went to the golf course to avoid any chance meeting with Castro. Castro gave a talk to the Council on Foreign Affairs, a New York-based group of private citizens and former government officials interested in U.S. international relations.

Castro was confrontational during the session, indicating that Cuba would not beg the United States for economic assistance. Angered by some of the questions from the audience, Castro abruptly left the meeting. Finally, before departing for Cuba, Castro met with Vice President Richard Nixon.

Privately, Nixon hoped that his talk would push Castro “in the right direction,” and away from any radical policies, but he came away from his discussion full of doubt about the possibility of reorienting Castro’s thinking. Nixon concluded that Castro was “either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline-my guess is the former.” Relations between the United States and Castro deteriorated rapidly following the April visit.

In less than a year, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to begin arming and training a group of Cuban exiles to attack Cuba (the disastrous attack, known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, was eventually carried out during the Kennedy administration). The heated Cold War animosity between America and Cuba would last for over 40 years.

1961 – US CIA pilots knocked out part of the Cuban air force.

1961 – Launching of first nuclear-powered frigate, USS Bainbridge, at Quincy, MA.

1962 – The first Marine air unit is sent to Vietnam. 15 Sikorsky UH-34D combat helicopters of the US 362nd Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM-362), arrive from the aircraft carrier Princeton. based near Soc Trang, 100 miles southwest of Saigon, the 450 Marines and their craft, as task unit dubbed ‘Shoofly’, reinforce the three US Army helicopter companies already in Vietnam, and carry supplies and troops to isolated or threatened villages and troop concentrations.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

1964 – US planes conduct an armed reconnaissance over Highways 7 and 8 in North Vietnam. They drop 9 tons of bombs on the boat landing at Muongsen. The operation includes the first night raid on North Vietnam by US planes; sites near Hanoi are being prepared to receive SAM II missiles from the USSR.

1967 – Protests of US policy in Vietnam are held in New York City and San Francisco. NYC speakers include martin Luther King, Jr., Stokley Charmichael and Benjamin Spock. 200 draft cards are burned in Central Park. Attendance is estimated at 125,000 in NYC and 20,000 in San Francisco.

1967 – Two US Air Force F-100 Supersabre jets miss intended targets, hitting South Vietnam Army battalion positions 23 miles east of Quinhon. 41 killed and at least 50 wounded.

1968 – A USMC operation which will last 10 months begins around Khesahn, named Scotland II. It will result in a listed 3311 enemy casualties.

1969 – The 173rd Airborne Brigade begins a pacification operation that will conclude on New Year’s Day 1971. Washington Green, through the An Lao Valley in Binhdinh Province will produce 1957 enemy casualties.

1969 – North Korea shoots down a United States Navy EC-121 aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board. The 1969 EC-121 shoot down incident occurred on April 15, 1969 when a United States Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star on a reconnaissance mission was shot down by North Korean MiG-17 aircraft over the Sea of Japan. The plane crashed 90 nautical miles (167 km) off the North Korean coast and all 31 Americans on board were killed.

The Nixon administration chose not to retaliate against North Korea apart from staging a naval demonstration in the Sea of Japan a few days later. Instead it resumed the reconnaissance flights within a week to demonstrate that it would not be intimidated by the action while at the same time avoiding a confrontation.

1970 – As part of the third phase of U.S. troop withdrawals announced by President Nixon, the 1st Infantry Division departs Vietnam. One of the most distinguished units in the U.S. Army, the 1st Infantry Division was organized in May 1917 and served with distinction in both World War I and II. It was deployed to the area north of Saigon in October 1965, one of the first Army infantry divisions to arrive in Vietnam.

The division consisted of seven battalions of light infantry and two battalions of mechanized infantry. Other combat elements included an armored reconnaissance unit and four battalions of artillery. The approaches to Saigon and the border regions between Vietnam and Cambodia were the major battlefields for the 1st Infantry Division. It took part in large-scale operations such as Operation Junction City (February-May 1967) and the Tet Offensive of 1968.

The division also conducted major operations in conjunction with South Vietnamese forces in the region. It returned to Fort Riley, Kansas, upon its departure from South Vietnam. The 1st Infantry Division was awarded the Vietnamese Civil Action Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm.

Among other individual awards, its soldiers won 11 Medals of Honor, 67 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 905 Silver Stars for bravery. The division suffered 20,770 soldiers killed or wounded in action, slightly more than the 20,659 casualties the division suffered in World War II.

1970 – Also part of the third phase of US withdrawal, a force of 12,900 marines depart South Vietnam. Units include the 26th marines, the 1st Antitank Battalion, most of the 1st Tank Battalion, 3rd Amphibian Tractor Battalion, and the 1st Shore Party battalion. There are now 429,200 US troops in Vietnam.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

1971 – North Vietnamese troops ambushed a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.

1971 – III MAF Redeployed to Okinawa after six years of service in Vietnam.

1972 – North Vietnamese forces overrun Fire Base Charlie, 20 miles northwest of Kontum as part of their continuing Central Highlands offensive.

1986 – The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen. The attack was carried out by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps via air strikes, in response to the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. There were 40 reported Libyan casualties, and one US plane was shot down, resulting in the death of two airmen.

1986 – The Libyan military (on orders from dictator Moammar Gadhafi) fired a missile (or missiles) at the Coast Guard LORAN Station Lampedusa, off the coast of Italy. The missile(s) missed by a wide margin and there were no casualties.

1988 – The Soviet Union began the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, more than eight years after Soviet forces had entered the country.

1992 – Countries barred Libyan jets from their airspace and ordered diplomats to go home because of Libya’s refusal to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on arms sales and air travel against Libya to prod Gadhafi into surrendering two suspects wanted in the Pan Am 103.

1997 – The Justice Department inspector general reported that FBI crime lab agents produced flawed scientific work or inaccurate testimony in major cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing.

1997 – The US military said it would allow American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services.

1998 – A U.N. Human Rights Commission report states that Saddam Hussein ordered the execution of at least 1,500 people in last year, mostly for political reasons. The report, by a former foreign minister of the Netherlands, says human rights conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate.

1999 – The US Pentagon planned to ask for 30,000 reservists and National Guard members for NATO support. Pres. Clinton was expected to ask for $5.9 billion in emergency spending to cover US costs in the Kosovo operation.

1999 – NATO bombed TV transmitters, military installations and bridges throughout Yugoslavia. Military targets in Montenegro were struck as was the city of Subotica, near the Hungarian border.

April 15th ~ {continued...}

2002 – Operation Mountain Lion began and was designed to find enemy fighters in the Gardez and Khost regions, destroy those that were there and deny them control of the area and an opportunity to reorganize their forces. Operation Mountain Lion was the first major initiative since Operation Anaconda, a 12-day running battle, which ended in March 2002 in the eastern Shah-i-Kot Mountains.

2003 – In the 28th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom selected Iraqi leaders met with retired US Lt. Gen. Jay Garner to shape a new government with 13 goals, the 1st being “Iraq must be democratic.” Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States has no plans to go to war with Syria. Marines came under fire while seizing an airstrip on the outskirts of Tikrit.

2003 – Seven Iraqis died when American troops opened fire to keep an angry crowd from storming a government complex in Mosul. US troops in Baghdad arrested Abu Abbas, head of the Palestinian terrorist group that attacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.

2003 – US forces cut off oil flow from Iraq to Syria. Oil flow had reached 130,000 barrels a day providing both countries over $10 million a month in profits.

2003 – Slovakia President Rudolf Schuster signed an accession document committing Slovakia to joining NATO, the next-to-last step on the long road to membership in the military alliance.

2004 – The Pentagon told 20,000 US soldiers in Iraq that their tours would be extended.

2004 – A man identifying himself as Osama bin Laden offered a “truce” to European countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers leave Islamic nations, according to a recording broadcast on Arab satellite networks.

2004 – In Iraq 3 Japanese hostages who had been threatened with death unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq were released.

2013 – Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.

April 16th ~

1789 – George Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for the first presidential inauguration in New York.

1818 – U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border. The Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.

1861 – US president Lincoln outlawed business with confederate states.

1862 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between the ages of 18 and 35.

1862 – The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.

1862 – Battle at Dam No. 1 in Virginia. Part of the Battle of Yorktown or Siege of Yorktown that was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. On April 16, the Union probed the defensive line at Dam No. 1, the point on the Warwick River near Lee’s Mill where Hancock had reported a potential weakness on April 6th. After the brief skirmish with Hancock’s men, Magruder realized the weakness of his position and ordered it strengthened.

Three regiments under Brig. Gen. Howell Cobb, with six other regiments nearby, were improving their position on the west bank of the river overlooking the dam. McClellan became concerned that this strengthening might impede his installation of siege batteries. His order to Brig. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, a division commander in the IV Corps, was to avoid a general engagement, but to “hamper the enemy” in completing their defensive works. Following an artillery bombardment at 8 a.m., Brig. Gen. William T. H. Brooks and his Vermont Brigade sent skirmishers forward to fire on the Confederates. In a visit to the front, McClellan told Smith to cross the river if it appeared the Confederates were withdrawing, a movement that was already underway by early afternoon.

At 3 p.m., four companies of the 3rd Vermont Infantry crossed the dam and routed the remaining defenders. Behind the lines, Cobb organized a defense with his brother, Colonel Thomas Cobb of the Georgia Legion, and attacked the Vermonters, who had occupied the Confederate rifle pits. In battle, drummer Julian Scott made several trips across the fire-swept creek in order to assist in bringing off wounded soldiers. Later he was awarded the Medal of Honor, along with First Sergeant Edward Holton and Captain Samuel E. Pingree. Unable to obtain reinforcements, the Vermont companies withdrew across the dam, suffering casualties as they retreated.

At about 5 p.m., Baldy Smith ordered the 6th Vermont to attack Confederate positions downstream from the dam while the 4th Vermont demonstrated at the dam itself. This maneuver failed as the 6th Vermont came under heavy Confederate fire and were forced to withdraw. Some of the wounded men were drowned as they fell into the shallow pond behind the dam. From a Union perspective, the action at Dam No. 1 was pointless, but it cost them casualties of 35 dead and 121 wounded; the Confederate casualties were between 60 and 75. Baldy Smith, who was thrown from his unruly horse twice during action, was accused of drunkenness on duty, but a congressional investigation found the allegation to be groundless.

April 16th ~ {continued...}

1863 – Gunboats under Rear Admiral Porter engaged and ran past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg shepherding Army transports to New Carthage below the Southern citadel. The force included U.S.S. Benton, Lafayette, Louisville, Pittsburg, Mound City, Carondelet, and Tuscumbia; U.S.S. General Sterling Price was lashed to the starboard side of Lafayette for the passage, as was tug Ivy to Benton. Each hip, except Benton, also towed a coal barge containing 10,000 bushels of coal. Lafayette, Captain Walke, hampered by the ship lashed to her side, received nine ”effective” shots through her casemate and had her coal barge sunk. Transport Henry Clay was sunk, with no loss of life, during the passage and another, Forest Queen, was temporarily disabled but was successfully aided by Tuscumbia, Lieutenant Commander James W. Shirk.

Under fire for 2 1/2 hours, beginning shortly after 11 p.m. on the 16th, the squadron suffered what Porter termed only “very light” loss. He reported that all ships were ready for service within half an hour after the passage. ”Altogether,” he remarked, ”we were very fortunate; the vessels had some narrow escapes, but were saved in most instances by the precautions taken to protect them. They were covered with heavy logs and bales of wet hay, which were found to be an excellent defense.”

A memorandum in the Secretary of the Navy’s office recorded: “The passage of the fleet by Vicksburg was a damper to the spirits of all rebel sympathizers along the Mississippi for everyone was so impressed with the absurdity of our gunboats getting safely past their batteries without being knocked to pieces that they would not admit to themselves that it would be undertaken until they saw the gunboats moving down the river all safe and sound. Vicksburg was despaired of from that moment.” The successful steaming of the squadron past the heavy batteries contributed to the early seizure of Grand Gulf, the eventual fall of Vicksburg itself, and ultimately the total control of the entire Mississippi.

1865 – The Navy Department directed that on 17 April a gun be fired in honor of the late President Lincoln each half hour, from sunrise to sunset, that all flags be kept at half-mast until after the funeral, and that officers wear mourning crepe for six months.

1917 – Vladimir Lenin, leader of the revolutionary Bolshevik Party, returns to Petrograd after a decade of exile to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. One month before, Czar Nicholas II had been forced from power when Russian army troops joined a workers’ revolt in Petrograd, the Russian capital.

The revolution, which consisted mainly of strikes throughout the Russian empire, came to an end when Nicholas II promised reforms, including the adoption of a Russian constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature. However, once order was restored, the czar nullified most of these reforms, and in 1907 Lenin was again forced into exile. Lenin opposed World War I, which began in 1914, as an imperialistic conflict and called on proletariat soldiers to turn their guns on the capitalist leaders who sent them down into the murderous trenches.

For Russia, World War I was an unprecedented disaster: Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any nation in any previous war. Meanwhile, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the costly war effort, and in March 1917 riots and strikes broke out in Petrograd over the scarcity of food. Demoralized army troops joined the strikers, and on March 15 Nicholas II was forced to abdicate, ending centuries of czarist rule. In the aftermath of the February Revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar), power was shared between the ineffectual Provincial Government and the soviets, or “councils,” of soldiers’ and workers’ committees.

After the outbreak of the February Revolution, German authorities allowed Lenin and his lieutenants to cross Germany en route from Switzerland to Sweden in a sealed railway car. Berlin hoped (correctly) that the return of the anti-war Socialists to Russia would undermine the Russian war effort, which was continuing under the Provincial Government. Lenin called for the overthrow of the Provincial Government by the soviets, and he was condemned as a “German agent” by the government’s leaders.

In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for “peace, land, and bread” met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7 the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world’s first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry, and distributed land but, beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces.

In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin’s death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

April 16th ~ {continued...}

1942 – Japanese overcome all resistance on Cebu and land 4000 troops on Panay.

1944 – The destroyer USS Laffey survived horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.

1944 – The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort (DE) USS Joyce, along with her sister ship USS Peterson and a Navy DE sank the U-550 off New York after the U-boat torpedoed a tanker that was part of a convoy the warships were escorting to England.

1945 – In his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his predecessor, President Roosevelt.

1945 – Just four days after President Franklin Roosevelt passed away–the federal government tacked another year on to the term of one of Roosevelt’s key pieces of wartime legislation, the Lend-Lease Act. The Lend-Lease bill was originally enacted in 1941, when the U.S. was wavering between entering World War II and remaining neutral. Roosevelt, however, was increasingly committed to the fight against fascism; he was also under growing pressure from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to cease the practice of selling, rather than lending or outright giving, war materials to England.

The Lend-Lease legislation remedied this situation, as America now served as “the great arsenal of democracy,” providing Great Britain with money and military machinery; in return, England could make repayments either “in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory.” As the war progressed, the U.S. expanded the Lend Lease system to include China and Russia. All told, the U.S. funneled $50.6 billion worth of Lend-Lease aid to the Allies during the war, the majority of which went to Britain and the USSR.

1945 – US 7th Army units reach the outskirts of Nuremberg. The special prisoner of war camp at Colditz is liberated by other Allied units during the day.

1945 – The US 77th Infantry Division lands on the small island of Ie Shima and encounters heavy Japanese resistance.

1945 – American forces land on Fort Frank and find it abandoned. This completes the capture of the islands in Manila Bay.

1946 – 1st US launch of captured V-2 rocket was at White Sands, NM. It reached 8 km.

1947 – Multimillionaire and financier Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term “Cold War” to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The phrase stuck, and for over 40 years it was a mainstay in the language of American diplomacy.

1947 – Act of Congress gives Navy Nurse Corps members commissioned rank.

1951 – General and Mrs. MacArthur departed Haneda Airport for the United States. Nearly 500,000 Japanese turned out to say goodbye.

April 16th ~ {continued...}

1953 – During the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, the 17th and 31st Infantry Regiments of the 7th Infantry Division were hit hard by the Communist Chinese and sustained heavy casualties.

1954 – Vice-President Nixon tells a convention of newspaper editors that the United States may be ‘putting our own boys in [Indochina]…regardless of allied support.’ in Washington the desire to see colonialism end has given way to the desire to ‘contain’ Communism and to the belief that the was fostered from the outside. Nixon claims there would be no war were it not for Communist China.

1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1961 – President Kennedy called off the CIA air strikes in Cuba. The message did not reach the 1,511 commandos headed for the Bay of Pigs.

1968 – The Pentagon announced the “Vietnamization” of the war; troops will begin coming home.

1969 – President Nixon sends a message of Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia; “In conformity with the UN Charter, the United States recognizes and respects the sovereignty, independence, neutrality, and territorial integrity of the kingdom of Cambodia within its present frontiers.” Sihanouk reports he is ready to resume diplomatic relations with the US.

1970 – At least 100 ethnic Vietnamese civilians are killed by rampaging Cambodian troops at Takeo, 50 miles south of Phnompenh.

1972 – From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon. On April 20th, astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke descended to the lunar surface from Apollo 16, which remained in orbit around the moon with a third astronaut, Thomas K. Mattingly, in command.

Young and Duke remained on the moon for nearly three days, and spent more than 20 hours exploring the surface of Earth’s only satellite. The two astronauts used the Lunar Rover vehicle to collect more than 200 pounds of rock before returning to Apollo 16 on April 23rd. Four days later, the three astronauts returned to Earth, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

1972 – In an effort to help blunt the ongoing North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after a four-year lull. In the first use of B-52s against both Hanoi and Haiphong, and the first attacks against both cities since November 1968, 18 B-52s and about 100 U.S. Navy and Air Force fighter-bombers struck supply dumps near Haiphong’s harbor. Sixty fighter-bombers hit petroleum storage facilities near Hanoi, with another wave of planes striking later in the afternoon. White House spokesmen announced that the United States would bomb military targets anywhere in Vietnam in order to help the South Vietnamese defend against the communist onslaught.

1975 – Cambodian Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh.

1977 – The ban on women attending West Point was lifted.

1978 – Lucius D. Clay (80), General / Governor of the US zone West Germany (airlift), died.

April 16th ~ {continued...}

1991 – President Bush announced that US forces would be sent into northern Iraq to assist Kurdish refugees.

1999 – President Clinton defended NATO airstrikes against Serbian targets during visits to Michigan and Massachusetts, saying U.S. involvement in Kosovo was a moral imperative.

1999 – Thousands of refugees poured out of Kosovo as NATO blasted oil refineries, military barracks and airports around Yugoslavia. At least 5,000 refugees crossed into Macedonia, and 8,000 into Albania. Some 100,000 were believed to be enroute to Macedonia.

1999 – NATO troops began to pull out of refugee camps in Macedonia. Management of the camps was turned over to Macedonian NGOs supervised by the UNHCR. Refugees were reported to be in fear of the Macedonian police.

2000 – In Washington DC police blocked some 10,000 protesters from disrupting the meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. Finance ministers and central bankers issued a statement that pledged to seek greater debt relief for the poorest countries and to reform the IMF to prevent future financial crises.

2003 – During a visit to a fighter jet factory in St. Louis, President Bush called for lifting economic sanctions against Iraq as commanders of both the U.S. military and the reconstruction effort prepared to move into the country.

2003 – NATO agreed to take command of the UN peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.2004 – Pres. Bush said he is handing over the lead role in the Iraqi political transition to the UN’s top envoy.

2004 – In Iraq U.S. military and civilian officials met with leaders from Fallujah, the first known direct negotiations between Americans and city representatives since the siege of Fallujah began April 5th.

2013 – Mail to the US Senate is suspended after letter sent to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) tests positive for the poisonous substance ricin at an offsite Congressional mail facility. The letter is being sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for further testing.

April 17th ~

1492 – Spain and Christopher Columbus sign a contract, the Capitulations of Santa Fe, for his voyage to Asia to acquire spices. They granted Columbus the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the Viceroy, the Governor-General and honorific Don, and also the tenth part of all riches to be obtained from his intended voyage. When Columbus’ proposal was initially rejected, Isabella I of Castile convoked another assembly, made up from sailors, philosophers, astrologers and others to reexamine the project. The experts considered absurd the distances between Spain and the Indies that Columbus calculated. The monarchs also became doubting, but a group of influential courtiers convinced them that they would lose little if the project failed and would gain much if it succeeded. Among those advisors were the Archbishop of Toledo Hernando de Talavera, the notary Luis de Santángel and the chamberlain Juan Cabrero.

1524 – Giovanni da Verrazano, Florentine navigator, explored from Cape Fear to Newfoundland and discovered New York Bay and the Hudson River of present-day New York harbor.

1741 – Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1778 – Sloop-of-war Ranger captures a British brig.

1790 – American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia at age 84. Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin became at 12 years old an apprentice to his half brother James, a printer and publisher. He learned the printing trade and in 1723 went to Philadelphia to work after a dispute with his brother. After a sojourn in London, he started a printing and publishing press with a friend in 1728.

In 1729, the company won a contract to publish Pennsylvania’s paper currency and also began publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette, which was regarded as one of the better colonial newspapers. From 1732 to 1757, he wrote and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, an instructive and humorous periodical in which Franklin coined such practical American proverbs as “God helps those who help themselves” and “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

As his own wealth and prestige grew, Franklin took on greater civic responsibilities in Philadelphia and helped establish the city’s first circulating library, police force, volunteer fire company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.

From 1737 to 1753, he was postmaster of Philadelphia and during this time also served as a clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature. In 1753, he became deputy postmaster general, in charge of mail in all the northern colonies. Deeply interesting in science and technology, he invented the Franklin stove, which is still manufactured today, and bifocal eyeglasses, among other practical inventions.

In 1748, he turned his printing business over to his partner so he would have more time for his experiments. The phenomenon of electricity fascinated him, and in a dramatic experiment he flew a kite in a thunderstorm to prove that lightning is an electrical discharge. He later invented the lightning rod. Many terms used in discussing electricity, including positive, negative, battery, and conductor, were coined by Franklin in his scientific papers. He was the first American scientist to be highly regarded in European scientific circles. Franklin was active in colonial affairs and in 1754 proposed the union of the colonies, which was rejected by Britain.

In 1757, he went to London to argue for the right to tax the massive estates of the Penn family in Pennsylvania, and in 1764 went again to ask for a new charter for Pennsylvania. He was in England when Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. His initial failure to actively oppose the controversial act drew wide criticism in the colonies, but he soon redeemed himself by stoutly defending American rights before the House of Commons. With tensions between the American colonies and Britain rising, he stayed on in London and served as agent for several colonies.

In 1775, he returned to America as the American Revolution approached and was a delegate at the Continental Congress. In 1776, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and in July signed the final document. Ironically, Franklin’s illegitimate son, William Franklin, whom Franklin and his wife had raised, had at the same time emerged as a leader of the Loyalists.

In 1776, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin, one of the embattled United States’ most prominent statesmen, to France as a diplomat. Warmly embraced, he succeeded in 1778 in securing two treaties that provided the Americans with significant military and economic aid. In 1781, with French help, the British were defeated. With John Jay and John Adams, Franklin then negotiated the Treaty of Paris with Britain, which was signed in 1783.

In 1785, Franklin returned to the United States. In his last great public service, he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and worked hard for the document’s ratification. After his death in 1790, Philadelphia gave him the largest funeral the city had ever seen.

April 17th ~ {continued...}

1797 – Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico, in what would be one of the largest invasions of the Spanish territories in America. The attack was carried out facing the historic town of Miramar. Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby invaded the island of Puerto Rico with a force of 6,000-13,000 men, which included German soldiers and Royal Marines and a 60 to 64 ship armada. The Spanish spotted an enemy convoy off the coastline that morning.

Upon this sighting, the Governor, Brigadier General Ramón de Castro, summoned his military Chiefs to immediately put a defense plan into action. Along strategic points throughout the coastline, garrison troops were placed into position. While attempting to maneuver ships into the inlet, the British fleet encountered a problem. There was an underwater reef that was very narrow so that only frigates and smaller transport ships could enter. The British placed two frigates at the opening of the port to deny entrance to other ships.

On April 18, anchored British ships began bombarding points where the Spanish had taken defensive positions to protect the beach. After some minor battles, the British sent a ship flying diplomatic colors to the entrance of the port and was met by an aide-de-camp who was given a message for the Commanding Officer of the city. In the message, they demanded the immediate surrender of Spanish forces. The British ship did not wait for a response, and in some confusion later in the night, a Spanish ship carrying a reply message came under fire. Controlling the port became a chess match as the Spanish fleet mimicked every move by the British armada. The British were able to land many small groups of soldiers along the beach, some of which were German soldiers who were fighting alongside the British.

During the day on April 19, two German soldiers were captured. One of the soldiers had in his possession a hand-written paper containing a name of a city resident. The Spanish, fearing a traitor in their ranks, had this man arrested. The order was given on Friday, April 21 by the Spanish to destroy San Antonio bridge to eliminate an opportunity of the British forces to take cover and advance their position.

Saturday April 22, the Spanish began taking up defensive positions after noticing large regiments of British flying their colors just out of range of the Spanish cannons. Trenches were dug and spiked boards were emplaced to slow the impending attack. On Monday, April 24, Militia Sergeant Francisco Diaz was chosen to lead a party of 70 men to attack a British position. They met approximately 300 British soldiers who they were able to force to retreat despite their superior number.

The raiding party found a cannon battery and captured fourteen prisoners. The British then staged a counterattack and the Spanish raiding party was forced to flee. Fierce fighting continued for the next five days. Both sides suffered heavy loses. On Sunday, April 30 British ceased their attack and began their retreat from San Juan.

1805 – The Revenue cutter Louisiana engaged two pirates that had been fitted out at New Orleans. Twenty shots were exchanged but the pirate vessels escaped.

1808 – The Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships on the pretext that they were in violation of the U. S. Embargo Act (22 December 1807), resulting in over ten million dollars in United States goods and ships being confiscated.

1824 – Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54′ 40′.

April 17th ~ {continued...}

1849 – The United States’ relationship with Japan at the end of the 1840s was one of extreme caution. The establishment of dialogue between the US and Japan was in its infancy and no relationships had yet been formed; very little, in fact, was known about Japan. Thus, the crew of the Preble found themselves in a very uncomfortable position when, without that country’s permission, they sailed into Japanese waters and weighed anchor off Nagasaki on April 17, 1849. The Preble’s mission was to rescue American merchant marine sailors who were being held in a Japanese prison as spies.

While the Preble was at Hong Kong, the US Navy had received word from the Dutch merchants in Canton that the Japanese were holding fifteen American sailors that had been shipwrecked off of the coast of Japan during a whaling expedition. Their whaling ship, the Lagoda, had gone down in the Japan Sea with 1,300 barrels of oil on June 2 after hitting a shoal in heavy fog (Larson 1994 [1981]). Sailing orders to Captain Glynn addressed the issue of international relations: In your correspondence with the Japanese, your conduct will be conciliatory but firm. You will be careful not to violate the laws or customs of the Country, or by any means prejudice the success of any pacific policy our government may be inclined to pursue. Nevertheless you may be placed in situations which cannot be foreseen . In all such cases, every confidence is reposed in your discretion and ability to guard the interests as well as the honor of your country (National Archives Microfilm Publication M89; Larson 1994 [1981]).

At the arrival of the Preble in Nagasaki, small boats were sent out to her from which notes attached to bamboo sticks were thrown on board the Preble’s deck. Captain Glynn immediately threw them overboard insisting on being afforded the respect of speaking with a representative in person. Over the next three days, several officials and interpreters came aboard to negotiate with Captain Glynn. The Captain, under frequent questioning about his rank and the disposition of the United States Naval forces, stood his ground and continually argued to speak with higher ranking officials.

Glynn delivered an ultimatum on April 22, saying that in three days he would go ashore to speak personally with the governor of Nagasaki for the release of the prisoners. The next day, the American prisoners were released to Dutch traders on shore and conveyed to the Preble. Captain Glynn did not converse with any officials after that and the Preble reported back to the East India Squadron in Hong Kong with the rescued passengers.

1861 – The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union. Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.

1861 – U.S.S. Powhatan, Lieutenant D. D. Porter, arrived off Pensacola. Under her protecting guns, 600 troops on board steamer Atlantic were landed at Fort Pickens to complete its reinforcement. President Lincoln had stated “I want that fort saved at all hazards.” The President’s wish was fulfilled, and use of the best harbor on the Gulf was denied the Confederacy for the entire war, while serving the Union in­dispensably in the blockade and the series of devastating assaults from the sea that divided and de­stroyed the South.

1863 – Grierson’s Raid begins – troops under Union Army Colonel Benjamin Grierson attack central Mississippi. Grierson’s Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. It ran to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s main attack plan on Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1863 – Gunboats under Rear Admiral Porter engaged and ran past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg shepherding Army transports to New Carthage below the Southern citadel. A memorandum in the Secretary of the Navy’s office recorded: “The passage of the fleet by Vicksburg was a damper to the spirits of all rebel sympathizers along the Mississippi for everyone was so impressed with the absurdity of our gunboats getting safely past their batteries without being knocked to pieces that they would not admit to themselves that it would be undertaken until they saw the gunboats moving down the river all safe and sound. Vicksburg was despaired of from that moment.”

The successful steaming of the squadron past the heavy batteries contributed to the early seizure of Grand Gulf, the eventual fall of Vicksburg itself, and ultimately the total control of the entire Mississippi.

1864 – General Grant banned the trading of prisoners.

1864 – Confederate forces attack Plymouth, North Carolina, in an attempt to recapture ports lost to the Union two years before. The four-day battle ended with the fall of Plymouth, but the Yankees kept the city bottled up with a flotilla on nearby Albemarle Sound.