** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

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PostPosted: Sun Jul 05, 2015 1:30 pm
July 5th ~ 1950 – Near Sojong, South Korea, Private Kenneth Shadrick, a 19-year-old infantryman from Skin Fork, West Virginia, becomes the first American reported killed in the Korean War.

Shadrick, a member of a bazooka squad, had just fired the weapon at a Soviet-made tank when he looked up to check his aim and was cut down by enemy machine-gun fire. Near the end of World War II, the “Big Three” Allied powers–the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain–agreed to divide Korea into two separate occupation zones and temporarily govern the nation. The country was split along the 38th parallel, with Soviet forces occupying the northern zone and Americans stationed in the south. By 1949, separate Korean governments had been established, and both the United States and the USSR withdrew the majority of their troops from the Korean Peninsula.

The 38th parallel was heavily fortified on both sides, but the South Koreans were unprepared for the hordes of North Korean troops and Soviet-made tanks that suddenly rolled across the border on June 25, 1950. Two days later, President Harry Truman announced that the United States would intervene in the Korean conflict to stem the spread of communism, and on June 28 the United Nations approved the use of force against communist North Korea. In the opening months of the war, the U.S.-led U.N. forces rapidly advanced against the North Koreans, but in October, Chinese communist troops entered the fray, throwing the Allies into a hasty retreat.

By May 1951, the communists were pushed back to the 38th parallel, where the battle line remained for the rest of the war. In 1953, an armistice was signed, ending the war and reestablishing the 1945 division of Korea that still exists today. Approximately 150,000 troops from South Korea, the United States, and participating U.N. nations were killed in the Korean War, and as many as one million South Korean civilians perished. An estimated 800,000 communist soldiers were killed, and more than 200,000 North Korean civilians died.

The original figure of American troops lost–54,246 killed–became controversial when the Pentagon acknowledged in 2000 that all U.S. troops killed around the world during the period of the Korean War were incorporated into that number. For example, any American soldier killed in a car accident anywhere in the world from June 1950 to July 1953 was considered a casualty of the Korean War. If these deaths are subtracted from the 54,246 total, leaving just the Americans who died (from whatever cause) in the Korean theater of operations, the total U.S. dead in the Korean War numbers 36,516.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 12:51 am
July 6th ~

1699 – Pirate Captain William Kidd was captured in Boston...exactly two years later in 1701, he was hanged.

1747 – John Paul Jones, naval hero of the American Revolution, was born near Kirkcudbright, Scotland. As a US naval commander he invaded England during the American War of Independence.

1776 – The US Declaration of Independence was announced on the front page of “PA Evening Gazette.”

1777 – British forces under Gen. Burgoyne captured Fort Ticonderoga from the Americans...

Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s 8,000-man army occupied high ground above the fort, and nearly surrounded the defenses. These movements precipitated the occupying Continental Army, an under-strength force of 3,000 under the command of General Arthur St. Clair, to withdraw from Ticonderoga and the surrounding defenses. Some gunfire was exchanged, and there were some casualties, but there was no formal siege and no pitched battle. Burgoyne’s army occupied Fort Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, the extensive fortifications on the Vermont side of the lake, without opposition on 6 July. Advance units pursued the retreating Americans. The uncontested surrender of Ticonderoga caused an uproar in the American public and in its military circles, as Ticonderoga was widely believed to be virtually impregnable, and a vital point of defense.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 06, 2015 3:23 pm
July 3rd~ Battle of Gettysburg~ Historical Footnote:

One of the most dramatic components of the Battle of Gettysburg, the large clash of Union and Confederate cavalry units on the third and final day, has often been overshadowed by Pickett’s Charge and the defense of Little Round Top. Yet the fight between thousands of horsemen led by two charismatic leaders, Confederate J.E.B. Stuart and George Armstrong Custer of the Union, may have played a decisive role in the battle.

The movement by more than 5,000 Confederate cavalry troopers in the hours preceding Pickett’s Charge has always seemed puzzling. What was Robert E. Lee hoping to achieve by sending a large force of horse soldiers to an area three miles away, to the northeast of Gettysburg?

It was always assumed that Stuart’s cavalry movements that day were intended to either harass the federal flank or strike and sever Union supply lines.

Yet it’s possible Lee intended to have Stuart’s rebel cavalry strike the rear of the Union positions in a devastating surprise blow. A carefully timed cavalry attack, hitting the Union rear at the same time Pickett’s Charge poured thousands of infantrymen into the Union front line, could have turned the tide of the battle and even changed the outcome of the Civil War.

Whatever Lee’s strategic goal was, it failed. Stuart’s attempt to reach the rear of the Union defensive positions failed when he met ferocious resistance from outnumbered Union cavalrymen led by Custer, who was gaining a reputation for being fearless under fire.

The frantic fight was filled with surging cavalry charges across farm fields. And it might have been remembered as one of the greatest engagements of the entire war had not Pickett’s Charge been occurring on the same afternoon, barely three miles away.

The Confederate Cavalry in Pennsylvania

When Robert E. Lee made his plans to invade the North in the summer of 1863, he sent the cavalry commanded by General J.E.B. Stuart to travel through the center of the state of Maryland. And when the Union Army of the Potomac began moving northward from their own positions in Virginia to counter Lee, they inadvertently separated Stuart from the rest of Lee’s forces.

So as Lee and the infantry entered Pennsylvania, Lee had no idea where his cavalry was located. Stuart and his men were off raiding various towns in Pennsylvania, causing considerable panic and disruption. But those adventures were not helping Lee at all.

Lee, of course, was frustrated, forced to move in enemy territory without his cavalry to serve as his eyes. And when the Union and Confederate forces eventually ran into each other near Gettysburg on the morning of July 1, 1863, it was because Union cavalry scouts encountered Confederate infantry.

The Confederate cavalry was still separated from the rest of Lee’s army for the first and second days of the battle. And when Stuart finally reported to Lee late on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, the Confederate commander was supposedly very angry.

George Armstrong Custer at Gettysburg

On the Union side, the cavalry had just been reorganized prior to Lee moving the war into Pennsylvania. The commander of the cavalry, recognizing potential in George Armstrong Custer, promoted him from captain to brigadier general. Custer was put in command of several cavalry regiments from Michigan.

Custer was being rewarded for proving himself in battle. At the battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, less than a month before Gettysburg, Custer had led cavalry charges. His commanding general cited him for bravery.

Arriving in Pennsylvania, Custer was eager to prove he had deserved his promotion.

Stuart’s Cavalry on the Third Day

On the morning of July 3, 1863, General Stuart led more than 5,000 mounted men out of the town of Gettysburg, heading northeast along the York Road. From Union positions on hilltops near the town, the movement was noticed. The maneuvering would have been impossible to hide, as that many horses would raise a large cloud of dust.

The Confederate cavalry seemed to be covering the left flank of the army, but they went farther out than would be necessary, and then turned to the right, to head southward. The intent seemed to be to hit the Union rear areas, but as they came over a ridge they spotted Union cavalry units just south of them, ready to block their way.

If Stuart was planning to strike the Union rear, that would depend on speed and surprise. And at that point he had lost both. Though the federal cavalry force facing him was outnumbered, they were well positioned to block any movement toward the rear positions of the Union Army.

Cavalry Battle on the Rummel Farm

A farm belonging to a local family named Rummel suddenly became the site of a cavalry skirmish as Union cavalrymen, off their horses and fighting dismounted, began to exchange fire with Confederate counterparts. And then the Union commander on the scene, General David Gregg, ordered Custer to attack on horseback.

Placing himself at the head of a Michigan cavalry regiment, Custer raised his saber and screamed, “Come on, you wolverines!” And he charged.

What had been a standoff and then a skirmish quickly escalated into one of the biggest cavalry battles of the entire war. Custer’s men charged, were beaten back, and charged again. The scene turned into a gigantic melee of men shooting at close quarters with pistols and slashing with sabers.

In the end, Custer and the federal cavalry had held off Stuart’s advance. By nightfall Stuart’s men were still positioned on the ridge from which they had first spotted the Union cavalry. And after dark Stuart withdrew his men and returned to the west side of Gettysburg to report to Lee.

Significance of the Cavalry Battle at Gettysburg

The cavalry engagement at Gettysburg has often been overlooked. In newspaper reports at the time the massive carnage elsewhere during the battle overshadowed the cavalry fight. And in modern times few tourists even visit the site, called East Cavalry Field, though it is a part of the official battlefield administered by the National Park Service.

Yet the cavalry clash was significant. It is apparent that Stuart’s cavalry could have provided, at the very least, a considerable diversion that might have confused the Union commanders. And one theory of the battle holds that Stuart could have unleashed a major surprise attack in the middle of the rear of the Union line.

The road network in the immediate area may have made such an attack possible. And had Stuart and his men managed to race up those roads, and meet up with the Confederate infantry brigades marching forward in Pickett’s Charge, the Union Army could have been cut in two and perhaps defeated.

Robert E. Lee never explained Stuart’s actions that day. And Stuart, who was killed later in the war, also never wrote any explanation of what he was doing three miles from Gettysburg that day.
PostPosted: Tue Jul 07, 2015 11:06 am
July 7th ~

1863 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee, in Hagerstown, Maryland, reported his defeat at Gettysburg to President Jefferson Davis.

1863 – The 1st military draft was called by the US. It allowed exemptions for $300.

1863 – Orders barring Jews from serving under US Grant were revoked.

1863 – Lt. Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson leaves Santa Fe with his troops, beginning his campaign against the Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. A famed mountain man before the Civil War, Carson was responsible for waging a destructive war against the Navajo that resulted in their removal from the Four Corners area to southeastern New Mexico. Carson was perhaps the most famous trapper and guide in the West. He traveled with the expeditions of John C. Fremont in the 1840s, leading Fremont through the Great Basin. Fremont’s flattering portrayal of Carson made the mountain man a hero when the reports were published and widely read in the east. Later, Carson guided Stephen Watts Kearney to New Mexico during the Mexican-American War.

In the 1850s he became the Indian agent for New Mexico, a position he left in 1861 to accept a commission as lieutenant colonel in the 1st New Mexico Volunteers. Although Carson’s unit saw action in the New Mexico battles of 1862, he was most famous for his campaign against the Indians. Despite his reputation for being sympathetic and accommodating to tribes such as the Mescaleros, Kiowas, and Navajo, Carson waged a brutal campaign against the Navajo in 1863. When bands of Navajo refused to accept confinement on reservations, Carson terrorized the Navajo lands–burning crops, destroying villages, and slaughtering livestock. Carson rounded up some 8,000 Navajo and marched them across New Mexico for imprisonment on the Bosque Redondo, over 300 miles from their homes, where they remained for the duration of the war.

1865 – The trap doors of the scaffold in the yard of Washington’s Old Penitentiary were sprung, and Mary Surratt, Lewis Paine, David Herold and George Atzerodt dropped to their deaths. The four had been convicted of “treasonable conspiracy” in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and had learned that they were to be hanged only a day before their execution. Shortly after 1 p.m. the prisoners were led onto the scaffold and prepared for execution. The props supporting the platform were knocked away at about 2 p.m. Assassin John Wilkes Booth had been killed on April 26, 12 days after Lincoln’s assassination. Other convicted conspirators–Edman Spangler, Dr. Samuel Mudd, Samuel Arnold and Michael O’Laughlin–were imprisoned. Surratt was the first woman to be executed in the United States.
PostPosted: Wed Jul 08, 2015 7:45 am
July 8th ~

1776 – In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rings out from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, by Colonel John Nixon.

On July 4, the historic document was adopted by delegates to the Continental Congress meeting in the State House. However, the Liberty Bell, which bore the apt biblical quotation, “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land unto All the Inhabitants Thereof,” was not rung until the Declaration of Independence returned from the printer on July 8. In 1751, to commemorate the 50-year anniversary of Pennsylvania’s original constitution, the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly ordered the 2,000-pound copper and tin bell constructed. After being cracked during a test, and then recast twice, the bell was hung from the State House steeple in June 1753. Rung to call the Pennsylvania Assembly together and to summon people for special announcements and events, it was also rung on important occasions, such as when King George III ascended to the throne in 1761 and to call the people together to discuss Parliament’s controversial Stamp Act of 1765. With the outbreak of the American Revolution in April 1775, the bell was rung to announce the battles of Lexington and Concord. Its most famous tolling was on July 8, 1776, when it summoned Philadelphia citizens for the first reading of the Declaration of Independence. As the British advanced toward Philadelphia in the fall of 1777, the bell was removed from the city and hidden in Allentown to save it from being melted down by the British and used for cannons. After the British defeat in 1781, the bell was returned to Philadelphia, which was the nation’s capital from 1790 to 1800. In addition to marking important events, the bell tolled annually to celebrate George Washington’s birthday on February 22, and Independence Day on July 4.

In 1839, the name “Liberty Bell” was first coined in a poem in an abolitionist pamphlet. The question of when the Liberty Bell acquired its famous fracture has been the subject of a good deal of historical dispute. In the most commonly accepted account, the bell suffered a major break while tolling for the funeral of the chief justice of the United States, John Marshall, in 1835, and in 1846 the crack expanded to its present size while in use to mark Washington’s birthday. After that date, it was regarded as unsuitable for ringing, but it was still ceremoniously tapped on occasion to commemorate important events.

On June 6, 1944, when Allied forces invaded France, the sound of the bell’s dulled ring was broadcast by radio across the United States. In 1976, the Liberty Bell was moved to a new pavilion about 100 yards from Independence Hall in preparation for America’s bicentennial celebrations.
PostPosted: Thu Jul 09, 2015 9:22 am
July 9th ~

1941– Crackerjack British cryptologists break the secret code used by the German army to direct ground-to-air operations on the Eastern front.

British experts had already broken many of the Enigma codes for the Western front. Enigma was the Germans’ most sophisticated coding machine, necessary to secretly transmitting information. The Enigma machine, invented in 1919 by Hugo Koch, a Dutchman, looked like a typewriter and was originally employed for business purposes. The Germany army adapted the machine for wartime use and considered its encoding system unbreakable. They were wrong. The Brits had broken their first Enigma code as early as the German invasion of Poland and had intercepted virtually every message sent through the occupation of Holland and France. Britain nicknamed the intercepted messages Ultra.

Now, with the German invasion of Russia, the Allies needed to be able to intercept coded messages transmitted on this second, Eastern, front. The first breakthrough occurred on July 9, regarding German ground-air operations, but various keys would continue to be broken by the Brits over the next year, each conveying information of higher secrecy and priority than the next. (For example, a series of decoded messages nicknamed “Weasel” proved extremely important in anticipating German anti-aircraft and antitank strategies against the Allies.) These decoded messages were regularly passed to the Soviet High Command regarding German troop movements and planned offensives, and back to London regarding the mass murder of Russian prisoners and Jewish concentration camp victims.


1942 – CGC McLane and the Coast Guard-manned patrol craft USS YP-251 reportedly sank the Japanese submarine RO-32 off Sitka, Alaska. However, the Navy Department did not officially credit either with the sinking. The RO-32 was actually stricken from the Japanese Navy rolls in April, 1942 as obsolete and Japanese records indicated that no Japanese submarine was lost or damaged in Alaskan waters on that date.

1943 – Operation Husky: The invasion of Sicily begins. The landing force is concentrated around Malta. There are 1200 transports and 2000 landing craft which will land elements of 8 divisions. In the evening, there are airborne landings by the US 82nd Airborne Division and British units which cause disruption in the Axis defenses, although they do not manage to seize their objectives. The Italian 6th Army (General Guzzoni) is responsible for the defense of Sicily. There are a total of about 240,000 troops (a quarter of which are Germans).
PostPosted: Fri Jul 10, 2015 11:32 am
July 10th ~

1898 – The First Marine Battalion, commanded by LtCol Robert W. Huntington, landed on the eastern side of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The next day, Lt Herbert L. Draper hoisted the American flag on a flag pole at Camp Mc Calla where it flew during the next eleven days. Lt Col Huntington later sent the flag with an accompanying letter to Colonel Commandant Charles Heywood noting that “when bullets were flying, …the sight of the flag upon the midnight sky has thrilled our hearts.”

1940 – The Germans begin the first in a long series of bombing raids against Great Britain, as the Battle of Britain, which will last three and a half months, begins.

After the occupation of France by Germany, Britain knew it was only a matter of time before the Axis power turned its sights across the Channel. And on July 10, 120 German bombers and fighters struck a British shipping convoy in that very Channel, while 70 more bombers attacked dockyard installations in South Wales. Although Britain had far fewer fighters than the Germans-600 to 1,300-it had a few advantages, such as an effective radar system, which made the prospects of a German sneak attack unlikely. Britain also produced superior quality aircraft. Its Spitfires could turn tighter than Germany’s ME109s, enabling it to better elude pursuers; and its Hurricanes could carry 40mm cannon, and would shoot down, with its American Browning machine guns, over 1,500 Luftwaffe aircraft. The German single-engine fighters had a limited flight radius, and its bombers lacked the bomb-load capacity necessary to unleash permanent devastation on their targets. Britain also had the advantage of unified focus, while German infighting caused missteps in timing; they also suffered from poor intelligence. But in the opening days of battle, Britain was in immediate need of two things: a collective stiff upper lip–and aluminum. A plea was made by the government to turn in all available aluminum to the Ministry of Aircraft Production. “We will turn your pots and pans into Spitfires and Hurricanes,” the ministry declared. And they did.

1943 – Operation Husky: The Allied landings begin in Sicily. Patton’s 7th Army lands in the Gulf of Gela between Licata and Scoglitti.

Assault elements of the 180th and 157th Infantry regiments, both part of the 45th Infantry Division (AZ, CO, OK) storm ashore as part of the invasion of Sicily. They meet little resistance and quickly move to secure the British right flank as it moves north to take Messina, the island’s closest point to the Italian mainland. This operation marked the first time any Allied force attacked an Axis power on its home ground. The Italians soon overthrow their dictator, Benito Mussolini and asked the Allies for peace. However, the Germans quickly moved large numbers of troops into the country and fought the Allies all the way back to the Alps, not surrendering until the end of the war on May 8, 1945.

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PostPosted: Sat Jul 11, 2015 10:19 am
July 11th ~

1798 – President John Adams signed the bill that re-established the Marine Corps. The Continental Congress had disbanded the service in April of 1783 at the end of the American Revolution. The Marine Corps, however, recognizes its “official” birthday to be the date that the Second Continental Congress first authorized the establishment of the “Corps of Marines” on 10 November 1775. To add to the confusion of the Corps’ actual “historical” birthday, on 1 July 1797.


1804 – A duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton leaves Hamilton dead. Since New Jersey did not have a law against dueling at the time, Burr and Hamilton, both New Yorkers, crossed the Hudson to Weehawken, New Jersey. New York had banned the practice earlier, partly due to Hamilton’s own campaign efforts after his son was killed in a duel. Dueling was outlawed in the North much earlier than it was in the South. The state of Massachusetts declared it “detestable and infamous.” Duelists in that state could be punished even if they both survived the duel. A typical penalty would be to stand an hour with a rope around their neck at the gallows and then to spend a year in prison. Transgressors might also receive lashes from a whip. For duelists who died, there was still a civic penalty to be paid. The loser was buried without a coffin near the spot of the duel with a stake driven through his body. The winner could be prosecuted for murder, executed, and buried in the same manner. Even the mere threat of a duel had serious consequences.

In 1818, George Norton challenged someone to a duel in New York for insulting his honor and was sentenced to a month in prison for his dare. In the South, dueling was much more popular and accepted, especially among upper-class society. The practice was so common that legislators were asked to take an oath to declare that they had never been in a duel. Even after dueling became illegal, the law was rarely enforced. The Burr-Hamilton duel was not the last high-profile case. In 1809, future senator Henry Clay and Humphrey Marshall were arguing over legislation in Kentucky’s state house when Clay called Marshall a demagogue and Marshall responded by calling Clay a liar. Their subsequent duel was fought with pistols at a length of ten paces. Luckily for both, neither was a good shot (nor were the weapons particularly accurate), and they both recovered from their injuries.


1846 – The “Grizzly Bear” flag proclaiming the “California Republic” is lowered to be replaced by the Unites States flag as the former Mexican colony comes under American control. The ‘bear’ flag was adopted by the California Battalion organized in Sacramento in mid June by Major John C. Fremont, a Regular Army officer and famed western explorer. As soon as he received word that the U.S. and Mexico were at war, he quickly enrolled local Anglo settlers, mostly recent immigrants from Missouri and Iowa, into a militia force. Numbering about 500 men, Fremont moved the battalion south toward Los Angeles. He soon took the city without a fight. In fact, except for one small engagement of Mexican cavalry against a force of Army Regulars lead by General Stephen Kearny, coming into California from New Mexico, the rest of the colony willingly accepted American control.


1945 – Napalm was first used. On Luzon, Americans forces drop thousands of napalm bombs on Japanese pockets on the Sierra Madre and in the Kiangan area.


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PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:06 am
July 12th ~

1862 – President Abraham Lincoln signs into law a measure calling for the awarding of a U.S. Army Medal of Honor, in the name of Congress, “to such noncommissioned officers and privates as shall most distinguish themselves by their gallantry in action, and other soldier-like qualities during the present insurrection.”

The previous December, Lincoln had approved a provision creating a U.S. Navy Medal of Valor, which was the basis of the Army Medal of Honor created by Congress in July 1862. The first U.S. Army soldiers to receive what would become the nation’s highest military honor were six members of a Union raiding party who in 1862 penetrated deep into Confederate territory to destroy bridges and railroad tracks between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia.

In 1863, the Medal of Honor was made a permanent military decoration available to all members, including commissioned officers, of the U.S. military. It is conferred upon those who have distinguished themselves in actual combat at risk of life beyond the call of duty. Since its creation, during the Civil War, almost 3,400 men and one woman have received the Medal of Honor for heroic actions in U.S. military conflict.


1864 – President Abraham Lincoln became the first standing president to witness a battle as Union forces repelled Jubal Early’s army on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.

1916 – Battleship USS North Carolina is the first Navy ship to carry and operate aircraft.

1940 – Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley jumped out of a Travel Air plane to fight the a forest fire in Idaho’s Nez Perce national Forest. They were the first smoke-jumpers.

1950 – The first Distinguished Service Cross of the Korean War was awarded posthumously to Colonel Robert R. Martin who single-handedly attacked an enemy tank with a rocket launcher. Martin had just arrived in Korean and had been commander of the battered 34th Infantry Regiment of the 24th Infantry Division for one day when he was killed in action on July 8.

1993 – 17 US helicopters conduct an attack on Aidid compound-at least 13 Somalis are killed.

2003 – The USS Ronald Reagan, the first carrier named for a living president, was commissioned in Norfolk, Va.


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PostPosted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 8:41 am
July 13th ~

1863 – Rioting against the Civil War military draft erupted in New York City; about 1,000 people died over three days. Anti-abolitionist Irish longshoremen rampaged against blacks in the deadly Draft Riots in New York City in response to Pres. Lincoln’s announcement of military conscription. Mobs lynched a black man and torched the Colored Orphan Asylum.

1866 – Great Eastern began a two week voyage to complete a 12-year effort to lay telegraph cable across the Atlantic between Britain and the United States. Massachusetts merchant and financier Cyrus W. Field first proposed laying a 2,000-mile copper cable along the ocean bottom from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1854, but the first three attempts ended in broken cables and failure. Field’s persistence finally paid off in July 1866, when Great Eastern, the largest ship then afloat, successfully laid the cable along the level, sandy bottom of the North Atlantic. As messages traveled between Europe and America in hours rather than weeks, Cyrus Field was showered with honors. Among the honors was this commemorative print referring to the cable as the Eighth Wonder of the World.

1916 – Guardsmen of the 4th South Dakota Infantry prepare to leave for San Benito, Texas, to take up their station as part of the partial mobilization to protect the Mexican border against bandit raids lead by Pancho Villa. When the 4th SD arrives in late July it will be placed into the First Separate Brigade along with the 22nd U.S. Infantry, the 1st Louisiana and 1st Oklahoma infantry regiments (these latter two both Guard units). During the seven months the 4th remains on the border it will take part in several large-scale maneuvers used to train both officers and men in case America is drawn into World War I (then raging in Europe). The 4th returned home in March 1917 and was released from active duty. During World War I it was broken up into several elements assigned to different divisions which later fought in France. In all, 158,664 Guardsmen served on active duty during the border crisis.

1921 – Major Sheldon H. Wheeler, former commander of Luke Field on Ford Island, died when his plane crashed during a demonstration. Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, was named in his honor.

1943 – The 10 Mountain Division came into being on July 13, 1943, at Camp Hale, Colorado as the 10th Light Division (Alpine). The combat power of the Division was contained in the 85th, 86th, and 87th Infantry Regiments. The Division’s year training at the 9,200 foot high Camp Hale honed the skills of its soldiers to fight and survive under the most brutal mountain conditions.

2011 – The U.S. drawdown in Afghanistan began when the first 650 U.S. troops left Afghanistan as part of President Barack Obama’s planned drawdown. The units that left were the Army National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 134th Cavalry Regiment, based in Kabul, and the Army National Guard’s 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, which had been in neighboring Parwan province.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 13, 2015 10:26 pm
July 14th ~

1825 – The visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to America in 1824-1825 was in every sense a triumphal procession.

The 2nd Battalion, 11th New York Artillery, was one of many militia turned out to welcome him. This unit decided to adopt the title “National Guard” in honor of Lafayette’s command of the Garde Nationale de Paris during the French Revolution. The 11th Battalion, later designated as the 7th Regiment, was prominent in the line of march on the occasion of Lafayette’s final passage through New York en route home to France. Taking note of the troops named for his old command he alighted from his carriage walked down the line clasping each officer by the hand as he proceeded. The 7th New York, with its designation “National Guard” went on to become one of the most famous of all Guard units well into the 20th century. Its nickname has come to represent all American militia for more than century.

1862 – Congress passed an act stating that: ” . . . the spirit ration in the Navy of the United States shall forever cease, and . . . no distilled spiritous liquors shall be admitted on board vessels of war, except as medical stores . . . there shall be allowed and paid to each person in the Navy now entitled to the ration, five cents per day in commutation and lieu thereof, which shall be in addition to their present pay.” Assistant Secretary of the Navy Fox and officers generally held that it was in the Navy’s best interest to abolish the spirit ration.

1911 – Harry Atwood, an exhibition pilot for the Wright Brothers lands his airplane on the South Lawn of the White House. He is later awarded a Gold medal from U.S. President William Howard Taft for this feat.

1945 – Over 1000 US naval aircraft raid Hokkaido and the port of Kamaishi. Also, the American battleships South Dakota, Indiana and Massachusetts, as well as 2 heavy cruisers and 4 destroyers, bombard the Kamaishi steel works in the first naval gunfire directed against the Japanese home islands.

1964 – U.S. military intelligence publicly charges that North Vietnamese regular army officers command and fight in so-called Viet Cong forces in the northern provinces, where Viet Cong strength had doubled in the past six months.

Only the day before, South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Khanh had referred to the “invasion” by North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces. There would soon be other evidence that North Vietnamese troops were operating in South Vietnam. In August, South Vietnamese officials would claim that two companies from the North Vietnamese army had crossed the Demilitarized Zone in Quang Tri province. A battle ensued, but the North Vietnamese forces were defeated with heavy casualties. It became known later that Hanoi had ordered its forces to begin infiltrating to the South. This marked a major change in the tempo and scope of the war in South Vietnam and resulted in President Lyndon B. Johnson committing U.S. combat troops.

North Vietnamese forces and U.S. troops clashed for the first time in November 1965, when units from the newly arrived 1st Air Cavalry Division / 7th Calvary Regiment engaged several North Vietnamese regiments in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley in the Central Highlands.

( The Hollywood movie " We Were Soldiers Once...and Young" was adapted from the 1992 book co-authored by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and war journalist Joseph L. Galloway ...who lived through this engagement. )
PostPosted: Wed Jul 15, 2015 8:20 am
July 15th ~

1806 – Zebulon Pike, the U.S. Army officer who in 1805 led an exploring party in search of the source of the Mississippi River, sets off with a new expedition to explore the American Southwest. Pike was instructed to seek out headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers and to investigate Spanish settlements in New Mexico. Pike and his men left Missouri and traveled through the present-day states of Kansas and Nebraska before reaching Colorado, where he spotted the famous mountain later named in his honor. From there, they traveled down to New Mexico, where they were stopped by Spanish officials and charged with illegal entry into Spanish-held territory. His party was escorted to Santa Fe, then down to Chihuahua, back up through Texas, and finally to the border of the Louisiana Territory, where they were released.

Soon after returning to the east, Pike was implicated in a plot with former Vice President Aaron Burr to seize territory in the Southwest for mysterious ends. However, after an investigation, Secretary of State James Madison fully exonerated him. The information he provided about the U.S. territory in Kansas and Colorado was a great impetus for future U.S. settlement, and his reports about the weakness of Spanish authority in the Southwest stirred talk of future U.S. annexation. Pike later served as a brigadier general during the War of 1812, and in April 1813 he was killed by a British gunpowder bomb after leading a successful attack on York, Canada.

1870 – Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1918 – When German forces cross the Marne River they cut off two companies from the 109th Infantry and two companies of the 110th Infantry, 28th Division, all from Pennsylvania. These four companies found themselves surrounded and fought off repeated German assaults, as they fought their way south with the survivors regaining the division’s positions in the afternoon. They inflicted crippling losses on the enemy, but also lost heavily themselves. Out of about 500 men in the two companies of the 109th only about 150 men regained the safety of the rest of the division.

1950 – F-80s accounted for 85 percent of the enemy’s losses to air attack. Far East Air Forces Commander, Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer, stated that he wouldn’t trade the F-80 for all the F-47s and F-51s he could get. “It does a wonderful job in ground support and can take care of the top-side job if enemy jets appear.”

1953 – U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, qualified as the second and last “triple ace” of the war — 15 kills. He also was the second ranking jet ace of the war.

1965 – The unmanned spacecraft Mariner 4 passes over Mars at an altitude of 6,000 feet and sends back to Earth the first close-up images of the red planet. Launched in November 1964, Mariner 4 carried a television camera and six other science instruments to study Mars and interplanetary space within the solar system. Reaching Mars on July 14, 1965, the spacecraft began sending back television images of the planet just after midnight on July 15. The pictures–nearly 22 in all–revealed a vast, barren wasteland of craters and rust-colored sand, dismissing 19th-century suspicions that an advanced civilization might exist on the planet. The canals that American astronomer Percival Lowell spied with his telescope in 1890 proved to be an optical illusion, but ancient natural waterways of some kind did seem to be evident in some regions of the planet. Once past Mars, Mariner 4 journeyed on to the far side of the sun before returning to the vicinity of Earth in 1967. Nearly out of power by then, communication with the spacecraft was terminated in December 1967.
PostPosted: Thu Jul 16, 2015 9:15 am
July 16th ~

1808 – Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, two of the few white men who had actually seen the mysterious territory of the Far West, help form a new company to exploit the region’s abundant fur-bearing animals. In September 1806, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis completed their epic journey to the Pacific Ocean, arriving back in St. Louis after more than two years in the western wilderness. Except for the difficult crossing of the Rocky Mountains, the expedition team had traveled by river. On the journey, they were overwhelmed by the abundance for beaver, otter, and other fur-bearing creatures they saw. The territory was ripe for fur trapping, they reported to President Thomas Jefferson. Both Lewis and Clark recognized that sizeable fortunes could be made in fur trapping, and they were not averse to using their exclusive knowledge to gain a share of the profits. Two years after their return, Lewis and Clark helped organize the St. Louis Missouri River Fur Company. Among their partners were the experienced fur traders and businessmen Manuel Lisa, Pierre Choteau, and Auguste Choteau. Lewis, whom Jefferson had already appointed to the governorship of Louisiana Territory, was presumably a silent partner, and for good reason. The new company planned to mix public and private interests in potentially unethical ways. During their earlier voyage west, Lewis and Clark had convinced an Upper-Missouri River Mandan Indian named Big White to go east and meet President Jefferson. Lewis had promised Big White that the American government would later return him to his people. Now the St. Louis Missouri River Fur Company proposed to use public money to mount a private expedition to take Big White home in the spring of 1809. Once Big White was home safely, however, the expedition would continue on to begin fur trading on the Yellowstone River, where it would enjoy a monopoly guaranteed by Governor Lewis.

1862 – David Glasgow Farragut, in recognition of his victory at New Orleans, promoted to Rear Admiral, the first officer to hold that rank in the history of the U.S. Navy. The measure passed by Congress which created the rank of Rear Admiral also revamped the existing rank structure to include Commodore and Lieutenant Commander and established the number of Rear Admirals at 9; Commodores, 18; Captains, 36; Commanders, 72; and the remainder through Ensign at 144 each. The act provided that ”The three senior rear admirals [Farragut, L. M. Goldsborough, and Du Pont] shall wear a square blue flag at the mainmast head; the next three at the foremast head, and all others at the mizzen.” Rear Admirals were to rank with Major Generals in the Army.

1915 – First Navy ships, battleships Ohio, Missouri, and Wisconsin transit Panama Canal.

1940 – Hitler issues his Directive 16. It begins, “I have decided to begin to prepare for, and if necessary to carry out, an invasion of England.” It goes on to explain the importance of the air battles for the achievement of this aim. At this stage in the planning the German army’s views are dominant. They wish the Channel crossing to take place on a wide front with landings all along the south coast of Britain. They envisage that the force to be employed will be at least 25 and perhaps 40 divisions. They hope that the crossing can be protected by the Luftwaffe and mines on its flanks. This is not a very realistic plan.

1945 – The United States conducts the first test of the atomic bomb at its research facility in Los Alamos, New Mexico. The terrifying new weapon would quickly become a focal point in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The official U.S. development of the atomic bomb began with the establishment of the Manhattan Project in August 1942. The project brought together scientists from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada to study the feasibility of building an atomic bomb capable of unimaginable destructive power. The project proceeded with no small degree of urgency, since the American government had been warned that Nazi Germany had also embarked on a program to develop an atomic weapon. By July 1945, a prototype weapon was ready for testing. Although Germany had surrendered months earlier, the war against Japan was still raging.

On July 16, the first atomic bomb was detonated in the desert near the Los Alamos research facility. Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the project, watched the mushroom cloud rise into the Nevada sky. “Now I am become death, destroyer of worlds,” he uttered, reciting a passage from an ancient Hindu text. News of the successful test was relayed to President Harry S. Truman, who was meeting with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in Potsdam to discuss the postwar world. Observers at the meeting noted that the news “tremendously pepped up” the president, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill believed that Truman almost immediately adopted a more aggressive tone in dealing with Stalin. Truman and many other U.S. officials hoped that possession of the atomic bomb would be America’s trump card in dealing with the Soviets after the war. Use of the weapon against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 demonstrated the destructive force of the atomic bomb. The American atomic monopoly did not last long, though. By 1949, the Soviets had developed their own atomic bomb, marking the beginning of the nuclear arms race.

1945 – Cruiser Indianapolis left SF with an atom bomb.

1946 – US court martial in Dachau condemned 46 SS to hang for the Malmedy massacre of disarmed GIs.

1969 – At 9:32 a.m. EDT, Apollo 11, the first U.S. lunar landing mission, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a historic journey to the surface of the moon. After traveling 240,000 miles in 76 hours, Apollo 11 entered into a lunar orbit on July 19.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 17, 2015 10:55 am
July 17th ~

1821 – Spain ceded Florida to the United States.

1862 – In a big step toward emancipation, President Lincoln approves the Confiscation Act, which declares that any slaves whose owners were in rebellion against the government, would be freed when they came into contact with the Union army.

1870 – A drunken brawl turns deadly when “Wild Bill” Hickok shoots two soldiers in self-defense, mortally wounding one of them. William Butler Hickok had earned his reputation as a gunslinger a decade earlier after shooting three men in a gunfight in Nebraska. He parlayed his standing as a sure-shooting gunman into a haphazard career in law enforcement. In 1869, he was elected interim sheriff of Ellis County, Kansas. Hays City, the county seat, was a rough-and-tumble frontier town, and the citizens hoped Hickok could bring order to the chaos. Unfortunately, after Hickok had killed two men in the line of duty after just five weeks, they concluded that he was too wild for their tastes and they elected his deputy to replace him in November. Unemployed, Hickok passed his time gambling, drinking, and occasionally working as a hunting guide. He quickly became bored and was considering taking work at the nearby Fort Hays as an army scout.

On this day in 1870, Hickok had been drinking hard at Drum’s Saloon in Hays City. Five soldiers from the 7th Cavalry stationed at Fort Hays were also at the bar. They were drunk and began to exchange words with the notoriously prickly “Wild Bill.” A brawl broke out, and the soldiers threw Hickok to the floor. One trooper tried to shoot Hickok, but the gun misfired. Hickok quickly pulled his own pistols and opened fire. He wounded one private in the knee and wrist, and another in the torso. The three remaining soldiers backed off, and Hickok exited the saloon and immediately left town. A clear case of self-defense, Hickok was cleared of any wrongdoing. Yet, one of the soldiers, Private John Kile, later died of his wound and Hickok’s chances of becoming an army scout evaporated. He spent the next six years working in law enforcement, gambling, and appearing in Wild West shows. He was murdered in a Deadwood, South Dakota, saloon in 1876.

1898 – U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

1927 – First organized dive bombing attack in combat by Marine Corps pilots against Nicaraguan bandits who were surrounding U.S. Marine garrison at Ocotal, Nicaragua.

1936 – Gen. Francisco Franco was flown from the Canary Island, where he served as military governor, to Spanish Morocco where he led a rebellion against the elected Popular Front. This began the Spanish Civil War.

1953 – Lieutenant Guy P. “Lucky Pierre” Bordelon scored his fifth aerial victory and qualified as the only U.S. Navy ace of the Korean War and the only Korean War ace who did not fly an F-86 Sabre jet. Bordelon, detached to K-6 airfield from the carrier USS Princeton, flew an F4U-5N Corsair named “Annie Mo.” All his victories were the so-called “Bedcheck Charlies” engaged on nighttime harassment bombing missions.

1960 – Francis Gary Powers pleaded guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.

1975 – As part of a mission aimed at developing space rescue capability, the U.S. spacecraft Apollo 18 and the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 19 rendezvous and dock in space. As the hatch was opened between the two vessels, commanders Thomas P. Safford and Aleksei Leonov shook hands and exchanged gifts in celebration of the first such meeting between the two Cold War adversaries in space. Back on Earth, United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim congratulated the two superpowers for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project and praised their unprecedented spirit of cooperation and peace in planning and executing the mission. During the 44-hour Apollo-Soyuz embrace, the astronauts and cosmonauts conducted experiments, shared meals, and held a joint news conference. Apollo-Soyuz, which came almost three years after the sixth and last U.S. lunar landing, was the final Apollo program mission conducted by NASA. It was fitting that the Apollo program, which first visited the moon under the banner of “We came in peace for all mankind,” should end on a note of peace and international cooperation.

1987 – Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter began testifying to Congress at the “Iran-Contra” hearings.

1989 – The controversial B-2 Stealth bomber underwent its first test flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California, two days after a technical problem forced a postponement.
PostPosted: Mon Jul 27, 2015 12:29 pm
July 27th ~

1898 – Marines from the USS Dixie were the first to raise the American flag over Puerto Rico.

1909 – Orville Wright tested the U.S. Army’s first airplane, flying himself and a passenger for 1 hour, 12 minutes and 40 seconds over Fort Myer, Virginia.

1920 – A radio compass was used for 1st time for aircraft navigation.

1923 – John Herbert Dillinger joins the Navy in order to avoid charges of auto theft in Indiana, marking the beginning of America’s most notorious criminal’s downfall. Years later, Dillinger’s reputation was forged in a single 12-month period, during which he robbed more banks than Jesse James did in 15 years and became the most wanted fugitive in the nation. Dillinger didn’t last in the Navy very long. Within months he had gone AWOL several times-the last time in December 1923. Making his way back to Indiana, he was arrested for armed robbery the following summer. Dillinger pled guilty, thinking that he would receive a light sentence, but instead got 10 to 20 years. His first words to the warden at the prison were, “I won’t cause you any trouble except to escape.” A man of his word, Dillinger had attempted to escape three times by the end of the year. Between escape attempts, Dillinger became friendly with some of the more professional thieves in the prison. After he was finally paroled in May 1933, Dillinger hooked up with his new friends and began robbing banks throughout the Midwest. He also began planning to break his friends out of prison. In September, he smuggled guns in to Harry Pierpont, who led a 10-man break from the Michigan City prison. Dillinger’s assistance turned out to be fortuitous because as his friends were breaking out, Dillinger himself was captured and arrested for bank robbery in Lima, Ohio. Pierpont and the others returned the favor and broke Dillinger out in October, killing a sheriff in the process. The gang was now in full force. A week later, they raided a police arsenal in Peru, Indiana. The arrogant bandits pretended to be tourists who wanted to see what weapons the police were going to use to capture the Dillinger gang. Given the remarkable string of armed robberies and acts of violence in such a short period of time, police departments throughout the Midwest set up special units to capture Dillinger.

Ironically, his eventual arrest was the result of pure luck. While hiding out in Tucson, Arizona, Dillinger was caught in a fire that broke out in his hotel. Firefighters became suspicious when two gang members offered them a large sum of money to save two heavy suitcases. When they found a small arsenal of guns inside, everyone was taken into custody. Dillinger was extradited to Indiana and held in what was believed to be an escape-proof jail, with extra guards posted to protect against outside attacks. But on March 3, 1934, Dillinger used a fake pistol that he had carved out of wood and painted black to escape. For the next several months, Dillinger and his gang went on a bank-robbing spree with the FBI one step behind at all times. J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, reportedly put out an order that agents should shoot Dillinger on sight. An illegal immigrant named Anna Sage offered to set the outlaw up if deportation proceedings against her were dropped.

On July 22, 1934, detective Martin Zarkovich shot a man identified by the FBI as Dillinger as was leaving the Biograph Theater in Chicago, Illinois. Some historians believe that the man killed that day was not Dillinger, but Jimmy Lawrence. They think that Dillinger engineered the setup to drop out of sight. If so, he was successful-no further record of Dillinger exists.

1940 – Bugs Bunny made his official debut in the Warner Bros. animated cartoon “A Wild Hare.” Three years later, Bugs would be made an honorary Corporal of the US Marine Corps after ther release of the short Super Rabbit in which he is portrayed as a parody of Superman. Bugs abandons his colorful costume, faces the camera, and proclaims that “This looks like a job for a real Superman!” Then he reappears from the phone booth wearing a uniform of the United States Marine Corps. His former antagonists snap to attention and salute Bugs as he marches into the horizon singing the Marine Corps Hymn.

1944 – US 1st Army continues its offensive. The US 8th Corps breaks through between Lessy and Periers, capturing both towns. As large numbers of German soldiers are killed or surrender and their armored equipment is destroyed by constant air attack Operation COBRA, the planned Allied breakout from Normandy, continues. This operation, which was supposed to start with a massive aerial bombardment of the German defensive lines along the Vire River on July 24th led instead to one of the worst incidents of “friendly fire” during World War II. Due to poor visibility the bomber strike was called off; however, some of the squadrons did not get the word and dropped their loads on top of North Carolina’s 120th Infantry, an element of the 30th Infantry Division composed of Guard units North and South Carolina and Tennessee.

Because word of the cancelled attack had also not reached the frontline soldiers the Guardsmen of the 120th instead of being ‘dug in’ were exposed waiting for the word to advance. More than 150 men were killed or wounded in this mistake. Cobra started the next day, again with some Americans being stuck by our own bombs, but with more hitting the enemy. The 30th Division and other American units punched through the Nazis lines and by early August the Allied armies would break out of Normandy completely, liberating Paris on August 25th.

1953 – Air Force Captain Ralph S. Parr, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, achieved the last air victory of the Korean War when he destroyed an Il-12 transport plane. In addition, the victory qualified him as the 11th and last double ace of the war, with a total of 10 kills.

1953 – After three years of a bloody and frustrating war, the United States, the People’s Republic of China, North Korea, and South Korea agree to an armistice, bringing the Korean War to an end. The armistice ended America’s first experiment with the Cold War concept of “limited war.” The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when communist North Korea invaded South Korea. Almost immediately, the United States secured a resolution from the United Nations calling for the military defense of South Korea against the North Korean aggression. In a matter of days, U.S. land, air, and sea forces had joined the battle. The U.S. intervention turned the tide of the war, and soon the U.S. and South Korean forces were pushing into North Korea and toward that nation’s border with China. In November and December 1951, hundreds of thousands of troops from the People’s Republic of China began heavy assaults against the American and South Korea forces. The war eventually bogged down into a battle of attrition. In the U.S. presidential election of 1952, Republican candidate Dwight D. Eisenhower strongly criticized President Harry S. Truman’s handling of the war. After his victory, Eisenhower adhered to his promise to “go to Korea.” His trip convinced him that something new was needed to break the diplomatic logjam at the peace talks that had begun in July 1951. Eisenhower began to publicly hint that the United States might make use of its nuclear arsenal to break the military stalemate in Korea. He allowed the Nationalist Chinese government on Taiwan to begin harassing air raids on mainland China. The president also put pressure on his South Korean ally to drop some of its demands in order to speed the peace process. Whether or not Eisenhower’s threats of nuclear attacks helped, by July 1953 all sides involved in the conflict were ready to sign an agreement ending the bloodshed. The armistice, signed on July 27, established a committee of representatives from neutral countries to decide the fate of the thousands of prisoners of war on both sides. It was eventually decided that the POWs could choose their own fate–stay where they were or return to their homelands. A new border between North and South Korea was drawn, which gave South Korea some additional territory and demilitarized the zone between the two nations. The war cost the lives of millions of Koreans and Chinese, as well as over 50,000 Americans. It had been a frustrating war for Americans, who were used to forcing the unconditional surrender of their enemies. Many also could not understand why the United States had not expanded the war into China or used its nuclear arsenal. As government officials were well aware, however, such actions would likely have prompted World War III.

Korea remains in an armistice status without a formal peace treaty to this day. Sergeant Harold R. Cross, K Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regimental Combat Team, was killed by a mortar blast at 2040, the last American soldier killed in action in the Korean War.

1964 – It is announced that the United States will send an additional 5,000 U.S. troops to Vietnam, bringing the total number of U.S. forces in Vietnam to 21,000. Military spokesmen and Washington officials insisted that this did not represent any change in policy, and that new troops would only intensify existing U.S. efforts. However, the situation changed in August 1964 when North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers off the coast of North Vietnam. What became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed unanimously in the House and 88 to 2 in the Senate.
PostPosted: Tue Jul 28, 2015 11:18 am
July 28th ~

1863 – Confederate John Mosby began a series of attacks against General Meade’s Army of the Potomac as it tried to pursue General Robert E. Lee in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Confederate Colonel John S. Mosby was known as “The Gray Ghost.” The rather ordinary looking Mosby led his Partisan Rangers in guerilla warfare operations that continually confounded Union commanders in the Piedmont region of Virginia. Learn more about Mosby‘s Confederacy in Faquier and Loudoun counties.

1868 – Following its ratification by the necessary three-quarters of U.S. states, the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution. Two years after the Civil War, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 divided the South into five military districts, where new state governments, based on universal manhood suffrage, were to be established. Thus began the period known as Radical Reconstruction, which saw the 14th Amendment, which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” The amendment then reaffirmed the privileges and rights of all citizens, and granted all these citizens the “equal protection of the laws.”

1916 - Navy establishes a Code and Signal Section which initially worked against German ciphers and tested the security of communications during U.S. naval training maneuvers.

1918 – Marine Corps BGen John A. Lejeune assumed command of the 2d U.S. Army Division in France.

1920 – Revolutionary and bandit Pancho Villa surrendered to the Mexican government.

1923 – Best known today for his inadvertent role in the death of Sitting Bull, the prominent Indian agent James McLaughlin dies in Washington, D.C. Unlike some Indian agents of the later 19th century, McLaughlin genuinely liked and respected his charges. His wife was half Sioux, and she taught her husband to speak her native language reasonably well. In 1871, this valuable skill won McLaughlin a position at the Devils Lake Indian Agency in Dakota Territory and he eventually became the chief agent. At Devils Lake, McLaughlin gained a reputation for fair and sympathetic treatment of Indians. His appreciation for Indians was strictly limited, however. Like most Indian agents of the day, McLaughlin believed that his mission was to “civilize” the Indians by forcing them to adopt white ways. McLaughlin viewed traditional Indian practices like the Sun Dance and buffalo hunting as obstacles to the inevitable assimilation of the Native Americans into white society. Thus, while he worked hard to improve Indian living conditions, he simultaneously tried to stamp out their culture by promoting the use of English and the adoption of sedentary farming. In 1881, McLaughlin was transferred to the larger Sioux reservation at Standing Rock, South Dakota. Two years later, the great Sioux Chief Sitting Bull was assigned to the reservation. McLaughlin worried about Sitting Bull. The chief was infamous for his role in the defeat of Custer’s 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. He was also among the last of the Sioux to accept confinement to a reservation, and his disdain for white ways was well known.

For several years, McLaughlin and Sitting Bull enjoyed a strained but peaceful relationship. In 1890, however, a popular religious movement known as the Ghost Dance swept through the Standing Rock reservation. The Ghost Dancers believed that an apocalyptic day was approaching when all whites would be wiped out, the buffalo would return, and the Indians could return to their traditional ways. McLaughlin wrongly suspected that Sitting Bull was a leader of the Ghost Dance movement. In December 1890, he ordered the arrest of the old chief, believing this might calm the tense situation on the reservation. Unfortunately, during the arrest, a fight broke out and McLaughlin’s policemen killed Sitting Bull. The murder only exacerbated the climate of fear and mistrust, which contributed to the tragic massacre of 146 Indians by U.S. soldiers at Wounded Knee later that month. In 1895, McLaughlin moved to Washington, D.C., where he became an inspector for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He eventually became familiar with Indians all around the nation, leading him to write a 1910 memoir entitled, My Friend the Indian. He died in Washington in 1923 at the age of 81 and was buried at the South Dakota reservation town that bears his name.

1945 – Some 2000 Allied planes bomb Kure, Kobe and targets in the Inland Sea. The air strikes sink the Japanese aircraft carrier Amagi, the old cruiser Izumo, the light cruiser Oyodo and a destroyer.

1945 – In a ringing declaration indicating that America’s pre-World War II isolation was truly at an end, the U.S. Senate approves the charter establishing the United Nations. In the years to come, the United Nations would be the scene of some of the most memorable Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1919, following the close of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson implored the U.S. Senate to approve the charter for the League of Nations. Postwar isolationism and partisan politics killed U.S. participation in the League, however. In July 1945, with World War II coming to a close, the U.S. Senate indicated the sea change in American attitudes toward U.S. involvement in world affairs by approving the charter for the United Nations by a vote of 89 to 2. President Harry S. Truman was delighted with the vote, declaring, “The action of the Senate substantially advances the cause of world peace.” Acting Secretary of State Joseph Grew also applauded the Senate’s action, noting, “Millions of men, women and children have died because nations took to the naked sword instead of the conference table to settle their differences.” The U.N. charter would provide the “foundation and cornerstone on which the international organization to keep the peace will be built.” Once the charter had been ratified by a majority of the 50 nations that hammered out the charter in June 1945, the U.S. Senate formally approved U.S. participation in the United Nations in December 1945. Whether the United Nations became a “foundation and cornerstone” of world peace in the years that followed is debatable, but it was certainly the scene of several notable Cold War confrontations between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1950, with the Russians absent from the U.N. Security Council, the United States pushed through a resolution providing U.N. military assistance to South Korea in the Korean War. And in one memorable moment, during a speech denouncing Western imperialism in 1960, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev took off one of his shoes and pounded his table with it to make his point.

1945 – The Japanese attack American ships around Okinawa, in response to the Allied strikes on Japan. The American destroyer Callaghan is sunk by a Japanese suicide plane. It is the last ship to be destroyed by a Kamikaze attack.

1962 – Mariner I, launched to Mars, fell into the Atlantic Ocean.

1964 – Ranger 7 was launched toward the Moon. It sent back 4308 TV pictures.

1973 – Launch of Skylab 3, the second manned mission to the first U.S. manned space station, was piloted by MAJ Jack R. Lousma, USMC with CAPT Alan L. Bean, USN as the Commander of the mission and former Navy electronics officer, Owen K. Garriott as Science Pilot. The mission lasted 59 days, 11 hours and included 858 Earth orbits. Recovery by USS New Orleans (LPH-11).

1986 – NASA released the transcript from doomed Challenger. Pilot Michael Smith could be heard saying, “Uh-oh!” as spacecraft disintegrated.
PostPosted: Wed Jul 29, 2015 10:24 am
July 29th ~

1775 – The Office of Judge Advocate of the Army may be deemed to have been created on July 29, 1775, and has generally paralleled the origin and development of the American system of military justice. The Judge Advocate General’s Department, by that name, was established in 1884. Its present designation as a corps was enacted in 1948.

1846 – Sailors and Marines from U.S. sloop Cyane capture San Diego, CA.

1858 – Japan signed a treaty of commerce and friendship with the United States.

1862 – At Moore’s Mill in Missouri, the Confederates were routed by Union guerrillas.

1862 – Confederate spy Marie Isabella “Belle” Boyd is arrested by Union troops and detained at the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. It was the first of three arrests for this skilled spy who provided crucial information to the Confederates during the war. The Virginian-born Boyd was just 17 when the war began. She was from a prominent slaveholding family in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1861, she shot and killed a Union solider for insulting her mother and threatening to search their house. Union officers investigated and decided the shooting was justified. Soon after the shooting incident, Boyd began spying for the Confederacy. She used her charms to engage Union soldiers and officers in conversations and acquire information about Federal military affairs. Suspecting her of spying, Union officers banished Boyd further south in the Shenandoah, to Front Royal Virginia, in March 1862. Just two months later, Boyd personally delivered crucial information to General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson during his campaign in the Valley that allowed the Confederates to defeat General Nathaniel Banks’s forces at the Battle of Winchester. In another incident, Boyd turned two chivalrous Union cavalrymen who had escorted her back home across Union lines over to Confederate pickets as prisoners of war. Boyd was detained on several occasions, and on July 29 she was placed in the Old Capitol Prison in Washington.

But her incarceration was evidently of limited hardship. She was given many special considerations, and she became engaged to a fellow prisoner. Upon her release one month later, she was given a trousseau by the prison’s superintendent and shipped under a flag of truce to Richmond. Boyd was arrested again in 1863 and held for three months. After this second imprisonment, she became a courier of secret messages to Great Britain. In 1864, her ship was captured off the coast of North Carolina, and the ship and crew were taken to New York. Captain Samuel Hardinge commanded the Union ship that captured Boyd’s vessel, and the two were seen shopping together in New York. He followed her to London, and they were married soon after. Boyd was widowed soon after the end of the war, but the union produced one child. Still just 21, Boyd parlayed her spying experiences into a book and an acting career. She died in Wisconsin in 1900.

1919 – A detachment of Marines from the USS New Orleans prepared to land at Tyutuke Bay (near Vladivostok), Russia, to protect American interests during a period of political disturbances.

1921 – Adolf Hitler became the president of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis).

1944 – On Tinian, the American forces now occupy more than half the island. Japanese resistance is increasing.

1944 – On Biak the last pocket of organized Japanese resistance, around Ibdi, is eliminated. On the mainland, near Aitape, American forces fall back at Afua under pressure from Japanese forces.

1945 – An Allied naval bombardment 5 battleships and several cruisers and destroyers targets the aircraft factories at Hamamutsu in southern Honshu.

1946 – Elements of 11th Marines clash with Chinese communists at Anping, China.

1950 – As the U.N. forces formed the 100-mile by 50-mile Pusan Perimeter, Lieutenant General Walton Walker issued his controversial “stand or die” order to Eighth Army, declaring, “there will be no Dunkirk, there will be no Bataan.”

1965 – The first 4,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay. They made a demonstration jump immediately after arriving, observed by Gen. William Westmoreland and outgoing Ambassador (formerly General) Maxwell Taylor. Taylor and Westmoreland were both former commanders of the division, which was known as the “Screaming Eagles.” The 101st Airborne Division has a long and storied history, including combat jumps during the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, and the subsequent Market-Garden airborne operation in the Netherlands. Later, the division distinguished itself by its defense of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. The 1st Brigade fought as a separate brigade until 1967, when the remainder of the division arrived in Vietnam.

The combat elements of the division consisted of 10 battalions of airmobile infantry, six battalions of artillery, an aerial rocket artillery unit armed with rocket-firing helicopters, and an air reconnaissance unit. Another unique feature of the division was its aviation group, which consisted of three aviation battalions of assault helicopters and gunships. The majority of the 101st Airborne Division’s tactical operations were in the Central Highlands and in the A Shau Valley farther north. Among its major operations was the brutal fight for Ap Bia Mountain, known as the “Hamburger Hill” battle. The last Army division to leave Vietnam, the remaining elements of the 101st Airborne Division returned to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, where today it is the Army’s only airmobile division. During the war, troopers from the 101st won 17 Medals of Honor for bravery in combat. The division suffered almost 20,000 soldiers killed or wounded in action in Vietnam, over twice as many as the 9,328 casualties it suffered in World War II.

1970 – Volunteers of Pennsylvania’s 193rd Tactical Electronic Warfare Group settle into their quarters having just arrived to begin their secret mission of propaganda broadcasts over enemy held territory. The 193rd was a fairly new organization, having been reorganized from Pennsylvania’s 168th Air Transport Group in 1967. During the 1965 operation of the U.S. military in quelling the unrest in the Dominican Republic, the Defense Department decided it need some way to communicate by AM radio with the populace our intentions and instructions to help reduce needless deaths. With the Vietnam War costing billions of dollars already, the Air Force said it could not organize such a specialized unit on a full-time basis. Major General Winston Wilson, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau, offered to have an Air Guard unit reorganized to perform this mission. As the 168th was reorganized into the 193rd its mission was redefined more to broadcast the American position on events to enemy soldiers than to communicate with local civilians. Soon after the U.S. incursion into Cambodia from Vietnam in May 1970, it was decided to deploy the 193rd to Thailand to fly over Cambodia broadcasting to Communists forces attempting to overthrow the pro-American government.

By 1970 it was apparent that the U.S was withdrawing its forces from Vietnam. The last thing the Pentagon wanted was newspaper stories about a Guard unit again being mobilized for duty in Southeast Asia. The last of the Guardsmen mobilized in 1968 had only been released from active duty in November 1969. And with memories of the Guard’s involvement in the Kent State shootings that had just occurred in May 1970, the public’s impression of the Guard was not favorable. So it was decided to deploy the unit staffed entirely with volunteers on ‘short tours’ of 60-90 days before they returned home, replaced by new volunteers for another 60-90 days. According to Technical Sergeant James Bankes, who was in the first group to go, this rotation schedule applied to all, pilots as well as ground support personnel. With little notice by the press the unit took only two of their specially-modified EC-121 Super Constellation aircraft. Each day one plane would fly, usually for about 7 hours, while the other was serviced and prepared for the next day’s mission. Bankes said that the planes broadcast AM radio programs in a foreign language prepared by somebody who delivered them to the unit each morning in time for that day’s flight. The crew had no idea what they said. One pilot joked it was probably “Shoot down the first three-tailed aircraft you see!” After 144 days of continuous missions (without missing one day due to malfunction or weather) the unit and its planes returned home with no fanfare. The 193rd suffered no losses. This first test for the unit proved successful and it has been among the first unit deployed in every military action undertaken by the U.S. since Vietnam. In fact, the 193rd (now redesignated as Special Operations Wing) is the only such unit in the entire Air Force and was flying over Afghanistan broadcasting on the first day of the air war against the Taliban in 2001 and over Iraq in the opening hours of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003.

1988 – NASA officials delayed a critical test-firing of the space shuttle Discovery’s main engines another three days. The test on Aug. 10 was judged a success.

1991 – President George H.W. Bush arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that included the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
PostPosted: Thu Jul 30, 2015 9:50 am
July 30th ~

1863 – Pres. Lincoln issued his “eye-for-eye” order to shoot a rebel prisoner for every black prisoner shot.

1864 – The Union’s ingenious attempt to break the Confederate lines at Petersburg by blowing up a tunnel that had been dug under the Rebel trenches fails. Although the explosion created a gap in the Confederate defenses, a poorly planned Yankee attack wasted the effort and the result was an eight-month continuation of the siege. The bloody campaign between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate Robert E. Lee ground to a halt in mid-June, when the two armies dug in at Petersburg, south of Richmond. For the previous six weeks, Grant had pounded away at Lee, producing little results other than frightful casualties. A series of battles and flanking maneuvers brought Grant to Petersburg, where he opted for a siege rather than another costly frontal assault. In late June, a Union regiment from the 48th Pennsylvania Infantry began digging a tunnel under the Rebel fortifications. The soldiers, experienced miners from Pennsylvania’s anthracite coal regions, dug for nearly a month to construct a horizontal shaft over 500 feet long. At the end of the tunnel, they ran two drifts, or side tunnels, totaling 75 feet along the Confederate lines to maximize the destruction. Four tons of gunpowder filled the drifts, and the stage was set. Union soldiers lit the fuse before dawn on July 30. The explosion that came just before 5:00 a.m. blew up a Confederate battery and most of one infantry regiment, creating a crater 170 feet long, 60 to 80 feet wide, and 30 feet deep. As one Southern soldier wrote, “Several hundred yards of earth work with men and cannon was literally hurled a hundred feet in the air.”

However, the Union was woefully unprepared to exploit the gap. The Yankees were slow to exit the trenches, and when they did the 15,000 attacking troops ran into the crater rather than around it. Part of the Rebel line was captured, but the Confederates that gathered from each side fired down on the Yankees. The Union troops could not maintain the beachhead, and by early afternoon they retreated back to their original trenches. The Battle of the Crater essentially marked the end of Burnside’s military career, and on April 15, 1865, he resigned from the army.

1864 – Confederate troops attack Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

1916 – German saboteurs blew up a munitions pier on Black Tom Island, Jersey City, NJ. 7 people were killed. Damages totaled about $20-25 million. Now a section of Liberty State Park (along Morris Pesin road including the park office and Flag Plaza), Black Tom was originally a small island in New York Harbor not far from Liberty Island. Between 1860 and 1880, Black Tom was connected to the mainland by a causeway and rail lines terminating at a freight facility with docks. The area between the island and the mainland was filled in sometime between 1905 and 1916 by the Lehigh Valley Railroad as part of its Jersey City facility. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Black Tom was serving as a major munitions depot. Before the United States entered the First World War, American businessmen would sell their supplies to any buyer. However, by 1915, the British Navy had established a blockade effectively keeping the Germans from being able to buy from the American merchants. The German government, on July 30, 1916, orchestrated the sabotage of freight cars at Black Tom, which were loaded with munitions for the Allies in Europe. According to a recent study, the resulting explosion was the equivalent of an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter Scale. Windows within a 25-mile radius were broken, the outside wall of Jersey City’s City Hall was cracked and pieces of metal damaged the skirt of the Statue of Liberty (it is because of this explosion that the Lady’s torch has been closed off to visitors). Most of the immigrants on Ellis Island were temporarily evacuated. Losses were estimate at $20 million and seven people were killed. After the war, a commission appointed to resolve American claims against Germany was established. It took years before a decision was made, finally in June of 1939, the commission ruled that the German Government had authorized the sabotage. However, World War II interrupted any chances of arranging for restitution. In 1953 the two governments finally settled on terms that the German government would pay a total of $95 million for a number of claims including Black Tom. The final payment was received in 1979.

1941 – Japanese aircraft bomb USS Tutuila (PR-4) at Chungking, China; First Navy ship damaged by Axis during World War II. Japan apologizes for the incident but it does nothing to ease the strained relations between the US and Japan.

1942 – President Roosevelt signed a bill creating a women’s auxiliary agency in the Navy known as “Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service” or WAVES for short.

1942 – The US passenger-freighter Robert E. Lee with 268 passengers was sunk by the German U-166 submarine. 15 crew members and 10 passengers died. In 2001 wreckage of the U-166 was found in the Gulf of Mexico and it appeared that it was sunk by Coast Guard PC-566 right after the attack. U-166 had 52 crew members.

1945 – Japanese warships sink the American cruiser Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen in the worst loss in the history of the U.S. navy. As a prelude to a proposed invasion of the Japanese mainland, scheduled for November 1, U.S. forces bombed the Japanese home islands from sea and air, as well as blowing Japanese warships out of the water. The end was near for Imperial Japan, but it was determined to go down fighting. Just before midnight of the 29th, the Indianapolis, an American cruiser that was the flagship of the Fifth Fleet, was on its way, unescorted, to Guam, then Okinawa. It never made it. It was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine. Interestingly, the sub was commanded by a lieutenant who had also participated in the Pearl Harbor invasion. There were 1,196 crewmen onboard the Indianapolis; over 350 died upon impact of the torpedo or went down with the ship. More than 800 fell into the Pacific. Of those, approximately 50 died that first night in the water from injuries suffered in the torpedo explosion; the remaining seamen were left to flounder in the Pacific, fend off sharks, drink sea water (which drove some insane), and wait to be rescued. Because there was no time for a distress signal before the Indianapolis went down, it was 84 hours before help arrived. This was despite the fact that American naval headquarters had intercepted a message on July 30 from the Japanese sub commander responsible for sinking the Indianapolis, describing the type of ship sunk and its location. (The Americans assumed it was an exaggerated boast and didn’t bother to follow up.) Only 318 survived; the rest were eaten by sharks or drowned. The Indianapolis’s commander, Captain Charles McVay, was the only officer ever to be court-martialed for the loss of a ship during wartime in the history of the U.S. Navy. Had the attack happened only three days earlier, the Indianapolis would have been sunk carrying special cargo-the atom bomb, which it delivered to Tinian Island, northeast of Guam, for scientists to assemble.

1956 – US motto “In God We Trust” was authorized.

1964 – At about midnight, six “Swifts,” special torpedo boats used by the South Vietnamese for covert raids, attack the islands of Hon Me and Hon Ngu in the Tonkin Gulf. Although unable to land any commandos, the boats fired on island installations. Radar and radio transmissions were monitored by an American destroyer, the USS Maddox, which was stationed about 120 miles away. The South Vietnamese attacks were part of a covert operation called Oplan 34A, which involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under American orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program, Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in events that led to what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. On August 2, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the Maddox, which had been conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were thought at the time to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened or not, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks against the North Vietnamese and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The resolution became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.

1971 – US Apollo 15 with astronauts Scott and Irwin landed at Mare Imbrium on the Moon.

1991 – U.N. weapons inspectors report to the United Nation Security Council that Iraq has attempted to conceal aspects of its nuclear weapons program by destroying or burying essential equipment. The inspectors also reported identifying four times as many chemical weapons as Iraq had reported to be in its possession.
PostPosted: Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:24 am
July 31st ~

1498 – During his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus arrived at the island of Trinidad.

1777 – The Marquis de Lafayette, a 19-year-old French nobleman, was made a major-general in the American Continental Army.

1837 – William Clarke Quantrill (d.1865), Confederate raider, was born. He was known as one of the most vicious butchers of the American Civil war.

1849 – Benjamin Chambers patented a breech loading cannon.

1874 – Commissioning of USS Intrepid, first U.S. warship equipped with torpedoes.

1912 – First attempt to launch an airplane by catapult made at Annapolis.

1914 – German Kaiser Wilhelm II threatened war and ordered Russia to demobilize.

1918 – The 42nd Division (26 states and DC) is ordered to capture Hill 177 in preparation for the Aisne Offensive to begin on August 1st. Elements of its 84th Infantry Brigade, including Alabama’s the 167th and Iowa’s 168th Infantry regiments supported by the 151st Machine Gun Battalion, seize the hill after being heavily engaged.

1932 – The George Washington quarter went into circulation as a 200 year commemorative of G. Washington’s birth. It has been in use ever since.

1945 – US Secretary of War, Henry Stimson, sends President Truman a memorandum on how to persuade Japan to surrender. As part of a package of measures which also includes conventional bombing, invasion and diplomacy, he takes for granted that America will use the atomic bombs now under production.

1945 – The Japanese are warned by the Americans that eight cities will be leveled if the government refuses to surrender.

1964 – Ranger 7, an unmanned U.S. lunar probe, takes the first close-up images of the moon–4,308 in total–before it impacts with the lunar surface northwest of the Sea of the Clouds. The images were 1,000 times as clear as anything ever seen through earth-bound telescopes. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had attempted a similar mission earlier in the year–Ranger 6–but the probe’s cameras had failed as it descended to the lunar surface. Ranger 7, launched from Earth on July 28, successfully activated its cameras 17 minutes, or 1,300 miles, before impact and began beaming the images back to NASA’s receiving station in California. The pictures showed that the lunar surface was not excessively dusty or otherwise treacherous to a potential spacecraft landing, thus lending encouragement to the NASA plan to send astronauts to the moon. In July 1969, two Americans walked on the moon in the first Apollo Program lunar landing mission.

1964 – All-nuclear task force with USS Long Beach, USS Enterprise, and USS Bainbridge leaves Norfolk, VA to begin voyage, Operation Sea Orbit, to circle the globe without refueling. They returned on 3 October.

1971 – Apollo 15 astronauts (Dave Scott) took a drive on the moon in their land rover.

1991 – The US Senate voted to allow women to fly combat aircraft.

1992 – The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a problem-plagued scientific mission.

2001 – Richard Butler tells a U.S. Senate Committee that Iraq increased the production of chemical and biological weapons after U.N. inspections ended- and might even be close to developing a nuclear bomb. A former Iraqi nuclear engineer tells the Committee that Saddam Hussein will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005.
PostPosted: Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:34 am
August 1st ~

1498 – Italian explorer Christopher Columbus sets foot on the American mainland for the first time, at the Paria Peninsula in present-day Venezuela. Thinking it an island, he christened it Isla Santa and claimed it for Spain. Columbus was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1451. Little is known of his early life, but he worked as a seaman and then a sailing entrepreneur. He became obsessed with the possibility of pioneering a western sea route to Cathay (China), India, and the fabled gold and spice islands of Asia. At the time, Europeans knew no direct sea route to southern Asia, and the route via Egypt and the Red Sea was closed to Europeans by the Ottoman Empire, as were many land routes. Contrary to popular legend, educated Europeans of Columbus’ day did believe that the world was round, as argued by St. Isidore in the seventh century. However, Columbus, and most others, underestimated the world’s size, calculating that East Asia must lie approximately where North America sits on the globe (they did not yet know that the Pacific Ocean existed). With only the Atlantic Ocean, he thought, lying between Europe and the riches of the East Indies, Columbus met with King John II of Portugal and tried to persuade him to back his “Enterprise of the Indies,” as he called his plan. He was rebuffed and went to Spain, where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella also rejected him at least twice. However, after the Spanish conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada in January 1492, the Spanish monarchs, flush with victory, agreed to support his voyage. On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Marýa, the Pinta, and the Niýa.

On October 12, the expedition sighted land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas, and went ashore the same day, claiming it for Spain. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and “Indian” captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was given the title “admiral of the ocean sea,” and a second expedition was promptly organized. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.

1781 – English army under Lord Cornwallis occupied Yorktown, Virginia.

1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant appoints General Philip Sheridan commander of the Army of the Shenandoah. Within a few months, Sheridan drove a Confederate force from the Shenandoah Valley and destroyed nearly all possible sources of Rebel supplies, helping to seal the fate of the Confederacy. In the summer of 1864, Confederate General Robert E. Lee had sent part of his army at Petersburg, Virginia, commanded by Jubal Early, to harass Federal units in the area of the Shenandoah and threaten Washington, D.C. The Confederates had used the same strategy in 1862, when General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson effectively relieved Union pressure on Richmond with a campaign in the Shenandoah.

1914 – Four days after Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, Germany and Russia declare war against each other, France orders a general mobilization, and the first German army units cross into Luxembourg in preparation for the German invasion of France. During the next three days, Russia, France, Belgium, and Great Britain all lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and the German army invaded Belgium. The “Great War” that ensued was one of unprecedented destruction and loss of life, resulting in the deaths of some 20 million soldiers and civilians.

On June 28, 1914, in an event that is widely regarded as sparking the outbreak of World War I, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers collapsed.

1941 – Parade magazine called it “…the Army’s most intriguing new gadget…a tiny truck which can do practically everything.” During World War I, the U.S. Army began looking for a fast, lightweight all-terrain vehicle, but the search did not grow urgent until early 1940. At this time, the Axis powers had begun to score victories in Europe and Northern Africa, intensifying the Allies’ need for an all-terrain vehicle. The U.S. Army issued a challenge to automotive companies, requesting a working prototype, fit to army specifications, in just 49 days. Willy’s Truck Company was the first to successfully answer the Army’s call, and the new little truck was christened “the Jeep.” General Dwight D. Eisenhower said that America could not have won World War II without it. Parade was so enthusiastic about the Jeep, that, on this day, it devoted three full pages to a feature on the vehicle.

1941 – The Grumman TBF Avenger torpedo plane made its first flight.

1942 – Ensign Henry C. White, while flying a J4F Widgeon plane, sank U-166 as it approaches the Mississippi River, the first U-boat sunk by the U.S. Coast Guard. In the summer of 1942, German submarines put saboteurs ashore on American beaches.

1943 – A Japanese destroyer rams an American PT (patrol torpedo) boat, No. 109, slicing it in two. The destruction is so massive other American PT boats in the area assume the crew is dead. Two crewmen were, in fact, killed, but 11 survived, including Lt. John F. Kennedy. Japanese aircraft had been on a PT boat hunt in the Solomon Islands, bombing the PT base at Rendova Island. It was essential to the Japanese that several of their destroyers make it to the southern tip of Kolombangara Island to get war supplies to forces there. But the torpedo capacity of the American PTs was a potential threat. Despite the base bombing at Rendova, PTs set out to intercept those Japanese destroyers. In the midst of battle, Japan’s Amaqiri hit PT-109, leaving 11 crewmen floundering in the Pacific. After five hours of clinging to debris from the decimated PT boat, the crew made it to a coral island. Kennedy decided to swim out to sea again, hoping to flag down a passing American boat. None came. Kennedy began to swim back to shore, but strong currents, and his chronic back condition, made his return difficult. Upon reaching the island again, he fell ill.

After he recovered, the PT-109 crew swam to a larger island, what they believed was Nauru Island, but was in fact Cross Island. They met up with two natives from the island, who agreed to take a message south. Kennedy carved the distress message into a coconut shell: “Nauru Is. Native knows posit. He can pilot. 11 alive need small boat.” The message reached Lieutenant Arthur Evans, who was watching the coast of Gomu Island, located next to an island occupied by the Japanese. Kennedy and his crew were paddled to Gomu. A PT boat then took them back to Rendova. Kennedy was ultimately awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, for gallantry in action. The coconut shell used to deliver his message found a place in history-and in the Oval Office.

1956 – Captain Norma Parsons becomes the first woman to join the National Guard when she was sworn in as a nurse in the 106th Tactical Hospital, New York Air National Guard. Only two days earlier, and after much debate, Congress finally enacted Public Law 845 allowing the participation of women in the Guard.

1957 – The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1958 – US atomic sub USS Nautilus 1st dove under the North Pole.

1966 – Charles Whitman takes a stockpile of guns and ammunition to the observatory platform atop a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and proceeds to shoot 46 people, killing 16. Whitman, who had killed both his wife and mother the night before, was eventually shot to death after courageous Austin police officers, including Ramiro Martinez, charged up the stairs of the tower to subdue the attacker. Whitman, a former Eagle Scout and Marine, began to suffer serious mental problems after his mother left his father in February 1966.

1977 – Francis Gary Powers (47), US U-2 pilot, died in fiery helicopter crash.
PostPosted: Sun Aug 02, 2015 9:26 am
August 2nd ~

1776 – In Philadelphia most members of the Continental Congress began attaching their signatures to the parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Harrison was one of the signers. His son and grandson later became the 9th and 23rd presidents of the US. Most of the 55 signatures were affixed on August 2, but Matthew Thornton of New Hampshire, who was not a member of Congress when the declaration was adopted, added his name in November.

1819 – The first parachute jump from a balloon was made by Charles Guille in New York City.

1865 – The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war. The Shenandoah was the last major Confederate cruiser to set sail. Launched as a British vessel in September 1863, it was purchased by the Confederates and commissioned in October 1864. The 230-foot-long craft was armed with eight large guns and a crew of 73 sailors. Commanded by Captain James I. Waddell, the Shenandoah steered toward the Pacific and targeted Yankee whaling ships. Waddell enjoyed great success, taking six ships in the South Pacific before slipping into Melbourne, Australia, for repairs in January 1865. Within a month, the Shenandoah was back on the loose, wreaking havoc in the waters around Alaska. The Rebel ship captured 32 additional Union vessels, most of which were burned. The damage was estimated at $1.6 million, a staggering figure in such a short period of time.

1887 – Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.

1909 – The 1st Lincoln head pennies were minted. It was 95% copper and was the first US coin to depict the likeness of a president.

1909 – What will become the US Army Air Corps formed as the Army Signal Corps took 1st delivery from the Wright Brothers.

1914 – German troops occupy neutral Luxembourg and delivers an ultimatum to Belgium at 1900 hours demanding that German forces be allowed to move through Belgian territory unhindered to pre-empt a French attack on Germany. The ultimatum expires in 12 hours.

1923 – In a hotel in San Francisco, President Warren G. Harding dies of a stroke at the age of 58. Harding was returning from a presidential tour of Alaska and the West Coast, a journey some believed he had embarked on to escape the rumors circulating in Washington of corruption in his administration. Harding, a relatively unremarkable U.S. senator of Ohio, won the Republican presidential nomination in 1920 after the party deadlocked over several more prominent candidates. Harding ran pledging a “return to normalcy” after World War I and in November was elected the 29th U.S. president in a landslide election victory.

1934 – With the death of German President Paul von Hindenburg, Chancellor Adolf Hitler becomes absolute dictator of Germany under the title of Reichsführer, or “Imperial Leader.” The German army took an oath of allegiance to its new commander-in-chief, and the last remnants of Germany’s democratic government were dismantled to make way for Hitler’s Third Reich.

1939 – Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.

1943 – The 10-day allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.

1945 – The last wartime conference of the “Big Three”–the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain–concludes after two weeks of intense and sometimes acrimonious debate. The conference failed to settle most of the important issues at hand and thus helped set the stage for the Cold War that would begin shortly after World War II came to an end. The meeting at Potsdam was the third conference between the leaders of the Big Three nations. The Soviet Union was represented by Joseph Stalin, Britain by Winston Churchill, and the United States by President Harry S. Truman. This was Truman’s first Big Three meeting. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died in April 1945, attended the first two conferences–in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in February 1945. At the Potsdam meeting, the most pressing issue was the postwar fate of Germany. The Soviets wanted a unified Germany, but they also insisted that Germany be completely disarmed. Truman, along with a growing number of U.S. officials, had deep suspicions about Soviet intentions in Europe. The massive Soviet army already occupied much of Eastern Europe. A strong Germany might be the only obstacle in the way of Soviet domination of all of Europe. In the end, the Big Three agreed to divide Germany into three zones of occupation (one for each nation), and to defer discussions of German reunification until a later date.

The other notable issue at Potsdam was one that was virtually unspoken. Just as he arrived for the conference, Truman was informed that the United States had successfully tested the first atomic bomb. Hoping to use the weapon as leverage with the Soviets in the postwar world, Truman casually mentioned to Stalin that America was now in possession of a weapon of monstrously destructive force. The president was disappointed when the Soviet leader merely responded that he hoped the United States would use it to bring the war with Japan to a speedy end. The Potsdam Conference ended on a somber note. By the time it was over, Truman had become even more convinced that he had to adopt a tough policy toward the Soviets. Stalin had come to believe more strongly that the United States and Great Britain were conspiring against the Soviet Union.

1950 – Amphibious force ships land Marine First Provisional Brigade at Pusan, Korea helping to save this last area of South Korea from capture.

1956 – Albert Woolson (109), last veteran US Union army, died.

1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731). The American ship had been cruising around the Tonkin Gulf monitoring radio and radar signals following an attack by South Vietnamese PT boats on North Vietnamese facilities on Hon Me and Hon Nhieu Islands (off the North Vietnamese coast) under Oplan 34A. U.S. crews interpreted one North Vietnamese message as indicating that they were preparing “military operations,” which the Maddox’s Captain John Herrick assumed meant some sort of retaliatory attack. His superiors ordered him to remain in the area. Early that afternoon, three North Vietnamese patrol boats began to chase the Maddox.

About 3 p.m., Captain Herrick ordered his crew to commence firing as the North Vietnamese boats came within 10,000 yards of his ship; at the same time he radioed the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga for air support. The North Vietnamese boats each fired one torpedo at the Maddox, but two missed and the third failed to explode. U.S. gunfire hit one of the North Vietnamese boats, and then three U.S. Crusader jets proceeded to strafe them. Within 20 minutes, Maddox gunners sunk one of the boats and two were crippled; only one bullet hit the Maddox and there were no U.S. casualties. The Maddox was ordered to withdraw and await further instructions.

1989 – NASA confirmed Voyager 2’s discovery of 3 more moons of Neptune designated temporarily 1989 N2, 1989 N3 and 1989 N24.

1990 – Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. The day came to be known in Kuwait as “Black Thursday.” 330 Kuwaitis died during the occupation and war. Sadam Hussein, leader of Iraq, took over Kuwait. G. Bush led an inter-national coalition for sanctions and a demand for withdrawal. The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert Storm.

1991 – UNSCOM uncovers a major Iraqi biological weapons program, including seed stocks of three biological warfare agents and threepotential warfare strains.

1999 – In Bosnia NATO troops arrested Radomir Kovac, former Bosnian Serb paramilitary leader, for enslaving and raping Muslim women in 1992-1993.

2001 – The UN war crimes tribunal found Radislav Krstic, former Bosnian Serb general, guilty for the 1995 genocide of some 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica. He was sentenced to 46 years in prison.

2003 – Saddam Hussein’s two elder sons and a grandson were buried as martyrs near the deposed Iraqi leader’s hometown of Tikrit, where insurgents afterward attacked U.S. troops with three remote-controlled bombs.
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 12:27 pm
August 3rd ~

1823 – Union General Thomas Francis Meagher, designer of the Irish tricolor, the Irish Republic’s current flag, is born in Waterford, Ireland. A Catholic, Meagher was educated by Jesuits, and studied law in Dublin. As a young man, he became deeply involved in Young Ireland, a nationalistic organization that opposed British rule in Ireland. Meagher was a fiery orator, and directed his invective against Ireland’s British overseers. After participating in the aborted Irish rebellion of 1848, Meagher was convicted of high treason. Authorities commuted his death sentence to hard labor and exiled him, like many Irish nationalists of his day, to Tasmania. After four years, he escaped and made his way to New York City. He married into a prosperous merchant’s family and became a leader within the Irish-American community. When the war broke out, Meagher became a captain in the 68th New York militia, an Irish unit that became the nucleus of the famous Irish Brigade in the Army of the Potomac. In February 1862, he was appointed brigadier general of the unit. Meagher served in all of the army’s major campaigns in Virginia, and the Irish brigade distinguished itself at the Battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862.

1861 – Construction of the ironclad USS Monitor authorized.

1861 – First manned ascent in a balloon from a ship, gunboat USS Fanny, to observe Confederate artillery position at Hampton Roads, VA.

1863 – Governor Seymour asked Pres. Lincoln to suspend the draft in NY.

1914 – Germany declares war on France.

1923 – Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as the 30th president of the United States, following the death of Warren G. Harding. It took several hours for the news of President Warren G. Harding’s death in California to reach the small town of Plymouth, Vermont, where he was enjoying a short vacation, but by 2 a.m., Coolidge was told that Harding was dead. Traditionally, the president is sworn in by the chief justice of the Supreme Court–but he slept 500 miles away. At 2:30 a.m. on August 3, 1923, Coolidge’s father, a notary public, administered the oath of office to his son by the light of a kerosene lamp.

1941 – Although the U.S. had not yet entered World War II at this time, gasoline rationing began in parts of the eastern United States on this day in 1941. The rationing would spread to the rest of the country as soon as the U.S. joined the Allied forces, and the production of cars for private use halted completely in 1942. Measures of a similar sort had already taken place in most European countries.

1943 – Gen. George S. Patton slapped a private at an army hospital in Sicily, accusing him of cowardice. Patton was later ordered by Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to apologize for this and a second, similar episode.

1945 – An American communique announces that US B-29 Superfortress bombers dropping mines over Japan have now sealed off all of the main ports, leaving the country totally blockaded. In a report by the US 20th Air Force, it is noted that every harbor of consequence in Japan and all those in Korea have been mined and it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping have been sunk or damaged since the mining program began in March.

1950 – A US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 35 men arrives in Vietnam to teach troops receiving US weapons how to use them.

1950 – Eight Corsairs of VMF-214, the famed “Black Sheep” squadron of World War II, led by squadron executive officer, Major Robert P. Keller,launched from the USS SICILY and executed the first Marine aviation mission in the Korean War in a raid against enemy installations near Inchon. After the F4Us delivered their incendiary bombs and rockets on their targets, the Marines concluded their greeting to the Communist troops with a series of strafing runs.

1954 – The 1st VTOL (Vertical Take-off & Land) aircraft was flown.

1958 – U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.

1970 – USS James Madison (SSBN-627) conducts first submerged launching of Poseidon nuclear missile off Cape Kennedy.

1977 – Radio Shack issued a press release introducing the TRS-80 computer. 25 existed and within weeks thousands were ordered.

1995 – A Palestinian, Eyad Ismoil, was flown to the United States from Jordan to face charges he’d driven a bomb-laden van into New York’s World Trade Center. The 1993 explosion killed six people and injured more than one-thousand; Ismoil is serving a life sentence.

2004 – At Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Delta II rocket lifted the spacecraft Messenger on a 6 ½ year journey toward Mercury.
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:47 pm
August 4th ~

1790 – Congress authorized the Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s proposal to build ten cutters to protect the new nation’s revenue (Stat. L. 145, 175). Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service (12 Stat. L., 639) in 1863. The cutters were placed under the control of the Treasury Department. This date marks the officially recognized birthday of the Coast Guard.

1830 – Plans for the city of Chicago were laid out.

1846 – Sailors and Marines from USS Congress capture Santa Barbara.

1855 – In the Battle of Ty-Ho Bay, China, Marines from the USS Powhatan captured 17 pirate junks near Hong Kong.

1873 – While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, Custer and his 7th Cavalry clash for the first time with the Sioux Indians, who will defeat them three years later at Little Big Horn. During the previous two years, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry had not fought a single battle against the hostile Indians of the western Plains. Hungry for action, Custer was pleased when the 7th Cavalry was ordered to help protect a party of surveyors laying out the route for the proposed Northern Pacific Railroad. The new transcontinental railroad (the third in the United States) was to pass through territory controlled by hostile Sioux Indians. Custer was optimistic that the assignment would give him a chance to improve his reputation as an Indian fighter. Initially, the military escort saw little action. The hostile Indians seemed to be avoiding or ignoring the survey party. For Custer, the mission turned into something of a lark. He spent much of his time shooting buffalo, antelope, elk, and other animals. To find good hunting, he often led the 7th Cavalry far away from the survey party and the main body of the military escort. On this day in 1873, Custer was far ahead of the rest of the force, camping along the Tongue River in southeastern Montana. Suddenly, a large band of Sioux warriors appeared on the horizon and attacked. The Indians were led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but the young braves seemed to have attacked impetuously and with little planning. Custer, who had been taking an afternoon nap, reacted quickly and mounted an effective defense. After a brief skirmish, the Indians withdrew. Since only one soldier and one Indian were killed in the skirmish, Custer’s short battle along the Tongue River seemed relatively insignificant at the time. However, Custer’s easy escape in his first encounter with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse may have given him a dangerously scornful view of their fighting abilities. It helped to confirm his belief that the Plains warriors tended to flee rather than fight. As a result, when Custer again encountered Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse at the Little Big Horn River three years later, his greatest fear was that they would withdraw before he could attack, and he rushed in without proper reconnaissance. That time, though, the Indians stood and fought, leaving Custer and more than 200 of his men dead.

1914 – Britain declares war on Germany at 2300 hours as the Germans reject a British ultimatum demanding that they leave Belgian soil.

1914 – Germany declares war on Belgium and its armies invade in force. Leading the main attack are the First Army commanded by General Alexander von Kluck and General Karl von Buelow’s Second Army.

1914 – As World War I erupts in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson formally proclaims the neutrality of the United States; a position a vast majority of Americans favored. However, Wilson’s hope that America could be “impartial in thought as well as in action” was soon compromised by Germany’s attempted quarantine of the British Isles. Britain was one of America’s closest trading partners, and tension arose between the United States and Germany when several U.S. ships traveling to Britain were damaged or sunk by German mines. In February 1915, Germany announced unrestricted warfare against all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain. One month later, Germany announced that a German cruiser had sunk the William P. Frye, a private American vessel that was transporting grain to England when it disappeared. President Wilson was outraged, but the German government apologized and called the attack an unfortunate mistake. In early May 1915, several New York newspapers published a warning by the German embassy in Washington that Americans traveling on British or Allied ships in war zones did so at their own risk. The announcement was placed on the same page as an advertisement of the imminent sailing of the British-owned Lusitania ocean liner from New York to Liverpool. On May 7, the Lusitania was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine just off the coast of Ireland. Of the 1,959 passengers, 1,198 were killed, including 128 Americans. It was revealed that the Lusitania was carrying about 173 tons of war munitions for Britain, which the Germans cited as further justification for the attack.

1918 – America’s second highest-scoring ace, Frank Luke, begins his short but distinguished career. He downs 14 observation balloons and four aircraft in a few weeks. He is forced down behind German lines in late September, and refusing to surrender, will be shot.

1949 – Congress approved Public Law 207, which revised, codified and enacted into law title 14 of the United Stated Code. This set forth for the first time a clear, concise statutory statement of the duties and functions of the U.S. Coast Guard. The Act confirmed that the Coast Guard was a branch of the armed forces of the United States, confirmed it in its general functions of marine safety, maritime law enforcement, and military readiness to operate as a service in the Navy upon declaration of war or when the president directs.

1952 – Helicopters from the U.S. Air Force Air Rescue Service landed in Germany, completing the first transatlantic flight by helicopter in 51 hours and 55 minutes of flight time.

1955 – Eisenhower authorized $46 million for the construction of CIA headquarters.

1981 – Oliver North was assigned to White House duty.

1988 – US Congress voted $20,000 to each Japanese-American interned during WW II.

1992 – The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis encountered difficulties as they tried to reel out a satellite attached to miles of thin cord as part of an electricity-producing experiment.
PostPosted: Wed Aug 05, 2015 8:28 am
August 5th ~

1664 – After days of negotiation, the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam surrendered to the British, who would rename it New York. The citizens of New Amsterdam petitioned Peter Stuyvesant to surrender to the English. The “Articles of Capitulation” guaranteed free trade, religious liberty and a form of local representation.

1815 – A peace treaty with Tripoli–which followed treaties with Algeria and Tunis–brought an end to the Barbary Wars.

1832 – Frigate Potomac is first U.S. Navy ship to entertain royalty, King and Queen of Sandwich Islands, Honolulu.

1864 – Rear Admiral Farragut took his squadron of 18 ships, including four monitors, against the heavy Confederate defenses of Mobile Bay. Soon after 6 a.m., the Union ships crossed the bar and moved into the bay. The monitors Tecumseh, Manhattan, Winnebago, and Chickasaw formed a column to starboard of the wooden ships in order to take most of the fire from Fort Morgan, which they had to pass at close range. The seven smaller wooden ships were lashed to tile port side of the larger wooden screw steamers, as in the passage of Port Hudson, Mississippi River. Shortly before 7 o’clock, Tecumseh, Commander T.A.M. Craven, opened fire on Fort Morgan. The action quickly became general. The Confederate squadron under Admiral Buchanan, including the heavy ram Tennessee (6 guns) and the smaller ships Gaines (6 guns), Selma (4 guns), and Morgan (6 guns), moved out to engage the attackers. Craven headed Tecumseh straight at Tennessee, bent on engaging her at once. Suddenly, a terrific explosion rocked the Union monitor. She careened violently and went down in seconds, the victim of one of the much-feared torpedoes laid by the Confederates for harbor defense.

Amidst the confusion below decks as men struggled to escape the sinking ship, Craven and the pilot, John Collins, arrived at the foot of the ladder leading to the main deck. The captain stepped back. “After you, pilot,” he said. Collins was saved, but there was no afterwards for the heroic Craven. He and some 90 officers and men of Tecumseh’s crew of 114 went down with the ship. Captain Alden called them “intrepid pioneers of that death-strewed path.” Alden, in Brooklyn, was to Tecumseh’s port when the disaster occurred; the heavy steamer stopped and began backing to clear “a row of suspecious-looking buoys” directly under Brooklyn’s bow. The entire line of wooden vessels was drifting into confusion immediately under the guns of Fort Morgan. Farragut, lashed in the rigging to observe the action over the smoke billowing from the guns, acted promptly and resolutely, characteristic of a great leader who in war must constantly meet emergencies fraught with danger. The only course was the boldest through the torpedo field. “Damn the torpedoes,” he ordered; “full speed ahead ” (Flag Lieutenant John C. Watson later recalled that Farragut’s exact words were: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead, Drayton! Hard astarboard; ring four bells! Eight bells! Sixteen bells!”) His flagship Hartford swept past Brooklyn into the rows of torpedoes; the fleet followed. The torpedoes were heard bumping against the hulls but none exploded. The Union force steamed into the bay.

1884 – The cornerstone for the Statue of Liberty was laid on Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor.

1914 – Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia at 1200 hours.

1917 – The entire membership of the National Guard was drafted into federal service for World War I. After war was declared in April, 1917, National Guard units were first called into federal service by President Wilson under the militia clause of the Constitution. Most of these units mobilized at their local armories or in state military camps, and they began actively recruiting up to full wartime strength while conducting local patrols to defend against suspected German saboteurs. Guardsmen could not be deployed overseas as militia, however, since the Constitution stipulated that the militia could only be used to “execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrection, and repel invasions.” To circumvent this restriction, the Army’s Judge Advocate General determined that it would be necessary to draft each Guardsman into federal service, thus severing his ties to the state militia and freeing him for service overseas. Just over 379,000 Guardsmen were drafted on August 5, 1917, more then doubling the size of the U.S. Army with the stroke of a pen. Despite the fact that the military would swell to over 4 million men during the war, the brunt of the fighting in the trenches in France would be borne by the Guard. All 18 Guard divisions served overseas as part of the 43 division American Expeditionary Forces; 12 of the 29 divisions that saw combat were from the Guard (the rest of the divisions were broken up and the men used as replacements).

1918 – U.S.A. Man-power Bill introduced into Congress; military age from 18 to 45.

1945 – On Tinian, at about 0210 hours, seven American aircraft take off for Japan. One of the aircraft is the specially modified B-29 Superfortress — the Enola Gay — carrying the “Little Boy” atomic bomb and heading for Hiroshima.

1950 – Major Kenneth L. Reusser was awarded a gold star in lieu of a second Navy Cross and became the first Marine to be decorated for valor during the Korean War.

1963 – Representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Great Britain sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space, underwater, or in the atmosphere. The treaty was hailed as an important first step toward the control of nuclear weapons.

1964 – F-8 Crusaders, A-1 Skyraiders, and A-4 Skyhawks, from the carriers USS Ticonderoga and USS Constellation stationed in the South China Sea, fly 64 sorties against North Vietnamese coastal targets as part of Operation Pierce Arrow in retaliation for the Tonkin Gulf incidents of August 2 and 4. The U.S. warplanes destroyed or damaged 25 North Vietnamese PT boats (claimed by U.S. officials to be about one-half of the North Vietnamese Navy) at bases at Hon Gai, Loc Ghao, Phuc Loi, and Quang Khe; destroyed seven anti-aircraft installations at Vinh; and severely damaged an oil storage depot at Phuc Loi. Two U.S. planes were shot down. One pilot, Lieutenant j.g. (or “junior grade”) Everett Alvarez, parachuted to safety, but broke his back in the process and was taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese. He was the first of some 600 U.S. airmen who would be captured during the war and not released until the cease-fire agreement was signed in 1973.

1969 – The U.S. space probe Mariner 7 flew by Mars, sending back photographs and scientific data. It returned 127 images of the South Polar icecap and southern hemisphere. Mariner 6 also flew past Mars this year and returned 75 images of the Martian equator along with the surface temperature, atmospheric pressure and composition.

1974 – President Richard Nixon admitted that he ordered a cover-up of the Watergate break-in for political as well as national security reasons. He was forced to release tapes that proved he had ordered a cover-up, which became know as the “smoking gun.”

1986 – US Senate voted for the SDI-project, better known as Star Wars.

1990 – An angry President G.H.W. Bush again denounced the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, telling reporters, “This will not stand. This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.”

2001 – The spacecraft Galileo flew as close as 120 miles above Io’s north pole and captured wisps of volcanic gas largely composed of sulfur dioxide.

2002 – The coral-encrusted gun turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised from the floor of the Atlantic, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a storm.
PostPosted: Thu Aug 06, 2015 9:31 am
August 6th ~

1787 – In Philadelphia, delegates to the Constitutional Convention begin debating the first complete draft of the proposed Constitution of the United States. Sixty proof sheets have been delivered to the Constitutional Convention for this purpose. The Articles of Confederation, ratified several months before the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781, provided for a loose confederation of U.S. states, which were sovereign in most of their affairs. On paper, Congress–the central authority–had the power to govern foreign affairs, conduct war, and regulate currency, but in practice these powers were sharply limited because Congress was given no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. By 1786, it was apparent that the Union would soon break up if the Articles of Confederation were not amended or replaced. Five states met in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the issue, and all the states were invited to send delegates to a new constitutional convention to be held in Philadelphia. On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island convened at Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The building, which is now known as Independence Hall, had earlier seen the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation. The assembly immediately discarded the idea of amending the Articles of Confederation and set about drawing up a new scheme of government. Revolutionary War hero George Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected convention president. During an intensive debate, the delegates devised a brilliant federal system characterized by an intricate system of checks and balances. The convention was divided over the issue of state representation in Congress, as more-populated states sought proportional legislation, and smaller states wanted equal representation. The problem was resolved by the Connecticut Compromise, which proposed a bicameral legislature with proportional representation in the lower house (House of Representatives) and equal representation of the states in the upper house (Senate).

On September 17, 1787, the Constitution of the United States of America was signed by 38 of the 41 delegates present at the conclusion of the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. Beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document, as it failed to reserve undelegated powers to the states and lacked constitutional protection of basic political rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In February 1788, a compromise was reached under which Massachusetts and other states would agree to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would be immediately proposed. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, and it was subsequently agreed that government under the U.S. Constitution would begin on March 4, 1789. In June, Virginia ratified the Constitution, followed by New York in July. On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. Ten of these amendments were ratified in 1791. In November 1789, North Carolina became the 12th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Rhode Island, which opposed federal control of currency and was critical of compromise on the issue of slavery, resisted ratifying the Constitution until the U.S. government threatened to sever commercial relations with the state. On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island voted by two votes to ratify the document, and the last of the original 13 colonies joined the United States. Today, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest written constitution in operation in the world.

1819 – Norwich University, the first private military school in the United States, is founded in Vermont as the American Literary, Scientific and Military Academy. It is the oldest of six senior military colleges, and is recognized by the United States Department of Defense as the “Birthplace of ROTC” (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps).

1847 – LtCol S. E. Watson’s Marines commenced their march on the “Halls of Montezuma” in Mexico.

1878 – The last sailing cutter built for the Revenue Service, USRC Chase, was completed.

1914 – Austria-Hungary declared war against Russia and Serbia declared war against Germany.

1918 – The Second Battle of the Marne ends In disaster for the Germans who sustain losses of 168,000 men and have been pushed back to the line of the Aisne and Vesle Rivers. Following a series of offensives since March, the Germans no longer have the resources to launch attacks. They have suffered huge casualties among their best-trained troops–the storm trooper units– and those who have survived are suffering from increasingly poor morale.

1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.

1945 – Hiroshima, Japan, was struck with the uranium bomb, Little Boy, from the B-29 airplane, Enola Gay, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets of the US Air Force along with 11 other men. The atom bomb killed an estimated 140,000 people in the first use of a nuclear weapon in warfare. Major Thomas Wilson Ferebee (d.2000 at 81) was the bombardier. Richard Nelson (d.2003) was the radio operator. Navy weaponeer, Captain W.S. Parsons, USN, armed the atomic bomb. The bomb is a uranium fission weapon and the yield is in the region of 20,000 tons on TNT. Sixty percent of the city is destroyed in the blast and the firestorm that follows. About 80,000 Japanese are killed. Many more are severely burned and others become ill later, from exposure to radiation. It is not the most devastating bombing attack of the war but the economy of the effort involved in sending only one plane on a mission to destroy a city shows only too well the complete change in military and political thinking which has begun. Meanwhile, other American aircraft raid Tarmuizu, Kagoshima and Miyakonoju.

1945 – The American aircraft carrier Intrepid attacks Japanese positions on Wake Island.

1945 – Major Richard I. Bong, the top-scoring American fighter ace of World War II (with 40 victories), dies while fight testing an experimental jet fighter at age 24.

1950 – Marine Squadron VMF-323 flew its first air mission of the Korean War.

1971 – The last remaining troops of the Fourth Battalion, 503rd Infantry of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, (the first U.S. Army ground combat unit to arrive in Vietnam in May 1965), cease combat operations and begin preparations to leave Vietnam. The first U.S. ground combat unit of any branch to reach Vietnam was the Third Marine Regiment, Third Marine Division, which began arriving on March 8, 1965. The initial U.S. combat forces were followed by a vast array of combat, combat support, and logistics units that together with U.S. Navy and Air Force personnel in-country reached a peak of 543,400 in April 1969. In June 1969, President Richard Nixon gave the order, as part of his “Vietnamization” policy, which began the process of reducing American troop strength; the troop withdrawals began the following fall and continued until the Paris Peace Accords were signed in January 1973.

1991 – Tim Berners-Lee releases files describing his idea for the World Wide Web. WWW debuts as a publicly available service on the Internet.

1998 – NATO set exercises in Albania for Aug 17-22 to show force against the Serb offensive in Kosovo.

2001 – US intelligence told Pres. Bush that al Qaeda might try to hijack American planes. The document “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US” was presented to Bush while he was on vacation in Crawford, Texas.

2011 – A US Chinook was shot down by the Taliban, resulting in 38 deaths (30 Americans and 8 Afghans), no survivors. Among the U.S. deaths were 17 Navy Seals who had been part of the Naval Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU). It was the same unit who killed Osama Bin Laden, although none of the deceased partook in the operation.

2012 – NASA’s Curiosity rover lands on the surface of Mars.
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