February 18th ~

1688 – At a Quaker meeting in Germantown, Pa, German Mennonites penned a memorandum stating a profound opposition to Negro slavery. Quakers in Germantown, Pa., adopted the fist formal antislavery resolution in America.

1783 – James Biddle born. Mr. Biddle was a United Stated naval officer, and nephew of Captain Nicholas Biddle, of the Continental Navy, was born in Philadelphia. James was the son of Charles and Hannah (m. Shepard) In 1800 James was appointed a midshipman in the Navy. His early training was under Thomas Truxtun on the frigate “President.”

Retained in 1801, when the Navy was reduced, Biddle served on the “Constellation” in the Mediterranean in 1802. He had the misfortune to be on the “Philadelphia” when that frigate ran on the rocks off Tripoli, and spent 19 months in prison there with William Bainbridge, David Porter and other officers. Following the Barbary Wars, he secured leave and made a voyage as a mate in the China Trade. Upon his return he was promoted to lieutenant, and was second in command of the “Wasp” when that vessel took the “Frolic” in one of the famous single-ship actions of the War of 1812. When a British 74-gun ship captured the “Wasp” and retook the “Frolic,” Biddle had a second experience as a prisoner of war.

When he was exchanged, in 1813, he found himself a master commandant and in command of the brig “Hornet.” In this vessel he engaged the “Penguin,” of equal weight of metal, and, on April 27, 1815, escaped an enemy ship-of-the-line for the last naval engagement of the war. In 1817, Biddle, serving in the Pacific, took formal possession of the Oregon territory. Subsequently he served in the South Atlantic, Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico. In 1846 he negotiated the first treaty with China, and during the Mexican War was in command of the Pacific coast. He died at Philadelphia on Oct. 1, 1848. A transport ship was named after him, AP-15.

1814 – The British schooner Phoenix fell to Marines of the USS Constitution.1817 – Walter Paye Lane (d.1892), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.

1823 – Mexican Emperor Augustin de Iturbide reconfirms the land grant made by the governor of New Spain to the late Moses Autin, made transferable to his son, Stephen F. Austin. This tract along the Rio Grande will become home to over 300 families brought in by Austin in 1825.

1827 – Confederate General Lewis Armistead is born in New Bern, North Carolina. Armistead is best known for leading Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, where he was mortally wounded. Armistead’s father, Walker Keith Armistead, and his five uncles served in the military during the War of 1812. One of them, George Armistead, commanded Fort McHenry at Baltimore during the British bombardment that produced the Star Spangled Banner.

Lewis Armistead entered West Point in 1834 but did not graduate due to poor grades, although some sources indicate that the reason was a fight with another cadet, Jubal Early, who was later a comrade in the Army of Northern Virginia. Despite this, Armistead joined the military as a second lieutenant and fought in the Seminole War in Florida and was cited for heroism three times in the Mexican War. During the 1850s, he served on the frontier and developed a very close friendship with another officer, Pennsylvanian Winfield Scott Hancock. When the Civil War broke out, he resigned his commission to join his home state, Virginia.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1827 -At the beginning of the war, Armistead commanded the 57th Virginia Infantry, but by April 1862 he was in a brigadier general. He fought during the Seven Days’ battles in June and July 1862, but played only minor roles at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. On July 2, 1863, he led a brigade in Pickett’s division during the climactic charge at Gettysburg. In a tragic coincidence, Armistead’s men attacked Hancock’s corps at the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge.

Armistead crossed the wall that protected the Federal cannon, representing the high water mark of the Confederacy. He fell wounded there, and the attack stalled. Armistead was found by Captain Henry Bingham, an aide to Hancock, and Armistead told him to, “Say to General Hancock for me that I have done him and done you all an injury which I shall regret the longest day that I live.” Armistead lingered for two days, and he requested that his personal effects be given to Hancock, who was also seriously wounded that day. Armistead was buried in a family plot at St. Paul’s Church in Baltimore, Maryland.

1841 – The 1st continuous filibuster in US Senate began and lasting until March 11th.

1842 – The House of Representatives passed a resolution requesting the Committee on Commerce to make an inquiry into the expenditures of the Lighthouse Establishment since 1816. This was to explore the possibility of cutting down on expenses, to examine the question of reorganizing the establishment and administration, and also to ascertain whether the establishment should be placed under the Topographical Bureau of the War Department.

1846 – “It having been represented to the (Navy) Department, that confusion arises from the use of the words “Larboard” and “Starboard,” in consequence of the similarity of sound, the word “Port” is hereafter to be substituted for “Larboard.” –Navy Department General Order

1850 – The city of San Francisco was incorporated.

1861 – Jefferson F. Davis was inaugurated as the Confederacy’s provisional president at a ceremony held in Montgomery, Ala., where the Confederate constitutional convention was held. Davis was sworn in on Feb 22 in Virginia.

1861 – Southern Arapaho Indian Agent, Albert Boone, grandson of the famous Daniel Boone, held a council attended by some of the Southern bands of the Arapaho tribe and a few Cheyenne. He reported he had gotten consent for the cession of their land in exchange for a small reservation on Colorado’s Sand creek. It is not clear whether they understood the terms or not, as their chief interpreter, Left Hand was not there. Hunting buffalo from Sand Creek would be very hard as they ranged east and north of the reservation. At Sand Creek, the Cheyenne were to have the eastern half and the Arapaho the western. The Northern Arapaho did not consent to the cession.

1864 – President Lincoln ended the blockade of Brownsville, Texas, and opened the port for trade.

1865 – Following the fall of Fort Fisher at the mouth of the river, Union forces had repositioned for an attack on Fort Anderson, N.C on the Cape Fear River. Federals attacked from the land and river. After three days of fighting, the Confederates evacuated the fort at night. Union gunboats started firing at first light, unaware that Federal soldiers were breaching the walls of the fort. The infantry frantically waved sheets and blankets to stop the deadly fire from their own forces.

1865 – Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1865 – The big guns of Rear Admiral Porter’s fleet in the Cape Fear River silenced the Confederate batteries at Fort Anderson. Under a relentless hail of fire from the ships and with Union troops investing the fort from two sides, the Southerners evacuated their defensive position and fell back to Town Creek. Simultaneously, the Confederates dug in at Sugar Loaf Hill on the east bank of the river, adjacent to Fort Anderson, withdrew to Fort Strong, a complex of fortifications comprising several batteries some three miles south of Wilmington. The combined Army-Navy movement was now pushing irresistibly toward the city.

1865 – Battle of Ft. Moultrie, South Carolina.

1878 – John Tunstall is murdered by outlaw Jesse Evans, sparking the Lincoln County War in Lincoln County, New Mexico.

1927 – The U.S. and Canada established diplomatic relations independently of Great Britain.

1930 – Pluto, generally the ninth most distant planet from the sun, is discovered at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, by astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh. The existence of an unknown ninth planet was first proposed by Percival Lowell, who theorized that wobbles in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune were caused by the gravitational pull of an unknown planetary body. Lowell calculated the approximate location of the hypothesized ninth planet and searched for more than a decade without success.

However, in 1929, using the calculations of Powell and W.H. Pickering as a guide, the search for Pluto was resumed at the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. On February 18, 1930, Tombaugh discovered the tiny, distant planet by use of a new astronomic technique of photographic plates combined with a blink microscope. His finding was confirmed by several other astronomers, and on March 13, 1930–the anniversary of Lowell’s birth and of William Hershel’s discovery of Uranus–the discovery of Pluto was publicly announced.

With a surface temperature estimated at approximately -360 Fahrenheit, Pluto was appropriately given the Roman name for the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. Pluto’s average distance from the sun is nearly four billion miles, and it takes approximately 248 years to complete one orbit. It also has the most elliptical and tilted orbit of any planet, and at its closest point to the sun it passes inside the orbit of Neptune, the eighth planet.

After its discovery, some astronomers questioned whether Pluto had sufficient mass to affect the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. In 1978, a solution to this problem came when James Christy and Robert Harrington discovered Pluto’s only known moon, Charon, which was determined to have a diameter of 737 miles to Pluto’s 1,428 miles. Together, Pluto and Charon form a double-planet system of ample enough mass to cause wobbles in Uranus’ and Neptune’s orbits.

1932 – Manchurian independence was formally declared. In 1928 the Japanese army unilaterally instigated armed clashes in China’s Manchuria region to justify full-scale intervention. In 1931 the Japanese army invaded Manchuria without its own government’s consent.

1940 – The American Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, applies the American “moral embargo” to the USSR.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1942 – The Free French submarine Surcouf (then the largest submarine in the world) is sunk in a collision with a US merchant ship.

1943 – The new American 6th Army, commanded by General Krueger, become operational in the southwest Pacific.

1943 – A US Task Group (Admiral McMorris) with 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers bombards Japanese positions on Attu Island.

1943 – Rommel took three towns in Tunisia, North Africa. The intercepted communications of an American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.

1944 – Following the usual pre-landing procedures, an intense bombardment and air strike look place on Engebi beginning at 0843. Two battalions of Marines landed and overcame enemy resistance very quickly. By 1600 the Island was reported secured.

During the attack by the Marines on Engebi, elements of the 5th Amphibious Corp Recon Company and the Scout Company were methodically occupying the smaller islands along the reefs. Japanese resistance of Engebi, although ferocious, was marked by an obvious lack of preparation. Numerous underground shelters and coral lined pill boxes were found as were sniper positions in coconut trees. However, so rapid was the Marine advance that few requests were made upon the ships for call fires. In the attack on Engebi our losses wore 78 killed, 166 wounded, and 7 missing, for a total of 251. The number of Japanese dead buried on Engebi was 934. Sixteen prisoners were taken.

So heavy and accurate was the Navy and air bombardment that observers stated destruction was greater than that which had occurred on Kwajalein. Practically all structures above ground were demolished. A prisoner stated that about half the defenders were killed or wounded prior to the landings. During the afternoon of 18 February, advance preparations were made for the attack on Eniwetok Island. The 106th Regimental Combat Team of the 27th Division was designated to make this assault.

1944 – The Germans commit 26th Panzer and 29th Panzergrenadier Divisions to the attack on Anzio. Strong allied artillery holds off and blunts the attacks. Kesselring and Mackensen realize that the Allied beachhead cannot be wiped out. The Germans launched a more intense assault against the 45th Division at dawn and destroyed one battalion of the 179th Infantry before pushing the remainder of the unit back a half mile farther to Lucas’ final defensive line by midmorning.

Fearing that the 179th Infantry was in danger of giving way, Lucas ordered Col. William O. Darby, founder of the WWII era Rangers, to take command of the unit and allow no further retreat. The regiment held, later counting 500 dead Germans in front of its positions. Elsewhere, the 180th and 157th regiments also held their positions in spite of heavy losses during three days of German attacks. By midday, Allied air and artillery superiority had turned the tide.

When the Germans launched a final afternoon assault against the 180th and 179th regiments, it was halted by air strikes and massed mortar, machine gun, artillery, and tank fire. Subsequent enemy attacks on 19 and 20 February were noticeably weaker and were broken up by the same combination of Allied arms before ground contact was made The crisis had passed, and while harassing attacks continued until 22 February, VI Corps went over to the offensive locally and succeeded in retaking some lost ground.

1944 – President Roosevelt vetoes the Bankhead Bill which proposed to end food subsidies. The veto is upheld by the House of Representatives.

1944 – American forces continue their raid on the Japanese base at Truk. Over the course of the two days, US aircraft log 1250 sorties. The Japanese lose 1 cruiser, 2 destroyers, several other warships and 140,000 tons of shipping to air attack. The battleships Iowa and New Jersey sink 1 cruiser and 2 destroyers. In addition 250 Japanese aircraft are reported destroyed. American submarines sink several more vessels. The US forces lose less than 30 planes and damage is sustained to the carrier Intrepid.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1945 – All US 3rd Army units are attacking. The German Siegfried Line is broken north of Echternach by US 8th Corps while both US 12th and 20th Corps, to the south, are advancing.

1945 – US Task Force 54 and TF52 continue the preliminary bombardment of Iwo Jima.

1945 – There are new attacks by US 4th Corps (part of US 5th Army) in the area of the front just west of the Bologna-Pistoia road.

1945 – While most of US Task Force 58 is replenishing, one group of four carriers commanded by Admiral Radford attacks Haha Jima and Chichi Jima.

1951 – An enemy shore battery scored a hit on the destroyer USS Ozbourn and wounded two sailors. This was the first time a U.S. Navy ship operating in the vicinity of Wonsan had been hit by gunfire from a shore battery.

1954 – East and West Berlin dropped thousands of propaganda leaflets on each other after the end of a month long truce.

1955 – Operation Teapot begins. A series of 14 nuclear detonations to determine the effects of nuclear weapons on a variety of materials and in a variety of conditions begins with detonation Wasp. This test evaluated the effects of low altitude detonations. The total device weight was 1500 lb. Although the bomb was much heavier, the implosion system was the lightest nuclear explosive system fired up until this time.

1956 – The US lifted its arms ban and shipped tanks to Saudi Arabia.

1962 – Robert F. Kennedy said that U.S. troops would stay in Vietnam until Communism was defeated.

1964 – The United States cuts off military assistance to Britain, France, and Yugoslavia in retaliation for their continuing trade with the communist nation of Cuba. The action was chiefly symbolic, but represented the continued U.S. effort to destabilize the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro. The amount of aid denied was miniscule–approximately $100,000 in assistance to each nation. None of the nations indicated that the aid cut-off would affect their trade with Cuba in the least. America’s decision to terminate the trade, therefore, hardly had a decisive effect.

Many commentators at the time concluded that the U.S. action was largely a result of frustration at not being able to bring down the Castro government. Since Castro came to power in 1959, the United States had tried various methods to remove him and his communist government. First, the U.S. severed diplomatic relations and enacted a trade embargo. In 1961, it unleashed a force of Cuban exiles (which it had armed, trained, and financed) against Castro in the unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1962, the United States set up a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent the shipment of Soviet missiles to the island. Rumors also flew fast and furious about other U.S. efforts, including talks with the Mafia about assassinating the Cuban leader.

Despite all of these efforts, Castro survived and prospered, simply replacing most U.S. trade and aid with the same from the communist bloc. The American obsession with Castro provoked the New York Times to observe that the U.S. policies toward Cuba “suggest an extraordinary sensitivity that does not in fact correspond to basic policy judgments.” The decision to cut off military assistance to Britain, France, and Yugoslavia did little to help in this regard. The three nations continued their trade with Cuba and expressed their resentment at the U.S. action.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1965 – The State Department sends secret cables to U.S. ambassadors in nine friendly nations advising of forthcoming bombing operations over North Vietnam, and instructs them to inform their host governments “in strictest confidence” and to report reactions. President Lyndon Johnson wanted these governments to be aware of what he was planning to do in the upcoming bombing campaign. Johnson made the controversial decision to undertake the sustained bombing of North Vietnam because of the deteriorating military conditions in South Vietnam.

Earlier in the month, he had ordered Operation Flaming Dart in response to communist attacks on U.S. installations in South Vietnam. It was hoped that these retaliatory raids would cause the North Vietnamese to cease support of Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam, but they did not have the desired effect. Out of frustration, Johnson turned to a more extensive use of airpower. Called Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign was designed to interdict North Vietnamese transportation routes in the southern part of North Vietnam and thereby slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam.

The first Rolling Thunder mission took place on March 2, 1965, when 100 U.S. Air Force and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) planes struck an ammunition dump 100 miles southeast of Hanoi. The operation would continue, with occasional suspensions, until President Johnson, under increasing domestic political pressure, halted it on October 31, 1968.

1967 – J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” dies in Princeton, New Jersey, at the age of 62. An expert in quantum theory and nuclear physics, he was enlisted into the fledgling U.S. atomic weapons program in 1941.

In 1942, the “Manhattan Project,” as the program became known, was greatly expanded, and Oppenheimer was asked to establish and direct a secret laboratory to carry out the assignment. He chose Los Alamos, a site in the New Mexico desert that he had visited earlier in life, and together with some of the world’s top physicists began work on the bomb. On July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was exploded at the “Trinity” test site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, and only three weeks later the United States dropped the first of two bombs on Japan. Over 200,000 Japanese eventually perished as a result of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Oppenheimer regretted the use of the terrible weapon he had helped build, and he worked with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) to win approval for international control of atomic energy.

The USSR refused to support the U.S. plan, and in 1949 the Soviets successfully detonated their first atomic weapon. The loss of U.S. atomic supremacy, coupled with revelations that Los Alamos scientist Klaus Fuchs had given nuclear secrets to the Soviets, led President Harry S. Truman to approve development of the hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer strongly opposed development of the H-bomb, which was theorized to be hundreds of times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan.

On November 1, 1952, the first “superbomb” was successfully detonated in the Pacific. In 1953, because of both his opposition to the hydrogen bomb and his admitted leftist leanings in the 1930s, Oppenheimer lost his security clearance and was ousted from the AEC. The case stirred wide controversy, and many people came to his defense. After leaving the government, he returned to teaching. He died in 1967.

1968 – Three U.S. pilots who were held by the Vietnamese arrived in Washington. Today, the Vietnamese people are pressuring Hanoi to account for their own 300,000 MIAs.

1968 – Some 10,000 people in West Berlin demonstrated against US in Vietnam War.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

1979 – Coast Guard HH-3F helicopter CG-1432 crashes 180 miles southeast of Cape Cod, killing four of its five occupants. The helo was preparing to airlift a 47 year old crewman from the Japanese fishing vessel Kaisei Maru #18.

1985 – GEN William Westmoreland and CBS, INC. reach an out-of-court settlement in Westmoreland’s $120 million libel suit in which he charged that a CBS documentary falsely accused him of misrepresenting the strength of Vietcong forces.

1994 – President Clinton notified Congress he was prepared to order bombing by U.S. warplanes in Bosnia.

1997 – Astronauts on the space shuttle Discovery completed their tune-up of the Hubble Space Telescope after 33 hours of spacewalking; the Hubble was then released using the shuttle’s crane.

1998 – President Clinton’s foreign policy team encountered jeers during a town meeting at Ohio State University while trying to defend the administration’s threat to bomb Iraq into compliance with UN weapons edicts.

1998 – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan receives unanimous support from the U.N. Security Council for his diplomatic trip to Iraq. Annan is scheduled to meet with President Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi leaders in an attempt to reach a diplomatic solution to the standoff between Iraq and the U.N. over weapons inspections.

1999 – The Clinton administration warned Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to choose peace with ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, or face a devastating military strike.

1999 – Iraq announces that its section of a joint oil pipeline with Syria is almost ready. The pipeline links Iraqi oil fields located near the northern city of Kirkuk to Syria’s Mediterranean terminal at Banias. A spur off the main pipeline leads to the Lebanese port at Tripoli. Under existing sanctions, Iraq needs to obtain special permission from the United Nations to export oil through Syria.

2000 – Mariano Faget (54), a 34-year US immigration officer in Miami, was reported to be a Cuban spy. Faget was found guilty of disclosing government secrets May 30th.

2001 – Robert Philip Hanssen (56), senior FBI agent, was arrested for spying. He had allegedly passed information to the Russians for 15 years. It was believed that he had betrayed the construction of a tunnel under the Soviet Embassy in Washington. He pleaded guilty July 3rd to avoid execution. His disclosures were later reported to have played a role in the execution or jailing of at least 3 Russians and threatened the identity of another 50 people. Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison on May 10, 2002.

February 18th ~ {continued...}

2001 – The Iraqi press referred to Pres. Bush as “son of the snake” and “the new dwarf” following the Feb. 16 bombing attacks.

2003 – Saudi Arabia said it has referred 90 Saudis to trial for alleged al Qaeda links. Another 250 were reported under investigation.

2003 – Turkey asked the US to nearly double its multibillion dollar aid package as a condition for allowing U.S. troops on its soil in a war against neighboring Iraq.

2004 – President Bush praised social progress in Tunisia and welcomed its leader, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, as a partner in the fight against terrorism while also urging political reforms in the moderate Muslim nation in North African nation.

2004 – Scientists reported that X-rays form galaxy RX J1242-11 indicated a black hole tearing apart a star and gobbling up a share of its gaseous mass.

2005 – Indonesia welcomed efforts by the US to restore full military training ties with Jakarta, saying the time was ripe to resume links that were downgraded 13 years ago.

2005 – Libya refused to extend the deadline of the Lockerbie compensation deal in a possible bid to pressure Washington to drop it from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

2006 – Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez threatens to cut off oil supplies after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claims that the Venezuelan government poses “one of the biggest problems” in the region.

2007 – Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington, received an eight-year jail sentence after agreeing to plead guilty to conspiracy and kidnapping charges. In return for his cooperative testimony against the remaining three defendants, prosecutors dropped additional charges of murder, larceny, and housebreaking. The initial sentence was reduced from 14 years to eight in return for his cooperation. Pennington served a few months of the sentence for his role in the murder and was granted clemency and released from prison on August 11, 2007.

2015 – Australian David Hicks wins an appeal in the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review against his conviction for providing material support to terrorism in 2007 in a U.S. Navy court in Guantanamo Bay.

February 19th ~

1674 – Netherlands and England signed the Peace of Westminster. NYC became English.

1688 – Governor Edmund Andros suggests to the English crown that New York annex the territory of New Jersey.

1803 – Congress voted to accept Ohio’s borders and constitution. However, Congress did not get around to formally ratifying Ohio statehood until 1953.

1807 – Aaron Burr, a former U.S. vice president, is arrested in Alabama on charges of plotting to annex Spanish territory in Louisiana and Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic. In November 1800, in an election conducted before presidential and vice-presidential candidates shared a single ticket, Thomas Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr, defeated Federalist incumbent John Adams with 73 electoral votes each. The tie vote then went to the House to be decided, and Federalist Alexander Hamilton was instrumental in breaking the deadlock in Jefferson’s favor. Burr, because he finished second, became vice president.

During the next few years, President Jefferson grew apart from his vice president and did not support Burr’s renomination to a second term in 1804. A faction of the Federalists, who had found their fortunes drastically diminished after the ascendance of Jefferson, sought to enlist the disgruntled Burr into their party. However, Alexander Hamilton opposed such a move and was quoted by a New York newspaper saying that he “looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of government.”

The article also referred to occasions when Hamilton had expressed an even “more despicable opinion of Burr.” Burr demanded an apology, Hamilton refused, so Burr challenged his old political antagonist to a duel. On July 11, 1804, the pair met at a remote spot in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton, whose son was killed in a duel three years earlier, deliberately fired into the air, but Burr fired with intent to kill. Hamilton, fatally wounded, died in New York City the next day.

The questionable circumstances of Hamilton’s death effectively brought Burr’s political career to an end. Fleeing to Virginia, he traveled to New Orleans after finishing his term as vice president and met with U.S. General James Wilkinson, who was an agent for the Spanish. The exact nature of what the two plotted is unknown, but speculation ranges from the establishment of an independent republic in the American Southwest to the seizure of territory in Spanish America for the same purpose.

In the fall of 1806, Burr led a group of well-armed colonists toward New Orleans, prompting an immediate investigation by U.S. authorities. General Wilkinson, in an effort to save himself, turned against Burr and sent dispatches to Washington accusing Burr of treason. On February 19, 1807, Burr was arrested in Alabama for treason and sent to Richmond, Virginia, to be tried in a U.S. circuit court. On September 1, 1807, he was acquitted on the grounds that, although he had conspired against the United States, he was not guilty of treason because he had not engaged in an “overt act,” a requirement of treason as specified by the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, public opinion condemned him as a traitor, and he spent several years in Europe before returning to New York and resuming his law practice.

1814 – USS Constitution captures British brig Catherine.

1821 – Union General Francis Preston Blair, Jr., is born in Lexington, Kentucky. The colorful Blair was instrumental in keeping Missouri part of the Union during the early stages of the Civil War.

February 19th ~ {continued...}

1831 – The 1st practical US coal-burning locomotive made its 1st trial run in Pennsylvania.

1845 – Lighthouse establishment transferred to Revenue Marine Bureau. Metal buoys were first put into service. They were riveted iron barrels that replaced the older wooden stave construction.

1846 – In Austin, Texas the newly formed Texas state government is officially installed. The Republic of Texas government officially transfers power to the State of Texas government following the annexation of Texas by the United States.

1847 – The first group of rescuers, troops from Fort Suttler commanded by Col John C. Fremont, reaches the Donner Party.

1859 – Daniel E. Sickles, NY congressman, was acquitted of murder on grounds of temporary insanity. This was the 1st time this defense was successfully used. Sickles had shot and killed Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key, author of “Star Spangled Banner.” He shot Key, the DC district attorney, in Lafayette Square for having an affair with his wife. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity and the sanctity of a man’s home and beat the murder rap.

1862 – Confederates evacuated Clarksville, Tennessee. Colonel W. H. Allen, CSA, reported to General Floyd: ”Gunboats are coming; they are just below point; can see steamer here. Will try and see how many troops they have before I leave. Lieutenant Brady set bridge on fire, but it is burning very slowly and will probably go out before it falls.” Asking in a postscript that any orders for him be sent “promptly,” Allen noted that “I will have to go in a hurry when I go.” Union forces under Flag Officer Foote occupied Fort Defiance and took possession of the town. Foote urged an immediate move on Nashville and notified Army headquarters in Cairo: “The Cumberland is in a good stage of water and General Grant and I believe we can take Nashville.”

1862 – Trial run of two-gun ironclad U.S.S. Monitor in New York harbor. Chief Engineer Alban C. Stimers, USN, reported on the various difficulties that were presented during the trial run of Monitor and concluded that her speed would be approximately 6 knots, “though Captain Ericsson feels confident of 8.”

1862 – Congress authorized cutters to enforce law forbidding importation of Chinese “coolie” labor.

1865 – The Confederate steamer A. H. Schultz, used as a flag-of-truce vessel to carry exchange prisoners between Richmond and the Varina vicinity on the James River and as a transport by the Southern forces below the Confederate capital, was destroyed by a torpedo near Chaffin’s Bluff on the James River. Ironically, she met the fate intended for a Union ship. The torpedo was one laid by Lieutenant Beverly Kennon of the Torpedo Service that had drifted from its original position. When torpedoed, Schultz was returning to Richmond after delivering more than 400 Federal prisoners; because of an administrative error, there were no Confederate prisoners ready to be taken on board at Varina. Thus, the loss of life was considerably minimized. Had the steamer struck the torpedo going downriver or picked up the Southern soldiers to be exchanged as expected, the casualties might well have been frightful.

1866 – Congress passes the New Freedman’s Bureau bill, providing for military trials for people accused of depriving African-American’s of their civil rights. It extended the existence of the Bureau to July, 1868; it authorized additional assistant commissioners, the retention of army officers mustered out of regular service, the sale of certain forfeited lands to freedmen on nominal terms, the sale of Confederate public property for Negro schools, and a wider field of judicial interpretation and cognizance. The government of the unreconstructed South was thus put very largely in the hands of the Freedmen’s Bureau, especially as in many cases the departmental military commander was now made also assistant commissioner.

February 19th ~ {continued...}

1917 – American troops are recalled from the Mexican border to prepare for possible deployment to Europe. General Pershing has already been ordered off the hunt for Panco Villa.

1934 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt issues an Executive Order canceling existing air-mail contracts because of fraud and collusion. The Army Air Corps is designated to take over airmail operations.

1941 – Coast Guard Reserve established. Auxiliary created from former Reserve.

1942 – Ten weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066, authorizing the removal of any or all people from military areas “as deemed necessary or desirable.” The military in turn defined the entire West Coast, home to the majority of Americans of Japanese ancestry or citizenship, as a military area. By June, more than 110,000 Japanese Americans were relocated to remote internment camps built by the U.S. military in scattered locations around the country.

For the next two and a half years, many of these Japanese Americans endured extremely difficult living conditions and poor treatment by their military guards. On December 17, 1944, U.S. Major General Henry C. Pratt issued Public Proclamation No. 21, declaring that, effective January 2, 1945, Japanese-American “evacuees” from the West Coast could return to their homes. During the course of World War II, 10 Americans were convicted of spying for Japan, but not one of them was of Japanese ancestry.

In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill to recompense each surviving internee with a tax-free check for $20,000 and an apology from the U.S. government.

1942 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower, is appointed chief of the War Plans Division of the US Army General Staff.

1942 – Port Darwin, on the northern coast of Australia, was bombed by about 150 Japanese warplanes. General George C. Kenney, who pioneered aerial warfare strategy and tactics in the Pacific theater, ordered 3,000 parafrag bombs to be sent to Australia, where he thought they might come in handy against the Japanese. Darwin was virtually leveled by 64 bombing raids over 21 months.

1943 – The Axis offensive is renewed with the objective of Le Kef. There are two wings to the assault. The German 15th Panzer Division attacks from Kasserine toward Thala. The 21st Panzer Division, having already advanced beyond Sbeitla, strikes toward Sbiba. The Allied command has anticipated such moves and both mountain passes are well defended. Among the Axis leadership, Rommel has proposed aiming for Tebessa instead of Le Kef and he has had elements of 10th Panzer Division placed under his command.

1943 – On Guadalcanal American reinforcements arrive as part of the buildup for the next offensive move to the Russell Islands. These islands are now reported abandoned by the Japanese.

1944 – The U.S. Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force began “Big Week,” a series of heavy bomber attacks against German aircraft production facilities.

1944 – The Anzio beachhead becomes stabilized. Neither sides plans significant attacks at this time. To the south, there is a lull in the fighting along the Gustav Line.

1944 – Fighting continues on Engebi in the Eniwetok Atoll. Americans land on Eniwetok in regimental strength. There is heavy Japanese resistance, in spite of massive preparatory bombardments.

February 19th ~ {continued...}

1945 – On Iwo Jima, 2 divisions of the US 5th Amphibious Corps are landed in Operation Detachment. Before the landing the bombardment groups already deployed are joined by 2 battleships, several cruisers and destroyers from US Task Force 58. The initial assault forces are from US 4th and 5th Marine Divisions with 3rd Marines in reserve. They are carried transported by TF53 (Admiral Hill) and land on the southeast of the island. About 30,000 men go ashore on the first day.

The Japanese garrison of about 21,000 troops, commanded by General Kuribayashi, have prepared exceptionally elaborate and tough defenses so that the eight square miles of the island is completely fortified. The Americans realize that the island is well defended since it is part of metropolitan Japan. However, the island is strategically important because it is within fighter range of Tokyo. By controlling the airfields here, American B-29 bombers flying from the Mariana Islands can be escorted. Coast Guard units that participated in this bloody campaign included the Coast Guard-manned USS Bayfield, Callaway, 14 LSTs and the PC-469. Three of the LSTs were struck by enemy shore fire: LST-792, LST-758, and LST-760.

1945 – There are American landings on the northwest islands of Samar and Capul. No Japanese resistance is encountered.

1952 – In the Korean War, both sides agreed to recommend that a political conference to settle the Korean War should be held within three months of an armistice.

1959 – A USAF rocket-powered rail sled attained Mach 4.1 (4970 kph) in New Mexico.

1963 – The Soviet Union informed President Kennedy it would withdraw “several thousand” of an estimated 17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.

1965 – Dissident officers move several battalions of troops into Saigon on this day with the intention of ousting Gen. Nguyen Khanh from leadership. General Khanh escaped to Dalat with the aid of Air Vice Marshal Nguyen Cao Ky, commander of the South Vietnamese Air Force, who then threatened to bomb Saigon and the Tan Son Nhut Airport unless the rebel troops were withdrawn. Ky was dissuaded from this by Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, who told Ky that more political instability might have a negative impact on continued U.S. aid. Khanh was able to get troops to take over from the insurgents without any resistance on February 20. Meanwhile, Ky met with the dissident officers and agreed to their demand for the dismissal of Khanh.

On February 21, the Armed Forces Council dismissed Khanh as chairman and as commander of the armed forces. General Lam Van Phat replaced him. The next day, Khanh announced that he had accepted the council’s decision, after which he was appointed a “roving ambassador,” assigned first to go to the United Nations and present evidence that the war in South Vietnam was being directed from Hanoi by the North Vietnamese.

1966 – Robert F. Kennedy suggested the U.S. offer the Vietcong a role in governing South Vietnam.

1976 – Executive Order 9066, which led to the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, is rescinded by President Gerald R. Ford’s Proclamation 4417.

February 19th ~ {continued...}

1981 – The U.S. government releases a report detailing how the “insurgency in El Salvador has been progressively transformed into a textbook case of indirect armed aggression by communist powers.” The report was another step indicating that the new administration of Ronald Reagan was prepared to take strong measures against what it perceived to be the communist threat to Central America.

When the Reagan administration took office in 1981, it faced two particularly serious problems in Central America. In Nicaragua, the Reagan administration was worried about the Sandinista regime, a leftist government that took power in 1979 after the fall of long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza. In El Salvador, the administration was concerned about a growing civil war between government forces and leftist rebels. Brutal violence on the part of the Salvadoran military–offenses that included the 1980 rape and murder of four U.S. missionaries–had caused the Jimmy Carter administration to cut off aid to the country.

In both nations, Reagan officials were convinced that the Soviet Union was the catalyst for the troubles. To address the situation in Nicaragua, the Reagan administration began to covertly assist the so-called Contras-rebel forces that opposed the Sandinista regime and were based primarily in Honduras and Costa Rica. For El Salvador, the February 19 report was the first volley.

The State Department memorandum indicated that the “political direction, organization and arming of the Salvadoran insurgency is coordinated and heavily influenced by Cuba with the active support of the Soviet Union, East Germany, Vietnam and other communist states.” It thereupon provided a “chronology” of the communist involvement in El Salvador.

In response to this perceived threat, the United States dramatically increased its military assistance to the government of El Salvador, provided U.S. advisors to the Salvadoran armed forces, and began a series of National Guard “training exercises” in and around El Salvador. To no one’s surprise, the conflict in El Salvador escalated quickly and charges of torture, kidnapping, and assassination flew from both sides of the civil war. During the 1980s, U.S. military assistance to El Salvador topped nearly $5 billion, but the violence and instability continued unabated.

In 1992, the United Nations and President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica arbitrated an agreement between the warring factions in El Salvador. A U.N. commission also condemned U.S. complicity in atrocities committed by the Salvadoran military. President George Bush (who served as Reagan’s vice-president in the previous administration) discounted the U.N. accusations, but claimed that peace in El Salvador was the product of a vigorous U.S. response to communist subversion in the western hemisphere.

1986 – The U.S. Senate approved a treaty outlawing genocide, 37 years after the pact had first been submitted for ratification.

1987 – President Ronald Reagan lifts trade sanctions against Poland when the Communist government releases political prisoners.

1988 – A group calling itself the “Organization of the Oppressed on Earth” claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in Lebanon of U.S. Marine Lt. Col. William R. Higgins. This group is a pseudonym for or a splinter of Hizbollah, a radical Shia group formed in Lebanon; dedicated to creation of Iranian-style Islamic republic in Lebanon and removal of all non-Islamic influences from area. Strongly anti-Western and anti-Israeli. Closely allied with, and often directed by Iran.

1988 – The CGC Mallow made the largest drug bust in Hawaiian waters to date. The Mallow, the Navy fast frigate USS Ouellet with a Coast Guard Law Enforcement Detachment from the USCGC Jarvis, and an AIRSTA Barbers Point HC-130 tracked the 160-foot Panamanian-flagged freighter Christina M 800 miles southeast of Hawaii. A boarding team from Mallow discovered 454 55-pound bales of marijuana aboard. The freighter was seized and her crew of eight arrested.

1990 – Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, snubbed by Philippine President Corazon Aquino, met in Manila with Defense Minister Fidel Ramos to discuss the future of U.S. bases in the country.

1992 – Former Irish Republican Army member Joseph Doherty was deported from the United States to Northern Ireland following a 10-year battle for political asylum.

February 19th ~ {continued...}

1996 – In New York, the United Nations and Iraq end almost two weeks of negotiations over Iraq’s possible sale of $1 billion of oil. Concurrent with the talks, Iraqi and Turkish officials meet to determine the status of the 1.6-million b/d Iraq-Turkey pipeline, through which a majority of the oil exports would flow.

1998 – U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan set out for Iraq on a last-chance peace mission, saying he was “reasonably optimistic” about ending the standoff over weapons inspections without the use of force.

1999 – President Clinton posthumously pardoned Henry O. Flipper, the first black graduate of West Point, whose military career was tarnished by a racially motivated discharge. At West Point, he was ostracized by white cadets. After graduation, he commanded black frontier troops, known as Buffalo Soldiers, with distinction. White officers who wanted to punish him for his friendship with a white woman, framed him and he was charged with embezzling several thousand dollars while serving as quartermaster at Fort Davis, Texas.

Flipper was cleared of theft but found guilty of conduct unbecoming an officer for lying to his commanding officer and trying to cover up the missing money. His military career ended in disgrace with a dishonorable discharge.

But his lifelong efforts to remove the stain on his record were unavailing and he was buried in an unmarked grave in Atlanta. The army did not yield until 1976, when his discharge was upgraded to honorable, but his conviction was not overturned. His body was exhumed and moved to his home town of Thomasville in Georgia, where he was buried with military honors.

2002 – A suit was filed on behalf of 3 detainees, one Australian and 2 British citizens, held at Guantanamo, Cuba.

2002 – Italian authorities arrested 4 Moroccans in Rome, members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat. Maps were found of the US Embassy, small quantities of cyanide, and a map of the city’s water system.

2002 – NASA’s Mars Odyssey space probe begins to map the surface of Mars using its thermal emission imaging system.

2002 – It was reported that Pakistan had begun disbanding the Afghan and Kashmir units of its Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

2003 – In Germany Mounir el Motassadeq (28) was sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for helping the Hamburg-based al-Qaida terror cell in the 9/11 attacks on the US.

2004 – A Japanese consortium announced it will develop an Iranian oil field with reserves of up to 26 billion barrels. The deal was opposed by the United States because of fears the money could go to nuclear proliferation.

2005 – The $3.2 billion USS Jimmy Carter entered the Navy’s fleet as the most heavily armed submarine ever built, and as the last of the Seawolf class of attack subs that the Pentagon ordered during the Cold War’s final years.

2007 – The U.S. moves forward with plans to base a missile shield for National Missile Defense in the Czech Republic and Poland. In response, Russian officials have claimed they may target the two Eastern European countries. The Russians also claimed they could pull out of the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. The plan will eventually be abandoned by the Obama administration.

2011 – The SY Quest, a luxury yacht, was captured by nineteen pirates in a mothership, 190 to 240 miles off the coast of Oman at approximately 18°00′N 61°02′E in the Indian Ocean. Pirates then tried sailing the SY Quest towards Puntland. Sometime thereafter the aircraft carrier Enterprise, the guided missile cruiser USS Leyte Gulf and the guided missile destroyers USS Sterett and USS Bulkeley were sent to the area and arrived several days later on or about 21 February. Captain Dee Mewbourne, of the Enterprise, then proceeded with opening negotiations with the pirates, at which time two Somalis went aboard the Sterett.

On the following morning, 22 February, while negotiations were still taking place, a pirate aboard the SY Quest fired a rocket propelled grenade at the Sterett from 600 yards away but it missed. Almost immediately afterward gunfire was heard aboard the yacht so a boarding party was sent in on a raft and they boarded the SY Quest. A brief skirmish occurred resulting in the deaths of two pirates, one by rifle fire and the other by a combat knife.

Thirteen pirates surrendered in the process and were taken into custody. After boarding, the American navy personnel discovered Phyllis Macay and Robert Riggle, of Seattle, Washington and the SY Quest’s owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, California. All four of the captives had been wounded by gunfire so navy corpsmen attempted to provide medical assistance but were unsuccessful.

On 8 July 2013 Ahmed Muse Salad, a/k/a “Afmagalo,” 27, Abukar Osman Beyle, 33, and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar, 31; those who actually killed the 4 hostages; were found guilty of piracy, murder within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, violence against maritime navigation, conspiracy to commit violence against maritime navigation resulting in death, kidnapping resulting in death, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, hostage taking resulting in death, conspiracy to commit hostage taking resulting in death and multiple firearms offenses. All three were sentenced in November 2013 and all received 21 life sentences, 19 consecutive life sentences and 2 concurrent life sentences, and 30 years consecutive confinement.

2013 – NASA loses direct contact with the International Space Station due to an equipment failure. Communications are restored three hours later.

February 20th ~

1521 – Ponce de Leon set sail form Puerto Rico with 200 men to colonize Florida. Landing, probably at Charlotte Harbor, de Leon was wounded in an attack by the natives and the group returned to Cub where de Leon died.

1725 – In the American colonies, a posse of New Hampshire volunteers comes across a band of encamped Native Americans and takes 10 “scalps” in the first significant appropriation of this Native American practice by European colonists. The posse received a bounty of 100 pounds per scalp from the colonial authorities in Boston. Although the custom of “scalping” was once practiced in Europe and Asia, it is generally associated with North American native groups. In scalping, the skin around the crown of the head was cut and removed from the enemy’s skull, usually causing death.

In addition to its value as a war trophy, a scalp was often believed to bestow the possessor with the powers of the scalped enemy. In their early wars with Native Americans, European colonists of North America retaliated against hostile native groups by adopting their practice of scalp taking. Bounties were offered for them by colonial authorities, which in turn led to an escalation of intertribal warfare and scalping in North America.

1726 – William Prescott, U.S. Revolutionary War hero at the Battle of Bunker Hill, is born. Prescott inherited a large estate and resided in Pepperell, Massachusetts. In 1755, he served as a lieutenant and captain in the provincial army under General John Winslow in an expedition against Nova Scotia. His success in that campaign attracted Winslow’s attention, and he offered Prescott a commission in the regular army. Prescott declined and retired to his estate after the war.

In 1774, he was appointed to command a regiment of minutemen, with which he marched to Lexington to oppose British General Gage’s forces. Before Prescott arrived at Lexington, however, the British had retreated, so he joined the provincial army in Cambridge.

In 1775, he was sent to Charlestown with 1,000 men, and saw action at the Battle of Bunker Hill, actually fought on Breed’s Hill. An advisor of General Gates said of him, “that is Col. Prescott – he is an old soldier, and will fight as long as a drop of blood remains in his veins.” During the course of the battle, Prescott reportedly shouted to the Continental troops, “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” After the battle, which ended with a British victory with heavy casualties, Prescott returned to his estate. He became a representative in the Massachusetts legislature and served for several years. A statue of Prescott was erected on Bunker Hill in 1881.

1755 – English General Edward Braddock, accompanied by two regiments of English troops, arrived in Virginia to assume the post of commander-in-chief of all the English forces in the American colonies. He arranges a conference of the royal governors of Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia in Alexandria, Virginia. The agenda is to develop a strategy for attacks on French positions at Crown Point, Dusquene, Niagra and Nova Scotia.

1792 – The Postal Service Act, establishing the United States Post Office Department, is signed by President George Washington.

1809 – The Supreme Court ruled the power of the federal government is greater than that of any individual state.

1815 – USS Constitution, under Captain Charles Stewart, captures HMS Cyane and sloop-of-war Levant.

1839 – Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia.

1861 – The Confederacy Department of the Navy formed.

February 20th ~ {continued...}

1864 – In the largest battle fought in Florida during the Civil War, a Confederate force under General Joseph Finegan decisively defeats an army commanded by General Truman Seymour. The victory kept the Confederates in control of Florida’s interior for the rest of the war. Olustee was the climax to a Union invasion of Florida a few weeks before. General Quincy Gilmore, commander of the Union’s Department of the South, dispatched Seymour to Jacksonville on February 7th.

Seymour’s troops secured the town and began to send cavalry raiders inland to Lake City and Gainesville. Just behind the troops came John Hay, private secretary to President Lincoln. Hay began issuing loyalty oaths to residents in an effort to form a new, Republican state government in time to send delegates to the 1864 party convention.

Under the president’s plan of reconstruction, a new state government could be formed when 10 percent of the state’s prewar voting population had taken a loyalty oath. Seymour began moving towards Lake City, west of Jacksonville, to destroy a railroad bridge and secure northern Florida. Finegan possessed only 500 men at Lake City, but reinforcements were arriving. By the time the two sides began to skirmish near the railroad station of Olustee, each side had about 5,000 troops.

Throughout the day on February 20, a pitched battle raged. The Confederates were close to breaking the Yankee lines when they ran low on ammunition. When more cartridges arrived, the attack continued. By late afternoon, Seymour realized the fight was lost and he began to retreat. The Yankees suffered 1,800 killed, wounded, or captured, while the Confederates lost about 900 men. It was one of the highest casualty rates of the war for the Union. The battle did disrupt the flow of supplies from Florida to other Confederate armies, but it failed to bring about a new state government. Most of Florida remained in Confederate hands until the end of the war.

1865 – Following the evacuation of Fort Anderson, Rear Admiral Porter’s gunboats steamed seven miles up the Cape Fear River to the Big Island shallows and the piling obstructions and engaged Fort Strong’s five guns. Ship’s boats swept the river for mines ahead of the fleet’s advance. On the night of the 20th, the Confederates released 200 floating torpedoes, which were -avoided with great difficulty and kept the boat crews engaged in sweeping throughout the hours of darkness. Although many of the gunboats safely swept up torpedoes with their nets, U.S.S. Osceola, Commander]. M. B. Clita, received hull damage and lost a paddle wheel box by an explosion. Another torpedo destroyed a boat from U.S.S. Shawmut, inflicting four casualties.

1869 – Tenn. Gov. W.C. Brownlow declared martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis.

1889 – The Maritime Canal Company of Nicaragua is incorporated by Congress to build and operate a canal across that country. Work is set to begin 22 October, 1889.

1901 – The legislature of Hawaii Territory convenes for the first time. The Territory of Hawaii or Hawaii Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 7, 1898, until August 21, 1959, when its territory was admitted to the Union as the fiftieth U.S. state, the State of Hawaii.

1915 – President Wilson opened the Panama -Pacific Expo in San Francisco to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. The Panama -Pacific Int’l. Exhibition was held on what became the Marina and 300,000 people attended opening day. 60,000 pavilions with exhibits from 41 nations, 43 states and 3 US territories were featured.

1941 – The U.S. sent war planes to the Pacific. General George C. Kenney pioneered aerial warfare strategy and tactics in the Pacific theater.

1942 – Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast.

1942 – Japanese drive off a carrier based task force led by the American aircraft carrier Lexington which attempts to attack Rabaul.


1933 – The Congress of the United States proposes the Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution that will end Prohibition in the United States.

February 20th ~ {continued...}

1942 – Lt. Edward O’Hare takes off from the aircraft carrier Lexington in a raid against the Japanese position at Rabaul-and minutes later becomes America’s first flying ace. In mid-February 1942, the Lexington sailed into the Coral Sea. Rabaul, a town at the very tip of New Britain, one of the islands that comprised the Bismarck Archipelago, had been invaded in January by the Japanese and transformed into a stronghold–in fact, one huge airbase. The Japanese were now in prime striking position for the Solomon Islands, next on the agenda for expanding their ever-growing Pacific empire.

The Lexington’s mission was to destabilize the Japanese position on Rabaul with a bombing raid. Aboard the Lexington was U.S. Navy fighter pilot Lt. Edward O’Hare, attached to Fighting Squadron 3 when the United States entered the war. As the Lexington left Bougainville, the largest of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific (and still free from Japanese control), for Rabaul, ship radar picked up Japanese bombers headed straight for the carrier.

O’Hare and his team went into action, piloting F4F Wildcats. In a mere four minutes, O’Hare shot down five Japanese G4M1 Betty bombers–bringing a swift end to the Japanese attack and earning O’Hare the designation “ace” (given to any pilot who had five or more downed enemy planes to his credit). Although the Lexington blew back the Japanese bombers, the element of surprise was gone, and the attempt to raid Rabaul was aborted for the time being. O’Hare was awarded the Medal of Honor for his bravery–and excellent aim.

1943 – British and American units hold the German attack on Sbiba. Among the defending units is the British Guards Brigade. The attack through the Kasserine Pass, is initially held as well. However, the elements of the German 15th Panzer Division attacking here are reinforced with elements of the 10th Panzer Division and break through the Allied defenses. The British 26th Armored Brigade is moved up to resist the German breakthrough; nonetheless, the German forces advance to within 10 miles of Thala.

1943 – American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies.

1944 – American carrier aircraft from Task Group 58.1 (Admiral Reeves) attack Japanese targets in Jaluit Atoll. The fighting on Eniwetok continues. The nearby island of Parry is shelled by US naval forces.

1944 – A ferry carrying a stock of heavy water on the first stage of a journey from the Ryukan hydroelectric plant to laboratories in Germany is sunk and her cargo lost in attack by Norwegian resistance fighters. Heavy water (or deuterium) is used in atomic research, and is the catalyzing agent in making a Hydrogen bomb.

1944 – During World War II, U.S. bombers began raiding German aircraft manufacturing centers in a series of attacks that became known as “Big Week.”

1945 – Nuremberg is attacked by 900 American B-17 bombers with 700 escort fighters. The nominal target is the passenger station and marshalling yards; the escorts conduct strafing runs on locomotives, rolling stock and parked planes. A total of 23 of the American aircraft are lost.

1945 – The US 20th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) continues its attacks.

1945 – There are American landings on the island of Biri where Japanese resistance is encountered.

1945 – The naval bombardment groups (US TF54 and TF52), now joined by US Task Force 58, continue to provide support to the US 5th Amphibious Corps fighting on shore. American troops make slow progress toward Mount Suribachi in the south and the first airfield to the north of the beachhead. There are Japanese counterattacks and infiltration attempts during the night.

1951 – General MacArthur announced that he had accepted the Air Force’s position on interdiction. “Our field strategy, initiated upon Communist China’s entry into the war, involving a rapid withdrawal to lengthen the enemy’s supply lines with resultant pyramiding of his logistical difficulties and an almost astronomical increase in destructiveness of our airpower, has worked well.”

February 20th ~ {continued...}

1956 – The United States Merchant Marine Academy becomes a permanent Service Academy. The United States Merchant Marine Academy (also known as USMMA or Kings Point) is one of the five United States service academies. It is charged with training officers for the United States Merchant Marine, branches of the military, or the transportation industry.

1962 – From Cape Canaveral, Florida, John Hershel Glenn Jr. is successfully launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut. Glenn, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps, was among the seven men chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1959 to become America’s first astronauts. A decorated pilot, he flew nearly 150 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War.

In 1957, he made the first nonstop supersonic flight across the United States, flying from Los Angeles to New York in three hours and 23 minutes. Glenn was preceded in space by two Americans, Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and two Soviets, Yuri A. Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov. In April 1961, Gagarin was the first man in space, and his spacecraft Vostok 1 made a full orbit before returning to Earth.

Less than one month later, Shepard was launched into space aboard Freedom 7 on a suborbital flight. In July, Grissom made another brief suborbital flight aboard Liberty Bell 7. In August, with the Americans still having failed to make an orbital flight, the Russians sprinted further ahead in the space race when Titov spent more than 25 hours in space aboard Vostok 2, making 17 orbits. As a technological power, the United States was looking very much second-rate compared with its Cold War adversary. If the Americans wanted to dispel this notion, they needed a multi-orbital flight before another Soviet space advance arrived.

It was with this responsibility in mind that John Glenn lifted off from the launch pad at Cape Canaveral at 9:47 a.m. on February 20, 1962. Some 100,000 spectators watched on the ground nearby and millions more saw it on television. After separating from its launching rocket, the bell-shaped Friendship 7 capsule entered into an orbit around Earth at a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour. Smoothing into orbit, Glenn radioed back, “Capsule is turning around. Oh, that view is tremendous.”

During Friendship 7’s first orbit, Glenn noticed what he described as small, glowing fireflies drifting by the capsule’s tiny window. It was some time later that NASA mission control determined that the sparks were crystallized water vapor released by the capsule’s air-conditioning system. Before the end of the first orbit, a more serious problem occurred when Friendship 7’s automatic control system began to malfunction, sending the capsule into erratic movements.

At the end of the orbit, Glenn switched to manual control and regained command of the craft. Toward the end of Glenn’s third and last orbit, mission control received a mechanical signal from the spacecraft indicating that the heat shield on the base of the capsule was possibly loose. Traveling at its immense speed, the capsule would be incinerated if the shield failed to absorb and dissipate the extremely high reentry temperatures. It was decided that the craft’s retrorockets, usually jettisoned before reentry, would be left on in order to better secure the heat shield.

Less than a minute later, Friendship 7 slammed into Earth’s atmosphere. During Glenn’s fiery descent back to Earth, the straps holding the retrorockets gave way and flapped violently by his window as a shroud of ions caused by excessive friction enveloped the spacecraft, causing Glenn to lose radio contact with mission control. As mission control anxiously waited for the resumption of radio transmissions that would indicate Glenn’s survival, he watched flaming chunks of retrorocket fly by his window.

After four minutes of radio silence, Glenn’s voice crackled through loudspeakers at mission control, and Friendship 7 splashed down safely in the Atlantic Ocean. He was picked up by the USS destroyer Noa, and his first words upon stepping out of the capsule and onto the deck of the Noa were, “It was hot in there.” He had spent nearly five hours in space.

Glenn was hailed as a national hero, and on February 23 President John F. Kennedy visited him at Cape Canaveral. He later addressed Congress and was given a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Out of a reluctance to risk the life of an astronaut as popular as Glenn, NASA essentially grounded the “Clean Marine” in the years after his historic flight.

Frustrated with this uncharacteristic lack of activity, Glenn turned to politics and in 1964 announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate from his home state of Ohio and formally left NASA. Later that year, however, he withdrew his Senate bid after seriously injuring his inner ear in fall. In 1970, following a stint as a Royal Crown Cola executive, he ran for the Senate again but lost the Democratic nomination to Howard Metzenbaum.

Four years later, he defeated Metzenbaum, won the general election, and went on to win reelection three times. In 1984, he unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for president. In early 1998, NASA announced it had approved Glenn to serve as a payload specialist on the space shuttle Discovery.

On October 29, 1998, nearly four decades after his famous orbital flight, the 77-year-old Glenn became the oldest human ever to travel in space. During the nine-day mission, he served as part of a NASA study on health problems associated with aging. In 1999, he retired from his U.S. Senate seat after four consecutive terms in office, a record for the state of Ohio.

February 20th ~ {continued...}

1963 – Moscow offered to allow on -site inspection of nuclear testing.

1965 – The Ranger 8 spacecraft crashed on the moon after sending back 7,000 photos of the lunar surface.

1966 – Chester W. Nimitz (80), US admiral (WW II), died at home on Yerba Buena Island (Treasure Island) in San Francisco Bay.

1967 – The 378-foot high endurance cutter Hamilton, first in her class, was commissioned. This was the first class of major vessels in the U.S. government’s inventory that were powered by jet turbines.

1968 – The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee begins hearings to investigate American policy in Vietnam. This was a direct result of the Tet Offensive, in which Viet Cong forces, supported by large numbers of North Vietnamese troops, launched the largest and best-coordinated offensive of the war. During the attack, the Viet Cong drove into the center of South Vietnam’s seven largest cities and attacked 30 provincial capitals ranging from the Delta to the DMZ.

Efforts to assess the offensive’s impact began well before the fighting officially ended. Militarily, Tet was decidedly an Allied victory, but psychologically and politically, it was a disaster. The offensive had indeed been a crushing military defeat for the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese, but the size and scope of the communist attacks had caught the American and South Vietnamese allies completely by surprise. The early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and led to a psychological victory for the communists.

The heavy U.S. and South Vietnamese casualties incurred during the offensive, coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war, accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson’s conduct of the war. This disenchantment caused congressional opponents to call for hearings. Early sessions in the congressional hearings focused on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, which had led to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the legal basis for Johnson’s escalation of the war. Senators William Fulbright (D-Arkansas) and Wayne Morse (D-Oregon) charged that the Defense Department had withheld information on U.S. naval activities in the Gulf that provoked North Vietnam, leading to the charge of a “credibility gap.”

At issue was whether the administration had provided Congress with truthful data at the time it was seeking passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in August 1964, which had considerably broadened the president’s war-making authority in Southeast Asia. There was no firm resolution of the charges, but the debate reached a new intensity when the New York Times reported that General William Westmoreland, U.S. commander in Saigon, had requested another 206,000 troops. The possibility of another major troop increase provoked a stormy reaction in Congress–both Democrats and Republicans demanded an explanation and insisted that Congress share in any decision to expand the war.

In March, 139 members of the House of Representatives sponsored a resolution calling for a full review of American policy in Vietnam. Eventually the Tet Offensive and the subsequent congressional reaction helped convince Johnson, who was frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam, to announce that he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of his party for president.

1971 – The National Emergency Warning Center in Colorado erroneously ordered radio and TV stations across the US to go off the air; some stations heeded the alert, which was not lifted for about 40 minutes.

1974 – S-3A Viking ASW aircraft (carrier jet) introduced officially, given to VS-41.

February 20th ~ {continued...}

1976 – After operating for 22 years, the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization concludes its final military exercise and quietly shuts down. SEATO had been one of the bulwarks of America’s Cold War policies in Asia, but the Vietnam War did much to destroy its cohesiveness and question its effectiveness. SEATO was formed in 1954 during a meeting in Manila called by U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Eight nations-the United States, France, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan-joined together in the regional defense organization to “stem the tide of communism in Asia.”

1981 – Space shuttle Columbia cleared the final major hurdle to its maiden launch by firing fired its three engines in a 20 -second test.

1987 – The Unabomber placed a bomb in a parking lot behind CAAMS computer store in Salt Lake City. CAAMS vice president, Gary Wright was seriously injured.

1994 – Bosnian Serbs, faced with the threat of air strikes, pulled back most of their heavy guns from around Sarajevo as a NATO deadline approached.

1995 – An American Marine, Sgt. Justin A. Harris, died in a helicopter crash during the evacuation of United Nations forces from Somalia.

1996 – Hussein and Saddam Kamel, Saddam’s two sons-in-law who requested asylum in Jordan in August 1995, return to Baghdad after receiving Iraqi government “pardons.”

1998 – The UN Security Council voted to more than double the amount of oil Iraq may sell to buy food and medicine. The increase was from $2 bil to $5.256 bil, although Iraq has said it was only capable of producing $4 billion worth of oil over six months.

1999 – The United States and five other nations agreed to extend by three days the deadline for a Kosovo peace agreement. NATO had threatened airstrikes against the Serbs if they did not reach an agreement with Albanian insurgents.

2000 – In Mitrovica, Kosovo, angry Serbs pelted US troops in the northern district during a citywide search for weapons.

February 20th ~ {continued...}

2001 – The government announced the arrest two days earlier of veteran FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen, accused of spying for Russia for more than 15 years.

2001 – Space Shuttle Atlantis landed at Edwards air Force Base following a 13 -day mission to the Int’l. Space Station. Three straight days of bad weather prevented the ship from returning to its Florida home port.

2002 – The Pentagon said its new Office of Strategic Influence would not spread falsehoods in the media to advance US war goals. The office was closed down Feb 26th.

2002 – In Sudan a government helicopter gunship attacked civilians waiting for food at a UN site and at least 17 people were killed. The US suspended peace efforts following the attack.

2003 – Pentagon officials said they will send over 1,700 US troops to the Philippines over the next few weeks to fight Muslim extremists.

2003 – Former Air Force Master Sgt. Brian Patrick Regan was convicted in Alexandria, Va., of offering to sell U.S. intelligence to Iraq and China but acquitted of attempted spying for Libya. Regan was later sentenced to life without parole.

2004 – The US and a host of other countries urged Haitian President Jean -Bertrand Aristide and opposition leaders to form a broad -based government as a move toward ending weeks of bloody conflict. Haiti’s poorly trained and equipped police put up little resistance as rebels moved against the government.

2005 – Iraqi and US security forces surrounded the city of Ramadi in an effort to confront a simmering insurgency there.

2005 – Iraqi forces captured Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi (aka Abu Qutaybah), a key aide to Jordanian-born terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who leads an insurgency affiliated with Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.

2007 – The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules 2-1 to uphold an act of the 109th Congress removing the right of Guantánamo Bay detainees to challenge their detention in lower federal courts. The Military Commissions Act suspends the right to habeas corpus and bars anyone deemed an “enemy combatant” access to the federal courts.

2008 – Two United States Air Force F-15 Eagle fighter planes crash in mid-air over the Gulf of Mexico near Florida.

2008 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis lands at Kennedy Space Center following the conclusion of the STS-122 assembly mission to the International Space Station. STS-122 marked the 24th shuttle mission to the ISS, and the 121st space shuttle flight since STS-1. The mission was also referred to as ISS-1E by the ISS program.

The primary objective of STS-122 was to deliver the European Columbus science laboratory, built by the European Space Agency (ESA), to the station. It also returned Expedition 16 Flight Engineer Daniel M. Tani to Earth. Tani was replaced on Expedition 16 by Léopold Eyharts, a French Flight Engineer representing ESA. After Atlantis’ landing, the orbiter was prepared for STS-125, the final servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope.

February 21st ~

1775 – As troubles with Great Britain increased, colonists in Massachusetts voted to buy military equipment for 15,000 men.

1792 – US Congress passed the Presidential Succession Act.

1794 – Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Mexican Revolutionary and the leading villain of Texas history, was born in Mexico. As a young military officer, he supported Emperor Agustin de Iturbide, and at one time courted the emperor’s sister. He later rebelled against the government, gained considerable backing.

By 1833, he was elevated to president of Mexico in a democratic election. He soon determined, however, that Mexico was not ready for democracy and pronounced himself dictator. Santa Anna was remembered as a particularly ruthless opponent by the Texans. Despite this, he was allowed to return to Mexico after his capture at the Battle of San Jacinto. After his return to Mexico, Santa Anna participated in the Mexican War and in 1853 sold territory to the United States including that area known as the Gadsden Purchase. He was later exiled from Mexico, but allowed to return a few years before his death in 1876.

1828 – The first printing press designed to use the newly invented Cherokee alphabet arrives at New Echota, Georgia. The General Council of the Cherokee Nation had purchased the press with the goal of producing a Cherokee-language newspaper. The press itself, however, would have been useless had it not been for the extraordinary work of a young Cherokee named Sequoyah, who invented a Cherokee alphabet.

As a young man, Sequoyah had joined the Cherokee volunteers who fought under Andrew Jackson against the British in the War of 1812. In dealing with the Anglo soldiers and settlers, he became intrigued by their “talking leaves”-printed books that he realized somehow recorded human speech. In a brilliant leap of logic, Sequoyah comprehended the basic nature of symbolic representation of sounds and in 1809 began working on a similar system for the Cherokee language. Ridiculed and misunderstood by most of the Cherokee, Sequoyah made slow progress until he came up with the idea of representing each syllable in the language with a separate written character.

By 1821, he had perfected his syllabary of 86 characters, a system that could be mastered in less than week. After obtaining the official endorsement of the Cherokee leadership, Sequoyah’s invention was soon adopted throughout the Cherokee nation. When the Cherokee-language printing press arrived on this day in 1828, the lead type was based on Sequoyah’s syllabary. Within months, the first Indian language newspaper in history appeared in New Echota, Georgia. It was called the Cherokee Phoenix.

One of the so-called “five civilized tribes” native to the American Southeast, the Cherokee had long embraced the United States’ program of “civilizing” Indians in the years after the Revolutionary War. In the minds of Americans, Sequoyah’s syllabary further demonstrated the Cherokee desire to modernize and fit into the dominant Anglo world. The Cherokee used their new press to print a bilingual version of republican constitution, and they took many other steps to assimilate Anglo culture and practice while still preserving some aspects of their traditional language and beliefs.

Sadly, despite the Cherokee’s sincere efforts to cooperate and assimilate with the Anglo-Americans, their accomplishments did not protect them from the demands of land-hungry Americans. Repeatedly pushed westward in order to make room for Anglo settlers, the Cherokee lost more than 4,000 of their people (nearly a quarter of the nation) in the 1838-39 winter migration to Oklahoma that later became known as the Trail of Tears.

Nonetheless, the Cherokee people survived as a nation in their new home, thanks in part to the presence of the unifying written language created by Sequoyah. In recognition of his service, the Cherokee Nation voted Sequoyah an annual allowance in 1841. He died two years later on his farm in Oklahoma. Today, his memory is also preserved in the scientific name for the giant California redwood tree, Sequoia.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

1846 – Sarah G. Bagley became the first female telegrapher, taking charge at the newly opened telegraph office in Lowell, Mass.

1848 – The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels, is published in London by a group of German-born revolutionary socialists known as the Communist League. The political pamphlet–arguably the most influential in history–proclaimed that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” and that the inevitable victory of the proletariat, or working class, would put an end to class society forever.

Originally published in German as Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei (“Manifesto of the Communist Party”), the work had little immediate impact. Its ideas, however, reverberated with increasing force into the 20th century, and by 1950 nearly half the world’s population lived under Marxist governments.

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Prussia, in 1818–the son of a Jewish lawyer who converted to Lutheranism. He studied law and philosophy at the universities of Berlin and Jena and initially was a follower of G.W.F. Hegel, the 19th-century German philosopher who sought a dialectical and all-embracing system of philosophy. In 1842, Marx became editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, a liberal democratic newspaper in Cologne. The newspaper grew considerably under his guidance, but in 1843 the Prussian authorities shut it down for being too outspoken. That year, Marx moved to Paris to co-edit a new political review. Paris was at the time a center for socialist thought, and Marx adopted the more extreme form of socialism known as communism, which called for a revolution by the working class that would tear down the capitalist world.

In Paris, Marx befriended Friedrich Engels, a fellow Prussian who shared his views and was to become a lifelong collaborator. In 1845, Marx was expelled from France and settled in Brussels, where he renounced his Prussian nationality and was joined by Engels. During the next two years, Marx and Engels developed their philosophy of communism and became the intellectual leaders of the working-class movement. In 1847, the League of the Just, a secret society made up of revolutionary German workers living in London, asked Marx to join their organization. Marx obliged and with Engels renamed the group the Communist League and planned to unite it with other German worker committees across Europe. The pair were commissioned to draw up a manifesto summarizing the doctrines of the League.

Back in Brussels, Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto in January 1848, using as a model a tract Engels wrote for the League in 1847. In early February, Marx sent the work to London, and the League immediately adopted it as their manifesto. Many of the ideas in The Communist Manifesto were not new, but Marx had achieved a powerful synthesis of disparate ideas through his materialistic conception of history. The Manifesto opens with the dramatic words, “A spectre is haunting Europe–the spectre of communism,” and ends by declaring: “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!”

In The Communist Manifesto, Marx predicted imminent revolution in Europe. The pamphlet had hardly cooled after coming off the presses in London when revolution broke out in France on February 22 over the banning of political meetings held by socialists and other opposition groups. Isolated riots led to popular revolt, and on February 24 King Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate. The revolution spread like brushfire across continental Europe. Marx was in Paris on the invitation of the provincial government when the Belgian government, fearful that the revolutionary tide would soon engulf Belgium, banished him.

Later that year, he went to the Rhineland, where he agitated for armed revolt. The bourgeoisie of Europe soon crushed the Revolution of 1848, and Marx would have to wait longer for his revolution. He went to London to live and continued to write with Engels as they further organized the international communist movement. In 1864, Marx helped found the International Workingmen’s Association–known as the First International–and in 1867 published the first volume of his monumental Das Kapital–the foundation work of communist theory.

By his death in 1884, communism had become a movement to be reckoned with in Europe. Twenty-three years later, in 1917, Vladimir Lenin, a Marxist, led the world’s first successful communist revolution in Russia.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

1861 – Gustavus V. Fox, ex-naval officer now a civilian, reconnoitered Fort Sumter, Charleston Harbor, as directed by President Lincoln, to determine the best means of relieving the Fort. Based on his observations, Fox recommended relieving Sumter by sea.

1862 – Confederate troops under General Henry Hopkins Sibley attack Union troops commanded by Colonel Edward R. S. Canby near Fort Craig in New Mexico Territory. The first major engagement of the war in the far West, the battle produces heavy casualties but no decisive result. This action was part of the broader movement by the Confederates to capture New Mexico and other parts of the West. This would secure territory that the Rebels thought was rightfully theirs but had been denied them by political compromises made before the Civil War. Furthermore, the cash-strapped Confederacy could use western mines to fill their treasury.

From San Antonio, the Rebels moved into southern New Mexico (which included Arizona) and captured the towns of Mesilla, Doýa Ana, and Tucson. Sibley, with 3,000 troops, now moved north against the Federal stronghold at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande. At Fort Craig, Canby was determined to make the Confederates lay siege to the post. The Rebels, Canby reasoned, could not wait long before running low on supplies. Canby knew that Sibley did not possess sufficiently heavy artillery to attack the fort. When Sibley arrived near Fort Craig on February 15, he ordered his men to swing east of the fort, cross the Rio Grande, and then capture the Val Verde fords of the Rio Grande. He hoped to cut off Canby’s communication and force the Yankees out into the open.

At the fords, five miles north of Fort Craig, a Union detachment attacked part of the Confederate force. They pinned the Texans in a ravine and were on the verge of routing the Rebels when more of Sibley’s men arrived and turned the tide. Sibley’s second in command, Colonel Tom Green, filling in for an ill Sibley, made a bold counterattack against the Union left flank. The Yankees fell back in retreat, and headed back to Fort Craig.

The Union suffered 68 killed, 160 wounded, and 35 missing out of 3,100 engaged. The Confederates suffered 31 killed, 154 wounded, and 1 missing out of 2,600 troops. It was a bloody but indecisive battle. Sibley’s men continued up the Rio Grande. Within a few weeks, they captured Albuquerque and Santa Fe before they were stopped at the Battle of Glorieta Pass on March 28th.

1862 – Confederate Constitution & Presidency were declared permanent.

1862 – Flag Officer Farragut formally relieved Flag Officer McKean as Commander, Western Gulf Block­ading Squadron. As his other ships arrived, he assembled them at the Southeast Pass and sent those whose draft permitted over the bar to conduct the blockade ”in the river.”

1863 – U.S.S. Thomas Freeborn, Lieutenant Commander Samuel Magaw, and U.S.S. Dragon, Acting Master George E. Hill, engaged a Confederate battery below Fort Lowry, Virginia, while reconnoitering the Rappahannock River. Freeborn was struck and one Confederate gun was silenced.

1864 – Battle at Okolona, Mississippi.

1865 – The gunboat fleet of Rear Admiral Porter closed Fort Strong and opened rapid fire “all along the enemy’s line” to support the Army attack ashore as it had throughout the soldiers” steady march up both banks of the Cape Fear River.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

1878 – The first telephone directory was issued, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven (New Harbor), Conn. It contained the names of its 50 subscribers.

1885 – The Washington Monument, built in honor of America’s revolutionary hero and first president, is dedicated in Washington, D.C. The 555-foot-high marble obelisk was first proposed in 1783, and Pierre L’Enfant left room for it in his designs for the new U.S. capital. After George Washington’s death in 1799, plans for a memorial for the “father of the country” were discussed, but none were adopted until 1832–the centennial of Washington’s birth.

Architect Robert Mills’ hollow Egyptian obelisk design was accepted for the monument, and on July 4, 1848, the cornerstone was laid. Work on the project was interrupted by political quarreling in the 1850s, and construction ceased entirely during the American Civil War. Finally, in 1876, Congress, inspired by the American centennial, passed legislation appropriating $200,000 for completion of the monument.

In February 1885, the Washington Monument was formally dedicated, and three years later it was opened to the public, who were permitted to climb to the top of the monument by stairs or elevator. The monument was the tallest structure in the world when completed and remains today, by District of Columbia law, the tallest building in the nation’s capital.

1887 – The 1st US bacteriology laboratory opened in Brooklyn.

1903 – The cornerstone laid for US army war college in Washington, DC.

1920 – Robert S. Johnson, American World War II fighter ace who shot down 27 German planes. Robert S. Johnson was the first fighter pilot of the USAAF – United State Army Air Force – to supplant the 26 victories that Eddie Rickenbacker got in World War I.

To the end of the war, he knocked down a German total of 27 airplanes (initially they were 28, but a victory was twenty years after finished the war) He was a member of the 56th Pursuit Group also known as “The Wolf Pack”. Robert Johnson died 27 of December 1998.

1922 – Airship Rome exploded at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and 34 died.

1934 – Nicaraguan patriot Augusto Cesar Sandino was assassinated by National Guard.

1937 – The League of Nations bans foreign national “volunteers” in the Spanish Civil War with little effect.

1940 – The Germans began construction of a concentration camp at Auschwitz. Hans Munch was an SS doctor at the camp and later reported his experiences there in detail for the 1998 TV documentary “People’s Century.”