February 21st ~ {continued...}

1943 – A detachment of 15th Panzer Division launches a diversionary attack on Tebessa which is strongly held by the US 1st Armored Division.

1943 – Operation Cleanslate. Troops of the US 43rd Division (commanded by General Hester) occupy Banika and Pavuvu in the Russell Islands. There is no Japanese resistance. By the end of the month about 9000 American troops occupy these islands.

1943 – The USS Spencer, CG, received credit from the U.S. Navy for attacking and sinking the U-225 in the North Atlantic. The British have since recorded that the U-225 was actually destroyed by B-24 Liberator “S” of RAF No. 120 Squadron on 15 February 1943 and they have revised the official British records to reflect this change. The renowned German historian, Professor/Dr. Jurgen Rohwer stated that the Spencer “probably” attacked and sank the U-529 instead, although the Spencer has not received official credit for this sinking.

1944 – Prime Minister General Tojo takes over the office of Chief of the Army General Staff, in place of Field Marshal Sugiyama. The navy minister, Admiral Shimada, also takes an additional office, replacing Admiral Nagano as Chief of Staff.

1944 – Marines with support of naval bombardment and carrier aircraft secure Eniwetok atoll.

1945 – The US 11th Corps completes the capture of the Bataan area of Luzon. Fighting on Corregidor continues, as does the battle for Manila.

1945 – The Bismarck Sea was the last U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to be sunk in combat during World War II. The escort carrier Bismarck Sea was supporting the invasion of Iwo Jima, when about 50 kamikazes attacked the U.S. Navy Task Groups 58.2 and 58.3. Fleet carrier Saratoga was struck by three suicide planes and so badly damaged that the war ended before she returned to service.

At 6:45 p.m., two Mitsubishi A6M5 Zeros approached Bismarck Sea, which opened fire with her anti-aircraft guns. One Zero was set on fire, but its suicidal pilot pressed home his attack and crashed into the carrier abreast of the aft elevator, which fell into the hangar deck below. Two minutes later, an internal explosion devastated the ship, and at 7:05 p.m., Captain J.L. Pratt ordered Abandon Ship. Ravaged by further explosions over the next three hours, Bismarck Sea sank at 10 p.m., the last U.S. Navy carrier to go down as a result of enemy action during World War II. Of her crew of 943, 218 officers and men lost their lives.

1946 – Following the close of World War II, the United States took up a new fight, this time against the looming specter of post-war inflation. President Harry Truman countered this fiscal foe by unveiling a series of deflationary measures, including the establishment of the Wage Stabilization Board in 1945. However, the decision to gradually wean the nation off of wartime price controls promised to ignite inflation, thus prompting further efforts by the government to keep the economy in check.

On this day in 1946, Truman created the Office of Economic Stabilization (OES), which was charged with keeping a watchful eye over prices, and generally ensuring a smooth transition to a peacetime economy. Truman tabbed Chester Bowles, a veteran New Deal administrator who had previously led the Office of Price Administration, to run the OES. However, Bowles’s tenure quickly turned sour, as lawmakers rolled back his power to govern price controls; duly frustrated, Bowles retired the OES post just four months after taking office.

1947 – Edwin H. Land publicly demonstrated his Polaroid Land camera in NYC. It could produce a black-and-white photograph in 60 seconds. Polaroid Corp. was co-founded by Land and George W. Wheelwright III.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

1950 – The United States formally broke relations with Bulgaria.

1951 – The U. S. Eighth Army launched Operation Killer, a counterattack to push Chinese forces north of the Han River in Korea.

1951 – After a two-month detachment to the ROK Army, the 1st ROK Marine Regiment rejoined the U.S. 1st Marine Division.

1953 – An intermittent battle of more than nine hours on T-Bone Hill ultimately forced the U.N. troops to withdraw from this outpost.

1960 – Havana placed all Cuban industry under direct control of the government.

1967 – Writer and historian Bernard B. Fall is killed by a Viet Cong mine while accompanying a U.S. Marine patrol along the seacoast about 14 miles northwest of Hue, on a road known as the “Street Without Joy” (which Fall had used for the title of one of his books about the war). A professor of international relations at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Fall was a French citizen and noted expert on the war in Vietnam. He was killed while gathering material for his eighth book. A U.S. Marine photographer was also killed.

1970 – National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger begins secret peace talks with North Vietnamese representative Le Duc Tho, the fifth-ranking member of the Hanoi Politburo, at a villa outside Paris. Le Duc Tho stated that the North Vietnamese position continued to require an unconditional U.S. withdrawal on a fixed date and the abandonment of the Thieu government as a precondition for further progress, which stalled the negotiations.

The North Vietnamese rejected Kissinger’s proposals for a mutual withdrawal of military forces, the neutralization of Cambodia, and a mixed electoral commission to supervise elections in South Vietnam. The other two meetings, in which there was a similar lack of progress, were held on March 16th and April 4th.

1970 – Pathet Lao conquered Xieng Khuang and Muong Suy.

1972 – In an amazing turn of events, President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. Nixon’s historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China.

Still mired in the unpopular and frustrating Vietnam War in 1971, Nixon surprised the American people by announcing a planned trip to the PRC in 1972. The United States had never stopped formally recognizing the PRC after Mao Zedong’s successful communist revolution of 1949. In fact, the two nations had been bitter enemies. PRC and U.S. troops fought in Korea during the early-1950s, and Chinese aid and advisors supported North Vietnam in its war against the United States.

1974 – A report claimed that the use of defoliants by the U.S. had scarred Vietnam for century. Defoliation was meant to save lives by denying the enemy cover.

1975 – Former Attorney General John N. Mitchell and former White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John D. Ehrlichman were sentenced to 2 1/2 to 8 years in prison for their roles in the Watergate cover-up.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

1986 – Larry Wu-tai Chin, the first American found guilty of spying for China, killed himself in his Virginia jail cell. Larry Wu-Tai Chin had been an intelligence officer in the CIA’s Foreign Broadcast Information Service. During his career, he held a Top Secret clearance and had access to a wide range of intelligence information. At his trial which began on February 4, 1986, Chin admitted providing the Chinese with information over a period of 11 years, but for the purpose of reconciliation between China and the United States. On February 8, 1986, Chin was convicted by a Federal jury on all counts. Sentencing had been set for March 17, 1986.

1994 – With Bosnian Serbs complying with a NATO ultimatum to remove heavy guns near Sarajevo, President Clinton promised renewed efforts to help “reinvigorate the peace process.”

1996 – The Space Telescope Science Institute announced that photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope confirmed the existence of a “black hole” equal to the mass of two billion suns in a galaxy some 30 million light-years away.

1997 – The space shuttle Discovery returned to earth after a mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope.

1997 – There was a bombing at an Atlanta lesbian nightclub that injured five people. It was similar to the previous recent bombings at an abortion clinic and at the Olympics. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003.

1998 – U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan began formal talks with Iraqi officials in the standoff over weapons inspections.

1999 – US and British warplanes attacked a missile base and 2 military communication sites after Iraqi jets violated the no-fly zone.

2000 – It was reported that the US FBI planned to open an office in Budapest in March at the request of the Hungarian government in order to help break up Russian gangs. The FBI would hire 10 Hungarian agents to work alongside 5 US agents.

February 21st ~ {continued...}

2000 – In Mitrovica, Kosovo, some 10-25,000 ethnic Albanians clashed with NATO-led troops, who kept them from crossing to the Serb section of town.

2002 – President Bush met with President Zemin in Beijing and both agreed to work on the reunification of North and South Korea. They disagreed over controls on exports of missile technology. Pres. Bush answered questions in a live broadcast and reaffirmed the US right to protect Taiwan.

2002 – It was acknowledged that WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl was dead after a video was received that showed an assailant slash his throat. On May 30, Pearl’s wife in Paris gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl.

2002 – A US CH-47E Chinook helicopter with 10 soldiers crashed into the Mindanao Sea in the Philippines. 3 bodies were found by local fishermen.

2002 – Forty American military personnel arrive in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia, marking the first deployment of U.S. combat forces in the Caucasus region. The troops, including U.S. Special Forces, are scheduled to train nearly 200 Georgian soldiers in light-infantry tactics to counter terrorist threats in the Pankisi Gorge.

2003 – UN officials say that chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix has ordered the destruction of dozens of Iraqi missiles with ranges that violated UN limits. General Amer al-Saadi, science adviser to Saddam Hussein says they are considering the demand and will “come up with a decision quite soon”.

2003 – US Navy is boarding an average of six vessels a day as it steps up patrols in international waters searching for Iraqi weapons. UNMOVIC had previously announced that there were reports suggesting that Iraqi weapons had been smuggled abroad in recent months.

2003 – NATO announces that AWACS surveillance planes will fly to the Turkish airforce base in the next few days.

2003 – It was reported that Iraq had recently begun shipping large quantities of oil through its Khor al Amaya port.

2005 – The new Atomic Testing Museum opened in Las Vegas. (http://www.ntshf.org)

2008 – The United States Navy shoots down USA 193, a spy satellite in a decaying orbit, over the Pacific Ocean. USA-193, also known as NRO launch 21 (NROL-21 or simply L-21), was an U.S. military spy satellite launched on December 14, 2006. It was the first launch conducted by the United Launch Alliance. Owned by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), the craft’s precise function and purpose were classified.

The satellite malfunctioned shortly after deployment, and was intentionally destroyed 14 months later by a modified, SM-3 missile fired from the warship USS Lake Erie, stationed west of Hawaii. The event highlighted growing distrust between the U.S. and China, and was viewed by some to be part of a wider “space race” involving the U.S., China, and Russia.

2012 – US General John R. Allen, the head of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan commissions an inquiry into allegations that Qurans were burnt at an American Air Force base as Afghans protest.

February 22nd ~

1630 – Indians introduced pilgrims to popcorn at Thanksgiving.

1732 – George Washington, Commander-in-chief of Continental forces during the American Revolution and first U.S. President, is born at Bridges Creek in the Virginia colony. On April 30, 1789, George Washington, standing on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York, took his oath of office as the first President of the United States. “As the first of every thing, in our situation will serve to establish a Precedent,” he wrote James Madison, “it is devoutly wished on my part, that these precedents may be fixed on true principles.”

Born into a Virginia planter family, he learned the morals, manners, and body of knowledge requisite for an 18th century Virginia gentleman. He pursued two intertwined interests: military arts and western expansion. At 16 he helped survey Shenandoah lands for Thomas, Lord Fairfax. Commissioned a lieutenant colonel in 1754, he fought the first skirmishes of what grew into the French and Indian War. The next year, as an aide to Gen. Edward Braddock, he escaped injury although four bullets ripped his coat and two horses were shot from under him. From 1759 to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Washington managed his lands around Mount Vernon and served in the Virginia House of Burgesses.

Married to a widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, he devoted himself to a busy and happy life. But like his fellow planters, Washington felt himself exploited by British merchants and hampered by British regulations. As the quarrel with the mother country grew acute, he moderately but firmly voiced his resistance to the restrictions. When the Second Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia in May 1775, Washington, one of the Virginia delegates, was elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army. On July 3, 1775, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, he took command of his ill-trained troops and embarked upon a war that was to last six grueling years. He realized early that the best strategy was to harass the British. He reported to Congress, “we should on all Occasions avoid a general Action, or put anything to the Risque, unless compelled by a necessity, into which we ought never to be drawn.” Ensuing battles saw him fall back slowly, then strike unexpectedly.

Finally in 1781 with the aid of French allies–he forced the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. Washington longed to retire to his fields at Mount Vernon. But he soon realized that the Nation under its Articles of Confederation was not functioning well, so he became a prime mover in the steps leading to the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia in 1787. When the new Constitution was ratified, the Electoral College unanimously elected Washington President. He did not infringe upon the policy-making powers that he felt the Constitution gave Congress.

But the determination of foreign policy became preponderantly a Presidential concern. When the French Revolution led to a major war between France and England, Washington refused to accept entirely the recommendations of either his Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, who was pro-French, or his Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who was pro-British. Rather, he insisted upon a neutral course until the United States could grow stronger.

To his disappointment, two parties were developing by the end of his first term. Wearied of politics, feeling old, he retired at the end of his second. In his Farewell Address, he urged his countrymen to forswear excessive party spirit and geographical distinctions. In foreign affairs, he warned against long-term alliances. Washington enjoyed less than three years of retirement at Mount Vernon, for he died of a throat infection December 14, 1799. For months the Nation mourned him.

1786 – In London, John Adams meets with the ambassador of Tripoli in order to negotiate a settlement to end piracy on American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea and off the coasts of Portugal and Spain. The negotiations fail.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1819 – Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sign the Florida Purchase Treaty (Adams-Onis Treaty), in which Spain agrees to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States. Spanish colonization of the Florida peninsula began at St. Augustine in 1565. The Spanish colonists enjoyed a brief period of relative stability before Florida came under attack from resentful Native Americans and ambitious English colonists to the north in the 17th century.

Spain’s last-minute entry into the French and Indian War on the side of France cost it Florida, which the British acquired through the first Treaty of Paris in 1763. After 20 years of British rule, however, Florida was returned to Spain as part of the second Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution in 1783. Spain’s hold on Florida was tenuous in the years after American independence, and numerous boundary disputes developed with the United States.

In 1819, after years of negotiations, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams achieved a diplomatic coup with the signing of the Florida Purchase Treaty, which officially put Florida into U.S. hands at no cost beyond the U.S. assumption of some $5 million of claims by U.S. citizens against Spain. Formal U.S. occupation began in 1821, and General Andrew Jackson, the hero of the War of 1812, was appointed military governor. Florida was organized as a U.S. territory in 1822 and was admitted into the Union as a slave state in 1845.

1847 – During the Mexican-American War, Mexican General Santa Anna surrounds the outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demands an immediate surrender. Taylor refused, allegedly replying, “Tell him to go to hell,” and early the next morning Santa Anna dispatched some 15,000 troops to move against the 5,000 Americans. The superior U.S. artillery was able to halt one of the two advancing Mexican divisions, while Jefferson Davis’ Mississippi riflemen led the defense of the extreme left flank against the other Mexican advance. By five o’clock in the afternoon, the Mexicans begin to withdraw.

The Mexican-American War began with a dispute over the U.S. government’s 1845 annexation of Texas. In January 1846, President James K. Polk, a strong advocate of westward expansion, ordered General Taylor to occupy disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. Mexican troops attacked Taylor’s forces, and in May 1846 Congress approved a declaration of war against Mexico. At Buena Vista in February 1847, and at Monterrey in September, Taylor proved a brilliant military commander, earning the nickname “Old Rough and Ready” while emerging from the war a national hero.

He won the Whig presidential nomination in 1848 and defeated the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, in November. The other hero of the Battle of Buena Vista, Jefferson Davis, became secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce in 1853 and president of the Confederate States of America in 1861.

1861 – Jefferson Davis was sworn in as the permanent president of the Confederate States of America on Washington’s birthday. Davis was sworn in as president of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va., following his inauguration in Alabama on Feb 18th.

1862 – Union naval vessels entered Savannah River through Wall’s Cut, isolating Fort Pulaski.

1862 – Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia. He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1864 – Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest routs a Union force three times the size of his army in a battle that helped end Union General William T. Sherman’s expedition into Alabama. Sherman was marching an army east across Mississippi from Vicksburg to Meridian. He had captured and destroyed a vital Confederate supply center at Meridian and was planning to move further east to Selma, Alabama, another Rebel supply base. Sherman was relying on cavalry support from General William Sooy Smith, who was coming southeast from Memphis, Tennessee. Sherman directed Smith to meet him at Meridian on February 10, but Sherman did not occupy Meridian until February 14.

Meanwhile, Smith dallied in Tennessee waiting for the arrival of Colonel George Waring Jr.’s cavalry brigade from Kentucky, and did not leave for Mississippi until February 11. On February 20, some of Smith’s men skirmished with Confederates near West Point, just over 100 miles north of Meridian. The Yankee troops slowly drove the Confederates back through West Point. The next day, more skirmishing flared as the troops continued south. The Confederates were led by Jeffrey Forrest, Nathan’s younger brother. The elder Forrest waited south of West Point with the intent of drawing Smith’s force into a swampy area between two rivers. Smith caught on to the plan just before it was too late and began a retreat back through West Point.

On February 22, The Yankees made a stand north of West Point and fought off a Confederate attack during which Jeffrey Forrest was killed. With the older Forrest blocking his way to Meridian, Smith retreated back to Memphis. The Confederates suffered 144 men killed, wounded, or missing, while the Union lost 324. The engagement was significant because Sherman was forced to return to Vicksburg. The battle also lifted Confederate morale and enhanced the reputation of Nathan Bedford Forrest, who had taken on a much larger Union force and won.

1864 – Battle at Dalton, Georgia.

1865 – RADM Porter’s gunboats’ bombardment cause surrender of Wilmington, NC. The defenders evacuated Fort Anderson and Porter’s ships steamed up to Wilmington, which earlier in the day had been occupied by General Terry’s men after General Bragg had ordered the evacuation of the now defenseless city.

1865 – Tennessee adopted a new constitution abolishing slavery.

1870 – After arriving on USS Nipsic, and supported by USS Guard and USS Nyack, the Darien Expedition, commanded by CDR Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr., begins active operations ashore at Caldonia Bay to survery the Isthmus of Darien, Panama, for an interoceanic ship canal.

1881 – President Hayes, whose wife is nicknamed Lemonade Lucy because she serves no alcohol in the White house, declares that no alcoholic beverages are to be sold on military posts.

1899 – Filipino forces led by General Antonio Luna launch counterattacks for the first time against the American forces during the Philippine–American War. The Filipinos fail to regain Manila from the Americans. The Second Battle of Caloocan, alternately called the Second Battle of Manila, ran to February 24, 1899, in Caloocan. This counterattack failed to regain Manila mainly because of lack of coordination among Filipino units and lack of artillery support.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1900 – Hawaii became a US territory.

1902 – A fistfight broke out in the Senate. Senator Benjamin Tillman suffered a bloody nose for accusing Senator John McLaurin of bias on the Philippine tariff issue.

1909 – The Great White Fleet returned to Norfolk, Va., from an around-the-world show of naval power. 1st US fleet to circle the globe. It consisted of 16 battleships divided into two squadrons, along with various escorts. Roosevelt sought to demonstrate growing American military power and blue-water navy capability.
Hoping to enforce treaties and protect overseas holdings, the U.S. Congress appropriated funds to build American sea power. Beginning with just 90 small ships, over one-third of them wooden, the navy quickly grew to include new modern steel fighting vessels. The hulls of these ships were painted a stark white, giving the armada the nickname “Great White Fleet”.

1915 – Germany began “unrestricted” submarine warfare.

1918 – Swept along by hysterical fears of treacherous German spies and domestic labor violence, the Montana legislature passes a Sedition Law that severely restricts freedom of speech and assembly. Three months later, Congress adopted a federal Sedition Act modeled on the Montana law. The roots of the Montana Sedition Law lay with the hyper-patriotic sentiments inspired by World War I and growing fears of labor unrest and violence in the state. A sizeable number of Montanans had resisted American entry in WWI, and the Montana congresswoman Jeanette Rankin (the first women elected to Congress) had voted against U.S. involvement in the Great War.

Once the U.S. did become involved, though, many pro-war Montanans viewed any further criticism of the war effort as treasonous-especially if it came from the state’s sizeable German-American population. At the same time, the perceived need for wartime unity sharpened many Montanans’ distrust of radical labor groups like the socialist International Workers of the World (IWW). The Montana mining town of Butte had been rocked by labor violence in recent years.

In 1914, a group of men who may have been IWW members destroyed the offices of an opposing union with dynamite. An IWW leader named Frank Little had also recently given speeches in Butte condemning American involvement in the war, claiming it was being fought for big business interests. Determined to silence both antiwar and radical union voices, the Montana legislature approved a Sedition Law that made it illegal to criticize the federal government or the armed forces during time of war. Even disparaging remarks about the American flag could be grounds for prosecution and imprisonment.

Through the efforts of Montana’s two senators, the act also became the model for the federal Sedition Law of May 1918. Like the Montana law, the federal act made it a crime to speak or write anything critical of the American war effort. Later widely viewed as the most sweeping violation of civil liberties in modern American history, the federal Sedition Law led to the arrests of 1,500 American citizens. Crimes included denouncing the draft, criticizing the Red Cross, and complaining about wartime taxes.

The Montana law led to the conviction and imprisonment of 47 people, some with prison terms of 20 years or more. Most were pardoned when the war ended and cooler heads prevailed, but the state and federal Sedition Laws proved highly effective in destroying the IWW and other radical labor groups that had long attacked the federal government as the tool of big business. Since many of these radicals were vocal opponents of much of the government wartime policy, they bore the brunt of the Sedition Law rebukes, and suffered sorely as a result.

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge becomes the first President to deliver a radio broadcast from the White House.

1932 – The Purple Heart award was reinstituted.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1932 – Adolf Hitler was the Nazi Party candidate for the presidential elections in Germany. The election of Hitler was supposed to mark the beginning of the Thousand-Year Reich.

1933 – Nazi Herman Goring formed SA/SS-police.

1935 – All plane flights over the White House were barred because they disturbed President Roosevelt’s sleep.

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt orders Gen. Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines, as the American defense of the islands collapses. The Philippines had been part of the American commonwealth since it was ceded by Spain at the close of the Spanish-American War. When the Japanese invaded China in 1937 and signed the Tripartite Pact with fascist nations Germany and Italy in 1940, the United States responded by, among other things, strengthening the defense of the Philippines.

General MacArthur was called out of retirement to command 10,000 American Army troops, 12,000 Filipino enlisted men who fought as part of the U.S. Army, and 100,000 Filipino army soldiers, who were poorly trained and ill prepared. MacArthur radically overestimated his troops’ strength and underestimated Japan’s determination. The Rainbow War Plan, a defensive strategy for U.S. interests in the Pacific that was drawn up in the late 1930s and later refined by the War Department, required that MacArthur withdraw his troops into the mountains of the Bataan Peninsula and await better-trained and -equipped American reinforcements.

Instead, MacArthur decided to take the Japanese head on–and he never recovered. On the day of the Pearl Harbor bombing, the Japanese destroyed almost half of the American aircraft based in the Philippines. Amphibious landings of Japanese troops along the Luzon coast followed. By late December, MacArthur had to pull his forces back defensively to the Bataan Peninsula–the original strategy belatedly pursued. By January 2, 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila fell to the Japanese.

President Roosevelt had to admit to himself (if not to the American people, who believed the Americans were winning the battle with the Japanese in the Philippines), that the prospects for the American forces were not good–and that he could not afford to have General MacArthur fall captive to the Japanese. A message arrived at Corregidor on February 20, ordering MacArthur to leave immediately for Mindanao, then on to Melbourne, Australia, where “You will assume command of all United States troops.” MacArthur finally obeyed the president’s order in March.

1943 – The battleship USS Iowa, the first in the Navy’s 45,000 ton class, was commissioned. The ship carried President Roosevelt to Tehran in November and was decommissioned in 1990. Also noted as 1st in the 48,000 ton class.

1943 – A night battle develops on the front before Thala (during night of February 21-22). Both sides suffer heavy losses. At the same time, an American artillery regiment (led by General Irwin) arrives after an 800 mile march from Oran achieved in 4 days. At dawn the British, with the newly arrived American artillery support, launch a limited counterattack. The German forces pull back in the afternoon. The improved flying weather on this day is generally noted as weighing in the Allies’ favor.

1943 – The USS Campbell, CG, rammed the U-606 in the North Atlantic after the U-boat was forced to surface after being attacked by the Polish destroyer Burza. The U-boat sank before a boarding party could reach the submarine. The Campbell rescued five of the U-606’s crew. Due to the collision, Campbell’s engine room was flooded and she lost power but was towed to safety, repaired, and returned to service.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1944 – In the Marianas, Japanese bombers and torpedo planes attack the ships of US Task Force 58.

1944 – General Truscott takes full command of VI Corps at Anzio, replacing General Lucas.

1944 – US forces land on Parry Island, in the Eniwetok Atoll. There is heavy Japanese resistance.

1944 – American aircraft mistakenly bomb the Dutch towns of Nijmegen, Arnhem, Enschede and Deventer, resulting in 800 dead in Nijmegen alone.

1945 – US 5th Army makes some gains in mountain fighting high up in the Reno Valley.

1945 – The US 20th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) achieves most of its objectives in the area between the Saar and Moselle rivers.

1945 – The naval gun and air bombardment (by US Task Forces 52, 54 and 58) continues. Elements of the US 5th Amphibious Corps continue to make slow progress toward Mount Suribachi to the south and the airfield to the north (most of which has now been captured). There are Japanese counterattacks and infiltration attempts during the night.

1945 – German Ju88 bombers sink the SS Henry Bacon. This is the last Allied merchant ship to be sunk by German aircraft during the war.

1946 – George Kennan, the American charge d’affaires in Moscow, sends an 8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union, and U.S. policy toward the communist state. Kennan’s analysis provided one of the most influential underpinnings for America’s Cold War policy of containment. Kennan was among the U.S. diplomats to help establish the first American embassy in the Soviet Union in 1933.

While he often expressed respect for the Russian people, his appraisal of the communist leadership of the Soviet Union became increasingly negative and harsh. Throughout World War II he was convinced that President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s spirit of friendliness and cooperation with Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was completely misplaced. Less than a year after Roosevelt’s death, Kennan, then serving as U.S. charge d’affaires in Moscow, released his opinions in what came to be known as the “long telegram.” The lengthy memorandum began with the assertion that the Soviet Union could not foresee “permanent peaceful coexistence” with the West. This “neurotic view of world affairs” was a manifestation of the “instinctive Russian sense of insecurity.”

As a result, the Soviets were deeply suspicious of all other nations and believed that their security could only be found in “patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power.” Kennan was convinced that the Soviets would try to expand their sphere of influence, and he pointed to Iran and Turkey as the most likely immediate trouble areas. In addition, Kennan believed the Soviets would do all they could to “weaken power and influence of Western Powers on colonial backward, or dependent peoples.” Fortunately, although the Soviet Union was “impervious to logic of reason,” it was “highly sensitive to logic of force.” Therefore, it would back down “when strong resistance is encountered at any point.” The United States and its allies, he concluded, would have to offer that resistance.

Kennan’s telegram caused a sensation in Washington. Stalin’s aggressive speeches and threatening gestures toward Iran and Turkey in 1945-1946 led the Truman administration to decide to take a tougher stance and rely on the nation’s military and economic muscle rather than diplomacy in dealing with the Soviets. These factors guaranteed a warm reception for Kennan’s analysis. His opinion that Soviet expansionism needed to be contained through a policy of “strong resistance” provided the basis for America’s Cold War diplomacy through the next two decades. Kennan’s diplomatic career certainly received a boost–he was named U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1952.

1952 – The U.S. signed a military aid pact with Peru.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1953 – General Mark Clark, commander in chief U.N. Command, proposed an exchange of sick and wounded prisoners. The North Koreans charged the United Nations with germ warfare.

1954 – U.S. was to install 60 Thor nuclear missiles in Britain.

1955 – In Operation Teapot’s second detonation, codenamed Moth, the total device weight was 445 lb (the lightest complete fission device yet fired); the actual nuclear system was 23 inches in diameter and weighed 375 lb. This was the first test to use an ENS (external neutron source) initiator – a compact pulse neutron tube. Predicted yield was 4 kiloton Actual...only 2 kiloton.

1962 – A Soviet bid for new Geneva arms talks was turned down by the U.S.

1963 – Moscow warned the U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.

1965 – General William Westmoreland, commander of Military Assistance Command Vietnam, cables Washington, D.C., to request that two battalions of U.S. Marines be sent to protect the U.S. airbase at Da Nang. Ambassador Maxwell Taylor, aware of Westmoreland’s plan, disagreed and cabled President Lyndon B. Johnson from Saigon to warn that such a step would encourage South Vietnam to “shuck off greater responsibilities.”

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, however, supported Westmoreland’s request and on February 26, White House officials cabled Taylor and Westmoreland that the troops would be sent, and that Taylor should “Secure GVN [Government of South Vietnam] approval.” General Westmoreland later insisted that he did not regard his request as “the first step in a growing American commitment,” but by 1969 there were over 540,000 American troops in South Vietnam.

1967 – Operation Junction City is launched to ease pressure on Saigon. It was an effort to smash the Viet Cong’s stronghold in Tay Ninh Province and surrounding areas along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. The purpose of the operation was to drive the Viet Cong away from populated areas and into the open, where superior American firepower could be more effectively used.

In the largest operation of the war to date, four South Vietnamese and 22 U.S. battalions were involved–more than 25,000 troops. The first day’s operation was supported by 575 aircraft sorties, a record number for a single day in South Vietnam. The operation was marked by one of the largest airmobile assaults in history when 240 troop-carrying helicopters descended on the battlefield. There were 2,728 enemy casualties by the end of the operation on March 17th.

1972 – President Nixon met with Mao Tse-tung in Peking and Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai in Beijing.

1973 – Following President Richard Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic of China, the two countries agree to establish liaison offices.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1974 – Samuel Byck tries and fails to assassinate U.S. President Richard Nixon. Samuel Joseph Byck (January 30, 1930 – February 22, 1974) was an unemployed former tire salesman who attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore/Washington International Airportwith the intent to crash into the White House in the hope of killing U.S. President Richard Nixon.

Armed with a .22 caliber revolver stolen from a friend of his and a bomb made out of 2 gallon jugs of gasoline and an igniter. All through this process, Byck made audio recordings explaining his motives and his plans; he expected to be considered a hero for his actions, and wanted to fully document his reasons for the assassination. Byck drove to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport. He shot and killed Maryland Aviation Administration Police Officer George Neal Ramsburg before storming aboard a DC-9, Delta Air Lines Flight 523 to Atlanta, which he chose because it was the closest flight that was ready to take off. After pilots Reese (Doug) Loftin and Fred Jones told him they could not take off until wheel blocks were removed, he shot them both and grabbed a nearby passenger, ordering her to “fly the plane.” Jones died as he was being removed from the aircraft after the event was concluded; Loftin survived the attack.

Byck told a flight attendant to close the door or he would blow up the plane. Anne Arundel County Police officers attempted to shoot out the tires of the aircraft in order to prevent it from taking off, but the .38 caliber bullets fired from the Smith & Wesson revolvers issued to the officers at that time period failed to penetrate the tires of the aircraft and ricocheted off, some hitting the wing of the aircraft. After a standoff with police, Charles Troyer, an Anne Arundel County police officer on the jetway, stormed the plane and fired four shots through the aircraft door at Byck with a .357 Magnum revolver taken from the deceased Ramsburg. Two of the shots penetrated the thick window of the aircraft door and wounded Byck. Before the police could gain entry to the aircraft, Byck committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. A briefcase containing the gasoline bomb was found under his body. The plane never left the gate, and Nixon’s schedule was not affected by the assassination attempt.

1974 – LTJG Barbara Ann Allen becomes first Navy designated female aviator.

1984 – President Reagan, in a press conference, also said that the U.S. is committed to keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. Britain and the U.S. send warships to the Persian Gulf. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini threatened closure of the Strait of Hormuz when Iraq started shooting at oil tankers attempting to transit the strait, but had not yet attempted this drastic step.

The U.S. and Britain had three major policy objectives with respect to the crisis. One, to prevent disruption of oil shipments that would cause serious hardship for Western economies. Another is to ensure the security of oil-producing governments in the area that have been friendly to the West and have resisted Soviet expansionism in the Gulf. And lastly, to ensure that whatever the outcome of the war, the Soviet Union would not have a dominant position in either country. The Carter Doctrine of 1980 addressed the stated intention of the U.S. to intervene militarily in the region if the shipment of oil was halted or curtailed.

1990 – Former President Reagan’s videotaped testimony for the trial of former national security adviser John Poindexter was released in Washington; in his deposition, Reagan said he never had “any inkling” his aides were secretly arming the Nicaraguan Contras.

1991 – President Bush and America’s Gulf War allies gave Iraq 24 hours to begin withdrawing from Kuwait, or face a final all-out attack. Iraq denounced the “shameful” US ultimatum, aligning itself with a Soviet peace plan the US had rejected.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1991 – US soldiers were issued the drug pyridostigmine bromide (PB) to counter the effects of the nerve agents tabun and soman. The drug was prescribed at 3 pills per day, but produced a physical a rush and was abused by many service people. It was later suspected as a cause of the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome. The drug was not fully approved by the FDA and military personnel were not informed of its effects. In 1999 a 2-year Rand analysis concluded that the drug pyridostigmine bromide could not be excluded as a contributor to Gulf War syndrome. The drug was given to as many as 300,000 US troops during the Persian gulf war.

1994 – CIA operative Aldrich Ames is arrested for selling secrets to the Soviet Union. Ames had access to the names and identities of all U.S. spies in Russia, and by becoming a double agent he was directly responsible for jeopardizing the lives of CIA agents working in the Eastern bloc. At least 10 men were killed after Ames revealed their identities, and more were sent to Russian gulags.

Maria del Rosario Casas Ames, Aldrich’s wife and an ex-CIA employee herself, was also charged for her role in accepting approximately $2.7 million (the most the Soviets ever paid a foreign spy) for providing the highly confidential information to the KGB. It was the Ames’ spending that finally led to their downfall, but for many years no one questioned their ability to buy expensive cars and homes (paid for with cash) on his government salary. Ames picked up the cash at secret drops in the Washington, D.C., area and in unauthorized travels to Colombia and Venezuela. Aldrich Ames was the biggest success of the Soviet Union’s reinvigorated espionage program.

After the disastrous invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the Russians decided that spying was their best bet for improving their strategic position vis-ý-vis the United States. Dimitri Yakushkin was put in charge of a team called Group North. Yakushkin put more emphasis and money into clandestine operations and was rewarded when they turned Ames into a double agent. Ames, who had worked for the CIA since 1962, and whose main duties had included contacting Soviet sources, was the crown jewel for Group North. His information destroyed almost the whole American intelligence program in Russia. Later, a Senate Intelligence Committee issued a report that harshly criticized the CIA leadership for their negligence in allowing Ames to get away with his subterfuge for so long.

1995 – France accused four American diplomats and a fifth U.S. citizen of spying, and asked them to leave the country.

1995 – The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, in existence from 1959 to 1972, is declassified. The Corona program was a series of American strategic reconnaissance satellites produced and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science & Technology with substantial assistance from the U.S. Air Force. The Corona satellites were used for photographic surveillance of the Soviet Union (USSR), the People’s Republic of China, and other areas beginning in June 1959 and ending in May 1972. There were 144 Corona satellites launched, of which 102 returned usable photographs.

February 22nd ~ {continued...}

1996 – The space shuttle “Columbia” blasted into orbit on a mission to unreel a satellite on the end of a 12.8-mile cord.

1996 – An F-14 crashed in the Persian Gulf. It was the 3rd this month and the 32nd since 1991. The navy says that record is not alarmingly high but ordered the entire fleet grounded for 72 hours to check for any common threads.

1998 – United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan reaches an agreement with senior Iraqi officials over U.N. inspections of suspected Iraqi weapons sites. The deal includes opening eight Iraqi presidential compounds to weapons inspectors, one of the major points of contention between Iraq and the U.N. Annan will now present the agreement to the U.N. Security Council for approval.

2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour and its crew of 6 returned to Cape Canaveral with over a weeks worth of radar images to map Earth.

2001 – A UN tribunal found 3 Bosnian Serbs guilty of crimes against humanity for the rape, torture and enslavement of Muslim women in Foca between 1992-1993. This was the first case of wartime sexual enslavement to go before an international court.

2003 – US Secretary of State, Colin Powell says there will be no war if Saddam Hussein leaves Iraq. An intelligence official tells The Washington Times that Saddam Hussein has started deploying his armed forces around Iraq in order to prevent the US from achieving a quick victory.

2005 – A Virginia man was charged with plotting with al-Qaida to kill President Bush. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was convicted on all counts in November 2005.

2005 – In Belgium a NATO summit announced a 12-year program to destroy Soviet-era weapons in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Pres. Viktor Yushchenko attended.

2005 – Interim Iraqi Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen as his Shiite ticket’s candidate for prime minister after Ahmad Chalabi dropped his bid.

2006 – The Askariyah Mosqe in Samarra is bombed. One of the Shiite holy places, the golden dome of the mosque is destroyed. The attack is a deliberate, and immediately successful attempt, by the Sunni al-Qaeda to stir up sectarian strife in Iraq in order to hamper efforts by the Iraqi government and the Coalition to rebuild. Sectarian violence expanded to a new level of intensity following the al-Askari Mosque bombing in the Iraqi city of Samarra .

Although no injuries occurred in the blast, the mosque was severely damaged and the bombing resulted in violence over the following days. Over 100 dead bodies with bullet holes were found on 23 February, and at least 165 people are thought to have been killed. In the aftermath of this attack the U.S. military calculated that the average homicide rate in Baghdad tripled from 11 to 33 deaths per day.

2007 – United States Army Sergeant Paul Cortez is sentenced to 100 years in prison with the possibility of parole after ten years for his role in the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the murder of her family.

2008 – The United States warns the Serbian government that it has a responsibility to protect its assets after about 1,000 protesters set fire to the U.S. embassy in anger at Kosovo’s declaration of independence.

2012 – US troops at Bagram Base disposed copies of the Quran that had been used by Taliban prisoners to write messages to each other. As part of the disposal parts of the books were burned. Afghan forces working at the base reported this, resulting in outraged Afghans besieging Bagram AFB, raining it with petrol bombs and stones. After five days of protest, 30 people had been killed, including four Americans.

February 23rd ~

1540 – Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado began his unsuccessful search for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold in the American Southwest. Antonio de Mendoza, Viceroy of Mexico, sent Francisco Coronado overland to search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola in present day New Mexico.

1665 – While the Second Anglo-Dutch War rages in Europe, the deputy of the Duke of York, Richard Nicolls, orders the annexation of all property belonging to the Dutch West India Company in what was formerly New Netherland.

1778 – Baron von Steuben joins the Continental Army at Valley Forge. Steuben did not speak English, but his French was such that he could communicate with some of the officers. Washington’s aide-de-camp, Alexander Hamilton as well as Nathanael Greene were a great help in this area. The two men assisted Steuben in drafting a training program for the soldiers which found approval with the Commander-in-Chief in March.

Steuben began with a “model company,” a group of 100 chosen men and trained them…they in turn successively worked outward into each brigade. Steuben’s eclectic personality greatly enhanced his mystique. He trained the soldiers, who at this point were greatly lacking in proper clothing themselves, in full military dress uniform, swearing and yelling at them up and down in German and French. When that was no longer successful, he recruited Captain Benjamin Walker, his French speaking aid to curse at them FOR HIM in English.

His instructions and methods have a familiar ring, nor is this strange when we consider that much of what is done today stems from his teachings. To correct the existing policy of placing recruits in a unit before they had received training, Von Steuben introduced a system of progressive training, beginning with the school of the soldier, with and without arms, and going through the school of the regiment. Each company commander was made responsible for the training of new men, but actually instruction was done by selected sergeants, the best obtainable.

1795 – U.S. Navy Office of Purveyor of Supplies is established. This is the Navy Supply Corps Birthday.

1822 – Boston was granted a charter to incorporate as a city.

1822 – Congress authorized the Revenue Cutter Service to protect the natural environment by preventing “scoundrels” from cutting live oak on Florida public lands.

1824 – Lewis Cass Hunt (d.1886), Brig General (Union volunteers), was born.

1836 – The Alamo is besieged by Santa Anna. Santa Ann has raised a n army of 6000 and leads 3000 in a siege of the Alamo where 187 Texans hold off the assault until 6 March when the Mexicans overwhelm the stronghold, killing all in William Travis’ garrison including Davy Crockett. The defense of the Alamo inspires other North American settlers to Independence for Texas.

1837 – Congress called for an inspection of the coast from Chesapeake Bay to the Sabine River “with regard to the location of additional light-houses, beacons, and buoys.” Captain Napoleon L. Coste, commanding the Revenue cutter Campbell was dispatched. He reported that the first addition to aids to navigation on this entire coast should be at Egmont Key, Tampa Bay. A lighthouse was authorized immediately and built the next year. The station (not the same tower) still exists as one of the three manned lights on the Gulf of Mexico.

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1838 – Gilbert Moxley Sorrel (d.1901), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.

1846 – The Liberty Bell tolled for the last time, to mark George Washington’s birthday. A hairline fracture had developed since 1817 and a failed attempt to repair it resulted in the crack.

1847 – U.S. troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican Gen. Santa Anna at the Battle of Buena Vista in Mexico. The United States and Mexico had been at war over territorial disputes since May 1846. The Battle of Buena Vista, also known as the Battle of Angostura, saw the United States (U.S.) Army use artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army in the Mexican–American War. Buena Vista, a village of the state of Coahuila, is seven miles (12 km) south of Saltillo, in northern Mexico.


1848 – John Quincy Adams, the sixth president of the United States (1825-1829), died of a stroke at age 80.

1861 – President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrives in Washington amid secrecy and tight security. With seven states having already seceded from the Union since Lincoln’s election, the threat of civil war hung in the air. Allen Pinkerton, head of a private detective agency, had uncovered a plot to assassinate Lincoln when he passed through Baltimore on his way to the capital. Lincoln and his advisors disagreed about how to respond to the threat.

Some, including Pinkerton, wanted Lincoln to slip secretly into Washington, which would mean skipping an address to the Pennsylvania legislature in Harrisburg. Lincoln did not want to appear cowardly, but he felt the threats were serious. Lincoln agreed to the covert arrival. With Pinkerton and Ward Hill Lamon, his former law partner, Lincoln slipped out of the hotel in Harrisburg on the evening of February 22nd.

He wore a soft felt hat instead of his customary stovepipe hat, and he draped an overcoat over his shoulders and hunched slightly to disguise his height. The group boarded a sleeper car and arrived in Baltimore in the middle of the night. The trio slipped undetected from the Calvert Street station to Camden station across town. There, they boarded another train and arrived without incident in Washington at 6:00 a.m.

On the platform, the party was surprised when a voice boomed, “Abe, you can’t play that on me.” It was Congressman Elihu B. Washburne, a friend of Lincoln’s from Illinois. Washburne escorted Lincoln to the Willard Hotel. A myth arose that Lincoln had dressed as a woman to avoid detection, but this was not the case. He did draw considerable criticism in the press for his unceremonious arrival.

Northern diarist George Templeton Strong commented that if convincing evidence of a plot did not surface, “the surreptitious nocturnal dodging…will be used to damage his moral position and throw ridicule on his Administration.” Lincoln later regretted the caper and commented to a friend “I did not then, nor do I now believe I should have been assassinated had I gone through Baltimore…” Regardless of how he had arrived, Lincoln was safely in Washington, ready to assume the difficult task ahead.

1861 – Texas by popular referendum became the 7th state to secede from the Union.

1865 – Fort White, guarding the entrance to Winyah Bay leading to Georgetown, S.C., was evacuated upon the approach of the naval squadron and was occupied by a detachment of Marines.

1870 – Post-U.S. Civil War military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.

1886 – Charles Martin Hall produced the first samples of man-made aluminum, after several years of intensive work. He was assisted in this project by his older sister Julia Brainerd Hall.

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1893 – Rudolf Diesel received a German patent for the diesel engine on this day. The diesel engine burns fuel oil rather than gasoline and differs from the gasoline engine in that it uses compressed air in the cylinder rather than a spark to ignite the fuel. Diesel engines were used widely in Europe for their efficiency and power, and are still used today in most heavy industrial machinery.

In 1977, General Motors (GM) became the first American car company to introduce diesel-powered automobiles. The diesel-powered Olds 88 and 98 models were 40 percent more fuel-efficient than their gas-powered counterparts. The idling and reduced power efficiency of the diesel engine is much greater than that of the spark engine. Diesel cars never caught on in the U.S., partly because the diesel engine’s greater efficiency is counter-balanced by its higher emissions of soot, odor, and air pollutants.

Today, the argument over which engine is more environmentally friendly is still alive; some environmentalists argue that in spite of the diesel engine’s exhaust pollution, its fuel efficiency may make it more environmentally sound than the gasoline engine in the long run.

1896 – Tootsie Roll was introduced by Leo Hirschfield. Tootsie rolls are still found in some of today’s MREs.

1900 – In the Philippines, Marine Captain Draper arranged with the gunboat USS Nashville, when it next came by on patrol, to shell the village of Benictican in retaliation for a raid on a marine water party 6 days before that had killed two Marines. After the bombardment, he entered the town with a force of 100 men and, finding it abandoned, destroyed it completely.

1903 – Cuba leases Guantánamo Bay to the United States “in perpetuity”. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (also called GTMO and pronounced gitmo by the US Military personnel stationed there) is located on 45 square miles (120 km2) of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which the United States leased for use as a coaling and naval station in the Cuban–American Treaty of 1903 (for $2,000 until 1934, for $4,085 since 1938 until now).

The base is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Naval Base, and the only U.S. military installation in a country with whom the United States has no diplomatic relations. Since 1959 the Cuban government has consistently protested against the US presence on Cuban soil. Since 2002, the naval base has contained a military prison, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, for alleged unlawful combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places.

1904 – US acquired control of the Panama Canal Zone for $10 million.1915 – Germany sank US ships Carib & Evelyn and torpedoed the Norwegian ship Regin.1916 – Secretary of State Lansing hinted that the U.S. might have to abandon the policy of avoiding “entangling foreign alliances”.

1919 – Fascist Party was formed in Italy by Benito Mussolini.

1919 – Launching of Osmond Ingram (DD-255), first Navy ship named for an enlisted man.

1926 – President Calvin Coolidge opposed a large air force, believing it would be a menace to world peace.

1927 – President Coolidge signed the Radio Act, a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission, forerunner of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover established the Federal Radio Commission to prevent interference among radio signals by allocating broadcast spectrum.

1940 – Woody Guthrie dated his song “this Land Is Your Land” to this day. His original title was “God Bless America.”

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1942 – A Japanese submarine shelled an oil refinery at Ellwood, near Santa Barbara, Calif., the first Axis bombs to hit American soil.

1943 – German troops pulled back through the Kasserine Pass in Tunisia.

1944 – American aircraft raid Rota, Tinian and Saipan. The US forces are from Task Group 58.3 (Sherman) and Task Group 58.2 (Montgomery). The attack sinks 20,000 tons of Japanese shipping.

1944 – Japanese resistance on Parry Island ends. American forces complete the occupation of Eniwetok Atoll. US losses are 300 killed and 750 wounded. The Japanese garrison has been wiped out. Out of 3400 troops, there are 66 prisoners.1945 – Eisenhower opened a large offensive in the Rhineland.

1945 – During the bloody Battle for Iwo Jima, U.S. Marines from the 3rd Platoon, E Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment, 5th Division take the crest of Mount Suribachi, the island’s highest peak and most strategic position, and raise the U.S. flag. Marine photographer Louis Lowery was with them and recorded the event. American soldiers fighting for control of Suribachi’s slopes cheered the raising of the flag, and several hours later more Marines headed up to the crest with a larger flag.

Joe Rosenthal, a photographer with the Associated Press, met them along the way and recorded the raising of the second flag along with a motion-picture cameraman. Rosenthal took three photographs atop Suribachi. The first, which showed five Marines and one Navy corpsman struggling to hoist the heavy flag pole, became the most reproduced photograph in history and won for him a Pulitzer Prize. The accompanying motion-picture footage attests to the fact that the picture was not posed.

Of the other two photos, the second was similar to the first but less affecting, and the third was a group picture of 18 soldiers smiling and waving for the camera. Many of these men, including three of the six soldiers seen raising the flag in the famous Rosenthal photo, were killed before the conclusion of the Battle for Iwo Jima in late March.

In early 1945, U.S. military command sought to gain control of the island of Iwo Jima in advance of the projected aerial campaign against the Japanese home islands. Iwo Jima, a tiny volcanic island located in the Pacific about 700 miles southeast of Japan, was to be a base for fighter aircraft and an emergency-landing site for bombers.

On February 19, 1945, after three days of heavy naval and aerial bombardment, the first wave of U.S. Marines stormed onto Iwo Jima’s inhospitable shores. The Japanese garrison on the island numbered 22,000 heavily entrenched men. Their commander, General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, had been expecting an Allied invasion for months and used the time wisely to construct an intricate and deadly system of underground tunnels, fortifications, and artillery that withstood the initial Allied bombardment.

By the evening of the first day, despite incessant mortar fire, 30,000 U.S. Marines commanded by General Holland Smith managed to establish a solid beachhead. During the next few days, the Marines advanced inch by inch under heavy fire from Japanese artillery and suffered suicidal charges from the Japanese infantry. Many of the Japanese defenders were never seen and remained underground manning artillery until they were blown apart by a grenade or rocket, or incinerated by a flame thrower.

While Japanese kamikaze flyers slammed into the Allied naval fleet around Iwo Jima, the Marines on the island continued their bloody advance across the island, responding to Kuribayashi’s lethal defenses with remarkable endurance. On February 23, the crest of 550-foot Mount Suribachi was taken, and the next day the slopes of the extinct volcano were secured.

By March 3, U.S. forces controlled all three airfields on the island, and on March 26 the last Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima were wiped out. Only 200 of the original 22,000 Japanese defenders were captured alive. More than 6,000 Americans died taking Iwo Jima, and some 17,000 were wounded.

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1945 – The US forces attacking in Manila resume their offensive after a new bombardment. The Japanese resistance is now largely confined to the old walled section of the town, the Intramuros, but the fighting there is very fierce.

1945 – A major new offensive by US First and Ninth Armies begins with heavy attacks along the Roer, especially in the Julich and Duren areas. The river is crossed in several places. The attacks are opposed by the German 5th Panzer and 15th Armies (both part of German Army Group B). Farther south, there are also attacks by units of US 3rd and 7th Armies.

1946 – Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita was hanged in Manila, the Philippines, for war crimes.

1947 – General Eisenhower opened a drive to raise $170M in aid for European Jews.

1947 – Several hundred Nazi organizers were arrested in Frankfurt by U.S. and British forces.

1951 – The first B-29 mission using the more accurate MPQ-2 radar bombed a highway bridge seven miles northeast of Seoul.

1952 – Air Force Major William T. Whisner, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, flying his F-86 Sabre “Elenore E,” destroyed his fifth MiG-15 to become the war’s seventh ace and his wing’s first.

1954 – The first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began in Pittsburgh. Jonas Salk created the Salk vaccine against polio. It used a killed virus to induce immunization. Poliomyelitis is a viral attack of the central nervous system and can cause paralysis and death by asphyxiation.

1955 – In the first council meeting of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles declares the United States is committed to defending the region from communist aggression.

1967 – The 25th amendment, on presidential succession, was declared ratified.

1967 – American troops began the largest offensive of the war, near the Cambodian border. In order to deny the Vietcong cover, and allow men to see through the dense vegetation, herbicides were dumped on the forests near the South Vietnamese borders as well as Cambodia and Laos. 1969 – Pres. Nixon approved the bombing of Cambodia.

1971 – Lt. William Calley confessed and implicated Captain Ernest Medina in My Lai massacre. Lt. Calley was the only one to be court marshaled.

1971 – In Operation Lam Son 719, the South Vietnamese advance into Laos grinds to a halt. The operation began on February 8. It included a limited incursion by South Vietnamese forces into Laos to disrupt the communist supply and infiltration network in Laos along Route 9 adjacent to the two northern provinces of South Vietnam. The operation was supported by U.S. airpower (aviation and airlift) and artillery (firing across the border from firebases inside South Vietnam). Observers described the drive on Hanoi’s supply routes and depots as some of the “bloodiest fighting” of the war.

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1974 – The Symbionese Liberation Army demands $4 million more to release kidnap victim Patty Hearst.

1980 – Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini states that Iran’s parliament will decide the fate of the American embassy hostages removing responsibility for them from the students that had seized the US embassy the previous November.

1990 – James Gavin (82), commandant US 82nd Airborne Division (Normandy), died.

1991 – President Bush announced that the allied ground offensive against Iraqi forces had begun (because of the time difference, it was already the early morning of February 24th in the Persian Gulf). The war’s ground phase was officially designated Operation Desert Saber. The U.S. VII Corps, in full strength and spearheaded by the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, launched an armored attack into Iraq just to the west of Kuwait, taking Iraqi forces by surprise.

Simultaneously, the U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps launched a sweeping “left-hook” attack across southern Iraq’s largely undefended desert, led by the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized). This movement’s left flank was protected by France’s 6th Light Armoured Division Daguet. The movement’s right flank was protected by the United Kingdom’s 1st Armoured Division.

1993 – President Clinton won United Nations support for a plan to airdrop relief supplies to starving Bosnians during an Oval Office meeting with Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

1996 – Former National Security Agency employee Robert Stephan Lipka was arrested and charged with espionage. This was 30 years after Lipka stopped working for NSA and 22 years after his last contact with the KGB. The arrest was possible because the statute of limitations does not apply to espionage. No matter how long ago an offense occurred, a traitor can still be prosecuted.

Lipka was sentenced in 1997 to 18 years in prison. While in the United States Army, Lipka was assigned to the National Security Agency (NSA) at Ft. Meade, Maryland from 1965 to 1967. His principal assignment was to remove classified NSA documents from teleprinters and distribute them to the appropriate departments. He photographed these documents with a camera provided by the Soviets and dropped off the film in a park for payments of up to $1,000 per drop. He allegedly received a total of $27,000 from the KGB.

Lipka left the military and moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in August 1967, where he attended college at a local university. The FBI affidavit states that Lipka took NSA documents with him when he left his Army position, and that he met with Soviet representatives as late as 1974. Lipka’s betrayal came to the attention of U.S. investigators in 1993 after Lipka’s ex-wife went to authorities and told them he had sold NSA material to the Soviets.

1996 – Two Iraqi defectors were killed in Baghdad, reportedly by members of their own clan who accused them of betraying Saddam Hussein by fleeing to Jordan. The Iraqi News Agency reported that Lieutenant General Hussein Kamel al-Majid and his brother Saddam Kamel al-Majid, a pair of defectors who were also the sons-in-law of Saddam Hussein, were killed by clan members after returning to their homeland. Their bodies are dragged through the streets of Baghdad as a warning to those who would defy Saddam.

February 23rd ~ {continued...}

1997 – Ali Hassan Abu Kamal, a Palestinian teacher, opened fire on the 86th-floor observation deck of New York City’s Empire State Building, killing one person and wounding six others before shooting himself to death.

1998 – President Clinton gave cautious approval to a U.N. agreement reached by Secretary-General Kofi Annan with Saddam Hussein for monitoring suspected weapons sites in Iraq.

1998 – Osama bin Laden declared a holy war on the US. The Al Quds Al-Arabi newspaper published a statement that announced an alliance between Dr. Zawahri, head of the Egyptian Jihad, and Osama bin Laden. “We—with God’s help—call on every Muslim…to comply with God’s order to kill Americans.”

1999 – Serbs agreed in principle to give limited self-rule to majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, thereby temporarily heading off NATO air strikes, but during their talks in Rambouillet, France, the two sides failed to conclude a deal for ending their yearlong conflict.

2001 – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered an indefinite moratorium on civilian visitors operating military equipment, a possible factor in the collision of a U.S. submarine collision with a Japanese fishing boat.

2001 – President Bush opened a two-day summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at Camp David. They endorsed a European rapid-action force as long as it is secondary to NATO.

2003 – In Iraq Saddam Hussein met separately with Russian Yevgeny Primakov and former US Attorney General. Ramsay Clark. Clark said Hussein feared that Pres. Bush had made up his mind to attack and that there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

2003 – The Honolulu-based Coast Guard cutter Walnut was ordered to the Middle East in preparation for a war against Iraq.

2003 – A senior Iraqi officer tells reporters that Iraq is considering the request to destroy its missiles but is worried about leaving itself exposed in the event of a US attack.

2004 – Pentagon officials opened a criminal fraud investigation of Halliburton on fuel overpricing in Iraq.

2004 – The US Army cancelled a $39 billion Comanche helicopter program after spending $6.9 billion. Boeing and Sikorsky were the main contractors.

2004 – Rebels who overran Haiti’s second-largest city began detaining people identified as supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and said they soon will attack Haiti’s capital. Fifty combat-ready U.S. Marines were on their way to Port-au-Prince to secure the U.S. Embassy and its staff.

2005 – Colombia’s Supreme Court authorized the extradition to the US of Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, who along with his brother Gilberto helped found the Cali drug cartel.

2007 – The United States and South Korea reach agreement to return control over South Korea’s military to South Korea by 2012.

2008 – A U.S. Air Force B-2 Spirit bomber crashes on Guam. It is the first operational loss of a B-2 bomber.

2012 – Wiki Leaks suspect United States Army Private Bradley Manning is formally charged ahead of a court martial.

2013 – The United States Air Force grounds its entire $400 billion fleet of 51 F-35 jets due to a major engine technical issue. During a routine inspection of the aircraft, maintenance personnel detected a cracked engine blade.

February 24th ~

1582 – Pope Gregory XIII issued a papal bull, or edict, outlining his calendar reforms. The old Julian Calendar had an error rate of one day in every 128 years. This was corrected in the Gregorian Calendar of Pope Gregory XIII, but Protestant countries did not accept the change till 1700 and later.

1761 – James Otis voices opposition to English colonial rule in a speech before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. In 1761 the merchants of Boston hired attorney James Otis to give a speech against the writs of assistance a general warrant which was issued for the life of the sovereign to search “any House, shop, Cellar, Warehouse or Room or other Place. Customs officers could ask anyone to help with the writ, which was the reason for its name.

Young attorney John Adams, who later became the second President of the United States, heard the speech, and was so inspired by it that he wrote a provision for the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights based on the arguments Mr. Otis made. The language later formed the basic language of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The battle against the writs of assistance, and the Otis speech, was one of the major opening chapters in the American colonists’ struggles against tax tyranny that led to the American Revolution. The speech generated much excitement.

1786 – Charles Cornwallis, whose armies had surrendered to US at Yorktown, was appointed governor-general of India.

1803 – The Supreme Court ruled itself the final interpreter of constitutional issues. Chief Justice John Marshall, by refusing to rule on the case of Marbury vs. Madison, asserted the authority of the judicial branch. The US Supreme Court 1st ruled a law unconstitutional (Marbury v Madison).

1813 – Off Guiana’s Demerara River, the American 18-gun sloop Hornet under Captain James Lawrence sinks the 20-gun British sloop Peacock. Hornet suffered few damages or casualties, but Peacock was so badly shattered that it sank during the transfer of prisoners.

1831 – The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty in accordance with the Indian Removal Act, is proclaimed. The Choctaws in Mississippi cede land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West. The treaty ceded about 11 million acres (45,000 km2) of the Choctaw Nation (now Mississippi) in exchange for about 15 million acres (61,000 km2) in the Indian territory (now the state of Oklahoma).

The principal Choctaw negotiators were Chief Greenwood LeFlore, Musholatubbee, and Nittucachee; the U.S. negotiators were Colonel John Coffee and Secretary of War John Eaton. The site of the signing of this treaty is in the southwest corner of Noxubee County; the site was known to the Choctaw as Bok Chukfi Ahilha (creek “bok” rabbit “chukfi” place to dance “a+hilha” or Dancing Rabbit Creek). The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was the last major land cession treaty signed by the Choctaw. With ratification by the U.S. Congress in 1831, the treaty allowed those Choctaw who chose to remain in Mississippi to become the first major non-European ethnic group to gain recognition as U.S. citizens.

February 24th ~ {continued...}

1836 – Texian Colonel William Travis sends a desperate plea for help for the besieged defenders of the Alamo, ending the message with the famous last words, “Victory or Death.” Travis’ path to the Alamo began five years earlier when he moved to the Mexican state of Texas to start fresh after a failed marriage in Alabama. Trained as a lawyer, he established a law office in Anahuac, where he quickly gained a reputation for his willingness to defy the local Mexican officials.

In 1832, a minor confrontation with the Mexican government landed Travis in jail. When he was freed a month later, many Anglo settlers hailed him as a hero. As Anglo-American resentment toward the Mexican government grew, Travis was increasingly viewed as a strong leader among those seeking an independent Texan republic. When the Texas revolution began in 1835, Travis joined the revolutionary army. In February 1836, he was made a lieutenant colonel and given command of the regular Texas troops in San Antonio.

On February 23, the Mexican army under Santa Ana arrived in the city unexpectedly. Travis and his troops retreated to the Alamo, an old Spanish mission and fortress, where they were soon joined by James Bowie’s volunteer force. The Mexican army of 5,000 soldiers badly outnumbered the several hundred defenders of the Alamo. Their determination was fierce, though, and when Santa Ana asked for their surrender the following day, Travis answered with a cannon shot. Furious, Santa Ana began a siege. Recognizing he was doomed to defeat without reinforcements, Travis dispatched via couriers several messages asking for help. The most famous was addressed to “The People of Texas and All Americans in the World” and was signed “Victory or Death.”

Unfortunately, it was to be death for the defenders: only 32 men from nearby Gonzales responded to Travis’ call for reinforcements. On March 6, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo and Travis, Bowie, and about 190 of their comrades were killed. The Texans made Santa Ana pay for his victory, though, having claimed at least 600 of his men during the attack. Although Travis’ defense of the Alamo was a miserable failure militarily, symbolically it was a tremendous success.

“Remember the Alamo” quickly became the rallying cry for the Texas revolution. By April, Travis’ countrymen had beaten the Mexicans and won their independence. Travis’ daring defiance of the overwhelmingly superior Mexican forces has since become the stuff of myth, and a facsimile of his famous call for help is on permanent display at the Texas State Library in Austin.

1838 – Thomas Benton Smith, Brig. General (Confederate Army), was born in Mechanicsville, Tennessee. He was wounded at Stone’s River/Murfreesboro and again at Chickamauga. He was captured at the Battle of Nashville (1864) where he was beaten over the head with a sword by Col. William Linn McMillen of the 95th Ohio Infantry. His brain was exposed and it was believed he would die. He recovered partially and spent the last 47 years of his life in the State Asylum in Nashville, Tennessee, where he died on May 21, 1923. He’s buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Davidson County, Tennessee.

February 24th ~ {continued...}

1841 – John Phillip Holland, inventor of the modern submarine, is born to John and Mary Scanlon Holland in Liscannor, County Clare, Ireland. His mother was an Irish speaker, so John and his brothers learned English only after they were old enough to attend school. The Potato Famine made County Clare was a rough place to be living during the 1840s but the Holland family was secure in their home because their father was a Coast Guard provided with a government house as part of his earnings for patrolling the Irish coast on horseback. Still, they did not escape the tragedy as John’s younger brother Robert died of Cholera in 1847. His father also died in the 1840s and his mother moved with her three remaining sons to Limerick in 1853.

John began his education in the National School system and likely continued it at the Christian Brothers School. The Christian Brothers encouraged his interest in science and inventions, particularly Brother Dominic Burke who encouraged him in his early research. He eventually joined the Christian Brothers and became a teacher in their schools, continuing to work on his submarine designs. Ill health forced him to resign from the order in 1873. He left Ireland, joining his mother and brothers in Boston, Massachusetts.

Before long, John left his family to teach at St. John’s school in Paterson, New Jersey. Once in New Jersey, Holland began work on a submarine design and entered a Navy submarine design contest. His brother Michael was active in the Fenian Brotherhood and introduced the inventor to the revolutionary group.

The Fenians’ goal was to develop a small submarine that could be sealifted on a large merchant ship to an area near an unsuspecting British warship. The submarine would then be released from the bottom of the merchant vessel, attack the warship and return to its base. The Fenians believed in Holland enough that they funded his research and development expenses at a level that allowed him to resign from his teaching post. The result of his efforts was the Fenian Ram that was launched in 1881. Holland and the Fenians had several disagreements and they parted company, leaving Holland to seek other sources of funding for his work.

Holland’s next boat (Holland IV) was built during his tenure at the Zalinski Pneumatic Gun Company. Then, in 1888, Holland entered and won a U.S. Navy submarine design competition. His design wasn’t funded but he entered, and won, another competition in 1890. He formed the Holland Motor Torpedo Boat Company and set out to build the Plunger for the U.S. Navy. He and the Navy’s engineers disagreed over the design and sadly the project was a failure. Turning again to private funding for his ventures, Holland built another ship which would be known as Holland VI. Facing financial ruin, he sold his company to the Electric Boat Company (now part of General Dynamics) and eventually the Navy bought the Holland VI for $150,000, about half of its design cost.

In the process, however, Holland forfeited rights to most of his patents and when he and the Electric Boat Company had a falling out he was limited in his efforts to continue his work. The Navy renamed his boat the USS Holland. Other countries, including Great Britain, Japan and the Netherlands, purchased Holland’s submarine designs. Holland died in August 1914, just months before a German submarine sank a British vessel at the start of World War I. He died a poor man, with recognition of his contributions coming years after his death.

February 24th ~ {continued...}

1863 – Arizona was organized as a territory. The Arizona Territory was an organized territory of the United States that existed until 1912, when the state of Arizona was admitted to the US. The territory was created after numerous debates about splitting the New Mexico Territory. During the American Civil War, the United States and the Confederate States had different motives for dividing the New Mexico Territory. Each claimed a territory named Arizona that was a portion of the former New Mexico Territory. The two Arizona territories played a significant role in the western campaign of the Civil War.

1863 – Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest made a raid on Brentwood, Tennessee.

1863 – C.S.S. William H. Webb and Queen of the West, with C.S.S. Beatty in company, engaged U.S.S. Indianola, Lieutenant Commander G. Brown, below Wartenton, Mississippi. The Confederate squadron, under Major Joseph L. Brent, CSA, had reached Grand Gulf just 4 hours behind the Northern vessel which was returning upstream to communicate with Rear Admiral Porter above Vicksburg. Knowing his speed was considerably greater than that of Indianola, Brent determined to attempt overtaking the ironclad and attacking her that night.

Shortly before 10 pm the Confederate vessels were seen from Indianola and Brown “immediately cleared for action. . . Queen of the West opened the action, attempting to ram the Indianola; she knifed into the coal barge lashed to the ship’s port side and cut it in two but did little damage to Indianola. Webb dashed up and rammed Indianola at full speed. The impact swung Indianola around; Queen of the West again struck only a glancing blow. Queen of the West maneuvered into a position to ram, this time astern, and succeeded in shattering the framework of the starboard wheelhouse and loosening iron plating.

At this time Webb completed circling upstream in order to gain momentum and rammed Indianola, crushing the starboard wheel, disabling the starboard rudder, and starting a number of leaks.
Being in what Brown termed “an almost powerless condition,” Indianola was allowed to fill with water to assure her sinking, run on to the west bank of the river and surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Frederick B. Brand of C.S.S. Beatty, which had been “hovering round to enter the fight when an opportunity offered.

1863 – A deserter from Confederate receiving ship Selma gave the following information about submarine experiments and operations being conducted by Horace L. Hunley, James R. McClintock, B. A. Whitney, and others, at Mobile, where the work was transferred following the fall of New Orleans to Rear Admiral Farragut: ”On or about the 14th an infernal machine, consisting of a submarine boat propelled by a screw which is turned by hind, capable of holding five persons. and having a torpedo which was to be attached to the bottom of the vessel, left Fort Morgan at 8 p.m. in charge of a Frenchman who invented it.

The invention was to come up at Sand Island, get the bearing and distance of the neatest vessel.” He added that this failed but that other attempts would be made. This submarine went down in rough weather off Fort Morgan, but no lives were lost. Hunley and his colleagues built another in the machine shop of Park and Lyons, Mobile; this was to be the celebrated H. P. Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat.

1864 – Union General George Thomas attacks Joseph Johnston’s Confederates near Dalton, Georgia, as the Yankees probe Johnston’s defenses in search of a weakness. Thomas found the position too strong and he ceased the offensive the next day, but the Yankees learned a lesson they would apply during the Atlanta campaign that summer.