September 30th ~

1541 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his forces enter Tula territory in present-day western Arkansas, encountering fierce resistance.

1777 – The Congress of the United States, forced to flee in the face of advancing British forces, moved to York, Pennsylvania.

1800 – U.S. concludes treaty of peace with France, ending Quasi War with France.

1857 – Unable to obtain trading privileges in Vietnam through diplomacy, the French begin their campaign to take Vietnam. They attack Danang and take the city in early 1858. This fails to foment the uprising of oppressed Christians that they had expected. Decimated by disease, they push south to take Saigon by 1861. Vietnam is divided by a strong popular rebellion in the north, and under the weak Emperor Tu Duc, regional risings against the French are never coordinated successfully. Hanoi falls in 1883.

1864 – Confederate troops failed to retake Fort Harrison from the Union forces during the siege of Petersburg.

1864 – In an attempt to cut the last rail line into Petersburg, Virginia, Union troops attack the Confederate defense around the besieged city. Although initially successful, the attack ground to a halt when Confederate reinforcements were rushed into place from other sections of the Petersburg line. This battle came after more than three months of trench warfare. Union commander General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate commander General Robert E. Lee had fought a costly and fast-moving campaign in the spring, but by June they had settled into trenches around Petersburg. The lines extended all the way to Richmond, 25 miles north of Petersburg. Grant had made sporadic attacks to break the stalemate, and this battle was yet another attempt to drive Lee’s men from the trenches.

1899 – First Navy wireless message sent via Lighthouse Service Station at Highlands of Navesink, New Jersey.

1924 – Allies stopped checking on the German Navy and it's clandestine growth.

1932 – Marine Lt. General Lewis Burwell “Chesty” Puller won his second of five Navy Crosses.

1938 – Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, French Premier Edouard Daladier, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sign the Munich Pact, which seals the fate of Czechoslovakia, virtually handing it over to Germany in the name of peace. Upon return to Britain, Chamberlain would declare that the meeting had achieved “peace in our time.” Although the agreement was to give into Hitler’s hands only the Sudentenland, that part of Czechoslovakia where 3 million ethnic Germans lived, it also handed over to the Nazi war machine 66 percent of Czechoslovakia’s coal, 70 percent of its iron and steel, and 70 percent of its electrical power. It also left the Czech nation open to complete domination by Germany. In short, the Munich Pact sacrificed the autonomy of Czechoslovakia on the altar of short-term peace-very short term.

1939 – Germany and Russia secretly agreed to partition Poland.

1943 – The Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps became the Women’s Army Corps, a regular contingent of the U.S. Army with the same status as other army service corps.

1946 – U.S. Government announces that U.S. Navy units would be permanently stationed in the Mediterranean to carry out American policy and diplomacy.

1946 – An international military tribunal in Nuremberg, Germany, found 22 top Nazi leaders guilty of war crimes. Ribbentrop and Goering were sentenced to death.

1949 – After 15 months and more than 250,000 flights, the Berlin Airlift officially comes to an end. The airlift was one of the greatest logistical feats in modern history and was one of the crucial events of the early Cold War. In June 1948, the Soviet Union suddenly blocked all ground traffic into West Berlin, which was located entirely within the Russian zone of occupation in Germany. It was an obvious effort to force the United States, Great Britain, and France (the other occupying powers in Germany) to accept Soviet demands concerning the postwar fate of Germany. As a result of the Soviet blockade, the people of West Berlin were left without food, clothing, or medical supplies.

1949 – The rank of commodore, established in 1943 as a wartime measure, was terminated by the President under the provisions of an Act of Congress approved 24 July 1941.

1950 – U.N. forces crossed the 38th parallel separating North and South Korea as they pursued the retreating North Korean Army.

1954 – The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy. The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus’ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955. Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots. In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and in August 1958 accomplished the first voyage under the geographic North Pole. After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut.

1954 – NATO nations agreed to arm and admit West Germany.

1959 – Last flight of airshps assigned to the Naval Air Reserve at Lakehurst, NJ takes place.

1961 – A bill for the 1773 Boston Tea Party was paid by Mayor Snyder of Oregon. He wrote a check for $196, the total cost of all tea lost.

1965 – The Lockheed L-100, the civilian version of the C-130 Hercules, is introduced.

1968 – USS New Jersey, the world’s only active battleship, arrives in Vietnamese waters and begins bombarding the Demilitarized Zone from her station off the Vietnamese coast.

1969 – Nazi war criminals Albert Speer, the German minister of armaments, and Baldur von Schirach, the founder of the Hitler Youth, were freed at midnight from Spandau prison after serving twenty-year prison sentences.

1975 – The Hughes (later McDonnell Douglas, now Boeing) AH-64 Apache makes its first flight. The Boeing AH-64 Apache is a four-blade, twin-engine attack helicopter with a tail wheel-type landing gear arrangement, and a tandem cockpit for a two-man crew. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night vision systems. It is armed with a 30 mm (1.18 in) M230 Chain Gun carried between the main landing gear, under the aircraft’s forward fuselage. It has four hard points mounted on stub-wing pylons, typically carrying a mixture of AGM-114 Hellfire missiles and Hydra 70 rocket pods. The AH-64 has a large amount of systems redundancy to improve combat survivability. The helicopter was introduced to U.S. Army service in April 1986. The first production AH-64D Apache Longbow, an upgraded Apache variant, was delivered to the Army in March 1997. Production has been continued by Boeing Defense, Space & Security; over 2,000 AH-64s have been produced to date. The U.S. Army is the primary operator of the AH-64.

1977 – Because of US budget cuts and dwindling power reserves, the Apollo program’s ALSEP experiment packages left on the Moon are shut down. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) comprised a set of scientific instruments placed by the astronauts at the landing site of each of the five Apollo missions to land on the Moon following Apollo 11 (Apollos 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17). Apollo 11 left a smaller package called the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, or EASEP.

1980 – Ethernet specifications are published by Xerox working with Intel and Digital Equipment Corporation. Ethernet /ˈiːθərnɛt/ is a family of computer networking technologies for local area (LAN) and larger networks. It was first standardized in 1983 as IEEE 802.3, and has since been refined to support higher bit rates and longer link distances. Over time, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies such as token ring, FDDI, and ARCNET. The primary alternative for contemporary LANs is not a wired standard, but instead a variety of IEEE 802.11 standards also known as Wi-Fi.

1989 – Thousands of East Germans who had sought refuge in West German embassies in Czechoslovakia and Poland began emigrating under an accord between Soviet bloc and NATO nations.

1992 – Congress approved a bill requiring the release of nearly all government files concerning the assassination of President Kennedy.

1992 – Marine Barracks, Subic Bay, Philippines, was disestablished. The Naval Base had been used by Americans for many years.

1993 – MS Dos 6.2 was released.

1994 – The space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronauts roared into orbit on an 11-day mission.

1996 – The United States Congress passes the Lautenburg Amendment that bars the possession of firearms for people who were convicted of domestic violence, even misdemeanor level.

2001 – Leaders of the Taliban said they had Osama bin Laden “under our control,” but would release him to the US only if shown proof that he plotted the Sep 11 attacks. Pres. Bush said he would not negotiate.

2004 – The Arab news network Al-Jazeera showed video of 10 new hostages seized in Iraq by militants.

2004 – The AIM-54 Phoenix, the primary missile for the F-14 Tomcat, is retired from service. Almost two years later, the Tomcat weapons platform is retired.

2010 – China and the United States officially resume military ties after a 10-month break following US arms sales to Taiwan, with the two countries emphasizing the importance of a close military dialogue.

2011 – In a US drone strike, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki is reported killed in Yemen.

2014 – A case of the Ebola Virus is being treated in the American city of Dallas, Texas.

October 1st ~

1768 – English troops under General Gage landed in Boston. Soldiers drawn chiefly from the 14th and 29th Infantry Regiments, and numbering about 700 men, landed at Boston without opposition.

1781 – The youngest of eleven children, James Lawrence was born in Burlington, NJ. His parents were Tories who had entertained the Hessian commander as a dinner guest at their home during the Revolution, but when the war ended, they remained in America. James was sent to study law at the age of 13, but proved an uncooperative student. Eventually, he was permitted to join the Navy as a midshipman in 1798, and gained experience in action against the Barbary pirates.

Commissioned a Lieutenant in 1802, he was a member of Stephen Decatur’s raiding party which destroyed the U.S.S. Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor after it was captured by the Tripolitans in 1804. During the War of 1812, Lawrence commanded the U.S.S. Hornet, which captured the H.M.S. Peacock, and was promoted to Captain as a result.

On June 1, 1813, commanding a new and untrained crew on the 49-gun frigate U.S.S. Chesapeake off Boston, Lawrence accepted a challenge from Philip Bowes Vere Broke, captain of the 38-gun H.M.S. Shannon. Four years Lawrence’s senior, Broke had commanded the Shannon for six years, and had the best trained crew in the Royal Navy. In less than 15 minutes, Lawrence’s crew was overwhelmed. Mortally wounded, Lawrence shouted, “Tell the men to fire faster and not to give up the ship; fight her till she sinks!” True to his words, every officer in the Chesapeake’s chain of command fought until he was either killed or wounded. Even so, the battle was lost in under an hour, the Chesapeake was captured, and Lawrence died four days later, leaving his wife and a daughter.

In honor of Captain Lawrence, a group of women stitched the words “Don’t Give Up The Ship” into a flag. The flag was presented to Oliver Hazard Perry, commander of the U.S.S. Lawrence – named for Captain Lawrence – in the summer of 1813. Perry went on to capture an entire squadron of British ships in the battle of Lake Erie, on September 13, though not before every officer on the Lawrence – except for Perry and his 13-year-old brother – was either killed or wounded. Lawrence’s words became the motto of the U.S. Navy, which has named numerous ships in his honor, and Perry’s flag now hangs in a place of honor at the United States Naval Academy. Copies may be seen at other Navy installations and, of course, in Burlington. Far less well known is Lawrence’s last command to his crew – “Burn her!”

1844 – Naval Observatory headed by LT Matthew Fontaine Maury occupies first permanent quarters. Founded in 1830 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments, the Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the country. As a service organization, one of its first tasks was the calibration of ship’s chronometers, which was accomplished by timing the transit of stars across the meridian. In 1855 the astronomical and nautical almanacs were started. From these service-oriented beginnings, USNO continues to be responsive to the fleet, DoD, and national needs through provision of applied astrometry and timing products and services.

1878 – General Lew Wallace was sworn in as governor of New Mexico Territory. He went on to deal with the Lincoln County War, the outlaw Billy the Kid and wrote the book Ben-Hur.

1880 – John Philip Sousa started his 12-year tour as director of the US Marine Band. He premiered many of his marches and produced the first commercial phonograph recordings.

1890 – Congress created the Weather Bureau, moving the Weather Warning Service from the US Army Signal Corps to the Department of Agriculture.

1928 – First class at school for enlisted Navy and Marine Corps Radio intercept operators (The “On the roof gang”)

1934 – Adolph Hitler expanded the German army and navy and created an air force, violating Treaty of Versailles.

1936 – General Francisco Franco was proclaimed the head of an insurgent Spanish state.

1938 – Germany annexed Sudetenland (1/3 of Czech Republic) as a result of the Munich Conference between Germany, England and France.

1942 – Bell P-59 Airacomet fighter, 1st US jet, made its maiden flight. Development of the P-59, America’s first jet-propelled airplane, was ordered personally by General H. H. Arnold on September 4, 1941. The project was conducted under the utmost secrecy, with Bell building the airplane and General Electric the engine. The first P-59 was completed in mid-1942 and it made its initial flight at Muroc Dry Lake (now Edwards Air Force Base), California. One year later, the airplane was ordered into production, to be powered by I-14 and I-16 engines, improved versions of the original I-A. Bell produced 66 P-59s.
Although the airplane’s performance was not spectacular and it never got into combat, the P-59 provided training for AAF personnel and invaluable data for subsequent development of higher performance jet airplanes.

1946 – Twelve Nazi war criminals were sentenced to be hanged at Nuremberg trials– Karl Donitz, Hermann Goring, Alfred Jodl, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachin von Ribbentrop, Fritz Saukel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, Julius Streicher, and Alfred Rosenberg. Karl Donitz was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

1947 – The North American F-86 Sabre flies for the first time. The North American F-86 Sabre — sometimes called the Sabrejet — was a transonic jet fighter aircraft. Produced by North American Aviation, the Sabre is best known as the United States’ first swept wing fighter which could counter the similarly-winged Soviet MiG-15 in high-speed dogfights over the skies of the Korean War (1950-53). Considered one of the best and most important fighter aircraft in that war, the F-86 is also rated highly in comparison with fighters of other eras.
Although it was developed in the late 1940s and was outdated by the end of the ’50s, the Sabre proved versatile and adaptable, and continued as a front-line fighter in numerous air forces until the last active operational examples were retired by the Bolivian Air Force in 1994. Its success led to an extended production run of more than 7,800 aircraft between 1949 and 1956, in the U.S., Japan and Italy. Variants were built in Canada and Australia. The Sabre was by far the most-produced Western jet fighter, with total production of all variants at 9,860 units.

1951 – The all-African-American 24th Infantry Regiment and 159th Field Artillery Battalion, 25th Infantry Division, were disbanded and the personnel reassigned to formerly all-white units. Other formerly all-African-American units were infused with white soldiers, thus beginning racial integration in the Army.

1955 – Commissioning of USS Forrestal (CVA-59), first of postwar super carriers. Forrestal (CVA-59) was launched 11 December 1954 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. Newport News, Va.; sponsored by Mrs. James V Forrestal, widow of Secretary Forrestal; and commissioned 1 October 1955, Captain R. L. Johnson in command. From her home port, Norfolk, Va., Forrestal spent the first year of her commissioned service in intensive training operations off the Virginia Capes and in the Caribbean. An important assignment was training aviators in the use of her advance d facilities, a duty on which she often operated out of Mayport, Fla. On 7 November 1956, she put to sea from Mayport to operate in the eastern Atlantic during the Suez Crisis ready to enter the Mediterranean should her great strength be necessary. She returned to Norfolk 12 December to prepare for her first deployment with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean, for which she sailed 15 January 1957.
On this, as on her succeeding tours of duty in the Mediterranean, Forrestal visited many ports to allow dignitaries and the general public to come aboard and view the tremendous power for peace she represented. For military observers, she sta ged underway demonstrations to illustrate her capacity to bring air power to and from the sea in military operations on any scale. She returned to Norfolk 22 July 1957 for exercises off the North Carolina coast in preparation for her first NATO Operation, “Strikeback,” in the North Sea.

1958 – Inauguration of NASA. Formed as a result of the Sputnik crisis of confidence, NASA inherited the earlier National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), and other government organizations, and almost immediately began working on options for human space flight. NASA’s first high profile program was Project Mercury, an effort to learn if humans could survive in space, followed by Project Gemini, which built upon Mercury’s successes and used spacecraft built for two astronauts. NASA’s human space flight efforts then extended to the Moon with Project Apollo, culminating in 1969 when the Apollo 11 mission first put humans on the lunar surface. After the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz Test Projects of the early and mid-1970s, NASA’s human space flight efforts again resumed in 1981, with the Space Shuttle program that continues today to help build the International Space Station.
Building on its NACA roots, NASA has continued to conduct many types of cutting-edge aeronautics research on aerodynamics, wind shear, and other important topics using wind tunnels, flight testing, and computer simulations. NASA’s highly successful X-15 program involved a rocket-powered airplane that flew above the atmosphere and then glided back to Earth unpowered, providing Shuttle designers with much useful data.

1961 – The United States Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is formed, becoming the country’s first centralized military espionage organization. As one of the principal members of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), DIA informs national civilian and defense policymakers about the military intentions and capabilities of foreign governments and non-state actors, while also providing department-level intelligence assistance and coordination to individual military service intelligence components and the warfighter. The agency’s role encompasses collection and analysis of defense-related foreign political, economic, industrial, geographic, and medical and health intelligence. As part of its national IC responsibilities, DIA regularly provides input for the President’s Daily Brief. DIA is also designated a national manager for the highly technical measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT). The agency has no law enforcement authority, although it is occasionally portrayed so in American popular culture. Established under President John F. Kennedy by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, DIA has been at the forefront of U.S. intelligence efforts throughout the Cold War and rapidly expanded, both in size and scope, since the September 11 attacks. Due to the sensitive nature of its work, the spy organization has been embroiled in numerous controversies, including those related to its intelligence-gathering activities, its role in enhanced interrogations, as well as attempts to expand its activities on U.S. soil.

1979 – US returned the Canal Zone ( but not the canal ) to Panama after 75 years.

1979 – President Jimmy Carter awards the Congressional Space Medal of Honor to former naval aviators Neil Armstrong, CAPT Charles Conrad, Jr., USN (Ret.), COL John Glenn, USMC (Ret.), and RADM Alan Shepard, Jr., USN (Ret.)

1990 – Air Force General and VP candidate Curtis E. LeMay died at March Air Force Base, California, at age 83. General Curtis Emerson Lemay was the “Father of the Strategic Air Command.” When he left the command in 1957 to assume his new job as Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, SAC was the most powerful military force the world had ever seen. He is buried in the United States Air Force Academy Cemetery at Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1990 – USS Independence (CV-62) enters Persian Gulf (first carrier in Persian Gulf since 1974)

1991 – The CGC Storis became the oldest commissioned cutter in the Coast Guard when the Fir was decommissioned. The cutter’s crew painted her hull number “38” in gold in recognition of her status.

1995 – France detonated another nuclear device, 5 times more powerful than the last one, on Fangatouga Atoll in the South Pacific.

1996 – A federal grand jury indicted Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski in 1994 mail bomb slaying of an ad executive.

1996 – NASA began turning over day-to-day shuttle operations to private industry.

1996 – Operation Frontier Shield commences. It is the largest counter-narcotics operation in Coast Guard history. FRONTIER SHIELD was the cornerstone of a strategy and a genuine case study for the regional impact of interdiction. The Coast Guard, in conjunction with interagency partners, conducted a large surge operation in the maritime approaches to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Interagency interdiction forces reduced the flow of cocaine into Puerto Rico approximately 50 percent from the level in1996, and that reduced flow rate was sustained through 1998. Maritime smuggling events in Puerto Rico and the Eastern Caribbean declined from 33 percent to about 20 percent of total events in the Caribbean.

1997 – The first African-American female colonel in the Marine Corps was promoted to that rank during a ceremony at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. Colonel Gilda A. Jackson, a native of Columbus, Ohio, made Marine Corps history when she achieved the rank of colonel. She was serving as Special Projects Officer, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing at the time of her promotion.

1999 – In Russia Prime Minister Putin cut ties with the elected government of Chechnya.

2001 – New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, in an impassioned speech to the United Nations, said there was no room for “neutrality” in the global fight against terrorism and no need for more studies or vague directives.

2001 – The US reported that some $6 million and 50 bank accounts were blocked as suspected terrorist assets.

2001 – The US gave NATO “clear and compelling” evidence that Osama bin Laden orchestrated the Sep 11 terrorist attacks.

2003 – US officials identified Abu Hazim al-Sha’ir (29), a Yemeni ex-bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, as al Qaeda’s new terror chief.

2008 – The United States Senate passes the civilian nuclear agreement with India by a vote of 86–13. India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but may now undertake nuclear trade to the States.

2014 – Julia Pierson resigns as the Director of the United States Secret Service following a series of security breaches at the White House.

October 2nd ~

1780 – British spy John Andre was hanged in Tappan, N.Y., for conspiring with Benedict Arnold. The Andre Monument in Tappan commemorates the hanging of Maj. John Andre, the British spymaster who was captured shortly after he was given the plans to West Point by Benedict Arnold.

1789 – Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton asked collectors of customs to report on expediency of employing boats for the “security of the revenue against contraband.” Hamilton’s plan proposed customs duties and tonnage taxes that discriminated against foreign goods and ships. This Tariff would need to be enforced due to smuggling and to ensure proper duties and taxes were paid. (Alternately known as the system of cutters, Revenue Service, and Revenue-Marine this service would officially be named the Revenue Cutter Service and would eventually become the United States Coast Guard.

1799 – Establishment of Washington Navy Yard. The Washington Navy Yard is the U.S. Navy’s oldest shore establishment, in operation since the first decade of the 19th century. It evolved from a shipbuilding center to an ordnance plant and then to the ceremonial and administrative center for the Navy. The yard is home to the Chief of Naval Operations and is headquarters for the Naval Historical Center, the Marine Corps Historical Center, and numerous naval commands.

1835 – The first battle of the Texas Revolution took place as American settlers defeated a Mexican cavalry near the Guadalupe River. When Domingo de Ugartechea, military commander in Texas, received word that the American colonists of Gonzales refused to surrender a small cannon that had been given that settlement in 1831 as a defense against the Indians, he dispatched Francisco de Castañeda and 100 dragoons to retrieve it. Ugartechea realized that, given the tensions between the Texans and Antonio López de Santa Anna’s Centralist government, the slightest provocation might ignite hostilities. He therefore instructed Castañeda to use force if necessary but to avoid open conflict if possible. The company rode out of San Antonio de Béxar on September 27, 1835. When Castañeda’s troops reached the Guadalupe River opposite Gonzales on September 29 they found their path blocked by high water and eighteen militiamen (later called the Old Eighteen). Castañeda announced that he carried a dispatch for alcalde Andrew Ponton but was informed that he was out of town and that the Mexican dragoons would have to wait on the west side of the river until he returned. Unable to proceed, Castañeda pitched camp 300 yards from the ford. As he awaited word from the absent alcalde, the men of Gonzales summoned reinforcements from several of the surrounding settlements.

Later, a Coushatta Indian entered the Mexican camp and informed Castañeda that the number of Texan volunteers now numbered at least 140 and more were expected. Knowing he could not force the guarded crossing, Castañeda abandoned his campsite near the ford and marched his troops in search of another place not so well defended, where he could “cross without any embarrassment.” Around sundown on October 1 he ordered his dragoons to pitch camp seven miles upriver from the contested ford on land belonging to colonist Ezekiel Williams. The Texans were also on the move. On the night of October 1 their troops crossed to the west bank of the Guadalupe and marched upriver toward Castañeda’s new camp. On the morning of October 2 they attacked the Mexicans, and Castañeda ordered his men to fall back to a low rise behind their camp. During a lull in the fighting Castañeda arranged a parley with Texan commander John Henry Moore. Castañeda inquired why he and his men had been attacked without provocation, and Moore replied that the Texans were fighting to keep their cannon and to uphold the Constitution of 1824. Castañeda then assured Moore that he was himself a Federalist and personally opposed to the policies of Santa Anna. He added that he had no wish to fight colonists; he only had orders to reclaim the cannon. Moore then invited Castañeda to join the Texans in their fight for the federal Constitution of 1824. Castañeda explained that as a soldier he was obliged to follow his orders, whether or not he agreed with the politics behind them.

At that point negotiations broke down, and the two commanders returned to their respective units. When the fighting resumed, Castañeda, finding himself outnumbered and outgunned, ordered a withdrawal toward Bexar. He may also have been mindful of his orders not to participate in actions that were likely to bring about a conflict. In his report to Ugartechea, Castañeda stated that “since the orders from your Lordship were for me to withdraw without compromising the honor of Mexican arms, I did so.” Despite Castañeda’s efforts to avoid war, the so-called battle of Gonzales (which was really only a brief skirmish) marked a clear break between the American colonists and the Mexican government.

1864 – Union forces attack Saltville, Virginia, but are defeated by Confederate troops. The First Battle of Saltville was fought near the town of Saltville, Virginia, during the American Civil War. The battle was fought by both regular and Home Guard Confederate units against regular Union troops, including one of the few black cavalry units, over an important saltworks in the town. The Union troops were led by Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge. The battle was a Confederate victory, but it has become better known for a massacre that happened afterward. Irregular guerrilla forces under the notorious Champ Ferguson murdered white and black Union soldiers, who had been wounded and captured. Ferguson was tried after the war in Nashville, Tennessee, for these and other non-military killings. He was found guilty and executed. A second battle occurred two months later at Saltville. In that encounter, Union general George Stoneman defeated Confederate defenders and burned the saltworks.

1865 – Former Confederate General Robert E. Lee became president of Washington and Lee University in Virginia.

1919 – President Wilson suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed and Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall was urged to assume the presidency but he refused. It was Marshall who had earlier said: “What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.”

1939 – Foreign ministers of countries of the Western Hemisphere agree to establish a neutrality zone around the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North and South America to be enforced by the U. S. Navy. All belligerent actions by hostile powers are supposed to be forbidden in this zone.

1942 – Enrico Fermi and others demonstrated the 1st self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction under Stagg Field at the University of Chicago.

1942 – Major J. L. Smith shot down his 18th Jap Zero. He becomes the highest scoring ace to this date.

1951 – Future jet ace Colonel Francis S. “Gabby” Gabreski, Vice Commander of the 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, downed his third MiG-15 of the war in an F-86 Sabre jet. Colonel Gabreski was a leading World War II ace with 28 German aircraft kills while flying a P-47 Thunderbolt.

1963 – Defense Sec. Robert McNamara told Pres. Kennedy in a cabinet meeting that: “We need a way to get out of Vietnam.” McNamara proposed to replace the 16,000 US advisers with Canadian personnel.

1999 – Russian troops engaged Chechen guerrilla defenders as armored columns rolled into the villages of Alpatova and Chernokosova.

2001 – Acting Massachusetts Gov. Jane Swift unveiled security measures that included a new security chief at Logan International Airport, where hijackers boarded the two planes that smashed into the World Trade Center.

2001 – A US Treasury Dept official reported that over $100 million of suspected terrorist assets had been frozen in domestic and foreign banks since the Sep 11 attacks.

2002 – James Martin (55) was shot to death by a sniper in Wheaton, Md. He was the 1st to die at the hands of a local serial killer. The next day, five people in the Washington D.C. area were shot dead, setting off a frantic manhunt for the Beltway Sniper.

2014 – The United States partially lifts a long-time ban on lethal weapon sales to Vietnam to help it improve maritime security, a historic move that comes nearly 40 years after the end of the Vietnam War.

October 3rd ~

1650 – The English parliament declared its rule over the fledgling American colonies.

1656 – Myles Standish, Plymouth Colony leader, died (birth date unknown). Myles Standish was one of the 102 English settlers who sailed on the Mayflower in 1620. He had served in Queen Elizabeth’s Army and was chosen to command the first group of men to go ashore when the ship reached New England. Occasionally he was called upon to defend the colony when it found itself at odds with the native peoples.

1789 – George Washington proclaimed the 1st national Thanksgiving Day to be November 26th.

1794 – On this date President George Washington called on the governors of four states; Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia to furnish troops from their militia to march to western Pennsylvania to restore the peace and end the “Whiskey Rebellion.” Congress had enacted a tax on whiskey in 1791 and the result sparked mob actions from farmers in western Pennsylvania. They attacked excise agents, tax collectors and finally a federal marshal trying to enforce the law. This act and other provocations were enough for the president.
This marked the first time under the Constitution that militia (Guard) units would be called up for federal active duty. A total of 13,000 militia were raised and instructed to converge on two locations before linking up into one army. Elements from Maryland and Virginia, under the command of Virginia Governor Henry “Light Horse” Lee (a Revolutionary War hero and father of Robert E. Lee) met at Fort Cumberland, MD. One of the men serving in Captain Thomas Walker’s Volunteer Corps from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia was Private Meriwether Lewis, who would with fellow Virginian William Clark, command the “Corps of Discovery” exploring the American west in 1803-1805. Other units from Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania gathered at the town of Harrisburg, PA (this city would not become the capital of PA until 1812).
President Washington, acting in his role as “Commander-in-Chief”, donned a military uniform and inspected the troops first at Harrisburg on this date and later in October at Ft. Cumberland. This marks the only time an American president has actually taken command of troops in the field. Washington was planning on leading the Army himself but changed his mind and turned command over to Lee. As the Army moved into western Pennsylvania the revolt collapsed with little bloodshed. The ringleaders were later tried and convicted, but they were all pardoned by Washington.

1921 – USS Olympia ( now a floating museum in Philadelphia ) sails for France to bring home the Unknown Soldier from World War I. The bodies of many soldiers killed in World War I could not be identified. To honor them, the remains of one were brought to the U.S. Capitol to lie in state, and on Armistice Day 1921 they were ceremoniously buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The tomb bears the inscription “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.” Congress later directed that an “Unknown American” from subsequent wars — World War II, Korea and Vietnam — be similarly honored. Because of the development of DNA technology, the unknown soldier from the Vietnam War was recently exhumed and identified. There may never be another unknown soldier.

1940 – After a month of training and experimentation the U.S. Army adopted airborne, or parachute, soldiers. In 1935 the Russians had a head start on Airborne warfare and made the world’s first spectacular use of parachutists. It was left to the Germans to develop and use paratroopers and glider-borne soldiers in mass operations. Their first use was in the sweep across Holland and Belgium, where paratroopers were used to seize key bridges and the powerful Belgian fortress Eben Emael. Their successful tactical use enabled the panzer divisions to sweep across the low countries, and made the conquest of France relatively easy. The invasion of Norway saw an even larger use of paratroopers. The invasion was a combined air and sea attack. The British warships wreaked havoc on the German amphibious forces, but the German Airborne troops were successful in establishing several airheads. As soon as these were established, thousands of German soldiers and their supplies were transported by air. As a direct consequence, Norway fell.
The American General Staff had been closely watching the daring use of Airborne soldiers by the Germans. In September 1940 the United States activated its first parachute battalion. Within a short time Airborne enthusiasts decided that the Airborne soldier provided the tactical commander with a new method of attaining surprise that could very easily revolutionize modern warfare. By the summer of 1944 we had formed five Airborne Divisions and six Airborne Regiments. By the end of World War II we had used our Airborne troops in fourteen major offensives.

1942 – Germany conducted the 1st successful test flight of an A-4/V-2 missile from the Peenemunde test site. It flew perfectly over a 118-mile course to an altitude of 53 miles (85 km). The 13 ton, 46-foot long V2 rocket was the world’s 1st long-range ballistic missile.

1943 – Aircraft from USS Ranger sink 5 German ships and damage 3 in Operation Leader, the only U.S. Navy carrier operation in northern European waters during World War II. Defying enemy shore batteries and warships lurking in Norwegian waters, a combined United States and British naval force that included a strongly escorted American aircraft carrier, struck a surprise blow at German merchant shipping in the Norwegian “leads” or inner waterways in the Bodoe area. German naval units in Norway, where the powerful battleship Tirpitz was lying in a fjord somewhere northeast of Trondheim, refusing to accept the obvious challenge to come out and fight. The only opposition was by enemy anti-aircraft fire and by two German planes, both of which were destroyed by fighters that took off from the American carrier.

1951 – Operation COMMANDO, one of the largest operations conducted after the commencement of truce negotiations, began. COMMANDO was a full-scale offensive designed to establish a defensive line that would screen the Yonchon-Chorwon Valley from enemy observation and long-range artillery.

1952 – USAF Major Frederick C. “Boots” Blesse, 4th Fighter Interceptor Wing, flying an F-86 Sabre jet, scored his 10th and final aerial victory and became the fifth double ace of the Korean War.

1962 – Launch of Sigma 7 (Mercury 8) piloted by CDR Walter M. Schirra, Jr., USN. Although NASA was concerned that the path of Tropical Storm Daisy as projected on October 1, 1962 might pose a threat, launch preparations were carried out as scheduled with no postponements. Astronaut Schirra journeyed a total of 160,000 miles aboard the Sigma 7 spacecraft, which in contrast to the previous Mercury flight, splashed down within the intended recovery point. The capsule splashed down about 275 miles northeast of Midway Island just 9,000 yards from the recovery vessel.
Schirra participated in the first live television broadcast beamed back to Earth during a manned U.S. space flight. The television signal was broadcast to North America and Western Europe via Telstar-1, the first commercial communications satellite. The mission demonstrated that longer duration space flights were feasible, and Schirra commented that both he and the spacecraft could have flown much longer than six orbits. On October 5, 1962 the Air Force announced that Schirra would likely have been killed by radiation if the Sigma 7 spacecraft had exceeded 400 miles in altitude. Radiation monitoring devices on classified military satellites had confirmed this lethal radiation, which resulted from a high-altitude nuclear test conducted in July, 1962. In fact, at the altitude actually flown by Schirra, the radiation monitoring devices inside the spacecraft confirmed that the astronaut had been exposed to much less radiation than predicted even under normal circumstances. Schirra was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal by NASA Administrator James Webb on October 15, 1962 during a ceremony held at the astronaut’s hometown of Oradell, New Jersey.

1985 – The Space Shuttle Atlantis makes its maiden flight. (Mission STS-51-J). STS-51-J was the 21st NASA Space Shuttle mission and the first flight of Space Shuttle Atlantis. It launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, carrying a payload for the U.S. Department of Defense, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on 7 October.

1988 – Discovery completed a four-day mission, the first American shuttle flight since the Challenger disaster.

1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein made his first known visit to Kuwait since his country seized control of the oil-rich emirate.

October 3rd ~ { continued...}

1993 – Battle at Bakhara Market. On 22 August, Task Force Ranger, consisting of one company of Rangers from 3/75, a special forces unit, and a deployment package of the 160th SOAR (A), was ordered to deploy to Mogadishu, Somalia. They departed on 26 August. The mission of the 160th SOAR (A) as defined by the task force commander was: “When directed, [to] deploy to Mogadishu, Somalia; [to] conduct operations to capture General Aideed and/or designated others. The aviation task force must be prepared to conduct two primary courses of action: moving convoy and strong point assault. . . . Success is defined as the live capture of General Aideed and designated individuals and recovery to the designated transload point; safely and without fratricide.”

In Mogadishu the task force occupied an old hangar and old construction trailers under primitive conditions. During the month of September, the force conducted several successful missions to arrest Aideed sympathizers and to confiscate arms caches. The aircraft also made frequent flights over the city to desensitize the public to the presence of military aircraft and to familiarize themselves with the narrow streets and alleys of the city. On the afternoon of 3 October 1993, informed that two leaders of Aideed’s clan were at a residence in central Mogadishu, the task force sent 19 aircraft, 12 vehicles, and 160 men to arrest them. During the mission, one of the Rangers fast-roping from an MH-60 Blackhawk helicopter, missed the rope and fell 70 feet to the street below, badly injuring himself. The two leaders were quickly arrested, and the prisoners and the injured Ranger were loaded on a convoy of ground vehicles. Armed Somalis were converging on the target area from all over the city. In the meantime, another MH-60, call sign Super 61 and piloted by CW4 Clifton P. Wolcott and CW3 Donovan Briley, was flying low over the street a few blocks from the target area, and was struck from behind by an rocket propelled grenade (RPG). The MH-60 crashed to the street below. The convoy and the Somali crowds immediately headed for the crash site. An MH-6 Little Bird, call sign Star 41, piloted by CW4 Keith Jones and CW3 Karl Maier, landed in the street next to the downed MH-60 and attempted to evacuate the casualties. Both Wolcott and Briley had been killed in the crash. Jones went to assist survivors, successfully pulling two soldiers into the Little Bird, while Maier laid down suppressive fire from the cockpit with his individual weapon. Under intense ground fire, the MH-6 departed with its crew and survivors.

In the meantime, Blackhawk Super 64, with pilot CW3 Michael Durant, copilot CW4 Raymond Frank, and crewmembers SSG William Cleveland and SSG Thomas Field, moved in to take Super 61’s place in the formation. As Super 64 circled over the target area, an RPG suddenly struck it. The Blackhawk’s tail rotor was severely damaged, and the air mission commander ordered it back to the airfield. En route to the airfield, the tail rotor and much of the rear assembly fell off, and the helicopter pitched forward and crashed. Meanwhile the ground convoy had lost its way, and rescue forces were already overtaxed at the site of the first Blackhawk crash. As armed Somalis rushed toward the Super 64 crash site, the crew’s only hope came from SFC Randall Shughart and MSG Gary Gordon aboard the covering Blackhawk, Super 62, who volunteered to jump in and protect the crew of the downed helicopter. They would ultimately sacrifice their lives for their downed comrades. Durant and Frank had both suffered broken legs in the crash, and both of the crew chiefs were severely wounded. A large crowd of Somalis, organized by the local militia, surrounded the crew and their rescuers and engaged in a fierce firefight, killing all but Durant. Then, they rushed the downed pilot, severely beating him and taking him prisoner. Meanwhile another Blackhawk carrying a rescue team arrived over the crash site of Super 61 and the 15-man team fast-roped to the ground. They found both Wolcott and Briley already dead, but crew chiefs Staff Sgt. Ray Dowdy and Staff Sgt. Charlie Warren were still alive in the wreckage. It took hours to pry Wolcott’s body from the wreckage.

In the meantime, the soldiers set up a perimeter to protect against attack from Somali militia and armed civilians and awaited the arrival of a convoy from the 10th Mountain Division to rescue them. The militia had taken Mike Durant captive, planning to trade him for Somali prisoners. But before they could get him back to their village, they were intercepted by local bandits, who took Durant, intending to use him for ransom. He was taken back to a house where he was held, interrogated, and videotaped. Later, after Aideed paid his ransom, Durant was moved to the apartment of Aideed’s propaganda minister. After five days, he was visited by a representative of the International Red Cross and interviewed by British and French journalists. Finally, after ten days, with the intervention of former U.S. Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley, he was released and flew home to a hero’s welcome. The mission was over.

The 160th SOAR (A) had been involved in the fiercest battle since the Vietnam War. It had lost two MH-60 aircraft with two more severely damaged, suffered eight wounded and five killed in action, and had had one of its pilots taken captive. Despite the public perception that this was a failed mission, Task Force Ranger did take into custody and delivered the two leaders from Aideed’s clan, resulting in mission accomplishment. President Clinton expressed sorrow at the deaths of American soldiers in Somalia, but reaffirmed those U.S. forces would stay in the African nation.

1997 – US Defense Sec. William Cohen ordered the Nimitz Carrier Battle Group to the Persian Gulf as a warning to Iran and Iraq to stop incursions into the US-enforced “no-fly” zone in southern Iraq.

1998 – In Chechnya 4 men working to install a cellular phone system were kidnapped by 20 men. The severed heads Darren Hickey, Rudolf Petschi, Stanley Shaw and Peter Kennedy were found Dec 8. Their bodies were found Dec 26 in Chernorechiye.

2001 – Near Manchester, Tennessee, Damir Igric (29), a Croatian passenger on a Greyhound bus, slit the throat of the bus driver and caused a roll over that killed 6 people including the terrorist.

2002 – Police hunted for a “skilled shooter” who murdered five random victims over 16 hours with a high-powered rifle in Montgomery County, Maryland, just a short distance from Washington DC. James Buchanon (39), Premkumar Walekar (54), Sarah Ramos (34), Lori Ann Lewis Rivera (25) and Pascal Charlot (72) became the 2nd to 6th victims.

2003 – Afghan civilians accidentally set off an explosive inside a home near Bagram Air Base American military headquarters, killing seven people and wounding six others.

2010 – Germany makes its last reparations payment for World War I, settling its outstanding debt from the 1919 Versailles Treaty and quietly closing the final chapter of the conflict that shaped the 20th century. This is also the 20th anniversary of German unification, as well as the end of reparations payments 92 years after the country’s defeat.

October 4th ~

1648 – Peter Stuyvesant established America’s 1st volunteer firemen. Governor of New York, Peter Stuyvesant appointed a group of four fire wardens to inspect chimneys of the thatched-roof houses and to levy a fine of three guilders for each unswept chimney. The money received from these fines was used to import leather buckets, hooks, and ladders. These instruments were then put to use by concerned citizens to protect their communities from destructive fires. Thus the tradition of Americans volunteering their time for fire protection began.

1776 – Marines participated in the USS Wasp’s capture of a British ship off the coast of New England.

1777 – George Washington’s troops launched an assault on the British at Germantown, Penn., resulting in heavy American casualties. British General Sir William Howe repelled Washington’s last attempt to retake Philadelphia, compelling Washington to spend the winter at Valley Forge. Following the British capture of Philadelphia after the Battle of Brandywine, Howe’s troops encamped in Germantown to the North of the city. The camp stretched in a line astride the main northern road. Washington determined to surprise the British army in camp. His plan required a strong column under Major General Nathaniel Greene (with McDougall, Muhlenberg, Stephen and Scott) to attack the right wing of the British army comprising Grant’s and Donop’s troops, the second column which he commanded (with Stirling and Sullivan) to advance down the main Philadelphia road and launch an assault on the British center, while forces of militia attacked each wing of the British force comprising on the right the Queen’s Rangers and on the left near the Schuylkill River, Hessian Jagers and British Light Infantry. Washington’s plan required the four attacks to be launched “precisely at 5 o’clock with charged bayonets and without firing”. The intention was to surprise the whole British army in much the way the Hessians had been surprised at Trenton. The American columns started along their respective approach roads on the evening of 3rd October 1777.

Dawn found the American forces well short of their start line for the attack and there was an encounter with the first British picket which fired its guns to warn of the attack. The outpost was supported by a battalion of light infantry and the 40th Foot under Colonel Musgrave. It took a substantial part of Sullivan’s division to drive back the British contingent. General Howe rode forward, initially thinking the advanced force was being attacked by a raiding party, his view impeded by a thickening fog that clouded the field for the rest of the day. During the fighting Musgrave caused 6 companies of the 40th to fortify the substantial stone house of Chief Justice Chew and use it as a strong point. The American advance halted while furious attacks were launched against the house aided by an artillery barrage. Hearing the firing, Stephen heading the other main attack, ignored his orders to continue along the lane to the attack of the British right wing, swung to the right and made for the Chew House. His brigade joined the attack on the house which was assailed for a full hour by the infantry and guns of several American brigades. The rest of Greene’s division launched a savage attack on the British line as planned and broke through, capturing a number of British troops.

In the meantime Sullivan and Wayne had continued past the Chew House and begun their attack. In the fog Wayne’s and Stephen’s brigades encountered each other and exchanged fire. Both brigades broke and fled. Sullivan’s brigade was attacked on both flanks, by Grant with the 5th and 55th Foot on his left and by Brigadier Grey on his right. Sullivan’s brigade broke. The British then turned on Greene’s isolated division capturing Colonel Matthews and his 9th Virginia Regiment.Attacked by the British Guards, the 25th and 27th Foot, Greene withdrew up the main road to the North West, assisted by the efforts of Muhlenberg’s brigade. As the American army retreated its condition deteriorated and Washington was forced to withdraw some sixteen miles, harried by the British light dragoons. The American militia forces did not develop their attacks and finally retreated.

1779 – The Fort Wilson Riot began. After the British had abandoned Philadelphia, James Wilson, a signer of teh Declaration of Independence, successfully defended at trial 23 people from property seizure and exile by the radical government of Pennsylvania. A mob whipped up by liquor and the writings and speeches of Joseph Reed, president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council, marched on Congressman Wilson’s home at Third and Walnut Streets. Wilson and 35 of his colleagues barricaded themselves in his home, later nicknamed Fort Wilson. In the fighting that ensued, six died, and 17 to 19 were wounded. The city’s soldiers, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry and Baylor’s 3rd Continental Light Dragoons, eventually intervened and rescued Wilson and his colleagues. The rioters were pardoned and released by Joseph Reed.

1821 – LT Robert F. Stockton sails from Boston for Africa to carry out his orders to help stop the international slave trade. Stockton will be instrumental in the founding of Liberia.

1874 – Kiowa leader Santanta, known as “the Orator of the Plains,” surrendered in Darlington, Texas. He was later sent to the state penitentiary, where he committed suicide October 11, 1878.

1906 – Marines protected Americans during revolution in Cuba. Revolution broke out in Cuba in 1906, and a Marine expeditionary force was sent to the island to establish and maintain law and order. In mid-1906 Cuban internal strife caused the United States to invoke the Platt Amendment and send troops to the island nation in an attempt to restore order. William Howard Taft, now Secretary-of-War, sent his Philippine Insurrection veterans.

1918 – There was an explosion at the T.A. Gillespie Co. munitions yard in Morgan, NJ. Coast Guardsmen from Perth Amboy responded. When fire threatened a trainload of TNT, these men repaired the track and moved the train to safety, thus preventing further disaster. Two Coast Guardsmen were killed in this effort.

1952 – Task Force 77 aircraft encounter MIG-15 aircraft for the first time.

1952 – Flying an F-86 Sabre, future jet ace Captain Manuel J. Fernandez, Jr., 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, scored his first aerial victory of the war.

1956 – Two U.S. Air Force F-89 aircraft crashed in rugged mountain terrain about four miles from Mount Olympus, WA. For seven days, the Coast Guard directed a highly coordinated search for the lost plane and crews. Finally, aircraft and helicopters from the CG Air Station, Port Angeles, WA, assisted by aircraft and ground search elements from other services located and evacuated the four crew members, one of whom had died.

1957 – The Space Age and “space race” began as the Soviet Union launched Sputnik (traveler), the first man-made space satellite. The satellite, built by Valentin Glushko, weighed 184 pounds and was launched by a converted Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Sputnik orbited the earth every 96 minutes at a maximum height of 584 miles. The event was timed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. In 1958, it reentered the earth’s atmosphere and burned up. It was followed by 9 other Sputnik spacecraft.

1993 – Last US KIA in Somalia. A Green Beret is killed during a mortar attack at the Mogadishu Airport. 12 GIs are WIA. Three Marines are WIA elsewhere.

1993 – In Somalia US troops blasted their way out of Bakara Market in Mogadishu and left an estimated 500 Somalis dead. Dozens of cheering, dancing Somalis dragged the body of an American soldier through the streets of Mogadishu.

1997 – From Bosnia it was reported that an Egyptian ship loaded with Soviet-made T-55 tanks was sitting at anchor in the Croatian port of Ploce. The shipment was registered with officials of the foreign peace force. An error on the manifest said the tanks were intended for the Bosnian Army.

2001 – NYC officials estimated that the damage from the Sep 11 attacks would cost as much as $105 billion over the next 2 years. Depending on the number of jobs permanently shifted out of the city, the September 11th attacks could cost New York City as much as $83-95 billion dollars, though the financial loss could never compare to the horrendous loss of nearly 3,000 lives.

2004 – Gordon “Gordo” Cooper, one of the original Mercury astronauts who pioneered human space exploration, died. He was 77. One of the original seven Mercury astronauts, Cooper piloted the final flight of the Mercury program, the United States’ first manned spaceflight program.

2004 – Space Ship One wins Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight, by being the first private craft to fly into space.

2005 – United States President George W. Bush expresses concern for a potential avian flu outbreak. He requests Congressional legislation permitting the military to impose a quarantine in the event of a deadly flu pandemic.

2006 – The US announces reformulation of Counterinsurgency doctrine. GEN David Petraeus will lead a joint Army-Marine team in rewriting the Counterinsurgency manual. This new doctrine is heavily influenced by the success of COL McMaster’s clear/hold/build strategy.

October 5th ~

1775 – George Washington writes a letter to the President of the Continental Congress reporting that a trusted Son of Liberty, Dr. Benjamin Church, was sending information to the British. A court martial was held on October 4. Church claimed that he’d been trying to help the Patriot effort by “impress[ing] the Enemy with a strong Idea of our Strength & Situation in order to prevent an Attack at a Time when the Continental Army was in great Want of Ammunition.” The court of inquiry was unimpressed. It found that Church was guilty of “criminal Correspondence with the Enemy.” Washington wrote Congress the next day, seeking direction on what to do next. Congress had not yet enacted the death penalty for spying. Instead, it resolved that “Dr. Church be close confined in some secure gaol in the colony of Connecticut, without the use of pen, ink, and paper, and that no person be allowed to converse with him. . . .” Church’s health suffered in confinement. He was eventually paroled and set sail for the West Indies in the hopes that he could restore his health. That did not go so well for him, either. His ship was lost at sea and Church was never seen again.

1775 – Meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the 2d Continental Congress used the word “Marines” on one of the earliest known occasions. It directed General George Washington to secure two vessels on “Continental risque and pay”, and to give orders for the “proper encouragement to the Marines and seamen” to serve on the two armed ships.

1804 – Robert Parker Parrott (d.1877), Inventor (Parrot Gun – 1st machine gun), was born. He was later assigned as assistant to the Chief of the Ordnance Bureau and, later, as an inspector of ordnance at the West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York. The foundry was a private firm and administered by civilians. Parrott, by this time a captain, resigned his rank and accepted the civilian position of superintendent of the foundry, October 31, 1836. Parrott served the foundry well during the next 41 years. He became the lessee and operator of the foundry and experimented with the manufacturing of artillery. As a private citizen Parrott was able to experiment with cannons and projectiles without the usual red tape involved in government foundries. His accomplishments during his tenure included the perfection of a rifled cannon and its corresponding projectile (both named after him) patented in 1861, and the Parrott sight and fuse which were developed during the Civil War years. His first rifled cannon design, a 10-pounder (2.9-inch caliber), was turned out in 1860. By the next year he had developed the 20-pounder (3.67-inch caliber) and 30-pounder (4.2-inch caliber) versions, among other models. In 1864 the 3-inch Parrott rifle replaced the 10-pounder (2.9-inch caliber) rifle. In 1867, Parrott turned the operation of the foundry over to other parties, but he continued to experiment with projectiles and fuses until his death on December 24, 1877.

1813 – The Battle of the Thames was decisive in the War of 1812. The U.S. victory over British and Indian forces near Ontario at the village of Moraviantown on the Thames River is known in Canada as the Battle of Moraviantown. Some 600 British regulars and 1,000 Indian allies under the command of Colonel Henry Procter and Shawnee leader Tecumseh were greatly outnumbered and quickly defeated by U.S. forces, an army of 3,500 troops, under the command of Maj. Gen. William Henry Harrison. The British army was retreating from Fort Malden, Ontario after Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory in the Battle of Lake Erie. Tecumseh convinced Colonel Procter to make a stand at Moraviantown. The American army won a total victory. The British soldiers fled or surrendered. The Indians fought fiercely, but they lost heart and scattered after Tecumseh died on the battlefield. Richard Johnson probably killed the Indian leader. The Battle of the Thames was the most important land battle of the War of 1812 in the American Northwest. General Harrison’s victory marked the end of Tecumseh’s Confederacy and the downfall of the Indians in Ohio.

1877 – Nez Perce Chief Joseph and 418 survivors were captured in the Bear Paw mountains and forced into reservations in Kansas. They surrendered in Montana Territory, after a 1,700 -mile trek to reach Canada fell 40 miles short. Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrendered to General O.O. Howard and Colonel Nelson Miles at the Bear Paw ravine in Montana Territory, saying, “Hear me, my chiefs, my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more, forever.”

1915 – Germany issued an apology and promises for payment for the 128 American passengers killed in the sinking of the British ship Lusitania.

1916 – Corporal Adolf Hitler was wounded in the trench warfare of WWI.

1937 – Saying, “the epidemic of world lawlessness is spreading,” President Roosevelt called for a “quarantine” of aggressor nations.

1938 – The first members are enrolled in the Coast Guard Reserve.

1943 – Patrol Squadron 6 (VP -6 CG) was officially established. This was an all Coast Guard unit. Its home base was at Narsarssuak, Greenland, code name Bluie West -One. It had nine PBY -5A’s assigned. CDR Donald B. MacDiarmid was the first commanding officer. As additional PBY’s became available, the units area of operation expanded and detachments were established in Argentia, Newfoundland and Reykjavik, Iceland, furnishing air cover for US Navy and Coast Guard vessels. Hundreds of rescue operations were carried out during the 27 months the squadron was in operation.

1947 – The first televised White House address is given by U.S. President Harry S. Truman.

1957 – Mini Track, a satellite tracking net developed by the Naval Research Laboratory, becomes operational. This network, with stations from Maine to Chile, tracked the Vangard satellite.

1969 – A Cuban defector entered US air space undetected and landed his Soviet -made MiG -17 at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was waiting to return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.

1990 – NASA astronaut and Coast Guard CDR Bruce Melnick made his first space flight when he served as a Mission Specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery on Space Shuttle Mission STS -41, which flew from 6 to 10 October 1990. Discovery deployed the Ulysses spacecraft for its five -year mission to explore the polar regions of the sun. CDR Melnick was the first Coast Guardsman selected by NASA for astronaut training.

1991 – Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced sweeping cuts in nuclear weapons in response to President Bush’s arms reduction initiative.

1993 – China set off an underground nuclear blast, ignoring a plea from President Clinton not to do so.

1995 – Pres. Clinton announced that a cease -fire was agreed on in Bosnia to start on Oct 10, and that combatants would attend talks in the US. Bosnia’s combatants agreed to a 60-day cease-fire and new talks on ending their three and a-half years of battle.

2003 – Israeli warplanes bombed the Ein Saheb base northwest of Damascus, Syria, in retaliation for a suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant. Israeli military called it an Islamic Jihad training base.

2005 – U.S. Marine Leandro Aragoncillo is indicted for espionage, accused of passing classified information from the Vice President’s office to the Philippines.

2006 – NATO expands its security mission to the whole of Afghanistan, taking command of more than 13,000 U.S. troops in the east of the country.

2013 – American SEALS launched an amphibious raid on the town of Baraawe, Somalia engaging with al-Shabaab militants and inflicting some casualties on them before withdrawing.

October 6th ~

1539 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto and his army enter the Apalachee capital of Anhaica (present-day Tallahassee, Florida) by force. The Apalachee were a Native American people who historically lived in the Florida Panhandle.

1683 – German Quaker and Mennonite families found Germantown in the colony of Pennsylvania, marking the first major immigration of German people to America. Germantown is an area in Northwest Philadelphia. Founded as an independent borough, it was absorbed into Philadelphia in 1854. The area is located about six miles northwest from the city center Germantown has played a significant role in American history; it was the birthplace of the American antislavery movement, the site of a Revolutionary War battle, the temporary residence of George Washington, and the location of the first bank of the United States.

1777 – General Sir Henry Clinton leads British forces in the capture of Continental Army Hudson River defenses in the Battle of Forts Clinton and Montgomery. The battle was fought in the highlands of the Hudson River valley, not far from West Point. British forces under the command of General Sir Henry Clinton captured Fort Clinton and Fort Montgomery, and then dismantled the Hudson River Chain. The purpose of the attack was to create a diversion to draw American troops from the army of General Horatio Gates, whose army was opposing British General John Burgoyne’s attempt to gain control of the Hudson. The action came too late to be of any assistance to Burgoyne, who surrendered his army on October 17. The only notable consequences of the action were the casualties suffered and the British destruction of the two forts on their departure.

1884 – Department of the Navy establishes the Naval War College at Newport, RI. Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler signed General Order 325, which began by simply stating: “A college is hereby established for an advanced course of professional study for naval officers, to be known as the Naval War College.” The order went on to assign “the principal building on Coaster’s Harbor Island, Newport, R.I.”—the Newport Asylum for the Poor, built in 1820—to its use and “Commodore Stephen B. Luce . . . to duty as president of the college.” Such were the humble beginnings of what is now the oldest continuing institution of its kind in the world.

1939 – In an address to the Reichstag, Adolf Hitler denied having any intention of war against France and Britain.

1943 – Himmler ordered the acceleration of “Final Solution.”

1945 – General Eisenhower was welcomed in Hague aboard Hitler’s captured train.

1945 – Major General Keller E. Rockey, Commanding General, III Amphibious Corps, accepted the surrender of 50,000 Japanese troops in North China on behalf of the Chinese Nationalist government.

1949 – Pres. Truman signed the Mutual Defense Assistance Act that appropriated more than one billion dollars for military aid primarily to members of the Atlantic Pact (NATO).

1951 – Stalin proclaimed Russia has an atom bomb.

1951 – In a night assault, Hill 931, the highest peak at Heartbreak Ridge, was secured by troops of the 2nd Infantry Division’s, 23rd Infantry Regiment after bitter fighting.

1958 – The US nuclear sub USS Seawolf remained a record 60 days under pole.

1961 – JFK advised Americans to build fallout shelters from atomic fallout in the event of a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

1962 – Commissioning of USS Bainbridge (DLGN -25), first nuclear -powered destroyer. USS Bainbridge, was powered by two pressurized water reactors, and carried two twin Terrier missile launchers, two twin 3″ .50 caliber radar controlled gun mounts, two torpedo mounts, an ASROC launcher, and was equipped with state of the art electronics and communications suites. In April 1964, during her second Mediterranean deployment, she joined USS LONG BEACH (CGN 9) for the first time and later in May, along with USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65), formed the world’s first nuclear powered task group, Task Group 60.1. She entered dry dock at Mare Island Shipyard in August 1967 for her first refueling. In 1974 she began a 27 month shipyard modernization and overhaul in Bremerton, Wash. While in the shipyard, her 3″ .50 caliber guns were removed and replaced with 20mm cannons, she received the AN/SPS-48 radar, and the Naval Tactical Data System was installed. Additionally, the aft superstructure was constructed and an additional level was added on the forward superstructure to support the SLQ-32. On June 30, 1975, BAINBRIDGE was redesignated a cruiser during the Navy’s reorganization of ship designations; DLGN 25 became CGN 25. After deactivation, BAINBRIDGE was towed to Norfolk Naval Shipyard for defueling and preparation for the final movement of the hull to Bremerton, Washington.

1966 – Hanoi insisted the United States must end its bombings before peace talks could begin.

1981 – Egyptian President Anwar Sadat was killed by an assassin at the parade ground of Nasser City by Islamic fundamentalists during a ceremony commemorating the Egyptian crossing of the Suez Canal during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Although authorities were warned of a death plot hours earlier, the information did not get to the president in time. He was succeeded by Vice President Hosni Mubarak.

1990 – The space shuttle “Discovery” blasted off on a four -day mission. Liftoff occurred 12 minutes after two-and-a-half-hour launch window opened at 7:35 a.m. EDT. Heaviest payload to date. Launch Weight: 259,593 lbs. Primary payload, ESA-built Ulysses spacecraft to explore polar regions of Sun, deployed. Two upper stages, Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) and a mission-specific Payload Assist Module-S (PAM-S), combined together for first time to send Ulysses toward out-of- ecliptic trajectory. Other payloads and experiments: Shuttle Solar Backscatter Ultraviolet (SSBUV) experiment; INTELSAT Solar Array Coupon (ISAC); Chromosome and Plant Cell Division Experiment (CHROMEX); Voice Command System (VCS); Solid Surface Combustion Experiment (SSCE), Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP); Physiological Systems Experiment (PSE); Radiation Monitoring Experiment III (RME III); Shuttle Student involvement Program (SSIP) and Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) experiment.

1991 – Cable News Network obtained and aired a videotape made in Beirut, Lebanon, of American hostage Terry Anderson, who quoted his captors as saying they would have “very good news.”

1992 – The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to establish a war crimes commission for Bosnia -Herzegovina.

1997 – The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth, bringing home American astronaut Michael Foale after more than four tumultuous months aboard Mir and Astronaut CDR Wendy B. Lawrence, USN returns from mission of STS -86: Shuttle -Mir 7 when Atlantis docked with Mir Space Station. The mission began on 25 September.

1997 – Nine Bosnian Croats surrendered to the int’l. war crimes tribunal in the Hague. Dario Kordic joined the group when the US promised a speedy trial to volunteer suspects. Kordic was the leader of the Bosnian branch of Franjo Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union political party, and was charged with commanding troops who rampaged through 14 towns in the Lasva Valley torturing and killing hundreds of Muslims and burning their homes.

1999 – The US introduced a resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the seizure of assets of the Taliban militia and grounding all international flights from Afghanistan until Osama bin Laden is turned over.

1999 – The Chechen president called for a holy war against Russia.

2000 – In Serbia Slobodan Milosevic resigned and the opposition celebrated across the country. Milosevic conceded defeat to Vojislav Kostunica in Yugoslavia’s presidential elections, a day after protesters angry at Milosevic for clinging to power stormed parliament and ended his 13-year autocratic regime.

2001 – US and British intelligence identified Mohammed Atef, a former Egyptian policeman and close aide to Osama bin Laden, as the key planner of the of the Sept 11th attacks.

2004 – Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons hunter, reported that Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction programs had deteriorated into only hopes and dreams by the time of the U.S.-led invasion last year.

2006 – President Bush declared space to be essential to US defense in a new National Space Policy document. Not only has the United States declared that it has rights in space, but, if necessary, it will deny its adversaries access to space if those adversaries seek to impede those rights.

2008 – The MESSENGER spacecraft makes its second pass of the planet Mercury.

2014 – ISIS prepares to establish itself in Libya and reports emerge that they are already in the city of Derna.

October 7th ~

1492 – Columbus missed Florida when he changed course.

1542 – Explorer Cabrillo discovered Catalina Island off the Southern California coast.

1691 – The English royal charter for the Province of Massachusetts Bay is issued.

1763 – George III of Great Britain issued Proclamation of 1763, closing lands in North America north and west of Alleghenies to white settlement. The end of the French and Indian War in 1763 was a cause for great celebration in the colonies, for it removed several ominous barriers and opened up a host of new opportunities for the colonists. The French had effectively hemmed in the British settlers and had, from the perspective of the settlers, played the “Indians” against them. The first thing on the minds of colonists was the great western frontier that had opened to them when the French ceded that contested territory to the British. The royal proclamation of 1763 did much to dampen that celebration. The proclamation, in effect, closed off the frontier to colonial expansion. The King and his council presented the proclamation as a measure to calm the fears of the Indians, who felt that the colonists would drive them from their lands as they expanded westward. Many in the colonies felt that the object was to pen them in along the Atlantic seaboard where they would be easier to regulate. No doubt there was a large measure of truth in both of these positions. However the colonists could not help but feel a strong resentment when what they perceived to be their prize was snatched away from them. The proclamation provided that all lands west of the heads of all rivers which flowed into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest were off-limits to the colonists. This excluded the rich Ohio Valley and all territory from the Ohio to the Mississippi rivers from settlement.

1765 – Delegates from nine of the American colonies met in New York to discuss the Stamp Act Crisis and colonial response to it. This “Stamp Act Congress” went on to draft resolutions condemning the Stamp and Sugar Acts, trial without jury and taxation without representation as contrary to their rights as Englishmen.

1777 – The second Battle of Saratoga began during the American Revolution. During the battle General Benedict Arnold was shot in the leg. Another bullet killed his horse, which fell on Arnold, crushing his leg. The “Boot Monument” sits close to the spot where Arnold was wounded, and is a tribute to the general’s heroic deeds during that battle. Although Arnold’s accomplishments are described on the monument, it pointedly avoids naming the man best known for betraying his country.

The British forces, under Gen. John Burgoyne, surrendered 10 days later. After waiting several weeks for developments from General Henry Clinton’s campaign along the Hudson River, British commander Lieutenant General John Burgoyne finally took the offensive on 7 October 1777. Like the First Battle of Saratoga, his plan focused upon a reconnaissance in force of three columns. The three British columns moved out from their Freeman’s Farm fortifications in order to gain more information about the rebel positions at Bemis Heights. American General Horatio Gates, assumed to be acting upon the suggestion of Colonel Daniel Morgan, decided to assault the British forces in a three winged attack. With Morgan’s Rifle Corps attacking from the west and Poor’s Brigade from the east, Learned’s Continental Brigade moved towards the center of the British line.

The attack began at roughly 3 PM, and the Americans repeatedly broke through the British line and pushed the enemy back, only to be repelled once the British leaders rallied their scattered forces to stage a counter-offensive. British Brigadier General Simon Fraser was mortally wounded while attempting to cover the British withdrawal. Benedict Arnold, who had been removed from command by Gates, saw an opportunity to press the advantage of the weakened British line and rode forward on his horse to take charge of Learned’s Continental Brigade. He led them towards the center of the British forces in an effort to separate the units and flank them, forcing a general withdrawal of the British forces into their fortified positions at Freeman’s Farm. At that point, Arnold led Learned’s men to attack the British fortified in Balcarres Redoubt. After several failed attempts to overcome the defenses there, Arnold urged his horse northwest across the battlefield to join an assault on Breymann Redoubt. With superior numbers on their side, the Americans were able to breach the breastworks of the redoubt and force the British forces to withdraw to the Great Redoubt, their final line of defense, as night fell.

1780 – The Battle of Kings Mountain was a decisive battle between the Patriot and Loyalist militias in the Southern campaign of the American Revolutionary War. The battle took place nine miles south of the present-day town of Kings Mountain, North Carolina in rural York County, South Carolina, where the Patriot militia defeated the Loyalist militia commanded by British Major Patrick Ferguson of the 71st Foot. Ferguson had arrived in North Carolina in early September 1780 with the purpose of recruiting for the Loyalist militia and protecting the flank of Lord Cornwallis’ main force.

Ferguson issued a challenge to the rebel militias to lay down their arms or suffer the consequences. In response, the Patriot militias led by James Johnston, William Campbell, John Sevier, Joseph McDowell and Isaac Shelby rallied for an attack on Ferguson. Receiving intelligence on the oncoming attack, Ferguson decided to retreat to the safety of Lord Cornwallis’ army. However, the Patriots caught up with the Loyalists at Kings Mountain on the border with South Carolina. Achieving a complete surprise, the Patriot militiamen attacked and surrounded the Loyalists, inflicting heavy casualties. After an hour of battle, Ferguson was fatally shot while trying to break the rebel line, after which his men surrendered.

Eager to avenge Banastre Tarleton’s alleged massacre of the militiamen at the Battle of Waxhaws, the Patriots gave no quarter until the rebel officers re-established control over their men. Although victorious, the Patriots had to retreat quickly from the area for fear of Cornwallis’ advance. The battle was a pivotal moment in the Southern campaign. The surprising victory over the American Loyalist militia came after a string of rebel defeats at the hands of Lord Cornwallis, and greatly raised the Patriots’ morale. With Ferguson dead and his Loyalist militia destroyed, Cornwallis was forced to abandon his plan to invade North Carolina and retreated into South Carolina.

1837 – Robert Gould Shaw was born to a prominent abolitionist family. He became commander of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment, the first unit of black soldiers in the Civil War. He was later asked by the governor of Massachusetts to organize the first regiment of black troops in a Northern state. Shaw recruited free blacks from all over New England. On May 13, 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Regiment was mustered into service in the Union Army with Shaw as its commanding officer. After leading the regiment in a handful of smaller actions, Shaw and the 54th joined two brigades of white troops in an assault on Confederates holding Battery Wagner on the South Carolina coast. Although the action was unsuccessful and Shaw himself died leading the charge, the courage of black troops under fire was proven beyond any doubt.

1864 – General Phil Sheridan wired General Ulysses Grant that he had destroyed so much between Winchester and Staunton that the area “will have little in it for man or beast.”

1943 – Approximately 100 U.S. prisoners of war remaining on Wake Island were executed by the Japanese.

1958 – The U.S. manned space-flight project is renamed Project Mercury. Originally it was called Project Astronaut, but President Dwight Eisenhower thought that it gave too much attention to the pilot. Instead, the name Mercury was chosen from Greco-Roman mythology, which already lent names to rockets like the Atlas and Jupiter.

1963 – President Kennedy signed the documents of ratification for a limited nuclear test ban treaty with Britain and the Soviet Union. Testing was outlawed in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space.

1975 – President Gerald Ford signs law allowing admission of women into service academies.

1981 – Egypt’s parliament named Vice President Hosni Mubarak to succeed the assassinated Anwar Sadat. He tolerated the Muslim Brotherhood.

1985 – The United States announced it would no longer automatically comply with World Court decisions. This was in response to a June 25, 1985, World Court ruling that U.S. involvement in Nicaragua violated international law. The ruling stemmed from a suit brought in April 1984 after revelations that the CIA had directed the mining of Nicaraguan ports. The U.S. later vetoed two U.N. resolutions calling for compliance to the World Court ruling.

1985 – Four Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) gunmen hijacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in the Mediterranean and demanded the release of 50 Palestinians held by Israel. 413 people were held hostage for 2 days in the seizure that was masterminded by Mohammed Abul Abbas. American Leon Klinghoffer was shot while sitting in his wheelchair and thrown overboard. A case was filed against the PLO and settled in 1997. The hijackers surrendered to Egyptian authorities and were turned over to Italy which let Abbas slip out of the country. Abbas was captured in Baghdad in 2003.

1990 – Israel began handing out gas masks to its citizens.

1993 – President Clinton ordered more troops, heavy armor and naval firepower to Somalia, but also announced he would pull out all Americans by the end of March 1994.

1994 – Iraqi troops moved south toward Kuwait. President Clinton dispatched a carrier group, 54,000 troops and warplanes to the gulf area after Iraqi troops were spotted moving south toward Kuwait. The Iraqis pulled back.

1999 – It was reported that American fighter jets had begun using non -explosive concrete bombs to destroy military targets in northern Iraq.

2001 – The Al -Jazeera TV network from Qatar showed video footage of Osama bin Laden praising Allah for the Sept 11th terrorist attacks.

2002 – Space shuttle Atlantis carried 6 astronauts and a 14 -ton girder for installation on the int’l. space station. This mission delivered the Integrated Truss Assembly S1 (Starboard Side Thermal Radiator Truss) and the Crew Equipment Translation Aid (CETA) Cart to the Space Station. The S1 Truss is 45 foot long, 15 foot wide and 10 foot tall. It weighs approximately 31,000 lbs . The S1 truss was attached to the S0 truss (Launched April 8, 2002 onboard STS-110) and uses 637 lbs of anhydrous ammonia in three heat rejection radiators. The CETA cart was attached to the Mobile Transporter (also launched on STS-110) to be used by assembly crews on later missions.

2014 – Kurds clash violently with Turkish police over failure to help Kurds under siege in the Syrian border city of Kobani under siege by ISIL forces.

October 8th ~

1793 – John Hancock, US merchant and signer of the Declaration of Independence, died at 56. He was born at Braintree, Massachusetts, always lived in that state, and died at Quincy. Hancock was graduated at Harvard in 1754. He learned the business of an importing merchant in the counting house of an uncle, who left him money with which to carry on the business.

Samuel Adams was without a dollar. Hancock was the wealthiest merchant in the city. It is difficult to say which was the more determined opponent of Great Britain. Both were members of the Massachusetts General Court. Both sat in the Provincial Congress. Both were honored by General Gage as the two rebels “whose offenses are of too flagitious a nature to admit of any other consideration but that of condign punishment.” Both were expressly omitted by name from an act of general amnesty with which the British government sought to conciliate the colonies in 1775.

From the beginning, Hancock was in the thick of the contest. He owned the sloop Liberty, whose seizure brought on the riot of 1768. He demanded the removal of troops after the so-called Boston massacre. Hancock delivered a fiery address at the funeral of the victims of that affair. He was president of the Continental Congress, and his bold signature appeared prominently on the Declaration of Independence. He was the first governor of the state of Massachusetts. Hancock had faults enough, no doubt, vanity and jealousy, it is said, but none doubted his patriotism and strong common sense. His wealth, education, social standing, determined character, and reputation for strict integrity were of incalculable service to the American cause.

1842 – Commodore Lawrence Kearny in USS Constitution addresses a letter to the Viceroy of China, urging that American merchants in China be granted the same treaty privileges as the British. His negotiations are successful.

1862 – The Union was victorious at the Battle of Perryville, the largest Civil War combat to take place in Kentucky. Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg’s autumn 1862 invasion of Kentucky had reached the outskirts of Louisville and Cincinnati, but he was forced to retreat and regroup. On October 7, the Federal army of Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, numbering nearly 55,000, converged on the small crossroads town of Perryville, Kentucky, in three columns. Union forces first skirmished with Rebel cavalry on the Springfield Pike before the fighting became more general, on Peters Hill, as the gray clad infantry arrived.

The next day, at dawn, fighting began again around Peters Hill as a Union division advanced up the pike, halting just before the Confederate line. The fighting then stopped for a time. After noon, a Confederate division struck the Union left flank and forced it to fall back. When more Confederate divisions joined the fray, the Union line made a stubborn stand, counterattacked, but finally fell back with some troops routed. Buell did not know of the happenings on the field, or he would have sent forward some reserves. Even so, the Union troops on the left flank, reinforced by two brigades, stabilized their line, and the Rebel attack sputtered to a halt. Later, a Rebel brigade assaulted the Union division on the Springfield Pike but was repulsed and fell back into Perryville. The Yankees pursued, and skirmishing occurred in the streets in the evening before dark. Union reinforcements were threatening the Rebel left flank by now. Bragg, short of men and supplies, withdrew during the night, and, after pausing at Harrodsburg, continued the Confederate retrograde by way of Cumberland Gap into East Tennessee. The Confederate offensive was over, and the Union controlled Kentucky.

1890 – Edward Vernon Rickenbacker (died 1973) was born in Columbus, Ohio. He became America’s “Ace of Aces” in World War I with more than 20 kills. Rickenbacker was already a famous race car driver when he entered World War I at age 28. Although he was considered too old to become an aviator, “Rick,” ultimately won the Medal of Honor for his wartime exploits. “If a thing is old, it is a sign that it was fit to live...The guarantee of continuity is quality.”

1918 – Sgt. Alvin C. York almost single-handedly killed 25 German soldiers and captured 132 in the Argonne Forest in France. Corporal Alvin C. York’s platoon was advancing toward the Decauville railway when they were hit with machinegun fire from all sides. The doughboys captured one gun, but the noise drew the fire of the remaining German emplacements, killing six and seriously wounding three Americans.

As the most senior of the remaining doughboys, York went out alone to engage the enemy with just his rifle and service revolver, picking off the machine gunners one by one. When the fighting was over, York had single-handedly eliminated 35 machine guns, killed more than 20 Germans and taken 132 members of a Prussian Guards regiment as prisoners. A modest man, York shrugged off his heroic actions, saying, “It’s over; let’s forget it.”

1944 – The Battle of Crucifix Hill occurs just outside Aachen. Capt. Bobbie Brown receives a Medal of Honor for his heroics in this battle. The Battle of Crucifix Hill took place on Crucifix Hill (Haarberg) (Hill 239), next to the village of Haaren in Germany and was a part of the U.S. 1st Division’s campaign to seize Aachen, Germany. The Battle of Aachen was part of the Drive to the Siegfried Line. The hill was named after a large crucifix mounted on the top of the hill. The objective of the battle was to gain control of the hill, which was laced with a maze of pillboxes and bunkers, so that the main objective of encircling Aachen could be completed. The hill was held by units of the German 246 Volks Grenadier Division.

1945 – President Truman announced that the secret of the atomic bomb would be shared only with Britain and Canada.

1950 – Chinese Premier Mao Tse-tung secretly ordered Chinese “volunteers” to “resist the attacks of U.S. imperialism.”

1952 – The Chinese began an offensive in Korea.

1952 – Operation RED COW, a joint Navy -Air Force mission against enemy positions near Kaesong, was conducted with Navy F2H Banshee fighter jets from Task Force 77 providing fighter escort for Air Force B -29 Super Fortress bombers. This was one of only two instances in the war in which Navy fighters escorted Air Force bombers.

1955 – The aircraft carrier USS Saratoga was launched at Brooklyn. The fifth Saratoga (CV 3) was laid down on 25 September 1920 as Battle Cruiser #3 by the New York Shipbuilding Co., Camden, N.J.; ordered converted to an aircraft carrier and reclassified CV-3 on 1 July 1922 in accordance with the Washington Treaty limiting naval armaments. The ship was launched on 7 April 1925, sponsored by Mrs. Curtis D. Wilbur, wife of the Secretary of the Navy; and commissioned on 16 November 1927, Capt. Harry E. Yarnell in command.

Saratoga, the first fast carrier in the United States Navy, quickly proved the value of her type. She sailed from Philadelphia on 6 January 1928 for shakedown, and, on 11 January, her air officer, the future World War II hero, Marc A. Mitscher, landed the first aircraft on board. In an experiment on 27 January, the rigid airship Los Angeles (ZR-3) moored to Saratoga’s stern and took on fuel and stores. The same day Saratoga sailed for the Pacific via the Panama Canal.

With the arrival of large numbers of Essex-class carriers, Saratoga was surplus to postwar requirements, and she was assigned to Operation Crossroads at Bikini Atoll to test the effect of the atomic bomb on naval vessels. She survived the first blast, an air burst on 1 July, with only minor damage, but was mortally wounded by the second on 25 July, an underwater blast which was detonated under a landing craft 500 yards from the carrier. Salvage efforts were prevented by radioactivity, and seven and one-half hours after the blast, with her funnel collapsed across her deck, Saratoga slipped beneath the surface of the lagoon. She was struck from the Navy list on 15 August 1946. Saratoga received seven battle stars for her World War II service.

1960 – USS Constellation (CV-64) was launched, a Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier, was the third ship of the United States Navy to be named in honor of the “new constellation of stars” on the flag of the United States. The contract to build her was awarded to the New York Naval Shipyard, Brooklyn, New York, on 1 July 1956, and her keel was laid down 14 September 1957, at the New York Navy Yard. She was sponsored by Mary Herter (wife of Secretary of State Christian Herter), delivered to the Navy 1 October 1961, and commissioned 27 October 1961, with Captain T.J. Walker in command. At that time, she had cost about US$400 million. On 19 December 1960, fire swept through the USS Constellation while it was under construction at a Brooklyn Navy Yard pier, injuring 150, killing 50, and doing $75 million worth of damage.

When deployed to the Middle East as part of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Constellation carried nine squadrons: VF-2 Bounty Hunters (ten F-14D Tomcats); VFA-137 Kestrels, VFA-151 Vigilantes, and VMFA-323 Death Rattlers (each with 12 F/A-18C Hornets); VAW-116 Sun Kings (four E-2C Hawkeyes); VAQ-131 Lancers (four EA-6B Prowlers); VS-38 Red Griffins (eight S-3B Vikings); HS-2 Golden Falcons (two SH-60F Seahawks and six HH-60H Pave Hawks); VRC-30 Providers Detachment 2 (two C-2A Greyhounds). In early 2003,The Constellation went into mothballs after she completed her deployment. Connie will be replaced by Ronnie...USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76).

1968 – U.S. forces in Vietnam launched Operation Sealords, an attack on North Vietnamese supply lines and base areas.

1981 – An explosive device at the University of Utah was defused. It was later attributed to the Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski.

1985 – The hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro killed American passenger Leon Klinghoffer, dumping his body and wheelchair overboard. After a two-day drama, the hijackers surrender in exchange for a pledge of safe passage. But when an Egyptian jet tries to fly the hijackers to freedom, U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept it and force it to land in Sicily. The terrorists are taken into custody by Italian authorities. Counter- terrorist units from the U.S responded, including elements of Delta Force and SEAL Team Six, however the situation was resolved before an assault became necessary.

1993 – Army policy directive authorizes wartime awards (only for actions since June 5th, 1993) and Combat Infantryman Badges and Medical Badges for participants in Somalia fighting. AC130 spectre gunships come back to Mogadishu and shell the city.

2001 – President Bush establishes the Office of Homeland Security in the Executive Office of the President and appoints Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge as Director.

2010 – Two Russian cosmonauts, Aleksandr Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka, and American astronaut Scott Kelly leave on mission Soyuz TMA-01M for the International Space Station from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmo Drome.

2014 – The first person who was diagnosed with Ebola in the United States, Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian man, dies in Dallas, Texas.

October 9th ~

1635 – Founder of Rhode Island Roger Williams is banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident after he speaks out against punishments for religious offenses and giving away Native American land.

1767 – Surveying for the Mason–Dixon line separating Maryland from Pennsylvania is completed.

1781 – The bombardment of the British forces at Yorktown begins. Among the American guns there were three twenty-four pounders, three eighteen pounders, two eight-inch (203 mm) howitzers and six mortars. At 3:00 pm, the French guns opened the barrage and drove the British frigate, HMS Guadeloupe across the York River, where she was scuttled to prevent capture. At 5:00 pm the Americans opened fire. George Washington fired the first gun; legend has it that it smashed into a table where British officers were eating. The Franco-American guns began to tear apart the British defenses. Washington ordered that the guns fire all night so that the British could not make repairs. All of the British guns on the left were soon silenced. The British soldiers began to pitch their tents in their trenches and soldiers began to desert in large numbers. Some British ships were also damaged by cannonballs that flew across the town and into the harbor.

1812 – American Lieutenant Jesse Duncan Elliot captured two British brigs, the Detroit and Caledonia on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Elliot set the brig Detroit ablaze the next day in retaliation for the British capture seven weeks earlier of the city of Detroit.

1814 – USS Wasp vanished at sea. On this date, she informed the Swedish brig Adonis that she was “standing for the Spanish Main.” She was never seen again, and all hands were lost.”

1864 – At the Battle of Tom’s Brook the Confederate cavalry that harassed Sheridan’s campaign was wiped by Custer and Merrit’s cavalry divisions. After his victory at Fisher’s Hill, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan pursued Early’s army up the Shenandoah Valley to near Staunton. On October 6, Sheridan began withdrawing, as his cavalry burned everything that could be deemed of military significance, including barns and mills. Reinforced by Kershaw’s division, Early followed. Maj. Gen. Thomas Rosser arrived from Petersburg to take command of Fitz Lee’s cavalry division and harassed the retreating Federals. On October 9, Torbert’s troopers turned on their pursuers, routing the divisions of Rosser and Lomax at Tom’s Brook. With this victory, the Union cavalry attained overwhelming superiority in the Valley.

1867 – The Russians formally transferred Alaska to the US. The U.S. had bought Alaska for $7.2 million in gold.

1873 – LT Charles Belknap calls a meeting at the Naval Academy to establish the U.S. Naval Institute for the purpose of disseminating scientific and professional knowledge throughout the Navy.

1888 – The Washington Monument officially opens to the general public.

1906 – Joseph F. Glidden, inventor of barbed wire died.

1917 – The 8th Marines was activated at Quantico, Virginia. Although the regiment would not see combat in Europe during World War I, the officers and enlisted men of the 8th Marines participated in operations against dissidents in Haiti for over five years during the 1920s. During World War II, the regiment was assigned to the 2d Marine Division and participated in combat operations on Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, and Okinawa, and earned three Presidential Unit Citations.

1936 – Generators at Boulder Dam (later renamed to Hoover Dam) begin to generate electricity from the Colorado River and transmit it 266 miles to Los Angeles.

1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested congressional approval for arming U.S. merchant ships.

1942 – First three schools for enlisted WAVES open at Stillwater, OK (Yeoman), Bloomington, IN (Storekeepers), and Madison, WI (Radiomen) for WAVES recruiting activities.

1945 – Anti -submarine Patrol Craft USS PC -590 (Coast Guard -manned) grounded and sank in typhoon off Okinawa.

1952 – Vice Admiral Joseph J. “Jocko” Clark, the last commander of the Navy’s 7th Fleet during the Korean War and a Cherokee descendent, became famous for his self -proclaimed “Cherokee Strikes.”

1969 – In Chicago, the United States National Guard is called in for crowd control as demonstrations continue in connection with the trial of the “Chicago Eight” that began on September 24th.

1985 – The hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise liner surrendered after the ship arrived in Port Said, Egypt.

1990 – Saddam Hussein of Iraq threatened to hit Israel with a new missile.

1992 – To protect the US food airlift, the first American forces arrived in Somalia.

1992 – The U.N. Security Council voted to ban all military flights over Bosnia -Herzegovina.

1993 – Cease -Fire. Aidid unilaterally declares a “total cease fire.” Clinton bars retaliation against Aidid.

1994 – The United States sent troops and warships to the Persian Gulf after Saddam Hussein sent tens of thousands of elite troops and hundreds of tanks toward the Kuwaiti border.

1995 – Saboteurs pulled 29 spikes from a stretch of railroad track, causing an Amtrak train to derail in Arizona; one person was killed and about 100 were injured.

1999 – The last flight of the SR-71. The Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was an advanced, long-range, Mach 3+ strategic reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed as a black project from the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in the 1960s by Lockheed and its Skunk Works division. Clarence “Kelly” Johnson was responsible for many of the design’s innovative concepts. During reconnaissance missions, the SR-71 operated at high speeds and altitudes to allow it to outrace threats. If a surface-to-air missile launch was detected, the standard evasive action was simply to accelerate and outfly the missile. The SR-71 served with the U.S. Air Force from 1964 to 1998. A total of 32 aircraft were built; 12 were lost in accidents, but none lost to enemy action.

The SR-71 has been given several nicknames, including Blackbird and Habu. Since 1976, it has held the world record for the fastest air-breathing manned aircraft, a record previously held by the YF-12. All Blackbirds have been moved to museums except for the two SR-71s and a few D-21 drones retained by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

2001 – The US declared air supremacy over Afghanistan. In the first daylight raids since the start of U.S. -led attacks on Afghanistan, jets bombed the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.

2001 – The 2 anthrax cases in Florida were reported to probably have been caused by an intentional release of the deadly bacteria.

2002 – Newly -declassified Pentagon reports acknowledge that the United States used deadly chemical and biological warfare agents during Cold War military tests on American soil and in Britain and Canada from 1962 -1971.

2002 – Dean Meyers (53) was shot to death in Manassas, Va., in a shooting that appeared to be linked to 6 previous sniper attacks in the area.

2006 – North Korea allegedly tests its first nuclear device.

2009 – First lunar impact of the Centaur and LCROSS spacecrafts as part of NASA’s Lunar Precursor Robotic Program. An unmanned Atlas V rocket launched the two space probes towards the Moon, where they provided a 3-D map and searched for water in conjunction with the Hubble Space Telescope.

2013 – Juno flies by Earth on its way to orbit Jupiter, but suffers a glitch during the fly-by that puts it in safe mode. Juno is a NASA New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter. Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011 and will arrive in July 2016. The spacecraft is to be placed in a polar orbit to study Jupiter’s composition, gravity field, magnetic field, and polar magnetosphere. Juno will also search for clues about how the planet formed, including whether it has a rocky core, the amount of water present within the deep atmosphere, how its mass is distributed, and its deep winds, which can reach speeds of 618 kilometers per hour (384 mph).

October 10th ~

680 – Imam Hussein, grandson of prophet Mohammed, was beheaded. He was killed by rival Muslim forces on the Karbala plain in modern day Iraq. He then became a saint to Shiite Muslims. Traditionalists and radical guerrillas alike commemorate his martyrdom as the ceremony of Ashura. The 10-day mourning period during the holy month of Muharram commemorates the deaths of Caliph Ali’s male relatives by Sunnis from Iraq.

732 – At Tours, France, Charles Martel killed Abd el-Rahman and halted the Muslim invasion of Europe. Islam’s westward spread was stopped by the Franks at Poitiers.

1798 – Secretary Benjamin Stoddert, first Secretary of the Navy, sent the first instructions to cutters acting in cooperation with the Navy in support of the Quasi-War with France, via the various collectors of customs.

1845 – In Annapolis, Maryland, the Naval School (later renamed the United States Naval Academy) opens with 50 midshipman students and seven professors.

1877 – The remains of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer were buried at West Point in New York.

1913 – Panama Canal was completed when President Woodrow Wilson triggered a blast which exploded the Gamboa Dike by pressing an electric button at the White House in Washington, D.C.

1918 – While President Woodrow Wilson was attempting to establish “peace without victory” with Germany, the German UB-123 torpedoed RMS Leinster, a civilian mail and passenger ferry, off the coast of Ireland. Leinster was usually escorted by a Royal Air Force airship as a precaution, but on October 10th the ferry set out alone. Leinster was sunk; 564 passengers and crewmen perished, many of them American and Allied troops. After Leinster, the Germans lost their chance for an easy peace.

1923 – First American-built rigid airship, Shenandoah, is christened. It used helium gas instead of hydrogen.

1938 – Germany completed its annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland.

1941 – The destroyer USS Kearney is attacked by a German, submarine. In the attack, ten sailors are killed and scores injured. America suffers its first war casualties in World War II. Pearl Harbor is still seven weeks away.

1944 – Nearly two hundred of Admiral Halsey’s planes struck Naha, Okinawa’s capital and principal city, in five separate waves. The city was almost totally devastated. The American war against Japan was coming inexorably closer to the Japanese homeland.

1950 – A total of sixteen Air Guard squadrons are mobilized for duty during the Korean War. Five of these fighter squadrons, the 111th (TX), 136th (TX), 154th (AR), 158th (GA) and 196th (CA) would fly missions in Korea. Sixteen other units were deployed to NATO bases in Europe.

1950 – A 3d ARS H-5 crew administered, for the first time while a helicopter was in flight, blood plasma to a rescued pilot. The crewmembers received Silver Stars for this action.

1953 – A Mutual Defense Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of Korea is concluded in Washington, D.C.

1954 – Ho Chi Minh entered Hanoi after French troops withdraw.

1960 – Navy assigned responsibility for program management and technial direction of Project SPASUR, the first U.S. universal satellite detection and tracking network.

1965 – Ronald Reagan spoke at Coalinga Junior College and called for an official declaration of war in Vietnam.

1967 – The Outer Space Treaty, signed on January 27 by more than sixty nations, comes into force. The Outer Space Treaty, formally the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, is a treaty that forms the basis of international space law.

1973 – Vice President of the United States Spiro Agnew resigns after being charged with evasion of federal income tax.

1975 – Israel formally signed the Sinai accord with Egypt.

1979 – Panama assumed sovereignty over Canal Area.

1982 – US imposed sanctions against Poland for banning Solidarity trade union.

1985 – U.S. fighter jets from the USS Saratoga forced an Egyptian plane carrying the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro to land in Italy, where the gunmen were taken into custody.

1990 – The space shuttle “Discovery” landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California, ending a virtually flawless four-day mission.

1992 – Iraq released U.S. munitions expert Clinton Hall, two days after he’d been taken prisoner in the demilitarized zone separating Iraq and Kuwait.

1993 – Thousands of Somalis demonstrated in the capital of Mogadishu to support warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, an event that coincided with the arrival of special U.S. envoy Robert Oakley.

1994 – Iraq announced it was withdrawing its forces from the Kuwaiti border; seeing no signs of a pullback, President Clinton dispatched 350 additional aircraft to the region.

1995 – Israel began a West Bank pullback and freed hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

1998 – David Sheldon Boone (46), a former Pentagon analyst, was arrested for selling top defense secrets to the former Soviet Union. He was lured back to the US from Germany.

2001 – U.S. jets pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul, a terrorist stronghold.

2001 – An unmanned US spy plane was lost over southern Iraq, the 3rd since Aug 27th.

2001 – The FBI issued a list of 22 most wanted terrorists dating back to 1985 with rewards up to $5 million for tips that prevent attacks or lead to arrests.

2001 – In Florida a 3rd case of anthrax was identified in a 35-year-old woman who worked in the same office as Robert Stevens. The strain was reported to match one from Iowa in the 1950s commonly used by lab researchers.

2001 – Turkey granted the government the authority to send troops overseas and to allow foreign troops to be stationed on its soil.

2002 – The US Congress gave Pres. Bush authorization to use armed forces against Iraq. The House voted 296-133 in favor.

2002 – Allied planes bombed radar and missile sites in the southern no-fly zone over Iraq, targeting President Saddam Hussein’s air defenses for the third time this week.

2009 – United States President Barack Obama announces he will end the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy against homosexuals serving in the U.S. military.

2013 – Scott Carpenter, Mercury 7 astronaut and second American to orbit the earth, dies at 88 following complications from a stroke. Malcolm Scott Carpenter (born May 1, 1925) was an American test pilot, astronaut, and aquanaut. He was one of the original seven astronauts selected for NASA’s Project Mercury in April 1959. Carpenter was the second American (after John Glenn) to orbit the Earth and the fourth American in space, following Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, and John Glenn. After being chosen for Project Mercury in 1959, Carpenter, along with the other six astronauts, oversaw the development of the Mercury capsule. He served as backup pilot for John Glenn, who flew the first U.S. orbital mission aboard Friendship 7 in February 1962. Carpenter, serving as capsule communicator on this flight, can be heard saying “Godspeed, John Glenn” on the recording of Glenn’s liftoff.

When Deke Slayton was withdrawn on medical grounds from Project Mercury’s second manned orbital flight (which Slayton would have named Delta 7), Carpenter was assigned to replace him. He flew into space on May 24, 1962, atop the Mercury-Atlas 7 rocket for a three-orbit science mission that lasted nearly five hours. His Aurora 7 spacecraft attained a maximum altitude of 164 miles (264 km) and an orbital velocity of 17,532 miles per hour (28,215 km/h).

In July 1964 in Bermuda, Carpenter sustained a grounding injury from a motorbike accident while on leave from NASA to train for the Navy’s SEALAB project. In 1965, for SEALAB II, he spent 28 days living on the ocean floor off the coast of California. During the SEALAB II mission, Carpenter’s right index finger was wounded by the toxic spines of a scorpion fish. He returned to work at NASA as Executive Assistant to the Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, then returned to the Navy’s Deep Submergence Systems Project in 1967, based in Bethesda, Maryland, as a Director of Aquanaut Operations for SEALAB III.

In the aftermath of aquanaut Berry L. Cannon’s death while attempting to repair a leak in SEALAB III, Carpenter volunteered to dive down to SEALAB and help return it to the surface, although SEALAB was ultimately salvaged in a less hazardous way. Carpenter retired from the Navy in 1969, after which he founded Sea Sciences, Inc., a corporation for developing programs for utilizing ocean resources and improving environmental health.

October 11th ~

1726 – Benjamin Franklin returned to Philadelphia from England.

1776 – The first naval battle of Lake Champlain was fought during the American Revolution. American forces led by Gen. Benedict Arnold suffered heavy losses, but managed to stall the British. British forces had successfully resisted the American assault on Quebec in the early months of the war and pursued the retreating invaders back to their bases at Crown Point and Fort Ticonderoga. The approach of winter in late 1775 had forced the British to return to Canada, but a strike against the rebels by way of Lake Champlain was a top priority for the campaign in 1776. Sir Guy Carleton, the British commander in Canada, supplemented his forces with 5,000 German mercenaries and a fleet of ships to be used in the planned assault. Vessels sailed up the St. Lawrence River, were laboriously disassembled and transported around the rapids on the Richelieu River, then reassembled for service on Lake Champlain. Smaller craft were built on site. The showpiece of the British fleet was the HMS Inflexible, an 18-gun man-of-war. The remnants of the American invasion force occupied Fort Ticonderoga in 1776 under increasingly dire circumstances. Food, clothing and ammunition supplies were low and morale was flagging. Brigadier General Benedict Arnold received permission to construct a fleet on Lake Champlain to stop or at least slow the impending British advance. Shipwrights were brought in from New England coastal towns to construct the fleet, including special flat-bottomed craft that were fitted with both sails and oars and carried cannon in the bow. The workers had no alternative to using green lumber, which quickly warped and allowed water into the vessels. In all, three schooners, three galleys, eight gunboats and a sloop were constructed.

The British were unaware of the American efforts to build a fleet and allowed their own shipbuilding activities to stretch into the late summer. Arnold realized that he was badly outgunned and would have no chance against a direct confrontation with the enemy. He sought the most favorable position he could find, choosing to array his fleet in an arc from Valcour Island to near the New York shore in an area a few miles south of the village of Plattsburgh. The British fleet finally set sail in early October, the Inflexible in the lead and the troop transports at the rear.

The two forces met on the 11th. The American ships were not easily visible in the bay and much of the British flotilla sailed past. When the American presence was made known, the larger British vessels had difficulty reversing direction and were late in joining the fray. In the ensuing seven-hour battle, both sides sustained heavy damage, but the British were unable to bring the full force of their firepower to bear because of the cramped confines forced by the American position; only a few of the British vessels could align themselves between the island and the shore and fire at close range. Soldiers delivered by Carleton’s ships poured withering fire from the shore into the American ships, which inflicted heavy casualties. As night approached, the British attempted to bottle-up the bay and were confident that they could complete their task in the morning. Arnold had lost the Philadelphia and knew he stood little chance when the battle resumed.

During the night a heavy fog descended. Arnold capitalized on the reduced visibility by silently sailing his damaged fleet around the British blockade and heading south toward Crown Point. When the fog lifted in the morning, the British beheld an empty bay and immediately began pursuit. A valiant delaying action was fought by the Congress, with Arnold at the helm, and the Washington, which enabled other ships to reach Crown Point. At the last moment, Arnold’s ship managed to sprint to shore, where it was set afire, and the crew escaped on land to Crown Point. Crown Point could not withstand a British assault, and was destroyed as the garrison and Arnold’s surviving men pushed on to Ticonderoga. When the British fleet arrived outside of Ticonderoga, the Americans blasted away with their cannon — despite the fact that they were dangerously low on powder and shot — which gave the British the impression that they were prepared to mount a protracted defense of their position. Carleton was taken in by the ruse. He returned American prisoners in his possession under a flag of truce, then turned his fleet around and sailed back to Canada. Arnold’s small navy was nearly destroyed: 11 of 15 ships were lost and 80 casualties sustained. However, Fort Ticonderoga was held and the British invasion halted. The significance of Arnold’s defense would be noted in the following year’s campaign when the British again mounted an offensive from the north; had Arnold and his men failed, the campaign of 1777 would have begun from Ticonderoga rather than Canada and might have ended differently.

1779 – Polish nobleman General Casimir Pulaski was killed while fighting for American independence during the Revolutionary War Battle of Savannah, Ga. Of all the Polish officers who took part in the American War of Independence, Casimir Pulaski was the most romantic and professionally the most prominent. He was born into the middle gentry at Warka, Poland, March 4, 1747. His family was rich and had enhanced their fortune as clients of the Czartoryski family with whose nationalist policies it was identified. His education was typical of its time, he learned a smattering of languages and manners in the service of the Duke of Courland. It was here that young Pulaski first came into contact with the interference of foreign powers in Polish affairs, that lead to the first great act of his life. Joseph Pulaski, Casimir’s father, impatient with the Russian interference precipitated an armed movement called the Confederation of Bar in 1768. Casimir was one of the founding members and on his father’s death in 1769, carried the burden of military command. His greatest success was in the taking and holding of Jasna Gora at Czestochowa, the holist place in Poland. His brilliant defense against the Russians thrilled all of Europe. Unfortunately soon afterward he was implicated in a plot to kill the Polish King and forced into exile.

Burdened by debts Pulaski was found in Paris by Benjamin Franklin and enlisted in for American cause. Pulaski joined George Washington’s army just before the battle of Brandywine. Acting under Washington’s orders without commission Pulaski lead the scouting party that discovered the British flanking movement and the American escape route. He then gathered all available cavalry to cover the retreat, leading a dashing charge that surprised the British and allowed the American army to escape. Congress rewarded Pulaski with a commission as brigadier general and command of all American cavalry. He spent the winter of 1777-8 training and outfitting the cavalry units but in March, he gave way before the intrigues of his jealous officers. He requested and Washington approved the formation of an independent corp of cavalry and light infantry of foreign volunteers. Pulaski’s Legion became the training ground for American cavalry officers including “Light Horse” Harry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, and the model for Lee’s and Armand’s legions. Thirteen Polish officers served under Pulaski in the legion. The best assessment of Pulaski’s legion came from a British officer who called them simply “the best damned cavalry the rebels ever had”. In 1779 Pulaski and his legion were sent south to the besieged city of Charleston where he immediately raised morale and assisted in breaking the siege. A joint operation with the French was planed to recapture the city of Savannah. Against Pulaski’s advice the French commander ordered an assault against the strongest point of the British defense, Seeing the allied troops falter Pulaski galloped forward to rally the men, when he was mortally wounded by British cannon shot. He died two days later and was buried at sea.

Pulaski was the romantic embodiment of the flashing saber and the trumpets calling to the charge, and that is how history has remembered him. The larger-Than-life aspect of his death has often obscured his steadier, quieter, and more lasting services. It was in the drudgery of forging a disciplined American cavalry that could shadow and report on British movements, in the long distance forage raids to feed and clothe the troops at Valley Forge, and the bitter hit and run rearguard actions that covered retreating American armies that slowed British pursuit, that gave Pulaski the title of “Father of the American cavalry”.

1809 – Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder’s Stand. It is speculated that personal and professional problems may have driven him to suicide, but some people believe he was murdered.

1824 – Marquis de Lafayette visits the Washington Navy Yard during his year long tour of America. He returned to the yard the next day, October 12, to continue his visit.

1862 – The Confederate Congress in Richmond passed a draft law allowing anyone owning 20 or more slaves to be exempt from military service. This law confirmed many southerners opinion that they were in a ‘rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight.’

1862 – American Civil War: In the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and his men loot Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, during a raid into the north.

1864 – Slavery was abolished in Maryland.

1865 – President Johnson paroled CSA Vice President Alexander Stephens.

1879 – The first annual conference of the National Guard Association is held. The Association, which continues in operation today, acts as a political interest group representing Guard concerns with members of Congress. Federal law prohibits members of the armed forces on active duty from ‘lobbying’ Congress so the Association, which is composed of active and retired Guard officers, performs this function.

1890 – The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) was founded in Washington, D.C.

1896 – The crew of the Pea Island (North Carolina) Life-Saving Station, under the command of Keeper Richard Etheridge, performed one of their finest rescues when they saved the passengers and crew of the schooner E.S. Newman, after that ship ran aground during a hurricane. Pushed before the storm, the ship lost all sails and drifted almost 100 miles before it ran aground about two miles south of the Pea Island Lifesaving Station. Etheridge, a veteran of nearly twenty years, readied his crew. They hitched mules to the beach cart and hurried toward the vessel. Arriving on the scene, they found Captain S. A. Gardiner and eight others clinging to the wreckage. Unable to fire a line because the high water prevented the Lyle Gun’s deployment, Etheridge directed two surfmen to bind themselves together with a line. Grasping another line, the pair moved into the breakers while the remaining surfmen secured the shore end. The two surfmen reached the wreck and tied a line around one of the crewmen. All three were then pulled back through the surf by the crew on the beach. The remaining eight persons were carried to shore in this fashion. After each trip two different surfmen replaced those who had just returned. For their efforts the crew of the Pea Island Life-Saving station were awarded the Gold Life Saving Medal.

1910 – Former President Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president to fly in an airplane. He flew for four minutes with Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright brothers at Kinloch Field (Lambert–St. Louis International Airport), St. Louis, Missouri.

1939 – Albert Einstein wrote his famous letter to FDR about the potential of the atomic bomb. Einstein, a long time pacifist, was concerned that the Nazis would get the bomb first. In the letter, Einstein argued the scientific feasibility of atomic weapons, and urged the need for development of a US atomic program. The physicists Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, and Edward Teller, who were profoundly disturbed by the lack of American atomic action, had enlisted the aid of the Nobel prize-winner Einstein in the summer of 1939, hoping that a letter from such a renowned scientist would persuade Roosevelt into action.

October 11th ~ ( continued... )

1942 – In the World War II Battle of Cape Esperance in the Solomon Islands, U.S. cruisers and destroyers decisively defeated a Japanese task force in a night surface encounter sinking two Japanese ships while losing only USS Duncan (DD-485).

1945 – Negotiations between Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and Communist leader Mao Tse-tung broke down. Nationalist and Communist troops were soon engaged in a civil war.

1950 – Task Force 77 Aircraft destroy North Korean vessels off Songjin and Wonsan and north of Hungham.

1951 – A Marine battalion was flown by transport helicopters to a frontline combat position for the first time, when HMR-161 lifted the 3d Battalion, 7th Marines, and its equipment, during Operation Bumblebee, northeast of Yanggu, Korea. This is the first battalion sized combat helo lift.

1952 – Two USAF 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing F-86 Sabre jet pilots shot down enemy aircraft. It was future ace Captain Clyde A. Curtin’s first aerial victory of the war. Captain Clifford Jolley chalked up his seventh and final enemy aircraft kill. Four other MiGs were destroyed in a series of battles over northwest Korea.

1954 – The Vietminh formally take control of Hanoi and North Vietnam. Unlike Diem in the South, Ho Chi Minh face no rebellious factions or challenges to their authority. The long war against the French, however, has devastated the North economically.

1958 – The lunar probe Pioneer 1 was launched; it failed to go as far as planned, fell back to Earth, and burned up in the atmosphere.

1961 – At a meeting of the National Security Council, President Kennedy is asked to accept ‘as our real and ultimate objective the defeat of the Vietcong.’ The Joint Chiefs of Staff estimate that 40,000 US troops could clean up ‘the Vietcong threat,’ and another 120,000 could cope with possible North Vietnamese or Communist Chinese intervention. Kennedy decides to send General Maxwell Taylor to Vietnam to study the situation.

1963 – A US National Security Action memorandum that recommended plans to withdraw 1,000 US Military personnel by the end of the year was approved. The memo followed McNamara’s return from a trip to South Vietnam.

1968 – Apollo 7, The first manned Apollo mission, was launched from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn Fulton Eisele and R. Walter Cunningham aboard. It made 163 orbits. The mission lasted 10 days and 20 hours. Recovery was by HS-5 helicopters from USS Essex (CVS-9).

1972 – A race riot occurs on the United States Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk off the coast of Vietnam during Operation Linebacker. During the USS Kitty Hawk riot, sometimes called the Kitty Hawk mutiny, many crewmen were injured, but Kitty Hawk participated in Linebacker as assigned. Approximately 100–200 black Kitty Hawk crewmen rioted as a response to perceived grievances against the Navy and the officers of Kitty Hawk, which appeared to represent institutionalized racism on the ship. Forty-five to 60 Kitty Hawk crewmen were injured in total.

The carrier’s commander—Captain Marland Townsend—and executive officer—Commander Benjamin Cloud (who was black)—dissuaded the rioters from further violence and prevented white sailors from retaliating. This allowed the carrier to launch her Linebacker air missions as scheduled on the morning of 12 October. Nineteen of the rioters were later found guilty by the Navy of at least one charge connected to the riot. The incident was publicized in The New York Times. Subsequent racial unrest on Kitty Hawk′s sister ship Constellation sparked Congressional hearings to examine race relations in the Navy and policies and programs instituted by Navy leaders to deal with racial issues.

1976 – George Washington’s appointment, posthumously, to the grade of General of the Armies by congressional joint resolution Public Law 94-479 is approved by President Gerald R. Ford.

1984 – Space shuttle Challenger astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.

1986 – President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev opened two days of talks concerning arms control and human rights in Reykjavik, Iceland.

1993 – Yasser Arafat won endorsement for his peace accord with Israel from the Palestine Central Council.

1994 – Iraqi troops began moving north, away from the Kuwaiti border.

1995 – In Bosnia a cease-fire was declared.

1996 – US FBI agents arrested 7 in West Virginia for plotting to bomb the national fingerprinting records facility in Charleston.

1998 – In Bosnia forensic experts began exhuming 274 bodies in the village of Donja Glumina. They were believed to be Bosnian Muslims killed in Srebrenica by Serbs in July 1995.

1999 – In Chechnya more people fled Russian attacks and Moscow demanded that Islamic militants be handed over before any peace settlement.

2000 – The shuttle Discovery with a crew of 7 lifted off from Cape Canaveral for an 11-day mission to the International Space Station. It marked the shuttle fleet’s 100th mission. STS-92 was a Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS) flown by Space Shuttle Discovery. STS-92 marked the 100th mission of the Space Shuttle.

2001 – In his first prime-time news conference since taking office, President George W. Bush offered the Taliban a chance to stop America’s punishing assaults on Afghanistan by turning over suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

2001 – The FBI warned that new acts of terrorism could target Americans over the next few days.

2001 – The Bush administration asked newspapers not to publish full transcripts of messages from Osama bin Laden due to the possibility of coded messages.

2001 – In NYC Mayor Giuliani rejected a $10 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal due to an attached press release that said the US should re-examine its policies in the Middle East and adopt a more balanced stance toward the Palestinian cause.

2001 – The Pentagon confirmed the 1st US death in Operation Enduring Freedom. Air Force Sgt. Evander Earl Andrews was killed in a fork lift accident in Qatar.

2002 – Kenneth Bridges (53) was shot and killed in Spotsylvania, Va., the 8th victim of the DC area sniper.

2004 – An Arabic language television station broadcast video showing three hooded gunmen threatening to behead a Turkish hostage within three days unless the Americans release all Iraqi prisoners and all Turks leave Iraq.

2007 – Turkey recalls its ambassador to the United States due to anger over an upcoming House of Representatives vote on recognizing the Armenian Genocide.

2009 – Luis Armando Pena Soltren, a suspect wanted for the 1968 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 281, is surrendered after more than 40 years. Pan Am Flight 281 was a regularly scheduled Pan American World Airways flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico. It was hijacked on November 24, 1968, by 4 men from JFK International Airport, New York to Havana, Cuba. US Fighter jets followed plane to Cuba. Soltren, lived as a fugitive in Cuba. He pleaded guilty to the hijacking on March 18, 2010. On January 4, 2011 he was sentenced to 15 years in prison, without the possibility of parole.

2012 – A gunman kills Qassem M. Aqlan, the Yemeni chief of security employed at the U.S. embassy in the capital, Sana’a.

2014 – USS America (LHA 6), the Navy’s newest and most technologically advanced amphibious assault ship, was commissioned during a formal ceremony at Pier 30/32 during San Francisco Fleet Week. More than 8,000 friends, family members and invited guests gathered in front of the ship to witness its introduction to the fleet. During the ceremony, Adm. Harry B. Harris, commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet, commended the crew for their performance during acceptance trials and sailing around South America. He said because conflict and crisis can arise at any time, warships like America will be needed as the nation conducts its strategic rebalance to the Pacific.

October 12th ~

1492 – Christopher Columbus sited land, an island of the Bahamas which he named San Salvador, but which was called Guanahani by the local Taino people. [HFA gives the date as Oct. 11] Pinta’s lookout, Rodrigo de Triana, saw a white cliff in the moonlight on the morning of Oct 12. Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, or Cristobal Colon to his Spanish patrons, led a group of exhilarated sailors ashore on a sunny Caribbean island they christened San Salvador. Seeking to establish profitable Asian trade routes by sailing west, Columbus seriously underestimated the size of the Earth–never dreaming that two great continents blocked his path to the east. Columbus, returning to Spain after his first expedition, submitted a report of the wonders he had seen to Ferdinand and Isabella. The original report was not illustrated, but later editions, were imaginatively illustrated with woodcuts showing cowering Indians and an ocean-going ship with oars. Even after four voyages to America, Columbus believed until the end of his life in 1506 that he had discovered an isolated corner of Asia.

1792 – First celebration of Columbus Day in the USA held in New York City.

1861 – The Confederate ironclad Manassas attacked the northern ship Richmond on the Mississippi River. The Manassas was the Confederacy‘s first operational ironclad. Originally a New England tugboat called the Enoch Train, the ship was refit with iron sheathing and an iron prow for ramming. The underpowered ship was used in defense of New Orleans, finally being dispatched by the Union warship Mississippi.

1862 – J.E.B. Stuart completed his “2nd ride around McClellan.” Following the September 17, 1862, Battle of Sharpsburg in Maryland, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s battered Confederate Army of Northern Virginia slipped back across the Potomac River and set up camp in the valleys of Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains while it tried to reorganize and revitalize. Gen. George B. McClellan’s much larger Union Army of the Potomac had not been so badly hurt in the recent battle and probably could have destroyed Lee’s ragged army with a vigorous pursuit. Instead, McClellan kept his men in camps on the north side of the Potomac, citing the need to reorganize and recondition the force before following Lee into Virginia. Wanting to buy his army as much time to recuperate as possible, Lee summoned cavalry chief Gen. Jeb Stuart to headquarters on October 6 and proposed a cavalry raid into Pennsylvania. Lee needed information on enemy dispositions and intentions and wanted Stuart to destroy a vital Union railroad bridge at Chambersburg, PA, and then return with horses and supplies confiscated from the Pennsylvania countryside. This was just the type of daring, independent mission that Stuart loved to undertake.
On the afternoon of October 9, three 600-man Confederate cavalry brigades gathered at Darkesville, VA, and rode northward, arriving at McCoy’s Ford on the Potomac River after dark. At dawn the next morning the raiders easily pushed back the Union pickets at the ford and continued northward through the rolling hills of Maryland’s panhandle, reaching Pennsylvania by 10:00am. Stuart had given strict orders that the property of Marylanders was to be protected, but upon entering Pennsylvania, Rebel troopers spread out over the countryside and began seizing horses. The “Dutch” German immigrant farmers were flabbergasted to find Confederate troopers rounding up their horses and stealing their newly harvested fodder. Stuart ordered his men not to seize the horses of female travelers they came across.

1870 – Gen. Robert E. Lee died in Lexington, Va., at 63. General Robert Edward Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, dies peacefully at his home in Lexington, Virginia. He was 63 years old. Lee was born to Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Carter Lee at Stratford Hall, Virginia, in 1807. His father served in the American Revolution under George Washington. Lee attended West Point and graduated second in his class in 1829. He did not earn a single demerit during his four years at the academy. Lee sided with the Confederacy and spent the first year of the war as an advisor to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. He assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia when Joseph Johnston was wounded in battle in May 1862.
Over the next three years, Lee earned a reputation as one of the greatest military leaders in history for his use of brilliant tactics and battlefield leadership. His invasions of the north, at Antietam and Gettysburg, however, ended in defeat. After Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox in 1865, he returned to Richmond and an uncertain future. With his military career over, he accepted the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia. Under his leadership, the struggling institution’s enrollment increased from a few dozen to more than 300 students. He contributed to faculty stability, revamped the curriculum, and improved the physical condition of the campus. He also became a symbol of the defeated South, a dignified and stoic figure who was lionized by North and South alike. He suffered a stroke on September 28, 1870, and lingered for two weeks before passing. The school changed its name to Washington and Lee College soon after he died.

1871 – President Grant condemned the Ku Klux Klan.

1872 – Apache (Chiricahua) leader Cochise signed a peace treaty with General O.O. Howard in Arizona Territory.

1892 – The American Pledge of Allegiance was 1st recited in public schools to commemorate Columbus Day. Francis Bellamy, a Socialist and magazine editor of Rome, NY, wrote the “Pledge of Allegiance.”

1901 – President Theodore Roosevelt officially renames the “Executive Mansion” to the White House.

1914 – USS Jupiter (AC-3) is first Navy ship to complete transit of Panama Canal.

1917 – The 1st Marine Aviation Squadron and 1st Marine Aeronautic Company formed at Philadelphia.

1933 – The United States Army Disciplinary Barracks on Alcatraz Island, is acquired by the United States Department of Justice.

1942 – During World War II, President Roosevelt delivered one of his so-called “fireside chats” in which he recommended drafting 18- and 19-year-old men.

1950 – The battleship USS Missouri bombarded Chongjin.

1950 – The USS Pirate and USS Pledge were both destroyed by mines. The Pirate sank in four minutes with six killed and 43 wounded. The Pledge suffered seven killed in action and 36 wounded.

1953 – US and Greece signed a peace treaty that included US bases.

1957 – RADM Dufek arrives at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica to command Operation Deep Freeze III during the International Geophysical Year of 1957-58.

1960 – Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a U.N. General Assembly session by pounding his desk with a shoe during a dispute.

1964 – The Soviet Union launched a Voskhod space capsule with a three-man crew on the first manned mission involving more than one crew member.

1965 – End of Project Sealab II where teams of naval divers and scientists spent 15 days in Sealab moored 205 feet below surface near La Jolla, California.

1967 – At a news conference, Secretary of State Dean Rusk makes controversial comments in which he says that congressional proposals for peace initiatives–a bombing halt or limitation, United Nations action, or a new Geneva conference–were futile because of Hanoi’s opposition. Without the pressure of the bombing, he asked, “Where would be the incentive for peace?” He added that the Vietnam War was a test of Asia’s ability to withstand the threat of “a billion Chinese…armed with nuclear weapons.” Critics claimed that he had invoked the familiar “yellow peril” of Chinese power.

1970 – President Richard Nixon announced the pullout of 40,000 more American troops in Vietnam by Christmas.

1984 – IRA bombed the hotel where Margaret Thatcher was staying in Brighton. Thatcher escaped but five people were killed. Patrick McGee was sentenced to 8 life sentences for his role in the bombing. McGee was freed in 1999 as part of the Northern Ireland peace accord.

1986 – The superpower meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, ended in stalemate, with President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev unable to agree on arms control or a date for a full-fledged summit in the United States.

1993 – On President Clinton's watch...hundreds of militant right-wingers in Haiti cheered as an American warship retreated in a major setback for a U.N. mission to restore democracy.

1994 – NASA loses radio contact with the Magellan spacecraft as the probe descends into the thick atmosphere of Venus (the spacecraft presumably burned up in the atmosphere).

2000 – President Clinton lifts key economic sanctions against Serbia.

2000 – A US Navy destroyer, the USS Cole, refueling in Yemen suffered an enormous explosion in a terrorist attack. Initial reports had at least 6 sailors killed with 11 missing. The death toll was revised to 17. The 8,600-ton Cole was returned to the US aboard the Norwegian ship Blue Marlin. In 2001 a video tape by “Al-Sahab Productions” circulated among Muslim militants with footage of the bombed vessel. The Cole returned to active duty in 2003 following $250 million in repairs.

2001 – The US indicated it would aid Uzbekistan if it were attacked. Uzbekistan was the first among Central Asian nations to allow the US to use its airspace and deploy troops on its territory for the anti-terrorism war in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States set up a military base in southern Uzbekistan, deploying hundreds of troops there.

2002 – Kuwait’s interior minister said that 15 Kuwaitis in police custody had confessed to a deadly attack on U.S. Marines, but that no firm link has been established between them and al-Qaida.

2003 – In Baghdad a suicide attacker, stopped from reaching a hotel full of Americans, detonated his car bomb on a commercial avenue, killing six bystanders and wounding dozens.

2010 – The trial of Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay prisoner to face a criminal trial in the United States, begins in New York City. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States, and was held until June 9, 2009, in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. Ghailani was transported from Guantanamo Bay to New York City to await trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in June 2009.
On November 17, 2010, a jury found him guilty of one count of conspiracy, but acquitted him of 284 other charges including all murder counts. On Tuesday, January 25, 2011, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, the presiding judge in the case, sentenced Ahmed Ghailani, 36, to life in prison for the bombing, stating that any sufferings Ghailani experienced at the hands of the CIA or other agencies while in custody at Guantanamo Bay pales in comparison to the monumental tragedy of the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, which killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and left thousands injured or otherwise impacted by the crimes. The attacks were one of the deadliest non-wartime incidents of international terrorism to affect the United States; they were on a scale not surpassed until the September 11th attacks.

2011 – Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man also known as the “underwear bomber”, pleads guilty to attempting to blow up an airliner on Christmas Day 2009 in a trial in the U.S. city of Detroit, Michigan. Abdulmutallab was convicted in a US federal court of eight criminal counts, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of 289 people. On 16 February 2012 he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

2014 – A Texas health care worker contracts Ebola. The health care worker is the first person to contract the disease in the United States of America, the first infection in the US to occur by secondary contact, and the second in the world sickened from exposure outside of the African continent. The health care worker, who was in full protective gear while providing hospital care for an Ebola patient who later died, tested positive for the virus and is in stable condition, health officials said Sunday. Meanwhile, a top federal health official said the health care worker’s Ebola diagnosis shows there was a clear breach of safety protocol and all those who treated Thomas Eric Duncan must considered to be potentially exposed.

October 13th ~

1670 – Virginia passed a law that blacks arriving in the colonies as Christians could not be used as slaves.

1754 – American Revolutionary War heroine Molly Pitcher was born. During the American Revolution, at the Battle of Monmouth, NJ, Molly helped out as a water carrier, gaining her nickname, Molly Pitcher. Her husband, John, was wounded during the battle and Molly dropped the water pitcher, taking up her husband’s job of loading and firing a cannon. General George Washington appointed her a noncommissioned officer.

1775 – Navy Founded. The Continental Congress voted to fit out two sailing vessels, armed with ten carriage guns, as well as swivel guns, and manned by crews of eighty, and to send them out on a cruise of three months to intercept transports carrying munitions and stores to the British army in America. This was the original legislation out of which the Continental Navy grew and as such constitutes the birth certificate of the Continental Navy. A letter from General Washington was read in Congress in which he reported that he had taken under his command, at Continental expense, three schooners to cruise off Massachusetts to intercept enemy supply ships. The commander in chief had preempted members of Congress reluctant to take the first step of fitting out warships under Continental authority. Since they already had armed vessels cruising in their name, it was not such a big step to approve two more. The committee’s proposal, now appearing eminently reasonable to the reluctant members, was adopted. The Continental Navy grew into an important force. Within a few days, Congress established a Naval Committee charged with equipping a fleet. This committee directed the purchasing, outfitting, manning, and operations of the first ships of the new navy, drafted subsequent naval legislation, and prepared rules and regulations to govern the Continental Navy’s conduct and internal administration.

Over the course of the War of Independence, the Continental Navy sent to sea more than fifty armed vessels of various types. The navy’s squadrons and cruisers seized enemy supplies and carried correspondence and diplomats to Europe, returning with needed munitions. They took nearly 200 British vessels as prizes, some off the British Isles themselves, contributing to the demoralization of the enemy and forcing the British to divert warships to protect convoys and trade routes. In addition, the navy provoked diplomatic crises that helped bring France into the war against Great Britain.

1792 – The cornerstone of the executive mansion, later known as the White House, was laid during a ceremony in the District of Columbia by Masonic George Washington himself.

1812 – At the Battle of Queenston Heights, a Canadian and British army defeated the Americans who had tried to invade Canada. This was the 1st major land battle in the War of 1812.

1845 – An overwhelming majority of voters, 94%, in the Republic of Texas approve a proposed constitution that, if accepted by the U.S. Congress, will make Texas a U.S. State. Texas has an area of 268,820 square miles (696,200 km2).

1860 – The 1st US aerial photo was taken from a balloon over Boston.

1864 – Battle of Harpers Ferry, WV (Mosby’s Raid). Learning that the garrison at Harpers Ferry had not retreated after his incursion into Maryland, Lee decided to surround the force and capture it. He divided his army into four columns, three of which converged upon and invested Harpers Ferry. On September 15, after Confederate artillery was placed on the heights overlooking the town, Union commander Col. Miles surrendered the garrison of more than 12,000. Miles was mortally wounded by a last salvo fired from a battery on Loudoun Heights. Jackson took possession of Harpers Ferry, then led most of his soldiers to join with Lee at Sharpsburg. After paroling the prisoners at Harpers Ferry, A.P. Hill’s division arrived in time to save Lee’s army from near-defeat at Sharpsburg.

1884 – Greenwich was established as universal time meridian of longitude.

1914 – Garrett Morgan invented and patented the gas mask.

1930 – New German Reichstag opened with 107 Nazi Party members in uniform.

1943 – During World War II, Italy declared war on Germany, its one-time Axis partner.

1944 – The US 1st army entered Aachen, Germany.

1951 – Hill 851, the last peak comprising Heartbreak Ridge, was secured by the 23rd Regimental Combat Team of the 2nd Infantry Division after a fierce assault of bayonets, grenades and flame-throwers. Total allied casualties were over 3,700, more than 1,800 suffered by the 23rd Infantry RCT alone. Total enemy casualties were estimated 25,000. A total of 6,060 prisoners were taken.

1960 – Opponents of Fidel Castro were executed in Cuba.

1969 – Pres. Nixon ordered a worldwide “secret” nuclear alert to scare the Soviets into forcing concessions from North Vietnam. Nixon called that tactic a “madman strategy,” and it did not work.

1971 – Camp Murray, Alaska and Fort Lewis, Washington — Two states tie for claiming to have enlisted the first female soldier into their Army National Guard. In Camp Murray Specialist Five Nora Campbell is sworn on this date as a member of the Washington National Guard. At virtually the same time Specialist Five Mary L. Cunningham is sworn in as a member of the Alaska Army Guard in Anchorage. (The Specialist Five rank is no longer in use, it was the equivalent to a Sergeant, E-5).
The Air Guard immediately enlisted its first prior-service woman when Technical Sergeant Reannie Pocock joined the 146th Military Airlift Wing, CA ANG in 1968. However, the Army Guard waited three years before finally accepting its first enlisted women soldiers.

1983 – The Space Shuttle Challenger, carrying seven, the largest crew to date, landed safely at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1987 – The US Navy made the 1st military use of trained dolphins in the Persian Gulf.

1988 – The first U.S. merchant marine World War II veterans received their Coast Guard issued discharge certificates. Congress gave the merchant mariners veterans’ status and tasked the Coast Guard with administering the discharges.

1994 – Pro-British Protestant paramilitaries in Northern Ireland announced a cease-fire matching the Irish Republican Army’s six-week-old truce.

1995 – The Coast Guard cutter Ida Lewis is launched, the first of the new 175-foot Keeper class buoy tenders.

1997 – The Cassini spacecraft was scheduled to be launched aboard a Titan rocket from Cape Canaveral for a trip to end in 2004 at Saturn. It will carry the Huygens probe to be deployed on the Saturn moon Titan. It was postponed.

2001 – Anthrax was confirmed in 3 US states. In Florida 5 more employees tested positive; in Nevada a letter sent to a Microsoft office tested positive; and in NYC a letter sent to NBC News tested positive.

2004 – A Russian rocket lifted off in Kazakhstan carrying 2 Russians and an American to replace the crew of the int’l. space station.

2006 – The establishment of the Dawlat al-ʻIraq al-Islāmīyah, “Islamic State of Iraq” (ISI) was announced. A cabinet was formed and Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi became ISI’s figurehead emir, with the real power residing with the Egyptian Abu Ayyub al-Masri. ISI will had been through many names since its inception in early 2004, including Al-Qaeda in Iraq, and the Mujahideen Shura Council. ISI will later be known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and, simply, the Islamic State. The group’s original founder was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

2012 – Residents of Los Angeles watch in awe as U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour inches through the city on a giant trolley, bound for a museum. Hundreds of trees in its path are chopped down.

October 14th ~

1734 – Francis Lightfoot Lee, US farmer and signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1773 – Britain’s East India Company tea ships’ cargo was burned at Annapolis, Md.

1890 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States (1953-1961), was born in Denison, Texas.

1912 – Theodore Roosevelt, former president and the Bull Moose Party candidate, was shot at close range by anarchist William Schrenk while greeting the public in front of the Hotel Gilpatrick in Milwaukee while campaigning for the presidency. He was saved by the papers in his breast pocket and still managed to give a 90 minute address in Milwaukee after requesting his audience to be quiet because “there is a bullet in my body.” Schrenk was captured and uttered the now famous words “any man looking for a third term ought to be shot.”

1917 – Marines 1st Aeronautic Co. prepared for Azores duty at Cape May, New Jersey.

1918 – Naval Aviators of Marine Day Squadron 9 make first raid-in-force for the Northern Bombing Group in World War I when they bombed German railroad at Thielt Rivy, Belgium.

1933 – The Geneva disarmament conference broke up as Germany proclaimed withdrawal from the disarmament initiative, as well as from the League of Nations, effective October 23rd.

1938 – Nazis planned Jewish ghettos for all major cities.

1938 – The first flight of the Curtiss Aircraft Company’s P-40 Warhawk fighter plane. The Curtiss P-40 Warhawk was an American single-engined, single-seat, all-metal fighter and ground-attack aircraft. The P-40 design was a modification of the previous Curtiss P-36 Hawk which reduced development time and enabled a rapid entry into production and operational service. The Warhawk was used by most Allied powers during World War II, and remained in frontline service until the end of the war. It was the third most-produced American fighter, after the P-51 and P-47; by November 1944, when production of the P-40 ceased, 13,738 had been built, all at Curtiss-Wright Corporation’s main production facilities at Buffalo, New York. P-40 Warhawk was the name the United States Army Air Corps adopted for all models, making it the official name in the United States for all P-40s. The British Commonwealth and Soviet air forces used the name Tomahawk for models equivalent to the P-40B and P-40C, and the name Kittyhawk for models equivalent to the P-40D and all later variants.

P-40s first saw combat with the British Commonwealth squadrons of the Desert Air Force in the Middle East and North African campaigns, during June 1941. No. 112 Squadron Royal Air Force, was among the first to operate Tomahawks in North Africa and the unit was the first Allied military aviation unit to feature the “shark mouth” logo, copying similar markings on some Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Bf 110 twin-engine fighters. The P-40’s lack of a two-stage supercharger made it inferior to Luftwaffe fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109 or the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 in high-altitude combat and it was rarely used in operations in Northwest Europe.

Between 1941 and 1944, the P-40 played a critical role with Allied air forces in three major theaters: North Africa, the Southwest Pacific and China. It also had a significant role in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Alaska and Italy. The P-40’s performance at high altitudes was not as important in those theaters, where it served as an air superiority fighter, bomber escort and fighter bomber.

Although it gained a postwar reputation as a mediocre design, suitable only for close air support, recent research including scrutiny of the records of individual Allied squadrons, indicates that the P-40 performed surprisingly well as an air superiority fighter, at times suffering severe losses but also taking a very heavy toll of enemy aircraft, especially when flown against the lightweight and maneuverable Japanese fighters like the Oscar and Zero in the manner recommended in 1941 by General Claire Chennault, the AVG’s commander in southern China. The P-40 offered the additional advantage of low cost, which kept it in production as a ground-attack aircraft long after it was obsolete as a fighter. In 2008, 29 P-40s were still airworthy.

1943 – The American 8th Air Force conducts a raid on the German ball-bearing works at Schweinfurt. The force of 291 B-17 Flying Fortresses does considerable damage to the target but lose 60 planes with others damaged. The loss rate is too high to maintain so the USAAF abandons long-range, unescorted daylight raids.

1944 – German Field Marshal Rommel (52), suspected of complicity in the July 20th plot against Hitler, was visited at home by two of Hitler’s staff and given the choice of public trial or suicide by poison. He chose suicide and it was announced that he died of wounds.

1944 – CGCs Eastwind and Southwind captured the Nazi weather and supply vessel Externsteine off the coast of Greenland after a brief fire-fight. There were no casualties. The Coast Guardsmen christened their prize-of-war USS Eastbreeze and placed a prize crew on board.

1947 – Air Force test pilot Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager (24) flew the experimental Bell X-1 rocket plane aircraft and broke the sound barrier to Mach 1.07 for the first time over Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which was then called Muroc Army Air Field. The area has the largest dry lake bed in the world, a 44-square mile area known as Rogers Lake.

Suspended from the belly of a Boeing B-29, Glamorous Glennis was dropped at 10:26 a.m. from a height of 20,000 feet. Yeager (who had broken two ribs in a riding accident the night before) fired the four rocket motor chambers in pairs, breaking through the sound barrier as he increased airspeed to almost 700 mph and climbed to an altitude of 43,000 feet. The XS-1 remained at supersonic speeds for 20.5 seconds, with none of the buffeting that characterized high-speed subsonic flight. The 14-minute flight was Yeager’s ninth since being named primary pilot in June 1947. The Air Force and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (the forerunner of NASA) did not make the event public until Jun 10, 1948.

1949 – Leaders of the American Communist Party were convicted of conspiracy to advocate the violent overthrow of the US government under provisions of the Smith Act. They were sentenced with fines and imprisonment. The trial, held in New York in 1949, was one of the lengthiest trials in American history.

1950 – Nine Chinese armies, totaling over 300,000 men, began to cross the Yalu River. By traveling at night and hiding during the day, the largely foot-mobile Communist Chinese Forces avoided detection by U.N. aerial surveillance.

1958 – The American Atomic Energy Commission, with supporting military units, carries out an underground nuclear weapon test at the Nevada Test Site, just north of Las Vegas.

1968 – The first live telecast from a manned U.S. spacecraft was transmitted from Apollo 7.

1993 – U.S. helicopter pilot Michael Durant and a Nigerian peacekeeper were freed by Somali fighters loyal to Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

1998 – The UN for a 7th year called for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba. Only the US and Israel cast negative votes.

1999 – At Cape Canaveral, Florida, Launch Complex 41, built in 1945, was destroyed to make way for Atlas V rockets.

2001 – President George W. Bush sternly rejected a Taliban offer to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a third country, saying, “They must have not heard. There’s no negotiations.”

2002 – Linda Franklin (47) of Arlington, Va., was shot in the head and killed as she and her husband loaded packages into their car outside a Home Depot at the Seven Corners Shopping Center. She had worked as an analyst for the FBI.

2005 – A high ranking undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer, Jose A Rodriguez, Jr., will coordinate CIA, FBI, and State Department spying operations as the new director of the National Clandestine Service.

2010 – The Obama administration asks United States District Court for the Central District of California judge Virginia A. Phillips to stay her ruling in Log Cabin Republicans v. United States of America that the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy is unconstitutional while it appeals the decision.

2011 – U.S. President Barack Obama authorizes the deployment of up to 100 American soldiers to Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assist in operations against the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency.

October 15th ~

1789 – George Washington went to New England on the 1st presidential tour.

1813 – During the land defeat of the British on the Thames River in Canada, the Indian chief Tecumseh, now a brigadier general with the British Army (War of 1812), was killed.

1817 – Tadeusz AB Kosciusko (b.1746), Polish Lt-Gen. and American Revolution freedom fighter, died. Trained in military academies in Warsaw and Paris, he offered his services to the colonists in the American Revolution because of his commitment to the ideal of liberty. Arriving in America in 1777, he took part in the Saratoga campaign and advised Horatio Gates to fortify Bemis Heights. Later he fortified (1778) West Point and fought (1780) with distinction under Gen. Nathanael Greene in the Carolina campaign. After his return to Poland he became a champion of Polish independence.

1861 – The British steamship Fingal, purchased by James D. Bulloch for the US Southern Confederacy, ran into the Austrian brig Siccardi, which sank with her load of coal in England’s Holyhead harbor. The Fingal quickly sailed for Savannah. The Fingal was later converted to an ironclad and renamed Atlanta.

1863 – For the second time, the Confederate submarine H L Hunley sank during a practice dive in Charleston Harbor, S.C, this time drowning its inventor along with seven crew members.

1880 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists. Victorio Beduiat; was a warrior and chief of the Warm Springs band of the Tchihendeh (or Chihenne, usually called Mimbreño) division of the central Apaches in what is now the American states of New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.

1892 – US government convinced the Crow Indians to give up 1.8 million acres of their reservation (in the mountainous area of western Montana) for 50 cents per acre. Presidential proclamation opened this land to settlers.

1917 – USS Cassin (DD-43) torpedoed by German submarine U-61 off coast of Ireland. In trying to save the ship, Gunner’s Mate Osmond Kelly Ingram becomes first American sailor killed in World War I and later is awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroism. He becomes the first enlisted man to have a ship named for him, in 1919.

1918 – Lieutenant Colonel William “Wild Bill” Donovan earned the Medal of Honor while leading his regiment, the 165th Infantry (formerly the 69th New York, the “Fighting 69th” of Civil War fame), 42nd “Rainbow” Division, in an attack to capture a German strongpoint. By acts of personal courage such as rallying platoons of soldiers decimated and about to break from enemy fire, he again led them forward. Though seriously wounded he refused to be evacuated and continued to command his men from a bomb crater. Eventually the Americans did have to withdraw after suffering devastating losses. Donovan started his Guard service by organizing his own cavalry troop which then commanded during its tour of duty on the Mexican border in 1916.

He then joined the 69th New York just prior to the mobilization for World War I. Even before earning the Medal of Honor, in July 1918, he displayed extreme courage while leading a battalion in its attack on German positions in the Oureq River (called by the Irish of the 69th as the “O’Rourke River”) sector. For this action he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (the Army’s second highest medal for valor). In World War II Donovan organized and commanded the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of today’s CIA.

1941 – The 1st mass deportation of German Jews to Eastern Europe.

1946 – Nazi war criminal Hermann Goering poisoned himself hours before he was to have been executed.

1948 – First women officers on active duty sworn in as commissioned officers in regular Navy under Women’s Service Integration Act of June 1948 by Secretary of the Navy John L. Sullivan.

1951 – Operation DECOY, a mock amphibious landing near Kojo designed as a feint, was led by the battleship USS Iowa along with six carriers, four cruisers and more than 30 destroyers. Throughout the Korean War, U.S. and allied naval forces maintained a tight blockade of North Korean waters so the enemy could not use the sea to transport troops and supplies. Control of the sea also allowed the UN command to threaten other amphibious landings in the rear of the Chinese and North Korean armies arrayed along the 38th parallel. The enemy took the threat seriously and positioned sizeable troop units along both coasts and far from the front lines where they were badly needed.

1956 – Fortran, the first modern computer language, is shared with the coding community for the first time.

1960 – USS Patrick Henry (SSBN-599) begins successful firing of four Polaris test vehicles under operational rather than test conditions. Tests are completed on 18th October.

1964 – It was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev had been removed from office. He was succeeded as premier by Alexei N. Kosygin and as Communist Party secretary by Leonid I. Brezhnev.

1997 – NASA’s plutonium-powered Cassini spacecraft rocketed flawlessly toward Saturn. It was destined to arrive at Saturn on July 1, 2004.

2001 – US warplanes carried out their heaviest bombings in 9 days over Afghanistan. The Pentagon called in the slow moving AC-130 Spectre gunships to targets around Kandahar.

2001 – Anthrax in a letter to a Reno Microsoft office was reported to be from Malaysia. 2 anthrax-tainted letters were reported to have been mailed from Trenton, New Jersey and 2 postal employees there showed symptoms. Anthrax spores were in a letter deliver to a Senate office. Officials announced that a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle had tested positive for anthrax, and that the infant son of an ABC News producer in New York had developed skin anthrax.

2001 – Following the anthrax attacks in Florida and New York the EPA requested Coast Guard assistance. Members of the Atlantic Strike Team deployed to Washington, D.C., while Gulf Strike Team members were deployed to Florida. Strike team members conducted entries into the affected areas, collected samples, and assisted in the cleanup of those areas.

2002 – In Iraq Saddam Hussein won the presidential referendum for another 7-year term. He claimed a 100% victory the next day.

2003 – In China Shenzhou 5 launched into orbit with air force Lt. Col. Yang Liwei (38) aboard, making China the third nation to put a human in space on its own, after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

2003 – In the Gaza Strip a remote-controlled bomb exploded under a US diplomatic convoy, ripping apart an armored van and killing three Americans.

2003 – In Iraq the new dinar was launched. Exchange of the old currency was set to end Jan 15th.

2003 – NATO launched its elite rapid-reaction force, a prototype unit that will eventually become a 20,000-member force able to deploy in short notice anywhere in the world.

2004 – US Marines launched air and ground attacks on the insurgent bastion Fallujah after city representatives suspended peace talks with the government over PM Ayad Allawi’s demand to hand over terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

2005 – Iraqis vote. The Iraqi public narrowly passes the draft constitution. In a referendum, the new Iraqi constitution was ratified.

2014 – A second health worker tests positive for the Ebola virus in Dallas, Texas.

October 16th ~

1492 – Columbus’ fleet anchored at “Fernandina” (Long Island, Bahamas).

1701 – Yale University was founded as The Collegiate School of Kilingworth, Connecticut by Congregationalists who considered Harvard too liberal.

1710 – British troops occupied Port Royal, Nova Scotia.

1780 – A raid on Royalton, Vermont and Tunbridge, Vermont are the last major raids of the American Revolutionary War. Just before dawn the town line of Tunbridge and Royalton was witness to the last major raid of the Revolutionary War in New England. In the “Royalton Raid” three hundred Indians led by British soldiers invaded from Canada along the First Branch of the White River. Part of a series of raids designed to terrorize frontier settlements, the result was the destruction of dozens of homes, crops and livestock necessary to survive the coming winter.

1781 – General Cornwallis finding no way out from Yorktown seige. At about 4:00 A.M. Lt. Colonel Robert Abercromby led 350 British troops on a sortie to spike allied guns now in position on the second parallel. Abercromby was able to spike four guns after pretending to be an American detachment. Moving to another position along the parallel, the British were this time driven back to their lines by a French covering party. However, they had managed to spike two more guns, but the allies were able to get all the spiked guns back into action within six hours. That evening, General Cornwallis attempted to ferry across the York River to see about fighting his way out by way of Gloucester, but a storm frustrated these efforts.

1846 – American dentist, William T. G. Morton first demonstrated ether anesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Ether Dome.

1859 – On Sunday evening radical abolitionist John Brown and a tiny army of five black and 13 white supporters seized the Federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia). Convinced that local slaves would rise up behind him, Brown planned to establish a new republic of fugitives in the Appalachian Mountains. Brown’s plans immediately went awry when the expected slave rebellion did not happen and the townspeople trapped Brown’s men inside the engine house at the Federal arsenal.

Within 24 hours, Brown and his four surviving men were captured by a force of 90 U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee. Brown, quickly convicted of criminal conspiracy and treason and sentenced to death, was hanged on December 2, 1859. As he went to the gallows, Brown handed a note to one of his guards: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.”

1861 – The Confederacy started selling postage stamps.

1909 – William Howard Taft and Porfirio Díaz hold a summit, a first between a U.S. and a Mexican president, and they only narrowly escape assassination. Frederick Russell Burnham, a private security officer, and Private C.R. Moore, a Texas Ranger, discovered a man holding a concealed palm pistol standing at the El Paso Chamber of Commerce building along the procession route. Burnham and Moore captured and disarmed the assassin within only a few feet of Taft and Díaz.

1940 – Benjamin O. Davis, became the U.S. Army’s first African American Brigadier General.

1940 – Registration begins for the draft according to the provisions of the Selective Service Act. The first drafts will be balloted on October 29th. This is the first peacetime draft in US history.

1942 – Near Guadalcanal, American aircraft from the carrier USS Hornet raid supply bases on Santa Isabel. On Guadalcanal, the Japanese increase their bombardment of American positions in preparation for a major attack.

1946 – Ten Nazi war criminals condemned during the Nuremberg trials were hanged. The defendants included: Luftwaffe commander Hermann Göring, who was sentenced to death but committed suicide the morning of the execution; former deputy Führer Rudolph Hess, sentenced to life imprisonment; Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, hanged; head of the armed forces high command Wilhelm Keitel, hanged; writer and “philosopher” of National Socialism Alfred Rosenberg; U-boat Admiral Karl Dönitz, 10-year imprisonment; Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, life imprisonment; Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Shirach, 20-year imprisonment; procurer of slave labor Fritz Sauckel, hanged; and Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German high command, hanged. The hanging was badly botched as most Nazis slowly strangle to death.

1962 – The Cuban missile crisis began as President Kennedy was informed that reconnaissance photographs had revealed the presence of missile bases in Cuba. Kennedy organized the Executive Committee of the National Security Council. These 19 men will help him through the coming crisis.

1964 – Red China detonated its first atomic bomb and became the world’s 4th nuclear power.

1987 – In the Persian Gulf, an Iranian missile hit a re-flagged Kuwaiti ship in the first direct attack on the tanker fleet guarded by the U.S.

1990 – US forces reached 200,000 in Persian Gulf.

1999 – A New York Air National Guard plane rescued Dr. Jerri Nielsen from a South Pole research center after she’d spent five months isolated by the Antarctic winter, which forced her to treat herself for a breast lump.

1999 – In Afghanistan the Taliban rejected the UN ultimatum to surrender Osama bin Laden and castigated the UN for threatening sanctions.

2001 – A wing of the US Senate building was closed following confirmation that a letter to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., carried anthrax. It was later found that the anthrax contained the additive bentonite to enhance suspension in air. 12 Senate offices were closed as hundreds of staffers underwent anthrax tests.

2001 – Taliban leaders withdrew over $5 million from the Kandahar Da Afghanistan Bank.

2001 – Operation Active Endervour is christened. It operates in the Mediterranean Sea and is designed to prevent the movement of terrorists or weapons of mass destruction as well as to enhance the security of shipping in general. It began on October 4, 2001 as one of the eight NATO responses to the September 11, 2001 attacks. It was one of the first military actions taken by NATO in response to an invocation of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty which provides for collective defense. Since its inception, the ships of Active Endeavour have monitored over 79,000 ships (as of April 12, 2006) and conducted voluntary boardings of over 100. They have also escorted over 480 ships through the Strait of Gibraltar until escorting was suspended in 2004.

2002 – Congress gives President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq to locate and destroy Saddam Hussein’s suspected stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the authorization encourages Bush to seek UN support for such action it did not require him to have it in order to attack Iraq. The war, known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, starts in March 2003.

2006 – American and Russian scientists announce the discovery of a new chemical element with the atomic number 118, temporarily designated as Ununoctium.

October 17th ~

1777 – General John Burgoyne with British forces of 5,000 men surrendered to General Horatio Gates, commander of the American forces at Schuylerville, NY. In the fall of 1777, the British commander Gen’l. Burgoyne and his men were advancing along the Hudson River. After Burgoyne had retreated to the heights of Saratoga, the Americans stopped and surrounded them. The surrender was a turning point in the American Revolution, demonstrating American determination to gain independence. After the surrender, France sided with the Americans, and other countries began to get involved and align themselves against Britain.

1781 – Cornwallis was defeated at Yorktown. Cornwallis’ options had been running out. He had even tried sending blacks infected with smallpox over enemy lines in an attempt to infect the American and French troops. After a futile counterattack, Cornwallis offered to surrender.

1814 – The crew of USRC Eagle, which had been driven ashore near Negros Head, New York in an encounter with the British brig HMS Dispatch, dragged the cutter’s guns up a bluff in an effort to continue the battle.

1814 – Marines and Sailors landed on Grand Terre Island, Louisiana, to punish pirates. Pirate leader, Jean Lafitte’s activities threatened to monopolize the city’s import trade. New Orleans merchants goaded the new American governor, William C. C. Claiborne, into accusing him of piracy and posting a $500 reward. Lafitte made Claiborne a laughingstock with his own offer of $1500 for Claiborne’s capture, and to rub it in he hired District Attorney John R. Grymes as his counselor (for a reported $10,000).
Lafitte would not be bought, bribed, or intimidated. In 1814 the British offered him $30,000 and a Royal Navy commission to help them capture New Orleans. The buccaneer turned them down and informed Claiborne of his wish to become a citizen and to give Claiborne his support, if his privateer followers were pardoned for all past crimes. Claiborne was ready to relent when the American Navy swooped down on the Grand Terre base and destroyed it. Fortunately for the infant United States, General Andrew Jackson sought out the buccaneer and agreed to honor his request.

1871 – President Grant suspended writ of habeas corpus in nine South Carolina counties in enforcement of the Ku Klux Klan Act.

1877 – Brigadier General Alfred Terry met with Sitting Bull in Canada to discuss the Indians’ return to the United States. Sitting Bull and his followers had fled to Canada after the Little Big Horn. This meeting will fail.

1894 – Ohio national guard killed 3 lynchers while rescuing a black man. A mob gathered outside the Fayette County court house with the intent to lynch convicted rapist William “Jasper” Dolby. Gov. William McKinley ordered Ohio National Guard troops to subdue the mob. Oct. 17, 1894, the crowd battered the doors and was fired upon. Five men were killed. McKinley reaffirmed the National Guard troops decision, “The law was upheld as it should have been …but in this case at a fearful cost… Lynching cannot be tolerated in Ohio.” Bullet holes are still visible in the south court house doors.

1922 – LCDR Virgil C. Griffin in Vought VE-7SF makes first takeoff from U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, USS Langley (CV-1) anchored in York River, Virginia.

1933 – Due to rising anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism in Hitler’s Germany, Albert Einstein immigrated to the United States. He made his new home in Princeton, N.J.

1941 – The U.S. destroyer Kearney DD-432 was damaged by a German U-boat torpedo off Iceland; 11 Americans were killed.

1941 – General Hideki Tojo (1885-1948) became Premier and Minister of War in Japan. When the bellicose war minister and most powerful man in Japan, Army General Hideki Tojo, became prime minister, there no longer was a chance of avoiding war with Britain and the United States.

1943 – The last operational German auxiliary cruiser, Michel, is sunk by the American submarine Tarpon off the Japanese coast. The German raider has sunk 17 ships during its cruise.

1945 – Iva Toguri D’Aquino, a Japanese-American suspected of being wartime radio propagandist “Tokyo Rose,” was arrested by 3 CIC officers in her Tokyo apartment.

1973 – Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back on oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974 and caused oil prices to quadruple.

1978 – President Carter signed a bill restoring U.S. citizenship to Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

1997 – The US Army used a Miracl (medium infra-red advanced chemical laser developed by TRW) laser beam to hit the MISTI-3 satellite in orbit. The laser test was prohibited by Congress in 1985, but the ban expired in 1995. The test failed to be recorded by sensors on the satellite.

2001 – Federal officials reported that the anthrax strains in New York and Florida appeared to be identical. The House and 6 congressional office buildings were closed for tests after over 30 Senate staff members tested positive for exposure to spores.

2004 – Jordan’s military prosecutor indicted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the most wanted insurgents in Iraq, and 12 other alleged Muslim militants for an alleged al-Qaida linked plot to attack the U.S. Embassy in Amman and Jordanian government targets.

2004 – The Tawhid and Jihad group, a militant group led by terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden.

2011 – Virgin Group chairman Richard Branson opens the world’s first commercial spaceport, Spaceport America, in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The SpaceShipTwo spaceplane is expected to begin commercial flights from the spaceport by 2013.

2014 – The President of the United States Barack Obama names lawyer and former political operative Ron Klain as “ebola czar” to coordinate US response to the Ebola outbreak. Klain will not begin in the job until March 2015.

2014 – The X-37B experimental spaceplane, lands at Vandenburg Air Force base after 675 days in space. OTV-3, the second mission for the first X-37B and the third X-37B mission overall, was originally scheduled to launch on 25 October 2012, but was postponed because of an engine issue with the Atlas V launch vehicle.[55] The X-37B was successfully launched from Cape Canaveral on 11 December 2012. The launch was designated USA-240.

October 18th ~

Feast Day of St. Luke the Apostle, Patron Saint of the Medical Corps: Luke, the writer of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, has been identified with St. Paul’s “Luke, the beloved physician” (Colossians 4:14). We know few other facts about Luke’s life from Scripture and from early Church historians. It is believed that Luke was born a Greek and a Gentile. In Colossians 10-14 speaks of those friends who are with him. He first mentions all those “of the circumcision” — in other words, Jews — and he does not include Luke in this group. Luke’s gospel shows special sensitivity to evangelizing Gentiles. It is only in his gospel that we hear the parable of the Good Samaritan, that we hear Jesus praising the faith of Gentiles such as the widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian (Lk.4:25-27), and that we hear the story of the one grateful leper who is a Samaritan (Lk.17:11-19). According to the early Church historian Eusebius Luke was born at Antioch in Syria.

1540 – Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto’s forces destroy the fortified town of Mabila in present-day Alabama, killing Tuskaloosa. When Hernando de Soto had first met Tuskaloosa at his home village, and asked him for supplies, Tuskaloosa advised them to travel to another of his towns, known as Mabila, where supplies would be waiting. A native messenger was sent ahead to Mabila, but when Tuskaloosa and the first group of Spaniards arrived, Tuskaloosa simply asked them to leave. When a fight broke out between one soldier and a native, many hidden warriors emerged from houses and began shooting arrows. The Spaniards fled, leaving their possessions inside the fortress.

1676 – Nathaniel Bacon, who rallied against the Virginian government, died of fever at 29. Bacon’s Rebellion fell apart when he fell ill.

1767 – The boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the Mason-Dixon line, was agreed upon. The two surveyors who mapped the line were Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

1775 – The Burning of Falmouth (now Portland, Maine) prompts the Continental Congress to establish the Continental Navy. The Burning of Falmouth was an attack by a fleet of Royal Navy vessels on the town of Falmouth, Massachusetts (site of the modern city of Portland, Maine, and not to be confused with the modern towns of Falmouth, Massachusetts or Falmouth, Maine). The fleet was commanded by Captain Henry Mowat. The attack began with a naval bombardment which included incendiary shot, followed by a landing party meant to complete the town’s destruction.

The attack was the only major event in what was supposed to be a campaign of retaliation against ports that supported Patriot activities in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War. Among the colonies, news of the attack led to rejection of British authority and the establishment of independent governments. It also led the Second Continental Congress to contest British Naval dominance by forming a Continental Navy.

1776 – At the Battle of Pelham Col. John Glover and the Marblehead regiment collided with British Forces in the Bronx. Sir William Howe, Commander-in-Chief of the British army, landed 4,000 English and Hessian troops near the stables on Pelham Parkway in an action which became the first permanent invasion of the American mainland in the American Revolution. Howe’s objective was to outflank the American army by marching west across today’s Bronx along the Boston Post Road. This would also cut off Washington’s vital supply route from New England and enable the British to surround Washington and quickly end the rebellion. However, 600 seamen from the Boston area, led by Colonel John Glover, and fighting from behind Pelham Manor’s stone walls put an end to Howe’s plan and saved Washington’s army.
The main significance of the Battle of Pelham lay in the fact that it bought time for Washington to remove the American army from an extremely perilous position and to retreat to White Plains. It is for this reason that the Battle of Pelham has been called the battle that saved the American Revolution.

1779 – The Franco-American Siege of Savannah is lifted. The Siege of Savannah or the Second Battle of Savannah was an encounter of the American Revolutionary War. The year before, the city of Savannah, Georgia, had been captured by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell. The siege itself consisted of a joint Franco-American attempt to retake Savannah beginning on September 16, 1779. On October 9 a major assault against the British siege works had failed. With the failure of the joint American-French attack, the siege failed, and the British remained in control of Savannah until July 1782, near the end of the war.

1799 – In an action of the Quasi-War with France, USRC Pickering (70 men) captured the French privateer L’Egypte Conquiste (250 men).

1812 – U.S. sloop of war Wasp captures HM brig Frolic. Folic had been separated from a convoy by a storm. While repairing damage, the Wasp came into view and was at first taken for a part of the convoy. On October 18th the “Wasp” moved toward the British ship. The “Frolic” hoisted Spanish colors, this keep the strange ship from pursuing the convoy. At 11:30 a.m. the two ships were sailing no more than 60 yards apart. The “Wasp” fired her port guns, and the “Frolic” fired her starboard guns. The British ship fired rapidly, delivering three broadsides to the American’s two. Both crews cheered wildly as the battle became heated. The “Wasp” was landing more shot than the British ship. The ocean was very rough, the crew of the “Frolic” fired their cannon when they were on the crest of the waves. The Americans fired their guns on the lower part of the waves. But in spite of the weather both ships fire was well directed.

At 11:36 a.m. the “Wasp’s” maintop-mast was shot away and fell with it’s yard. At 11:46 a.m. her mizzentop -gallant mast came down and by 11:52 every brace and most of her rigging had been shot away. The British ship however, had been severely damaged in her hull and lower masts. The “Wasp” gradually moved ahead and raked the “Frolic” with a devastating effect. The American ship fired again, this caused many casualties on the “Frolic”. The ships came together, and after one failed attempt because of rough seas the Americans boarded the British ship. Not one Englishman was there to stop the crew of the “Wasp” from boarding. The man at the wheel was dazed but still at his post. Captain Whinyates and Lieutenant Wintle were wounded so severely that they could not stand without support. The crew of the “Frolic” could not fight any longer and Lieutenant Biddle lowered the flag at 12:15 just 43 minutes after the battle had started.

The American ship had been damaged severely in her rigging but only two or three shots struck her hull. The American’s had 5 killed and 5 wounded. The British had 30 killed and 60 wounded. The American ship “Wasp” had a crew of 135 and carried 9 guns. The British ship “Frolic” had a crew of 110 and carried 10 guns.

October 18th ~ { Continued }


1842 – US Commodore Thomas Catesby Jones sailed into Monterey, the Mexican capital of California, on the mistaken belief that the US and Mexico had gone to war.

1848 – Captain Douglas Ottinger, USRM, was designated by the Secretary of the Treasury to supervise the construction of the first Life-Saving Stations and the equipment and boats to be place at them.

1859 – U.S. Marines reach Harper’s Ferry, VA and assault the arsenal seized by John Brown and his followers. Colonel Robert E. Lee has Lieutenant JEB Stuart carry a note to Brown demanding his surrender. Brown refuses and closes and bars the doors of the Engine House. Stuart waves his hat up and down as a signal to begin the assault. The Marines attack the doors with sledgehammers, but to no effect. They find a heavy ladder and use that as a battering ram. In two blows, they create a small opening in the right hand door which is split, and they storm into the building. Lieutenant Israel Green, who leads the assault, attacks Brown with the dress sword he brought by mistake from Washington. The sword, which was never meant for combat, bends on Brown’s leather belt. Green grasps the sword by the ruined blade and hits Brown over the head with it, knocking him unconscious. The raid is over.

1862 – Morgan’s raiders captured federal garrison at Lexington, Ky. John Morgan and his cavalry surprised Union Major Seidel at Ashland and captured him and his command in broad daylight. After outfitting his command with new horses, colt revolvers and other captured goods, Morgan’s men burned the government stables and railroad depot before leaving Lexington.

1867 – United States takes possession of Alaska after purchasing it from Russia for $7.2 million. Celebrated annually in the state as Alaska Day.

1898 – The American flag was raised in Puerto Rico shortly before Spain formally relinquished control of the island.

1939 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt banned foreign war submarines from U.S. ports and waters.

1942 – In reaction to several incidents, Hitler orders that all prisoners taken from Commando or similar units are to be shot immediately whether in uniform or not and whether surrendering or not.

1943 – General Orders 27, 29th Infantry Division (DC, MD, VA) disbands the 29th Ranger Battalion (Provisional). Organized in December 1942 from volunteers drawn from the 29th Division, its 500-men undertook specialized training conducted by the famous British Commandos. The soldiers learned how to penetrate deep behind enemy lines, staging raids and gathering intelligence. When the battalion was organized it was planned by the Army to disband the unit so its men could return to their former companies and teach these advanced skills to other members of the division. Some veterans of D-Day and the Normandy campaign credit these added skills to saving their lives.

1944 – All able-bodied German males between the ages of 16 and 60 are now liable for conscription into the Volkssturm (the home defense force).

1945 – The USSR’s nuclear program receives plans for the United States plutonium bomb from Klaus Fuchs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1950 – US forces drove north across the 38th parallel into the Peoples Republic of North Korea.

1954 – Texas Instruments announces the first Transistor radio.

1967 – A protest in Madison, Wisc., against recruiting by Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm and Agent Orange, turned violent.

1968 – In Operation Sea Lords, the Navy’s three major operating forces in Vietnam (TF 115, 116, and 117) are brought together for the first time to stop Vietcong infiltration deep into South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.

1987 – President Reagan summoned congressional leaders to the White House to announce he had decided on what action to take in response to an Iranian missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker off Kuwait two days earlier. (The next day, U.S. destroyers bombarded an Iranian offshore oil rig.)

1989 – The space shuttle Atlantis was launched on a five-day mission that included deployment of the Galileo space probe on a course for Jupiter.

October 18th ~ { Continued }

1990 – Iraq offered to sell its oil to anyone—including the United States—for $21 a barrel, the same price level that preceded the invasion of Kuwait.

1997 – A $21.5 million memorial to honor the military service of US women was dedicated at entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.

1999 – A US presidential panel recommended that Navy gunnery on the Vieques Island of Puerto Rico be reduced and abandoned in 5 years.

2000 – President Clinton honored the 17 sailors killed in a suicide bomb attack against the USS Cole as he attended a ceremony at the Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia.

2001 – CBS News announced that an employee in Dan Rather’s office had tested positive for skin anthrax.

2001 – Two new cases of anthrax were reported in New Jersey.

2001 – The FBI and Postal Service announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the arrest of anthrax mailings.

2001 – Four disciples of Osama bin Laden, convicted in the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, were sentenced to life in prison and ordered to pay $33 million in restitution to victims.

2001 – In Afghanistan the city of Kandahar was reported to have collapsed to “pre-Taliban lawlessness.” The first US Special Forces were reported to have begun operating on the ground in southern Afghanistan.

2001 – Germany issued an international arrest warrant for Zakariya Essabar for links to the bombing of the WTC.

2002 – Two US Navy planes, F/A-18F Super Hornet jets, collided off the Big Sur coast of California and 4 pilots were killed.

2002 – Space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth following an 11-day mission to the International Space Station.

2002 – Five trucks carrying looted Kuwaiti archives left the Iraqi capital, bound for Kuwait.

2003 – A new audiotape, purporting to be from Osama bin Laden and promised fresh attacks against the United States.

2003 – Russia launched a Soyuz capsule from Kazakhstan with a 3-man crew for the International Space Station. Aboard were an American, a Russian and a Spaniard.

2004 – Iraqi PM Allawi said that an exchange of weapons for cash will be extended across the country. A militant group in Iraq said it had executed two Macedonian men accused of spying for the US. Saboteurs attacked a key oil pipeline in northern Iraq, setting it on fire.

2005 – Saddam Hussein’s trial begins in Iraq

2011 – Spaceport America officially opens in New Mexico as the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport.

2011 – United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton makes an unannounced visit to the Libyan capital Tripoli, aiming to strengthen ties between the United States and the National Transitional Council, which has established itself as Libya’s ruling body following the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.

2014 – USS Detroit (LCS-7), a Freedom class littoral combat ship ( a class of relatively small surface vessels intended for operations close to shore) of the United States Navy, was launched and christened. The ceremonial “laying of the keel” was in early November 2012, at Marinette WI.

October 19th ~

1739 – England declared war on Spain over borderlines in Florida. The War is known as the War of Jenkins’ Ear because a Member of Parliament waved a dried ear and demanded revenge for alleged mistreatment of British sailors. British seaman Robert Jenkins had his ear amputated following a 1731 barroom brawl with a Spanish Customs guard in Havana and saved the ear in his sea chest.

1765 – The Stamp Act Congress, meeting in New York, drew up a declaration of rights and liberties.

1781 – Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis, surrounded at Yorktown, Va., by American and French regiments numbering 17,600 men, surrendered to George Washington and Count de Rochambeau. Cornwallis surrendered 7,157 troops, including sick and wounded, and 840 sailors, along with 244 artillery pieces. Losses in this battle had been light on both sides. Cornwallis sent Brig. Gen. Charles O’Hara to surrender his sword. At Washington’s behest, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln accepted it. Washington himself is seen in the right background of “The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown” by artist John Trumbull.
After conducting an indecisive foray into Virginia, Lt. Gen. Charles Lord Cornwallis retired to Yorktown on August 2, 1781. On August 16, General Washington and Maj. Gen. Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, began marching their Continental and French armies from New York to Virginia. The arrival of a French fleet, and its victory over a British fleet in Chesapeake Bay, sealed the trap.

1818 – US and Chickasaw Indians signed a treaty. Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby represented American interests. The Chickasaws ceded their claims to lands in Tennessee.

1843 – CAPT Robert Stockton in Princeton, the first screw propelled naval steamer, challenges British merchant ship Great Western to a race off New York, which Princeton won easily.

1848 – John “The Pathfinder” Fremont moved out from near Westport, Missouri, on his fourth Western expedition–a failed attempt to open a trail across the Rocky Mountains along the 38th parallel.

1864 – Philip Sheridan and his gelding horse Rienzi made their most famous ride to repulse an attack led by Lt. General Jubal A. Early at Cedar Creek, Virginia. Sheridan had been on his way back from a strategy session in Washington, D.C. when Early attacked. The Union scored a narrow victory which helped it secure the Shenandoah Valley.

1864 – The northernmost action of the American Civil War took place in the Vermont town of St. Albans. Some 25 escaped Confederate POWs led by Kentuckian Bennett Young (21) raided the town near the Canadian border with the intent of robbing three banks and burning the town. While they managed to leave town and hide out in Canada with more than $200,000, their attempts to burn down the town failed. Most of the raiders were captured and imprisoned in Canada and later released after a court ruled the robberies in St. Albans were acts of war.

1915 – Establishment of Submarine Base at New London, Connecticut. In 1868, Connecticut gave the Navy land and, in 1872, two brick buildings and a “T” shaped pier were built and officially declared a Navy Yard. Today the Naval Submarine Base New London (SUBASE NLON), located on the east side of Thames River in Groton, CT, proudly claims its motto to be “The First and Finest.”

1917 – The first doughnut was fried by Salvation Army (who would found the United Service Organization) volunteer women for American troops in France during World War I.

1919 – The US Distinguished Service Medal was awarded to a woman for the 1st time. Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, the first Director of the WAC, was the first woman to receive The U.S. Army Distinguished Service Medal in 1945.

1926 – John C. Garand patented a semi-automatic rifle. Civil Service employee John Garand was in a class all by himself, much like the weapons he created. Garand was Chief Civilian Engineer at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts. Garand invented a semiautomatic .30 caliber rifle, known as the M-1 or “the Garand,” which was adopted in 1936 after grueling tests by the Army. It was gas-operated, weighed under 10 pounds, and was loaded by an 8-round enbloc clip. It fired more than twice as fast as the Army’s previous standard-issue rifle and was praised by General George S. Patton, Jr., as “a magnificent weapon” and “the most deadly rifle in the world.”

1933 – Germany withdraws from the League of Nations.

1939 – Reichs Marshal Hermann Goering began plundering art treasures throughout Nazi occupied areas.

1942 – The Japanese submarine I-36 launched a floatplane for a reconnaissance flight over Pearl Harbor. The pilot and crew reported on the ships in the harbor, after which the aircraft was lost at sea.

1950 – The People’s Republic of China joins the Korean War by sending thousands of troops across the Yalu River to fight United Nations forces.

1951 – President Truman signed an act formally ending the state of war with Germany.

1973 – President Richard Nixon rejects an Appeals Court decision that he turn over the Watergate tapes.

1987 – In Operation Nimble Archer, U.S. Navy warships disabled 3 Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for an Iranian missile attack on a U.S.-flagged tanker off Kuwait.

1990 – Iraq ordered all foreigners in occupied Kuwait to report to authorities or face punishment.

1993 – Two US Blackhawk helicopters are fired upon with RPG’s over Mogadishu.

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 an experimental nerve gas antidote given to as many as 300,000 US troops during the Persian Gulf War.

2001 – The FBI identified the Trenton, NJ, mailbox from which the anthrax letters were sent to NYC and Washington. Two more people were reported to be infected bringing the total to 8.

2001 – In Philadelphia luggage, from a baggage locker that was deposited Sep 29, was found to contain C-4 plastic explosives.

2005 – Saddam Hussein goes on trial in Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

2007 – Four United States Air Force officers are relieved of command following an investigation of an incident where live nuclear warheads were carried on a B-52 bomber from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.

October 20th ~

1786 – Harvard University organized the 1st astronomical expedition in US.

1803 – The US Senate voted to ratify Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase.

1818 – The Convention of 1818 signed between the United States and the United Kingdom which, among other things, settles the Canada–United States border on the 49th parallel for most of its length.

1820 – Spain sold a part of Florida to US for $5 million.

1824 – U.S. Schooner Porpoise captures four pirate ships off Cuba.

1903 – The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, ruled in favor of the United States. The deciding vote was Britain’s, which embittered Canada. The United States gained ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

1926 – President Calvin Coolidge ordered Marines to guard the U. S. Mail. In Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 14 October 1926, the brutal robbery and killing of a U. S. Mail truck driver forced President Calvin Coolidge to turn to the Marine Corps for assistance in the civil community. By Presidential Order, 2,500 Marines proceeded on duty to guard the mail. Soon after...they are issued Thompson SMG's.

1927 – Henry Ford hand stamped the very first Model A engine number. Even though the Model A was in production for only four years, it sold nearly five million units worldwide. The Model A was also one of the first affordable cars to take safety into consideration, with shatterproof glass, four wheel brakes and bumpers as standard equipment.

1939 – The German government warns that neutral merchant ships joining Allied convoys will be sunk without warning. It is also announced that Hitler has signed a decree by which 3,000,000 Jews now living in Poland will get their own territory in eastern Poland, with a Jewish capital at Lublin.

1942 – The United States Congress passes the largest tax bill in the country’s history. It will raise $6,881,000,000 in tax revenue.

1944 – Seventh Fleet lands over 60,000 Army troops on Leyte, Philippines while Japanese aircraft attack. Many Coast Guard units participated in the landings. During the night, Japanese forces launch unsuccessful counterattacks against the beachheads.

1944 – The US 19th Tactical Air Force breaches the dam at Dieuze, France, causing extensive flooding to the rear of German 1st Army, opposite US 3rd Army.

1945 – Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon formed the Arab League to present a unified front against the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. A representative of Palestinian Arabs, although he did not sign the charter because he represented no recognized government, was given full status and a vote in the Arab League. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was granted full membership in 1976.

1950 – President Harry S. Truman issued an executive order “activating” the Magnuson Act, which had been passed by Congress earlier that month. This act, authorizing the president to invoke the Espionage Act of 1917, tasked the Coast Guard with the port security mission.

1950 – In the first airborne operation of the Korean War, 2,860 paratroopers of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team jumped between Sukchon and Sunchon, 25 miles north of Pyongyang. Far East Air Force C-119s and C-47s transported the assault force and F-80 and F-51 fighters provided air cover.

1962 – Major General Donald McGowan, the Chief of the National Guard Bureau and the other Reserve Component directors are given a Top Secret briefing in the Pentagon on the impending crisis following the discovery on October 18th of Soviet nuclear missile sites being constructed in Cuba. President John Kennedy would announce this intelligence to the world in a televised speech on October 22nd, causing worldwide concern of a nuclear war. After the President’s speech a number of Guard units, primarily Air Guard fighter groups, were given alert notifications that they might be called up if the crisis deepened. All of these units began operating at an increased tempo (though officially in a training status), flying along American coastal areas keeping watch for anything suspicious. However, with the Soviet agreement to withdraw the missiles tensions began to subside and no Guard units were actually mobilized during the crisis.

1967 – Operation Coronado VII began in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. A M-132-Al flame configured armored personnel carrier was shoe-horned into an ATAC of River Assault Division NINETY-TWO. Tests were initiated and the results were excellent. This weapon would prove to be a great asset in future combat operations. It would give yeoman service as a destroyer of offensive bunkers

1973 – Arab oil-producing nations banned oil exports to the United States, following the outbreak of Arab-Israeli war.

1973 – “Saturday Night Massacre”: United States President Richard Nixon fires U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus after they refuse to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who is finally fired by Robert Bork.

1978 – The cutter Cuyahoga sank after colliding with M/V Santa Cruz II near the mouth of the Potomac River. Eleven Coast Guard personnel were killed.

1981 – Three members of the radical Weather Underground were arrested following a bungled armored truck robbery in Nanuet, N.Y., where a guard was killed. 2 police officers were killed when the getaway truck was halted in Nyack. Kathy Boudin was sentenced 20 years to life for assisting in the getaway. In 2003 Boudin was paroled.

1983 – Due to political strife, USS Independence (CV-59) ordered to Grenada.

1992 – The host Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Atlanta Braves, 3-2 in game three of the World Series, taking a two-games-to-one lead. This was the first World Series game to be played outside the U.S. During the pre-game ceremony, a Marine color guard presented the Canadian flag.

1995 – Space shuttle “Columbia” was launched on a research flight that had been delayed six times. The second United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-2) Spacelab mission will be the prime payload on STS-73. The 16-day flight will continue a cooperative effort of the U.S. government, universities and industry to push back the frontiers of science and technology in “microgravity”, the near-weightless environment of space.

1999 – The Cold War (1951-1977) locations of nuclear weapons minus their nuclear charges was partly revealed in a 1978 top secret Pentagon document entitled “History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons.”

2001 – It was reported that the US was using a 40-year-old EC C-130 plane called “Commando Solo” to broadcast messages and music over Afghanistan.

2001 – Traces of anthrax were found in a US House of Representatives mail room. This became the 3rd Capital Hill building infected.

2011 – The former leader of Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, and his son Mutassim Gaddafi are killed shortly after the Battle of Sirte while in the custody of NTC fighters.