** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

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PostPosted: Sun Jun 12, 2016 10:22 am
June 12th ~ {continued...}

1985 – The U.S. House of Representatives approved $27 million in aid to the Nicaraguan contras.

1987 – In one of his most famous Cold War speeches, President Ronald Reagan challenges Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall. Two years later, deliriously happy East and West Germans did break down the infamous barrier between East and West Berlin. Reagan’s challenge came during a visit to West Berlin. With the Berlin Wall as a backdrop, Reagan declared, “There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace.”

He then called upon his Soviet counterpart: “Secretary General Gorbachev, if you seek peace–if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe–if you seek liberalization: come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Addressing the West Berlin crowd, Reagan observed, “Standing before the Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar.”

1990 – The First Congress of People’s Deputies of the Russian Federation adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. The idea of the declaration was born in the Democratic Russia movement, in which proponents of evolutionary market reform and strong statehood based on Russia’s national interests started opposing the Communist monopoly on power.

1991 – Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic.

1992 – In a letter to U.S. senators, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin said the Soviet Union had shot down nine U.S. planes in the early 1950’s and held 12 American survivors.

1995 – Air Force Captain Scott O’Grady, rescued after being shot down over Bosnia, was treated to lunch at the White House and a hero’s welcome at the Pentagon.

1996 – U.N. Security Council Resolution 1060 terms Iraq’s denial of access to UNSCOM teams a clear violation of the provisions of U.N. Security Council Resolutions. It also demands that Iraq grant immediate and unrestricted access to all sites designated for inspection by UNSCOM.

1998 – Space shuttle Discovery returned to Earth, bringing home the last American to live aboard Mir and closing out three years of U.S.-Russian cooperation aboard the aging space station.

1999 – NATO troops began entering Kosovo. They reached Pristina and confronted Russian soldiers over control of the airport. A Russian armored column entered Pristina before dawn to a heroes’ welcome from Serb residents. 2 Serbs were killed and a German soldier was wounded as peacekeepers moved into Kosovo. 2 German journalists were killed near Stimlje by sniper fire.

2000 – The US Justice Dept. agreed to compensate the Nixon estate $18 million for the tapes and presidential papers seized in 1974.

2001 – President Bush on his 1st major overseas trip met with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Madrid and pushed for his missile defense shield.

2001 – A federal court in NYC sentenced Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-‘Owhali, a Saudi Arabian follower of Osama bin Laden, to life in prison without parole for his role in the deadly 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya.

2001 – In the Philippines Muslim rebels on Basilan Island claimed to have beheaded Guillermo Sobero of Corona, Ca., one of the hostages kidnapped May 27th.

2002 – A U.S. military transport plane, Air Force MC-130, carrying 10 people crashed on takeoff in Afghanistan, killing three Americans, military officials said. Seven escaped with minor injuries.

2002 – An associate of the Jose Padilla, the man accused of plotting to set off a “dirty” bomb in the United States, was reported in custody in Pakistan.

2002 – Fidel Castro led hundreds of thousands of people in support of a constitutional amendment declaring Cuba’s socialist state “untouchable.” It was a protest to President Bush’s policies toward Cuba and defiance for democratic reforms of his one-party system. A proposed amendment outlined Cuba as a socialist state of workers… organized with all and for the good of all…”

2003 – A US helicopter gunship was shot down in western Iraq, just hours after US fighter jets bombed a terrorist training camp in central Iraq.

2004 – Iran said it would reject international restrictions on its nuclear program and challenged the world to accept Tehran as a member of the “nuclear club.”

2004 – In Saudi Arabia an American was kidnapped. An al-Qaida statement, posted on an Islamic Web site, showed a passport-size photo of a brown-haired man and a Lockheed Martin business card bearing the name Paul M. Johnson. Suspected militants killed an American in Riyadh, shooting him in the back as he parked in his home garage.
PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:10 am
June 13th ~

1740 – Georgia provincial governor James Oglethorpe begins an unsuccessful attempt to take Spanish Florida during the Siege of St. Augustine. Oglethorpe raised a mixed force of British regulars (the 42nd Regiment of Foot), colonial militia from the Province of Georgia and the Carolinas, and native American Creek and Chickasaw, or Uchees. Oglethorpe deployed his batteries on the island of Santa Anastasia while a British naval squadron blockaded the port.

1774 – Rhode Island became the 1st colony to prohibit importation of slaves.

1777 – Marquis de Lafayette landed in the United States to assist the colonies in their war against England.

1786 – Winfield Scott, a hero in the Mexican-American War and commander of the U.S. Army at the outbreak of the Civil War, is born on this day in 1786.

1798 – Mission San Luis Rey [in California] was founded.

1805 – Having hurried ahead of the main body of the expedition, Meriwether Lewis and four men arrive at the Great Falls of the Missouri River, confirming that the explorers are headed in the right direction. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had set out on their expedition to the Pacific the previous year. They spent the winter of 1804 with the Mandan Indians in present-day North Dakota. The Hidatsa Indians, who lived nearby, had traveled far to the West, and they proved an important source of information for Lewis and Clark. The Hidatsa told Lewis and Clark they would come to a large impassable waterfall in the Missouri when they neared the Rocky Mountains, but they assured the captains that portage around the falls was less than half a mile.

Armed with this valuable information, Lewis and Clark resumed their journey up the Missouri accompanied by a party of 33 in April. The expedition made good time, and by early June, the explorers were nearing the Rocky Mountains. On June 3rd, however, they came to a fork at which two equally large rivers converged. “Which of these rivers was the Missouri?” Lewis asked in his journal. Since the river coming in from the north most resembled the Missouri in its muddy turbulence, most of the men believed it must be the Missouri. Lewis, however, reasoned that the water from the Missouri would have traveled only a short distance from the mountains and, therefore, would be clear and fast-running like the south fork.

The decision was critical. If the explorers chose the wrong river, they would not be able to find the Shoshone Indians from whom they planned to obtain horses for the portage over the Rockies. Although all of their men disagreed, Lewis and Clark concluded they should proceed up the south fork. To err on the side of caution, however, the captains decided that Lewis and a party of four would speed ahead on foot. If Lewis did not soon encounter the big waterfall the Hidatsa had told them of, the party would return and the expedition would backtrack to the other river. On this day in 1805, four days after forging ahead of the main body of the expedition, Lewis was overjoyed to hear “the agreeable sound of a fall of water.” Soon after he “saw the spray arise above the plain like a column of smoke…. [It] began to make a roaring too tremendous to be mistaken for any cause short of the great falls of the Missouri.”

By noon, Lewis had reached the falls, where he stared in awe at “a sublimely grand specticle [sic]…. the grandest sight I had ever held.” Lewis and Clark had been correct–the south fork was the Missouri River. The mysterious northern fork was actually the Marias River. Had the explorers followed the Marias, they would have traveled up into the northern Rockies where a convenient pass led across the mountains into the Columbia River drainage. However, Lewis and Clark would not have found the Shoshone Indians nor obtained the horses. Without horses, the crossing might well have failed.

Three days after finding the falls, Lewis rejoined Clark and told him the good news. However, the captains’ elation did not last long. They soon discovered that the portage around the Great Falls was not the easy half-mile jaunt reported by the Hidatsa, but rather a punishing 18-mile trek over rough terrain covered with spiky cactus. The Great Portage, as it was later called, would take the men nearly a month to complete. By mid-July, however, the expedition was again moving ahead. A month later, Lewis and Clark found the Shoshone Indians, who handed over the horses that were so critical to the subsequent success of their mission.
PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:16 am
June 13th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Confederate steamer Planter, with her captain ashore in Charleston, was taken out of the harbor by an entirely Negro crew under Robert Smalls and turned over to U.S.S. Onward, Acting Lieutenant Nickels, of the blockading Union squadron.

1862 – U.S.S. Iroquois, Commander Palmer, and U.S.S. Oneida, Commander S. P. Lee, occupied Natchez, Mississippi, as Flag Officer Farragut’s fleet moved steadily toward Vicksburg.

1863 – Confederate forces on their way to Gettysburg clashed with Union troops at the Second Battle of Winchester, Virginia.

1864 – The bulk of the Army of the Potomac begins moving towards Petersburg, Virginia, precipitating a siege that lasted for more than nine months. From early May, the Union army hounded Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia as it tried to destroy the Confederates in the eastern theater. Commanded officially by George Meade but effectively directed by Ulysses S. Grant, the Army of the Potomac sustained enormous casualties as it fought through the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor. After the disaster at Cold Harbor, where Union troops suffered horrendous losses when they attacked fortified Rebels just east of Richmond, Grant paused for more than a week before ordering another move.

The army began to pull out of camp on June 12th, and on June 13th the bulk of Grant’s force was on the move south to the James River. As they had done for six weeks, the Confederates stayed between Richmond and the Yankees. Lee blocked the road to Richmond, but Grant was after a different target now. After the experience of Cold Harbor, Grant decided to take the rail center at Petersburg, 23 miles south of Richmond. By late afternoon, Union General Winfield Hancock’s Second Corps arrived at the James. Northern engineers were still constructing a pontoon bridge, but a fleet of small boats began to ferry the soldiers across.

By the next day, skirmishing flared around Petersburg and the last great battle of war in Virginia began. This phase of the war would be much different, as the two great armies settled into trenches for a war of attrition.

1881 – The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack. Jeannette departed San Francisco on 8 July 1879, the Secretary of the Navy having added to her original instructions the task of searching for the long-overdue Swedish polar expedition of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (whose ship Vega had successfully traversed the Northeast Passage). Jeannette pushed northward to Alaska’s Norton Sound and sent her last communication to Washington before starting north from St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia on 27 August. Under Lt. Cdr. DeLong’s direction the ship sailed across the Chukchi Sea and sighted Herald Island on 4 September. Soon afterward she was caught fast in the ice pack near Wrangel Island at 71°35′N 175°6′E.

For the next 21 months, Jeannette drifted to the northwest, ever-closer to DeLong’s goal, the North Pole itself. He described in his journal the important scientific records kept by the party: “A full meteorological record is kept, soundings are taken, astronomical observations made and positions computed, dip and declination of the needle observed and recorded… everything we can do is done as faithfully, as strictly, as mathematically as if we were at the Pole itself, or the lives of millions depended on our adherence to routine.”

In May 1881, two islands were discovered and named Jeannette and Henrietta. In June, Bennett Island was discovered and claimed for the U.S. On the night of 12 June, the pressure of the ice finally began to crush Jeannette when they had reached 77°15′N 154°59′E. DeLong and his men unloaded provisions and equipment onto the ice pack and the ship sank the following morning.
PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:18 am
June 13th ~ {continued...}

1888 – The US Congress created the Department of Labor.

1893 – Grover Cleveland notices a rough spot in his mouth and on July 1 undergoes secret, successful surgery to remove a large, cancerous portion of his jaw; operation not revealed to US public until 1917, nine years after the president’s death.

1900 – China’s Boxer Rebellion against foreigners and Chinese Christians erupted into violence.

1918 – Marines plug the line in their exposed area. German counterattack begins supported by the artillery from three divisions and almost recaptures Bouresches. Heavy gas casualties. A planned relief of 2/5 goes for naught as 2/6 is caught in the open by a artillery barrage with gas.

1927 – Aviator Charles Lindbergh receives a ticker-tape parade down 5th Avenue in New York City.

1929 – Coast Guard Radio Technician A. G. Descoteaux became the first person to broadcast from an aircraft. In a Loening amphibian, he reported the takeoff of a French aircraft on a trans-Atlantic flight at Old Orchard Beach, Maine. The account was relayed by ground equipment to an extensive national hookup and was received by U.S. and foreign listeners.

1940 – Roosevelt signs a new $1,300,000,000 Navy bill providing for much extra construction. Meanwhile, in response to Churchill’s pleas in his telegrams to President Roosevelt, surplus stocks of artillery weapons and rifles have been assembled from US government stores. The first shipment now leaves the USA on the SS Eastern Prince for the voyage to Britain. The US Neutrality Laws have been subverted by first “selling” the arms to a steel company and then reselling them to the British government.

1942 – President Roosevelt created the Office of War Information, and appointed radio news commentator Elmer Davis to be its head. The OSS, Office of Strategic Services, was formed.

1942 – John C. Cullen, Seaman 2/c discovered Nazi saboteurs landing on beach at Amagansett, Long Island. He reported this to his superiors. The FBI later captured the Nazis and Cullen was awarded the Legion of Merit. The four men had plans to sabotage NYC’s water system and industrial sites across the Northeastern US.

1942 – CGC Thetis sank the German U-boat U-157 off the Florida Keys. There were no survivors.

1942 – 1st V-2 rocket launch from Peenemunde, Germany, reached 1.3 km.

1943 – CGC Escanaba exploded and sank off Ivigtut, Greenland, with only two survivors. The cause for the loss has never been confirmed.

1944 – Only one week after the Normandy invasion, the first German V-1 buzz bomb, also called the doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), was fired at London. The first guided missile to be used in force, the V-1 was powered by a pulse-jet engine and resembled a small aircraft. Only one of the four missiles London saw that day caused any casualties, but a steady stream of V-1s causing severe damage and casualties fell on London in coming months. At times, nearly 100 bombs fell each day. Many German buzz bombs never reached their targets because of primitive guidance systems or because they were destroyed in flight by anti-aircraft fire or intercepting Allied fighters.

1944 – US 1st Army makes progress towards St Lo and across the Cotentin. Pont l’Abbe is capture in the peninsula. A German counterattack, spearheaded by 17th Panzer Division, toward Carentan is held.

1944 – On Biak, American forces reduce the scattered Japanese resistance from caves in the east of the island. US aircraft are operating from Mokmer Airfield.

1944 – Admiral Small leads a cruiser and destroyer group to bombard Japanese positions on Matsuwa.
PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:20 am
June 13th ~ {continued...}

1945 – On Okinawa, the Japanese resistance in the Oruku peninsula ends. The US 6th Marine Division records a record 169 Japanese prisoners as well as finding about 200 dead. (This is a large total when compared with previous numbers of Japanese prisoners reported.) The fighting continues to the southeast, especially in the Kunishi Ridge area where a regiment of the US 1st Marine Division suffers heavy casualties. The US 24th Corps uses armored flamethrowers in the elimination of the Japanese held fortified caves on Mount Yuza and Mount Yaeju and on Hills 153 and 115.

1945 – On Luzon, an American armored column attempts pass through the Orioung Pass, to exploit a breakthrough achieved by the US 145th Infantry Regiment (US 37th Division), but a Japanese counterattack blocks the road.

1949 – Vietnam state was established at Saigon with Bao Dai as chief of state. Installed by the French, Bao Dai entered Saigon to rule Vietnam.

1951 – U.N. troops seized Pyongyang, North Korea.

1951 – U.N. commander General Mathew Ridgway’s Joint Strategic Plans and Operations Group (JSPOG) discussed with him four options to carry Eighth Army above Line KANSAS so that this line would not be lost in any withdrawal required by cease-fire arrangements.

1966 – The Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda vs. Arizona decision, ruling that criminal suspects must be informed of their constitutional rights prior to questioning by police. The conviction of Ernesto Miranda for rape and kidnapping was overturned because his confession was not voluntarily given.

1969 – The US government discloses it used wiretapping devices to eavesdrop on the ‘Chicago Eight’ anti-war activists who have been indicted for inciting riots during the 1968 Democratic convention. The government contends it has the right to eavesdrop without court approval on members of organizations it believes to be seeking to attack and subvert the government.

1969 – Souvanna Phouma, premier of Laos, acknowledges publically for the first time that US planes regularly carryout bombing raids in Laos and says the bombing will continue as long as North Vietnam uses Laotian bases and infiltration routes.

1969 – B-52 bombing missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in southern Laos rise to 5,567 in 1969, up from 3,377 in 1968, according to official Pentagon statistics. The B-52s, no longer permitted to bomb North Vietnam since the November 1968 bombing halt, are increasingly diverted to Laos and, in secret, to Cambodia. Nearly 160,000 tons of bombs are dropped on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in 1969.


1971 – The New York Times begins to publish sections of the so-called “Pentagon Papers,” a top-secret Department of Defense study of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The papers indicated that the American government had been lying to the people for years about the Vietnam War and the papers seriously damaged the credibility of America’s Cold War foreign policy.

1973 – Representatives of the original signers of the January 27 cease-fire sign a new 14-point agreement calling for an end to all cease-fire violations in South Vietnam. Coming at the end of month-long negotiations between Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the settlement included an end to all military activities at noon on June 15; an end to U.S. reconnaissance flights over North Vietnam and the resumption of U.S. minesweeping operations in North Vietnamese waters; the resumption of U.S. talks on aid to North Vietnam; and the meeting of commanders of opposing forces in South Vietnam to prevent outbreaks of hostilities.

Fighting had erupted almost immediately after the original cease-fire that had been initiated as part of the Paris Peace Accords. Both sides repeatedly violated the terms of the cease-fire as they jockeyed for position and control of the countryside. This new agreement proved no more effective than the original peace agreement in stopping the fighting, which continued into early 1975 when the North Vietnamese launched a massive offensive that overran South Vietnam in less than 55 days. The war was finally over on April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese tanks rolled into Saigon.
PostPosted: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:23 am
June 13th ~ {continued...}

1979 – Sioux Indians were awarded $105 million in compensation for the U.S. seizure in 1877 of their Black Hills in South Dakota.

1983 – After more than a decade in space, Pioneer 10, the world’s first outer-planetary probe, leaves the solar system. The next day, it radioed back its first scientific data on interstellar space. On March 2nd, 1972, the NASA spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet. In December 1973, after successfully negotiating the asteroid belt and a distance of 620 million miles, Pioneer 10 reached Jupiter and sent back to Earth the first close-up images of the spectacular gas giant. On June 13th, 1983, the NASA spacecraft left the solar system. NASA officially ended the Pioneer 10 project on March 31st, 1997, with the spacecraft having traveled a distance of some six billion miles.

Headed in the direction of the Taurus constellation, Pioneer 10 will pass within three light years of another star–Ross 246–in the year 34,600 A.D. Bolted to the probe’s exterior wall is a gold-anodized plaque, 6 by 9 inches in area, that displays a drawing of a human man and woman, a star map marked with the location of the sun, and another map showing the flight path of Pioneer 10. The plaque, intended for intelligent life forms elsewhere in the galaxy, was designed by astronomer Carl Sagan.

1991 – Marines from Okinawa and Marine Barracks, Subic Bay, Philippines, evacuated 20,000 Americans after Mount Pinatubo erupted. HMH-772, MAGTF 4-91, MAG-36, 15th MEU and other Marine units assisted.

1993 – Astronaut Donald K. “Deke” Slayton died in League City, Texas, at age 69.

1997 – The leaders of France, Germany and Canada insisted that Romania and Slovenia be allowed to join NATO next month.

1997 – A jury sentences Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

1999 – NATO soldiers shot dead two armed men as peacekeepers tried to contain new violence in Kosovo; Russian troops, meanwhile, blocked British troops from entering the airport in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.

2001 – President. Bush met behind closed doors with NATO leaders in Brussels, Belgium, and pitched his missile shield plan with mixed response.

2001 – The US House voted (422-2) to forbid foreign oil companies doing business in Sudan from selling securities in the US.

2002 – A federal judge blocked SC Gov. Jim Hodges’ suit to block a plutonium shipment from Rocky Flats in Colorado to the Savannah River Site nuclear facility for re-processing.

2002 – Afghanistan’s interim leader Hamid Karzai won endorsement from about two-thirds of delegates at the Loya Jirga grand assembly, making him the most likely candidate to win the presidency.

2002 – A US military vehicle in South Korea ran over 2 girls (14), Shim Mi-son and Shin Hyo-sun. A military jury later cleared Sgt. Fernando Nino of negligent homicide charges. Driver Sgt. Mark Walker was acquitted November 22nd.

2003 – US forces killed 27 Iraqi fighters in a ground and air pursuit after the Iraqis attacked an American tank patrol north of Baghdad.

2003 – Belgium’s foreign minister said the country has already amended its war crimes laws to avoid politically inspired lawsuits against US officials.

2004 – Pakistani troops ended a major operation to flush out al-Qaida suspects and their local supporters from hide-outs in a remote region near Afghanistan. 72 people died, including 17 security personnel.

2007 – The 2007 al-Askari Mosque bombing occurred at around 9 am local time at one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, the al-Askari Mosque, and has been attributed to al-Qaeda in Iraq or the Iraqi Baath Party. While there were no injuries or deaths reported, the mosque’s two ten story minarets were destroyed in the attacks. This was the second bombing of the mosque, with the first bombing occurring on 22 February 2006 and destroying the mosque’s golden dome. By April 2009, both minarets had been repaired.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:37 am
June 14th ~

FLAG DAY


1775 – The U.S. Army was founded when the Continental Congress first authorized the muster of troops under its sponsorship. Also the birth of the Infantry Branch. Ten companies of riflemen were authorized by a resolution of the Continental Congress on June 14, 1775. However, the oldest Regular Army infantry regiment, the 3d, was constituted on June 3, 1784, as the First American Regiment.

1777 – During the American Revolution, the Continental Congress adopts a resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag, a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of 13 red and white stripes.

According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to conclusively prove or disprove this legend. With the entrance of new states into the United States after independence, new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union. In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states.

On June 14, 1877, the first Flag Day observance was held on the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Stars and Stripes. As instructed by Congress, the U.S. flag was flown from all public buildings across the country. In the years after the first Flag Day, several states continued to observe the anniversary, and in 1949 Congress officially designated June 14 as Flag Day, a national day of observance.

1777 – John Paul Jones takes command of USS Ranger.

1801 – Former American Revolutionary War General Benedict Arnold died in London.

1805 – Robert Anderson (d.1871), Bvt. Major General (Union Army), defender of Fort Sumpter, was born.

1846 – Anticipating the outbreak of war with Mexico, American settlers in California rebel against the Mexican government and proclaim the short-lived California Republic. The political situation in California was tense in 1846. Though nominally controlled by Mexico, California was home to only a relatively small number of Mexican settlers. Former citizens of the United States made up the largest segment of the California population, and their numbers were quickly growing. Mexican leaders worried that many American settlers were not truly interested in becoming Mexican subjects and would soon push for annexation of California to the United States.

For their part, the Americans distrusted their Mexican leaders. When rumors of an impending war between the U.S. and Mexico reached California, many Americans feared the Mexicans might make a preemptive attack to forestall rebellion. Three weeks after it had been proclaimed, the California Republic quietly faded away. Ironically, the Bear Flag itself proved far more enduring than the republic it represented: it became the official state flag when California joined the union in 1850.

1847 – Commodore Matthew Perry launches amphibious river operations by Sailors and Marines on Tabasco River, Mexico.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:39 am
June 14th ~ {continued...}

1863 – President Lincoln authorized the Secretary of the Treasury to “cooperate by the revenue cutters under your direction with the Navy in arresting rebel depredations on American commerce and transportation and in capturing rebels engaged therein.” The directive was largely the result of Lieutenant Read’s continued raid on Union commerce near Northern shores.

1863 – A small Union garrison in the Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester, Virginia, is easily defeated by the Army of Northern Virginia on the path of the Confederate invasion of Pennsylvania. In early June, General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia began an invasion of the North. Lee’s men pulled out of defenses along the Rappahannock River and swung north and west into the Shenandoah Valley. Using the Blue Ridge Mountains as a screen, the Confederates worked their way northward with little opposition. General Joseph Hooker, commander of the Army of the Potomac, was unsure of the Confederates’ intentions. He tracked Lee’s army from a distance, staying safely away to protect Washington, D.C.

During this time, Winchester was in Union hands. The city was literally at the crossroads of the war, so it changed hands continually. Robert Milroy, the commander of the Yankees in Winchester, was unaware that the vanguard of Lee’s army was heading his way. He had received some warnings from Washington, but an order to evacuate Winchester did not reach him because the Confederates had cut the telegraph lines. As late as June 11th, Milroy bragged that he could hold the town against any Confederate force. His assertion was rendered ridiculous when Richard Ewell’s Rebel corps crashed down on his tiny garrison. Ewell’s force quickly surrounded the Yankee’s. After a sharp battle, Ewell captured about 4,000 Federals, while Milroy and 2,700 soldiers escaped to safety. Ewell lost just 270 men but captured 300 wagons, hundreds of horses, and 23 artillery pieces. Milroy was relieved of his command and later arrested, although a court of inquiry found that he was not culpable in the disaster.

1864 – At the Battle of Pine Mountain, Georgia, Confederate General Leonidas Polk was killed by a Union shell.

1864 – U.S.S. Kearsarge, Captain Winslow, arrived off Cherbourg, France. The ship log recorded: “Found the rebel privateer Alabama lying at anchor in the roads.” Kearsarge took up the blockade in international waters off the harbor entrance. Captain Semmes stated: “. . . My intention is to fight the Kearsarge as soon as I can make the necessary arrangements. I hope they will not detain me more than until tomorrow evening, or after the morrow morning at furthest. I beg she will not depart before I am ready to go out.” With the famous Confederate raider at bay, Kearsarge had no intention of departing-the stage was set for the famous duel.

1898 – Two companies of Marines defeated the Spanish near Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

1900 – US Congress passed a law granting citizenship to all persons who had been citizens of the Republic of Hawaii at the time of annexation.

1922 – Warren G. Harding became the first president heard on radio, as Baltimore station WEAR broadcast his speech dedicating the Francis Scott Key memorial at Fort McHenry.

1927 – President Porfirio Diaz of Nicaragua signed a treaty with the U.S. allowing American intervention in his country.

1932 – Representative Edward Eslick died on the floor of the House of Representatives while pleading for the passage of the bonus bill.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:40 am
June 14th ~ {continued...}

1940 – In German-occupied Poland the first inmates arrived at Auschwitz concentration camp. They were all Polish political prisoners. The Nazis opened their concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1941 – The CGC Duane rescued 46 survivors from the torpedoed SS Tresillian.

1941 – President Roosevelt freezes all German and Italian assets in the United States.

1942 – The first bazooka rocket gun, produced in Bridgeport, Ct., demolished a tank from its shoulder-held position.

1944 – The first raid by American B-29 Superfortress bombers is carried out. A total of 48 planes (of which 4 are lost) make an ineffective strike on the Yawata iron and steel works during the night from bases in China.

1944 – US naval forces conduct bombardments of Saipan and Tinian in preparation for landings on these islands. The two American naval groups, commanded by Admiral Ainsworth and Admiral Oldendorf, include 7 battleships and 11 cruisers as well as 8 escort carriers in support. The battleship USS California is hit by a Japanese shore battery. Extensive mine-sweeping operations are also conducted by American forces.

1944 – A third corps, the US 19th Corps, becomes operational between the 5th and 7th Corps. Free French leader, General de Gaulle, visits the beachhead and takes steps to restoring French civilian government in captured territory.

1945 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower was honored as a Companion of the Liberation by General Charles de Gaulle.

1945 – On Okinawa, mopping up operations proceed on the Oroku peninsula. The troops of the US 3rd Amphibious Corps and the US 24th Corps continue to eliminate fortified caves held by Japanese forces on Kunishi Ridge and on Mount Yuza and Mount Yaegu. An American regiment of the US 96th Division reaches the summit of Mount Yaegu, while the US th Division extends its control of Hills 153 and 115.

1945 – On Luzon, American forces dislodge the Japanese blocking the Orioung Pass. Elements of the US 37th Division, formed into an armored column, advance as far as Echague. From Santiago, other units advance toward Cabanatuan and Cauayan.

1945 – The US Joint Chiefs of Staff issue a directive to General MacArthur, General Arnold and Admiral Nimitz to prepare plans for the immediate occupation of the Japanese islands in the event of a sudden capitulation. This order may have been given in light of recent progress on the production of an atomic bomb but this is not stated.

1951 – A single communist Polikarpov PO-2 biplane dropped bombs on Suwon Airfield and another PO-2 bombed a motor pool at Inchon. These attacks marked the beginning of enemy night harassing missions that soon became known as “Bedcheck Charley.”

1951 – The destroyer-minesweeper USS Thompson was hit by communist shore battery fire suffering three sailors killed and three wounded. Having sustained 13 hits, the Thompson barely managed to escape out of range of the North Korean guns.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:42 am
June 14th ~ {continued...}

1951 – U.S. Census Bureau dedicates UNIVAC, the world’s first commercially produced electronic digital computer. UNIVAC, which stood for Universal Automatic Computer, was developed by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, makers of ENIAC, the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. These giant computers, which used thousands of vacuum tubes for computation, were the forerunners of today’s digital computers.

The search for mechanical devices to aid computation began in ancient times. The abacus, developed in various forms by the Babylonians, Chinese, and Romans, was by definition the first digital computer because it calculated values by using digits. A mechanical digital calculating machine was built in France in 1642, but a 19th century Englishman, Charles Babbage, is credited with devising most of the principles on which modern computers are based. His “Analytical Engine,” begun in the 1830s and never completed for lack of funds, was based on a mechanical loom and would have been the first programmable computer.

By the 1920s, companies such as the International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) were supplying governments and businesses with complex punch-card tabulating systems, but these mechanical devises had only a fraction of the calculating power of the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). Completed by John Atanasoff of Iowa State in 1939, the ABC could by 1941 solve up to 29 simultaneous equations with 29 variables. Influenced by Atanasoff’s work, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly set about building the first general-purpose electronic digital computer in 1943.

The sponsor was the U.S. Army Ordnance Department, which wanted a better way of calculating artillery firing tables, and the work was done at the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC, which stood for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator, was completed in 1946 at a cost of nearly $500,000. It took up 15,000 feet, employed 17,000 vacuum tubes, and was programmed by plugging and replugging some 6,000 switches.

It was first used in a calculation for Los Alamos Laboratories in December 1945, and in February 1946 it was formally dedicated. Following the success of ENIAC, Eckert and Mauchly decided to go into private business and founded the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. They proved less able businessmen than they were engineers, and in 1950 their struggling company was acquired by Remington Rand, an office equipment company.

On June 14, 1951, Remington Rand delivered its first computer, UNIVAC I, to the U.S. Census Bureau. It weighed 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second. On November 4, 1952, the UNIVAC achieved national fame when it correctly predicted Dwight D. Eisenhower’s unexpected landslide victory in the presidential election after only a tiny percentage of the votes were in.

UNIVAC and other first-generation computers were replaced by transistor computers of the late 1950s, which were smaller, used less power, and could perform nearly a thousand times more operations per second. These were, in turn, supplanted by the integrated-circuit machines of the mid-1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, the development of the microprocessor made possible small, powerful computers such as the personal computer, and more recently the laptop and hand-held computers.

1952 – The USS Nautilus, the first atomic submarine, was dedicated in Groton, Connecticut.

1954 – President Eisenhower signed an order adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:53 am
June 14th ~ {continued...}

1954 – Over 12 million Americans “die” in a mock nuclear attack, as the United States goes through its first nationwide civil defense drill. Though American officials were satisfied with the results of the drill, the event stood as a stark reminder that the United States–and the world-was now living under a nuclear shadow. The June 1954 civil defense drill was organized and evaluated by the Civil Defense Administration, and included operations in 54 cities in the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Alaska, and Hawaii. Canada also participated in the exercise. The basic premise of the drill was that the United States was under massive nuclear assault from both aircraft and submarines, and that most major urban areas had been targeted.

At 10 a.m., alarms were sounded in selected cities, at which time all citizens were supposed to get off the streets, seek shelter, and prepare for the onslaught. Each citizen was supposed to know where the closest fallout shelter was located; these included the basements of government buildings and schools, underground subway tunnels, and private shelters. Even President Dwight D. Eisenhower took part in the show, heading to an underground bunker in Washington, D.C. The entire drill lasted only about 10 minutes, at which time an all-clear signal was broadcast and life returned to normal. Civil Defense Administration officials estimated that New York City would suffer the most in such an attack, losing over 2 million people. Other cities, including Washington, D.C., would also endure massive loss of life. In all, it was estimated that over 12 million Americans would die in an attack.

Despite those rather mind-numbing figures, government officials pronounced themselves very pleased with the drill. Minor problems in communication occurred, and one woman in New York City managed to create a massive traffic jam by simply stopping her car in the middle of the road, leaping out, and running for cover. In most cities, however, the streets were deserted just moments after the alarms sounded and there were no signs of panic or criminal behavior. A more cautious assessment came from a retired military officer, who observed that the recent development of the hydrogen bomb by the Soviet Union had “outstripped the progress made in our civil defense strides to defend against it.”

1964 – General Westmoreland is in Malaysia to study the methods used by the British to defeat the Communist guerrillas there.

1964 – The US military allows its own pilots operating out of Thailand to hit targets of opportunity in Laos.

1967 – The space probe Mariner 5 was launched from Cape Kennedy on a flight that took it past Venus.

1968 – A Federal District Court jury in Boston convicts Dr. Benjamin Spock of conspiring to aid draft registrants in violating the Selective Service Law.

1969 – The U.S. announces that three combat units will be withdrawn from Vietnam. They were the 1st and 2nd Brigades of the U.S. Army 9th Infantry Division and Regimental Landing Team 9 of the 3rd Marine Division–a total of about 13,000 to 14,000 men. These troops were part of the first U.S. troop withdrawal, which had been announced on June 8 by President Richard Nixon at the Midway conference with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. Nixon had promised that 25,000 troops would be withdrawn by the end of the year, and more support troops were later sent home in addition to the aforementioned combat forces in order to meet that number.
PostPosted: Tue Jun 14, 2016 7:55 am
June 14th ~ {continued...}

1972 – US planes flying a record number of strikes over North Vietnam, 340, sever the main railway line between Hanoi and Haiphong.

1985 – TWA Flight 847 from Athens to Rome is hijacked by Shiite Hezbollah terrorists who immediately demand to know the identity of ”those with Jewish-sounding names.” Two of the Lebanese terrorists armed with grenades, axes, and a 9-mm. pistol then forced the plane to land at the Beirut Airport in Lebanon. Once on the ground, the hijackers called for passengers with Israeli passports, but there were none. Nor were there any diplomats on board. They then focused their attention on the several U.S. Navy construction divers aboard the plane. Soon after landing, the terrorists killed Navy diver Robert Stethem, and dumped his body on the runway.

TWA employee Uli Dickerson was largely successful in protecting the few Jewish passengers aboard by refusing to identify them. Most of the passengers were released in the early hours of what turned out to be a 17-day ordeal, but five men were singled out and separated from the rest of the hostages. Of these five, only Richard Herzberg, an American, was Jewish. Luckily, he had told his wife early on in the attack to get rid of a ring bearing a Hebrew inscription. During the next two weeks, Herzberg maintained to his attackers that he was a Lutheran of German and Greek ancestry. Along with the others, he was taken to a roach-infested holding cell somewhere in Beirut, where other Lebanese prisoners were being held and tortured in the makeshift prison.

Fortunately, however, the TWA hostages were treated fairly well-they were even given a birthday cake on one occasion. On June 30th, after careful negotiations, the hostages were released unharmed. Since the terrorists were effectively outside the law’s reach in Lebanon, it appeared as though the terrorists would go free from punishment. Yet, Mohammed Ali Hamadi, who was wanted for his role in TWA Flight 847 attack, was arrested nearly two years later at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany, with explosives.

Within days of his arrest, two German citizens were kidnapped while in Lebanon in a successful attempt to discourage Germany from extraditing Hamadi to the United States for prosecution. Germany decided to try Hamadi instead, and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the maximum penalty under German law. Although both German hostages had already been released by this time, three additional German citizens were kidnapped on the day of the verdict.

1991 – The space shuttle “Columbia” returned from a medical research mission.

1999 – About 15,000 NATO peacekeepers spread out across Kosovo, including a convoy of about 1200 US Marines.

2000 – In Florida George Trofimoff (73) was arrested for spying for the Soviet KGB from 1969-1995. He had served as chief of an Army unit responsible for interviewing Warsaw pact defectors.

2000 – US federal marine specialists reported that the US Navy induced underwater noise caused the death of at least a dozen whales in the Bahamas in March. Hemorrhages were found around the animals’ ears.

2000 – Pres. Kim Jong Il of North Korea and Pres. Kim Dae Jung of South Korea pledged concrete steps toward unifying their divided peninsula and signed an agreement to allow visits for some families separated for the last five decades.

2001 – President Bush ordered a stop to the Navy bombing exercises on Puerto Rico’s Vieques Island. Cleanup was estimated to cost hundreds of millions and take decades. Bombing practice was set to stop by May, 2003.

2001 – Macedonia asked for NATO troops the help disarm ethnic Albanian rebels. Nato Sec. Gen. Lord Robertson ruled out military intervention.

2002 – The US became officially free from a 1972 treaty that banned major missile defenses. In Alaska work was set to begin on missile interceptors.

2002 – In Afghanistan Pres. Hamid Karzai outlined a list of national priorities that included building a national army and police force, improving schools and health care and creating jobs.

2002 – In Pakistan suicide bomber blew up a truck at the US consulate in Karachi killed 14 people and injured many more. No Americans were believed killed. The Bush administration planned to evaluate how many U.S. personnel should be kept in Pakistan. The Lashkar-e-Omar coalition, formed in January, was blamed.

2004 – The US military released hundreds of prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 8:58 am
June 15th ~

1607 – Colonists in North America completed James Fort in Jamestown.

1775 – The Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head of the Continental Army.

1775 – Word reached the Americans that the British intended to occupy the Charlestown peninsula.

1776 – Delaware declared independence from both England and Pennsylvania with whom it had shared a royal governor.

1779 – General Anthony Wayne captured Stony Point, New York, from the British. “I’ll storm the Gates of Hell if you will but plan the attack,” Wayne told Gen. Washington.

1836 – Arkansas was admitted into the Union as the 25th state.

1844 – Charles Goodyear received a patent for the vulcanization of rubber, his process to strengthen rubber.

1846 – Representatives of Great Britain and the United States sign the Oregon Treaty, which settles a long-standing dispute with Britain over who controlled the Oregon territory. The treaty established the 49th parallel from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Georgia as the boundary between the United States and British Canada. The United States gained formal control over the future states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, and the British retained Vancouver Island and navigation rights to part of the Columbia River.

In 1818, a U.S.-British agreement had established the border along the 49th parallel from Lake of the Woods in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west. The two nations also agreed to a joint occupation of Oregon territory for 10 years, an arrangement that was extended for an additional 10 years in 1827. After 1838, the issue of who possessed Oregon became increasingly controversial, especially when mass American migration along the Oregon Trail began in the early 1840s.

American expansionists urged seizure of Oregon, and in 1844 Democrat James K. Polk successfully ran for president under the platform “Fifty-four forty or fight,” which referred to his hope of bringing a sizable portion of present-day Vancouver and Alberta into the United States. However, neither President Polk nor the British government wanted a third Anglo-American war, and on June 15, 1846, the Oregon Treaty, a compromise, was signed. By the terms of the agreement, the U.S. and Canadian border was extended west along the 49th parallel to the Strait of Georgia, just short of the Pacific Ocean.

1849 – James Polk, the 11th president of the United States, died in Nashville, Tennessee.

1862 – Confederate cavalry commander J.E.B. Stuart completes a four-day ride around George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac in the area of the James Peninsula.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:00 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1862 – James River Flotilla, including U.S.S. Monitor, Galena, Aroostook, Port Royal, and Naugatuck, under Commander J – Rodgers encountered obstructions sunk across the river and at close range hotly engaged sharpshooters and strong Confederate batteries, manned in part by sailors and Marines, at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia. For his part in the ensuing action, Corporal John B. Mackie, a member of Galena’s Marine Guard, was cited for gallantry in a letter to Secretary of the Navy Welles; in Department of the Navy General Order 17, issued on 10 July 1863, Mackie was awarded the first Medal of Honor authorized a member of the Marine Corps. In the bombardment, Galena was heavily damaged but, unsupported, Rodgers penetrated the James River to within eight miles of Richmond before falling back. Rodgers stated at this time that troops were needed to take Drewry’ s Bluff in the rear. Had this been done, Richmond might well have fallen.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln calls for help in protecting the capital. Throughout June, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was on the move. He had pulled his army from its position along the Rappahannock River around Fredericksburg and set it on the road to Pennsylvania. Lee and the Confederate leadership decided to try a second invasion of the North to take pressure off Virginia and to seize the initiative against the Army of the Potomac.

The first invasion, in September 1862, failed when the Federals fought Lee’s army to a standstill at Antietam. Lee later divided his army and sent the regiments toward the Shenandoah Valley, using the Blue Ridge Mountains as a screen. After the Confederates took Winchester, Virginia, on June 14th, they were situated on the Potomac River, seemingly in a position to move on Washington, D.C. Lincoln did not know it, but Lee had no intention of attacking Washington. All Lincoln knew was that the Rebel army was moving en masse and that Union troops could not be certain as to the Confederates’ location.

On June 15th, Lincoln put out an emergency call for 100,000 troops from the state militias of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, and West Virginia. Although the troops were not needed, and the call could not be fulfilled in such a short time, it was an indication of how little the Union authorities knew of Lee’s movements and how vulnerable they thought the Federal capital was.

1863 – Confederate guerrillas fired into U.S.S. Marmora, Acting Lieutenant Getty, near Eunice, Arkansas, and on the morning of the 14th, took transport Nebraska under fire. In retaliation, Getty sent a landing party ashore and destroyed the town, “including the railroad depot, with locomotive and car inside, also the large warehouse . . . The next day, June 15th, landing parties from Marmora and U.S.S. Prairie Bird, Acting Lieutenant Edward E. Brennand, destroyed the town of Gaines Landing in retaliation for a guerrilla attempt to burn the Union coal barge there and for firing on Marmora.

1864 – Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial ground at Robert E. Lee’s home estate at Arlington. This became Arlington National Cemetery.

1864 – Confederate artillery opened fire in the early morning hours on wooden side-wheeler U.S.S. General Bragg, Acting Lieutenant Dominy, lying off Como Landing, Louisiana. The return fire from General Bragg forced the Southerners to move to Ratliff’s Landing where they fired on small paddle-wheel steamer U.S.S. Naiad, Acting Master Henry T. Keene. U.S.S. Winnebago, a double-turreted river monitor, alerted by the sound of gunfire, soon hove into sight, and the combined firepower of the three ships temporarily silenced the field battery. Next day, General Bragg was again taken under fire by Confederate guns on the river bank and another spirited engagement ensued, during which a shot disabled the ship’s engine.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:05 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1864 – During the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant’s Army of the Potomac and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia collide for the last time as the first wave of Union troops attacks Petersburg, a vital Southern rail center 23 miles south of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. The two massive armies would not become disentangled until April 9, 1865, when Lee surrendered and his men went home.

In June 1864, in a brilliant tactical maneuver, Grant marched his army around the Army of Northern Virginia, crossed the James River unopposed, and advanced his forces to Petersburg. Knowing that the fall of Petersburg would mean the fall of Richmond, Lee raced to reinforce the city’s defenses. The mass of Grant’s army arrived first.

On June 15th, the first day of the Battle of Petersburg, some 10,000 Union troops under General William F. Smith moved against the Confederate defenders of Petersburg, made up of only a few thousand armed old men and boys commanded by General P.G.T. Beauregard. However, the Confederates had the advantage of formidable physical defenses, and they held off the overly cautious Union assault. The next day, more Federal troops arrived, but Beauregard was reinforced by Lee, and the Confederate line remained unbroken during several Union attacks occurring over the next two days.

By June 18th, Grant had nearly 100,000 at his disposal at Petersburg, but the 20,000 Confederate defenders held on as Lee hurried the rest of his Army of Northern Virginia into the entrenchments. Knowing that further attacks would be futile, but satisfied to have bottled up the Army of Northern Virginia, Grant’s army dug trenches and began a prolonged siege of Petersburg.

Finally, on April 2, 1865, with his defense line overextended and his troops starving, Lee’s right flank suffered a major defeat against Union cavalry under General Phillip Sheridan, and Grant ordered a general attack on all fronts. The Army of Northern Virginia retreated under heavy fire; the Confederate government fled Richmond on Lee’s recommendation; and Petersburg, and then Richmond, fell to the Union. Less than a week later, Grant’s massive army headed off the remnants of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Station, and Lee was forced to surrender, effectively ending the Civil War.

1877 – Some 800 Nez Perce were pursued by the US Army and began their journey to reach safety in Canada. The Nez Perce had been ordered to leave the Valley of the Winding Waters in the Northwest. They refused to be resettled and fled.

1877 – Henry Ossian Flipper, born a slave in Thomasville, Georgia, in 1856, is the first African American cadet to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Flipper, who was never spoken to by a white cadet during his four years at West Point, was appointed a second lieutenant in the all-African American 10th Cavalry, stationed at Fort Sill in Indian Territory.

In 1870, the first African American cadet, James Webster Smith, was admitted into the academy but never reached the graduation ceremonies. It was not until 1877 that Henry Ossian Flipper became the first to graduate, after enduring four years of prejudice and silence. In 1976, the first female cadets were admitted into West Point. The academy is now under the general direction and supervision of the department of the U.S. Army and has an enrollment of more than 4,000 students.

1888 – Wilhelm II became emperor of Germany.

1898 – The U.S. House of representatives approved the annexation of Hawaii. Some 38,000 Hawaiians signed the “Monster Petition” that was delivered to Washington by Queen Liliu’okalani. the petition was ignored.

1898 – US Marines continued attacking the Spanish off Guantanamo, Cuba.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:07 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1916 – President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill incorporating the Boy Scouts of America.

1917 – Congress passed and President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Espionage Act, authorizing the Treasury Secretary to assume control of U.S. ports, control ship movements, establish anchorages and supervise the loading and storage of explosive cargoes. The authority was immediately delegated to the Coast Guard and formed the basis for the formation of the Coast Guard’s Captain of the Ports and the Port Security Program.

1918 – The U.S. Post Office and the U.S. Army began regularly scheduled airmail service between Washington and New York through Philadelphia. Lieutenant George L. Boyle, an inexperienced young army pilot, was chosen to make the first flight from Washington. Even with a route map stitched to his breeches, Boyle lost his way and flew south rather than north. The second leg of the Washington–Philadelphia–New York flight, however, took off and arrived in New York on schedule–without the Washington mail.

1940 – Another Navy bill passes into law. This provides for a much expanded air corps, with 10,000 planes and 16,000 more aircrew.

1943 – Paul Blobel, an SS colonel, is given the assignment of coordinating the destruction of the evidence of the grossest of Nazi atrocities, the systematic extermination of European Jews. As the summer of 1943 approached, Allied forces had begun making cracks in Axis strongholds, in the Pacific and in the Mediterranean specifically. Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, the elite corps of Nazi bodyguards that grew into a paramilitary terror force, began to consider the possibility of German defeat and worried that the mass murder of Jews and Soviet prisoners of war would be discovered. A plan was devised to dig up the buried dead and burn the corpses at each camp and extermination site.

Blobel certainly had some of that blood on his hands himself, as he was in charge of SS killing squads in German-occupied areas of Russia. He now drew together another kind of squad, “Special Commando Group 1,005,” dedicated to this destruction of human evidence. Blobel began with “death pits” near Lvov, in Poland, and forced hundreds of Jewish slave laborers from the nearby concentration camp to dig up the corpses and burn them-but not before extracting the gold from the teeth of the victims.

1944 – American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan during World War II. Meanwhile, B-29 Super Fortresses made their first raids on Japan. Coast Guard-manned transports that took part in the invasion included the USSs Cambria, Arthur Middleton, Callaway, Leonard Wood, LST-19, LST-23, LST-166 and LST-169. Preceded by naval gunfire and carrier air strikes, the V Amphibious Corps assaulted the west coast of Saipan, Marianas Islands. By nightfall, the 2d and 4th Marine Divisions, moving against heavy opposition, had established a beachhead 10,000 yards wide and 1,500 yards deep.

1944 – Admiral Clark leads two groups of US carrier forces raiding Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima. The Japanese carriers are sighted by US patrols heading through the San Bernardino Strait while some of the Japanese battleships are seen east of Mindanao.

1944 – A fourth American corps is add to the US 1st Army. The US 8th Corps becomes operations on the Cotentin Peninsula. Meanwhile, elements of the US 7th Corps capture Quineville.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:09 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1944 – The first B-29 Super Fortress raid on Japan is conducted. Bombers from the US 20th Air Force in China attack Yawatta on Kyushu.

1945 – American OSS units complete mopping up operations in the Shan Mountains area.

1945 – US B-29 Super Fortress bombers drop 3000 tons of bombs on Osaka.

1945 – On Okinawa, Marines suffer heavy casualties and are unable to advance on Kunishi Ridge. The US 1st Division, already short of troops, is attached to the US 2nd Marine Division. Forces of the US 24th Corps continue operations to eliminate Japanese positions on Mount Yaeju and Mount Yuza.

1945 – On Luzon, Filipino guerrillas seize Cervantes in the north. Meanwhile, the US 37th Division continues to battle forward in the Cagayan valley, eliminating a Japanese strong point about 3 miles from Santiago, near Cabanatuan.

1946 – The United States presents the Baruch Plan for the international control of atomic weapons to the United Nations. The failure of the plan to gain acceptance resulted in a dangerous nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. In August 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, becoming the first and only nation to use nuclear weapons during wartime. The successful use of the bombs not only ended World War II, but also left the United States with a monopoly on the most destructive weapon known to humankind.

As Cold War animosities between the United States and the Soviet Union began to develop in the months after the end of the war, a sharp discussion ensued in the administration of President Harry S. Truman. Some officials, including Secretary of War Henry R. Stimson and Secretary of Commerce Henry Wallace, argued that the United States should share its atomic secrets with the Soviets. The continuing U.S. monopoly, they argued, would only result in growing Russian suspicions and an eventual arms race. Others, such as State Department official George F. Kennan, strenuously argued against this position. The Soviets, these people declared, could not be trusted and the United States would be foolish to relinquish its atomic “ace in the hole.”

The battle between these two groups was apparent in early 1946, when the United States proposed the formation of the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) to establish an international control over the spread and development of nuclear weapons and technology. Bernard Baruch, a trusted adviser to U.S. presidents since the early 20th century, was tapped to formulate the American proposal and present it to the United Nations. Baruch sided with those who feared the Soviets, and his proposal reflected this. His proposal did provide for international control and inspection of nuclear production facilities, but clearly announced that the United States would maintain its nuclear weapons monopoly until every aspect of the proposal was in effect and working. The Soviets, not surprisingly, rejected the Baruch Plan. The United States thereupon rejected a Soviet counterproposal for a ban on all nuclear weapons.

By 1949, any discussion of international control of nuclear weapons was a moot point. In September of that year, the Soviets successfully tested a nuclear device. During the next few years the United States and Soviet Union raced to develop an ever-more frightening arsenal of nuclear weapons, including the hydrogen bomb, MIRV missiles (missiles with multiple nuclear warheads), and the neutron bomb (designed to kill people but leave structures standing).

1946 – 10th Marines help police in Black Market Riot – Nagasaki, Japan.

1952 – U.S. Air Force Second Lieutenant James F. Low, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 17th ace of the Korean War with his fifth MiG kill. The most junior in grade ace of the war, Low had been in combat for only six days.

1953 – The USS Princeton launched 184 sorties and established a single-day Korean War record for offensive sorties flown from the deck of a carrier.

1963 – Launching of combat store ship, Mars (AFS-1), first of new class of underway replenishment ships.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:11 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1964 – At a meeting of the National Security Council, McGeorge Bundy, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s national security advisor, informs those in attendance that President Johnson has decided to postpone submitting a resolution to Congress asking for authority to wage war. The situation in South Vietnam had rapidly deteriorated, and in March 1964, Secretary of State Robert McNamara reported that 40 percent of the countryside was under Viet Cong control or influence. Johnson was afraid that he would be run out of office if South Vietnam fell to the communists, but he was not prepared to employ American military power on a large scale.

Several of his advisers, led by McGeorge Bundy’s brother, William, had developed a scenario of graduated overt pressures against North Vietnam, according to which the president–after securing a Congressional resolution–would authorize air strikes against selected North Vietnamese targets. Johnson rejected the idea of submitting the resolution to Congress because it would “raise a whole series of disagreeable questions” which might jeopardize the passage of his administration’s civil rights legislation. Just two months later, they revisited idea of a resolution in the wake of the Tonkin Gulf incident.

In August, after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked U.S. destroyers in what became known as the Tonkin Gulf incident, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and Secretary of State Dean Rusk appeared before a joint Congressional committee on foreign affairs. They presented the Johnson administration’s arguments for a resolution authorizing the president “to take all necessary measures” to defend Southeast Asia. Subsequently, Congress passed Public Law 88-408, which became known as the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which gave President Johnson the power to take whatever actions he deemed necessary, including “the use of armed force.”

The resolution passed 82 to 2 in the Senate, where Wayne K. Morse (D-Oregon) and Ernest Gruening (D-Alaska) were the only dissenting votes; the bill passed unanimously in the House of Representatives. President Johnson signed it into law on August 10th and it became the legal basis for every presidential action taken by the Johnson administration during its conduct of the war.

1965 – U.S. planes bomb targets in North Vietnam, but refrain from bombing Hanoi and the Soviet missile sites that surround the city. On June 17, two U.S. Navy jets downed two communist MiGs, and destroyed another enemy aircraft three days later. U.S. planes also dropped almost 3 million leaflets urging the North Vietnamese to get their leaders to end the war.

These missions were part of Operation Rolling Thunder, launched in March 1965, after President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered a sustained bombing campaign of North Vietnam. The operation was designed to interdict North Vietnamese transportation routes in the southern part of the North Vietnam and to slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam. During the early months of this campaign, there were restrictions against striking targets in or near Hanoi and Haiphong, but in July 1966, Rolling Thunder was expanded to include the bombing of North Vietnamese ammunition dumps and oil storage facilities.

In the spring of 1967, it was further expanded to include power plants, factories, and airfields in the Hanoi and Haiphong areas. The White House closely controlled Operation Rolling Thunder and at times President Johnson personally selected the targets. From 1965 to 1968, about 643,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Vietnam. The operation continued, with occasional suspensions, until President Johnson halted it entirely on October 31, 1968, under increasing domestic political pressure.

1969 – North Vietnamese forces twice attack Third Brigade headquarters of the 101st Airborne Division atop a 2,000-foot peak just east of Apbia mountain.
PostPosted: Wed Jun 15, 2016 9:13 am
June 15th ~ {continued...}

1986 – Commandant ADM Paul Yost bans the wearing of beards by Coast Guard personnel.

1991 – Mount Pinatubo (4,750 feet high) erupted. Due to early warning 56,000 people were evacuated and only 450 people died. The eruption forced the closure of Clark Air Force Base in Angeles City and displaced hundreds of families of the Aeta tribe. 2 battle groups and amphibious ships evacuate dependents and Air Force personnel from Clark.

1992 – The Supreme Court ruled the government may seize criminal suspects from a foreign country for prosecution.

1994 – Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in North Korea on a private mission to try to reduce tensions with the communist nation.

1996 – UN weapons inspectors gave up after a 5-day standoff with Iraqi authorities over inspection of 4 sites for documents and other material relating to weapons of mass destruction.

1998 – US F-16 fighter jets took off as part of a 13-nation, 85 warplane NATO show of force over Albania and Macedonia. Meanwhile Serb forces attacked 4 Kosovo villages with grenades and helicopter gunships and began sealing off the border to Albania.

2000 – In Kosovo 2 Serbs were killed and another wounded when their vehicle ran over a land mine. NATO peacekeepers raided an ethnic Albanian stronghold in Drenica and seized a large quantity of weapons and ammunition. Halil Dreshaj, a member of the Democratic League of Kosovo, was shot and killed by masked men wearing uniforms of the disbanded KLA.

2001 – President Bush spoke in Poland and strongly backed the expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe. On the eve of his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, President Bush, chastised Russia for suspected nuclear commerce and encouraged the former Cold War rival to help “erase the false lines that have divided Europe.”

2001 – It was reported that the Bush administration had decided to restore some military ties with Indonesia. The Clinton administration had cut some ties during the 1999 upheavals in East Timor.

2003 – With a deadline passed for Iraqis to hand in heavy weapons, U.S. forces fanned out across Iraq to seize arms and put down potential foes.

2004 – Iraq’s interim government received a boost when its neighbors welcomed the transfer of sovereignty in that country at the end of June.

2004 – A Saudi al Qaeda group threatened to execute Paul M. Johnson Jr. within 72 hours unless fellow jihadists were released were released from prison.

2009 – Law Enforcement officers from the 14th Coast Guard District reported aboard the USS Crommelin (FFG-37) to support U.S. Coast Guard fisheries enforcement in Oceania in an operation called the “Fight for Fish” mission. It marked the first time a Navy warship was utilized “to transit the Western Pacific enforcing fishing regulations in a joint effort with the Coast Guard to stop illegal fishing in this region.”

2014 – ISIS militants captured the Iraqi city of Tal Afar in the province of Nineveh. ISIS claimed that 1,700 Iraqi soldiers who had surrendered in the fighting had been killed, and released many images of mass executions via its Twitter feed and various websites.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:43 am
June 16th ~

1745 – English fleet occupied Cape Breton on St. Lawrence River.

1755 – British captured Fort Beausejour and expelled the Acadians. The Accadians of Nova Scotia were uprooted by an English governor and forced to leave. Some 10,000 people moved to destinations like Maine and Louisiana. Some moved to Iles-de-la-Madeleine off Quebec. The Longfellow story “Evangeline” is based on this displacement.

1775 – American Col. William Prescott led 1200 men from Cambridge to dig in at Bunker’s Hill but arrived at night and dug in at Breed’s Hill. A siege on Boston by Colonial militia generals John Stark and Israel Putnam prompted the British to attack.

1775 – The post of Adjutant General was established June 16, 1775, and has been continuously in operation since that time. The Adjutant General’s Department, by that name, was established by the act of March 3, 1813, and was redesignated the Adjutant General’s Corps in 1950.

1775 – Continental Congress authority for a “Chief Engineer for the Army” was passed. A corps of Engineers for the United States was authorized by the Congress on March 11, 1779. The Corps of Engineers as it is known today came into being on March 16, 1802, when the President was authorized to “organize and establish a Corps of Engineers … that the said Corps … shall be stationed at West Point in the State of New York and shall constitute a Military Academy.” A Corps of Topographical Engineers, authorized on July 4, 1838, was merged with the Corps of Engineers on March 1863.

1775 – The Finance Corps is the successor to the old Pay Department, which was created in June 1775. The Finance Department was created by law on July 1, 1920. It became the Finance Corps in 1950.

1775 – The Quartermaster Corps, originally designated the Quartermaster Department, was established on June 16, 1775. While numerous additions, deletions, and changes of function have occurred, its basic supply and service support functions have continued in existence.

1779 – Spain, in support of the US, declared war on England.

1856 – James Strang, king of Big Beaver Island, Mich., was ambushed by Thomas Bedford and Alexander Wentworth. They shot him three times and then pistol-whipped him and fled to Mackinac on the USS Michigan. Bedfrod and Wentworth were brought before a justice of the peace and after a brief hearing were fined $1.25 for court costs and released as public heroes. Soon after, 75 vigilantes sailed to Beaver Island and cleared out the Strangite adherents.

1861 – A Union attempt to capture Charleston, South Carolina, is thwarted when the Confederates turn back an attack at Secessionville, just south of the city on James Island.

1862 – Union naval squadron under Commander S.P. Lee in U.S.S. Oneida, advancing up the Mississippi River toward Vicksburg, shelled Grand Gulf, Mississippi.

1863 – Acting Master John C. Bunner, U.S.S. New Era, obtained a report that Confederate
troops “meditated an attack on either Columbus, Hickman, Island 10, or New Madrid. . . “ Bunner at once proceeded above Island No. 10, found and destroyed nine boats and flats. He reported: “I do not think the enemy can procure transportation enough to attack the island with any hope of success, but am careful that none at all shall remain at his service in this vicinity.”

1864 – Siege of Petersburg and Richmond began after a moonlight skirmish.

1864 – Battle of Lynchburg, VA.

1864 – U.S.S. Commodore Perry, Acting Lieutenant A. P. Foster, shelled Fort Clifton, Virginia, at the request of Major General Butler. Bombardment by the ship’s heavy guns was almost a daily part of continuing naval support of Army operations along the James River.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:46 am
June 16th ~ {continued...}

1897 – The US government signed a treaty of annexation with Hawaii.

1898 – U.S. squadron bombards Santiago, Cuba.

1922 – Henry Berliner demonstrated his helicopter to US Bureau of Aeronautics.

1933 – The National Industrial Recovery Act became law. It was later struck down by the Supreme Court.

1941 – President Roosevelt orders that all German and Italian consulates in the country should be closed, along with the offices of other German agencies.

1941 – The 1st Provisional Marine Brigade was activated for duty in Iceland.

1943 – US fighters from Henderson Field claim to have shot down 93 Japanese aircraft from a force attacking shipping assembled for operations against New Georgia Island.

1943 – Operation Husky. The first convoys bound for the invasion of Sicily leave port.

1944 – Forces of the US 5th Army take Grosseto, Italy.

1944 – Elements of the US 1st Army, advancing westward, cross the Douvre River and capture St. Saveur in the Cotentin Peninsula.

1944 – US battleships, under the command of Admiral Ainsworth, shell Guam. The invasion of the island is deferred, however, because of the approach of the Japanese fleet. On Saipan, the elements of US 5th Amphibious Corps link the two beachheads by capturing Charan Karoa and Afetna Point. There is substantial use of artillery by the Japanese and American counter battery fire in addition to the infantry combat.

1944 – Admiral Clark leads two groups of US carrier forces raiding Iwo Jima, Chichi Jima and Haha Jima. The Japanese fleets link up and refuel. US patrols make two sightings.

1945 – On Okinawa, Mount Yuza is captured by the US 381st Infantry Regiment. Fighting continues on the south of the island. At sea, the Japanese air offensive against American ships slackens, but the Japanese still sink 1 destroyer and damage 1 escort carrier.

1947 – Pravda denounced the Marshall Plan.

1951 – The 1st Marine Division reached its objective — a line running northeast from the Hwachon Reservoir through the Punch Bowl, a gigantic volcanic crater.

1954 – China’s Chou Enlai, now negotiating for the Communists against the West, suggests that Vietminh troops withdraw from Laos and Cambodia. It is now clear that China and the Soviet Union, represented by Vyacheslav Molotov, are bringing pressure to bear on the Vietminh not to wreck the conference. Members of the Vietminh delegation will later complain that their revolution was halted on the verge of success, but without Chinese aid, they cannot be certain of expelling the French.

1955 – The U.S. House of Representatives voted to extend Selective Service until 1959.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:48 am
June 16th ~ {continued...}

1961 – Following a meeting between President John F. Kennedy and South Vietnam envoy Nguyen Dinh Thuan, an agreement is reached for direct training and combat supervision of Vietnamese troops by U.S. instructors. South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem had earlier asked Kennedy to send additional U.S. troops to train the South Vietnamese Army. U.S. advisers had been serving in Vietnam since 1955 as part of the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group. There would be only 900 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam at the end of 1961, but in accordance with President Kennedy’s pledge to provide American military assistance to South Vietnam, the number of U.S. personnel rose to 3,200 by the end of 1962. The number would climb until it reached 16,000 by the time of President Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963.

1965 – Navy Department schedules reactivation of hospital ship Repose (AH-16), first hospital ship activated for Vietnam Conflict.

1965 – Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announces that 21,000 more U.S. troops are to be sent to Vietnam. He also claimed that it was now known that North Vietnamese regular troops had begun to infiltrate South Vietnam. The new U.S. troops were to join the U.S. Marines and paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade that had arrived earlier to secure U.S. airbases and facilities. These forces would soon transition from defensive missions to direct combat operations. As the war escalated, more and more U.S. combat troops were sent to South Vietnam. By 1969, there were over 540,000 American troops in Vietnam.

1967 – The Vietcong’s National Liberation Front Radio warns that captured Americans will be executed if ‘the US aggressors and their Saigon stooges’ execute ‘three Vietnamese patriots’ sentenced to death by a special military tribunal in Saigon.

1970 – Congress turns down end-the-war proposals as the Senate refuses twice to set a Vietnam troop withdrawal deadline and the House on 17 June also declines to set a pullout date.

1970 – North Vietnamese and Viet Cong attacks almost completely isolate Phnom Penh. The principal fighting raged in and around Kompong Thom, about 90 miles north of the capital. On June 17th, Cambodia’s last working railway line, which ran to the border of Thailand, was severed when communist troops seized a freight train with 200 tons of rice and other food supplies at a station at Krang Lovea, about 40 miles northwest of Phnom Penh.

1978 – President Carter and Panamanian leader Omar Torrijos exchanged instruments of ratification for the Panama Canal treaties.
PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 10:50 am
June 16th ~ {continued...}

1992 – President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin capped the first day of their Washington summit by announcing their countries had agreed to slash their long-range nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.

1992 – Former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger was indicted on 5-count felony charges in connection with the Iran-Contra affair. He was later pardoned by Bush.

1993 – Six hours of fierce street battles are fought by UN troops backed by US helicopters, to capture Aidid’s headquarters. One American GI is slightly injured. 130 GIs of the 1/22 Infantry are rushed in to back the UN forces.

1998 – In Afghanistan the Taliban ordered the closing of over 100 private schools that had been educating girls. Schools would not be allowed to teach girls older than 8 and lessons were to be limited to the Koran.

1998 – North Korea admitted that it had sold missiles abroad and would continue to do so to generate needed income.

1998 – In Serbia President Milosevic agreed to allow monitors into Kosovo and to begin talks with Kosovo Albanian leaders, but not to withdraw his military forces until “terrorist activities subside.”

1999 – Kathleen Ann Soliah, a fugitive member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, was captured in St. Paul, Minnesota, where she had made a new life under the name Sara Jane Olson.

1999 – The US decided to support a British and Dutch proposal to partially lift oil sanctions on Iraq in exchange for answers on weapons programs and a new group of UN arms inspectors. Iraq rejected the proposal.

1999 – US Marines in Kosovo disarmed 116 members of the KLA.

2001 – President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, face to face for the first time, pledged during a meeting in Slovenia to deepen their nations’ bonds and to explore the possibility of compromise on U.S. missile defense plans. Putin warned Bush against Nato expansion and “unilateral action” on missile defense, but they promoted their new friendship and planned economic cooperation.

2002 – The Bush administration revealed a secret plan to for the CIA to undermine and possibly kill Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

2002 – Philippine troops shot dead one Muslim rebel and wounded an unknown number in their first clash with the guerrillas since an American hostage was killed in a rescue operation more than a week ago.

2003 – Abid Hamid Mahmud al-Tikriti, No. 4 on the wanted list, surrendered at a private home in Tikrit following informants’ tips. Nearby US soldiers found two boxes, each counting $4 million in bundled hundred-dollar bills, along with hundreds of pieces of jewelry, a sniper rifle and two pounds of plastic explosive.

2004 – Saboteurs blasted a southern pipeline for the 2nd time in as many days, shutting down Iraq’s oil exports. Gunmen killed a security chief for the state-run Northern Oil Co. Muqtada al-Sadr ordered his Shiite militias out of Najaf and Kufa.

2004 – A Jordanian military court convicted 15 men, only one of whom was in custody, for a terror conspiracy targeting U.S. and Israeli interests.

2007 – Operation Phantom Thunder began when Multi-National Force-Iraq launched major offensive operations against al-Qaeda and other extremist terrorists operating throughout Iraq. Operation Phantom Thunder was a corps level operation, including Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Diyala Province, Operation Marne Torch and Operation Commando Eagle in Babil Province, Operation Fardh al-Qanoon in Baghdad, Operation Alljah in Anbar Province, and continuing special forces actions against the Mahdi Army in southern Iraq and against Al-Qaeda leadership throughout the country. The operation was one of the biggest military operations in Iraq since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

On 14 August, it was announced that the operation ended. Coalition and Iraqi security forces pushed into areas previously not under their control, and they also ejected insurgent groups from their strongholds in Northern Babil, eastern Anbar and Diyala provinces and on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. During the operation, Iraqi and Coalition forces conducted intelligence raids against al Qaeda in Iraq and the Iranian-backed cells nationwide, with a heavy emphasis on cells in Baghdad, Diyala, and central and northern Iraq. Operation Arrowhead Ripper continued for another five days until 19 August with more intense street fighting in Baquba. The operations continued into operation Phantom Strike.

2007 – Operation Marne Torch began in the Arab Jabour and Salman Pak area, conducted by the new Multinational Division Central. Arab Jabour, being only 20 kilometers southeast from Baghdad, is a major transit point for insurgent forces in and out of Baghdad. By 14 August, 2,500 Coalition and Iraqi forces had detained more than five dozen suspected extremists, destroyed 51 boats, killed 88 terrorists and discovered and destroyed 51 weapons caches.

2007 – Operation Alljah was being conducted by Multi-National Forces West.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 11:22 am
June 17th ~

1579 – During his circumnavigation of the world, English seaman Francis Drake anchors in a harbor just north of present-day San Francisco, California, and claims the territory for Queen Elizabeth I. Calling the land “Nova Albion,” Drake remained on the California coast for a month to make repairs to his ship, the Golden Hind, and prepare for his westward crossing of the Pacific Ocean. On December 13th, 1577, Drake set out from England with five ships on a mission to raid Spanish holdings on the Pacific coast of the New World.

After crossing the Atlantic, Drake abandoned two of his ships in South America and then sailed into the Straits of Magellan with the remaining three. A series of devastating storms besieged his expedition in the treacherous straits, wrecking one ship and forcing another to return to England. Only the Golden Hind reached the Pacific Ocean, but Drake continued undaunted up the western coast of South America, raiding Spanish settlements and capturing a rich Spanish treasure ship. Drake then continued up the western coast of North America, searching for a possible northeast passage back to the Atlantic.

Reaching as far north as present-day Washington before turning back, Drake paused near San Francisco Bay in June 1579 to repair his ship and prepare for a journey across the Pacific. In July, the expedition set off across the Pacific, visiting several islands before rounding Africa’s Cape of Good Hope and returning to the Atlantic Ocean. On September 26, 1580, the Golden Hind returned to Plymouth, England, bearing its rich captured treasure and valuable information about the world’s great oceans. In 1581, Queen Elizabeth I knighted Drake during a visit to his ship.

1742 – William Hooper, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1745 – American New Englanders captured Louisburg, Cape Breton, from the French. The ragtag army captured France’s most imposing North American stronghold on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.

1775 – During the American Revolution, British General William Howe lands his troops on the Charlestown peninsula overlooking Boston and leads them against Breed’s Hill, a fortified American position just below Bunker Hill. As the British advanced in columns against the Americans, Patriot General William Prescott reportedly told his men, “Don’t one of you fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” When the Redcoats were within 40 yards, the Americans let loose with a lethal barrage of musket fire, cutting down nearly 100 enemy troops and throwing the British into retreat. After reforming his lines, Howe attacked again, with much the same result.

However, Prescott’s men were now low on ammunition, and when Howe led his men up the hill for a third time, they reached the redoubts and engaged the Americans in hand-to-hand combat. The outnumbered Americans were forced to retreat. The British had won the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, and Breed’s Hill and the Charlestown peninsula fell firmly under British control. Despite losing their strategic positions, the battle was a morale-builder for the Americans, who had suffered far fewer casualties than their enemy while demonstrating that they could conduct war effectively against the British.

1832 – The practice of utilizing “surplus” naval officers as officers of the Revenue Marine was discontinued. Revenue officer vacancies were henceforth filled by promotion from within the service.

1833 – USS Delaware enters drydock at Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, VA, the first warship to enter a public drydock in the United States.
PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 11:30 am
June 17th ~ {continued...}

1837 – Strong Vincent is born in Waterford, Pennsylvania. After working as a lawyer, he went on to become a hero at the Battle of Gettysburg, where he was mortally wounded defending Little Round Top. When hostilities erupted in April 1861, Vincent left the law to become an officer in the Erie Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. By early 1862, he rose to commander of the 83rd Pennsylvania. Vincent served in several campaigns with the Army of the Potomac, fighting at Yorktown, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. He was promoted to colonel after Yorktown, and prior to Gettysburg, Vincent was given command of the Third Brigade, First Division, of the Fifth Corps.

On the night of July 1st, 1863, Vincent and his men were hurrying toward the battlefield under a bright moon. When the soldiers passed through a small town near Gettysburg, the regiment bands began to play and residents came to their doors to cheer the Yankee troops. Vincent remarked to an aide that there could be a worse fate than to die fighting in his home state with the flag overhead.

The next day, as Vincent and his brigade were arriving behind the Union lines, General Gouverneur K. Warren frantically summoned Vincent’s force to the top of Little Round Top, a rocky hill at the end of the Federal line. Warren observed that the Confederates could turn the Union left flank by taking the summit, which was occupied by only a Yankee signal corps at the time. So Vincent and his men hurried up the hill, arriving just ahead of the Rebels. The brigade held the top, but just barely. Vincent was mortally wounded in the engagement and died on July 7th. He was promoted posthumously to brigadier general.

1863 – On the way to Gettysburg, Union and Confederate forces skirmished at Point of Rocks, Maryland.

1862 – Joint expedition including U.S.S. Sebago, Lieutenant Murray, and U.S.S. Currituck, Acting Master Shankland, with troops embarked on transport Seth Low, at the request of General McClellan ascended the Pamunkey River to twenty-five miles above White House. Confederates burned seventeen vessels, some loaded with coal and commissary stores. The river was so narrow at this point that the Union gunboats were compelled to return stern foremost for several miles. General McClellan reported that the ”expedition was admirably managed, and all concerned deserve great credit.”

1863 – Battle of Aldie: Confederates failed to drive back Union in Virginia.

1863 – C.S.S. Atlanta, Commander Webb, with wooden steamers Isondiga and Resolute, engaged U.S.S. Weehawken, Captain J. Rodgers, and U.S.S. Nahant, Commander Downes, in Wassaw Sound. A percussion torpedo was fitted to the ram’s bow, “which,” Webb wrote, “I knew would do its work to my entire satisfaction, should I but be able to touch the Weehauken. . . Atlanta grounded coming into the channel, was gotten off, but repeatedly failed to obey her helm. Weehawken poured five shots from her heavy guns into the Confederate ram, and Nahant moved into attacking Position. With two of his gun crews out of action, with two of three Pilots severely injured, and with his ship helpless and hard aground, Webb was compelled to surrender. His two wooden escorts had returned upriver without engaging.

Captain Rodgers reported: “The Atlanta was found to have mounted two 6-inch and two 7-inch rifles, the 6-inch broadside, the 7-inch working on a Pivot either as broadside or bow and stern guns. There is a large supply of ammunition for these guns and other stores, said to be of great value by some of the officers of the vessel. There were on board at the time of capture, as per muster roll, 21 officers and 124 men, including 28 marines.”

1864 – A 640 meter long pontoon bridge over the James River in Virginia was finished.

1864 – General John B. Hood replaced General Johnston as head of CSA troops around Atlanta.

1870 – USS Mohican burns Mexican pirate ship Forward.
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