August 2nd ~

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

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

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

1887 – Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2003 – Saddam Hussein’s two elder sons and a grandson were buried as martyrs near the deposed Iraqi leader’s hometown of Tikrit, where insurgents afterward attacked U.S. troops with three remote-controlled bombs.

August 3rd ~

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

1861 – Construction of the ironclad USS Monitor authorized.

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

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

1914 – Germany declares war on France.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2004 – At Cape Canaveral, Fla., a Delta II rocket lifted the spacecraft Messenger on a 6 ½ year journey toward Mercury.

August 4th ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1981 – Oliver North was assigned to White House duty.

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

1992 – The crew of the space shuttle Atlantis encountered difficulties as they tried to reel out a satellite attached to miles of thin cord as part of an electricity-producing experiment.

August 5th ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2002 – The coral-encrusted gun turret of the Civil War ironclad USS Monitor was raised from the floor of the Atlantic, nearly 140 years after the historic warship sank during a storm.

August 6th ~

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1940 – Estonia was illegally annexed by the Soviet Union.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

August 7th ~

1782 – At his headquarters in Newburgh, New York, General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the “Badge for Military Merit,” a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched across the face in silver. The badge was to be presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious action” and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without challenge. The honoree’s name and regiment were also to be inscribed in a “Book of Merit.” Washington’s “Purple Heart” was awarded to only three known soldiers during the Revolutionary War: Elijah Churchill, William Brown, and Daniel Bissell, Jr.

The “Book of Merit” was lost, and the decoration was largely forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to “revive the Badge of Military Merit.” In 1931, Summerall’s successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington’s 200th birthday, the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the “Order of the Purple Heart.” In addition to aspects of Washington’s original design, the new Purple Heart also displays a bust of Washington and his coat of arms. The Order of the Purple Heart, the oldest American military decoration for military merit, is awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces who have been killed or wounded in action against an enemy. It is also awarded to soldiers who have suffered maltreatment as prisoners of war.

1789 – The U.S. War Department was established by Congress. The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army. The War Department also bore responsibility for naval affairs until the establishment of the Navy Department in 1798 and for most land-based air forces until the creation of the Department of the Air Force in 1947. The Secretary of War headed the war department throughout its existence.

1794 – In the summer of 1794, irate farmers in the Monoghaela Valley of Pennsylvania rose up against the federal tax on liquor and stills. During the so-called Whiskey Rebellion, the farmers extracted their revenge by torching tax collector’s homes, as well as “tarring and feathering revenue officers.” The government moved quickly to quell the rebellion: President Washington called in 12,900 Federal troops from to surrounding states to forcefully usher the farmers back to their homes.

1927 – Horace Alderman, a rumrunner, murdered two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent after his vessel was stopped by patrol boat CG-249 off the coast of Florida. Alderman was eventually subdued by the remaining crew of CG-249 and arrested. He was later tried, convicted, and hung at the Coast Guard station at Bahia Mar, Florida.

1936 – The United States declared non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

1942 – The U.S. 1st Marine Division begins Operation Watchtower, the first U.S. offensive of the war, by landing on Guadalcanal, one of the Solomon Islands. On July 6, 1942, the Japanese landed on Guadalcanal Island and began constructing an airfield there. Operation Watchtower was the codename for the U.S. plan to invade Guadalcanal and the surrounding islands. During the attack, American troops landed on five islands within the Solomon chain. Although the invasion came as a complete surprise to the Japanese (bad weather had grounded their scouting aircraft), the landings on Florida, Tulagi, Gavutu, and Tananbogo met much initial opposition from the Japanese defenders. But the Americans who landed on Guadalcanal met little resistance-at least at first. More than 11,000 Marines had landed, and 24 hours had passed, before the Japanese manning the garrison there knew of the attack. The U.S. forces quickly took their main objective, the airfield, and the outnumbered Japanese troops retreated, but not for long. Reinforcements were brought in, and fierce hand-to-hand jungle fighting ensued. “I have never heard or read of this kind of fighting,” wrote one American major general on the scene. “These people refuse to surrender.”

1944 – The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), began computations for the U.S. Navy Bureau of Ships in May and was officially presented to the university. It was called Mark I by Harvard University’s staff, and was a general purpose electro-mechanical computer that was used in the war effort during the last part of World War II. One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was initiated on 29 March 1944 by John von Neumann, who worked on the Manhattan project at the time, and needed to determine whether implosion was a viable choice to detonate the atomic bomb that would be used a year later. The Mark I also computed and printed mathematical tables, which was Charles Babbage’s initial goal for his analytical engine. The Mark I was officially retired, after 15 years of service, in 1959.

1945 – The first flight of the Nakajima Kikka (Orange Blossom) jet bomber takes place. The plane is based on the German Me262.

1945 – More than 200 B-29 Superfortress bombers raid Yahata, Tokyo and Kukuyama.

1945 – On Luzon, officers from the headquarters of the US 1st Army meet in readiness for the coming invasion of Japan.

1945 – The secret of radio direction finding (RDF), now called radar, is made public.

1953 – SSgt Barbara Barnwell was the first woman Marine awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for heroism. She was from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and a member of the Marine Reserve, saved a soldier from drowning in 1952.

1959 – From the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the U.S. unmanned spacecraft Explorer 6 is launched into an orbit around the earth. The spacecraft, commonly known as the “Paddlewheel” satellite, featured a photocell scanner that transmitted a crude picture of the earth’s surface and cloud cover from a distance of 17,000 miles. The photo, received in Hawaii, took nearly 40 minutes to transmit. Released by NASA in September, the first photograph ever taken of the earth by a U.S. satellite depicted a crescent shape of part of the planet in sunlight. It was Mexico, captured by Explorer 6 as it raced westward over the earth at speeds in excess of 20,000 miles an hour.

1990 – President Bush ordered U.S. troops and warplanes to Saudi Arabia to guard the oil-rich desert kingdom against a possible invasion by Iraq. The US Persian Gulf War began. Operation Desert Shield ended Feb 28, 1991. It cost $8.1 billion and left 383 US casualties with 458 wounded.

1996 – NASA researchers formally presented their case for the existence of life long ago on Mars.

1997 – The space shuttle Discovery was launched with a crew of six. A satellite was dropped off to study the Earth’s ozone layer.

1998 – At 10:30 a.m. local time, a massive truck bomb explodes outside the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya. Minutes later, another truck bomb detonated outside the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, the capital of neighboring Tanzania. The dual terrorist attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, and wounded more than 4,500. The United States accused Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, a proponent of international terrorism against America, of masterminding the bombings. On August 20, President Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles launched against bin Laden’s terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, where bin Laden allegedly made or distributed chemical weapons.

1998 – In 2000 Ali Mohamed, a former US Army sergeant, pleaded guilty for his role in the bombing under the direction of Osama bin Laden.

2002 – Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Saud said his country had made it clear to Washington, publicly and privately, that the U.S. military will not be allowed to use the kingdom’s soil in any way for an attack on Iraq. Saud said the longtime U.S. ally does not plan to expel American forces from an air base used for flights to monitor Iraq.

2014 – IS fighters took control of the town of Qaraqosh in the province of Nineveh in northern Iraq, which forced its large Christian population to flee.

August 8th ~

1776 – John Paul Jones was commissioned as a captain and appointed to command the Alfred. His orders were to harass enemy merchant ships and defend the American coast.

1786 – The US Congress adopted the silver dollar and decimal system of money.

1854 – Smith and Wesson patented metal bullet cartridges.

1862 – Minnesota’s 5th Infantry fought the Sioux Indians in Redwood, Minn., and 24 soldiers were killed.

1863 – In the aftermath of his defeat at Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee sends a letter of resignation as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia to Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The letter came more than a month after Lee’s retreat from Pennsylvania. At first, many people in the South wondered if in fact Lee had lost the battle. Lee’s intent had been to drive the Union army from Virginia, which he did. The Army of the Potomac suffered over 28,000 casualties, and the Union army’s offensive capabilities were temporarily disabled. But the Army of Northern Virginia absorbed 23,000 casualties, nearly one-third of its total. As the weeks rolled by and the Union army reentered Virginia, it became clear that the Confederacy had suffered a serious defeat at Gettysburg. As the press began to openly speculate about Lee’s leadership, the great general reflected on the campaign at his headquarters in Orange Courthouse, Virginia.

The modest Lee took the failure at Gettysburg very personally. In his letter to Davis, he wrote, “I have been prompted by these reflections more than once since my return from Pennsylvania to propose to Your Excellency the propriety of selecting another commander for this army…. No one is more aware than myself of my inability for the duties of my position. I cannot even accomplish what I myself desire…. I, therefore, in all sincerity, request your Excellency to take measure to supply my place.” Lee not only seriously questioned his ability to lead his army, he was also experiencing significant physical fatigue. He might also have sensed that Gettysburg was his last chance to win the war. Regardless, President Davis refused the request. He wrote, “To ask me to substitute you by someone … more fit to command, or who would possess more of the confidence of the army … is to demand an impossibility.”

1864 – The 1st Geneva Convention was issued on protecting the war wounded.

1876 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his mimeograph.

1885 – More than 1.5 million people attend the funeral of Ulysses S. Grant in New York City.

1890 – Daughters of American Revolution (DAR) organized.

1899 – Marines of “U.S.S. Yosemite” start to form garrison at Agana, Cuba.

1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flight at a racecourse at Le Mans, France. It is the Wright Brothers’ first public flight.

1942 – During World War II, six German saboteurs who secretly entered the United States on a mission to attack its civil infrastructure are executed by the United States for spying. Two other saboteurs who disclosed the plot to the FBI and aided U.S. authorities in their manhunt for their collaborators were imprisoned.

1944 – Following the American break out from Normandy in July, 1944, the Germans decided that the only way to stop the Allied advance and push them back to the sea was to launch a massive attack in the Avranches region, about 150 miles west of Paris.

1945 – President Harry S. Truman signs the United Nations Charter and the United States becomes the first nation to complete the ratification process and join the new international organization. Although hopes were high at the time that the United Nations would serve as an arbiter of international disputes, the organization also served as the scene for some memorable Cold War clashes.

1945 – The survivors of the USS Indianapolis are rescued. Only 316 of the 1196 men onboard the ship have survived. The ill-fated ship had just delivered the Atomic Bomb that devastated Japan.

1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36, the world’s first mass-produced nuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the heaviest mass-produced piston-engined aircraft, with the longest wingspan of any military aircraft, and the first bomber with intercontinental range.

1953 – In Russia Georgi Malenkov reported the possession of hydrogen bomb.

1959 – Announcement of Project Teepee, electronic system to monitor 95 percent of earth’s atmosphere for missile launchings or nuclear explosions. System developed by William Thaler, Office of Naval Research physicist.

1974 – In an evening televised address, President Richard M. Nixon announces his intention to become the first president in American history to resign. With impeachment proceedings underway against him for his involvement in the Watergate affair, Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House. “By taking this action,” he said in a solemn address from the Oval Office, “I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America.” Just before noon the next day, Nixon officially ended his term as the 37th president of the United States. Before departing with his family in a helicopter from the White House lawn, he smiled farewell and enigmatically raised his arms in a victory or peace salute. The helicopter door was then closed, and the Nixon family began their journey home to San Clemente, California. Minutes later, Vice President Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the 38th president of the United States in the East Room of the White House.

1976 – John Roselli, hired by CIA to kill Castro, was found murdered.

1978 – The United States launched Pioneer Venus II, which carried scientific probes to study the atmosphere of Venus.

1989 – The space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on a secret, five-day military mission to deploy a new Pentagon spy satellite.

1990 – As the Persian Gulf crisis deepened, American forces began taking up positions in Saudi Arabia; Iraq announced it had annexed Kuwait as its 19th province; President Bush warned Iraqi President Saddam Hussein that “a line has been drawn in the sand.”

1993 – In Somalia, four U.S. soldiers were killed when a land mine was detonated underneath their vehicle. This prompted President Clinton to order Army Rangers to try to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.

1998 – In Serbia Slobodan Milijkovic, a Serb wanted by the Int’l. War Crimes Tribunal, was shot and killed by a policeman along with 2 others following insults at an outdoor cafe in Belgrade. Milijkovic, a suspected member of the Chetnicks ultra-nationalist paramilitary unit, had rejected responsibility and said politicians were to blame for the war.

2000 – Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley is raised to the surface after 136 years on the ocean floor and 30 years after its discovery by undersea explorer E. Lee Spence.

2007 – Taliban fighters launched a direct assault on a US and Afghan coalition firebase codenamed Firebase Anaconda. The Taliban assault was repulsed, with at least two dozen Taliban fighters killed.

2014 – The US asserted that the systematic destruction of the Yazidi people by the Islamic State was genocide. The US military launched indefinite airstrikes targeting Islamic State fighters, equipment and installations, with humanitarian aid support from the UK and France, in order to protect civilians in northern Iraq. The Islamic State had advanced to within 30 km of Erbil in northern Iraq.

August 9th ~

1638 – Jonas Bronck of Holland became the 1st European settler in the Bronx.

1645 – Settlers in New Amsterdam gained peace with the Indians after conducting talks with the Mohawks.

1673 – Dutch recapture NY from English. It was regained by English in 1674.

1757 – English Ft. William Henry, NY, surrendered to French and Indian troops.

1790 – The Columbia returned to Boston Harbor after a three-year voyage, becoming the first ship to carry the American flag around the world.

1813 – After reports that British naval vessels were nearing St. Michaels, Md., to attack the shipbuilding town that night, the county militia placed lanterns on the tops of the tallest trees and on the masts of vessels in the harbor; and had all other lights extinguished. When the British attacked, they directed their fire too high and overshot the town.

1814 – Andrew Jackson and the Creek Indians signed the Treaty of Fort Jackson, giving the whites 23 million acres of Creek territory.

1862 – Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson narrowly defeats a Union force led by General John Pope at Cedar Mountain, Virginia. Jackson had moved north in July 1862 after it became clear that the primary Union force in the east, General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, was not going to attack Richmond. McClellan was camped on the James Peninsula southeast of Richmond, where General Robert E. Lee stopped him at the Seven Days’ Battles in late June. Frustrated with McClellan’s lack of action, President Lincoln began shifting troops from the peninsula to Pope’s newly formed Army of Virginia, which was operating near Washington. Jackson, who was sent north by Lee to counter the growing Yankee presence in northern Virginia, fell on part of Pope’s force at Cedar Mountain on August 9th. Despite being severely outnumbered, Pope’s army dealt Jackson a near-humiliating defeat.

1892 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for a two-way telegraph.

1918 – Following the lead of countries all over the world, the U. S. government ordered automobile production to halt by January 1, 1919, and convert to military production. Factories instead manufactured shells, and the engineering lessons of motor racing produced light, powerful engines for planes. Manufacturers turned out staff cars and ambulances by the hundreds. In fact, World War I has often been described as the war of the machines.

1919 – Construction of rigid airship ZR-1 (Shenandoah) authorized.

1921 – Congress creates the Veterans Bureau to administer assistance to World War I veterans. It quickly devolves into corruption, and is abolished nine years later under a cloud of scandal.

1929 – It was hardly a tell-tale sign of trouble, but on August 9, 1929 Wall Street got an inkling of the upcoming crash as the New York Bank raised the rediscount rate on loans to brokers a full point to 6 percent. The hike was precipitated by the unsettling news that brokers had racked up a record $6 million debt, the fourth time during August 1929 that their loans had swelled to record levels. Still, bankers assured the business community that the move, which was the biggest raise to the rate since the close of World War I, wasn’t cause for alarm.

1935 – Fleet Marine Force Headquarters moved from Quantico to San Diego.

1942 – With the Guadalcanal airstrip secure after heavy fighting with the Japanese, the 1st Engineer Battalion commenced work on the runway using captured equipment. Three days later, on 12 August, the first plane landed on Henderson Field, a Navy PBY which evacuated two wounded Marines. Nearly 3,000 wounded Marines would be evacuated from Henderson Field during the battle.

1944 – The United States Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council release posters featuring Smokey Bear for the first time.

1945 – A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan’s unconditional surrender. The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference’s demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed “Fat Man,” on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called “Bock’s Car,” after its usual commander, Frederick Bock, took off from Tinian Island under the command of Maj. Charles W. Sweeney. Nagasaki was a shipbuilding center, the very industry intended for destruction. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).

1949 – First use of pilot-ejection seat for emergency escape in U.S. made by LT Jack I. Fruin of VF-171 near Walterboro, SC.

1950 – Congress enacted Public Law 679, which charged the Coast Guard with the function of port security.

1985 – Arthur Walker, a retired U.S. Navy officer, is found guilty of espionage for passing top-secret documents to his brother, who then passed them to Soviet agents. Walker was part of one of the most significant Cold War spy rings in the United States.

2001 – It was reported that the US had decided to pay China $34,567 to cover the costs of the spy plane that was detained on Hainan island. China had asked for $1 million and rejected the offer.

2003 – The US Army began burning chemical weapons at the Anniston Chemical Agent Disposal Facility in Anniston, Alabama.

2004 – In McAlester, Oklahoma, District Judge Steven Taylor sentenced Terry Nichols to 161 consecutive life sentences for the 1995 Oklahoma City federal building bombing.

2004 – Four masked, black-clad men who said they belong to a group that has claimed responsibility for kidnappings and killings in Iraq beheaded a man identified only as a Bulgarian in a video posted on the Internet.

August 10th ~

1776 – American Revolutionary War: word of the United States Declaration of Independence reaches London.

1821 – Missouri enters the Union as the 24th state–and the first located entirely west of the Mississippi River. Named for one of the Native American groups that once lived in the territory, Missouri became a U.S. possession as part of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

1846 – After a decade of debate about how best to spend a bequest left to America from an obscure English scientist, President James K. Polk signs the Smithsonian Institution Act into law. In 1829, James Smithson died in Italy, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson’s curious bequest to a country that he had never visited aroused significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic. Smithson had been a fellow of the venerable Royal Society of London from the age of 22, publishing numerous scientific papers on mineral composition, geology, and chemistry. In 1802, he overturned popular scientific opinion by proving that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals, and one type of zinc carbonate was later named smithsonite in his honor. Six years after his death, his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, indeed died without children, and on July 1, 1836, the U.S. Congress authorized acceptance of Smithson’s gift.

Today, the Smithsonian is composed of 18 museums and galleries and many research facilities throughout the United States and the world. Besides the original Smithsonian Institution Building, popularly known as the “Castle,” visitors to Washington, D.C., tour the National Museum of Natural History, which houses the natural science collections, the National Zoological Park, and the National Portrait Gallery. The National Museum of American History houses the original Star-Spangled Banner and other artifacts of U.S. history. The National Air and Space Museum has the distinction of being the most visited museum in the world, exhibiting such marvels of aviation and space history as the Wright brothers’ plane and Freedom 7, the space capsule that took the first American into space. John Smithson, the Smithsonian Institution’s great benefactor, is interred in a tomb in the Smithsonian Building.

1864 – Confederate Commander John Bell Hood sent his cavalry north of Atlanta to cut off Union General William Sherman’s supply lines.

1864 – Rear Admiral Farragut continued steady day and night bombardment, battering down the walls of Fort Morgan resolutely defended by his former shipmate, General Page.

1916 – First Naval aircraft production contract, for N-9s.

1921 – General Order establishes the Bureau of Aeronautics under RADM William Moffett.

1942 – An American submarine sinks the Japanese heavy cruiser Kako while it was returning to Rabual after the battle at Savo Island.

1945 – Just a day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan submits its acquiescence to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender, as President Harry S. Truman orders a halt to atomic bombing. Emperor Hirohito, having remained aloof from the daily decisions of prosecuting the war, rubber-stamping the decisions of his War Council, including the decision to bomb Pearl Harbor, finally felt compelled to do more. At the behest of two Cabinet members, the emperor summoned and presided over a special meeting of the Council and implored them to consider accepting the terms of the Potsdam Conference, which meant unconditional surrender. “It seems obvious that the nation is no longer able to wage war, and its ability to defend its own shores is doubtful.”

The Council had been split over the surrender terms; half the members wanted assurances that the emperor would maintain his hereditary and traditional role in a postwar Japan before surrender could be considered. But in light of the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, Nagasaki on August 9, and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, as well as the emperor’s own request that the Council “bear the unbearable,” it was agreed: Japan would surrender. Tokyo released a message to its ambassadors in Switzerland and Sweden, which was then passed on to the Allies.

1949 – President Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Bill, which establishes the Department of Defense. As the Cold War heated up, the Department of Defense became the cornerstone of America’s military effort to contain the expansion of communism. World War II hero General Omar Bradley was appointed the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

1950 – The first Marine Corps helicopter rescue of a downed pilot was successfully made by VMO-6.

1961 – First use in Vietnam War of the Agent Orange by the U.S. Army.

1988 – President Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, a measure providing $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans interned by the U.S. government during World War II.

1990 – US’s Magellan spacecraft landed on Venus.

1990 – The Military Sealift Command began loading equipment and supplies from the Garden City Port in Savannah, Georgia, to support Allied operations during Operation Desert Shield. Coast Guard units, including reservists called-up specifically for this operation, maintained security zones and ensured the safe loading of the vessels.

1995 – Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were charged with eleven counts in the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh was later convicted of murder and was executed on June 11, 2001, at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana; Nichols was convicted of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter.

2001 – Space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral with supplies and a fresh crew for the Int’l Space Station.

2004 – Libya agreed to pay $35 million to the non-US victims of the 1986 Berlin disco bombing. Libya’s Kadhafi Foundation, which negotiated the terms of a compensation deal for victims of the bombing, demanded compensation from the United States for subsequent air strikes against the North African country.

August 11th ~

1806 – While hunting for elk along the Missouri River, Meriwether Lewis is shot in the hip, probably by one of his own men. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had embarked on their epic journey to the Pacific two years earlier. The 33 members of the Corps of Discovery had experienced many adventures and narrowly escaped disaster on several occasions, but they had lost only one man (Sergeant Floyd, a probable victim of appendicitis) and suffered relatively few serious injuries.

1812 – USS Constitution captures and destroys brig Lady Warren

1864 – Confederate General Jubal Early pulls out of Winchester, Virginia, as Union General Philip Sheridan approaches the city. Wary of his new foe, Early moved away to avoid an immediate conflict. Since June, Early and his 14,000 troops had been campaigning in the Shenandoah Valley and the surrounding area. He had been sent there by General Robert E. Lee, whose Army of Northern Virginia was pinned near Richmond by the army of Union General Ulysses S. Grant. Early’s expedition was intended to distract Grant, and he carried out his mission well. In July, Early moved down the Shenandoah Valley to the Potomac River, brushing aside two Federal forces before arriving on the outskirts of Washington. Grant dispatched troops from his army to drive Early away, but Early simply returned to the Shenandoah and continued to operate with impunity.

Now Grant sent General Philip Sheridan to deal with Early. Sheridan had been appointed on August 1 to command the Army of the Shenandoah, and he was quick to take action when he arrived on the scene. On August 10, he marched his force toward Winchester. Early was alarmed, and pulled out of the city on August 11 to a more defensible position 20 miles south of Winchester. Sheridan followed with his force, settling his troops along Cedar Creek—just north of Strasburg, Virginia. As ordered by Grant, Sheridan stopped to await reinforcements. His army, consisting of both infantry and cavalry, would eventually total about 37,000 troops. Sheridan waited for a few days, but Confederate raider John Mosby and his Rangers burned a large store of Sheridan’s supplies. Alarmed and nearly out of food, Sheridan pulled back on August 16. This retreat was reminiscent of many Union operations in Virginia during the war. Early and others thought Sheridan was as timid and uncertain as other Federal commanders. That opinion changed little in the next month as Sheridan continued to wait and gather his force. However, Sheridan would later prove he was very different from previous Yankee leaders. In September, he began a campaign that drove the Confederates from the valley and then rendered the area useless to the Southern cause by destroying all the crops and supplies.

1877 – Professor Asaph Hall of Naval Observatory discovers first of two satellites of Mars. He found the second one within a week.

1898 – In the Spanish–American War, American troops enter the city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico.

1909 – The SOS distress signal was first used by an American ship, the Arapahoe, off Cape Hatteras, N.C.

1921 – Carrier arresting gear first tested at Hampton Roads.

1923 – MCRD transferred from Mare Island to its present location at San Diego.

1942 – Actress Hedy Lamarr and composer George Antheil receive a patent for a Frequency-hopping spread spectrum communication system that later became the basis for modern technologies in wireless telephones and Wi-Fi.

1942 – The German SS began exterminating 3,500 Jews in Zelov Lodz, Poland.

1950 – Major Vivian Moses became the first casualty of Marine Air Group 33. He crash-landed his F-4U Corsair in a rice paddy after being hit with ground fire and was thrown from the cockpit. Knocked unconscious, Moses drowned minutes before an air rescue team could get to him.

1960 – USNS Longview, using Navy helicopters and frogmen, recovers a Discover satellite capsule after 17 orbits. This is first recovery of U.S. satellite from orbit.

1972 – The last U.S. ground combat unit in South Vietnam, the Third Battalion, Twenty-First Infantry, departs for the United States. The unit had been guarding the U.S. air base at Da Nang. This left only 43,500 advisors, airmen, and support troops left in-country. This number did not include the sailors of the Seventh Fleet on station in the South China Sea or the air force personnel in Thailand and Guam.

1975 – The United States vetoed the proposed admission of North and South Vietnam to the United Nations, following the Security Council’s refusal to consider South Korea’s application.

1975 – Anthony C. McAuliffe (77), US General, commandant 101st div ( reply message to surrounding Germans who order his surrender at Bastogne: Nuts!!), died.

1982 – Members of a 7th District TACLET stood bridge watch aboard the USS Sampson, the first time a CG TACLET had served aboard a Navy vessel. The SECDEF approved the use of Coast Guard TACLETs aboard Navy warships only two days earlier.

1982 – A bomb explodes on Pan Am Flight 830, en route from Tokyo, Japan to Honolulu, Hawaii, killing one teenager and injuring 15 passengers.

1984 – A joke about “outlawing” the Soviet Union by President Ronald Reagan turns into an international controversy. The president’s remark caused consternation among America’s allies and provided grist for the Soviet propaganda mill. As he prepared for his weekly radio address, President Reagan was asked to make a voice check. Reagan obliged, declaring, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” Since the voice check was not actually broadcast, it was not until after he delivered his radio address that news of his “joke” began to leak out.

1991 – The space shuttle “Atlantis” returned safely from a nine-day journey.

1997 – It was reported that the US Energy Dept. was short of tritium for nuclear weapons and would borrow space from a civilian power plant for its production.

2000 – British and US bombers struck southern Iraq.

2002 – Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a bioweapons expert under scrutiny for anthrax-laced letters, fiercely denied any involvement and said he had cooperated with the investigation.

2003 – In Afghanistan NATO took command of the 5,000-strong international peacekeeping force in Kabul, its 1st deployment outside Europe.

2004 – U.S. jet fighters bombed the turbulent city of Fallujah.

August 12th ~

1508 – Ponce de Leon arrived in Puerto Rico. Spain had appointed him to colonize Puerto Rico. He explored Puerto Rico and Spanish ships under his command began to capture Bahamanian Tainos to work as slaves on Hispaniola. His settlement at Caparra, 2 miles south of San Juan Bay, was plagued by Taino Indians and cannibalistic Carib Indians.

1658 – The 1st US police corps formed in New Amsterdam.

1812 – USS Constitution captures and destroys brig Adeona.

1817 – The Revenue Cutter Active captured the pirate ship Margaret in the Chesapeake Bay.

1862 – Confederate cavalry leader General John Hunt Morgan captures a small Federal garrison in Gallatin, Tennessee, just north of Nashville. The incident was part of a larger operation against the army of Union General Don Carlos Buell, which was threatening Chattanooga by late summer.

1863 – Confederate raider William Quantrill led a massacre of 150 men and boys in Lawrence, Kansas. Quantrill’s last ride.

1867 – President Andrew Johnson sparked a move to impeach him as he defied Congress by suspending Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton.

1898 – Hawaii was formally annexed to the United States.

1898 – The brief and one-sided Spanish-American War comes to an end when Spain formally agrees to a peace protocol on U.S. terms: the cession of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Manila in the Philippines to the United States pending a final peace treaty. The Spanish-American War had its origins in the rebellion against Spanish rule that began in Cuba in 1895. The repressive measures that Spain took to suppress the guerrilla war, such as herding Cuba’s rural population into disease-ridden garrison towns, were graphically portrayed in U.S. newspapers and enflamed public opinion.

1918 – SECNAV approves acceptance of women as yeoman (F) in U.S. Navy.

1918 – The Secretary of the Navy authorized the enlistment of women into the Marine Corps Reserve.

1942 – USS Cleveland (CL-55) demonstrates effectiveness of radio-proximity fuze (VT-fuze) against aircraft by successfully destroying 3 drones with proximity bursts fired by her five inch guns.

1944 – The first PLUTO (Pipe Line Under The Ocean) becomes operational carrying fuel from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg.

1944 – LT Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., USNR, the older brother of John F. Kennedy, was killed with his co-pilot in a mid-air explosion after taking off from England in a PB4Y from Special Attack Unit One (SAU-1). Following manual takeoff, they were supposed to parachute out over the English Channel while the radio-controlled explosive filled drone proceeded to attack a German V-2 missile-launching site. Possible causes include faulty wiring or FM signals from a nearby transmitter.

1945 – The battleship USS Pennsylvania is damaged by an attack from a Japanese torpedo bomber off the island of Okinawa. Meanwhile, A Japanese submarine sinks the American destroyer Thomas F. Nickel and the landing craft Oak Hill.

1953 – The Soviet Union conducted a secret test of its first hydrogen bomb.

1957 – In first test of Automatic Carrier Landing System, LCDR Don Walker is landed on USS Antietam.

1958 – USS Nautilus (SSN-571) arrives Portland, England completing first submerged under ice cruise from Pacific to Atlantic Oceans.

1959 – The 1st ship firing of a Polaris missile was from Observation Island.

1960 – USAF Major Robert M White takes X-15 to 41,600 miles.

1960 – The first balloon satellite, the Echo 1, was launched by the US from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It bounced phone calls from JPL in California to the Bell Labs in New Jersey.

1961 – In an effort to stem the tide of refugees attempting to leave East Berlin, the communist government of East Germany begins building the Berlin Wall to divide East and West Berlin. Construction of the wall caused a short-term crisis in U.S.-Soviet bloc relations, and the wall itself came to symbolize the Cold War.

1972 – As the last U.S. ground troops left Vietnam, B-52’s made their largest strike of the war.

1976 – The orbiter Enterprise made its 1st approach and lands test (ALT).

1977 – High Energy Astronomy Observatory 1 was launched into Earth orbit.

1977 – The space shuttle Enterprise passed its first solo flight test by taking off atop a Boeing 747, separating and then touching down in California’s Mojave Desert.

1981 – President Reagan, citing alleged Libyan involvement in terrorism, ordered U.S. jets to attack targets in Libya.

1981 – IBM introduces the PC and PC-DOS version 1.0. The computer had shrunk from being a room-clogging behemoth to a relatively dainty machine that could fit on desks in homes and schools. So, IBM’s introduction of its Personal Computer (PC) on August 12, 1981, didn’t exactly signal a technical revolution. But that didnýt stop Big Blue’s PC from bursting onto the scene. Their new product sold 136,000 units in its first year and a half of release, propelling the company’s stock on an upward climb that peaked later in the decade. IBM had seemingly served notice to the computer industry: the granddaddy of business computing was making a break from the boardroom and looking to conquer America’s homes. Not as widely noticed was the fact that IBM’s new machine was a pastiche of other company’s components, including a processing chip courtesy of Intel and an operating system developed by a thirty-two person concern called Microsoft.

1993 – The launch of space shuttle Discovery was scrubbed at the last second.

2002 – Iraq’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf told the Arabic satellite television station Al-Jazeera that there was no need for U.N. weapons inspectors to return to Baghdad. He branded as a “lie” allegations that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction.

2014 – The US announced that it would not extend its airstrikes against the Islamic State to areas outside northern Iraq, emphasizing that the objective of the airstrikes was to protect US diplomats in Erbil. The US and the UK airdropped 60,000 litres of water and 75,000 meals for stranded refugees. The Vatican called on religious leaders of all denominations, particularly Muslim leaders, to unite and condemn the IS for what it described as “heinous crimes” and the use of religion to justify them.

August 13th ~

1779 – The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

1831 – Nat Turner sees a solar eclipse, which he believes is a sign from God. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves kill approximately 55 whites in Southampton County, Virginia, beginning the rebellion that bears his name.

1846 – The American flag was raised for the first time in Los Angeles as a joint expedition led by CDR Robert Stockton seizes the city.

1862 – Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest defeated a Union army under Thomas Crittenden at Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

1870 – Armed tug Palos becomes first U.S. Navy ship to transit Suez Canal.

1906 – At Fort Brown, Texas, some 10-20 armed men engaged an all-Black Army unit in a shooting rampage that left one townsperson dead and a police officer wounded. A 1910 inquiry placed guilt on the soldiers and Pres. Roosevelt ordered all 167 discharged without honor. In 1970 John Weaver (d.2002) authored “The Brownsville Raid,” an account of the incident that led the Army to exonerate all 167 men.

1918 – Opha M. Johnson enlisted at HQMC, becoming the first woman Marine.

1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the “Development of Substitute Materials” project, better known as the Manhattan Project.

1945 – Japanese surrender documents, approved by President Truman, are sent to General MacArthur.

1945 – About 1600 American aircraft fly over Tokyo and other Japanese cities dropping millions of leaflets explaining the position reached in the surrender negotiations and the state of affairs in Japan. Most Japanese “hawks” still refuse to admit defeat. Japanese Sub-Lieutenant Saburo Sakai, the one-eyed fighter ace (with 64 victories), shoots down a B-29 near Tokyo during the night (August 13-14).

1950 – Pres. Truman gave military aid to the Vietnamese regime of Bao-Dai.

1960 – The first two-way telephone conversation by satellite took place with the help of Echo 1, a balloon satellite.

1962 – Two Americans, David Healy and Leonard Oeth, skyjack a charter plane heading to Miami, Florida, and force its pilot to fly to Cuba. Apparently unwelcome, they were later returned to the United States and jailed.

1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York, New York. That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, California, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon.

1972 – Communist sappers (demolitions specialists) attack the ammo dump at Long Binh, destroying thousands of tons of ammunition. Some observers said that the Communists might have been reverting to guerrilla tactics due to the overall failure of the Nguyen Hue Offensive that had been launched in March.

1987 – A rented Piper Cherokee airplane flew close to President Reagan’s helicopter in restricted airspace over Southern California; the pilot and passenger of the plane were arrested.

1989 – The space shuttle Columbia returned from a secret military mission.

1990 – President Bush ordered Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to the Persian Gulf for the second time since Iraq invaded Kuwait. American combat troops in Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, were told to prepare for a long stay.

2003 – In southern Afghanistan a bomb ripped through a bus in Lashkargah, killing 15 people, including six children. Officials blamed al-Qaida and remnants of the Taliban militia for the bombing, the deadliest in nearly a year. Heavy fighting erupted between government soldiers and Taliban remnants. 43 deaths were reported in the fighting.

2003 – Iraq began pumping crude oil from its northern oil fields for the first time since the start of the war.

2004 – Iraqi officials and aides to a radical Shiite cleric negotiated to end fighting that has raged in the holy city of Najaf for 9 days, after American forces suspended an offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia.

2004 – An Islamic Web site posted still pictures that purportedly show Iraqi militants beheading an Egyptian man they claim was spying for the U.S. military.

2004 – A southern Philippines court sentenced 17 members of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf militant group to death for kidnapping nurses from a hospital there three years ago.

August 14th ~

1559 – Spanish explorer de Luna entered Pensacola Bay, Florida.

1720 – The Spanish military Villasur expedition is wiped out by Pawnee and Otoe warriors near present-day Columbus, Nebraska.

1756 – French commander Louis Montcalm took Fort Oswego, New England, from the British.

1765 – Massachusetts colonists challenged British rule by an Elm (Liberty Tree).

1784 – On Kodiak Island, Grigory Shelikhov, a Russian fur trader, founds Three Saints Bay, the first permanent Russian settlement in Alaska. The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741, when a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland. Russian hunters were soon making incursions into Alaska, and the native Aleut population suffered greatly after being exposed to foreign diseases.

1812 – Marines help to capture British sloop “Alert” during the War of 1812.

1813 – British warship Pelican attacked and captured US war brigantine Argus.

1824 – General Lafayette returned to US.

1842 – The Second Seminole War ended and the Seminoles were moved from Florida to Oklahoma.

1848 – The Oregon Territory was established.

1864 – Confederate General Joe Wheeler besieged Dalton, Georgia.

1864 – A Federal assault continued for a 2nd day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Virginia.

1866 – SECNAV establishes Naval Gun Factory at Washington Navy Yard.

1937 – China declared war on Japan. The beginning of air-to-air combat of the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II in general, when 6 Imperial Japanese Mitsubishi G3M bombers are shot down by the Nationalist Chinese Air Force while raiding Chinese air bases.

1940 – Sir Henry Tizard heads a British scientific mission to the United States, carrying with him details of all of Britain’s most advanced thinking in several vital fields. There are ideas on jet engines, explosives, gun turrets and above all a little device called the cavity magnetron. This valve is vital for the development of more advanced types of radar, including the versions used in proximity fuses later and the types working on centimetric wavelengths which will be vital at sea in the U-boat war. The US Official History will later describe this collection as the “most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores.”

1942 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.

1945 – At a government meeting with Emperor Hirohito, the emperor states that the war should end. He records a radio message to the Japanese people saying that they must “bear the unbearable.” During the night, begining about 2300 hours, a group of army officers lead forces number over 1000 in an attempt to steal the recording and prevent it being broadcast but fail to overcome the guards at the Imperial Palace. Coup leader, Major Kenji Hatanaka, who killed the commander of the imperial guard, commits suicide after its failure. The Japanese decision to surrender is transmitted to the Allies.

1945 – In the last air raid of the war, during the night (August 14-15) US B-29 Superfortress bombers strike Kumagaya and Isezaki, northwest of Tokyo, and Akita-Aradi oil refinery.

1974 – Congress authorized US citizens to own gold.

1984 – IBM releases PC DOS version 3.0.

1990 – Interrupting his vacation in Kennebunkport, Maine, President Bush returned to Washington, where he told reporters he saw no hope for a diplomatic solution to the Persian Gulf crisis, at least until economic sanctions forced Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait.

1994 – Space telescope Hubble photographed Uranus with rings.

1994 – Carlos the Jackal was captured in Khartoum, Sudan.

1995 – Shannon Faulkner officially became the first female cadet in the history of The Citadel, South Carolina’s state military college. She quit the school less than a week later, citing the stress of her court fight, and her isolation among the male cadets.

1997 – An unrepentant Timothy McVeigh was formally sentenced to death for the Oklahoma City bombing.

2001 – US warplanes attacked an Iraqi air defense system modernized with fiber optics by Chinese technicians.

2001 – Helios, a remote-controlled, solar powered NASA plane, reached a record 96,500 feet.

2007 – The deadliest single attack of the whole war occurred. Nearly 800 civilians were killed by a series of coordinated suicide bomb attacks on the northern Iraqi settlement of Kahtaniya. More than 100 homes and shops were destroyed in the blasts. U.S. officials blamed al-Qaeda. The targeted villagers belonged to the non-Muslim Yazidi ethnic minority. The attack may have represented the latest in a feud that erupted earlier that year when members of the Yazidi community stoned to death a teenage girl called Du’a Khalil Aswad accused of dating a Sunni Arab man and converting to Islam. The killing of the girl was recorded on camera-mobiles and the video was uploaded onto the internet.

August 15th ~

1812 – Potawatomi Indians kill William Wells, an Indian captive turned Indian fighter. Born in Pennsylvania in 1770, Wells migrated with his family to Kentucky when he was nine years old. Five years later he was captured by Miami Indians and adopted into the family of the Wea village chief Gaviahatte. The young boy quickly adapted to Indian ways. He became a distinguished warrior and married the daughter of a prominent Miami war chief. For several years, Wells fought with the Miami against American soldiers attempting to push them off their land. In 1792, however, the army captured his wife and adopted mother. In exchange for their freedom, Wells agreed to join the American army as an interpreter. A reunion with a long lost brother helped reinforce the allegiance of Wells to the Americans, though his loyalties remained conflicted for the rest of his life.

1824 – Freed American slaves formed the country of Liberia.

1861 – Just months after he surrendered Fort Sumter, Union General Robert Anderson is named commander of the Department of the Kentucky. Although he was pro-slavery and pro-South, Anderson remained loyal to the United States. Anderson was assigned to command Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in hopes that a pro-South officer would help smooth tensions with local residents. When he surrendered the fort after a 36-hour bombardment, he was hailed a national hero.

Released by Confederates nearly six weeks after the surrender of Fort Sumter, Anderson was promoted to brigadier general. He was given command of the Department of Kentucky and carefully maintained the balance of neutrality in the state. But poor health forced him to resign his command two months later, and William T. Sherman replaced him. Anderson returned to active duty briefly in 1865 to hoist the American flag over Fort Sumter after the Confederate surrender. He died in 1871 and is buried at West Point.

1863 – Submarine H. L. Hunley had arrived in Charleston on two covered railroad flat cars. Brigadier General Jordan advised Mr. B.A. Whitney that a reward of $100,000 dollars would he paid by John Fraser and Company for the destruction of U.S.S. New Ironsides. He added that “a similar sum for destruction of the wooden frigate Wabash, and the sum of fifty thousand dollars for every Monitor sunk” was also being offered. The next day, Jordan ordered that “every assistance be rendered in equipping the submarine with torpedoes. Jordan noted that General Beauregard regarded H. F. Hunley as the most formidable engine of war for the defense of Charleston now at his disposition & accordingly is anxious to have it ready for service. . . .”

1876 – US law removed Indians from Black Hills after gold find. Sioux leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull led their warriors to protect their lands from invasion by prospectors following the discovery of gold. This led to the Great Sioux Campaign staged from Fort Laramie. Gold was discovered in Deadwood in the Dakota territory by Quebec brothers Fred and Moses Manuel. The mine was incorporated in California on Nov 5, 1877, as the Homestake Mining Company.

1895 – Commissioning of U.S.S. Texas, the first American steel-hulled battleship. Texas served off Cuba during the Spanish-American War and took part in the naval battle of Santiago. Under the name of San Marcos, she was sunk in weapon effects tests in Chesapeake Bay in 1911. Her hulk continued in use as a gunnery target through World War II.

1908 – First Navy post offices established in Navy ships.

1914 – The American-built waterway across the Isthmus of Panama, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is inaugurated with the passage of the U.S. vessel Ancon, a cargo and passenger ship.

1934 – 19 years of occupation ended as the 1st Marine Brigade departed Haiti.

1942 – The Japanese submarine I-25 departed Japan with a floatplane in its hold. It was assembled upon arriving off the West Coast of the US, and used to bomb U.S. forests.

1945 – World War II gasoline rationing in America ended on this day. Rationing was just one of the special measures taken in the U.S. during wartime. Civilian auto production virtually ceased after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the U.S. automotive industry turned to war production. Automotive firms made almost $29 billion worth of military materials between 1940 and 1945, including jeeps, trucks, machine guns, carbines, tanks, helmets, and aerial bombs. After the war, rationing ended and the auto industry boomed.

1945 – Celebrations mark the end of World War II — VJ Day. A two-day holiday is proclaimed for all federal employees.

1945 – South Korea was liberated after nearly 40 years of Japanese colonial rule.

1948 – The Republic of Korea [South Korea] was proclaimed.

1961 – Two days after sealing off free passage between East and West Berlin with barbed wire, East German authorities begin building a wall–the Berlin Wall–to permanently close off access to the West. For the next 28 years, the heavily fortified Berlin Wall stood as the most tangible symbol of the Cold War–a literal “iron curtain” dividing Europe.

1971 – Richard Nixon turned his attention away from the war in Vietnam and announced a sweeping series of economic initiatives, including a ninety-day freeze on wages and rents, as well as the end of America’s twenty-five-year-old policy of converting foreign money into gold.

1994 – Terrorist Illich Ramirez Sanchez, long known as Carlos, is captured in Khartoum, Sudan, by French intelligence agents. Since there was no extradition treaty with Sudan, the French agents sedated and kidnapped Carlos. The Sudanese government, claiming that it had assisted in the arrest, requested that the United States remove their country from its list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

2001 – The Air Force gave the go-ahead to build its new F-22 fighter, but said it would build fewer planes for more money than it had once planned.

2002 – Some 600 families of 9/11 victims files a $3 trillion lawsuit against Saudi princes, foreign banks, charities and the government of Sudan for funding the terrorist networks that launched the 2001 attacks.

August 16th ~

1691 – Yorktown, Va., was founded.

1777 – The Americans led by General John Stark rout British and Brunswick troops under Friedrich Baum at the Battle of Bennington in Walloomsac, New York.

1780 – American troops under Gen. Horatio Gates were badly defeated by the British at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina.

1812 – During the War of 1812, American General William Hull surrenders Fort Detroit and his army to the British without a fight. Hull, a 59-year-old veteran of the American Revolution, had lost hope of defending the settlement after seeing the large English and Indian force gathering outside Detroit’s walls. The general was also preoccupied with the presence of his daughter and grandchildren inside the fort. Of Hull’s 2,000-man army, most were militiamen, and British General Isaac Brock allowed them to return to their homes on the frontier. The regular U.S. Army troops were taken as prisoners to Canada. In September 1813, U.S. General William Henry Harrison, the future president, recaptured Detroit. In 1814, William Hull was court-martialed for cowardice and neglect of duty in surrendering the fort, and sentenced to die. Because of his service in the revolution, however, President James Madison remitted the sentence.

1812 – USS Constitution recaptures American merchant brig Adeline.

1861 – President Lincoln prohibited the states of the Union from trading with the seceding states of the Confederacy.

1861 – Union and Confederate forces clashed near Fredericktown and Kirkville, Missouri.

1864 – Confederate General John Chambliss is killed during a cavalry charge at Deep Bottom, Virginia—one of the sieges of Petersburg. Union General Ulysses S. Grant had bottled the army of Confederate General Robert E. Lee behind a perimeter that stretched from Petersburg to the Confederate capital at Richmond, 20 miles north. By June 1864, the armies had settled into trench warfare, with little movement of the lines. In August, Grant sought to break the stalemate by attacking the Southern defenses near Richmond. In an attempt to regain control of a section of trenches breached by the Yankees, the Confederates counterattacked, and Chambliss was killed. His body was recovered by a former West Point classmate, Union General David Gregg, who made a surprising discovery: a detailed map of the Richmond defenses. Gregg gave the plan to Union topographical engineers, who then looked for a way to copy and distribute the map through the army’s command structure.

Using a new photographic technique known as Margedant’s Quick Method, which did not require a camera, the engineers traced Chambliss’s map and laid it over a sheet of photographic paper. The paper was then exposed to the sun’s rays, which darkened the paper except under the traced lines. The result was a mass-produced negative of the map, which was distributed to all Union officers in the area within 48 hours. It may not have helped the Union capture Richmond—that would take another seven months—but it may have reduced casualties by preventing foolhardy attacks on well-defended positions.

1914 – Austrian-born Adolf Hitler volunteers to fight with the German Army. He will serve throughout the conflict on the Western Front as a messenger, suffer wounds, and receive various medals for valor.

1942 – The US Navy L-8 patrol blimp crash-landed at 419 Bellevue St., Daly City, Ca., after drifting in from the ocean. The ship’s crew, Lt. Ernest Dewitt Cody (27) and Ensign Charles E. Adams (38), were missing and no trace of them was ever found.

1945 – The Emperor issues an Imperial Rescript (decree) at 1600 hours (local time) ordering all Japanese forces to cease fire. The Cabinet resigns. General Prince Higashikumi becomes the prime minister of Japan and forms a new government. He orders the Imperial Army to obey the Emperor’s call and lay down their arms.

1945 – Honolulu Coast Guard District transferred to Navy.

1945 – Lt. Gen. Jonathan Wainwright, (captured by the Japanese on the island of Corregidor, in the Philippines), is freed by Russian forces from a POW camp in Manchuria, China. When Wainwright arrived in Yokohama, Japan, to attend the formal surrender ceremony, Gen. MacArthur, his former commander, was stunned at his appearance-literally unable to eat and sleep for a day. Wainwright was given a hero’s welcome upon returning to America, promoted to full general, and awarded the Medal of Honor.

1959 – William F. Halsey (Bull Halsey), US vice-admiral (WW II Pacific), died.

1960 – Air Force COL Joseph Kittinger parachutes from a balloon over New Mexico at 102,800 feet (31,300 m), setting three records that held until 2012: High-altitude jump, free fall, and highest speed by a human without an aircraft.

1972 – U.S. fighter-bombers fly 370 air strikes against North Vietnam, the highest daily total of the year; additionally, there are eight B-52 strikes in the North. Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes flew 321 missions (including 27 B-52 strikes) in South Vietnam, mostly in Quang Tri province. Despite this heavy air activity, hopes for an agreement to end the war rise as Henry Kissinger leaves Paris to confer with President Thieu and his advisers.

1990 – In Iraq, President Saddam Hussein issued a statement in which he repeatedly called Bush a “liar” and said the outbreak of war could result in “thousands of Americans wrapped in sad coffins.”

1999 – For the first time, weapons were fired from a Coast Guard HITRON helicopter “to execute the interdiction of a maritime drug smuggler.”

2001 – Zacarias Moussaoui (33), a French citizen of Moroccan descent, was arrested in Minneapolis on immigration charges. He was taking lessons on flying Boeing jets with no interest in taking off or landing. He was later suspected as a 5th member of one of the Sep 11 WTC attack teams.

In Nov the FBI reported that Moussaoui wanted to learn how to take off and land but not to fly. Mueller also said Ramzi Omar of Yemen, aka Ramsi Binalshibh, may have been the 20th hijacker. The local FBI contacted the CIA for action on Moussaoui when FBI managers failed to take action. Agent Coleen Rowley later charged that senior officials fumbled an opportunity to possibly prevent the Sep 11 terrorist attacks.

2004 – Pres. Bush announced plans to pull 70-100 thousand US troops from Europe and Asia and redeploy them to meet the demands of the global war on terrorism.

SAVANNAH, Ga. — After 150 years at the bottom of the Savannah River, the armored skeleton of the Confederate warship CSS Georgia is being raised to the surface one 5-ton chunk at a time.

Navy divers who began working in late June to recover cannons, unexploded shells and other artifacts from the riverbed finally started midweek on their last major task — retrieving an estimated 250,000 pounds of the Civil War ironclad's armored siding.

The CSS Georgia was scuttled by its own crew to prevent Gen. William T. Sherman from capturing the massive gunship when his Union troops took Savannah in December 1864. Still classified as a captured enemy vessel by the Navy, the remains of the Confederate ironclad are being salvaged as part of a $703 million deepening of the Savannah harbor for cargo ships.

"The historical significance is evident in everything we do," Chief Warrant Officer 3 Jason Potts, the Navy's on-scene commander, said Wednesday as his crew prepared to start raising the first of three giant slabs of armor.

The CSS Georgia was a crude example of the first armored warships designed during the Civil War to stand up to cannon and artillery fire. Its 1,200-ton frame was built using three layers of timber topped with 24-foot strips of railroad iron.

Having sections of the Georgia's armor for study should reveal more about how the Confederacy compensated for the South's lack of an industrial base when it came to building ships and other war machines.

"A lot of these ironclads are built by house carpenters, they're not built by shipwrights," said Jeff Seymour, historian and curator for the National Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus. "So what are the construction techniques? They vary from ship-to-ship."

The Georgia proved so bulky its own engines were too weak to propel it against the Savannah River's currents. The Confederates anchored the ironclad off Old Fort Jackson as a floating gun battery. It was sunk without ever firing a shot in combat.

After months of preparation work by underwater archaeologists, Navy divers from the Virginia Beach-based Mobile Diving Salvage Unit 2 arrived in late June.

Their first task was to raise 132 unexploded shells — both cannonballs and rifled shells shaped like large bullets — found scattered across the wreckage site. Using a crane mounted on a barge, they also pulled up four cannons weighing 1,000 to 10,000 pounds apiece.

Other artifacts soon emerged from 40 feet or more of water: a flywheel, a pump and sections of the steamship's boiler. Perhaps most impressive, the Georgia's propeller was recovered intact and still attached to the long shaft that turned it.

"We don't just simply want to bring it all back to the surface," Potts said. "We want to bring it back intact. So we go to the maximum effort to make sure we don't rip these things apart on the way up."

The three large sections of the Georgia's armored casemate, however, proved too heavy to raise without cutting them down into smaller pieces. They're being separated into about 20 total chunks, each measuring about 4 feet by 24 feet and weighing roughly 5 tons.

After a century and a half, Potts said, most of the ship's wooden hull has rotted away. But the railroad iron remains essentially glued together by mud and silt from the riverbed. The crew uses a crane-held tool with a long, flat blade to slide between the iron strips and pry apart chunks of the armor.

A web of slings is then attached to the slab of armor to ensure its weight is evenly distributed as the crane lifts it from the river.

With river currents typically limiting divers to less than three hours underwater each day, Potts estimates it will take his team nearly a month to raise all of the armored siding. That's at a rate of roughly one 5-ton chunk per day.

All artifacts from the CSS Georgia are being sent to the Conservation Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, for cataloging and preservation. The Navy hasn't said where those artifacts will ultimately reside.

August 17th ~

1585 – A first group of colonists sent by Sir Walter Ralegh under the charge of Ralph Lane lands in the New World to create Roanoke Colony on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina.

1590 – John White, the leader of 117 colonists sent in 1587 to Roanoke Island (North Carolina) to establish a colony, returned from a trip to England to find the settlement deserted. No trace of the settlers was ever found.

1862 – Minnesota erupts in violence as desperate Dakota Indians attack white settlements along the Minnesota River. The Dakota were eventually overwhelmed by the U.S. military six weeks later. The Dakota Indians were more commonly referred to as the Sioux, a derogatory name derived from part of a French word meaning “little snake.”

1862 – Major General J.E.B. Stuart is assigned command of all the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

1864 – General Robert E. Lee, attempting to consolidate his position on the James River below Richmond, turned to the ships of Flag Officer Mitchell’s squadron for gunfire support. The enemy is on Signal Hill, fortifying,” he telegraphed. “Please try and drive him off. Our picket line is reestablished with the exception of Signal Hill.” Ironclads C.S.S. Virginia II, Lieutenant Johnston, and C.S.S. Richmond, Lieutenant J. S. Maury, promptly steamed to a position above Signal Hill where they took the Union position under fire. Shortly thereafter scouts reported that Union forces had fallen back and that Lee’s troops now commanded the hill.

1864 – Battle of Gainesville, Confederate forces defeat Union troops near Gainesville, Florida.

1877 – Asaph Hall discovered the Mars moon Phobos. Hall of the US Naval Observatory
discovered the moons around Mars and named them Deimos (anxiety) and Phobos (fear), Homer’s names for the attendant’s of the god of war.

1896 – A prospecting party discovered gold in Alaska, a finding that touched off the Klondike gold rush.

1929 – Horace Alderman, convicted of murdering 2 Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent in 1927, was hanged at Coast Guard Base 10 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was the only person ever executed on Coast Guard property.

1942 – The first bombing raid flown by a completely American squadron bombs Rouen in France.

1943 – The USAAF bombs the ball-bearing manufacturing centers at Schweinfurt and Regensburg in a daylight raid. A total of 51 bombers are lost. During the night (August 17-18), the German rocket research center at Peenemunde is bombed by nearly 600 British bombers. A total of 41 bombers are lost in the raid. This bombing creates a significant delay in the German rocket program. Also noteworthy about the raid is the British use of “window,” dropped by Mosquito bombers, which causes about 200 German fighters to concentrate over Berlin.

1943 – U.S. General George S. Patton and his 7th Army arrive in Messina several hours before British Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery and his 8th Army, winning the unofficial “Race to Messina” and completing the Allied conquest of Sicily. During one of his many successful campaigns, General Patton was said to have declared, “Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance.” On December 21, 1945, he died in a hospital in Germany from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near Mannheim.

1945 – Ho Chi Minh begins the first of a series of eight letters to President Harry Truman. Because of his relations with the OSS, collaborating against the Japanese, he regards the US as the friend of all struggling peoples. he asks for US aid in gaining Vietnam’s independence from France. There is no record of any US official ever answering these appeals. The US government is in a quandary, not wanting to support French colonialism, but not wanting to turn Vietnam over to a Communist administration.

1950 – The bodies of 20 mortar men of the 5th Cavalry Regiment of the 1st Cavalry Division were recovered near Hill 303 in the vicinity of Waegwan. North Korean soldiers murdered the soldiers after they had surrendered.

1958 – World’s 1st Moon probe, US’s Thor-Able, exploded at T +77 sec.

1960 – American Francis Gary Powers pleaded guilty at his Moscow trial for spying over the Soviet Union in a U-2 plane.

1962 – Navy’s first hydrofoil patrol craft, USS High Point (PCH-1) launched at Seattle, WA.

1966 – Pioneer 7 launched into solar orbit.

1982 – The first Compact Discs (CDs) are released to the public in Germany.

1987 – Rudolf Hess, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s former deputy, is found strangled to death in Spandau Prison in Berlin at the age of 93, apparently the victim of suicide. Hess was the last surviving member of Hitler’s inner circle and the sole prisoner at Spandau since 1966.

1998 – Pres. Clinton testified via video via closed-circuit TV from the White House before a grand jury concerning his relations with Monica Lewinsky. He then delivered a TV address in which he denied previously committing perjury, admitted his relationship with Lewinsky was “wrong,” and criticized Kenneth Starr’s investigation. “I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate… It was wrong.”

1998 – NATO forces began a 5-day exercise in Albania as a threat to Serbia.

1998 – It was reported that spy satellites had detected a secret underground complex in North Korea that was suspected of being involved in a nuclear weapons program.

2002 – The new $ 1 billion Navy destroyer McCampbell, completed in July at the Bath Iron Works in Maine, was commissioned in San Francisco.

2014 – For the first time, an unmanned plane took off and landed form a US Aircraft Carrier, alongside a manned aircraft. The X-47B UCAS participated in flight operations side by side with the Navy’s standard F/A/-18E Super Hornet fighter. The goal for the flight test on the USS Theodore Roosevelt was for the two aircraft to take off within 90 seconds of one another and then for both had to land within a minute and a half.

August 18th ~

1587 – In the Roanoke Island colony, Ellinor and Ananias Dare became parents of a baby girl whom they name Virginia Dare, the first English child born on what is now Roanoke Island, N.C., then considered Walter Raleigh’s second settlement in Roanoke, Virginia. Virginia Dare, born to the daughter of John White, became the first child of English parents to be born on American soil.

1590 – John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a supply-trip to England to find the settlement deserted. White and his men found no trace of the 100 or so colonists he left behind, and there was no sign of violence. Among the missing were Ellinor Dare, White’s daughter; and Virginia Dare, White’s granddaughter and the first English child born in America. August 18 was to have been Virginia’s third birthday. The only clue to their mysterious disappearance was the word “CROATOAN” carved into the palisade that had been built around the settlement. White took the letters to mean that the colonists had moved to Croatoan Island, some 50 miles away, but a later search of the island found none of the settlers. The Roanoke Island colony, the first English settlement in the New World, was founded by English explorer Sir Walter Raleigh in August 1585.

1812 – Returning from a cruise into Canadian waters Captain Isaac Hull’s USS Constitution of the fledgling U.S. Navy encountered British Captain Richard Dacre’s HMS Guerriere about 750 miles out of Boston. After a frenzied 55-minute battle that left 101 dead, Guerriere rolled helplessly in the water, smashed beyond salvage. Dacre struck his colors and surrendered to Hull’s boarding party. In contrast, Constitution suffered little damage and only 14 casualties.

1864 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant tries to cut a vital Confederate lifeline into Petersburg, Virginia, with an attack on the Weldon Railroad. Although the Yankees succeeded in capturing a section of the line, the Confederates simply used wagons to bring supplies from the railhead into the city. Grant’s spring campaign against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia ended at Petersburg, 20 miles south of Richmond. In June, Grant ceased frontal assaults, and the two armies settled into trenches for a siege.

1911 – First Navy Nurse Corps superintendent, Esther Voorhees Hasson, was appointed.

1914 – President Wilson issued his Proclamation of Neutrality, aimed at keeping the United States out of World War I.

1914 – Germany declared war on Russia.

1920 – The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is ratified by Tennessee, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” and “Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

1942 – On Guadalcanal, Japanese reinforcements are landed at Taivu and a detachment of 1,000 troops under the leadership of Colonel Ichiki starts towards the American position. The Japanese believe there are only 3,000 Americans on the Island. There are actually 10,000 and the airstrip is now ready to receive aircraft.

1951 – The Battle of Bloody Ridge began. During the battle, the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division and its attached units sustained 326 killed in action, 2,032 wounded and 414 missing. The enemy’s dead totaled 1,389. The 15th Field Artillery Battalion set a record of 14,425 rounds fired in a 24-hour period.

1951 – U.N. aircraft began Operation STRANGLE to interdict North Korean rail and supply lines.

1951 – The 1st transcontinental wireless phone call was made from SF to NYC by Mark Sullivan, president of PT&T, and H.T. Killingworth of AT&T.

1965 – After a deserter from the First Vietcong Regiment had revealed that an attack was imminent against the U.S. base at Chu Lai, the Marines launch Operation Starlite in the Van Tuong peninsula in Quang Ngai Province. In this, the first major U.S. ground battle of the Vietnam War, 5,500 Marines destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold, scoring a resounding victory. During the operation, which lasted six days, ground forces, artillery from Chu Lai, close air support, and naval gunfire combined to kill nearly 700 Vietcong soldiers. U.S. losses included 45 Marines dead and more than 200 wounded.

1966 – First ship-to-shore satellite radio message sent from USS Annapolis in South China Sea to Pacific Fleet Headquarters at Pearl Harbor.

1976 – Two U.S. Army officers were killed in Korea’s demilitarized zone as a group of North Korean soldiers wielding axes and metal pikes attacked U.S. and South Korean soldiers. Major Arthur G. Bonifas was attacked and beaten to death by North Korean soldiers as he attempted to cut down a poplar tree in the DMZ.

1987 – American journalist Charles Glass escaped his kidnappers in Beirut after 62 days in captivity.

1990 – A US frigate fired warning shots across the bow of an Iraqi oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman—apparently the first shots fired by the United States in the Persian Gulf crisis.

1991 – Hard-line elements of the Soviet government and military begin a coup attempt against President Mikhail Gorbachev. The coup attempt signified a decline in Gorbachev’s power and influence, while one of his most ardent opponents, Boris Yeltsin, came out of the event with more power than ever.

1995 – Shannon Faulkner, who’d won a two-and-a-half-year legal battle to become the first female cadet at The Citadel, quit the South Carolina military college after less than a week, most of it spent in the infirmary.

1997 – In Virginia the VMI class of 2001 included 30 women among the 460 freshman students. Beth Ann Hogan became the first coed in the Virginia Military Institute’s 158-year history.

2002 – Operation Mountain Sweep was the first for the 82nd Airborne Division since its arrival in Afghanistan. The troopers of the 82nd joined with Army Rangers and other coalition special operations forces to mount five combat air assault missions. Combat engineers, aviation assets and civil affairs detachments also took part in the operation. Mountain Sweep continued Operation Mountain Lion in searching out al Qaeda and Taliban forces and information about the terrorist organizations.

2002 – US federal agents said they had seized over 2,300 unregistered missiles at a “counter-terrorism” school, High Energy Access Tools (HEAT), in Roswell, New Mexico, that was training students from Arab countries and arrested its Canadian leader.

2014 – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon orders the National Guard into Ferguson, MO, after police cited “pre-planned” acts of aggression by protesters. Over the preceding two nights, protesters shot at police, threw Molotov cocktails at officers, looted businesses and carried out a “coordinated attempt” to block roads and overrun the police’s command center. Ferguson is a predominantly black city of 21,000 on the outskirts of St. Louis that had been experiencing nightly rioting since Aug. 9, when white police officer Darren Wilson, 28, fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown.

August 19th ~

1779 – Americans under Major Henry Lee took the British garrison at Paulus Hook, New Jersey.

1782 – Battle of Blue Licks – the last major engagement of the War of Independence, almost ten months after the surrender of the British commander Charles Cornwallis following the Siege of Yorktown.

1818 – CAPT James Biddle takes possession of Oregon Territory for U.S.

1854 – The First Sioux War begins when United States Army soldiers kill Lakota chief Conquering Bear and in return are massacred.

1862 – American Indian Wars: during an uprising in Minnesota, Lakota warriors decide not to attack heavily-defended Fort Ridgely and instead turn to the settlement of New Ulm, killing white settlers along the way.

1905 – Roald Amundsen and his crew of 6 aboard Gjøe, a converted herring boat, made contact with the US Coast Guard cutter Bear which confirmed their crossing the Northwest Passage following a 26-month journey. Amundsen continued by dogsled to the Yukon while his crew completed their journey at Point Bonita, California, just outside the Golden Gate. Gjøe was returned to Norway in 1972. A commemorative sculpture was left next to the Beach Chalet at Ocean Beach.

1919 – “The Marines’ Hymn” was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

1940 – First flight of the B-25 Mitchell medium bomber.

1942 – A major raid by mainly Canadian Forces (2nd Canadian Division, under General Roberts), with a British commando component (Nos. 3 & 4 commandos under Lord Lovat) and 50 American Rangers, is staged on the French coast, at Dieppe. Its function is to test German coastal defenses and gather intelligence. The raid goes badly and there is much controversy about it, including the cancellation and remounting of the raid, the inaccurate intelligence concerning German defensive positions and the lack of bomber support for the raid. In all there are 3600 casualties on the Allied side. 106 aircraft, one destroyer, 30 tanks and 33 landing craft are also lost. German casualties are light, 600 men and 50 tanks.

1942 – 19 US Marines died during a commando raid on Makin atoll in the Gilbert Islands. The raid was 2,000 miles behind enemy lines and 9 Marines were left behind. The 1943 movie, “Gung Ho,” was based on the raid and starred Randolph Scott as Lt. Col. Evans Carlson, leader of the raid. In 2001 the bodies of 13 Marines, who died on Makin, were reburied at Arlington National Cemetery.

1943 – Italians have approached the Allies about negotiating a surrender. General Bedell Smith, General Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff, and General Strong, his chief of intelligence areeive to continue talks with approaches to the British ambassador, Sir Samuel Hoare. The leading Italian representative is General Castellano.

1944 – Elements of the US 3rd Army reach the Seine River at Mantes Grassicourt. There is heavy fighting between Falaise and Argentan.

1944 – Liberation of Paris – Paris, France rises against German occupation with the help of Allied troops.

1945 – Japanese representatives of the government arrive in Manila to conclude the surrender of the remaining Japanese troops and receive instructions on the plans for the occupation of Japan and the signing of the surrender documents. Meanwhile, General MacArthur ordered a halt to all amphibious landing operations.

1950 – The United Nations accepted offers of troops from Turkey, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, Thailand and the Philippines.

1950 – The USS Missouri, the only active battleship in the Navy fleet at that time, departed Norfolk, Va., for Korea, arriving Sept. 15th.

1953 – Gen’l. Zahedi ousted Prime Minister Mossadegh and became the Premier of Iran in a bloody coup that left 300 dead. The US CIA under Allen Dulles planned a secret mission to overthrow the government. The US government made a formal apology for the coup in 2000.

1957 – The first balloon flight to exceed 100,000 feet took off from Crosby, Minnesota. US Major David Simons reached 30,933 m. in a balloon.

1960 – A tribunal in Moscow convicted American U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers of espionage. About 18 months later, the Soviets agreed to release him in exchange for Rudolph Abel, a Soviet spy convicted 5 years earlier. The CIA and the Senate cleared Powers of any personal blame for the incident.

1965 – U.S. forces destroyed a Viet Cong stronghold near Van Tuong, in South Vietnam.

1967 – Operation Coronado IV begins in Mekong Delta.

1974 – U.S. Ambassador Rodger P. Davies was fatally wounded by a bullet that penetrated the American embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus, during a protest by Greek Cypriots.

1981 – 2 US Navy F-14 jet fighters shot down 2 Soviet-built Libyan SU-22 over the Gulf of Sidra.

1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein offered to free all foreigners detained in Iraq and Kuwait provided the United States promise to withdraw its forces from Saudi Arabia and guarantee that an international economic embargo would be lifted.

1991 – Dissolution of the Soviet Union, August Coup. oviet President Mikhail Gorbachev is placed under house arrest while on holiday in the town of Foros, Ukraine.

1994 – Operation Able Vigil commenced during a massive influx of Cuban migrants fleeing Cuba. It was the “largest joint peace-time operation” in Coast Guard history, according to then-commandant, ADM Robert Kramek.

1995 – Three top US diplomats heading to peace talks in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, were killed when their armored vehicle plunged off a muddy road and exploded.

1997 – In North Korea groundbreaking ceremonies were held for 2 nuclear power plants to be built by a US led Int’l. consortium.

2003 – In Baghdad a car bomb exploded in front of the hotel housing the UN headquarters, collapsing the front of the building. UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello (55) of Brazil and 22 other people were killed. UNICEF said that its program coordinator for Iraq, Canadian Christopher Klein-Beekman, was among the dead.

2003 – Taha Yassin Ramadan, a former Iraqi vice president known as “Saddam’s knuckles” for his ruthlessness and No. 20 on the US list of most-wanted Iraqis, was turned over to US forces in Mosul.

2004 – In Iraq PM Allawi gave what he said was a final warning to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to disarm and the leave the holy shrine in Najaf.

2010 – The last US combat brigades departed Iraq in the early morning. Convoys of US troops had been moving out of Iraq to Kuwait for several days, and NBC News broadcast live from Iraq as the last convoy crossed the border. While all combat brigades left the country, an additional 50,000 personnel (including Advise and Assist Brigades) remained in the country to provide support for the Iraqi military.

2014 – In what may be considered the first attack of the Islamic State on the United States, IS releases a video that show the apparent beheading of American journalist James Foley, and threatens the life of another American journalist if President Barack Obama doesn’t end military operations in Iraq. Foley had disappeared form northwest Syria on 22 November 2012 while working for the US-based online news outlet GlobalPost. The other journalist, still in captivity, is Steven Sotloff, kidnapped form the Syria-Turkey border region in 2013. Sotloff is a contributor to Time and Foreign Policy magazines.

August 20th ~

1494 – Columbus returned to Hispaniola. He had confirmed that Jamaica was an island and failed to find a mainland.

1619 – The 1st African slaves arrived to North America aboard a Dutch privateer. It docked in Jamestown, Virginia, with twenty human captives among its cargo.

1707 – The first siege of Pensacola in Spanish Florida by English supported Creek Indians resulted in the destruction of the town, but Fort San Carlos de Austria successfully resisted the onslaught.

1775 – The Spanish establish the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in the town that became Tucson, Arizona.

1781 – George Washington began to move his troops south to fight Cornwallis.

1804 – Sergeant Charles Floyd dies three months into the voyage of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, becoming the only member of the Corps of Discovery to die during the journey.

1864 – The 8th and last day of battle at Deep Bottom Run, Va., left about 3900 casualties.

1865 – President Andrew Johnson proclaimed an end to the “insurrection” in Texas.

1866 – President Andrew Johnson formally declared the Civil War over, even though the fighting had stopped months earlier.

1908 – The American Great White Fleet arrived in Sydney, Australia, to a warm welcome.

1910 – The 1st shot fired from an airplane was during a test flight over Brooklyn’s Sheeps Head Bay.

1920 – Pioneering American radio station 8MK in Detroit (later WWJ) began daily broadcasting.

1940 – Radar was used for the first time, by the British during the Battle of Britain.

1941 – Adolf Hitler authorized the development of the V-2 missile.

1942 – Plutonium was first weighed. Glenn T. Seaborg was a co-discoverer of Plutonium.

1942 – On Guadalcanal, the first aircraft, 31 Marine (MAG-23) fighters from the escort carrier USS Long Island are flown into Henderson Field Air Strip.

1942 – Searchlights crossing the sky cease to be a fixture of Hollywood premieres as of this day. In an attempt to avoid attack and surveillance by enemy forces in World War II, the entire West Coast was required to dim its lights at night. During the war, movie studies were also limited in the amount of cloth they could use in costumes, the quantity of new construction they could devote to sets, and the amount of film stock they could purchase.

1944 – During the night, the last elements of German 5th Panzer and 7th Armies to escape the Falaise pocket filter through Allied line around Chambois and St. Lambert. Some 70-80 miles to the east, the US 3rd Army captures crossings over the Seine River at Mantes Grassicourt, 30 miles west of Paris. To the southwest of Paris, the US 20th Corps (also part of US 3rd Army) enters Fontainbleau.

1944 – Americans announce that Japanese resistance on Biak Island has ended. The Japanese have suffered 4700 killed and 220 captured. US casualties are listed at 2550.

1945 – The War Production Board removes most of its controls over manufacturing activity.

1946 – World War II civilian truck restrictions were lifted in the U.S. Truck restrictions were only the beginning of special regulations during the war. Civilian auto production virtually ceased after the attack on Pearl Harbor as the U.S. automotive industry turned to war production, and gas rationing began in 1942.

1948 – The United States ordered the expulsion of the Soviet Consul General in New York, Jacob Lomakin, accusing him of attempting to return two consular employees to the Soviet Union against their will.

1950 – General MacArthur repeated his July 4th warning to North Korean leader Kim Il Sung concerning the treatment of prisoners of war as a result of the Hill 303 (Waegwan) murder of 36 American soldiers.

1952 – In interservice air operation at Chang Pyong-ni, Korea, U.S. Navy, Marine and Air Force aircraft destroy 80 percent of assigned area.

1953 – The Soviet Union publicly acknowledged it had tested a hydrogen bomb.

1968 – In the face of rising anti-Soviet protests in Czechoslovakia, Soviet troops (backed by troops from other Warsaw Pact nations) intervene to crush the protest. The brutal Soviet action shocked the West and dealt a devastating blow to U.S.-Soviet relations.

1974 – In the wake of Nixon’s resignation, Congress reduces military aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion to $700 million. This was one of several actions that signaled the North Vietnamese that the United States was backing away from its commitment to South Vietnam.

1975 – Viking 1, an unmanned U.S. planetary probe, is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a mission to Mars.

1977 – The United States launched Voyager 2, an unmanned spacecraft carrying a 12-inch copper phonograph record containing greetings in dozens of languages, samples of music and sounds of nature.

1982 – During the Lebanese Civil War, a multinational force including 800 U.S. Marines lands in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. It was the beginning of a problem-plagued mission that would stretch into 17 months and leave 262 U.S. servicemen dead.

1994 – President Clinton slapped new sanctions on Cuba that included prohibiting payments by Cuban-Americans to their relatives in Cuba.

1995 – Iraq provides to UNSCOM and the IAEA previously concealed information: 680,000 pages of documents, computer disks, videotapes, and microfilm, related to its prohibited weapons programs which subsequently leads to further disclosures by Iraq concerning the production of the nerve agent VX (the most advanced, deadly, and long-lasting chemical agent) and Iraq’s development of a nuclear weapon. Observers speculate that this was prompted by the defection of Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, who the Iraqi government believed would cooperate with UN inspectors and Western governments to provide previously undisclosed information on Iraqi weapons programs.

1998 – Pres. Clinton ordered cruise missile attacks on Sudan and Afghanistan 13 days after the deadly embassy bombings in East Africa. About 50 missiles were fired at the camp of Osama Bin Laden and some 25 missiles against a suspected chemical plant in Khartoum. The plant in Sudan was suspected of producing the chemical EMPTA, one of the ingredients in VX nerve gas, but also an ingredient in fungicides and anti-microbial agents.

1998 – Following its regular 60-day review of trade sanctions against Iraq, the U.N. Security Council decides to extend the sanctions and expresses concern over Iraq’s continuing refusal to cooperate with arms inspectors.

2002 – The Guardian reports that U.S. oil companies have radically reduced imports from Iraq in the past five months amid fears that any military action will disrupt supplies. Iraq exported 69% of its oil to the US a year ago, but the figure has dropped to only 16% since the end of May. Iraqi oil exports have halved overall, dropping from around an average of 2m barrels a day last year to just short of 1m barrels at the end of May.

August 21st ~

1680 – Pueblo Indians took possession of Santa Fe, N.M., after driving out the Spanish. They destroyed almost all of the Spanish churches in Taos and Santa Fe.

1800 – U.S. Marine Corps Band gave its first concert in Washington, D.C.

1814 – Marines defended Washington, DC, at Bladensburg, Maryland, against the British.

1831 – Believing himself chosen by God to lead his people out of slavery, Nat Turner launches a bloody slave insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia. Turner, a slave and educated minister, planned to capture the county armory at Jerusalem, Virginia, and then march 30 miles to Dismal Swamp, where his rebels would be able to elude their pursuers. With seven followers, he slaughtered Joseph Travis, his slave owner, and Travis’ family, and then set off across the countryside, hoping to rally hundreds of slaves to his insurrection en route to Jerusalem. During the next two days and nights, Turner and 75 followers rampaged through Southampton County, killing about 60 whites. Local whites resisted the rebels, and then the state militia–consisting of some 3,000 men–crushed the rebellion. Only a few miles from Jerusalem, Turner and all his followers were dispersed, captured, or killed.

In the aftermath of the rebellion, scores of African Americans were lynched, though many of them were non-participants in the revolt. Turner himself was not captured until the end of October, and after confessing without regret to his role in the bloodshed, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. On November 11, he was hanged in Jerusalem.

1862 – As the economy took a beating from the Civil War, the Treasury Department sprung into action by releasing fractional currency, alternately known as postage currency. The new 5, 10, 25, and 50-cent notes hit the streets on this day.

1863 – The vicious guerilla war in Missouri spills over into Kansas and precipitates one of the most appalling acts of violence during the war when 150 men in the abolitionist town of Lawrence are murdered in a raid by Southern partisans. The Civil War took a very different form in Kansas and Missouri than it did throughout the rest of the nation. There were few regular armies operating there; instead, partisan bands attacked civilians and each other. The roots of conflict in the region dated back to 1854, when the Kansas-Missouri border became ground zero for tension over slavery. While residents of Kansas Territory were trying to decide the issue of slavery, bands from Missouri, a slave state, began attacking abolitionist settlements in the territory. Abolitionists reacted with equal vigor. When the war began, the long heritage of hatred between partisans created unparalleled violence in the area.

1883 – The first installation of electric lights in a US Navy warship took place during the summer.

1867 – After the Civil War settlers rushed to claim lands in the Great Plains. By the mid-1867 the native peoples in Kansas began resisting by attacking settlements, railroad workers and travelers heading west. To help meet this emergency the War Department authorized placing volunteer units on active duty to patrol and protect the settlements. They were soon joined by elements of the U.S. 10th Cavalry. This unit was one of four Regular Army African American regiments composed of all-black enlisted men but almost entirely commanded by white officers. These men are often referred to as the “Buffalo Soldiers”, a nick name given them by the Native American because their hair resembles that of the buffalo.

1920 – Radio station built by U.S. Navy and French Government transmits first wireless message heard around the world. At time it was the most powerful radio station in the world.

1944 – Representatives from the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China meet in the Dumbarton Oaks estate at Georgetown, Washington, D.C., to formulate the formal principles of an organization that will provide collective security on a worldwide basis-an organization that will become the United Nations.

1945 – Japan appeals to Kamikaze pilots to cease operations. A joint statement by the Japanese Imperial headquarters and the government instructs the general public in Japan to go about its business calmly and, according to the official news agency, authorities have forbidden fraternization saying “there will be no direct contact between the general public and the Allied landing forces.”

1945 – Haroutune (Harry) Krikor Daghlian, Jr. (May 4, 1921 – September 15, 1945), an Armenian American physicist with the Manhattan Project, accidentally irradiated himself during a critical mass experiment at the remote Omega Site facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, resulting in his death 25 days later. Daghlian was irradiated as a result of a criticality accident that occurred when he accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a 6.2 kg delta phase plutonium bomb core. This core, available at the close of World War II and later nicknamed the “Demon core”, also resulted in the death of Louis Slotin in a similar accident, and was used in the Able detonation, during the Crossroads series of nuclear weapon testing.

1951 – First contract for nuclear-powered submarine awarded.

1959 – The modern United States receives its crowning star when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs a proclamation admitting Hawaii into the Union as the 50th state. The president also issued an order for an American flag featuring 50 stars arranged in staggered rows: five six-star rows and four five-star rows. The new flag became official July 4, 1960.

1965 – Launch of Gemini 5, piloted by LCDR Charles Conrad Jr., USN, who completed 120 orbits in almost 8 days at an altitude of 349.8 km. Recovery was by helicopter from USS Lake Champlain (CVS-39).

1965 – It is revealed by MACV headquarters (Headquarters Military Assistance Command Vietnam) in Saigon that U.S. pilots have received approval to destroy any Soviet-made missiles they see while raiding North Vietnam. This was a major change from previous orders that restricted them to bombing only previously approved targets.

1968 – William Dana reached 80 km. in the last high-altitude X-15 flight.

1968 – After 5 years Russia once again jammed Voice of America radio.

1968 – Soviet forces invaded Czechoslovakia because of the country’s experiments with a more liberal government.

1968 – James Anderson, Jr. posthumously receives the first Medal of Honor to be awarded to an African American U.S. Marine.

1972 – US orbiting astronomy observatory Copernicus was launched.

1972 – Apollo 16 astronauts John Young and Charles Duke explored the surface of the moon with Boeing Lunar Rover #2.

1987 – Sgt. Clayton Lonetree, the first Marine ever court-martialed for spying, was convicted in Quantico, Va., of passing secrets to the KGB after becoming romantically involved with a Soviet woman while serving as a U.S. Embassy guard in Moscow. Lonetree ended up serving eight years in a military prison, and was released in February 1996.

1989 – The U.S. space probe Voyager 2 fired its thrusters to bring it closer to Neptune’s mysterious moon Triton.

1990 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a speech in which he defended the detaining of foreigners in his country, and promised “a major catastrophe” should fighting break out in the Persian Gulf.

1991 – Just three days after it began, the coup against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev collapses. Despite his success in avoiding removal from office, Gorbachev’s days in power were numbered. The Soviet Union would soon cease to exist as a nation and as a Cold War threat to the United States.

1993 – In a serious setback for NASA, engineers lost contact with the Mars Observer spacecraft on a $980 million mission. Its fate remains unknown.

2001 – The CIA placed Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi under suspicion as part of the investigation in the bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen. The 2 were among the hijackers who commandeered the jet that hit the Pentagon on Sept 11th.

2002 – A new Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket launched a 4-ton French communications satellite into orbit.

2003 – The US military reported that Ali Hassan al-Majid (“Chemical Ali”), No. 5 on the list of most-wanted Iraqis, had been captured.

August 22nd ~

1775 – England’s King George III proclaimed the American colonies in a state of open rebellion.

1777 – With the approach of General Benedict Arnold’s army, British Colonel Barry St. Ledger abandoned Fort Stanwix and returns to Canada.

1816 – The Revenue Cutter Active, under the command of Revenue Captain Steven White and acting under orders of the Collector at Baltimore, took possession of the Spanish brig Servia, recently departed from Baltimore, which was anchored in the Patuxent River. The Servia had been captured by an American privateer and Active was ordered to arrest the Servia and return it to Baltimore for examination.

1846 – The United States annexed New Mexico.

1864 – Twelve nations sign the First Geneva Convention, the first codified international treaty that covered the sick and wounded soldiers in the battlefield.

1902 – President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. chief executive to ride in an automobile in Hartford, Conn.

1911 – President William Taft vetoed a joint resolution of Congress granting statehood to Arizona. Taft vetoed the resolution because he believed a provision in the state constitution authorizing the recall of judges was a blow at the independence of the judiciary. The offending clause was removed an Arizona was admitted to statehood on February 14, 1912. Afterward, the state restored the article in its constitution.

1912 – Birthday of the Navy’s Dental Corps.

1934 – H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of the coalition forces during the Persian Gulf War (1991), was born in Trenton, NJ.

1942 – The 4th Marine Air Wing was commissioned at Ewa, Hawaii, as the 4th Marine Base Defense Air Wing.

1943 – US forces occupy islands of the Ellice group, including Nukufetau and Namumea. There is no Japanese opposition. Work begins on constructing airfields.

1944 – The Liberty ship SS Alexander V. Frazer, named for the “first” commandant of the Revenue Cutter Service, was launched.

1945 – Conflict in Vietnam began when a group of Free French parachute into southern Indochina, in response to a successful coup by communist guerilla Ho Chi Minh.

1945 – The Japanese garrison on Mili Atoll capitulated in a ceremony on an American destroyer escort; USS Levy. This is the first time a Japanese force surrenders en masse.

1950 – During the fighting at the “Bowling Alley” near Tabudong, North Korean Lieutenant Colonel Chong Pong UK, commander of the artillery regiment supporting the North Korean 13th Division, surrendered to the ROK 1st Division. Chong, the highest-ranking communist prisoner to date, gave precise information on the location of his artillery. Eighth Army immediately launched air and artillery strikes on the enemy guns. Chong had defected in protest against what he felt was an unfair reprimand by the 13th Division commander.

1962 – Savannah, world’s 1st nuclear powered ship, completed here maiden voyage from Yorktown, Va., to Savannah, Ga.

1963 – American Joe Walker in an X-15 test plane reaches an altitude of 106 km (66 mi).

1968 – For the first time in two months, Viet Cong forces launch a rocket attack on Saigon, killing 18 and wounding 59. Administration officials denounced the attack as a direct repudiation of President Johnson’s speech of August 19, in which he appealed to the North Vietnamese to respond favorably to his limitation of the air campaign north of the DMZ.

1990 – President Bush signed an order calling up reservists to bolster the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf.

1993 – NASA engineers continued trying, without success, to re-establish contact with the Mars Observer, a day after losing contact.

1993 – In Somalia, six US soldiers are WIA when their truck is blown up.

1994 – The Coast Guard icebreaker Polar Sea and the CCCS Louis S. Ste Laurent became the first “North American surface ships” to reach the North Pole. An HH-65A from Aviation Training Center Mobile, detached to the Polar Sea, became the first U.S. (and also Coast Guard) helicopter to reach the pole as well.

1996 – The US Army began operating an incinerator in Utah to destroy a 14,000 ton stockpile of chemical weapons over 7 years.

1997 – A $64.8 million 890- lb. Lewis satellite was launched by NASA on a hoped-for 5-year mission. It went into an uncontrolled spin on Aug 22 and was expected to fall and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Sept.

1998 – President Clinton, in his Saturday radio address, announced he had signed an executive order putting Osama bin Laden’s Islamic Army on a list of terrorist groups.

2001 – The space shuttle Discovery returned and brought home 3 crew members, Yuri Usachev, Susan Helms, and Jim Voss, who had spent nearly 6 months on the Int’l. Space Station.

2001 – NATO members gave formal approval for alliance soldiers to collect weapons from Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia.

2002 – The US and Russia took away 100 pounds of weapons-grade uranium from an aging nuclear reactor in Belgrade to Russia for re-processing.

2002 – Two US helicopter pilots were reported lost in South Korea. Their bodies were found the next day 13 miles south of Camp Page.

2004 – U.S. warplanes bombed Najaf’s Old City and gunfire rattled amid fears a plan to end the standoff with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could. A car bomb exploded north of Baghdad, killing two people and injuring four others, including a deputy provincial governor.

2007 – The Storm botnet, a botnet created by the Storm Worm, sends out a record 57 million e-mails in one day.

August 23rd ~

1775 – American Revolutionary War: King George III delivers his Proclamation of Rebellion to the Court of St. James’s stating that the American colonies have proceeded to a state of open and avowed rebellion.

1784 – Eastern Tennessee settlers declared their area an independent state and named it Franklin; a year later the Continental Congress rejected it.

1819 – Oliver Hazard Perry, naval hero, died on his 34th birthday.

1820 – The Revenue Cutter Louisiana captured four pirate vessels.

1861 – Allen Pinkerton, head of the new secret service agency of the Federal government, places Confederate spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow under house arrest in Washington, D.C. Greenhow was a wealthy widow living in Washington at the outbreak of the war. She was well connected in the capital and was especially close with Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson. The Maryland native was openly committed to the Southern cause, and she soon formed a substantial spy network. Greenhow’s operation quickly paid dividends for the Confederacy. One of her operatives provided key information to Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard concerning the deployment of Union General Irwin McDowell’s troops before the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. Beauregard later testified that this dispatch, along with further information provided by Greenhow herself, was instrumental in Beauregard’s decision to request additional troops. The move led to a decisive victory by the Rebels.

It did not take the Federals long to track down the leaks in Washington. Pinkerton placed Greenhow under house arrest, and he soon confined other suspected women in her home. However, Greenhow was undeterred. She was allowed visitors, including Senator Wilson, and was able to continue funneling information to the Confederates. Frustrated, Pinkerton finally confined Greenhow and her daughter to the Old Capitol Prison for five months in early 1862. In June 1862, she and her daughter, “Little Rose,” were released and exiled to the South. Greenhow traveled to England and France to drum up support for the Southern cause, and she penned her memoirs while abroad. She returned to the Confederacy in September 1864, but a Yankee war vessel ran her ship aground in North Carolina. Weighted down by a substantial amount of gold, Greenhow’s lifeboat overturned and she drowned.

1863 – A ruthless band of guerillas attacks the town of Lawrence, Kansas, killing every man and boy in sight. Led by William Quantrill and William “Bloody Bill” Anderson, the guerillas were said to have carried out the brutal attack on behalf of the Confederacy. Included in their group was Jesse James’ brother Frank and Cole Younger, who would also play a large role in the James gang later on. Bloody Bill Anderson got his name for his love of shooting unarmed and defenseless people. Reportedly, he carried as many as eight handguns, in addition to a saber and a hatchet. His horse was also outfitted with several rifles and backup pistols. Although he claimed to have political motives for his terrorism, Anderson more likely used the Civil War as an opportunity to kill without repercussion. Jesse James, only 17 at the time, teamed up with Bloody Bill after he split from Quantrill’s band of killers.

On September 24, 1864, their small splinter group terrorized and destroyed most of the town of Centralia, Missouri. They also ambushed a small troop of Union soldiers whose train happened to stop at Centralia. Twenty-five Northern soldiers were stripped and lined up while Anderson and Arch Clement proceeded to shoot each of them down in cold blood, sparing only the sergeant. A month later, Anderson paid for his crimes: He was caught by a full contingent of Union army troops in Missouri and killed in the ensuing battle. Jesse James was never brought to justice by the North for his war crimes and went on to become the 19th century’s most infamous criminal.

1864 – The Geneva Convention of 1864 for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick of Armies in the Field is adopted by 12 nations meeting in Geneva. The agreement, advocated by Swiss humanitarian Jean-Henri Dunant, called for nonpartisan care to the sick and wounded in times of war and provided for the neutrality of medical personnel. It also proposed the use of an international emblem to mark medical personnel and supplies. In honor of Dunant’s nationality, a red cross on a white background–the Swiss flag in reverse–was chosen. In 1901, Dunant was awarded the first Nobel Peace Prize. In 1881, American humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons founded the American National Red Cross, an organization designed to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters in congruence with the International Red Cross.

1889 – The 1st ship-to-shore wireless message was received in US in SF.

1923 – Captain Lowell Smith and Lieutenant John P. Richter performed the first mid-air refueling on De Havilland DH-4B, setting an endurance flight record of 37 hours.

1939 – Lloyd’s of London advanced war-risk rates as the Nazis threatened to invade Poland and Europe braced itself for war. The Dow responded to the news with a 3.25 drop to close the day at 131.82.

1939 – Germany and the Soviet Union sign a non-aggression pact, stunning the world, given their diametrically opposed ideologies. But the dictators were, despite appearances, both playing to their own political needs. After Nazi Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, Britain had to decide to what extent it would intervene should Hitler continue German expansion. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, at first indifferent to Hitler’s capture of the Sudetenland, the German-speaking area of Czechoslovakia, suddenly snapped to life when Poland became threatened. He made it plain that Britain would be obliged to come to the aid of Poland in the event of German invasion.

Both sides were extremely suspicious of the other, trying to discern ulterior motives. But Hitler was in a hurry; he knew if he was to invade Poland it had to be done quickly, before the West could create a unified front. Agreeing basically to carve up parts of Eastern Europe-and leave each other alone in the process-Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, flew to Moscow and signed the non-aggression pact with his Soviet counterpart, V.M. Molotov (which is why the pact is often referred to as the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). Supporters of bolshevism around the world had their heretofore romantic view of “international socialism” ruined; they were outraged that Stalin would enter into any kind of league with the fascist dictator. But once Poland was German-occupied territory, the alliance would not last for long.

1944 – Freckleton Air Disaster; A United States Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bomber crashes into a school in Freckleton, England killing 61 people.

1945 – Clarence V. Bertucci is granted a discharge from the Army and sent to a mental institution for further tests and evaluation. He is responsible for the massacre of German POWs at Camp Salina, Utah on July 8th.

1950 – Up to 77,000 members of the U.S. Army Organized Reserve Corps were called involuntarily to active duty to fight the Korean War.

1951 – The Navy recommissioned the battleship USS Iowa under the command of Captain William R. Smedberg, III.

1954 - First flight of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built originally by Lockheed, now Lockheed Martin. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation, and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in a variety of other roles, including as a gunship (AC-130), for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refueling, maritime patrol, and aerial firefighting. It is now the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over 40 models and variants of the Hercules serve with more than 60 nations. The C-130 entered service with U.S., followed by Australia and others. During its years of service, the Hercules family has participated in numerous military, civilian and humanitarian aid operations.

The family has the longest continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. In 2007, the C-130 became the fifth aircraft—after the English Electric Canberra, Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, Tupolev Tu-95, and Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, all designs with various forms of aviation gas turbine power plants—to mark 50 years of continuous use with its original primary customer, in this case, the United States Air Force. The C-130 is one of the only military aircraft to remain in continuous production for over 50 years with its original customer, as the updated C-130J Super Hercules.

1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1973 – Secretary of Defense Melvin R Laird announces the adoption of the “Total Force Policy” as the new doctrine of American military preparedness. The war in Vietnam has just ended. One of the major conclusions drawn from that experience was that the American people had not supported the war because it was fought without a stated declaration and the Johnson Administration failed to mobilize and use large numbers of Reserve Component (RC) forces, including the National Guard. By conscripting (drafting) individual men for service there is little notice by the larger community. However, when an RC unit is mobilized, often taking dozens to hundreds of personnel at one time, attracting big local headlines and impacting whole communities in numerous ways. Only by having a supportive populous, one backing the effort, can American military objectives be met.

1979 – The keel of the first of the new 270-foot class medium endurance cutters, the CGC Bear, was laid.

1989 – The markets took a nosedive and the Dow lost a hefty 76.73 points just a month after it nearly broke the 3,000 point barrier. The culprit for the decline? Wall Street’s increasing fears about the Persian Gulf crisis, which began in early August when the Iraqi army rolled into the oil-rich territory of its neighbor, Kuwait. Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein openly declared his intention of annexing Kuwait, prompting President George Bush to deride the invasion as an act of “naked aggression.” As Bush and Hussein faced off, oil prices marched upward, in turn triggering the sell-off on Wall Street. Indeed, fears of war and escalating prices were written all over the markets: during the week of the 23rd, the Dow lost 6 percent of its total value.

1990 – US began to call up of 46,000 reservists to the Persian Gulf.

1990 – East and West Germany announced that they would unite Oct 3.

1990 – Iraqi state television showed President Saddam Hussein meeting with a group of about 20 Western detainees, telling the group—whom he described as “guests”—that they were being held “to prevent the scourge of war.”

1991 – Internaut’s day; Tim Berners-Lee opens the WWW, World Wide Web to new users.

1991 – In the wake of a failed coup by hard-liners in the Soviet Union, President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin acted to strip the Communist Party of its power and take control of the army and the KGB.

1993 – The Galileo spacecraft discovers a moon, later named Dactyl, around 243 Ida, the first known asteroid moon.

1994 – A new Coast Guard record for people rescued was set on 23 August 1994 when 3,253 Cubans were rescued from dangerously overloaded craft during Operation Able Vigil.

1994 – Eugene Bullard, one of only two black pilots, and the only black American pilot, in World War I, is posthumously commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force.

1996 – Osama bin Laden issues message entitled ‘A declaration of war against the Americans occupying the land of the two holy places.’

2000 – Boeing made the first successful launch of its Delta III rocket.

2001 – Brian Regan (38), retired US Air Force master sergeant and cryptanalyst, was arrested by the FBI at Dulles Int’l. Airport on charges of spying. In 2002 Regan was accused of trying to spy for Iraq, Libya and China.

2011 – Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is overthrown after the National Transitional Council forces take control of Bab al-Azizia compound during the 2011 Libyan civil war.

August 24th ~

1682 – Duke James of York gave Delaware to William Penn.

1781 – A small force of Pennsylvania militia is ambushed and overwhelmed by an American Indian group, which forces George Rogers Clark to abandon his attempt to attack Detroit.

1814 – British forces under General Robert Ross overwhelm American militiamen at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland, and march unopposed into Washington, D.C. Most congressmen and officials fled the nation’s capital as soon as word came of the American defeat, but President James Madison and his wife, Dolley, escaped just before the invaders arrived. Earlier in the day, President Madison had been present at the Battle of Bladensburg and had at one point actually taken command of one of the few remaining American batteries, thus becoming the first and only president to exercise in actual battle his authority as commander in chief.
The British army entered Washington in the late afternoon, and General Ross and British officers dined that night at the deserted White House. Meanwhile, the British troops, ecstatic that they had captured their enemy’s capital, began setting the city aflame in revenge for the burning of Canadian government buildings by U.S. troops earlier in the war. The White House, a number of federal buildings, and several private homes were destroyed. The still uncompleted Capitol building was also set on fire, and the House of Representatives and the Library of Congress were gutted before a torrential downpour doused the flames. The next day, President Madison returned to a smoking and charred Washington and vowed to rebuild the city. James Hoban, the original architect of the White House, completed reconstruction of the executive mansion in 1817.

1862 – The C.S.S. Alabama was commissioned at sea off Portugal’s Azore Islands, beginning a career that would see over 60 Union merchant vessels sunk or destroyed by the Confederate raider. The ship was built in secret in the in Liverpool shipyards, and a diplomatic crisis between the US government and Britain ensued when the Union uncovered the ship’s birth place.

1863 – General Dabney H. Maury, CSA, reported: “The submarine boat sent to Charleston found that there was not enough water under the Ironsides for her to pass below her keel; therefore they have decided to affix a spike to the bow of the boat, to drive the spike into the Ironsides, then to back out, and by a string to explode the torpedo which was to be attached to the spike.” N. F. Hunley had originally been provided with a floating copper cylinder torpedo with flaring triggers which she could tow some 200 feet astern. The submarine would dive beneath the target ship, surface on the other side, and continue on course until the torpedo struck the ship and exploded. When the method proved unworkable, a spare torpedo containing 90 pounds of powder was affixed to the bow.

1891 – Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera.

1894 – Congress passed the first graduated income tax law, which was declared unconstitutional the next year. It imposed a 2% tax on incomes over $4000.

1909 – Workers started pouring concrete for Panama Canal.

1912 – US passed an anti-gag law giving federal employees the right to petition government.

1912 – By an act of Congress, Alaska was given a territorial legislature of two houses.

1912 – Launching of USS Jupiter, first electrically propelled Navy ship. This collier will later be converted in to the first US Aircraft Carrier, the USS Langly.

1942 – U.S. forces continue to deliver crushing blows to the Japanese, sinking the aircraft carrier Ryuho in the Battle of the East Solomon Islands. Key to the Americans’ success in this battle was the work of coastwatchers, a group of volunteers whose job it is to report on Japanese ship and aircraft movement. The Marines had landed on Guadalcanal, on the Solomon Islands, on August 7. This was the first American offensive maneuver of the war and would deliver the first real defeat to the Japanese.
On August 23, coastwatchers, comprised mostly of Australian and New Zealander volunteers, hidden throughout the Solomon and Bismarck islands and protected by anti-Japanese natives, spotted heavy Japanese reinforcements headed for Guadalcanal. The coastwatchers alerted three U.S. carriers that were within 100 miles of Guadalcanal, which then raced to the scene to intercept the Japanese. By the time the Battle of the Eastern Solomons was over, the Japanese lost a light carrier, a destroyer, and a submarine and the Ryuho. The Americans suffered damage to the USS Enterprise, the most decorated carrier of the war; the Enterprise would see action again, though, in the American landings on Okinawa in 1945.

1945 – The last Cadillac-built M-24 tank was produced on this day, ending the company’s World War II effort. Civilian auto production virtually ceased after the attack on Pearl Harbor, as the U.S. automotive industry turned to war production. Between 1940 and 1945, automotive firms made almost $29 billion worth of military materials, including jeeps, trucks, machine guns, carbines, tanks, helmets, and aerial bombs.

1949 – The North Atlantic Treaty went into effect.

1959 – Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first Chinese-American U.S. Senator... while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American U.S. Representative.

1960 – USS Bexar (APA-237) deploys to Pangahan Province in response to emergency request for aid from the Province’s governor.

1968 – France became the world’s fifth thermonuclear power as it exploded a hydrogen bomb in the South Pacific.

1969 – Peru nationalized US oil interests.

1970 – U.S. B-52s carry out heavy bombing raids along the DMZ. In the United States, a radical protest group calling themselves the New Year’s Gang, a cover for or faction of the Weather Underground, blew up in the Army Mathematics Research Center at the University of Wisconsin Army Mathematics Research Center in Madison. A graduate student who was working late was killed in the blast. The center, which reportedly was involved in war research, had been a focus for protest in the past, but previously protests had all been nonviolent.

1987 – A military jury in Quantico, Va., sentenced Marine Sgt. Clayton Lonetree to 30 years in prison for disclosing U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union. The sentence was later reduced; with additional time off for good behavior, Lonetree ended up serving eight years in a military prison.

1989 – Voyager II passed within three thousand miles of Neptune sending back striking photographs.

1990 – Iraqi troops surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait.

1990 – Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev sent a message to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein warning the Persian Gulf situation was “extremely dangerous.”

1993 – NASA’s Mars Observer, which was supposed to map the surface of Mars, was declared lost.

1995 – Harry Wu, Chinese human rights activist and writer, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by Chinese law and then expelled from China. China expelled Harry Wu, hours after convicting him of spying.

1996 – Four women began two days of academic orientation at The Citadel; they were the first female cadets admitted to the South Carolina military school since Shannon Faulkner.

1998 – The United States and Britain agreed to allow two Libyan suspects in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 to be tried by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.

1998 – In Egypt Abu Nidal was captured after crossing the border from Libya. He had split from the PLO in 1974 and was responsible for terrorist bombings in 1985 at the Rome and Vienna airports and a 1986 hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 as well as a number of assassinations of PLO figures. Egypt denied the report of Nidal’s capture.

2000 – Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz says “Iraq will not cooperate”with UNMOVIC, the body created by the United Nations to replace the former UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). UNMOVIC is headed by Hans Blix ,a Swedish diplomat and arms control expert. Under the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1284 creating UNMOVIC, U.N. economic sanctions could be lifted if Iraq fulfills various conditions, including cooperation with UNMOVIC.

2001 – The United States decides to support a modified British proposal to tighten procedures for pricing Iraqi crude oil. According to reports, Iraq is attempting to price its oil at artificially low levels, and favouring buyers willing to pay surcharges to secret accounts, thereby circumventing United Nations control over Iraqi oil revenue. Britain had proposed that the U.N. and Iraq set prices every 10 days, instead of the current 30days, to make it more difficult for Iraq to exploit fluctuations in the market.

2002 – In the Canary Islands over a dozen beaked whales beached themselves following NATO exercises that involved a cluster of warships and submarines. 9 of the whales washed ashore dead and showed lesions in the brain and hearing system, consistent with acoustic impact...from sonar.

2006 – The International Astronomical Union (IAU) redefines the term “planet” such that Pluto is now considered a dwarf planet.

2104 – The British Ambassador to the US apologizes after a British Embassy tweet: “Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the burning of the White house. Only sparkers this time!” The Twitter message was complete with a photo of a Whitehouse cake with the mentioned sparklers surrounding it.

August 25th ~

1540 – Explorer Hernando de Alarcon traveled up the Colorado River.

1718 – Hundreds of French colonists arrived in Louisiana, with some of them settling in present-day New Orleans.

1765 – In protest over the stamp tax, American colonists sacked and burned the home of Massachusetts governor Thomas Hutchinson.

1814 – British forces destroyed the Library of Congress, containing some 3,000 books.

1829 – Pres. Jackson made an offer to buy Texas, but the Mexican government refused.

1843 – Steam frigate Missouri arrives at Gibralter completing first Trans-Atlantic crossing by U.S. steam powered ship.

1861 – John La Mountain began balloon reconnaissance ascensions at Fort Monroe, Virginia.

1862 – Union and Confederate troops skirmished at Waterloo Bridge, Virginia, during the Second Bull Run Campaign.

1864 – Confederate troops secure a vital supply line into Petersburg, Virginia, when they halt destruction of the Weldon and Petersburg Railroad by Union troops. The railroad, which ran from Weldon, North Carolina, was a major supply line for General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia.

1883 – The signing of a Treaty of Protectorate formally ends Vietnam’s independence. The name ‘Vietnam’ is officially eliminated, and the French divide Vietnam into northern and southern protectorates (Tonkin and Annam, respectively), both tightly under French control, although Annam retains its imperial Vietnamese administration. Southern Vietnam (Cochin China) has been a French colony since 1867. A general uprising in 1885 fails. In the Red River Valley of the north the French begin a period of twelve years of slaughter known as the ‘pacification’ of Tonkin.

1901 – Clara Maass (25), army nurse, sacrificed her life to prove that the mosquito carries yellow fever. Clara Louise Maass lost her life during scientific studies to determine the cause of yellow fever. A graduate of Newark German Hospital Training School for Nurses, she worked as an Army nurse in Florida, Cuba, and the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. In 1900, Maass returned to Cuba at the request of Maj. William Gorgas, chief sanitation officer. There she became embroiled in a controversy over the cause of yellow fever. To determine whether the tropical fever was caused by city filth or the bite of a mosquito, seven volunteers, including Maass, were bitten by the mosquitoes. Two men died, but she survived. Several months later she again volunteered to be bitten, this time suffering severe pain and fever. Maass died of yellow fever at the age of 25. In her memory, Newark German Hospital was renamed Clara Maass Memorial Hospital and in 1952, Cuba issued a national postage stamp in her name. In 1976, the U.S. Postal Service honored Clara Louise Maass with a commemorative stamp.

1921 – The Battle of Blair Mountain, one of the largest civil uprisings in United States history and the largest armed rebellion since the American Civil War, begins. For five days in late August and early September 1921, in Logan County, West Virginia, some 10,000 armed coal miners confronted 3,000 lawmen and strikebreakers, called the Logan Defenders, who were backed by coal mine operators during an attempt by the miners to unionize the southwestern West Virginia coalfields. The battle ended after approximately one million rounds were fired, and the United States Army intervened by presidential order.

1921 – The United States, which never ratified the Versailles Treaty ending World War I, finally signed a peace treaty with Germany.

1944 – After more than four years of Nazi occupation, Paris is liberated by the French 2nd Armored Division and the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. German resistance was light, and General Dietrich von Choltitz, commander of the German garrison, defied an order by Adolf Hitler to blow up Paris’ landmarks and burn the city to the ground before its liberation. Choltitz signed a formal surrender that afternoon, and on August 26, Free French General Charles de Gaulle led a joyous liberation march down the Champs d’Elysees.

1945 – Captain John Birch of the US Army is shot dead in a scuffle with Chinese Communist soldiers. The liberation of China is becoming a race between the rival Nationalist and Communist forces. In the 1950s, Robert Welch would create a right-wing, anticommunist organization called the John Birch Society. For Welch, Birch was “the first casualty in the Third World War between Communists and the ever-shrinking Free World.”

1947 – Marion Carl, US Navy test pilot, set a world speed record of 651 mph in a D-558-I at Muroc Field (later Edwards AFB), Ca. He was shot to death in Oregon by a house robber in 1998 at age 82.

1950 – President Truman ordered the Army to seize control of the nation’s railroads to avert a strike. The railroads were returned to their owners 2 years later.

1950 – Major General William F. Dean, 24th Infantry Division commander, was taken prisoner by the North Koreans after evading capture for 46 days after the fall of Taejon.

1951 – 23 Navy Banshee and Panther fighters from USS Essex (CV-9) escort Air Force heavy bombers attacking Najin, Korea since the target, the rail marshaling yards at Rashin located on the extreme northeast Korean border, was beyond range of land-based fighters.

1971 – The Secretary of Transportation announced the awarding of a contract to the Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company of Seattle, Washington, “to build the world’s most powerful icebreaker for the US Coast Guard,” Polar Star, the first of the Polar-Class of icebreakers.

1981 – The U.S. spacecraft Voyager 2 came within 63,000 miles of Saturn’s cloud cover, sending back pictures and data about the ringed planet.

1985 – STS 51-I was scrubbed at T –9 min because of an onboard computer problem.

1988 – NASA launched space vehicle S-214.

1989 – NASA scientists received stunning photographs of Neptune and its moons from Voyager 2.

1990 – The United Nations gave the world’s navies the right to use force to stop vessels trading with Iraq.

1991 – Linus Torvalds announces the first version of what will become Linux.

1997 – NASA sent a Delta rocket aloft with the Ace solar observatory, Advanced Composition Explorer. The 5-year $110 million project will go into orbit at a point 1 million miles from Earth and 92 million miles from the Sun where the gravity of Earth and Sun balance.

2003 – NASA launched the largest-diameter infrared telescope ever in space. NASA showed the 1st images from the $670 million Spitzer Space Telescope on Dec 18.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina made landfall between Hallandale Beach and Aventura, Florida, as a Category 1 hurricane. Four days later it came ashore again near Empire, Buras and Boothville, Louisiana. The rescue and response effort was one of the largest in Coast Guard history, with 24,135 lives saved and 9,409 evacuations.

2012 – Voyager 1 spacecraft enters interstellar space becoming the first man-made object to do so.