May 1st ~ {continued...}

1863 – As requested by Secretary Mallory, the Confederate Congress enacted legislation “To create a Provisional Navy of the Confederate States.” The object of the act, as explained by Captain Semmes, was . . . without interfering with the rank of the officers in the Regular Navy, to cull out from the navy list, younger and more active men, and put them in the Provisional Navy, with increased rank.

The Regular Navy became, thus, a kind of retired list, and the Secretary of the Navy was enabled to accomplish his object of bringing forward younger officers for active service, without wounding the feelings of the older officers, by promoting their juniors over their heads, on the same list.” At this time the Confederate Congress also provided that: ”. . . all persons serving in the land forces of the Confederate States who shall desire to be transferred to the naval service, and whose transfer as seamen or ordinary seamen shall be applied for by the Secretary of the Navy, shall be transferred from the land to the naval service. . . . The Confederate Navy suffered from an acute shortage of seamen. Mallory complained that the law was not complied with, and that hundreds of men had applied for naval duty but were not transferred.

1864 – Wooden side-wheelers U.S.S. Morse, Lieutenant Commander Babcock, and U.S.S. General Putnam, Acting Master Hugh H. Savage, convoyed 2,500 Army troops up the York River to West Point, Virginia, where the soldiers were landed under the ships’ guns and occupied the town. Another side-wheel steamer, U.S.S. Shawsheen, Acting Master Henry A. Phelon, joined the naval forces later in the day and operated with General Putnam in the Pamunkey River “for covering our troops and resisting any attack which might be made by the enemy.”

Morse patrolled the Mattapony River where, Babcock reported, “my guns would sweep the whole plain before the entrenchments.” Army movements, as Rear Admiral Lee had observed of an earlier plan by Major General Benjamin F. Butler, required “a powerful cooperating naval force to cover his landing, protect his position, and keep open his communications.”

1865 – In Charleston, SC, some 10,000 people paraded to a mass grave site of Union soldiers at a former race track. This was likely the 1st large-scale US Memorial Day event.

1866 – The Memphis Race Riots begin. In three days time, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Memphis riots of 1866 were the violent events that ran until May 3 in Memphis, Tennessee. The racial violence was ignited by political, social and racial tensions following the American Civil War, in the early stages of Reconstruction. After a shooting altercation between white policemen and black soldiers recently mustered out of the Union Army, mobs of white civilians and policemen rampaged through black neighborhoods and the houses of freedmen, attacking and killing men, women and children.

Federal troops were sent to quell the violence and peace was restored on the third day. A subsequent report by a joint Congressional Committee detailed the carnage, with blacks suffering most of the injuries and deaths: 46 blacks and 2 whites were killed, 75 blacks injured, over 100 black persons robbed, 5 black women raped, and 91 homes, 4 churches and 8 schools burned in the black community. Modern estimates place property losses at over $100,000, also suffered mostly by blacks. Many blacks fled the city permanently; by 1870, their population had fallen by one quarter compared to 1865. Public attention following the riots and reports of the atrocities, together with the New Orleans riot in July, strengthened the case made by Radical Republicans in U.S. Congress.

The events influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to grant full citizenship to freedmen, as well as passage of the Reconstruction Act to establish military districts and oversight in certain states. Investigation of the riot suggested specific causes related to competition for housing, work and social space between Irish immigrants and their descendants, and the freedmen. The white gentry also sought to drive freed people out of Memphis and back onto plantations where their labor could be exploited. Through violent terrorism, the white community at large sought to force blacks to respect white supremacy as the time of fully legal slavery was nearing its end.

1867 – Reconstruction in the South began with black voter registration.

1875 – 238 members of “Whiskey Ring” were accused of anti-US activities.

1877 – President Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

1894 – Coxey’s Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C. Coxey’s Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time.

Officially named the Army of the Commonwealth in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression “Enough food to feed Coxey’s Army” originates from this march.

The purpose of the march was to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893 and to lobby for the government to create jobs which would involve building roads and other public works improvements, with workers paid in paper currency which would expand the currency in circulation, consistent with populist ideology. The march originated with 100 men in Massillon, Ohio, on March 25, 1894, passing through Pittsburgh, Becks Run and Homestead, Pennsylvania, in April.

1896 – Mark Clark, American general, was born. He commanded the Fifth Army in Italy during World War II.

1898 – At Manila Bay in the Philippines, the U.S. Asiatic Squadron destroys the Spanish Pacific fleet in the first battle of the Spanish-American War. Nearly 400 Spanish sailors were killed and 10 Spanish warships wrecked or captured at the cost of only six Americans wounded. 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.

In January 1898, violence in Havana led U.S. authorities to order the battleship USS Maine to the city’s port to protect American citizens. On February 15th, a massive explosion of unknown origin sank the Maine in the Havana harbor, killing 260 of the 400 American crewmembers aboard. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March, without much evidence, that the ship was blown up by a mine but did not directly place the blame on Spain. Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible, however, and called for a declaration of war. In April, the U.S. Congress prepared for war, adopting joint congressional resolutions demanding a Spanish withdrawal from Cuba and authorizing President William McKinley to use force.

On April 23rd, President McKinley asked for 125,000 volunteers to fight against Spain. The next day, Spain issued a declaration of war. The United States declared war on April 25. U.S. Commodore George Dewey, in command of the seven-warship U.S. Asiatic Squadron anchored north of Hong Kong, was ordered to “capture or destroy” the Spanish Pacific fleet, which was known to be in the coastal waters of the Spanish-controlled Philippines.

On April 30th, Dewey’s lookouts caught sight of Luzon, the main Philippine island. That night, under cover of darkness and with the lights aboard the U.S. warships extinguished, the squadron slipped by the defensive guns of Corregidor Island and into Manila Bay. After dawn rose, the Americans located the Spanish fleet: 10 out-of-date warships anchored off the Cavite naval station. The U.S. fleet, in comparison, was well armed and well staffed, largely due to the efforts of the energetic assistant secretary of the navy, Theodore Roosevelt, who had also selected Dewey for the command of the Asiatic Squadron.

At 5:41 a.m., at a range of 5,400 yards from the enemy, Commodore Dewey turned to the captain of his flagship, the Olympia, and said, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” Two hours later, the Spanish fleet was decimated, and Dewey ordered a pause in the fighting. He met with his captains and ordered the crews a second breakfast. The four surviving Spanish vessels, trapped in the little harbor at Cavite, refused to surrender, and at 11:15 a.m. fighting resumed. At 12:30 p.m., a signal was sent from the gunboat USS Petrel to Dewey’s flagship: “The enemy has surrendered.”

Dewey’s decisive victory cleared the way for the U.S. occupation of Manila in August and the eventual transfer of the Philippines from Spanish to American control. In Cuba, Spanish forces likewise crumbled in the face of superior U.S. forces, and on August 12th an armistice was signed between Spain and the United States.

In December, the Treaty of Paris officially ended the brief Spanish-American War. The once-proud Spanish empire was virtually dissolved, and the United States gained its first overseas empire. Puerto Rico and Guam were ceded to the United States, the Philippines were bought for $20 million, and Cuba became a U.S. protectorate. Philippine insurgents who fought against Spanish rule during the war immediately turned their guns against the new occupiers, and 10 times more U.S. troops died suppressing the Philippines than in defeating Spain.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

1898 – USRC McCulloch fought under Commodore George Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay. Revenue Captain Daniel B. Hodgson recommended retired at full pay as reward of merit.

1915 – The luxury liner Lusitania left New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe. There were warnings by the German government in NYC newspapers that it regarded the refurbished liner a battle target. She was sunk by a German U-boat six days later.

1915 – A German submarine. U-30, torpedoed the U.S. ship Gulflight I. The American 5,189 ton tanker Gulflight, was built by the New York Shipbuilding Co. of Camden, New Jersey for the Gulf Refining Company (a predecessor of Gulf Oil). It was launched on 8 August 1914. The ship became famous when it was torpedoed early in World War I and became the center of a diplomatic incident which moved the United States closer to war with Germany.

The ship survived the attack but was eventually sunk in 1942 by torpedo attack in World War II. Of the 38 crew, there were three fatalities. The captain had suffered a heart attack and two crew members were reported lost when they jumped overboard after the torpedo hit. She was the first American ship to be torpedoed during World War I, although another ship, the Cushing, had been bombed shortly before, again by mistake because no American markings could be seen from what was then a somewhat novel air attack.

The German government apologized for attacking Gulflight, but refused to change its strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare. A report by the British admiralty into the attack concluded that the German commander had behaved properly according to “Cruiser rules” defined in international law. A merchant ship under escort by military vessels forfeited any right to be warned before being attacked, so the patrol ships had made Gulflight a legitimate target by taking her under escort.

As an American ship, the submarine would not have attacked had he seen her nationality, but apart from an ordinary flag Gulflight was not carrying any additional markings painted on the hull to make clear her nationality, which other ships were then doing. The report also suggested that the tanker being stopped and then slowed down by the accompanying patrol had made her an accessible target. The Admiralty report was not published at the time and official comment did not explain the circumstances.

1921 – The first radio fog signals in the United States were placed in commission on Ambrose Lightship, Fire Island Lightship, and Sea Girt Light Station, NJ.

1925 – Malcolm Scott Carpenter, astronaut (Mercury 7-Aurora 7), was born in Boulder, Colorado.

1927 – Adolf Hitler held the first Nazi meeting in Berlin.

1934 – The Philippine legislature accepted a U.S. proposal for independence.

1937 – President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.

1943 – LT Akers demonstrates blind landing system for Carrier aviation at College Park, MD in OJ-2 aircraft.

1943 – US forces complete the occupation of Hill 609 in “Mousetrap Valley.” The Axis defenses in Tunisia hold American attempts to advance further.

1943 – Food rationing began in US.

1944 – An American force of 7 battleships and 11 destroyers, commanded by Admiral Lee, bombards Ponape. The carriers of Task Group 58.1 (Admiral Clark) provide cover for the operation.

1944 – The Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, the 1st jet bomber, made its first flight.

1945 – Hamburg radio announces that Hitler is dead and that Donitz is the second Fuhrer of the Reich. A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”. The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin. Donitz himself broadcasts, announcing that “it is my duty to save the German people from destruction by Bolshevists.” Meanwhile, in Berlin, Goebbels and his wife commit suicide after poisoning their six children.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

1945 – US Vice Admiral Barbey lands Australian troops on Tarakan Island, Borneo, supported by naval gunfire.

1945 – The US 1st and 9th Armies are firmly established along the line of the Elbe and Mulde rivers. They have been forbidden to advance farther into the zone designated for Soviet occupation. To the south, the US 7th Army presses on into Austria.

1947 – Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.

1948 – The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was proclaimed. The border between North and South Korea was sealed when Kim Il Sung established his communist regime.

1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.

1951 – USS Princeton aircraft attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War. They knocked out two floodgates.

1951 – The first phase of the Chinese offensive was halted north of Seoul.

1952 – Marines took part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada.

1960 – An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel.

Traveling at altitudes of up to 70,000 feet, the aircraft was equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment that could, the CIA boasted, take high-resolution pictures of headlines in Russian newspapers as it flew overhead. Flights over the Soviet Union began in mid-1956. The CIA assured President Eisenhower that the Soviets did not possess anti-aircraft weapons sophisticated enough to shoot down the high-altitude planes.

On May 1st, 1960, a U-2 flight piloted by Francis Gary Powers disappeared while on a flight over Russia. The CIA reassured the president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the U.S. government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but also the captured pilot-very much alive.

A chagrined Eisenhower had to publicly admit that it was indeed a U.S. spy plane. On May 16, a major summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France began in Paris. Issues to be discussed included the status of Berlin and nuclear arms control. As the meeting opened, Khrushchev launched into a tirade against the United States and Eisenhower and then stormed out of the summit. The meeting collapsed immediately and the summit was called off. Eisenhower considered the “stupid U-2 mess” one of the worst debacles of his presidency. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was released in 1962 in exchange for a captured Soviet spy.

1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.

1964 – The 1st BASIC program ran on a computer at Dartmouth.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

1967 – Secretary of State Dean Rusk charges that the North Vietnamese have rejected 28 peace proposals presented by the US and other nations. Rusk asserts that the US acceptance of these proposals and their rejection by Hanoi ‘throw a light…upon the question of who is interested in peace and who is trying to absorb a neighbor by force.’

1968 – In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continued their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.

1969 – The 9th US Marine Regiment begins a two and a half month operation called Virginia Ridge in northern Quangtri Province along the DMZ.

1970 – Protests erupt in Seattle, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.

1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service. Congress passed, and President Richard Nixon signed into law, the Rail Passenger Service Act. Proponents of the bill, led by the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), sought government funding to assure the continuation of passenger trains. They conceived the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC), a hybrid public-private entity that would receive taxpayer funding and assume operation of intercity passenger trains.

The original working brand name for NRPC was Railpax, but shortly before the company started operating it was changed to Amtrak. Any railroad operating intercity passenger service could contract with the NRPC, thereby joining the national system. Participating railroads bought into the NRPC using a formula based on their recent intercity passenger losses. The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock; in exchange, the railroads received NRPC common stock. Any participating railroad was freed of the obligation to operate intercity passenger service after May 1st, 1971, except for those services chosen by the Department of Transportation (DOT) as part of a “basic system” of service and paid for by NRPC using its federal funds.

Railroads that chose not to join the NRPC system were required to continue operating their existing passenger service until 1975 and thenceforth had to pursue the customary ICC approval process for any discontinuance or alteration to the service. Nearly everyone involved expected the experiment to be short-lived. The Nixon administration and many Washington insiders viewed the NRPC as a politically expedient way for the President and Congress to give passenger trains a “last hurrah” as demanded by the public. They expected Amtrak to quietly disappear as public interest waned.

Proponents also hoped that government intervention would be brief, but their view was that Amtrak would soon support itself. Neither view has proved correct. Government subsidy has allowed Amtrak to continue in operation longer than critics imagined. Financial results have made a return to private operation infeasible.

1972 – North Vietnamese troops capture Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital taken during their ongoing offensive. The fall of the city effectively gave the communists control of the entire province of Quang Tri. As the North Vietnamese prepared to continue their attack to the south, 80 percent of Hue’s population–already swollen by 300,000 refugees–fled to Da Nang to get out of the way. Farther south along the coast, three districts of Binh Dinh Province also fell, leaving about one-third of the province under communist control. These attacks were part of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the “Easter Offensive”), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the blow that would win them the war.

1975 – The coalition government in Laos formed a year ago is close to collapse. The North Vietnam supported Pathet Lao continues to fight rightist factions. Demonstrations by students and others are increasingly aimed at US buildings and operations.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

1980 – As the Mariel Boatlift continued, 11 Navy ships begin operations assisting Coast Guard in rescuing Cuban refugees fleeing Cuba in overcrowded boats.

1981 – Senator Harrison A. Williams Junior (D- NJ) was convicted in New York of charges related to the FBI’s “ABSCAM” probe.

1985 – US president Reagan ended embargo against Nicaragua.

1991 – The government of Angola and US-backed guerrillas initialed agreements ending their civil war.

1992 – On the third day of the Los Angeles riots, beaten motorist Rodney King appeared in public to appeal for calm, asking, “Can we all get along?” President Bush delivered a nationally broadcast address in which he vowed to “use whatever force is necessary” to restore order.

1995 – A seminar of international chemical weapons experts convened by UNSCOM concludes that Iraq has not adequately disclosed its past chemical weapons programs.

1997 – In its regular 60-day review, the United Nations Security Council votes again to maintain sanctions on Iraq. This is the37th review since sanctions were first imposed in 1990. This vote, however, does not affect the humanitarian oil sales.

1999 – The Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule flown by Gus Grissom, which sank in 1961, was found 300 miles offshore from Cape Canaveral in waters 3 miles deep.

1999 – President Milosevic ordered the release of 3 captive Americans following the appeal of Rev. Jesse Jackson.

1999 – A NATO strike on a bridge in Kosovo, 12 miles north of Pristina, hit a civilian bus and killed between 34 and 60 people including 15 children.

2000 – The US government began allowing civilian GPS receivers to pick up more accurate satellite signals. The sport of geocaching began 2 days later.

2000 – A US State Dept. annual report on efforts to combat terrorism listed Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria as state sponsors for terrorism. The report indicated a shift from the Middle East to South Asia with Afghanistan and Pakistan listed as threatening.

2000 – In Puerto Rico 2 US warships arrived off the coast of Vieques and some 50 protestors braced for the arrival of federal agents.

2001 – President Bush committed the US to a missile defense shield. He also presented his case for withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.

May 1st ~ {continued...}

2001 – The space shuttle Endeavour landed at Edwards Air Force Base in the Mohave Desert following the installation of the billion-dollar robot arm on the Int’l. Space Station.

2002 – China’s VP Hu Jintao met with Pres. Bush. Jintao said the Taiwan issue could hurt relations and defended China’s record on human rights. They agreed to resume military exchanges.

2003 – President Bush, standing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, a Navy aircraft carrier in San Diego, announced that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” Bush landed on the carrier in a Navy S-3B jet and spoke below a banner that read “Mission Accomplished.”

2003 – Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld visited Afghanistan and declared most of the nation secure. He said the 9,000 US soldiers there were engaged mainly in reconstruction.

2003 – The US Navy withdrew from Vieques Island, Costa Rica.

2003 – Three top members of Saddam Hussein’s ousted regimewere captured: Mizban Khadr Hadi (military commander), Abdel Tawab Mullah Huweish (director of the Office of Military Industrialization and a deputy prime minister in charge of arms procurement), and Taha Muhie-eldin Marouf (a Kurd who served as one of two ceremonial vice presidents).

2003 – The Terrorist Threat Integration Center begins operations.

2004 – In Iraq US top commander Lt. Gen. Sanchez notified 6 officers of his intent to issue a memorandum of reprimand for the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.

2004 – Suspected militants sprayed gunfire inside an oil contractor’s Saudi office, killing at least six people — including two Americans and three other Westerners — and wounding dozens. Police killed four brothers in a shootout after a car chase in which the attackers reportedly dragged the naked body of one victim behind their getaway car.

2007 – First Silver Star Service Banner Day (SSSBD) sponsored by The Silver Star Families of America (SSFOA). SSFOA is a service banner organization dedicated to supporting and assisting our wounded, ill, injured and dying active duty and veterans and their families of ALL branches of service from ALL wars.

May 1st is meant to be a day set aside to honor their service and sacrifice; to bring remembrance to those so deserving of our thanks. Since 2007, SSSBD has been observed by all 50 states (including over 3,000 cities, towns and counties), the District of Columbia and Guam. The day has also been endorsed by Resolutions in the US House of Representatives and the Senate, as well as by the POTUS.

2010 – The Times Square car bombing attempt was a planned terrorist attack which was foiled when two street vendors discovered a car bomb and alerted a New York City Police Department (NYPD) patrolman to the threat after they spotted smoke coming from a vehicle. The bomb had been ignited, but failed to explode, and was disarmed before it caused any casualties.

Two days later, federal agents arrested Faisal Shahzad, a 30-year-old Pakistan-born resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who had become a U.S. citizen in April 2009. He was arrested after he had boarded Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai at John F. Kennedy International Airport. He admitted attempting the car bombing and said that he had trained at a Pakistani terrorist training camp, according to U.S. officials. United States Attorney General Eric Holder said that Shahzad’s intent had been “to kill Americans”.

Shahzad was charged in federal court in Manhattan on May 4th with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and other federal crimes related to explosives. More than a dozen people were arrested by Pakistani officials in connection with the plot. Holder said the Pakistani Taliban directed the attack and may have financed it.

On October 5, 2010, Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to a 10-count indictment in June, including charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting an act of terrorism.

2011 – Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks has been killed by United States special forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Due to the time difference between the United States and Pakistan, bin Laden was actually killed on May 2nd.

2014 – Shinseki places the director of the Phoenix VA and two aides on administrative leave pending the investigation into the veterans’ deaths.

May 2nd ~

1497 – John Cabot departed for North America.

1670 – King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company, made up of the group of French explorers who opened the lucrative North American fur trade to London merchants. The charter conferred on them not only a trading monopoly but also effective control over the vast region surrounding North America’s Hudson Bay. Although contested by other English traders and the French in the region, the Hudson’s Bay Company was highly successful in exploiting what would become eastern Canada.

During the 18th century, the company gained an advantage over the French in the area but was also strongly criticized in Britain for its repeated failures to find a northwest passage out of Hudson Bay. After France’s loss of Canada at the end of the French and Indian Wars, new competition developed with the establishment of the North West Company by Montreal merchants and Scottish traders. As both companies attempted to dominate fur potentials in central and western Canada, violence sometimes erupted, and in 1821 the two companies were amalgamated under the name of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

The united company ruled a vast territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and under the governorship of Sir George Simpson from 1821 to 1856, reached the peak of its fortunes. After Canada was granted dominion status in 1867, the company lost its monopoly on the fur trade, but it had diversified its business ventures and remained Canada’s largest corporation through the 1920s.

1776 – France and Spain agreed to donate arms to American rebels.

1792 – The Second Congress (1791-93) enacted the first Militia Act of 1792, which defined the authority of the President as Commander in Chief, to call out the militia.

1861 – General Winfield Scott wrote to President Lincoln suggesting a cordon capable of enveloping the seceded states and noted that “the transportation of men and all supplies by water is about a fifth of the land cost, besides the immense saving of time.” On the next day Scott elaborated further to General George McClellan: “We rely greatly on the sure operation of a complete blockade of the Atlantic and Gulf ports soon to commence. In connection with such blockade, we propose a powerful movement down the Mississippi to the ocean, with a cordon of posts at proper points . . . the object being to clear out and keep open this great line of communication in connection with the strict blockade of the seaboard, so as to envelop the insurgent States and bring them to terms with less bloodshed than by any other plan.”

The heart of the celebrated Anaconda Plan which would strangle the Confederacy on all sides was control of the sea and inland waterways by the Union Navy; the strategy of victory was (a) strengthen the blockade, (b) split the Confederacy along the line of the Mississippi River, and (c) support land operations by amphibious assault, gunfire. and transport.

1862 – Confederate forces evacuate Yorktown during the Peninsular campaign.

May 2nd ~ {continued...}

1863 – Stonewall Jackson administers a devastating defeat to the Army of the Potomac and is wounded by friendly fire. In one of the most stunning upsets of the war, a vastly outnumbered Army of Northern Virginia sent the Army of the Potomac, commanded by General Joseph Hooker, back to Washington in defeat. Hooker, who headed for Lee’s army confident and numerically superior, had sent part of his force to encounter Lee’s troops at Fredericksburg the day before, while the rest swung west to approach Lee from the rear.

Meanwhile, Lee had left part of his army at Fredericksburg and had taken the rest of his troops to confront Hooker near Chancellorsville. When the armies collided on May 1, Hooker withdrew into a defensive posture. Sensing Hooker’s trepidation, Lee sent Jackson along with 28,000 troops on a swift, 14-mile march around the Union right flank. Splitting his army into three parts in the face of the mighty Army of the Potomac was a bold move, but it paid huge dividends for the Confederates.

Although Union scouts detected the movement as Jackson swung southward, Hooker misinterpreted the maneuver as a retreat. When Jackson’s troops swung back north and into the thick woods west of Hooker’s army, Union pickets reported a possible buildup; but their warnings fell on deaf ears. In the evening of May 2nd, Union soldiers from General Oliver Otis Howard’s 11th Corps were casually cooking their supper and playing cards when waves of forest animals charged from the woods. Behind them were Jackson’s attacking troops. The Federal flank crumbled as Howard’s men were driven back some two miles before stopping the Rebel advance.

Despite the Confederate victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, Union forces soon gained the upper hand in the war in the eastern theater. Scouting in front of the lines as they returned in the dark, Jackson and his aides were fired upon by their own troops. Jackson’s arm was amputated the next morning, and he never recovered. He died from complications a week later, leaving Lee without his most able lieutenant.

1865 – President Johnson offered a $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

1890 – The Oklahoma Territory was organized.

1926 – US military “intervened” in Nicaragua.

1942 – Admiral Chester J. Nimitz, convinced that the Japanese would attack Midway Island, visited the island to review its readiness.

1942 – The Japanese begin the concentration of forces for what will become the battle of the Coral Sea. Their objective is to occupy Port Moresby. Admiral Takagi commands a covering force including the aircraft carriers Zuikaku and Shokaku. Admiral Goto commands the naval support force for the landing, including the carrier Shoho and four heavy cruisers. Admiral Inouye is in command of the main invasion force concentrated at Rabaul.

American code breaking allows Admiral Nimitz to concentrate Allied forces to oppose the Japanese forces. Initially these forces include only Admiral Fletcher’s Task Force 17 with the carrier Yorktown. Later Task Force 11 (Admiral Fitch) with the aircraft carrier Lexington and Task force 44 (Admiral Crace) with Australian and American cruisers.

May 2nd ~ {continued...}

1945 – At noon the German surrender becomes effective. The long, difficult and controversial campaign in Italy is over. Allied forces reach Trieste, Milan and Turin during the course of the day, while others are advancing north toward Brenner Pass where they will link up with US 7th Army forces from the north. Approximately 1 million German soldiers lay down their arms as the terms of the German unconditional surrender, signed at Caserta on April 29th, come into effect.

Many Germans surrender to Japanese American soldiers. Among the American tank crews that entered the northern Italian town of Biella was an all-Nisei (second-generation) infantry battalion, composed of Japanese Americans from Hawaii. Early that same day, Russian Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov accepts the surrender of the German capital. The Red Army takes 134,000 German soldiers prisoner.

1945 – The US 14th Corps units advancing west along the Bicol Peninsula of Luzon link up, near Naga, with units from the Legaspi area that have moved east. On this part of the island, Japanese forces have now been scattered.

1945 – The Soviet Union announces the capture of Berlin and Soviet soldiers hoist their red flag over the Reichstag building.

1946 – Marines from Treasure Island Marine Barracks, under the command of Warrant Officer Charles L. Buckner, aided in suppressing the three-day prison riot at Alcatraz Penitentiary in San Francisco Bay. WO Buckner, a veteran of the Bougainville and Guam campaigns, ably led his force of Marines without suffering a single casualty.

The Battle of Alcatraz, which lasted until May 4th, was the result of an unsuccessful escape attempt at Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary. Two guards—William A. Miller and Harold Stites—were killed along with three of the inmates. Eleven guards and one convict were also injured. Two of the surviving convicts were later executed for their roles.

1952 – The communists rejected U.N. proposals over questions of voluntary repatriation and proposed to withdraw the nomination of the Soviet Union from the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission if the U.N. Command agreed the forcible repatriation of 132,000 prisoners in exchange for 12,000 held by the communists. Admiral C. Turner Joy, chief UNC delegate at the armistice negotiations, rejected the proposal on behalf of the U.N. Command.

1964 – An explosion of a charge assumed to have been placed by Viet Cong terrorists sinks the USNS Card at its dock in Saigon. No one was injured and the ship was eventually raised and repaired. The Card, an escort carrier being used as an aircraft and helicopter ferry, had arrived in Saigon on April 30th.

1965 – A Peking radio broadcast charges that the USSR has joined the “US aggressors” in a “peace negotiation swindle.” Reportedly the Soviets are backing some kind of peace conference before the total withdrawal of US forces.

1966 – In a speech before the US Chamber of Commerce, Defense Secretary McNamara reports that North Vietnmese infiltration of the South is up to 4500 men a month–three times the 1965 level.

1967 – Communist MiG bases at Kep, 37 miles northeast of Hanoi, are bombed. Pilots report heavy damage.

1968 – The U.S. Army attacked Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and began a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.

May 2nd ~ {continued...}

1970 – American and South Vietnamese forces continue the attack into Cambodia that began on April 29. This limited “incursion” into Cambodia (as it was described by Richard Nixon) included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The operation began on April 29 with South Vietnamese forces moving into what was known as the “Parrot’s Beak,” the area of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta.

During the first two days of the operation, an 8,000-man South Vietnamese task force, including elements of two infantry divisions plus four ranger battalions and four armored cavalry squadrons, killed 84 communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and 157 wounded. The second stage of the campaign began on May 2nd with a series of joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operations aimed at clearing communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated “Fishhook” area of Cambodia (across the border from South Vietnam, 70 miles from Saigon).

The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with the South Vietnamese 3rd Airborne Brigade, killed 3,190 communists in the action and captured massive amounts of war materiel, including 2,000 individual and crew-served weapons, 300 trucks, and 40 tons of foodstuffs.

By the time all U.S. ground forces departed Cambodia on June 30, the Allied forces had discovered and captured or destroyed 10 times more enemy supplies and equipment than they had captured inside South Vietnam during the entire previous year. Many intelligence analysts at the time believed that the Cambodian incursion dealt a stunning blow to the communists, driving main force units away from the border and damaging their morale, and in the process buying as much as a year for South Vietnam’s survival.

However, the incursion gave the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the operation set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the deaths of four students at the hands of Army National Guard troops. Another protest at Jackson State in Mississippi resulted in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory.

The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would thenceforth severely limit the executive power of the president.

1970 – Student anti-war protesters at Ohio’s Kent State University burned down the campus ROTC building. Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes ordered in the National Guard to take control of the campus.

1970 – Alexander Haig, deputy to presidential assistant Henry Kissinger, requests FBI wiretaps on New York Times reporter William Beecher, Secretary of Defense laird’s military assistant Robert Pursley, State Department counselor Richard Peterson, and Assistant Secretary of State William H. Sullivan. The wiretaps will remain in place until the following February.

1972 – The South Vietnamese 3rd Division, protecting Quangtri Province, panics and collapses within a week. The entire defense north of Hue is left to one brigade of South Vietnamese Marines.

1972 – Secret negotiations between Kissinger, Le Duc Tho, and Xuan Thuy resume in Paris, but with no result. They will meet again sporadically throughout the year.

1975 – US Navy departs Vietnamese waters at the end of the evacuation.

May 2nd ~ {continued...}

1992 – Los Angeles began to recover from rioting that had erupted in the wake of the Rodney King-taped beating acquittals; about 2,800 National Guard troops patrolled the city while 3,200 stood by.

1992 – Iraq admits to having had a “defensive” biological weapons program.

1996 – UNSCOM supervises the destruction of Al-Hakam, Iraq’s main biological weapons facility.

1997 – A new national memorial honoring Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt was officially opened in Washington, D.C., and was dedicated by President Clinton.

1997 – In Texas Robert Scheidt surrendered to police and left behind 7 people of the Republic of Texas under the leadership of Richard McLaren. The number of separatists was reduced to 7 from an earlier estimate of 13.

1999 – A US F-16 went down over western Serbia on the 39th night of air strikes. Allied forces rescued the pilot.

1999 – Yugoslav authorities handed over to the Rev. Jesse Jackson three American prisoners of war who had been held for 32 days.

1999 – NATO bombings struck the Obrenovac power plant in Belgrade and blacked out large areas of Serbia. A soft bomb (KIT-18) sprayed graphite over the power station and shorted its circuits. A metal works factory in Valjevo was hit and missile hit Mitrovica where one woman was killed and several civilians wounded.

2000 – President Bill Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the United States military.

2001 – In China US technical experts examined the US spy plane on Hainan Island.

2002 – A report on Iraq’s oil sales showed that illegal surcharges allowed Iraq to siphon off large amounts for its war chest.

2004 – American hostage Thomas Hamill, kidnapped three weeks ago in an insurgent attack on his convoy, was found by U.S. forces south of Tikrit after he apparently escaped from his captors.

2011 – Osama bin Laden, the founder and head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan shortly after 1:00 am PKT (20:00 UTC, May 1) by U.S. Navy SEALs of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group (also known as DEVGRU or SEAL Team Six).

The operation, code-named Operation Neptune Spear, was carried out in a Central Intelligence Agency-led operation. In addition to DEVGRU, participating units included the U.S. Army Special Operations Command’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) and CIA operatives. The raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan.

After the raid, U.S. forces took bin Laden’s body to Afghanistan for identification, then buried it at sea within 24 hours of his death. The United States had direct evidence that Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, knew of bin Laden’s presence in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Al-Qaeda confirmed the death on May 6th with posts made on militant websites, vowing to avenge the killing.

2013 – North Korea sentences American Kenneth Bae to 15 years of prison labor for “hostile acts” against the regime. The United States calls for amnesty.

May 3rd ~

1662 – John Winthrop the Younger, the son of the first governor of Massachusetts was honored by being made a fellow of the Royal Society, England’s new scientific society. Winthrop gained a new charter from the king, uniting the colonies of Connecticut and New Haven.

1783 – The 2nd Continental Light Dragoons and the 5th Connecticut Regiment, Continental Line, left the Continental Cantonment at New Windsor and reported to the nearby headquarters of Washington at the Hasbrouck House in Newburgh. There, before a guard mount of the 1st New York, the Commander-in-Chief awarded Sergeant Elijah Churchill and Sergeant William Brown their Badges of Military Merit.

Surviving records for the period confirm the presentation of only one other Badge of Military Merit, and the decoration was not used at all after the end of the Revolutionary War. It was revived in February 1932 as the Purple Heart out of respect to Washington’s memory and to his military achievements. The ceremony, however, symbolized much more than recognition of two brave men. Brown, a veteran of 18, had won praise for his bravery in the storming of Stony Point in 1779 and now was cited for gallantry in the trenches before Yorktown.

Churchill had distinguished himself during attacks against two forts on Long Island. It represented the climax of the molding of a citizen army of volunteers and militia into a force that had fought on equal terms with one of the world’s best armies, and in doing so, had played a vital role securing freedom and independence for themselves and their fellow citizens.

1802 – Washington, D.C., was incorporated as a city, with the mayor appointed by the president and the council elected by property owners.

1821 – The Richmond [Virginia] Light Artillery was organized.

1855 – American adventurer William Walker departs from San Francisco with about 60 men to conquer Nicaragua. William Walker was an American lawyer, journalist and adventurer, who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America, with the intention of establishing English-speaking colonies under his personal control, an enterprise then known as “filibustering.” Walker became president of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.

1861 – Lincoln asked for 42,000 Army Volunteers and another 18,000 seamen.

1863 – Stonewall Jackson’s arm was amputated and buried. Jackson told his medical director, Dr. Hunter McGuire, “If the enemy does come, I am not afraid of them; I have always been kind to their wounded, and I am sure they will be kind to me.” His words followed an order from Robert E. Lee to move Jackson to Guiney’s Station, fearing that nearby Federal troops might capture him. Following perhaps his greatest performance, leading a brilliant flanking maneuver against Union Major General Joseph Hooker at Chancellorsville, he was mistakenly shot by his own troops while scouting ahead of their lines after dark. Jackson sustained severe wounds to the left arm and minor wounds to the right hand that later led to his death.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1863 – General Joseph Hooker and the Army of the Potomac abandon a key hill on the Chancellorsville battlefield. The Union army was reeling after Stonewall Jackson’s troops swung around the Union right flank and stormed out of the woods on the evening of May 2nd, causing the Federals to retreat some two miles before stopping the Confederate advance.

Nonetheless, Hooker’s forces were still in a position to deal a serious defeat to Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia because they had a numerical advantage and a strategic position between Lee’s divided forces. But Lee had Hooker psychologically beaten. Union forces controlled the key geographical feature in the Chancellorsville area: Hazel Grove, a hill that provided a prime artillery location.

General J.E.B. Stuart, the head of the Confederate cavalry, assumed temporary command of Stonewall Jackson’s corps after Jackson was wounded the night before (a wound that proved fatal a week later) and planned to attack Hazel Grove the next morning. This move was made much easier when Hooker made the crucial mistake of ordering an evacuation of the decisive hill. Once Stuart’s artillery occupied Hazel Grove, the Confederates proceeded to wreak havoc on the Union lines around Chancellorsville. Rebel cannons shelled the Union line, and the fighting resulted in more Union casualties than Jackson’s attack the day before.

Hooker himself was wounded when an artillery shell struck the column he was leaning against. Stunned, Hooker took a shot of brandy and ordered the retreat from the Chancellorsville area, which allowed Jackson’s men to rejoin the bulk of Lee’s troops. The daring flanking maneuver had worked. Hooker had failed to exploit the divided Army of Northern Virginia, and allowed the smaller Rebel force to defeat his numerically superior force.

1863 – Having paved the way for a final assault on Grand Gulf with the attack of 29 April, Rear Admiral Porter once again moved his gunboats against the strong Confederate batteries. The Southerners, however, finding their position totally untenable, Grant having taken his army into the country back of Grand Gulf, had evacuated. The great land-sea pincer could now close on Vicksburg.

1885 – The US Navy transferred the USS Bear to the Revenue Cutter Service. The Bear became one of the most famous cutters to sail under the Revenue Cutter & Coast Guard ensigns.

1898 – Lt Dion Williams and Marines from the USS Baltimore raised the American flag over Cavite, Philippines.

1923 – The 1st non-stop flight across the US was made. Army lieutenants Kelly and Macready flew from New York to San Diego.

1926 – U.S. marines landed in Nicaragua and remained until 1933.

1942 – Executive Order 9066, signed by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, was issued by Lt. Gen’l. John DeWitt from his headquarters in the SF Presidio. It called for the evacuation of Japanese-Americans from Los Angeles effective May 9. Some 110,000-112,000 Japanese-Americans were settled in 10 relocation camps, the first of which was in Manzanar in Owens Valley, Ca. In the Bay Area most Japanese-Americans were sent to the Tanforan racetrack where they were put up in stables and later relocated to Topaz, Utah.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1942 – The first day of the first modern naval engagement in history, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, a Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan’s defensive perimeter. The United States, having broken Japan’s secret war code and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada. Four days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 Americans warplanes destroyed.

This confrontation, called the Battle of the Coral Sea, marked the first air-naval battle in history, as none of the carriers fired at each other, allowing the planes taking off from their decks to do the battling. Among the casualties was the American carrier Lexington; “the Blue Ghost” (so-called because it was not camouflaged like other carriers) suffered such extensive aerial damage that it had to be sunk by its own crew.

Two hundred sixteen Lexington crewmen died as a result of the Japanese aerial bombardment. Although Japan would go on to occupy all of the Solomon Islands, its victory was a Pyrrhic one: The cost in experienced pilots and aircraft carriers was so great that Japan had to cancel its expedition to Port Moresby, Papua, as well as other South Pacific targets.

1943 – US General Devers is appointed to Commander in Chief of the American European Theater Command after General Andrews is killed in an airplane accident.

1943 – In Tunisia, the US 1st Division break out of “Mousetrap Valley” and capture Mateur. An improvised Axis defensive line prevents further progress.

1944 – Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the United States.

1944 – An acoustic torpedo fired by the U-371 hit and destroyed the stern of the Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Menges while she was escorting a convoy in the Mediterranean, killing thirty-one of her crew. The USS Menges was later repaired and returned to service. She assisted in the sinking of the U-866 on 19th March 1945.

1944 – Japanese Admiral Toyoda is designated Commander in Chief of the Combined Fleet. He replaces Admiral Koga who was killed on March 31st.

1944 – The production of synthetic quinine (anti-malarial) by young Harvard scientists Woodward and Doering is announced in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1945 – Allies arrested German nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg.

1945 – Soviet forces have now reached the Elbe west of Berlin and made contact with US 1st and 9th Armies and in the north with the British 2nd Army. Fighting in Berlin ends.

1945 – In Austria, Innsbruck falls to the US 7th Army while other units advance near Salzburg.

1945 – American naval forces commanded by Admiral Noble land 1000 troops near Santa Cruz in the Gulf of Davao, on Mindanao. Davao City is taken by US 24th Division units.

1945 – On Okinawa, Japanese forces launch a counteroffensive from positions in the south, during the night (May 3-4), but fail to break through the American lines. Japanese artillery batteries, that have remained silent until now to avoid American retaliation, support the assaults.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1946 – In Tokyo, Japan, the International Military Tribunals for the Far East begins hearing the case against 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II. On November 4, 1948, the trial ended with 25 of 28 Japanese defendants being found guilty. Of the three other defendants, two had died during the lengthy trial, and one was declared insane.

On November 12th, the war crimes tribunal passed death sentences on seven of the men, including General Hideki Tojo, who served as Japanese premier during the war, and others principles, such as Iwane Matsui, who organized the Rape of Nanking, and Heitaro Kimura, who brutalized Allied prisoners of war. Sixteen others were sentenced to life imprisonment, and two were sentenced to lesser terms in prison.

On December 23, 1948, Tojo and the six others were executed in Tokyo. Unlike the Nuremberg trial of Nazi war criminals, where there were four chief prosecutors, to represent Great Britain, France, the United States, and the USSR, the Tokyo trial featured only one chief prosecutor–American Joseph B. Keenan, a former assistant to the U.S. attorney general. However, other nations, especially China, contributed to the proceedings, and Australian judge William Flood Webb presided. In addition to the central Tokyo trial, various tribunals sitting outside Japan judged some 5,000 Japanese guilty of war crimes, of whom more than 900 were executed.

Some observers thought that Emperor Hirohito should have been tried for his tacit approval of Japanese policy during the war, but he was protected by U.S. authorities who saw him as a symbol of Japanese unity and conservatism, both favorable traits in the postwar U.S. view.

1947 – Japan’s postwar constitution goes into effect. The progressive constitution granted universal suffrage, stripped Emperor Hirohito of all but symbolic power, stipulated a bill of rights, abolished peerage, and outlawed Japan’s right to make war. The document was largely the work of Supreme Allied Commander Douglas MacArthur and his occupation staff, who had prepared the draft in February 1946 after a Japanese attempt was deemed unacceptable.

As the defender of the Philippines from 1941 to 1942, and commander of Allied forces in the Southwest Pacific theater from 1942 to 1945, Douglas MacArthur was the most acclaimed American general in the war against Japan. On September 2nd, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, he presided over the official surrender of Japan. According to the terms of surrender, Emperor Hirohito and the Japanese government were subject to the authority of the Supreme Commander for Allied Powers in occupied Japan, a post filled by General MacArthur.

On September 8th, Supreme Commander MacArthur made his way by automobile through the ruins of Tokyo to the American embassy, which would be his home for the next five and a half years. The occupation was to be a nominally Allied enterprise, but increasing Cold War division left Japan firmly in the American sphere of influence. From his General Headquarters, which overlooked the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo, MacArthur presided over an extremely productive reconstruction of Japanese government, industry, and society along American models.

MacArthur was a gifted administrator, and his progressive reforms were for the most part welcomed by the Japanese people. The most important reform carried out by the American occupation was the establishment of a new constitution to replace the 1889 Meiji Constitution. In early 1946, the Japanese government submitted a draft for a new constitution to the General Headquarters, but it was rejected for being too conservative. MacArthur ordered his young staff to draft their own version in one week.

The document, submitted to the Japanese government on February 13, 1946, protected the civil liberties MacArthur had introduced and preserved the emperor, though he was stripped of power. Article 9 forbade the Japanese ever to wage war again. Before Japan’s defeat, Emperor Hirohito was officially regarded as Japan’s absolute ruler and a quasi-divine figure. Although his authority was sharply limited in practice, he was consulted with by the Japanese government and approved of its expansionist policies from 1931 through World War II. Hirohito feared, with good reason, that he might be indicted as a war criminal and the Japanese imperial house abolished.

MacArthur’s constitution at least preserved the emperor as the “symbol of the state and of the unity of the people,” so Hirohito offered his support. Many conservatives in the government were less enthusiastic, but on April 10, 1946, the new constitution was endorsed in popular elections that allowed Japanese women to vote for the first time. The final draft, slightly revised by the Japanese government, was made public one week later.

On November 3rd, it was promulgated by the Diet–the Japanese parliament–and on May 3, 1947, it came into force. In 1948, Yoshida Shigeru’s election as prime minister ushered in the Yoshida era, marked by political stability and rapid economic growth in Japan. In 1949, MacArthur gave up much of his authority to the Japanese government, and in September 1951 the United States and 48 other nations signed a formal peace treaty with Japan. On April 28, 1952, the treaty went into effect, and Japan assumed full sovereignty as the Allied occupation came to an end.

1949 – First Navy firing of a high altitude Viking rocket at White Sands, NM.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1951 – The U.S. Navy’s Air Group 19 conducted an air strike on the Hwachon Dam with 12 flack-suppressing F4U Corsairs and eight AD3 Skyraiders armed with Mark-13 aerial torpedoes. This was the first use of these weapons since World War II.

1951 – The Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees, meeting in closed session, begin their hearings into the dismissal of Gen. Douglas MacArthur by President Harry S. Truman. The hearings served as a sounding board for MacArthur and his extremist views on how the Cold War should be fought. General MacArthur served as commander of U.S. forces during the Korean War until 1951. In late 1950 he made a serious strategic blunder when he dismissed warnings that the People’s Republic of China would enter the conflict on the side of its communist ally, North Korea.

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese troops smashed into the American lines in November 1950, driving the U.S. troops back with heavy losses. MacArthur, who had earlier complained about President Truman’s handling of the war, now went on an all-out public relations attack against the president and his Cold War policies. In numerous public statements and interviews, General MacArthur criticized Truman’s timidity. He also asked for permission to carry out bombing attacks against China and to expand the war. President Truman flatly refused, believing that expanding the war would lead to a possible confrontation with the Soviet Union and World War III.

On April 11, 1951, President Truman removed MacArthur from his command. Though Truman clearly did not appreciate MacArthur’s approach, the American public liked his tough stance on communism, and he returned home to a hero’s welcome. On May 3, 1951, just a few days after MacArthur’s return to the United States, the Senate Armed Forces and Foreign Relations Committees began hearings into his dismissal. Partisan politics played a significant role in the hearings, which were instigated by Republican senators eager to discredit the Democratic administration of Harry Truman.

MacArthur was the featured witness, and he spoke for more than six hours at the opening session of the hearings. He condemned Truman’s Cold War foreign policy, arguing that if the president’s “inhibitions” about the war in Korea had been removed the conflict could have been “wound up” without a “very great additional complement of ground troops.” He went on to suggest that only through a strategy of complete military destruction of the communist empire could the U.S. hope to win the Cold War.

The hearings ended after seven weeks, with no definite conclusions reached about MacArthur’s dismissal. However, the general’s extremist stance and intemperate statements concerning the need for an expanded conflict against communism during the hearings soon eroded his popularity with the American public. MacArthur attempted to garner the Republican presidential nomination in 1952, but lost to the more moderate campaign of another famed military leader, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1952 – A ski-modified U.S. Air Force C-47 piloted by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher of Oklahoma and Lieutenant Colonel William P. Benedict of California becomes the first aircraft to land on the North Pole. A moment later, Fletcher climbed out of the plane and walked to the exact geographic North Pole, probably the first person in history to do so.

In the early 20th century, American explorers Robert Peary and Dr. Frederick Cook, both claiming to have separately reached the North Pole by land, publicly disputed each other’s claims. In 1911, Congress formally recognized Peary’s claim. In recent years, further studies of the conflicting claims suggest that neither expedition reached the exact North Pole, but that Peary came far closer, falling perhaps 30 miles short. In 1952, Lieutenant Colonel Fletcher was the first person to undisputedly stand on the North Pole. Standing alongside Fletcher on the top of the world was Dr. Albert P. Crary, a scientist who in 1961 traveled to the South Pole by motorized vehicle, becoming the first person in history to have stood on both poles.

1952 – Air Force Captain Robert T. Latshaw, Jr., 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, and Major Donald E. Adams, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 13th and 14th jet aces of the Korean War, shooting down five enemy aircraft each.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1959 – Former President Harry S Truman, who was a Guard captain commanding Battery D, 129th Field Artillery from Missouri during World War I, is the honored guest at the dedication of the new National Guard Association “Memorial” on Capital Hill. The Association, organized in 1879, is a private organization with membership restricted to National Guard officers (active and retired), and represents Guard political and financial interests to members of Congress on actions prohibited by federal law for the Guard Bureau to pursue. To share information with its membership in 1947 the Association began publishing The National Guardsman (today National Guard) magazine. Over the years it taken upon itself the secondary mission of telling the Guard’s history through the “National Guard Memorial Museum” which is open free of charge to the public.

1964 – While the sinking of the USS Card had resulted in no injuries, 8 US service members are wounded when an insurgent throws a grenade into the crowd viewing the sunken hulk at dockside.

1965 – The lead element of the 173rd Airborne Brigade (“Sky Soldiers”), stationed in Okinawa, departs for South Vietnam. It was the first U.S. Army ground combat unit committed to the war. Combat elements of the 173rd Airborne Brigade included the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Battalions, 503rd Infantry; the 3rd Battalion, 319th Airborne Artillery; Company D, 16th Armor; Troop E, 17th Cavalry; and the 335th Aviation company. Headquartered at Bien Hoa Air Base near Saigon, the Brigade conducted operations to keep communist forces away from the Saigon-Bien Hoa complex.

In February 1967, the Brigade conducted a combat parachute jump into a major communist base area to the north of Saigon near the Cambodian border. In November 1967, the Brigade was ordered to the Central Highlands, where they fought a major battle at Dak To against an entrenched North Vietnamese Army regiment on Hill 875. In some of the most brutal fighting of the war, the paratroopers captured the hill on Thanksgiving Day, winning the Presidential Unit Citation for bravery in action.

After more than six years on the battlefield, the Brigade was withdrawn from Vietnam in August 1971. During combat service, they suffered 1,606 killed in action and 8,435 wounded in action. Twelve paratroopers of the 173rd won the Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery in battle.

1968 – After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.

1968 – At Phan Rang Air Base, Vietnam, Colorado’s 120th Tactical Fighter Squadron becomes the first Air Guard unit to arrive in Vietnam, less than four months after mobilization. Flying F-100C Super Sabre aircraft it, like the other three mobilized Air Guard units to serve in Vietnam, will primarily conduct low-level ground support missions in coordination with American and South Vietnamese units operating in South Vietnam. These include precision bombing plus machine gun and rocket attacks on enemy emplacements and troop concentrations.

1968 – After 34 days of discussions to select a site, the United States and North Vietnam agree to begin formal negotiations in Paris on May 10, or shortly thereafter. Hanoi disclosed that ex-Foreign Minister Xuan Thuy would head the North Vietnamese delegation at the talks. Ambassador W. Averell Harriman was named as his U.S. counterpart. The start of negotiations brought a flurry of hope that the war might be settled quickly. Instead, the talks rapidly degenerated into a dreary ritual of weekly sessions, during which both sides repeated long-standing positions without seeming to come close to any agreement.

May 3rd ~ {continued...}

1986 – In NASA’s first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff, forcing safety officers to destroy it by remote control.

1992 – In Los Angeles, soldiers continued to patrol streets and guard fire-gutted and ransacked stores in the wake of rioting that erupted following the Rodney King-taped beating acquittals.

1993 – American sailor Terry M. Helvey confessed to stomping to death Allen Schindler, a homosexual shipmate, but told his court-martial in Japan that he was drunk and did not plan the killing. Helvey was later sentenced to life in prison.

1996 – A weak compromise treaty was passed in Geneva that aimed to phase out non-detectable plastic mines, and introduced rules to limit the lifespan of anti-personnel mines planted outside marked fields to 3 months. The new treaty will go into effect once it is signed by 20 countries and revised an outdated 1980 weapons protocol signed by 57 nations. It has few enforcement provisions. An international conference in Geneva ended 30 months of arduous negotiations over whether to ban land mines with a weak compromise treaty giving countries nine years to switch to detectable, self-destructive devices.

1997 – A group of Texas separatists ended a weeklong standoff with authorities; however, two armed followers fled into the woods. One was killed, the other eventually captured.

1998 – The Columbia Space Shuttle landed at Cape Canaveral after a 16-day mission. The mission studied the effects of space travel on neurological development in nearly 2000 animals.

1999 – President Clinton said that he would support a bombing pause if he was convinced that the Yugoslav crackdown on Kosovo guerrillas and civilians was ending and that Serbian forces were being withdrawn.

1999 – US jets attacked Iraqi air defense sites. Iraqi news reported 2 civilians killed and 12 injured north of Mosul.

1999 – The Justice and Treasury departments agreed to unfreeze the assets of Saleh Idris, the owner of the Sudanese factory that was bombed by US cruise missiles August 20, 1998.

1999 – NATO jets hit a bus in Kosovo and killed about 20 people.

2000 – General Wesley Clark left his post as NATO’s supreme allied commander. He was replaced by General Joseph Ralston.

2000 – The trial of two alleged Libyan intelligence agents accused of blowing Pan Am Flight 103 out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 opened in the Netherlands. In January 2001, one of the defendants, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, was convicted of murder; the other defendant, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, was acquitted.

2001 – US federal agents broke up a smuggling ring that brought hundreds of Ukrainians into the US through Mexico.

2002 – UNMOVIC and Iraqi officials hold talks. The United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan says these are the first talks to take place at a technical level since December 1998.

2003 – In Baghdad, Iraq, schools re-opened for the 1st time since the start of war.

2004 – Militiamen pounded a U.S. base in the most intense attacks yet on U.S. troops in the Shiite city of Najaf. US troops killed 20 Shiite militiamen in Najaf. Insurgents opened fire in the Baghdad, killing one American soldier and wounding two others.

2011 – The US Army Corps of Engineers blasts a hole in two levees along the Mississippi River, flooding some 200 square miles (520 km2) of Missouri farmland in an effort to save the town of Cairo, Illinois further downriver from record-breaking flood waters.

May 4th ~

1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on what is now Manhattan Island. Peter Minuit became director-general of New Netherlands. Indians sold Manhattan Island for $24 (1839 dollars) in cloth and buttons. The 1999 value would be $345. The site of the deal was later marked by Peter Minuit Plaza at South Street and Whitehall Street.

1776 – Rhode Island declared its freedom from England, two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

1862 – Battle at Williamsburg, Virginia.

1862 – Boat crew from U.S.S. Wachusett, Commander W. Smith, raised United States flag at Gloucester Point, Virginia, after General McClellan’s troops occupied Yorktown; two Confederate schooners were captured.

1863 – Battle of Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.

1863 – War correspondents Richard T. Colburn, Junius H. Brown and Albert Dean Richardson were captured enroute to Grant’s headquarters by a Confederate patrol near Vicksburg, Miss. Colburn was soon released but Brown and Richardson were sent to Libby Prison in Richmond, Va., and later to Salisbury Prison in North Carolina. They managed to escape in Dec 1864 and arrived in Knoxville, Tenn., on Jan 13, 1865.

1863 – Porter departed Grand Gulf with his gunboat squadron and rendezvoused that evening with the Farragut fleet at the mouth of the Red River. After obtaining supplies, he proceeded up the River the next day with U.S.S. Benton, Lafayette, Pittsburg, Sterling Price, ram Switzerland, and tug Ivy. U.S.S. Estrella and Arina joined en route. The evening of 5 May, the ships arrived at Fort De Russy, Louisiana, ”a powerful casemated work” which the Confederates had recently evacuated in the face of the naval threat. Porter pushed past a heavy obstruction in the river and proceeded to Alexandria, Louisiana, which he took possession of formally on the morning of the 7th, ”without encountering any resistance.”

Subsequently turning the town over to Army troops, and unable to continue upriver because of the low water, Porter’s force returned to Fort De Russy and partially destroyed it. Porter also sent U.S.S. Sterling Price, Pittsburg, Arina, and ram Switzerland up the Black River on a reconnaissance. At Harrisonburg these ships encountered heavy batteries, which they engaged with little effect because of the position of the guns ”on high hills.” Leaving the larger portion of his force at the Red River, Porter returned to Grand Gulf on the 13th.

May 4th ~ {continued...}

1864 – The Army of the Potomac embarks on the biggest campaign of the Civil War and crosses the Rapidan River, precipitating an epic showdown that eventually decides the war. In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant became commander of all the Union forces and devised a plan to destroy the two major remaining Confederate armies: Joseph Johnston’s Army of the Tennessee, which was guarding the approaches to Atlanta, and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Grant sent William T. Sherman to take on Johnston, and then rode along with the Army of the Potomac, which was still under the command of George Meade, to confront Lee.

On May 4th, the Army of the Potomac moved out of its winter encampments and crossed the Rapidan River to the tangled woods of the Wilderness. Grant had with him four corps and over 100,000 men. The plan was to move the Federal troops quickly around Lee’s left flank and advance beyond the Wilderness before engaging the Confederates. But logistics slowed the move, and the long wagon train supplying the Union troops had to stop in the Wilderness. Although there was no combat on this day, the stage was set for the epic duel between Grant and Lee.

In the dense environs of the Wilderness, the superior numbers of the Union army was minimized. Lee attacked the following day—the first salvo in the biggest campaign of the war. The fighting lasted into June as the two armies waltzed to the east of Richmond, ending in Petersburg, where they settled into trenches and faced off for nearly nine months.

1886 – A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally in Chicago, Illinois, United States, killing eight and wounding 60. The police fire into the crowd. The Haymarket affair (also known as the Haymarket massacre or Haymarket riot) was the aftermath of a bombing that took place at a labor demonstration at Haymarket Square in Chicago. It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police.

An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded. In the internationally publicized legal proceedings that followed, eight anarchists were convicted of conspiracy. The evidence was that one of the defendants may have built the bomb, but none of those on trial had thrown it. Seven were sentenced to death and one to a term of 15 years in prison. The death sentences of two of the defendants were commuted by Illinois governor Richard J. Oglesby to terms of life in prison, and another committed suicide in jail rather than face the gallows. The other four were hanged on November 11, 1887.

In 1893, Illinois’ new governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the remaining defendants and criticized the trial. The Haymarket affair is generally considered significant as the origin of international May Day observances for workers. The site of the incident was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1992, and a public sculpture was dedicated there in 2004. In addition, the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument at the defendants’ burial site in nearby Forest Park was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997.

1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal. The U.S. formally took control of the canal property inheriting from the French a depleted workforce and a vast jumble of buildings, infrastructure and equipment, much of it in poor condition. A U.S. government commission, the Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC), was established to oversee construction and was given control of the Panama Canal Zone, over which the United States exercised sovereignty. The commission reported directly to Secretary of War William Howard Taft and was directed to avoid the inefficiency and corruption that had plagued the French 15 years earlier.

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1910 – Congress required every passenger ship or other ship carrying 50 persons or more, leaving any port of United States, to be equipped with a radio (powerful enough to transmit to a 100-mile radius) and a qualified operator.

1916 – Responding to a demand from Pres. Wilson, Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare, averting a diplomatic break with Washington.

1917 – First Navy ships, Destroyer Division 8, arrive at Queenstown, Ireland, to provide convoy escorts against German U-boats.

1942 – The U.S. began food rationing.

1942 – The Chief of Naval Operations, ADM Ernest J. King, ordered the Coast Guard Auxiliary to organize into a anti-submarine patrol force, which becomes known as the “Corsair Fleet” for service along the east coast.

1942 – Fighting lessens on Mindanao. Japanese bombardment of the American forces on Corregidor is very intense.

1942 – Aircraft from the USS Yorktown positioned 100 miles south of Guadalcanal, attack Japanese forces off Tulagi. The Yorktown then returns south to join the American Task Force 17 which is assembling to engage the Japanese. American actions are dictated by their code breaking which has revealed many of the Japanese plans to them.

1944 – The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Pride (DE-323), with three other escorts, sank U-371 in the Mediterranean.

1944 – Most meat products are removed from the ration list. Steaks and choice cuts for roasting remain rationed.

1945 – On Okinawa, the Japanese 32nd Army counterattacks. Artillery that was formerly concealed is used to support infantry charges. The US 7th and 77th Divisions hold the assaults. Meanwhile, the US 1st Marine Division attacks Machinato airfield and suffers heavy losses. At sea, Kamikaze attacks sink 14 small ships and damage the escort carrier Sangamon, 1 destroyer, and other ships. Some 131 Japanese planes are claimed to be shot down. The British carrier Formidable is damaged by a Kamikaze attack off the Sakishima Islands.

1945 – Admiral Donitz sends envoys to the headquarters of Field Marshal Montgomery, at Luneburg Heath, and they sign an agreement, at 1820 hours, for the surrender of German forces in Holland, Denmark and northern Germany. The Germans also agree to the Allied demand that German submarines should be surrendered rather than scuttled — in the German naval tradition.

The surrender becomes effective on May 5th. Meanwhile, in continuing fighting to the south, Salzburg is captured by American forces. Other units push into Czechoslovakia toward Pilsen. German forces conduct rearguard actions, in northern Germany, in Czechoslovakia and Austria, as the bulk of the German forces attempt to disengage and reach the Anglo-American lines.

1945 – On Luzon, the US 25th Division, part of US 1st Corps, capture Mount Haruna, west of the Balete Pass. Northwest of Manila, elements of the US 11th Corps attack toward Guagua but are forced back by Japanese defenses. On Mindanao, the US 24th Division mops up in around Davao while elements of the US 31st Division patrol north of Zibawe. Elements of the US 41st Division reach Parang, north of Cotabato while other forces land north of Digos, near Santa Cruz. On Negros, the Americal Division attempts to reopen its supply lines, which have been cut by the Japanese forces, in the eastern part of the island.

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1945 – Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov informs U.S. Secretary of State Stettinius that the Red Army has arrested 16 Polish peace negotiators who had met with a Soviet army colonel near Warsaw back in March. When British Prime Minister Winston Churchill learns of the Soviet double-cross, he reacts in alarm, stating, “There is no doubt that the publication in detail of this event…would produce a primary change in the entire structure of world forces.”

Churchill, fearing that the Russian forces were already beginning to exact retribution for losses suffered during the war (the Polish negotiators had been charged with “causing the death of 200 Red Army officers”), sent a telegram to President Harry Truman to express his concern that Russian demands of reparations from Germany, and the possibility of ongoing Russian occupation of Central and Eastern Europe, “constitutes an event in the history of Europe to which there has been no parallel.” Churchill clearly foresaw the “Iron Curtain” beginning to drop. Consequently, he sent a “holding force” to Denmark to cut off any farther westward advance by Soviet troops.

1948 – Twenty-five-year-old Norman Mailer’s first novel, The Naked and the Dead, is published on this day in 1948. The book is critically acclaimed and widely considered one of the best novels to come out of World War II. Mailer was born in New Jersey in 1923 and raised in Brooklyn. He attended Harvard and joined the Army during World War II. After leaving the Army in 1946, he studied at the Sorbonne, where he wrote the Naked and The Dead, based on his own military experiences. The book, which closely chronicles the lives of 13 soldiers stationed in the Pacific, presents a fictional story with precise, journalistic detail.

Mailer’s next two books, Barbaray Shore (1951) and The Deer Park (1955), were savaged by critics, but his subsequent journalistic chronicles fared better. The Armies of the Night (1968), an account of his participation in the Washington peace march of 1967, won a Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the National Book Award in 1969. His novel The Executioner’s Song, a fictionalized account of the life of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, won the Pulitzer for fiction in 1980. In 1991, his four-pound novel Harlot’s Ghost explored the CIA from 1948 through the Kennedy administration. Mailer’s reputation as a hard-drinking, tough-talking anti-feminist made him a controversial literary figure in the 1970s and 1980s. His high-profile exploits included drinking binges, the alleged stabbing of his wife at a party, and a run for the mayoralty of New York.

1951 – The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a bill to raise the maximum strength of the Marine Corps to 400,000 — double its strength at the time. The bill also made the Commandant of the Marine Corps a consultant to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

1961 – Pilot CDR Malcolm D. Ross, USNR, and medical observer LCDR Victor A. Prather, Jr., ascended in two hours to over 110,00 feet in Strato-Lab 5, a 411-foot hydrogen filled balloon launched from from the deck of USS Antietam. This was the highest altitude attained by man in an open gondola. Tragically, Prather drowned during the recovery.

1961 – At a press conference, Secretary of State Dean Rusk reports that Viet Cong forces have grown to 12,000 men and that they had killed or kidnapped more than 3,000 persons in 1960. While declaring that the United States would supply South Vietnam with any possible help, he refused to say whether the United States would intervene militarily. At a press conference the next day, President John F. Kennedy said that consideration was being given to the use of United States forces. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, did eventually commit more than 500,000 American troops to the war.

1964 – Attempting to elicit what he thinks is waning support from the US, General Khanh tells Ambassador Lodge that he feels it is necessary to declare full-scale war on the North. He proposed that the US begin bombing campaigns and send 10,000 Special Forces troops to cover the entire Cambodian-Laotian border. Lodge declines to inform the General that the US is developing plans to bomb the North.

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1964 – In secret testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, William Bundy, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and pacific Affairs, says that the US must drive the Communists out of South Vietnam even if it means, ‘attacking countries to the north.’

1965 – President Johnson asks Congress to appropriate an additional $700 million ‘to meet mounting military requirements in Vietnam.’ Johnson will sign the approved bill on 7 May.

1968 – West of Hoi An City, the Marines begin Operation Allen Brook. The op will as through late August.

1970 – About 20 miles north of the “Fishhook area” inside Cambodia, US troops reach the site of what is believed to be the largest Vietnamese base in the area, known as The City. Communist forces launch heavy attacks in the area around Phnompenh as NVA and Vietcong units cut the Phnompenh-Saigon highway at a point 29 miles from the Cambodian capitol.

1970 – President Richard Nixon’s May 1st announcement of the American incursion into Cambodia leads to massive anti-Vietnam war protests on college campuses nationwide. At Kent State University students burned the ROTC building and rioted in downtown Kent. The governor of Ohio dispatched Guardsmen from the 1st Battalion, 145th Infantry and several Troops of the 107th Armored Cavalry (at peak strength a total of 1,395 men) to restore order in Kent. These men were already on state active duty in response to a wildcat truckers strike when moved to the campus.

Except for some trouble in the town of Kent on Saturday night, in which ten Guardsmen were injured by thrown bottles and rocks, overall for two days the situation remained calm. But on Monday the 4th a planned anti-war rally was scheduled, drawing both students and non-students. The campus authorities tried to stop the rally but the crowd on the Commons kept growing larger, more vocal and belligerent. The sheriff, riding a Guard jeep and with a Guard driver, approached the crowd to tell them to disperse when the jeep was pelted with stones, bottles and other missiles.

The Guard driver was hit in the eye from broken windshield glass. It was then decided to have the Guardsmen clear the crowd. At this time the Guard had no crowd control equipment other than CS (tear) gas fired from grenade launchers. They had no batons, face or body shields, no body armor and no non-lethal projectiles. What they did have were steel helmets, gas masks (which greatly restrict vision) and M-1 rifles with fixed bayonets.

Since ten Guardsmen had been injured two days earlier the men were now issued live ammunition. After firing a volley of tear gas the troops, totaling 125 men, moved out to push the crowd over “Blanket Hill” surmounted by the Student Center in hopes they would disperse in the parking lot on the other side. As the men moved forward, they came under a barrage of projectiles including chunks of concrete with steel rebar rods which had been stockpiled by protestors.

Fifty Guardsmen were hit, some multiple times, as they continued to advance. The line of troops split to move on each side of the Center as the crowd fell back over the hill. Once the men on the right side of the advance crested the hill they found themselves cut off from further advance by a steel fence. As they turned to return the way they came, their tear gas ran out and some in the crowd started to approach them shouting and throwing objects.

For reasons no one can fully explain someone fired a shot. Some say it came from a dorm room overlooking the crowd while others say only the Guard fired. Whichever version is right, the Guardsmen fired a ragged volley of 34 shots, hitting 13 people, four of whom were killed. In the aftermath the campus was immediately closed until the next school year. Years of court action resulted in no Guardsmen ever being convicted of a crime in the shooting. While Kent State will remain a dark day in Guard history some good did come from it.

As a result of studies made after the event, Guardsmen today have the proper crowd control equipment and non-lethal devices are available. And all Army Guard personnel receive extensive training in crowd control techniques. Perhaps the best evidence of change is that in the more than 35 years since that day, despite numerous calls upon the Guard in many states to control riotous behavior, there has been no repeat of the tragedy.

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1972 – The Vietcong formed revolutionary government in Quang Tri South Vietnam.

1972 – Official peace talks are suspended indefinitely citing a complete lack of progress.

1972 – USS Saratoga is ordered to Vietnam, bringing the number of carriers off that coast to six.

1977 – The US and Vietnam open the first round of negotiations in Paris on normalizing relations. The US pledges not to veto Vietnam’s entrance to the UN and to lift its trade embargo once diplomatic relations are established.

1989 – Fired White House aide Oliver North was convicted of shredding documents and two other crimes and acquitted of nine other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. The three convictions were later overturned on appeal.

1989 – US launched the Magellan Probe to Venus.

1993 – The United States handed over control of the relief effort in Somalia to the United Nations.

1995 – An Iranian nuclear official said spent fuel from Iran’s Russian-made reactors, potential raw material for nuclear bombs, would be returned to Russia for safeguarding.

1998 – Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, Calif., under a plea agreement that spared him the death penalty.

1998 – The Clinton administration invoked sanctions against North Korea and Pakistan for a secret 1997 missile deal. Pakistan’s military named the acquired missile, Ghauri, after a famous Muslim warrior who slew a Hindu emperor named Prithvi, the name of a Russian made Indian missile.

1999 – Work crews struggled to restore electricity across Serbia after NATO strikes on major power grids left Belgrade and other cities in the dark.

2000 – In Puerto Rico US federal agents moved and arrested 216 protestors from the bombing range on Vieques Island.

2001 – US experts, following 3 days of inspections, said the US spy plane on China’s Hainan Island could be repaired and flown home.

2002 – Five pipe bombs were found in rural Nebraska mailboxes.

2003 – A Soyuz spacecraft safely delivered a three-man, US-Russian crew to Earth in the first landing since the Columbia space shuttle disaster.