January 24th ~ {continued...}

1861 – Georgia troops seize the Federal arsenal in Augusta. The U. S. Arsenal on Walton Way is the only United States arsenal in the south, east of the Mississippi. In 1819 the 1st U.S. arsenal at Augusta was completed on the Savannah River near the present location at the King and Sibley mills.

After a black fever epidemic it was moved to more healthy quarters on a 70-acre tract costing $ 6,000.00 on the sand hills, where the buildings were erected. Five days after the secession of Georgia from the union in 1861, the arsenal was surrendered to Georgia troops with a mere exchange of formal diplomacy between Captain Arnold Elzey who represented the United States and Colonel W. T. H. Walker who represented Governor Brown of Georgia. After the formalities the two men met at the mess hall for a convivial evening.

1865 – The Confederate Congress agrees to continue prisoner exchanges, opening a process that had operated only sporadically for three years. In the first year of the war, prisoner exchanges were conducted primarily between field generals on an ad hoc basis. The Union was reluctant to enter any formal agreements, fearing that it would legitimize the Confederate government. But the issue became more important as the campaigns escalated in 1862.

On July 2, 1862, Union General John Dix and Confederate General Daniel H. Hill reached an agreement. Under the Dix-Hill cartel, each soldier was assigned a value according to rank. For example, privates were worth another private, corporals and sergeants were worth two privates, lieutenants were worth three privates, etc. A commanding general was worth 60 privates. Under this system, thousands of soldiers were exchanged rather than languishing in prisons like those in Andersonville, Georgia, or Elmira, New York. The system was really a gentlemen’s agreement, relying on the trust of each side. The system broke down in 1862 when Confederates refused to exchange black Union soldiers. From 1862 to 1865, prisoner exchanges were rare.

When they did happen, it was usually because two local commanders came to a workable agreement. The result of the breakdown was the swelling of prisoner-of-war camps in both North and South. The most notorious of all the camps was Andersonville, where one-third of the 46,000 Union troops incarcerated died of disease, exposure, or starvation. Though the prisoner exchanges resumed, the end of the war was so close that it did not make much difference.

1895 – Hawaii’s Queen Lili’uokalani formally abdicated her throne and swore allegiance to the Republic of Hawaii.

1903 – U.S. Secretary of State John Hay and British Ambassador Herbert created a joint commission to establish the Alaskan border.

1907 – In Ormond Beach, Florida, Glenn Curtiss, an engineer who got his start building motors for bicycles, set an unofficial land-speed record on a self-built V-8 motorcycle on this day: 136.29mph. No automobile surpassed that speed until 1911. In 1907, four years after the Wilbur and Orville Wright accomplished the first successful airplane at Kitty Hawk, Curtiss established the Curtiss Aeroplane Company, the first airplane manufacturing company in the United States. In the next year, the “June Bug,” an aircraft powered by a Curtiss engine, won the Scientific American Trophy for the first flight in the U.S. covering one kilometer.

In 1909, Curtiss, piloting his own planes, won major flying events in Europe and America. Over the next five years, Curtiss continued to be an innovator in airplane design, and in January of 1911, built and demonstrated the world’s first seaplane for the U.S. Navy.

1908 – Boy Scouts movement begins in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. The name Baden-Powell was already well known to many English boys, and thousands of them eagerly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and scores of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain.

In 1900, Baden-Powell became a national hero in Britain for his 217-day defense of Mafeking in the South African War. Soon after, Aids to Scouting, a military field manual he had written for British soldiers in 1899, caught on with a younger audience. Boys loved the lessons on tracking and observation and organized elaborate games using the book. Hearing this, Baden-Powell decided to write a nonmilitary field manual for adolescents that would also emphasize the importance of morality and good deeds. First, however, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys.

On July 25, 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 adolescents to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire where they set up camp for a fortnight. With the aid of other instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, boating, lifesaving, patriotism, and chivalry. Many of these lessons were learned through inventive games that were very popular with the boys. The first Boy Scouts meeting was a great success. With the success of Scouting for Boys, Baden-Powell set up a central Boy Scouts office, which registered new Scouts and designed a uniform.

By the end of 1908, there were 60,000 Boy Scouts, and troops began springing up in British Commonwealth countries across the globe. In September 1909, the first national Boy Scout meeting was held at the Crystal Palace in London. Ten thousand Scouts showed up, including a group of uniformed girls who called themselves the Girl Scouts. In 1910, Baden-Powell organized the Girl Guides as a separate organization.

The American version of the Boy Scouts has it origins in an event that occurred in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce was lost in one of the city’s classic fogs when a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, explaining that as a Boy Scout he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. This anonymous gesture inspired Boyce to organize several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America.

Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country. In 1912, Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts of America in Savannah, Georgia. In 1916, Baden-Powell organized the Wolf Cubs, which caught on as the Cub Scouts in the United States, for boys under the age of 11. Four years later, the first international Boy Scout Jamboree was held in London, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the world. He died in 1941.

January 24th ~ {continued...}

1911 – U.S. Cavalry was sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican Civil War.

1916 – Although the Constitution explicitly forbade direct taxation of citizens, the United States flirted with the notion of an income tax during the latter half of the nineteenth century. In fact, the government briefly instituted a tax during the Civil War. This tax was repealed in 1872, but legislators, casting about for ways to raise federal funds, continued to push for an income tax.

Congress gave the green light to a income tax bill in 1894, only to watch as the Supreme Court deemed the tax unconstitutional on the grounds that it failed to raise revenues that were commensurate with the various populations of America’s states. Undeterred, Congress passed the Sixteenth Amendment in 1909 that, after state ratification in 1913, effectively granted the federal government constitutional authority to levy an income tax. Again, the legislation was taken before the Supreme Court for review.

On January 24, 1916, the Court handed down a decision that no doubt still causes some Americans deep anguish, ruling in favor of the amendment and paving the way for the federal income tax.

1933 – The 20th Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified, changing the beginning and end of terms for all elected federal offices.

1936 – Congress passes the Adjusted Compensation Act by overriding President Roosevelt’s veto. The bill allows for immediate cash redemption of the bonus certificates held by veterans of World War I.

1942 – A special court of inquiry into America’s lack of preparedness for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor placed much of the blame on Rear Adm. Husband E. Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, the Navy and Army commanders.

1942 – Battle of Makassar Strait, destroyer attack on Japanese convoy in first surface action in the Pacific during World War II. Four Dutch and American destroyers attack Japanese troop transports off Balikpapan sinking five ships.

1942 – In the Philippines, American forces begin withdrawals to their second line of defense.

1943 – President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill concluded a wartime conference in Casablanca, Morocco. The Allied differences have been resolved by the Chiefs of Staff. The war against the U-boats and supplies for the USSR are to have priority. Preparations for a landing in western Europe are to proceed.

Offensive operations in the Pacific are also to continue as is the campaign in Tunisia and North Africa. The forces in North Africa will proceed to Sicily and Italy following the completion of the North African campaign. At a press conference, Roosevelt states that the Allies are seeking the “unconditional surrender” of Germany, Italy and Japan. Churchill endorses this position.

1943 – A US naval task force attacks Kolombangara Island in the New Georgia group of islands. On Guadalcanal, American forces push west of Kokumbona.

1944 – The Anzio beachhead continues to expand, albeit, slowly. To the south, along the German defenses of the Gustav Line, the Free French Corps (part of US 5th Army) attacks Monte Santa Croce. The US 2nd Corps (also part of 5th Army) continues attacking over the Rapido River, toward Caira.

1945 – In the Ardennes there are Allied advances north and south of St. Vith. US 3rd Army reaches the Clerf River. The British 2nd Army enters Heinsberg, about 3 miles west of the Roer River.

1945 – Calapan is taken by the US forces on Mindoro. Japanese resistance on the island has been reduced to isolated pockets. Cabanatuan is taken by the US forces on Luzon.

1945 – The US 14th Air Force has to abandon Suichuan airfield, in China, because of Japanese advances nearby.

1946 – The UN established the International Atomic Energy Commission.

January 24th ~ {continued...}

1951 – General Matthew B. Ridgway and Major General Earl E. Partridge personally reconnoitered the front lines in a T-6 Texan aircraft prior to the Jan. 25 dawn attack on communist Chinese forces, Operation THUNDERBOLT.

1952 – The U.S. 24th Infantry Division announced the first use in Korea of scout dogs.

1952 – Air Force Captains Dolphin D. Overton III and Harold E. Fischer Jr., both of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 24th and 25th fifth aces of the war. They flew F-86’s named “Dolph’s Devil” and “Paper Tiger.” In addition, Captain Overton set a record for becoming a jet ace in the shortest time of four days.

1958 – After warming to 100,000,000 degrees, 2 light atoms were bashed together to create a heavier atom, resulting in the 1st man-made nuclear fusion.

1966 – In the largest search-and-destroy operation to date–Operation Masher/White Wing/Thang Phong II–the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), South Vietnamese, and Korean forces ssweep through Binh Dinh Province in the central lowlands along the coast. The purpose of the operation was to drive the North Vietnamese out of the province and destroy enemy supply areas.

In late January, it became the first large unit operation conducted across corps boundaries when the cavalrymen linked up with Double Eagle, a U.S. Marine Corps operation intended to destroy the North Vietnamese 325A Division. Altogether, there were reported enemy casualties of 2,389 by the time the operation ended.

1966 – Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, in a memorandum to President Johnson, recommends raising the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam to more than 400,000 by the end of the year. However, he warned that planned deployments and increased bombing would not ensure military success. Ultimately, McNamara was correct and the war raged on even as total U.S. troop strength in country went over 500,000 soldiers in 1969.

1972 – After 28 years of hiding in the jungles of Guam, local farmers discover Shoichi Yokoi, a Japanese sergeant who was unaware that World War II had ended. Guam, a 200-square-mile island in the western Pacific, became a U.S. possession in 1898 after the Spanish-American War. In 1941, the Japanese attacked and captured it, and in 1944, after three years of Japanese occupation, U.S. forces retook Guam.

It was at this time that Yokoi, left behind by the retreating Japanese forces, went into hiding rather than surrender to the Americans. In the jungles of Guam, he carved survival tools and for the next three decades waited for the return of the Japanese and his next orders. After he was discovered in 1972, he was finally discharged and sent home to Japan, where he was hailed as a national hero. He subsequently married and returned to Guam for his honeymoon. His handcrafted survival tools and threadbare uniform are on display in the Guam Museum in Agana.

1973 – National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger announces that a truce is also expected in Laos and Cambodia. Kissinger had been meeting privately with Le Duc Tho and other North Vietnamese and Viet Cong representatives in Paris since early January. They had worked out a peace agreement that was signed in Paris on January 23 “to end the war and bring peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.”

Under the provisions of the agreement, a cease-fire would begin in Vietnam at 8 a.m., January 28, Saigon time (7 p.m., January 27, Eastern Standard Time). Kissinger said that the terms of the agreement would be extended to Cambodia and Laos, where government troops had been locked in deadly combat with the local communist forces (Khmer Rouge and Pathet Lao, respectively) and their North Vietnamese allies.

1975 – A Puerto Rican terrorist group detonates a bomb at Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four people.

January 24th ~ {continued...}

1980 – In an action obviously designed as another in a series of very strong reactions to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, U.S. officials announce that America is ready to sell military equipment (excluding weapons) to communist China. The surprise statement was part of the U.S. effort to build a closer relationship with the People’s Republic of China for use as leverage against possible Soviet aggression.

The announcement concerning military equipment sales was one of many actions on the U.S-China front taken in the wake of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in December 1979. The U.S. Congress, on the same day, approved most-favored-nation trading status for China. In addition, an agreement was signed for the construction of a station in China that would be able to receive information from an American satellite; such information would aid China in such fields as agriculture and mining. The proposed sale of military equipment, however, was the most dramatic and controversial move made by the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

Though such equipment would be limited to non-weapon materiel related to such areas as transportation and communications, the step was a significant one in terms of the developing U.S.-China relationship. The fact that the announcement occurred so soon after the Soviet action in Afghanistan was no coincidence–as one U.S. official noted, that action “sped up or catalyzed the process.” The Carter administration’s decision to sell military equipment to communist China barely a year after establishing diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China was an indication of just how seriously the United States government viewed the Soviet attack on Afghanistan. The U.S. response to the Soviet Union was multi-faceted and vigorous, including diplomatic broadsides, economic sanctions, and even boycotting the 1980 Olympic games in Moscow. Many political analysts believed that the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan was a grievous diplomatic error, as it virtually ended any talk of detente with the United States.

1982 – A draft of Air Force history reported that the U.S. secretly sprayed herbicides on Laos during the Vietnam War.

1986 – The Voyager 2 space probe swept past Uranus, coming within 50,679 miles of the seventh planet of the solar system. Uranus has puzzled scientists ever since the probe Voyager 2 did the flyby and found that its magnetic field appeared to break the planetary rulebook. In 2004 scientists noted that Neptune and Uranus have an interior structure that is different from those of Jupiter and Saturn.

1991 – A brief skirmish occurred high above the Persian Gulf as a Saudi warplane shot down two Iraqi jets.

1991 – Helos from USS Leftwich and USS Nicholas recapture first Kuwaiti territory from Iraqis.

1996 – Specialist Michael New was discharged from the US Army after a court-martial jury convicted him for disobeying lawful orders. He refused to wear a UN beret for a peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia.

1999 – US jets attacked 2 Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries after encountering radar detection in the northern no-fly zone.

2000 – Stanislav Lunev, a former Soviet spy, testified at a congressional hearing that Soviet operatives had placed weapons and communications caches in California and other states during and after the Cold War to destabilize the US in the event of war.

2002 – The US imposed sanctions on 3 Chinese entities accused of giving chemical and biological arms technology to Iran.

2002 – John Walker Lindh transported to Alexandria, Virginia, to be tried in a civilian criminal court for conspiring to kill Americans. He makes his first appearance before a U.S. District Court. A criminal complaint lists four charges, including conspiracy to kill his fellow Americans in Afghanistan.

2003 – The US Department of Homeland Security under Tom Ridge became the government’s 15th Cabinet department.

2003 – The United States adds 20,000 reservists to those already on active duty.

2003 – American warplanes bombed an Iraqi air defense site, the 12th strike in the southern flight interdiction zone this month.

2003 – Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and Turkey meet in Istanbul in a diplomatic effort to avert a war in Iraq. They urge Iraq to “demonstrate a more active approach” in providing information on its weapons programs.

2003 – In Spain police arrested 16 suspected al-Qaida terrorists.

2004 – A 2nd NASA rover was set to land on Mars.

2005 – Authorities in Iraq said Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, an al-Qaeda lieutenant in custody, had confessed to masterminding most of the car bombings in Baghdad.

2010 – Afghanistan postpones its upcoming parliamentary elections to 18 September due to lack of funds and security concerns.

2013 – David Headley, an American terrorist of Pakistani origin, and a spy who conspired with the Lashkar-e-Taiba Islamist organization and Pakistani intelligence officers in plotting the 2008 Mumbai attacks, is sentenced to 35 years in prison for his role in the 2008 attacks.

2013 – North Korea authorities announce a new nuclear weapon and long range missile test, threatening the United States, as their primary target.

January 25th ~

1775 – Americans dragged cannon up hill to fight the British at Gun Hill Road, Bronx. When the British navy landed on Staten Island in 1775, New York City Patriots feared an imminent invasion. They did not want the precious cannon at the Battery to fall into enemy hands. Thus, in December, 1775, they took the cannon to the mainland and scattered them roughly along present-day Gun Hill Road from today’s Jerome Avenue across the Bronx River to modern White Plains Road.

1787 – Small farmers in Springfield, Massachusetts led by Daniel Shays continued their revolt against tax laws. Federal troops broke up the protesters of what becomes known as Shay’s Rebellion. Shays’ Rebellion suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers led by Capt. Daniel Shays failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass.

1799 – Having existed, essentially nameless, for 8-1/2 years, Alexander Hamilton’s “system of cutters” was referred to in legislation as “Revenue Cutters.” Some decades later, the name evolved to Revenue Cutter Service and Revenue Marine.

1806 – Secretary of State James Madison delivers a report to Congress on the continuung British interference with the commercial shipping of neutral nations, including the US, and on British policy of impressing US seamen, in the context of the Napoleonic Wars. Madison’s report will give rise to a new wave of anti-British feeling.

1814 – Congress modifies the embargo against Britain when the embargo leads to famine on Nantucket Island, off the Massachusetts coast.

1856 – Marines and seamen from the U.S. sloop DECATUR went ashore at the village of Seattle, Washington, to protect settlers from Indian raids. The Indians launched a seven-hour attack but were driven off later that day after suffering severe losses. Incredibly, only two civilian volunteers were killed and no Marines or sailors were lost.

1863 – After two months, General Ambrose Burnside is removed as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Burnside assumed command of the army after President Lincoln removed General George B. McClellan from command in November 1862. Lincoln had a difficult relationship with McClellan, who built the army admirably but was a sluggish and overly cautious field commander. Lincoln wanted an attack on the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, which was commanded by Robert E. Lee.

Burnside drafted a plan to move south towards Richmond. The plan was sound, but delays in its execution alerted Lee to the danger. Lee headed Burnside off at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13. Burnside attacked repeatedly against entrenched Confederates along Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg with tragic results. More than 13,000 Yankees fell; Lee lost just 5,000. Northern morale sunk in the winter of 1862-1863. Lincoln allowed Burnside one more chance.

In January, Burnside attempted another campaign against Lee. Four days of rain turned the Union offensive into the ignominious “Mud March,” during which the Yankees floundered on mud roads while the Lee’s men jeered at them from across the Rappahannock River. Lincoln had seen enough–General Joe Hooker took over command of the army.

1879 – The Arrears of Pensions Act is passed by Congress. It authorizes back-payment of military pensions beginning from the day of discharge. If the veteran is dead, payments will be made to the family.

1898 – Continuing his preparations for war, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Theodore Roosevelt, sends a highly confidential order to Comodore George Dewey, leader of the Asiatic Squadron, to go to Hong Kong. Dewey is to be prepared to attack the Spanish fleet in the Philippines should war be declared.

1906 – Major Gen. Joseph Wheeler II (70), Confederate, US General, died. He led a cavalry division in the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898. As a Confederate brigadier and then major general, “Fightin’ Joe” Wheeler commanded the cavalry of the Confederate Army of Mississippi and, later, the Army of Tennessee. Captured in May 1865, he went on to have a prosperous postwar life, serving as a U.S. congressman for eight terms. After his Spanish-American War service, Wheeler retired from the army as a brigadier general of U.S. Regulars. He was interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

January 25th ~ {continued...}

1915 – The inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated transcontinental telephone service in the United States. Bell placed the first ceremonial cross-continental call from New York to his old colleague Thomas Watson in San Francisco.

1918 – Austria and Germany rejected U.S. peace proposals.

1919 – The League of Nations plan was adopted by the Allies.

1922 – In Managua, Nicaragua, a series of clashes between Marines and police came to a head on the night of 8 December 1921, when a private shot and killed a policeman. As a result of this incident, a systematic town patrol was begun and every effort was made to raise the morale and standards of conduct of the command. While these reforms were taking place, the guard was reinforced to head off any Liberal-inspired rioting. A group of 30 Marines arrived from the USS GALVESTON. A little later, 52 men arrived from the DENVER, while the NITRO contributed 45 Leathernecks. After a few weeks, the majority of these reinforcements were withdrawn.

1928 – Marines participated in the Battle of El Chipote during the occupation of Nicaragua. A patrol was sent to storm the Sandino stronghold on the mountain El Chipote. This patrol had begun probing the area from 20 January. Moving cautiously, the patrol would reach the crest very early on January 26. Although a quantity of supplies were captured, Sandino and his main body had escaped.

1940 – The ocean station program was formally established on 25 January 1940 under order from President Franklin Roosevelt. The Coast Guard, in cooperation with the U. S. Weather Service, were given responsibility for its establishment and operation. The program was first known as the Atlantic Weather Observation Service and later became known (and “beloved’) by thousands of Coast Guardsmen who served after World War II as the “Ocean Station” program. Cutters were dispatched for 30-day patrols to transmit weather observations and serve as a SAR standby for transoceanic aircraft. The program ended in the 1970s.

1942 – Thailand, a Japanese puppet state, declares war on the Allies. When war broke out in Europe in September 1939, Thailand declared its neutrality, much to the distress of France and England. Both European nations had colonies surrounding Thailand and hoped Thailand would support the Allied effort and prevent Japanese encroachment on their Pacific territory.

But Thailand began moving in the opposite direction, creating a “friendship” with Japan and adding to its school textbooks a futuristic map of Thailand with a “Greater Thailand” encroaching on Chinese territory. Thailand’s first real conflict with the Allies came after the fall of France to the Germans and the creation of the puppet government at Vichy. Thailand saw this as an opportunity to redraw the borders of French Indochina. The Vichy government refused to accommodate the Thais, so Thai troops crossed into French Indochina and battled French troops. Japan interceded in the conflict on the side of the Thais, and used its political alliance with Germany to force Vichy France to cede 21,000 square miles to Thailand.

On December 8, 1941, the Japanese made an amphibious landing on the coast of Thailand, part of the comprehensive sweep of South Pacific islands that followed the bombing raid at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The Japanese had assistance, though: Thailand’s prime minister, Lang Pipul, collaborated with the Japanese, embracing the Axis power’s war goal of usurping territory in China and ruling over the South Pacific. Pipul wanted to partake in the spoils; toward that end, he declared war on the United States and England. In October, he took dictatorial control of Thailand and became a loyal puppet of the Japanese.

1943 – In Tunisia, American forces advance to Maknassy, threatening Sfax and Gabes.

1944 – Forces of the US 5th Army continue attacks on the German-held Gustav Line. The Free French Corps makes some gains on Colle Belvedere. At Anzio, Allied efforts to expand the beachhead make slow progress.

1945 – The US 37th Division, US 14th Corps (Griswold), occupies a large part of the Clark Field air base in the Philippines.

1945 – Iwo Jima is bombarded by the battleship Indiana and a force of cruisers and destroyers. There are also air attacks by B-24 and B-29 bombers. This is the first step in the preparation for the US landings in February.

1949 – Axis Sally, who broadcast Nazi propaganda to U.S. troops in Europe, stands trial in the United States for war crimes. Out of the 12 Americans indicted for treason following World War II, all but five were radio broadcasters. One of the most notorious to be convicted was Mildred Gillars, or “Axis Sally” as she was known to the GI’s who heard her Radio Berlin broadcasts.

Typically, she did a DJ program — breaking up the music with anti-semetic raps. “Damn Roosevelt! Damn Churchill!” went one of her tirades. “Damn all Jews who made this war possible. I love America, but I do not love Roosevelt and all his kike boyfriends.” “Axis Sally” also liked to air messages from American POWs. Telling the POWs she visited that she was a Red Cross representative, she enticed them to send happy messages to suggest that living under the Nazis, even in POW camps, was a good thing.

Once on the air, she would intercut POWs messages with propaganda, despite having promised the prisoners not to do so. Despite all her other antics, “Axis Sally” was convicted on the basis of just one broadcast, a radio drama called “Vision of Invasion” that – on the eve of D-Day – sought to scare GI’s out of invading occupied Europe.

In the play, the mother of an Ohio soldier sees her son in a dream. He tells her that he’s already dead, his ship having been destroyed mid-invasion by Germans. GI’s can be heard sobbing and shrieking in the background, and the effect of the broadcast is said to have been chilling. Gillars tried several tactics in court, but ultimately claimed, unsuccessfully, that her love for Koischewitz had motivated her. Her lawyers argued that Koischewitz had a Svengali-like grip over her; she was his puppet.

January 25th ~ {continued...}

1951 – General Ridgway and I and IX Corps launched Operation THUNDERBOLT, a counteroffensive northward to the Han River. This large-scale reconnaissance in force was the first ground offensive since the full-scale intervention of the Chinese. The purpose of the operation was to determine the enemy’s disposition of forces and reestablish contact.

1952 – During the third largest aerial victory of the Korean War, F-86s shot down 10 MiG-15s and damaged three others without suffering any losses.

1953 – Operation SMACK was launched in the western I Corps sector by the U.S. 7th Infantry Division. This air-ground coordinated test strike lasted three hours and involved close air support in concert with a combined arms task force of tanks, infantry and artillery. The operation achieved disappointing results.

1955 – Columbia University scientists developed an atomic clock that was accurate to within one second in 300 years.

1956 – In a long interview with visiting American attorney Marshall MacDuffie, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev adopts a friendly attitude toward the United States and indicates that he believes President Dwight Eisenhower is sincere in his desire for peace. The interview was the precursor to Khrushchev’s announcement later that same year that he wanted “peaceful coexistence” between the United States and the Soviet Union.

MacDuffie, a long-time acquaintance of the Soviet leader and a proponent of closer relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, spent three hours conducting the interview. During the discussion, Khrushchev indicated that it was his desire that “We should have disarmament and we should think how to avoid a new war.” He was critical of some U.S. officials that he accused of making belligerent statements towards the Soviet Union, but he was also quick to point out that he did not hold Eisenhower responsible for those statements.

In fact, the Soviet leader praised the president’s leadership, and apparently hoped that Eisenhower might negotiate seriously on a number of issues. Later that year, Khrushchev announced that the goal of the Soviet Union was “peaceful coexistence” with the United States. Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, were cautiously optimistic about this new Soviet approach-an American response that was markedly different from the pessimistic vigilance assumed during the harsh confrontational Stalin era. Later in the year, however, much of the new optimism was shattered when Soviet troops brutally suppressed revolts in Hungary, as any talk of striving for peace was overshadowed by that use of armed force.

1961 – In Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy delivers the first live presidential television news conference.

1963 – 1st Seabee Technical Assistance Team arrives in Vietnam.

1968 – Operation Windsong I in Mekong Delta, Vietnam.

1968 – President Johnson sends the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise to the Sea of Japan in a show of force, hoping this will be sufficient to prevent direct military action with North Korea over the Pueblo incident.

1969 – The first fully attended meeting of the formal Paris peace talks is held. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, the chief negotiator for the United States, urged an immediate restoration of a genuine DMZ as the first “practical move toward peace.” Lodge also suggested a mutual withdrawal of “external” military forces and an early release of prisoners of war. Tran Buu Kiem and Xuan Thuy, heads of the National Liberation Front and North Vietnamese delegations respectively, refused Lodge’s proposals and condemned American “aggression.”

1972 – President Richard Nixon, in response to criticism that his administration has not made its best efforts to end the war, reveals that his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger has held 12 secret peace negotiating sessions between August 4, 1969, and August 16, 1971. The negotiations took place in Paris with Le Duc Tho, a member of Hanoi’s Politburo, and/or with Xuan Thuy, Hanoi’s chief delegate to the formal Paris peace talks.

January 25th ~ {continued...}

1980 – Highest speed attained by a warship, 167 mph, USN hovercraft.

1981 – The 52 Americans held hostage by Iran for 444 days arrived in the United States.

1983 – The IRAS space probe was launched. It studied infrared radiation from across the cosmos and exposed stars as they were born from clouds of gas and dust.

1984 – President Reagan endorsed the development of the first U.S. permanently manned space station.

1990 – Former Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega was transferred to a Miami federal prison.

1991 – During the Gulf War Iraq sabotaged Kuwait’s main supertanker loading pier, dumping an estimated 460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf. Missiles fired from western Iraq struck in the Tel Aviv and Haifa areas, killing one Israeli and injuring more than 40 others.

1993 – Cobra helicopters from 10th Mountain Divisions 3rd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment destroy 6 armed vehicles, killing 8 Somalis in Kismaayo.

1993 – Five commuters were shot outside the gates of the US CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Two people died. Mir Amil Kasi, a Pakistani national, was tracked down for the shooting in 1997 in Afghanistan and returned to the US. He was convicted of murder in 1997 and was executed Nov 14, 2002.

1994 – The United States launched Clementine I, an unmanned spacecraft that was to study the moon before it was “lost and gone forever.”

1995 – Russia’s early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister, and his chief of staff were informed of the missile launch. The nuclear command systems switched to combat mode, and the nuclear suitcases carried by Yeltsin and his top commander were activated for the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system.

Five minutes after the launch detection, Russian command determined that the missile’s impact point would be outside Russia’s borders. Three more minutes passed, and Yeltsin was informed that the launching was likely not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines. These conclusions came minutes before Yeltsin and his commanders should have ordered a nuclear response based on standard launch on warning protocols.

Later, it was revealed that the missile, launched from Spitzbergen, Norway, was actually carrying instruments for scientific measurements. Nine days before, Norway had notified 35 countries, including Russia, of the exact details of the planned launch. The Russian Defense Ministry had received Norway’s announcement but had neglected to inform the on-duty personnel at the early-warning center of the imminent launch. The event raised serious concerns about the quality of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear systems.

1998 – American astronaut Andrew Thomas moved from the space shuttle Endeavour into the Russian space station Mir as the relief for David Wolf.

1999 – The US planned to notify the World Trade Organization that it planned sanctions on the European Union and 100% tariffs on a wide range of products due to a dispute over EU banana import laws.

2000 – In Bosnia NATO peacekeepers arrested Mitar Vasiljevic (45), a member of the White Eagles Bosnian-Serb paramilitary group, on charges of extermination of Bosnian Muslim civilians between 1992 and 1994. The charges included helping to burn scores of Muslims to death in Visegrad.

2002 – In Afghanistan leaders called for an increase in peacekeeping troops as warlords competed for power outside of Kabul.

2003 – Three Iraqi weapons specialists refuse to be interviewed by UN inspectors without government authorities present.

2003 – NASA launched a spacecraft into orbit to measure all the radiation streaming toward Earth from the sun. The small satellite is called Sorce — for Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment.

2004 – NASA’s Opportunity rover zipped its first pictures of Mars to Earth, delighting and puzzling scientists just hours after the spacecraft bounced to a landing on the opposite side of the red planet from its twin rover, Spirit.

2004 – US soldiers arrested nearly 50 people and confiscated weapons in several raids in Iraq’s volatile Sunni Triangle.

2004 – In northern Iraq a US helicopter crashed while searching for a river patrol boat that had capsized on the Tigris. A soldier and 2 pilots were missing.

2004 – A helicopter crew from Coast Guard AIRSTA Detroit helped rescue 14 people stranded on an ice floe about one mile west of Catawba Island, Ohio.

2005 – In a newly released video, Roy Hallums, an American hostage kidnapped in November, pleaded for his life with a rifle pointed at his head. Hallums was rescued by coalition troops on Sept. 7, 2005.

2006 – Lucia Pinochet, daughter of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, asks for political asylum in the United States following her arrest at Washington Dulles International Airport on a Chilean arrest warrant for tax evasion.

2008 – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claims al-Qaeda in Iraq has been pushed out of most of the nation, and Iraqi security forces are preparing a “decisive” offensive against the group in Mosul, their last stronghold, in response to attacks in the city that have killed around 40 people, including the area’s police chief.

2011 – A U.S. judge sentences Ahmed Ghailani, the first Guantanamo detainee to have a civilian trial in America, to life imprisonment for conspiracy to destroy government buildings. He was found “not guilty” of 285 other charges filed against him, including 200 counts of murder and dozens of other charges.

2012 – Two U.S. Navy Seal teams raided a compound 12 miles north of Adow, Somalia, freeing two hostages while killing nine pirates and capturing five others.

2013 – John Kiriakou, the former CIA agent, who publicly discussed the U.S. government agency’s use of waterboarding interrogation techniques, is sentenced to 30 months in prison. An argument that he was a whistleblower was dismissed and he was instead convicted of violating an intelligence law, the first person to be successfully targeted under the statute in 27 years.

2014 – ISIS announced the creation of its new Lebanese arm, pledging to fight the Shia militant group Hezbollah and its supporters in Lebanon.

January 26th ~

1784 – In a letter to his daughter, Benjamin Franklin expressed unhappiness over the eagle as the symbol of America. He wanted the turkey.

1787 – Daniel Shays leads his rebel force in an unsuccessful attack against the Federal arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts.

1837 – Michigan became the 26th state of the US. By the early 1830s, Michigan had enough residents to apply for statehood. However, approval of this measure languished for several years due to a boundary dispute (the Toledo War) with Ohio, with both sides claiming a strip of land around Toledo. Ultimately, Congress awarded the “Toledo Strip” to Ohio, but as compensation, granted the entire Upper Peninsula to Michigan.

1856 – First Battle of Seattle. Marines from the USS Decatur drive off American Indian attackers after all day battle with settlers. At the time, Seattle was a settlement in the Washington Territory that had recently named itself after Chief Seattle (Sealth), a leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish peoples of central Puget Sound. Backed by artillery fire and supported by Marines from the United States Navy sloop-of-war Decatur, anchored in Elliott Bay (Seattle’s harbor, then called Duwam-sh Bay), the settlers suffered only two deaths. The battle, part of the multi-year Puget Sound War or Yakima War, lasted a single day.

1861 – Louisiana becomes the sixth state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 113 to 17 in favor of the measure.

1862 – Union squadron commanded by Captain Davis, comprising U.S.S. Ottawa, Seneca, and other vessels, with 2400 troops under Brigadier General Horatio G. Wright conducted a strategic reconnaissance of Wassaw Sound, Georgia. Telegraph lines between Fort Pulaski and Savannah were severed. Five Confederate gunboats under Commodore Tattnall were engaged while attempting to carry stores to Fort Pulaski.

Though the exchange of fire was sharp, three of Tattnall’s steamers made good their passage to the fort, the other two being unable to get through. In his report of the reconnaissance operation, Captain Davis noted: ”As a demonstration the appearance of the naval and military forces in Wilmington and Wassaw Sound has had complete success. Savannah was thrown into a state of great alarm, and all the energies of the place have been exerted to the utmost to increase its military defenses for which purpose troops have been withdrawn from other places.”

On the Confederate side, General Robert E. Lee commented: ”If the enemy succeeds in removing the obstacles [in Wall’s Cut and Wilmington Narrows] there is nothing to prevent their reaching the Savannah River, and we have nothing afloat that can contend against them.”

1863 – General Joseph Hooker assumes command of the Army of the Potomac following Ambrose Burnside’s disastrous tenure. Hooker was a West Point graduate and a veteran of the Seminole War and the Mexican War, and he had served in the American West in the 1850s. When the Civil War erupted, Hooker was named brigadier general in the Army of the Potomac. He quickly rose to division commander, and he distinguished himself during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. He also continued to build his reputation as a hard drinker and womanizer. He earned the nickname “Fighting Joe,” and received command of the First Corps in time for the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862.

His corps played a major role in the Battle of Antietam in September, and when Burnside failed as commander, Hooker had his chance. The general first had to deal with the sagging morale of the army. He reorganized his command and instituted a badge system, where each division had their own unique insignia. This helped to build unit pride and identity, and Hooker led a reenergized army into Virginia in April 1862. Hooker’s appointment was part of Lincoln’s frustrating process of finding a winning general in the east.

After Irwin McDowell, George McClellan, John Pope, McClellan again, and then Burnside, Lincoln hoped Hooker could defeat Confederate General Robert E. Lee. It was a tall order, though, and Hooker was not up to the challenge. In May 1863, Hooker clashed with Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and the Union army suffered a decisive and stunning defeat. Lincoln’s search for an effective commander continued, and he eventually replaced Hooker with George Meade.

1863 – Governor of Massachusetts John Albion Andrew receives permission from Secretary of War to raise a militia organization for men of African descent.

1870 – Virginia rejoins the Union.

1871 – US income tax repealed.

January 26 ~ {continued...}

1880 – Douglas MacArthur, the son of the high-ranking military figure, Arthur MacArthur, was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. Although previously a poor scholar, in 1903 MacArthur graduated first in his 93-man class, at West Point Military Academy. Commissioned in the Corps of the Engineers, MacArthur was sent by the United States Army to the Philippines and by 1904 had been promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. Later that year he joined his father who was serving in Far East before becoming aide-de-camp to President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906.

MacArthur was assigned to general staff duty with the War Department and was an official observer with the Vera Cruz Expedition. On the advice of General Leonard Wood, MacArthur was promoted to major. In the First World War MacArthur commanded the 42nd Division on the Western Front and was decorated 13 times and cited seven additional times for bravery. Promoted the the rank of brigadier in August, 1918, three months later he became the youngest divisional commander in France. After the war MacArthur returned to the United States where he became brigadier general and the youngest ever superintendent of West Point in its 117 year history.

Over the next three years he doubled its size and modernized the curriculum. In 1922 MacArthur was sent to the Philippines where he commanded the newly established Military District of Manila. At the age of forty-three MacArthur became the army’s youngest general and in 1928 was appointed president of the American Olympic Committee. MacArthur was appointed chief of staff of the US Army in 1930. Once again he was the youngest man to hold the office and over the next few years attempted to modernize America’s army of 135,000 men. MacArthur developed right-wing political views and at one meeting argued that: “Pacifism and its bedfellow, Communism, are all about us. Day by day this cancer eats deeper into the body politic.”

In June 1932, MacArthur, controversially used tanks, four troops of cavalry with drawn sabers, and infantry with fixed bayonets, on the Bonus Army in Washington. He justified his attack on former members of the United States Army by claiming that the country was on the verge of a communist revolution. Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton also took part in this operation. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent MacArthur to organize the defense of the Philippines. He retired from the army in 1937 but stayed on the island where he became the country’s military adviser.

When negotiations with the Japanese government broke down in June 1941, Roosevelt recalled MacArthur to active duty as a major general and was granted $10 million to mobilize the Philippine Army. It was also decided to send MacArthur 100 B-17 Flying Fortress to help defend the Philippines. Most of MacArthur’s troops were deployed to protect the two main islands of Luzon and Mindanao and by October 1941, MacArthur informed General George Marshall that he now had 135,000 troops, 227 assorted fighters, bombers and reconnaissance aircraft and this provided a “tremendously strong offensive and defensive force” and claimed that the Philippines was now the “key or base point of the US defense line.”

The Japanese Air Force attacked the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on the 7th December 1941. The following day they carried out air strikes on the Philippines and destroyed half of MacArthur’s air force. MacArthur was much criticized for this as he had been told to move his air force after the raid on Hawaii the previous day. The Japanese Army also invaded the Philippines and they soon held the three air bases in northern Luzon. On 22nd December the 14th Army landed at Lingayen Gulf and quickly gained control of Manila from the inexperienced Filipino troops. Although only 57,000 Japanese soldiers were landed on Luzon it had little difficulty capturing the island. General Douglas MacArthur now ordered a general retreat to the Bataan peninsula. A series of Japanese assaults forced the US defensive lines back and on 22nd February, 1942, MacArthur was ordered to leave Bataan and go to Australia. General Jonathan Wainright remained behind with 11,000 soldiers and managed to hold out until the beginning of May.

The American forces were re-organized and MacArthur was appointed Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific Area and Admiral Chester Nimitz became Commander in Chief of the US Pacific Fleet. Along with Admiral Ernest King Commander-in-Chief of the US Navy, Macarthur and Nimitz, decided that their first objective should be to establish and protect a line of communications across the South Pacific to Australia. This resulted in the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, where the Japanese Navy lost all four of her carriers. In the summer of 1942 fighting in the Pacific was concentrated around Rabaul, the key Japanese military and air base in the Soloman Islands. On 7th August there was an Allied landings at Guadalcanal.

Over the next eight months there were ten major land battles and seven major naval engagements in this area. MacArthur now developed what became known as his island hopping tactics. This strategy involved amphibious landings on vulnerable islands, therefore bypassing Japanese troop concentrations on fortified islands. This had the advantage of avoiding frontal assaults and thus reducing the number of American casualties. By the spring of 1944, 100,000 Japanese soldiers were cut off at Rabaul and the Japanese 18th Army were surrounded in New Guinea. In September US troops took Morotai and all of New Guinea was now in Allied hands.

It was not until 1944 that MacArthur was given permission to begin the campaign to recapture the Philippines. The first objective was the capture of Leyte, an island situated between Luzon and Mindanao. After a two day naval bombardment General Walter Krueger and the 6th Army landed on 22nd October, 1944. This was followed by Leyte Gulf, the largest naval engagement in history. It was a decisive victory for the Allies with the Japanese Navy lost four carriers, three battleships and ten cruisers. It was now clear that the US Navy now had control of the Pacific and that further Allied landings in the region were likely to be successful. After bitter fighting the US forces captured the important port of Ormoc on 10th December. By the time Leyte was secured the US Army had lost 3,500 men. It is estimated that over 55,000 Japanese soldiers were killed during the campaign.

On 9th January 1945 Allied troops landed on Luzon, the largest of the islands in the Philippines. The Japanese Army, under General Tomoyuki Yamashita, fought a vigorous rearguard action but within a month MacArthur and his troops had crossed the Central Plain and were approaching Manila. Yamashita and his main army now withdrew to the mountains but left enough troops in Manila to make the capture of the city as difficult as possible. An estimated 16,000 Japanese soldiers were killed before it was taken on 4th March 1945. General Robert Eichelberger and the US 8th Army landed on Mindanao on 10th March and began advancing through the southern Philippines. This included the capture of Panay, Cebu, Negros and Bohol. MacArthur’s last amphibious operation was at Okinawa. Lying just 350 miles from the Japanese mainland, it offered excellent harbor, airfield and troop-staging facilities. It was a perfect base from which to launch a major assault on Japan, consequently it was well-defended, with 120,000 troops under General Mitsuru Ushijima. The Japanese also committed some 10,000 aircraft to defending the island.

After a four day bombardment the 1,300 ship invasion forced moved into position off the west coast of Okinawa on 1st April 1945. The landing force, under the leadership of Lieutenant-General Simon Buckner, initially totalled 155,000. However, by the time the battle finished, more than 300,000 soldiers were involved in the fighting. This made it comparable to the Normandy landing in mainland Europe in June, 1944. On the first day 60,000 troops were put ashore against little opposition at Haguushi. The following day two airfields were captured by the Americans. However when the soldiers reached Shuri they came under heavy fire and suffered heavy casualties. Reinforced by the 3rd Amphibious Corps and the 6th Marine Division the Americans were able to repel a ferocious counter-attack by General Mitsuru Ushijima on 4th May. At sea off Okinawa a 700 plane kamikaze raid on 6th April sunk and damaged 13 US destroyers. The giant battleship, Yamato, lacking sufficient fuel for a return journey, was also sent out on a suicide mission and was sunk on 7th May.

On 11th May, Lieutenant-General Simon Buckner, ordered another offensive on the Shuri defences, and the Japanese were finally forced to withdraw. Buckner was killed on 18th June and three days later his replacement, General Roy Geiger, announced that the island had finally been taken. When it was clear that he had been defeated, Mitsuru Ushijima committed ritual suicide (hari-kiri). The capture of Okinawa cost the Americans 49,000 in casualties of whom 12,520 died. More than 110,000 Japanese were killed on the island. While the island was being prepared for the invasion of Japan, a B-29 Superfortress bomber dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. Japan did not surrender immediately and a second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki three days later.

On 10th August the Japanese surrendered and the Second World War was over. MacArthur was named Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) and he received the formal surrender and President Harry S. Truman appointed him as head of the Allied occupation of Japan. He was given responsibility of organizing the war crimes tribunal in Japan and was criticized for his treatment of Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was executed 23rd February, 1946. However he was praised for successfully encouraging the creation of democratic institutions, religious freedom, civil liberties, land reform, emancipation of women and the formation of trade unions. On the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, MacArthur was appointed commander of the United Nations forces. The surprise character of the attack enabled the North Koreans to occupy all the South, except for the area around the port of Pusan.

On 15th September, 1950, MacArthur landed American and South Korean marines at Inchon, 200 miles behind the North Korean lines. The following day he launched a counterattack on the North Koreans. When they retreated, MacArthur’s forces carried the war northwards, reaching the Yalu River, the frontier between Korea and China on 24th October, 1950. Harry S Truman and Dean Acheson, the Secretary of State, told MacArthur to limit the war to Korea. MacArthur disagreed, favoring an attack on Chinese forces. Unwilling to accept the views of Truman and Acheson, MacArthur began to make inflammatory statements indicating his disagreements with the United States government. MacArthur gained support from right-wing members of the Senate such as Joe McCarthy who led the attack on Truman’s administration: “With half a million Communists in Korea killing American men, Acheson says, ‘Now let’s be calm, let’s do nothing’. It is like advising a man whose family is being killed not to take hasty action for fear he might alienate the affection of the murders.”

In April 1951, Harry S Truman removed MacArthur from his command of the United Nations forces in Korea. McCarthy now called for Truman to be impeached and suggested that the president was drunk when he made the decision to fire MacArthur: “Truman is surrounded by the Jessups, the Achesons, the old Hiss crowd. Most of the tragic things are done at 1:30 and 2 o’clock in the morning when they’ve had time to get the President cheerful.”

On his arrival back in the United States MacArthur led a campaign against Harry S Truman and his Democratic Party administration. Soon after Dwight Eisenhower was elected president in 1952 he consulted with MacArthur about the Korean War. MacArthur’s advice was the “atomic bombing of enemy military concentrations and installations in North Korea” and an attack on China. He rejected the advice and MacArthur played no role in Eisenhower’s new Republican administration. After leaving the United States Army, MacArthur accepted a job as chairman of the board of the Remington Rand Corporation. Douglas MacArthur died in the Water Reed Hospital, Washington, on 5th April, 1964.

January 26th ~ {continued...}

1904 – The emperor of Addis Ababa, Abyssinia, decorated Marine Captain G. C. Thorpe for escorting diplomats 500 miles through the desert.

1911 – Glenn Curtiss piloted the 1st successful hydroplane in San Diego to and from the battleship USS Pennsylvania.

1913 – The body of John Paul Jones is laid in its final resting place in the Chapel of Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.

1939 – During the Spanish Civil War, Barcelona, the Republican capital of Spain, falls to the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco. In 1931, King Alfonso XIII approved elections to decide the government of Spain, and voters overwhelmingly chose to abolish the monarchy in favor of a liberal republic. Alfonso subsequently went into exile, and the Second Republic, initially dominated by middle-class liberals and moderate socialists, was proclaimed.

During the first five years of the republic, organized labor and leftist radicals forced widespread liberal reforms as independence-minded Spanish regions such as Catalonia and the Basque provinces achieved virtual autonomy. The landed aristocracy, the church, and a large military clique increasingly employed violence in their opposition to the Second Republic, and in July 1936, General Francisco Franco led a right-wing army revolt in Morocco, which prompted the division of Spain into two key camps: the Nationalists and the Republicans. Franco’s Nationalist forces rapidly overran much of the Republican-controlled areas in central and northern Spain, and Catalonia became a key Republican stronghold.

During 1937, Franco unified the Nationalist forces under the command of the Falange, Spain’s fascist party, while the Republicans fell under the sway of the communists. Germany and Italy aided Franco with an abundance of planes, tanks, and arms, while the Soviet Union aided the Republican side. In addition, small numbers of communists and other radicals from France, the USSR, America, and elsewhere formed the International Brigades to aid the Republican cause.

The most significant contribution of these foreign units was the successful defense of Madrid until the end of the war. In June 1938, the Nationalists drove to the Mediterranean Sea and cut the Republicans’ territory in two. Later in the year, Franco mounted a major offensive against Catalonia. In January 1939, its capital, Barcelona, was captured, and soon after the rest of Catalonia fell. With their cause all but lost, the Republicans attempted to negotiate a peace, but Franco refused.

On March 28, 1939, the victorious Nationalists entered Madrid, and the bloody Spanish Civil War came to an end. Up to a million lives were lost in the conflict, the most devastating in Spanish history.

1940 - The American-Japanese Treaty of Navigation and Commerce is allowed to lapse because the US government refuses to negotiate in protest against Japanese aggression in China.

1942 – The first American expeditionary force to go to Europe during World War II went ashore in Northern Ireland.

1942 – The Board of Inquiry established to investigate Pearl Harbor find Admiral Kimmel, (then Commander in Chief, US Fleet) and General Short (then Commander in Chief, Hawaii Department) guilty of dereliction of duty. Both have already been dismissed.

1943 – The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma. OSS’s Detachment 101 came perhaps the closest to realizing General Willaim “Wild Bill” Donovan’s original vision of “strategic” support to regular combat operations. Under the initial leadership of “the most dangerous colonel,” Carl Eifler, Detachment 101 took time to develop its capabilities and relationships with native guides and agents.

Within a year, however, the Detachment and its thousands of cooperating Kachin tribesmen were gleaning valuable intelligence from jungle sites behind Japanese lines. With barely 120 Americans at any one time, the unit eventually recruited almost 11,000 native Kachins to fight the Japanese occupiers. When Allied troops invaded Burma in 1944, Detachment 101 teams advanced well ahead of the combat formations, gathering intelligence, sowing rumors, sabotaging key installations, rescuing downed Allied fliers, and snuffing out isolated Japanese positions. Detachment 101 received the Presidential Distinguished Unit Citation for its service in the 1945 offensive that liberated Rangoon.

1944 – The forces of US 5th Army continue their offensive. The Free French Corps captures Colle Belvedere and advance toward Monte Abate. The US 2nd Corps establishes a bridgehead over the Rapido River.

1944 – On New Britain, there is a heavy bombing raid on the Japanese base at Rabaul, by US aircraft. Many Japanese planes are claimed to be shot down.

1945 – Units of US 3rd Army in the Ardennes have now crossed the Clerf River in several areas and are attacking all along the front of US 3rd and 12th Corps.

January 26th ~ {continued...}

1945 – American Lt. Audie Murphy, is wounded in France. Born the son of Texas sharecroppers on June 20, 1924, Murphy served three years of active duty, beginning as a private, rising to the rank of staff sergeant, and finally winning a battlefield commission to 2nd lieutenant. He was wounded three times, fought in nine major campaigns across Europe, and was credited with killing 241 Germans. He won 37 medals and decorations, including the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star (with oak leaf cluster), the Legion of Merit, and the Croix de Guerre (with palm).

The battle that won Murphy the Medal of Honor, and which ended his active duty, occurred during the last stages of the Allied victory over the Germans in France. Murphy acted as cover for infantrymen during a last desperate German tank attack. Climbing atop an abandoned U.S. tank destroyer, he took control of its .50-caliber machine gun and killed 50 Germans, stopping the advance but suffering a leg wound in the process. Upon returning to the States, Murphy was invited to Hollywood by Jimmy Cagney, who saw the war hero’s picture on the cover of Life magazine.

By 1950, Murphy won an acting contract with Universal Pictures. In his most famous role, he played himself in the monumentally successful To Hell and Back. Perhaps as interesting as his film career was his public admission that he suffered severe depression from post traumatic stress syndrome, also called battle fatigue, and became addicted to sleeping pills as a result. This had long been a taboo subject for veterans. Murphy died in a plane crash while on a business trip in 1971. He was 46.

1949 – USS Norton Sound, first guided-missile ship, launches first guided missile, Loon.

1951 – U.S. warships bombarded Inchon for the second time during the war. The first was during the initial allied invasion, Sept. 15, 1950.

1951 – Far East Air Forces flew its first C-47 “control aircraft”, loaded with enough communications equipment to connect by radio all T-6 Mosquitoes, tactical air control parties, and the Tactical Air Control Center. This was the harbinger of today’s warning and control aircraft.

1952 – A rescue helicopter, behind enemy lines near the coastline of the Yellow Sea, received small arms fire while rescuing an F-84 pilot, Capt. A.T.Thawley.

1953 – Surface ships blasted coastal targets as the USS Missouri completed a 46-hour bombardment of Songjin.

1953 – The last F4U Corsair rolled off the Chance Vought Aircraft Company production line. Despite the dawning of the jet age, this World War II fighter remained in production due to its vital close-air support role in the Korean War. Almost 12,000 Corsairs were produced in various models.

1954 – The Senate consents to a defense treaty between the US and South Korea.

1962 – The United States launched Ranger 3 to land scientific instruments on the moon, but the probe missed its target by some 22,000 miles.

1970 – U.S. Navy Lt. Everett Alvarez Jr. spends his 2,000th day in captivity in Southeast Asia. First taken prisoner when his plane was shot down on August 5, 1964, he became the longest-held POW in U.S. history. Alvarez was downed over Hon Gai during the first bombing raids against North Vietnam in retaliation for the disputed attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964.

Alvarez was released in 1973 after spending over eight years in captivity, the first six months as the only American prisoner in North Vietnam. From the first day of his captivity, he was shackled, isolated, nearly starved, and brutally tortured. Although he was among the more junior-rank prisoners of war, his courageous conduct under horrendous conditions and treatment helped establish the model emulated by the many other POWs that later joined him. After retirement from the Navy, he served as deputy director of the Peace Corps and deputy administrator of the Veterans Administration during the Reagan administration.

1972 – Radio Hanoi announces North Vietnam’s rejection of the latest U.S. peace proposal. Revealing more details of the secret Paris peace talks, Henry Kissinger responds publicly, condemning the North Vietnamese announcement and criticizing Hanoi’s nine-point counter-proposal, which had been submitted during the secret talks. Kissinger took exception with the communist insistence on the end of all U.S. support for the South Vietnamese government. The communists maintained that “withdrawal” meant not only withdrawal of U.S. troops, but also the removal of all U.S. equipment, aid, and arms in the possession of the South Vietnamese army. Kissinger asserted that the abrupt removal of all U.S. aid would guarantee the collapse of the Saigon regime. With the peace talks at a virtual impasse, the North Vietnamese leadership decided to launch a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972.

January 26th ~ {continued...}

1980 – At the request of President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. Olympic Committee votes to ask the International Olympic Committee to cancel or move the upcoming Moscow Olympics. The action was in response to the Soviet military invasion of Afghanistan the previous month.

1990 – Attorneys for Manuel Noriega challenged the jurisdiction of U.S. courts to try the deposed Panamanian leader on drug-trafficking charges, and said Noriega should be declared a prisoner of war.

1991 – Upon receiving a request from the Saudi government, the Bush Administration determined that the Coast Guard would head an interagency team that will assist the Saudi government in an oil spill assessment and plan for a clean-up operation.

1993 – A Marine is KIA by sniper fire in Mogadishu.

1999 – Some 700 US troops were ordered by NATO to be pulled from Bosnia in a 10% force reduction.

1999 – US jets again fired on air-defense sites in Iraq and Pres. Clinton approved more aggressive rules of engagement.

2000 – The U.N. Security Council reaches agreement on the appointment of Hans Blix of Sweden, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency(IAEA), to lead UNMOVIC.

2001 – President Bush renewed his pledge to build a missile defense system and to reduce the nuclear arsenal.

2002 – IAEA inspectors in Iraq verified presence of nuclear material.

2003 – Secretary of State Colin Powell, citing Iraq’s lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors, said he’d lost faith in the inspectors’ ability to conduct a definitive search for banned weapons programs.

2004 – President Hamid Karzai signed Afghanistan’s new constitution into law, putting into force a charter meant to reunite his war-shattered nation.

2005 – A US military transport helicopter crashed in bad weather in Iraq’s western desert, killing 31 people, all believed to be Marines.

2005 – After being incarcerated without trial for almost three years, the four British detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar, are free to go home, having been released without charge by the UK government.

2015 – The U.S. Secret Service recovers a flying drone from the lawn at the White House.

2015 – The US FBI arrests three alleged Russian Foreign Intelligence Service spies working in the United States. The three men sought secrets about US economic plans and proposed sanctions against Moscow.

2015 – The US Eastern District Court of Virginia convicts a disgruntled former CIA officer, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling, of leaking secrets to a reporter. All nine charges he faced stem from a secret CIA mission to derail Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

January 27th ~

1776 – Henry Knox’s “noble train of artillery” arrives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Knox Expedition, was an expedition led by Continental Army Colonel Henry Knox to transport heavy weaponry that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga to the Continental Army camps outside Boston, Massachusetts during the winter of 1775–1776.

Knox went to Ticonderoga in November 1775, and, over the course of 3 winter months, moved 60 tons of cannons and other armaments by boat, horse and ox-drawn sledges, and manpower, along poor-quality roads, across two semi-frozen rivers, and through the forests and swamps of the lightly inhabited Berkshires to the Boston area.

Historian Victor Brooks has called Knox’s exploit “one of the most stupendous feats of logistics” of the entire American War of Independence. The route by which Knox moved the weaponry is now known as the Henry Knox Trail, and the states of New York and Massachusetts have erected markers along the route.

1778 – Marines landed at New Providence, Bahamas; the American flag flew over foreign soil for the first time. The first American soldiers sent forth from the fledgling nation’s shores were a detachment of Marines. That amphibious raid–the first in what remains today a Marine specialty–aimed to seize guns and gunpowder from a British fort.

1787 – General Benjamin Lincoln arrives in Springfield Massachusetts and moves on to drive Shays’ rebels northward.

1814 – Congress authorizes a United States Army of 62,773 men. To this time the effective strength of the army had been about 11,000 regulars. Secretary of War John Armstrong divides the US into nine military districts and he will go on to remove such ineffectual leaders form command as General James Wilkenson and General Wade Hampton for their part in their failure to take Montreal.

1823 – President James Monroe appointed 1st US ambassadors to South America.

1825 – Congress approved Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the “Trail of Tears.”

1837 – Marines fought in the Battle of Hatchee-Lustee (Muskogee for “Black Creek”), which is today Reedy Creek, Florida. A combined force under General Jesup of Army and Marines attacked a large Seminole village and captured or drove off the inhabitants.

1862 – President Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, ordering all land and sea forces to advance on February 22, 1862. This bold move sent a message to his commanders that the president was tired of excuses and delays in seizing the offensive against Confederate forces. The unusual order was the product of a number of factors. Lincoln had a new Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who replaced the hopelessly corrupt Simon Cameron. Lincoln was much more comfortable with Stanton. The president had also been brushing up on his readings in military strategy. Lincoln felt that if enough force were brought to bear on the Confederates simultaneously, the Confederates would break. This was a simple plan that ignored a host of other factors, but Lincoln felt that if the Confederates “…weakened one to strengthen another,” the Union could step in and “seize and hold the one weakened.”

The primary reason for the order, however, was General George McClellan, commander of the Army of the Potomac in the east. McClellan had a deep contempt for Lincoln that had become increasingly apparent since Lincoln appointed McClellan in July 1861. McClellan had shown great reluctance to reveal his plans to the president, and he exhibited no signs of moving his army in the near future. Lincoln wanted to convey a sense of urgency to all the military leaders, and it worked in the West. Union armies in Tennessee began to move, and General Ulysses S. Grant captured Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, respectively.

McClellan, however, did not respond. Lincoln’s order called for strict accountability for each commander who did not follow the order, but the president had to handle McClellan carefully. Because McClellan had the backing of many Democrats and he had whipped the Army of the Potomac into fine fighting shape over the winter, Lincoln had to give McClellan a chance to command in the field.

January 27th ~ {continued...}

1863 – Ironclad U.S.S. Montauk, Commander John L. Worden, and U.S.S. Seneca, Wissahickon, Dawn, and mortar schooner C. P. Williams engaged Confederate batteries at Fort McAllister, Georgia, on the Ogeechee River.

Worden was acting under orders from Rear Admiral Du Pont to test the new ironclads; though McAllister was an important objective itself, Du Pont was primarily readying his forces for the spring assault on Charleston-for the success of which the Department relied greatly on the monitor class vessels. Worden, unable to proceed within close range of the fort because of formidable sunken obstructions which “from appearances” were “protected by torpedoes,” engaged for four hours before withdrawing.

1865 – After dark, a launch commanded by Acting Ensign Thomas Morgan from U.S.S. Eutaw proceeded up the James River past the obstructions at Trent’s Reach and captured C.S.S. Scorpion. The torpedo boat had run aground during the Confederate attempt to steam downriver on the 23rd and 24th and had been abandoned after Union mortar fire destroyed C.S.S. Drewry which was similarly stranded nearby. Morgan reported: “Finding her hard aground, I immediately proceeded to get her afloat and succeeded in doing so, and re passed the obstruction on my return to the fleet about 10:30 p.m.”

Scorpion was found to be little damaged by the explosion of Drewry, contrary to Confederate estimates, and Chief Engineer Alexander Henderson, who examined her, reported approvingly: ‘she has fair speed for a boat of her kind, and is well adapted for the purpose for which she was built.” Scorpion was reported to be 46 feet in length, 6 feet 3 inches beam, and 3 feet 9 inches in depth.

1880 – Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric incandescent lamp.

1900 – Hyman Rickover, American admiral the “Father of the Nuclear Navy” was born in Makow, Russia (now Poland). He emigrated to the United States with his family in 1906. He served on active duty with the United States Navy for more than 63 years, receiving exemptions from the mandatory retirement age due to his critical service in the building of the United States Navy’s nuclear surface and submarine force. He died at home in Arlington, Virginia, on July 8, 1986 and was buried in Section 5 at Arlington National Cemetery.

1900 – Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demanded that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels.

1926 – The Senate adopts a resolution permitting the US to join the World Court of International justice, which is to be given jurisdiction over all international problems brought before it by member nations. The resolution contains five reservations. Four are accepted without question, but the fifth, pertaining to advisory opinions from the Court relating to a dispute in which the US is involved, the US will not compromise. Over the next ten years attempts to come to an agreement will fail. The US, being neither a member of the League of Nations, nor the World Court, will, nevertheless, participate in a number of international conferences and deliberations.

1935 – The League of Nations majority favored depriving Japan of mandates.

1939 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt approved the sale of U.S. war planes to France.

1939 – First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft built by Lockheed. Developed to a United States Army Air Corps requirement, the P-38 had distinctive twin booms and a single, central nacelle containing the cockpit and armament.

Named “fork-tailed devil” by the Luftwaffe and “two planes, one pilot” by the Japanese, the P-38 was used in a number of roles, including dive bombing, level bombing, ground-attack, night fighting, photo reconnaissance missions, and extensively as a long-range escort fighter when equipped with drop tanks under its wings.

The P-38 was used most successfully in the Pacific Theater of Operations and the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations as the mount of America’s top aces, Richard Bong (40 victories) and Thomas McGuire (38 victories). In the South West Pacific theater, the P-38 was the primary long-range fighter of United States Army Air Forces until the appearance of large numbers of P-51D Mustangs toward the end of the war.

The P-38 was unusually quiet for a fighter, the exhaust muffled by the turbo-superchargers. The P-38 was the only American fighter aircraft in production throughout American involvement in the war, from Pearl Harbor to Victory over Japan Day.

January 27th ~ {continued...}

1940 – The American transport City of Flint, which had been impounded by Germany, arrives back at her home port following her adventures in the Baltic.

1941 – The United States and Great Britain begin high-level military talks in Washington. They agree to a strategy for war known as the ABC-1 plan. It calls for first concentrating on defeating Germany, then taking on Japan.

1942 – USS Gudgeon is first US sub to sink enemy submarine in action, Japanese I-173.

1943 – 8th Air Force bombers, dispatched from their bases in England, fly the first American bombing raid against the Germans, targeting the Wilhelmshaven port. Of 64 planes participating in the raid, 53 reached their target and managed to shoot down 22 German planes-and lost only three planes in return.

The 8th Air Force was activated in February 1942 as a heavy bomber force based in England. Its B-17 Flying Fortresses, capable of sustaining heavy damage while continuing to fly, and its B-24 Liberators, long-range bombers, became famous for precision bombing raids, the premier example being the raid on Wilhelmshaven. Commanded at the time by Brig. Gen. Newton Longfellow, the 8th Air Force was amazingly effective and accurate, by the standards of the time, in bombing warehouses and factories in this first air attack against the Axis power.

1944 – US 5th Army continues attacks on the Gustav Line. The British 10th Corps attacks Santa Maria Infante. The US 34th Division (part of 2nd Corps) captures Monte Maiola and Caira to the north of Cassino. The Free French Corps near Monte Abate is pushed by German counterattacks.

1944 – The Cape Gloucester beachhead, on New Britain, is expanded to the northwest by US marine regimental forces.

1944 – The governments of Australia, Britain and the United States protest the Japanese treatment of prisoners of war. They indicate a determination to investigate and punish those responsible.

1945 – Commissioning of USS Higbee (DD-806), first U.S. Navy ship named after a female member of U.S. Navy.

1945 – The Ledo Road to China is finally cleared when Chinese troops from Burma and Yunnan province link up near Mongyu. General Sultan, who leads the British, American and Chinese in the area, has in fact announced the road as open on January 22nd. Sultan’s forces are now moving south toward Mandalay and Lashio by several routes.

1945 – The US 32nd Infantry Division lands at Lingayen Gulf to reinforce the American troops there.

1945 – Troops from US 3rd Army cross the Our River and take Oberhausen. The gains made by the German Ardennes offensive are now almost completely eliminated.

1951 – Forcefully marking the continued importance of the West in the development of nuclear weaponry, the government detonates the first of a series of nuclear bombs at its new Nevada test site. Although much of the West had long lagged behind the rest of the nation in technological and industrial development, the massive World War II project to build the first atomic bomb single-handedly pushed the region into the 20th century.

Code named the Manhattan Project, this ambitious research and development program pumped millions of dollars of federal funds into new western research centers like the bomb building lab at Los Alamos, New Mexico and the fissionable material production center at Hanford, Washington. Ironically, the very conditions that had once impeded western technological development became benefits: lots of wide-open unpopulated federal land where dangerous experiments could be conducted in secret.

After the war ended, the West continued to be the ideal region for Cold War-era nuclear experimentation for the same reasons. In December 1950, the Atomic Energy Commission designated a large swath of unpopulated desert land 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the Nevada Proving Ground for atmospheric atomic testing.

On January 27, 1951, the government detonated its first atomic device on the site, resulting in a tremendous explosion, the flash from which was seen as far away as San Francisco. The government continued to conduct atmospheric tests for six more years at the Nevada site. They studied the effects on humans by stationing ground troops as close as 2,500 yards from ground zero and moving them even closer shortly after the detonation.

By 1957, though, the effects of radioactivity on the soldiers and the surrounding population led the government to begin testing bombs underground, and by 1962, all atmospheric testing had ceased. In recent years, the harm caused to soldiers and westerners exposed to radioactivity from the Nevada test site has become a controversial topic. Some critics argue the government waged a “nuclear war on the West,” and maintain that the government knew of the dangers posed to people living near the test site well before the 1957 shift to underground tests. Others, though, point out that the test site has brought billions of dollars into the state and resulted in great economic benefit to Nevada.

1951 – From this period onward, the major strategic concern of the Chinese was to provide its armies with replacements and supplies. They indoctrinated communist soldiers at all echelons in the importance of logistical support. The Chinese 68th Army commander told his subordinates “The achievement of final victory lies in timely food and ammunition supply and successful transportation.”

January 27th ~ {continued...}

1953 – The Combat Cargo Command of the U.S. Air Force transported its 2,000,000th passenger to Korea after two years of operations as the Far East’s military airline.

1959 – NASA selected 110 candidates for the first U.S. space flight.

1962 – Secretary of Defense McNamara forwards a memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to President Kennedy which urges the deployment of US forces to Vietnam. Recapitulating the domino theory, the Joint Chiefs assert that failure to deploy now will only delay the time when it must be done, and will make the task more difficult.

1965 – Military leaders ousted the civilian government of Tran Van Huong in Saigon.

1967 – A launch pad fire during Apollo program tests at Cape Canaveral, Florida, kills astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chafee. An investigation indicated that a faulty electrical wire inside the Apollo 1 command module was the probable cause of the fire. The astronauts, the first Americans to die in a spacecraft, had been participating in a simulation of the Apollo 1 launch scheduled for the next month.

The Apollo program was initiated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) following President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 declaration of the goal of landing men on the moon and bringing them safely back to Earth by the end of the decade. The so-called “moon shot” was the largest scientific and technological undertaking in history.

In December 1968, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to travel to the moon, and on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. walked on the lunar surface. In all, there were 17 Apollo missions and six lunar landings.

1967 – The United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union sign the Outer Space Treaty in Washington, D.C., banning deployment of nuclear weapons in space, and limiting use of the Moon and other celestial bodies to peaceful purposes.

1973 – The Paris Peace Accords are signed by officials from the United States and North Vietnam, bringing an official end to America’s participation in its most unpopular foreign war. The accords did little, however, to solve the turmoil in Vietnam or to heal the terrible domestic divisions in the United States brought on by its involvement in this Cold War battleground.

Peace negotiations between the United States and North Vietnam had been ongoing since 1968. Richard Nixon was elected president that year, largely on the basis of his promise to find a way to “peace with honor” in Vietnam. Four years later, after the deaths of thousands more American servicemen, South Vietnamese soldiers, North Vietnamese soldiers, and Viet Cong fighters, the Paris Peace Accords were signed, and America’s participation in the struggle in Vietnam came to a close.

On the military side, the accords seemed straightforward enough. A cease-fire was declared, and the United States promised to remove all military forces from South Vietnam within 60 days.

For their part, the North Vietnamese promised to return all American prisoners of war within that same 60-day framework. The nearly 150,000 North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam were allowed to remain after the cease-fire.

The war against communism in Southeast Asia cost over 50,000 U.S. lives and billions of dollars, in addition to countless soldiers wounded in the line of duty. At home, the war seriously fractured the consensus about the Cold War that had been established in the period after World War II–simple appeals to fighting the red threat of communism would no longer be sufficient to move the American nation to commit its prestige, manpower, and money to foreign conflicts.

For Vietnam, the accords meant little. The cease-fire almost immediately collapsed, with recriminations and accusations flying from both sides. In 1975, the North Vietnamese launched a massive military offensive, crushed the South Vietnamese forces, and reunified Vietnam under communist rule.

1975 – A bipartisan Senate investigation of activities by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is launched by a special congressional committee headed by Senator Frank Church of Idaho. On November 20, the committee released its report, charging both U.S. government agencies with illegal activities. The committee reported that the FBI and the CIA had conducted illegal surveillance of several hundred thousand U.S. citizens.

The CIA was also charged with illegally plotting to assassinate foreign leaders, such as Salvador Allende, the democratically elected socialist president of Chile. In 1973, Allende was killed in a coup that the CIA secretly helped organize. The Senate committee also reported that the CIA had maintained a secret stockpile of poisons despite a specific presidential order to destroy the substances.

1977 – Pres. Carter pardoned most Vietnam War draft evaders.

1978 – The State Supreme Court ruled that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie, Illinois.

January 27th ~ {continued...}

1980 – Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian Caper, the popular name given to the joint covert rescue. The “caper” involved CIA agents (Tony Mendez and a man known as “Julio”) joining the six diplomats to form a fake film crew made up of six Canadians, one Irishman and one Latin American who were finishing scouting for an appropriate location to shoot a scene for the nominal science-fiction film Argo. The ruse was carried off on the morning of Sunday, January 27, 1980, at the Mehrabad Airport in Tehran. The eight Americans successfully boarded a Swissair flight to Zurich and escaped Iran.

1981 – President Reagan greeted the 52 former American hostages released by Iran, telling them during a visit to the White House: “Welcome home.”

1985 – The Cold War couldn’t stop one of the stalwarts of capitalism, Coca-Cola, from setting up shop behind the iron curtain. On January 27, 1985, Coke announced plans to sell its all-American soft drinks in the Soviet Union. With the move, Coke belatedly matched Pepsico, who, twelve years earlier, had begun distributing its colas in the U.S.S.R.

1988 – About 400 Marines and sailors from the 2d Marine Division, 2d Marine Aircraft Wing, and 2d Force Service Support Group deployed for the Persian Gulf. The Contingency Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) CM 2-88 would relieve Contingency MAGTF 1-88 in the volatile Persian Gulf and provide the effective landing force capability to Joint Task Force Middle East.

1991 – Muhammad Siyad Barre, the dictator of the Somali Democratic Republic since 1969, flees Mogadishu as rebels overrun his palace and capture the Somali capital. In 1969, Somalian President Abd-i-rashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated, and a few days later Major General Barre seized power in a military coup. Barre’s government developed strong ties with the USSR and other Soviet-bloc nations during the 1970s but in 1978 lost Soviet support when it invaded Ethiopia to regain pre-colonial Somali territory.

The attack was repelled within a year, but protracted guerrilla warfare continued into the 1980s, bolstered by U.S. support for the Somalis. Several hundred thousand refugees fled to Somalia to escape the conflict, and by the late 1980s economic depression contributed to the outbreak of civil war in Somalia. In early 1991, rebels ousted Barre after intense and bloody fighting, and Ali Mahdi Muhammad of the United Somali Congress took control of Mogadishu and the rest of southern Somalia. The Somali National Movement gained control of the north, the old British Somaliland, and proclaimed it the independent Somaliland Republic.

In 1992, civil war between the two Somalian internal clan-based fighting, and the worst African drought of the century created devastating famine, which threatened one-fourth of the Somali population with starvation. In response, troops from the United States and other U.N. nations occupied Somalia in late 1992 to ensure distribution of food aid and to suppress Somalia’s warring factions. Although many of the U.N.’s temporary humanitarian aims were achieved, the military operation was largely unsuccessful. In 1993, a national cease-fire was signed, but no central government was formed, and fighting erupted again in the same year.

1991 – Upon receiving a request from the Saudi government, the Bush Administration determines that the Coast Guard will head an interagency team that will assist the Saudi government in an oil spill assessment and plan for a clean-up operation.

1992 – Special UNSCOM Mission to secure unconditional acceptance of UNSC resolutions begins.

1994 – The US Senate passed a non-binding resolution, 62-38, calling on the Clinton administration to lift the U.S. trade embargo against Vietnam.

1998 – President Clinton intensifies U.S. pressure on Iraq to open its suspect weapons sites, warning Saddam Hussein not to “defy the will of the world.”

1999 – The Clinton administration announced a plan to end fighting in Kosovo. It called for NATO air strikes if autonomy to the region is not accepted by Pres. Milosevic.

2000 – The US and China agreed to resume normal military ties.

2000 – In Iraq the execution of 26 political prisoners at the Abu Gharib prison took place. Another 13 political detainees were later reported to have died there in the last 2 months from torture neglect and malnutrition.

2002 – Cheney and Rumsfeld said al Qaeda prisoner status at Guantanamo Bay would not change to POW.

2002 – Hamid Karzai, interim Afghan leader, began a visit to the US and asked Afghan Americans to return and help with reconstruction.

2002 – Iraq admitted an int’l. nuclear-inspection team (IAEA) on a 4-day mission to a site near Baghdad.

2003 – The Bush administration moved toward a military showdown with Iraq and suggested a decision could come as early as next week after UN inspectors credited Iraq with only limited cooperation in the search for weapons. Meanwhile, chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix charged that Iraq had never genuinely accepted U.N. resolutions demanding its disarmament and warned that “cooperation on substance” was necessary for a peaceful solution.

2003 – During Operation Mongoose, when a band of fighters were assaulted by U.S. forces at the Adi Ghar cave complex 15 miles (24 km) north of Spin Boldak, 18 rebels were reported killed with no U.S. casualties. The site was suspected to be a base for supplies and fighters coming from Pakistan. The first isolated attacks by relatively large Taliban bands on Afghan targets also appeared around that time.

2004 – Wartime Croatian Serb leader Milan Babic (1991-1992) pleaded guilty to persecution in a plan to ethnically cleanse parts of Croatia of non-Serbs at the outset of the Balkan wars, and expressed “a deep sense of shame” for his crimes. Babic was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

January 28th ~

1791 – Alexander Hamilton provides plans for dollar currency and US Mint. Following the Revolutionary War, the U.S. seemed as though as it would adopt copper as its coin of choice. However, various efforts to produce and standardize copper proved futile. Congress pushed on and, in 1786, signed off on Thomas Jefferson’s proposal for a dollar-driven currency.

Of course, the nation also needed to develop a means for producing this currency and on this day in 1791, Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton stepped before the House to deliver a report on the establishment of a national mint. Hamilton’s work helped pave the way for the authorization of the United States Mint on April 2, 1792.

1825 – George Edward Pickett (d.1875), Major General in the Confederate Army, was born. When blame was being sought for why his ill -fated charge was the final action of the Battle of Gettysburg, and why the Confederacy did not win the three -day battle, George Pickett suggested that “The Union Army might have had something to do with it.” Pickett had been sponsored for West Point by the Illinois congressman, Abraham Lincoln.

1828 – Confederate General Thomas Carmichael Hindman is born in Knoxville, Tennessee. Hindman was raised in Alabama and educated in New York and New Jersey. His family moved to a Mississippi plantation, and he returned from the North to study law. His studies were interrupted by service in the Mexican War, but he was admitted to the Mississippi Bar Association in 1851. He earned a reputation as an avid secessionist long before many southerners held that view. He moved to Arkansas and was elected to Congress in 1858. Hindman’s law partner was Patrick Cleburne, who also became a Confederate General.

When the war began, Hindman raised his own regiment and led it as a colonel. He was soon promoted to general and he raised an army of 18,000 from Arkansas. His tenure as commander in Arkansas was stormy. Hindman declared martial law, imposed price controls, and enforced conscription. After his force was stopped at Prairie Grove in December 1862, Hindman was reassigned to the Army of Tennessee. He fought at Chickamauga and Atlanta, and was wounded twice.

After the surrender, Hindman fled to Mexico and joined a number of Confederates there. Hindman returned to Arkansas in 1868 and dove back into politics. He led a faction that challenged the Republican Party, and, in a pragmatic political maneuver, he began working on a biracial coalition. Hindman was shot as he sat in his living room, most likely by one of his political opponents. He died on September 28, 1868.

1855 – The Panama Railway, which carried thousands of unruly miners to California via the dense jungles of Central America, dispatches its first train across the Isthmus of Panama. Even before the United States took California from Mexico in 1848 as a spoil of war, Americans heading for the West Coast by ship often cut months off their voyage by crossing the isthmus to the Pacific through Nicaragua. When gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill early in 1848, the trickle of western emigrants across the narrow ribbon of land turned into a flood.

Before 1855, sea travelers not wishing to endure the long and treacherous passage around the tip of South America would disembark on the East Coast of Nicaragua. They would then proceed by light boat up the San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua, cross the lake in larger steamers, and complete the final overland leg of the journey via carriages. They traveled on a modern road that deposited them on the West Coast, where they boarded a steamer for San Francisco. Most of the early travelers preferred to cross the isthmus via this safe and well-planned route through Nicaragua rather than through Panama, because the latter was a dense jungle swarming with malarial mosquitoes. A glance at the map, though, showed that Panama was the narrowest barrier between the two oceans and might offer a faster crossing if properly developed.

In 1847, a group of New York financiers organized the Panama Railroad Company to do just that, and in 1850, workers began laying track through Panamanian jungle roughly along the route followed by the present canal. Completed in early 1855, the first train departed from the Atlantic side for the Pacific on January 28. A ship voyage punctuated by a brief train ride across the isthmus now became the fastest and most comfortable means of traveling to California, and tens of thousands of gold-hungry emigrants were soon racing through Panama every year.

The railroad and the California-bound emigrants proved a boon to Panama’s economy, giving rise to the prosperous new city of Colon at the Atlantic terminus, where passengers often complained about the greatly inflated prices for room and board. The Panamanians had their own complaints about the hordes of young men headed for the California gold fields, who often brought an unwelcome taste of the “Wild West” to Central America. Boredom, guns, and alcohol proved a volatile mix among the impatient travelers, and Panamanians resented the arrogant superiority and racism many of them displayed.

The traffic of freight and human beings moving both ways across the isthmus kept the Panama Railway busy until 1869, when the first transcontinental railroad was completed in the United States. However, the railway continued to carry a great deal of commercial freight destined for Europe or Asia until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914.

1858 – John Brown organized a plan to raid the Arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.

1878 – The 1st telephone exchange was established at New Haven, Conn.

1885 – Lighthouse Keeper Marcus Hanna of the Cape Elizabeth Light Station saved two men from the wrecked schooner Australia. For this rescue Hanna was awarded the Gold Lifesaving Medal. He was also awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Port Hudson in 1863. He is the only person to have ever received both awards.

January 28th ~ {continued...}

1909 – United States troops leave Cuba, ending direct control of that country, with the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base after being there since the Spanish–American War.

1914 – US Marines with British, French and German units landed in Haiti.

1915 – President Woodrow Wilson signed into law the “Act to Create the Coast Guard,” an act passed by Congress on 20 January 1915 to form the Coast Guard (38 Stat. L., 800). The Coast Guard, however, still considers the date of the founding of the Revenue Cutter Service, 4 August 1790, as its “official” birthday, even though the Lighthouse Service, absorbed in 1939, is even older than that, dating to 7 August 1789.

The Coast Guard is the amalgamation of five Federal agencies. These agencies, the Revenue Cutter Service, the Lighthouse Service, the Steamboat Inspection Service, the Bureau of Navigation, and the Lifesaving Service, were originally independent, but had overlapping authorities and were shuffled around the government. They sometimes received new names, and they were all finally united under the umbrella of the Coast Guard. The multiple missions and responsibilities of the modern Service are directly tied to this diverse heritage and the magnificent achievements of all of these agencies.

1915 – The merchant frigate William P. Frye was stopped by a German cruiser in the South Atlantic off the Brazilian coast and ordered to jettison its cargo. The following day, the German captain noted that the disposal of the wheat had not been completed, so he ordered the ship’s destruction. The sinking of the Frye was the first such loss inflicted on American shipping in World War I.

1917 – American forces are recalled from Mexico after nearly 11 months of fruitless searching for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, who had lead a bloody raid against Columbus, New Mexico. In 1914, following the resignation of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa and his former revolutionary ally Venustiano Carranza battled each other in a struggle for succession. By the end of 1915, Villa had been driven north into the mountains, and the U.S. government recognized General Carranza as the president of Mexico.

In January 1916, to protest President Woodrow Wilson’s support for Carranza, Villa executed 16 U.S. citizens at Santa Isabel in northern Mexico. Then, on March 9, 1916, Villa led a band of several hundred guerrillas across the border and raided the town of Columbus, killing 17 Americans. U.S. troops pursued the Mexicans, killing 50 on U.S. soil and 70 more in Mexico. On March 15, under orders from President Wilson, U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa dead or alive. For the next 11 months, Pershing, like Carranza, failed to capture the elusive revolutionary and Mexican resentment over the U.S. intrusion into their territory led to a diplomatic crisis.

On June 21, the crisis escalated into violence when Mexican government troops attacked Pershing’s forces at Carrizal, Mexico, leaving 17 Americans killed or wounded, and 38 Mexicans dead. In late January 1917, having failed in their mission to capture Villa and under pressure from the Mexican government, the Americans were ordered home. Villa continued his guerrilla activities in northern Mexico until Adolfo de la Huerta took power over the government and drafted a reformist constitution. Villa entered into an amicable agreement with Huerta and agreed to retire from politics. In 1920, the government pardoned Villa, but three years later he was assassinated at Parral.

1923 – The 1st “National Socialist German Workers Party” (NSDAP, aka NAZI) formed in Munich.

1932 – The Japanese attacked Shanghai, China, and declare martial law.

1942 – The 4th Marine Regiment was assigned to support Philippine Scouts on Bataan.

1942 – The Eighth Bomber Command (Later re-designated 8th AF in February 1944) activated as part of the U.S. Army Air Forces at Hunter Field in Savannah, Ga. Brig. Gen. Ira C Eaker took the headquarters to England the next month to prepare for its mission to conduct aerial bombardment mission against Nazi-occupied Europe. During World War 2,under the leadership of such generals as Eaker and Jimmy Doolittle, 8th AF became the greatest air armada in history.

By mid-1944, 8th AF had reached a total strength of more than 200,000 people (it is estimated that more than 350,000 Americans served in 8th AF during the war in Europe). At its peak, 8th AF could dispatch more than 2,000 four-engine bombers and 1,000 fighters on a single mission. For these reasons, 8th AF became known as the “Mighty Eighth”.

1945 – Part of the 717-mile “Burma Road” from Lashio, Burma to Kunming in southwest China is reopened by the Allies, permitting supplies to flow back into China. At the outbreak of war between Japan and China in 1937, when Japan began its occupation of China’s seacoast, China began building a supply route that would enable vital resources to evade the Japanese blockade and flow into China’s interior from outside. It was completed in 1939, and allowed goods to reach China via a supply route that led from the sea to Rangoon, and then by train to Lashio.

When, in April 1942, the Japanese occupied most of Burma, the road from Lashio to China was closed, and the supply line was cut off. The Allies were not able to respond until 1944, when Allied forces in eastern India made their way into northern Burma and were able to begin construction of another supply road that linked Ledo, India, with the part of the original Burma Road still controlled by the Chinese. The Stillwell Road (named for Gen. Joseph Stillwell, American adviser to Chiang Kai-shek, China’s leader) was finally opened on this day in 1945, once again allowing the free transport of supplies into China.

1945 – The US 8th Air Force conducts raids on the Ruhr industrial area and the Rhine with 1000 bombers. Oil plants and bridges are the nominal targets.

1945 – The US 1st Army launches attacks east of St. Vith in the Ardennes.

January 28th ~ {continued...}

1952 – The U.N. Command gave the communists four lists with the names of 132,080 POWs held by the United Nations forces.

1955 – The U.S. Congress passed a bill allowing mobilization of troops if China should attack Taiwan.

1964 – The U.S. State Department angrily accuses the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were killed in the incident. The Soviets responded with charges that the flight was a “gross provocation,” and the incident was an ugly reminder of the heightened East-West tensions of the Cold War era. According to the U.S. military, the jet was on a training flight over West Germany and pilots became disoriented by a violent storm that led the plane to veer nearly 100 miles off course.

The Soviet attack on the plane provoked angry protests from the Department of State and various congressional leaders, including Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, who charged that the Soviets had intentionally downed the plane “to gain the offensive” in the aggressive Cold War maneuvering. For their part, the Soviets refused to accept U.S. protests and responded that they had “all grounds to believe that this was not an error or mistake…It was a clear intrusion.” Soviet officials also claimed that the plane was ordered to land but refused the instructions.

Shortly after the incident, U.S. officials were allowed to travel to East Germany to recover the bodies and the wreckage. Like numerous other similar Cold War incidents–including the arrest of suspected “spies” and the seizure of ships–this event resulted in heated verbal exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union, but little else. Both nations had bigger issues to contend with: the United States was engaged in the Vietnam War, and the Soviet Union was dealing with a widening split with communist China. The deaths were, however, another reminder that the heated suspicion, heightened tension, and loaded rhetoric of the Cold War did have the potential to erupt into meaningless death and destruction.

1964 – An unarmed USAF T-39 Sabre Liner on a training mission is shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.

1966 – Operation “Double Eagle.” Largest amphibious landing since Korea. D-Day, 28 January, was a dismal day with low overcast and light rain. Despite the heavy seas, the first wave of Lieutenant Colonel James R. Young’s BLT 3/1 landed at 0700 as planned. Offshore, a destroyer, the USS Barry (DD 933), and a cruiser, the USS Oklahoma City (CLG 5) provided naval gunfire coverage, while eight Douglas A4 Skyhawks from MAG-12 and eight McDonnell F-4B Phantoms from MAG- 11 were on station overhead. The only opposition encountered by the assault troops occur-red late that day. Companies I and M were exposed to occasional small arms fire; one Company I Marine was wounded.

Shortly after Lieutenant Colonel Young’s men secured their objectives, five 105mm howitzer-equipped amphibian tractors (IVTH-6 moved ashore to provide artillery support for the infantry battalion. Company B from the 3d Engineer Battalion was also on the beach to establish various points.

1973 – A cease-fire goes into effect at 8 a.m., Saigon time (midnight on January 27, Greenwich Mean Time). When the cease-fire went into effect, Saigon controlled about 75 percent of South Vietnam’s territory and 85 percent of the population. The South Vietnamese Army was well equipped via last-minute deliveries of U.S. weapons and continued to receive U.S. aid after the cease-fire. The CIA estimated North Vietnamese presence in the South at 145,000 men, about the same as the previous year.

The cease-fire began on time, but both sides violated it. South Vietnamese forces continued to take back villages occupied by communists in the two days before the cease-fire deadline and the communists tried to capture additional territory. Each side held that military operations were justified by the other side’s violations of the cease-fire. What resulted was an almost endless chain of retaliations.

During the period between the initiation of the cease-fire and the end of 1973, there were an average of 2,980 combat incidents per month in South Vietnam. Most of these were low-intensity harassing attacks designed to wear down the South Vietnamese forces, but the North Vietnamese intensified their efforts in the Central Highlands in September when they attacked government positions with tanks west of Pleiku. As a result of these post-cease-fire actions, about 25,000 South Vietnamese were killed in battle in 1973, while communist losses in South Vietnam were estimated at 45,000.

1975 – President Gerald Ford asks Congress for an additional $522 million in military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia. He revealed that North Vietnam now had 289,000 troops in South Vietnam, and tanks, heavy artillery, and antiaircraft weapons “by the hundreds.” Ford succeeded Richard Nixon when he resigned the presidency in August 1974. Despite his wishes to honor Nixon’s promise to come to the aid of South Vietnam, he was faced with a hostile Congress who refused to appropriate military aid for South Vietnam and Cambodia; both countries fell to the communists later in the year.

1980 – The CGC Blackthorn sank in Tampa Bay after colliding with the tanker Capricorn. 23 Coast Guard personnel were killed in the tragedy.

1982 – Italian anti -terrorism forces rescued U.S. Brigadier General James L. Dozier, 42 days after he had been kidnapped by the Red Brigades.

January 28th ~ {continued...}

1986 – At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger’s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems.

Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off. Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors. In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, the Enterprise. Five years later, space flights of the shuttle began when Columbia traveled into space on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth.

When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.

In the aftermath of the explosion, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the explosion was caused by the failure of an “O-ring” seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive explosion.

As a result of the explosion, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle. In September 1988, space shuttle flights resumed with the successful launching of the Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station. To date, there have been more than 100 space shuttle flights.

1991 – The US military reported that more than 60 Iraqi fighter -bombers had taken refuge in Iran, where they were impounded by the Iranian government.

1991 – Iraqi troops attack Khafji, in Saudi Arabia, and are defeated by Coalition forces.

1999 – NATO allies warned Pres. Milosevic that they were ready to use immediate force, and Britain and France said they were prepared to send in ground troops to enforce a peace settlement in Kosovo.

1997 – The official Iraqi News Agency (INA) reports that Iraq has exported a total of 11.5 million barrels of crude oil from its Persian Gulf terminal of Mina al Bakr since it began selling oil under the United Nations’ oil-for-food deal in December 1996.

1997 – The Clinton Administration refutes news reports that Iraq is threatening its neighbors, but restates the U.S. willingness to act if Iraq does become aggressive. The statement is in reaction to speculation following reports that Saddam Hussein’s wife has been placed under house arrest and his son risks losing a leg to gangrene in the wake of a previous assassination attempt.

1999 – From Iraq a UN official reported that hoof -and -mouth disease had crippled 1 million sheep and cattle in the country and that 50,000 kids and calves had died from the viral disease. The vaccine supply was exhausted due to the 1993 destruction of a vaccine laboratory by the UN commission.

2002 – Hamid Karzai became the first Afghan leader to visit Washington in 39 years; President George W. Bush promised a “lasting partnership” with Afghanistan.

2002 – US forces and Afghan militiamen attacked and killed 6 al Qaeda gunmen, who had been holed up at the Mir Wais Hospital in Kandahar.

2002 – At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council’s committee on Iraq trade sanctions, Britain requests a formal “clarification” from Security Council member Syria on allegations that Iraqi crude oil is flowing through a pipeline to Syria and being exported, or at least substituted in Syrian refineries allowing for more Syrian crude oil exports, in violation of United Nations sanctions. Analysts have placed the amount of crude oil being sent from Iraq to Syria at between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels per day.

2003 – US and Afghan forces battled rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the largest -scale fighting in 10 months. 18 enemy fighters were killed in 2 days of fighting. Norwegian F -16s participated in bombing enemy targets.

2003 – DoD submitted a request for Coast Guard forces in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The Commandant, ADM Thomas Collins, approved that request and ordered the deployment of eight 110-foot patrol boats, crews, and support units. The cutters were CGCs: Wrangell, Adak, Aquidneck, Baranof, Grand Isle, Bainbridge Island, Pea Island, and Knight Island.

2003 – Hans Blix reports to the UN Security Council on the progress of weapons inspections in Iraq, 60 days after they began. The 15-page report states that although Iraq had been quite co-operative, there was an absence of full transparency including the deliberate concealment of documents. The report also states that inspectors have evidence that Iraq produced thousands of litres of anthrax in the 1990s and that the deadly bacteria “might still exist”. It also says that Iraq may have lied about the amount if VX nerve gas it has produced, and that it has failed to account for 6500 chemical bombs.

2005 – Iraq battened down for the 1st free balloting in half a century, imposing a 7 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew and closing Baghdad Int’l Airport. Iraqis overseas began three days of voting in 14 nations.

2005 – Authorities in Iraq said they have arrested three close associates of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

2013 – American fighter aircraft F-16 flying out of Aviano Air Base loses radio contact and crashes in the Adriatic Sea.

2015 – The US Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James picks the Boeing 747-8 for the next replacement of Air Force One.

2015 – A federal judge in Albuquerque, New Mexico sentences an ex-Los Alamos physicist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, who pleaded guilty in 2013 to offering to spy on the US to help Venezuela develop a nuclear weapon, to five years imprisonment.

January 29th ~

1677 – Royal Commissioners John Berry and Francis Moryson come to Jamestown Virginia to conduct an inquiry into the rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon. Bacon’s Rebellion can be attributed to a myriad of causes, all of which led to dissent in the Virginia colony. Economic problems, such as declining tobacco prices, growing commercial competition from Maryland and the Carolinas, an increasingly restricted English market, and the rising prices from English manufactured goods (mercantilism) caused problems for the Virginians. There were heavy English losses in the latest series of naval wars with the Dutch and, closer to home, there were many problems caused by weather. Hailstorms, floods, dry spells, and hurricanes rocked the colony all in the course of a year and had a damaging effect on the colonists.

These difficulties encouraged the colonists to find a scapegoat against whom they could vent their frustrations and place the blame for their misfortunes. The colonists found their scapegoat in the form of the local Indians. The trouble began in July 1675 with a raid by the Doeg Indians on the plantation of Thomas Mathews, located in the Northern Neck section of Virginia near the Potomac River. Several of the Doegs were killed in the raid, which began in a dispute over the nonpayment of some items Mathews had apparently obtained from the tribe. The situation became critical when, in a retaliatory strike by the colonists, they attacked the wrong Indians, the Susquehanaugs, which caused large scale Indian raids to begin.

To stave off future attacks and to bring the situation under control, Governor Berkeley ordered an investigation into the matter. He set up what was to be a disastrous meeting between the parties, which resulted in the murders of several tribal chiefs. Throughout the crisis, Berkeley continually pleaded for restraint from the colonists. Some, including Bacon, refused to listen. Nathaniel Bacon disregarded the Governor’s direct orders by seizing some friendly Appomattox Indians for “allegedly” stealing corn. Berkeley reprimanded him, which caused the disgruntled Virginians to wonder which man had taken the right action. It was here the battle lines were about to be drawn.

Governor Sir William Berkeley, seventy when the crisis began, was a veteran of the English Civil Wars, a frontier Indian fighter, a King’s favorite in his first term as Governor in the 1640’s, and a playwright and scholar. His name and reputation as Governor of Virginia were well respected. Berkeley’s antagonist, young Nathaniel Bacon, Jr., was actually Berkeley’s cousin by marriage. Lady Berkeley, Frances Culpeper, was Bacon’s cousin.

Bacon was a troublemaker and schemer whose father sent him to Virginia in the hope that he would mature. Although disdainful of labor, Bacon was intelligent and eloquent. Upon Bacon’s arrival, Berkeley treated his young cousin with respect and friendship, giving him both a substantial land grant and a seat on the council in 1675. A further problem was Berkeley’s attempt to find a compromise. Berkeley’s policy was to preserve the friendship and loyalty of the subject Indians while assuring the settlers that they were not hostile.

January 29th ~ {continued...}

To meet his first objective, the Governor relieved the local Indians of their powder and ammunition. To deal with the second objective, Berkeley called the “Long Assembly” in March 1676. Despite being judged corrupt, the assembly declared war on all “bad” Indians and set up a strong defensive zone around Virginia with a definite chain of command. The Indian wars which resulted from this directive led to the high taxes to pay the army and to the general discontent in the colony for having to shoulder that burden.

The Long Assembly was accused of corruption because of its ruling regarding trade with the Indians. Not coincidentally, most of the favored traders were friends of Berkeley. Regular traders, some of whom had been trading independently with the local Indians for generations, were no longer allowed to trade individually. A government commission was established to monitor trading among those specially chosen and to make sure the Indians were not receiving any arms and ammunition. Bacon, one of the traders adversely affected by the Governor’s order, accused Berkeley publicly of playing favorites. Bacon was also resentful because Berkeley had denied him a commission as a leader in the local militia.

Bacon became the elected “General” of a group of local volunteer Indian fighters, because he promised to bear the cost of the campaigns. After Bacon drove the Pamunkeys from their nearby lands in his first action, Berkeley exercised one of the few instances of control over the situation that he was to have, by riding to Bacon’s headquarters at Henrico with 300 “well armed” gentlemen. Upon Berkeley’s arrival, Bacon fled into the forest with 200 men in search of a place more to his liking for a meeting. Berkeley then issued two petitions declaring Bacon a rebel and pardoning Bacon’s men if they went home peacefully. Bacon would then be relieved of the council seat that he had won for his actions that year, but he was to be given a fair trial for his disobedience.

Bacon did not, at this time, comply with the Governor’s orders. Instead he next attacked the camp of the friendly Occaneecheee Indians on the Roanoke River (the border between Virginia and North Carolina), and took their store of beaver pelts. In the face of a brewing catastrophe, Berkeley, to keep the peace, was willing to forget that Bacon was not authorized to take the law into his own hands. Berkeley agreed to pardon Bacon if he turned himself in, so he could be sent to England and tried before King Charles II. It was the House of Burgesses, however, who refused this alternative, insisting that Bacon must acknowledge his errors and beg the Governor’s forgiveness. Ironically, at the same time, Bacon was then elected to the Burgesses by supportive local land owners sympathetic to his Indian campaigns.

Bacon, by virtue of this election, attended the landmark Assembly of June 1676. It was during this session that he was mistakenly credited with the political reforms that came from this meeting. The reforms were prompted by the population, cutting through all class lines. Most of the reform laws dealt with reconstructing the colony’s voting regulations, enabling freemen to vote, and limiting the number of years a person could hold certain offices in the colony.

Most of these laws were already on the books for consideration well before Bacon was elected to the Burgesses. Bacon’s only cause was his campaign against the Indians. Upon his arrival for the June Assembly, Bacon was captured, taken before Berkeley and council and was made to apologize for his previous actions. Berkeley immediately pardoned Bacon and allowed him to take his seat in the assembly.

January 29th ~ {continued...}

At this time, the council still had no idea how much support was growing in defense of Bacon. The full awareness of that support hit home when Bacon suddenly left the Burgesses in the midst of heated debate over Indian problems. He returned with his forces to surround the statehouse. Once again Bacon demanded his commission, but Berkeley called his bluff and demanded that Bacon shoot him. Bacon refused. Berkeley granted Bacon’s previous volunteer commission but Bacon refused it and demanded that he be made General of all forces against the Indians, which Berkeley emphatically refused and walked away. Tensions ran high as the screaming Bacon and his men surrounded the statehouse, threatening to shoot several on looking Burgesses if Bacon was not given his commission.

Finally after several agonizing moments, Berkeley gave in to Bacon’s demands for campaigns against the Indians without government interference. With Berkeley’s authority in shambles, Bacon’s brief tenure as leader of the rebellion began. Even in the midst of these unprecedented triumphs, however, Bacon was not without his mistakes. He allowed Berkeley to leave Jamestown in the aftermath of a surprise Indian attack on a nearby settlement. He also confiscated supplies from Gloucester and left them vulnerable to possible Indian attacks. Shortly after the immediate crisis subsided, Berkeley briefly retired to his home at Green Springs and washed his hands of the entire mess. Nathaniel Bacon dominated Jamestown from July through September 1676.

During this time, Berkeley did come out of his lethargy and attempt a coup, but support for Bacon was still too strong and Berkeley was forced to flee to Accomack County on the Eastern Shore. Feeling that it would make his triumph complete, Bacon issued his “Declaration of the People” on July 30, 1676 which stated that Berkeley was corrupt, played favorites and protected the Indians for his own selfish purposes. Bacon also issued his oath which required the swearer to promise his loyalty to Bacon in any manner necessary (i.e., armed service, supplies, verbal support). Even this tight reign could not keep the tide from changing again. Bacon’s fleet was first and finally secretly infiltrated by Berkeley’s men and finally captured. This was to be the turning point in the conflict, because Berkeley was once again strong enough to retake Jamestown.

Bacon then followed his sinking fortunes to Jamestown and saw it heavily fortified. He made several attempts at a siege, during which he kidnapped the wives of several of Berkeley’s biggest supporters, including Mrs. Nathaniel Bacon Sr., and placed them upon the ramparts of his siege fortifications while he dug his position. Infuriated, Bacon burned Jamestown to the ground on September 19, 1676. (He did save many valuable records in the statehouse.) By now his luck had clearly run out with this extreme measure and he began to have trouble controlling his men’s conduct as well as keeping his popular support. Few people responded to Bacon’s appeal to capture Berkeley who had since returned to the Eastern Shore for safety reasons.

On October 26th, 1676, Bacon abruptly died of the “Bloodie Flux” and “Lousey Disease” (body lice). It is possible his soldiers burned his contaminated body because it was never found. (His death inspired this little ditty; Bacon is Dead I am sorry at my hart That lice and flux should take the hangman’s part”.) Shortly after Bacon’s death, Berkeley regained complete control and hung the major leaders of the rebellion. He also seized rebel property without the benefit of a trial. All in all, twenty-three persons were hanged for their part in the rebellion. Later after an investigating committee from England issued its report to King Charles II, Berkeley was relieved of the Governorship and returned to England where he died in July 1677.