This Date in Military History:

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1918 – U.S. troops were called to guard Berlin as a coup was feared.

1926 – Part 2 of Hitler’s Mein Kampf was published.

1939 – The American government grants Finland, at war with the USSR, a $10 million credit for agricultural supplies, a gesture largely due to Finland being the only country to have paid war debts from the World War I to the United States.

1940 – Roosevelt announces an extension of the export-license system. Iron ore, pig iron and many important iron and steel manufactures are brought within the system. Like previous measures this is aimed at Japan. The changes come into effect at the end of the year.

1941 – Japanese air attacks and troop landings on Luzon. Attack on the naval base at Caite destroys weapons stocks. At Aparri, on the north coast, 2000 troops of the Tanaka Detachment land, while troops of the Kanno Detachment land at Vigan in the northeast. Both landings are well supported by naval forces.

1941 – Admiral Goto commands a Japanese force which captures the 300 man US garrison on Guam.

1941 – Aircraft from USS Enterprise attack and sink Japanese Submarine I-70 north of Hawaiian Islands. A participant in the Pearl Harbor Attack. At the time, I-70 is thought to be the first Japanese combatant ship sunk during World War II.

1941 – PBY piloted by LT Utter of VP-101 shoots down Japanese ZERO in first Navy air-to-air kill during World War II.

1941 – The US submarine Sea Lion was sunk in an air attack at Manila Bay. 10 crewman were captured by the Japanese and shipped to work in a Mitsubishi copper mine in northern Japan.

1941 – With no weapon larger than the .30 caliber MG, 153 Marines defended Guam until overwhelmed.

1941 – The long-running debate on draft regulations ends with Roosevelt signing into law a revised bill which puts those who have been fathers since before Pearl Harbor at the bottom of the list.

1943 – On Bougainville, the first American aircraft arrive at the Cape Torokina airfield. American divisions are gradually extending their perimeter.

1944 – On Leyte, the US 77th Division captures Ormoc, the main Japanese base on the island. Japanese forces are now mostly concentrated around Palompon.

1944 – The US 7th Corps (part of US 1st Army) launches an attack west of Aachen directed at Duren. To the south, US 3rd Army continues to defend its bridgeheads on the Saar River.

1950 – Evacuation operations at Wonson, North Korea, were completed.

1950 – The U.S. Air Force Combat Cargo Command completed a four-day emergency mission in which it airdropped 1,580 tons of supplies and equipment and evacuated 4,687 casualties from the Hagaru-ri and Koto-ri areas near the Chosin/Changjin Reservoir.

1951 – The 45th Infantry Division of the Oklahoma Army National Guard arrived in Korea to replace the 1st Cavalry Division.

1958 – The first domestic passenger jet flight took place in the United States as a National Airlines Boeing 707 flew 111 passengers from New York City to Miami.

1970 – The defense opens its case in the murder trial of Lt. William Calley. Charged with six specifications of premeditated murder, Calley was a platoon leader in Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry, 11th Infantry Brigade (Light) of the 23rd (Americal) Division. He was tried because of his leadership role in the My Lai massacres. On March 16, 1968, Calley led his troops to murder innocent Vietnamese civilians living in a cluster of hamlets located in Son Tinh District in Quang Ngai Province in the northern coastal lowlands. Citing “superior’s orders,” Defense Attorney George Lattimer contended that Capt. Ernest Medina, Calley’s company commander, told his men that they were finally going to fight the enemy. He reportedly ordered “every living thing” killed.

Lattimer also cited poor training of the platoon, the rage of the men who had seen their buddies killed, and the expectation of fierce resistance as additional factors contributing to the incident. The lawyer also charged that higher commanders on the ground and in the air observed the episode but did nothing. Despite Lattimer’s argument, Calley was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed a “scapegoat” by much of the public, Calley was paroled by President Richard Nixon in 1974, after serving about a third of his 10-year sentence.

1972 – Technical experts on both sides begin work on the language of a proposed peace accord, giving rise to hope that a final agreement is near. A peace agreement was signed on January 23, 1973. The peace agreement came out of secret negotiations National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger was conducting with North Vietnamese representatives at a villa outside Paris. Gen. Alexander Haig, who had been briefing President Richard Nixon on the Paris talks, was alerted to fly to Saigon with the document when it was completed, so that Saigon could sign while the United States and Hanoi signed in Paris. Unfortunately, the talks broke down two days later when South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu balked at the proposed agreement because it did not require North Vietnamese troops to leave the south. The North Vietnamese negotiators refused to discuss the withdrawal of their troops and walked out. They returned only after Nixon ordered the bombing of North Vietnam. After 11 days of bombing, Hanoi agreed to send negotiators back to Paris. When the talks resumed in January 1973, the negotiations moved ahead quickly. On January 23, the United States, North Vietnam, the Republic of Vietnam, and the Viet Cong signed a cease-fire agreement that took effect five days later.

1979 – First Poseidon submarine configured with Trident missiles, USS Francis Scott Key (SSBN-657) completes initial deterrent patrol.

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1980 – US Representative John W. Jenrette (Democrat, South Carolina) resigned to avoid being expelled from the House following his conviction on charges relating to the FBI’s ABSCAM investigation.

1981 – A Coast Guard HH-52A landed on CGC Dependable’s flight deck, marking the 5,000th helicopter landing on board the ship. According to AVTRACEN records, this was the most helicopter landings ever recorded aboard a cutter. The landing occurred off Dauphin Island in the Gulf of Mexico.

1982 – USS Ohio (SSBN-726), first Trident-Class submarine, returns from first deterrent patrol.

1987 – President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev concluded three days of summit talks in Washington.

1990 – The space shuttle “Columbia” returned from its tenth mission.

1993 – The crew of the space shuttle Endeavour deployed the repaired Hubble Space Telescope into Earth orbit.

1993 – Secretary of Transportation Andrew H. Card, Jr., awarded the military members of the Coast Guard the Humanitarian Service Medal and the civilian employees the Coast Guard Public Service Commendation for their services for the period from October 1991 through November 1992.

1994 – Advertising executive Thomas Mosser was killed by a mail bomb attributed to the Unabomber at his home in North Caldwell N.J.

1995 – In Bosnia, 22 Marines from Marine Corps Security Force Company, Naples, Italy were among the first American troops to arrive. They provided the security for Allied Forces Southern Europe headquartered at Sarajevo. About 2,500 NATO troops would be in place by 19 December taking on the task of peace enforcement in former Yugoslavia from the U.N.

1996 – NATO took formal steps to expand and reassured Russia that it had no plans to move nuclear weapons into the territory of new members.

1998 – Six astronauts jubilantly swung open the doors to the new international space station, becoming the first guests aboard the 250-mile-high outpost.

1999 – Wen Ho Lee, nuclear physicist, was charged with 59 counts of mishandling classified information at Los Alamos National Laboratory. After three years under suspicion as a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged with removing secrets from secure computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab. Lee was later freed after pleading guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape; 58 other counts were dropped.

1999 – In Kuwait 3 US airmen were killed when an Air Force C-130 transport made a belly landing and ignited a fire.

1999 – The UN extended Iraq’s “oil-for-food” program for 6 months and set the stage for the suspension of sanctions if UN weapon’s inspectors are not allowed back into the country.

2001 – US air strikes continued at Tora Bora and Afghan fighters moved in on al Qaeda defenders in fortified caves.

2001 – In Kenya Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan, an al Qaeda operative, was arrested in Mandera near the Somalia border for involvement in the Aug 7, 1998 US Embassy bombing.

2002 – A U.S. F-16 fighter bombed an Iraqi surface-to-air missile system after Iraq moved it deep into the southern no-fly zone.

2003 – A U.S. Department of Defense document limits contracts for 26 Iraqi reconstruction projects to companies from countries that supported the war. Companies from France, Russia, and Germany will still be able to compete for sub-contractor roles.

2004 – Bernard Kerik withdrew his name from consideration to be Pres. Bush’s homeland security secretary.

2004 – Staff Sgt. Johnny M. Horne Jr. (30) of Wilson, N.C., was sentenced to three years in prison for killing severely wounded Qasim Hassan (16) in Sadr City on August 18th.

2004 – A US passenger jet, United Flight 869, landed in Vietnam, the first since the Vietnam War ended nearly 30 years ago.

2009 – U.S. President Barack Obama accepts the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.

2012 – Syrian rebel group Jabhat al-Nusra is declared a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*PAGE, JOHN U. D.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Army, X Corps Artillery, while attached to the 52d Transportation Truck Battalion. Place and date: Near Chosin Reservoir, Korea, 29 November to 10 December 1950. Entered service at: St. Paul, Minn. Born: 8 February 1904, Malahi Island, Luzon, Philippine Islands. G.O. No.: 21, 25 April 1957. Citation: Lt. Col. Page, a member of X Corps Artillery, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty in a series of exploits. On 29 November, Lt. Col. Page left X Corps Headquarters at Hamhung with the mission of establishing traffic control on the main supply route to 1st Marine Division positions and those of some Army elements on the Chosin Reservoir plateau. Having completed his mission Lt. Col. Page was free to return to the safety of Hamhung but chose to remain on the plateau to aid an isolated signal station, thus being cut off with elements of the marine division. After rescuing his jeep driver by breaking up an ambush near a destroyed bridge Lt. Col. Page reached the lines of a surrounded marine garrison at Koto-ri. He then voluntarily developed and trained a reserve force of assorted army troops trapped with the marines. By exemplary leadership and tireless devotion he made an effective tactical unit available.

In order that casualties might be evacuated, an airstrip was improvised on frozen ground partly outside of the Koto-ri defense perimeter which was continually under enemy attack. During 2 such attacks, Lt. Col. Page exposed himself on the airstrip to direct fire on the enemy, and twice mounted the rear deck of a tank, manning the machine gun on the turret to drive the enemy back into a no man’s land. On 3 December while being flown low over enemy lines in a light observation plane, Lt. Col. Page dropped hand grenades on Chinese positions and sprayed foxholes with automatic fire from his carbine. After 10 days of constant fighting the marine and army units in the vicinity of the Chosin Reservoir had succeeded in gathering at the edge of the plateau and Lt. Col. Page was flown to Hamhung to arrange for artillery support of the beleaguered troops attempting to break out. Again Lt. Col. Page refused an opportunity to remain in safety and returned to give every assistance to his comrades. As the column slowly moved south Lt. Col. Page joined the rear guard. When it neared the entrance to a narrow pass it came under frequent attacks on both flanks. Mounting an abandoned tank Lt. Col. Page manned the machine gun, braved heavy return fire, and covered the passing vehicles until the danger diminished.

Later when another attack threatened his section of the convoy, then in the middle of the pass, Lt. Col. Page took a machine gun to the hillside and delivered effective counter fire, remaining exposed while men and vehicles passed through the ambuscade. On the night of 10 December the convoy reached the bottom of the pass but was halted by a strong enemy force at the front and on both flanks. Deadly small-arms fire poured into the column. Realizing the danger to the column as it lay motionless, Lt. Col. Page fought his way to the head of the column and plunged forward into the heart of the hostile position. His intrepid action so surprised the enemy that their ranks became disordered and suffered heavy casualties. Heedless of his safety, as he had been throughout the preceding 10 days, Lt. Col. Page remained forward, fiercely engaging the enemy single-handed until mortally wounded. By his valiant and aggressive spirit Lt. Col. Page enabled friendly forces to stand off the enemy. His outstanding courage, unswerving devotion to duty, and supreme self-sacrifice reflect great credit upon Lt. Col. Page and are in the highest tradition of the military service.

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11 December

1620 – 103 Mayflower pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

1816 – Indiana was admitted to the Union as the 19th state. Indiana is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern and Great Lakes regions of North America. Since its founding as a territory, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state’s northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the Mid-Atlantic states and from adjacent Ohio, and Southern Indiana by settlers from the Southern states, particularly Kentucky and Tennessee.

1862 – The Union Army of the Potomac occupies Fredericksburg, Virginia, as General Ambrose Burnside continues to execute his plan to capture the Confederate capital at Richmond. Unfortunately for the Union, the occupation did not happen until three weeks after Burnside’s army had arrived at Falmouth, just across the river from Fredericksburg. Due to a logistical error, pontoon bridges had not been available so the army could not cross; the delay allowed Confederate General Robert E. Lee ample time to post his Army of Northern Virginia along Marye’s Heights above Fredericksburg. Burnside replaced General George McClellan as head of the Army of the Potomac in early November. He devised a plan to move his army quickly down the Rappahannock River, cross the river, and race Lee’s army south to Richmond. Everything went according to plan as the Yankees sped south from Warrenton, Virginia. Burnside surprised Lee with his swiftness–the leading Union corps covered 40 miles in two days.

The entire army was at Falmouth by November 19. Although ready to cross the Rappahannock, the army did not begin receiving the pontoon bridges until the end of the month due to mistakes made by the engineering corps. The delay allowed Lee to move his troops into position on the opposite side of the river. President Lincoln visited his army at the end of November, and, realizing that the element of surprise was lost, characterized Burnside’s plan as “somewhat risky.” On December 11, Burnside’s engineers finally began to assemble the bridges. Confederate snipers in Fredericksburg picked away at the builders, so Yankee artillery began a barrage that reduced to rubble many of the buildings along the river. Three regiments ran the sharpshooters out of the town, and the bridge was completed soon after. By evening on the 11th, the Union army was crossing the Rappahannock. By the next day, the entire army was on the other side and Burnside planned the actual attack. The Battle of Fredericksburg, which took place on December 13, was an enormous defeat for the Army of the Potomac. Ten percent of Burnside’s soldiers were casualties. Lee lost less than 5,000 men while Burnside lost 12,600.

1863 – Union gunboats Restless, Bloomer and Caroline entered St. Andrew’s Bay, Fla., and began bombardment of both Confederate Quarters and Saltworks.

1864 – Commander Preble, commanding the Naval Brigade fighting ashore with the forces of Major General Foster up the Broad River, South Carolina, reported to Rear Admiral Dahlgren concerning a unique “explosive ball” used by Confederate forces against his skirmishers: ”It is a conical ball in shape, like an ordinary rifle bullet. The pointed end is charged with a fulminate. The base of the ball separately from the conical end, and has a leaden standard or plunger. The explosion of the charge drives the base up, so as to flatten a thin disk of metal between it and the ball, the leaden plunger is driven against the fulminate, and it explodes the ball. . . . It seems to me that use of such a missile is an unnecessary addition to the barbarities of war.”

1872 – Already appearing as a well-known figure of the Wild West in popular dime novels, Buffalo Bill Cody makes his first stage appearance on this day, in a Chicago-based production of The Scouts of the Prairie. Unlike many of his imitators in Wild West shows and movies, William Frederick Cody actually played an important role in the western settlement that he later romanticized and celebrated. Born in Iowa in 1846, Cody joined the western messenger service of Majors and Russell as a rider while still in his teens. He later rode for the famous Pony Express, during which time he completed the third longest emergency ride in the brief history of that company. During the Civil War, Cody joined forces with a variety of irregular militia groups supporting the North. In 1864, he enlisted in the Union army as a private and served as a cavalry teamster until 1865.

Cody began to earn his famous nickname in 1867, when he signed on to provide buffalo meat for the workers of the Eastern Division of the Union Pacific Railroad construction project. His reputation for skilled marksmanship and experience as a rapid-delivery messenger attracted the attention of U.S. Army Lieutenant General Philip Sheridan, who gave Cody an unusual four-year position as a scout-a testament to Cody’s extraordinary frontier skills. Cody’s work as a scout in the western Indian wars laid the foundation for his later fame. From 1868 to 1872, he fought in 16 battles with Indians, participating in a celebrated victory over the Cheyenne in 1869. One impressed general praised Cody’s “extraordinarily good services as trailer and fighter . . . his marksmanship being very conspicuous.”

Later, Cody again gained national attention by serving as a hunting guide for famous Europeans and Americans eager to experience a bit of the “Wild West” before it disappeared. As luck would have it, one of Cody’s customers was Edward Judson, a successful writer who penned popular dime novels under the name Ned Buntline. Impressed by his young guide’s calm competence and stories of dramatic fights with Indians, Buntline made Cody the hero of a highly imaginative Wild West novel published in 1869. When a stage version of the novel debuted in Chicago as The Scouts of the Prairie, Buntline convinced Cody to abandon his real-life western adventures to play a highly exaggerated version of himself in the play.

Once he had a taste of the performing life, Cody never looked back. Though he continued to spend time scouting or guiding hunt trips in the West, Cody remained on the Chicago stage for the next 11 years. Buffalo Bill Cody was the hero of more than 1,700 variant issues of dime novels, and his star shone even more brightly when his world-famous Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show debuted in 1883. The show was still touring when Buffalo Bill Cody died in 1917.

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1901 – Marconi sent his 1st transatlantic radio signal from Cornwall to Newfoundland.

1927 – Nearly 400 world leaders signed a letter to President Calvin Coolidge asking the U.S. to join the World Court.

1928 – Police in Buenos Aires thwarted an attempt on the life of President-elect Herbert Hoover.

1930 – This day brought another ominous sign that the nation was sliding towards a prolonged and difficult economic slump, as New York’s branch of Bank of the United States announced that it had gone belly-up. Up until its downfall, the Bank held the savings of some 400,000 depositors, including a number of immigrants; its subsequent demise imperiled the finances of roughly one-third of New York and stood as the nation’s single worst bank failure.

1937 – Italy withdrew from the League of Nations...as a prelude to war.

1939 – Actress Marlene Dietrich records her hit song “Falling in Love Again.” Dietrich also became a U.S. citizen in 1939. Born in Berlin, Dietrich came to the United States in 1930 to make movies after considerable success on the German screen. She allegedly refused several offers to return to Germany to star in Nazi films. She became a U.S. citizen in 1939 and worked tirelessly during and after World War II to sell war bonds and entertain troops. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom and named Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.

1941 – Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. Shortly afterward, the US Congress issues a declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

1941 – A Japanese invasion fleet attacked Wake Island, which was defended by 439 US marines, 75 sailors and 6 soldiers. The defenders sank 4 Japanese ships, damaged 8 and destroyed a submarine.

1941 – Guam was occupied by Japanese troops.

1941 – Buick lowered its prices to reflect the absence of spare tires or inner tubes from its new cars. Widespread shortages caused by World War II had led to many quotas and laws designed to conserve America’s resources. One of these laws prohibited spare tires on new cars. Rubber, produced overseas, had become almost impossible to get. People didn’t mind the spare-tire law too much, though. They were too busy dealing with quotas for gasoline, meat, butter, shoes, and other essentials.

1941 – Adolf Hitler declares war on the United States, bringing America, which had been neutral, into the European conflict. The bombing of Pearl Harbor surprised even Germany. Although Hitler had made an oral agreement with his Axis partner Japan that Germany would join a war against the United States, he was uncertain as to how the war would be engaged. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor answered that question. On December 8, Japanese Ambassador Oshima went to German Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop to nail the Germans down on a formal declaration of war against America. Von Ribbentrop stalled for time; he knew that Germany was under no obligation to do this under the terms of the Tripartite Pact, which promised help if Japan was attacked, but not if Japan was the aggressor. Von Ribbentrop feared that the addition of another antagonist, the United States, would overwhelm the German war effort.

But Hitler thought otherwise. He was convinced that the United States would soon beat him to the punch and declare war on Germany. The U.S. Navy was already attacking German U-boats, and Hitler despised Roosevelt for his repeated verbal attacks against his Nazi ideology. He also believed that Japan was much stronger than it was, that once it had defeated the United States, it would turn and help Germany defeat Russia.

So at 3:30 p.m. (Berlin time) on December 11, the German charge d’affaires in Washington handed American Secretary of State Cordell Hull a copy of the declaration of war. That very same day, Hitler addressed the Reichstag to defend the declaration. The failure of the New Deal, argued Hitler, was the real cause of the war, as President Roosevelt, supported by plutocrats and Jews, attempted to cover up for the collapse of his economic agenda. “First he incites war, then falsifies the causes, then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy and slowly but surely leads mankind to war,” declared Hitler-and the Reichstag leaped to their feet in thunderous applause.

1942 – Japanese Admiral Tanaka’s “Tokyo Express” again attempts the delivery of supplies to the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal. The cargo is dropped over board and only 1/4 of it reaches the troops on shore. Machine gun fire from US PT boats sinks much of it. One of the Japanese destroyers is sunk by the defenders as well.

1943 – The US 5th Army continues its Italian offensive without decisive gains and its momentum is wearing down.

1943 – U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, demanded that Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria withdraw from the war.

1944 – Forces of the US 7th Army enter Haguenau in Alsace and advances southeast of Rohrbach. There are German counterattacks against the US 3rd Army bridgeheads over the Saar River which are repulsed.

1944 – Over 2000 USAAF bombers of the 8th and 15th Air Forces attack various rail targets in Germany as well as an oil plant and ordnance depots near Vienna (annexed Austria).

1945 – A B-29 Superfortress shattered all records by crossing the U.S. in five hours and 27 minutes.

1950 – The 1st Marine Division completed its breakout from the Chosin/Changjin Reservoir entrapment and began its march to join the rest of X Corps at Hungnam.

1950 – U.S. Navy Air Task Group 1, operating from the USS Valley Forge, flew its first combat mission of the Korean War, striking coastal rail lines and bridges in northeast Korea. This was the first of the Air Task Groups formed when Carrier Air Groups proved ineffective combat organizations when flown from Essex -class carriers.

1954 – First supercarrier of 59,630 tons, USS Forrestal (CVA-59), launched at Newport News, VA.

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1961 – The ferry-carrier USS Core arrives in Saigon with the first US helicopter units, 33 Vertol H-21C Shawnees and 400 air and ground crewmen to operate and maintain them. Their assignment will be airlifting South Vietnamese Army troops into combat.

1969 – Paratroopers from the U.S. Third Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, depart from Vietnam. The unit was sent to Vietnam in February 1968 as an emergency measure in response to the Communist 1968 Tet Offensive. Landing at Chu Lai, the unit was attached to the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile) and given the mission of protecting the ancient capital of Hue in the region just south of the Demilitarized Zone. In September 1968, the Third Brigade was moved south to counter enemy forces around Saigon. It was assigned to the Capital Military Assistance Command and ordered to secure the western approaches to the city to prevent ground and rocket attacks against the Saigon-Tan Son Nhut airport complex. When the situation in South Vietnam stabilized, the Third Brigade was withdrawn as part of the second increment of U.S. troop withdrawals called for under President Nixon’s Vietnamization program. The brigade returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where it rejoined the 82nd Airborne Division as part of the United States Army strategic reserve.

1972 – Challenger, the Lunar Lander for Apollo 17, touched down on the Moon’s surface. It was the last time that men visited the Moon. The last two men to walk on the surface of the moon were Harrison Schmitt and Eugene Cernan. Cernan and Schmitt conducted the longest lunar exploration of the Apollo program (75 hours), driving the lunar rover about 36 kilometers (22 miles) in all, ranging as far as 7.37 kilometers (4.5 miles) from the lunar module Challenger and collecting some 243 pounds of soil and rock samples.

1978 – Massive demonstrations took place in Tehran against the Shah. In Isfahan, Iran, 40 people were killed and 60 wounded during riots against the Shah.

1985 – Hugh Scrutton is killed in his computer store in Sacramento, California, by a mail package that explodes in his hands. By the time he was finally apprehended, the “Unabomber”-so named because his earliest attacks were directed at universities-had been responsible for the deaths of 3 people and the injuries of 23 others. The Unabomber detonated his first bomb on May 26, 1978, at Northwestern University. Over the next 15 years, his sporadic attacks kept his identity a mystery to FBI investigators, but in the mid-1990s, he appeared to want more publicity. He increased the frequency of his attacks and sent a letter to The New York Times claiming responsibility on behalf of “FC,” which was later revealed to be the “Freedom Club.”

In late 1994, the Unabomber became very active; Thomas Mosser was killed in his home in New Jersey in December 1994 by a mail bomb, and four months later, another bomb killed Gilbert Murray, a lobbyist for the timber industry. During this time, the Unabomber also began to send notes to the press declaring the “principles” behind his terrorist attacks. When the Unabomber threatened to blow up an airplane flying out of Los Angeles International Airport in 1995, the FBI made his capture a top priority. A sketch of the suspect, who appeared menacing in a hood and sunglasses, was circulated in newspapers and on television. The Unabomber claimed that he would stop the bomb spree if the national press published his manifesto. Eventually, The New York Times and The Washington Post agreed to publish an excerpt, which contained mostly rants against technology and environmental destruction.

When he read it, David Kaczynski realized that it bore a distinct similarity to writings by his brother, Ted, a former university professor who had dropped out of society and was living in a remote shack in Montana. David Kaczynski contacted the FBI with his suspicions on the condition-later broken-that the FBI would not seek the death penalty against his brother. After two months of surveillance, the FBI finally arrested Ted Kaczynski in 1996. Inside his cabin were bombs and writings that tied him to the crimes. In January 1998, while awaiting trial, Kaczynski tried to commit suicide in his cell. Still, he resisted his lawyer’s attempts to plead insanity and instead pleaded guilty. Although prosecutors originally sought the death penalty, Kaczynski eventually accepted a life sentence with no right to appeal.

1987 – NATO allies urged the U.S. Senate to ratify the intermediate-range missile treaty quickly and underscored their support by pledging to let the Soviet Union inspect missile bases in five European countries.

1990 – Hundreds of foreigners flew out of Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, ending four months of captivity following Iraq’s invasion of its oil-rich neighbor.

1994 – A Philippine Airlines flight from Manila to Tokyo was bombed. A Japanese passenger was killed and 10 people were injured. Later US prosecutors accused Ramzi Ahmed Yousef of placing the bomb and of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Yousef denied placing the airline bomb because he was imprisoned at the time.

1997 – Russia announced that it would terminate a recently negotiated 10-year contract with the US on uranium sales, and planned to sell its uranium on the open market. The decision could bring Russia an extra $500 million.

1998 – The Mars Climate Orbiter blasted off on a 9 ½ month journey to the Red Planet. The probe disappeared in September 1999, apparently destroyed because scientists had failed to convert English measures to metric values.

2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour landed in Florida following its mission to install solar panels on the int’l. space station.

2000 – A US Marine Osprey aircraft crashed in North Carolina and all 4 people aboard were killed. The fleet was grounded the next day.

2000 – In Iraq Saddam Hussein sent troops into the northern Kurdish zone. Kurds and other non-Arab Iraqis were being displaced further north.

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2001 – In the first criminal indictment stemming from Sept. 11, a US grand jury in Virginia charged Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent, with conspiring to murder thousands in the suicide hijackings.

2001 – US bombers continued to hit sites at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, as a deadline for al Qaeda surrender passed.

2001 – Australia reported that an Australian citizen, David Hicks (26), who had trained with the al Qaeda, had been captured in Afghanistan.

2001 – Pakistani officials said 2 nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid, talked with Osama bin Laden last August in Kabul about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

2002 – The United States let an intercepted shipment of North Korean missiles proceed to the Persian Gulf country of Yemen a day after the vessel was detained.

2002 – A congressional report found that intelligence agencies that were supposed to protect Americans from the Sept. 11 hijackers failed to do so because they were poorly organized, poorly equipped and slow to pursue clues that might have prevented the attacks.

2002 – A US Black Hawk helicopter on routine training crashed and killed five American soldiers in the hills of central Honduras.

2002 – Yemen said Scud missiles found hidden aboard a North Korean ship seized by Spain and the United States were destined for its army and demanded them back. Pres. Bush ordered them released. Bush later created a coalition of members to block arms shipments “of proliferation concern.”

2003 – US officials delayed a conference for companies seeking $18.6 billion in reconstruction contracts in Iraq by eight days until December 19th.

2003 – Pentagon officials said efforts to create a new Iraqi army to help take over the country’s security have suffered a setback with the resignations of a third of the soldiers trained.

2003 – Uzbekistan said it will let the US station troops to help fight terrorism, but would not permit permanent deployment.

2004 – In Iraq insurgents killed 5 Iraqi police officers in Baghdad.

2006 – The Space Shuttle Discovery successfully docks with the International Space Station with the crew to spend a week rewiring the space station.

2011 – Former leader of Panama Manuel Noriega is extradited home from France and the United States where he has been serving jail sentences for the past 22 years to serve more time for his role in the murder of political opponents.

2012 – Barack Obama, the President of the United States, recognizes Syria’s rebel opposition as the “legitimate representatives” of the Syrian people.

2014 – The Obama Administration orders the closing of the last US-run detention facility in Afghanistan at Bagram Airfield.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

PLUNKETT, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 21st Massachusetts Infantry. Place and date. At Fredericksburg, Va., 11 December 1862. Entered service at: West Boylston, Mass. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 30 March 1866. Citation: Seized the colors of his regiment after the color bearer having been shot down and bore them to the front where both his arms were carried off by a shell.

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12 December

1745 – John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was born. He became a diplomat and governor of NY, served as the first Supreme Court Head Justice, and negotiated treaties for the United States.

1753 – George Washington, the adjutant of Virginia, delivered an ultimatum to the French forces at Fort Le Boeuf, south of Lake Erie, reiterating Britain’s claim to the entire Ohio river valley. Washington (22) was sent by Gov. Robert Dinwiddie to warn the French soldiers that they were trespassing on English territory.

1770 – The British soldiers responsible for the “Boston Massacre” were acquitted on murder charges.

1776 – The Armor branch traces its origin to the Cavalry. A regiment of cavalry was authorized to be raised by the Continental Congress Resolve. Although mounted units were raised at various times after the Revolution, the first in continuous service was the United States Regiment of Dragoons, organized in 1833. The Tank Service was formed on March 5, 1918. The Armored Force was formed on July 10, 1940. Armor became a permanent branch of the Army in 1950.

1781 – At the Second Battle of Ushant, a British fleet, led by HMS Victory, defeats a French fleet. A French convoy sailed from Brest on 10 December with reinforcements and stores for the East and West Indies, protected by a fleet of 19 ships of the line commanded by Comte de Guichen. The British squadron of 13 ships of the line, commanded by Rear Admiral Richard Kempenfelt in HMS Victory, which had been ordered to sea to intercept the expected convoy, sighted the French on 12 December, discovering only then that the protective escort had been strengthened. De Guichen’s fleet was downwind of the convoy, which let the British ships sweep down to capture 15 ships carrying troops and supplies, before the French ships could intervene. Kempenfelt’s force was not strong enough to attack the 19 French escorts, but fortunately for Britain, the convoy, which had deliberately risked setting sail in the North Atlantic storm season to avoid British forces, was dispersed in a gale shortly afterwards, and most of the ships forced to return to port.

Only two of the ships of the line intended for the West Indies arrived with a few transport vessels in time for the Battle of the Saintes in April. When news of the battle reached Britain, the Opposition in Parliament questioned the sending of such a small force against the convoy, and forced an official inquiry into the administration of the Royal Navy. This was the first of a succession of Opposition challenges which would ultimately bring about the fall of the government of Lord North on 20 March 1782 and pave the way for the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolutionary War.

1787 – Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, and the Great Lakes region. The state borders Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and Ontario, Canada to the northwest, New York to the north and New Jersey to the east. The Appalachian Mountains run through the middle of the state.

1799 – Two days before his death, George Washington composed his last letter, to Alexander Hamilton, his aide-de-camp during the Revolution and later his Secretary of the Treasury. In the letter he urged Hamilton to work for the establishment of a national military academy. Washington wrote that letter at the end of a long, cold day of snow, sleet and rain that he had spent out-of-doors. He remained outside for more than five hours, according to his secretary Tobias Lear, did not change out of his wet clothes or dry his hair when he returned home.

1800 – Washington DC was established as the capital of US.

1806 – Confederate General Stand Watie is born near Rome, Georgia. Watie, a Cherokee Indian, survived the tribe’s Trail of Tears in the 1830s and became the only Native American to achieve the rank of general during the Civil War. Watie came from an influential family and played a major role during the Cherokee difficulties in Georgia. The tribe was under increasingly intense pressure by their Anglo neighbors to remove to in the West. Watie was part of a faction that began to believe that voluntary removal might be the only way to preserve their autonomy. He was a signer of the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which ceded the Cherokee’s Georgia lands for a reservation in Indian Territory. After the disastrous Trail of Tears trek to the West, during which one in four Cherokee died, all who signed the treaty were assassinated except for Watie. Even though the Cherokee suffered at the hands of Southerners, Watie and others always saw the federal government as the real culprit.

When the South began to secede from the Union in 1860, Watie and others supported the new Confederacy. Watie was named colonel and raised a regiment of 300 mixed-blood Cherokee. Watie’s first action came against Unionist Creek Indians near the Kansas border in 1861. At the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862, Watie’s regiment captured a Union battery in the midst of a Confederate defeat. From the summer of 1862 until the end of the war, Watie served back in his home territory. In 1864, he captured a Union steamboat on the Arkansas River and a large supply train at Cabin Creek in Indian Territory. Mostly, however, Watie fought against his own people. The Cherokee became bitterly divided between the followers of John Ross, who pledged loyalty to the Union, and Watie, who stood by his Confederate allies. For the rest of the war, the Cherokee waged a bitter internecine guerilla war. After a brief foray into the tobacco business after the war, Watie died in 1871 at his home along Honey Creek in Indian Territory.

1862 – U.S.S. Cairo, Lieutenant Commander Thomas O. Selfridge, on an expedition up the Yazoo River to destroy torpedoes (mines), was sunk by one of the infernal machines” and Selfridge reported: “The Cairo sunk in about twelve minutes after the explosion, going totally out of sight, except the top of her chimneys, in 6 fathoms of water.” Cairo was the first of some 40 Union vessels to be torpedoed during the war. The torpedo which destroyed Cairo was a large demijohn fired with a friction primer by a trigger line from torpedo pits on the river bank. Rear Admiral D. D. Porter later observed: “It was an accident liable to occur to any gallant officer whose zeal carries him to the post of danger and who is loath to let others do what he thinks he ought to do himself.” Despite the loss of Cairo, Porter wrote: “I gave Captain Walke orders to hold Yazoo River at all hazards . . . We may lose three or four vessels, but will succeed in carrying out the plan for the capture of Vicksburg.”

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1862 – Naval force under Commander Murray including U.S.S. Delaware, Shawsheen, Lockwood, and Seymour with armed transports in the Neuse River supported an Army expedition to destroy railroad bridges and track near Goldsboro, North Carolina. Low water prevented the gunboats from advancing more than about 15 miles up the river.

1863 – Orders were given in Richmond that no more supplies from the Union should be received by Federal prisoners.

1876 – First examination for Revenue Cutter cadets held in Washington, D.C.

1901 – Italian physicist and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi succeeds in sending the first radio transmission across the Atlantic Ocean, disproving detractors who told him that the curvature of the earth would limit transmission to 200 miles or less. The message–simply the Morse-code signal for the letter “s”–traveled more than 2,000 miles from Poldhu in Cornwall, England, to Newfoundland, Canada. Born in Bologna, Italy, in 1874 to an Italian father and an Irish mother, Marconi studied physics and became interested in the transmission of radio waves after learning of the experiments of the German physicist Heinrich Hertz. He began his own experiments in Bologna beginning in 1894 and soon succeeded in sending a radio signal over a distance of 1.5 miles. Receiving little encouragement for his experiments in Italy, he went to England in 1896. He formed a wireless telegraph company and soon was sending transmissions from distances farther than 10 miles. In 1899, he succeeded in sending a transmission across the English Channel. That year, he also equipped two U.S. ships to report to New York newspapers on the progress of the America’s Cup yacht race. That successful endeavor aroused widespread interest in Marconi and his wireless company.

Marconi’s greatest achievement came on December 12, 1901, when he received a message sent from England at St. John’s, Newfoundland. The transatlantic transmission won him worldwide fame. Ironically, detractors of the project were correct when they declared that radio waves would not follow the curvature of the earth, as Marconi believed. In fact, Marconi’s transatlantic radio signal had been headed into space when it was reflected off the ionosphere and bounced back down toward Canada. Much remained to be learned about the laws of the radio wave and the role of the atmosphere in radio transmissions, and Marconi would continue to play a leading role in radio discoveries and innovations during the next three decades. In 1909, he was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in physics with the German radio innovator Ferdinand Braun. After successfully sending radio transmissions from points as far away as England and Australia, Marconi turned his energy to experimenting with shorter, more powerful radio waves. He died in 1937, and on the day of his funeral all British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) stations were silent for two minutes in tribute to his contributions to the development of radio.

1930 – Last Allied troops left the Saar of Germany.

1931 – Under pressure from the Communists in Canton, Chiang Kai-shek resigned as President of the Nanking Government but remained the head of the Nationalist government that held nominal rule over most of China.

1936 – Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek declared war on Japan.

1937 – During the battle for Nanking in the Sino-Japanese War, the U.S. gunboat Panay is attacked and sunk by Japanese warplanes in Chinese waters. The American vessel, neutral in the Chinese-Japanese conflict, was escorting U.S. evacuees and three Standard Oil barges away from Nanking, the war-torn Chinese capital on the Yangtze River. After the Panay was sunk, the Japanese fighters machine-gunned lifeboats and survivors huddling on the shore of the Yangtze. Two U.S. sailors and a civilian passenger were killed and 11 personnel seriously wounded, setting off a major crisis in U.S.-Japanese relations. Although the Panay’s position had been reported to the Japanese as required, the neutral vessel was clearly marked, and the day was sunny and clear, the Japanese maintained that the attack was unintentional, and they agreed to pay $2 million in reparations. Two neutral British vessels were also attacked by the Japanese in the final days of the battle for Nanking.

1941 – Naval Air Transport Service is established.

1941 – Kimura Detachment and 2500 men of the Japanese 16th Infantry Division, land in south Luzon at Legaspi. Air attacks continue against any remaining American aircraft.

1941 – U.S. Navy takes control of the largest and most luxurious ocean liner on the seas at that time, France’s Normandie, while it is docked at New York City. Shortly thereafter, the conversion for U.S. wartime use began. The Normandie was unique in many ways. It was the first ship built, in 1931, in accordance with the guidelines laid down in the 1929 Convention for Safety of Life at Sea. It was also huge, measuring 1,029 feet long and 119 feet wide. It displaced 85,000 tons of water. It offered passengers seven accommodation classes (including the new “tourist” class, as opposed to the old “third” class, commonly known as “steerage”) and 1,975 berths. It took a crew of more than 1,300 to work her. But despite its size, it was also fast: capable of 32.1 knots. The liner was launched in 1932 and made its first transatlantic crossing in 1935. In 1937, it was reconfigured with four-bladed propellers, which meant it could now cross the Atlantic in less than four days. When France surrendered to the Germans in June 1940, and the puppet Vichy regime was installed, the Normandie was in dock at New York City.

Immediately placed in “protective custody” by the Navy, it was clear that the U.S. government was not about to let a ship of such size and speed fall into the hands of the Germans, which it certainly would upon returning to France. In November 1941, Time magazine ran an article stating that in the event of the United States’ involvement in the war, the Navy would seize the liner altogether and turn it into an aircraft carrier. It also elaborated on how the design of the ship made such a conversion relatively simple. When the Navy did take control of the ship, shortly after Pearl Harbor, it began the conversion of the liner-but to a troop ship, renamed the USS Lafayette (after the French general who aided the American Colonies in their original quest for independence). The Lafayette never served its new purpose. On February 9, 1942, the ship caught fire and capsized. Sabotage was originally suspected, but the likely cause was sparks from a welder’s torch. Although the ship was finally righted, the massive salvage operation cost $3,750,000–and the fire damage made any hope of employing the vessel impossible. It was scrapped–literally chopped up for scrap metal–in 1946.

1941 – USMC F4F “Wildcats” sink the first 4 major Japanese ships off Wake Island.

1943 – The US 5th Army attacks continue. The US 36th Division of the 2nd Corps attacks Monte Lungo, near its former positions on Monte Maggiore.

1944 – Forces of the US 1st Army battle towards Duren, through the Hurtgen Forest. The US 3rd Army establishes another crossing of the German frontier east of the Saar. To the south, in Alsace, the US 7th Army is fighting in Seltz.

1944 – Bomber Command Lancaster bombers, escorted by Mustang fighters, attack Witten, the only city in the Ruhr industrial area that has not been bombed yet.

1946 – A United Nations committee voted to accept a six-block tract of Manhattan real estate offered as a gift by John D. Rockefeller Jr. to be the site of U.N. headquarters.

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1950 – The 1st Marine Division closed into Hungnam having cut its way through six Chinese divisions, killing approximately 20,000 of the enemy, on the way to the sea from Chosin/Changjin Reservoir. Legend has it that the division commander, Major General O. P. Smith, supposedly characterized the operation with, “Retreat? Hell, we’re just attacking in a different direction!”

1950 – U.N. General Assembly Resolution 483(V) established the United Nations Service Medal.

1951 – First flight of helicopter with gas-turbine engine at Windsor Locks, CT, demonstrates adaptability of this engine to helicopters.

1953 – Chuck Yeager reached Mach 2.43 in Bell X-1A rocket plane.

1955 – The US consulate in Hanoi is closed.

1967 – The U.S. ended the airlift of 6,500 men in Vietnam.

1968 – The Paris Peace talks, which opened on May 10, continue to be plagued by procedural questions that impeded any meaningful progress. South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky refused to consent to any permanent seating plan that would place the National Liberation Front (NLF) on an equal footing with Saigon. North Vietnam and the NLF likewise balked at any arrangement that would effectively recognize the Saigon as the legitimate government of South Vietnam. Prolonged discussions over the shape of the negotiating table was finally resolved by the placement of two square tables separated by a round table. Chief U.S. negotiator Averell Harriman proposed this arrangement so that NLF representatives could join the North Vietnamese team without having to be acknowledged by Saigon’s delegates; similarly, South Vietnamese negotiators could sit with their American allies without having to be acknowledged by the North Vietnamese and the NLF representatives. Such seemingly insignificant matters became fodder for many arguments between the delegations at the negotiations.

1969 – The Philippine Civic Action Group, a 1,350-man contingent from the Army of the Philippines, departs South Vietnam. The contingent was part of the Free World Military Forces, an effort by President Lyndon B. Johnson to enlist allies for the United States and South Vietnam. By securing support from other nations, Johnson hoped to build an international consensus behind his policies in Vietnam. The effort was also known as the “many flags” program. The Philippine Civic Action Group entered Vietnam in September 1966, setting up operations in a base camp in Tay Ninh Province northwest of Saigon. The force included an engineer construction battalion, medical and rural community development teams, a security battalion, a field artillery battery, and a logistics and headquarters element. In agreeing to commit troops, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos was partially motivated by the desire for financial aid. In return for the military assistance, the United States not only agreed to pay for the deployment and maintenance of the Philippine force, but also granted Marcos several types of military aid, much of it for use in the Philippines rather than in South Vietnam. Ultimately, Johnson’s Free World Military Forces program failed. The Philippines was one of only five nations that responded to Johnson’s repeated plea for military support and troops in South Vietnam.

1975 – Sara Jane Moore pleaded guilty to a charge of trying to kill President Ford in San Francisco the previous September.

1979 – In response to the Iran hostage crisis, the Carter administration ordered the removal of most Iranian diplomats in the United States.

1983 – A truck bomb exploded at the US Embassy in Kuwait.

1985 – 248 American soldiers and eight crew members were killed when an Arrow Air charter crashed after takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland.

1987 – During an official visit to Denmark, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz issues a statement calling on America’s NATO allies in western Europe to sharply increase their defense spending. Shultz bluntly informed his Danish hosts that it was “important for all of us to increase our contributions to NATO to insure that we do everything we can to preserve our values.” The call for funds was in direct response to the INF Treaty that had recently been signed by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Shultz’s visit was the first of many stops in Europe. Just days before, the Soviet Union and the United States signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty that promised to eliminate much of the two nations’ nuclear arsenals in Europe. Critics of the treaty in the United States and in Western Europe argued that this would leave America’s NATO allies nearly defenseless against the massive conventional forces of the Soviet Union. Shultz himself had not been a supporter of the treaty. With the treaty in force, however, the secretary now issued a call for increased spending by NATO members on their conventional armed forces. As Shultz concluded, “It’s not a viewpoint. It’s a description of reality.”

Denmark strongly supported the INF Treaty. However, the United States had criticized Denmark for years because of its small defense budget. According to one U.S. diplomat, the Danes’ philosophy was that “the Soviets are not a major threat and that in any case, their British and American friends would always come to their aid.” Talks between Shultz and Danish officials were cordial, but reflected the growing tension between the United States and some of its NATO allies concerning defense issues in Europe. Instead of agreeing with the secretary’s suggestion for increased defense spending, the Danish representative pushed even more to render Europe a “nuclear-free” zone. The inconclusive talks, and the Danish refusal to consider increased defense spending, were evidence of the increasing power of the “no-nuke” movement in Western Europe.

1992 – First US combat action, 2 Marine Cobra gunships destroy an armed Somali vehicle. 2 Somalis KIA.

1993 – Two US MP’s are WIA by Somali gunman in Mogadishu. Navy SEAL’s kill a Somali gunman.

1995 – By only three votes, the US Senate killed a constitutional amendment giving Congress authority to outlaw flag burning and other forms of desecration against Old Glory.

1996 – In Iraq Uday Hussein, eldest son of Sadam, was wounded in a car ambush by assailants with machine guns and grenades. The Mohammed Madhlum Dulaimi Group claimed responsibility.

1997 – Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, the international terrorist known as “Carlos the Jackal,” went on trial in Paris on charges of killing two French investigators and a Lebanese national. He was convicted and began serving a life prison sentence.

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2000 – The US Supreme Court decided 5-4 to block all ballot recounts and effectively secured the presidency for Gov. George W. Bush. A later review of the ballots suggested that George W. bush would have won anyway. The high court agreed, 7-to-2, to reverse the Florida court’s order of a state recount and voted 5-to-4 that there was no acceptable procedure by which a timely new recount could take place.

2000 – The Marine Corps grounded all eight of its high-tech V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft following a fiery crash in North Carolina that killed four Marines.

2001 – In Los Angeles police arrested Irving David Rubin (56) and Earl Leslie Krugel (59), leaders of the Jewish Defense League, for plotting to blow up a local mosque.

2001 – Gerardo Hernandez, the leader of a Cuban spy ring, received a life sentence in federal court in Miami for his role in the infiltration of U.S. military bases and the deaths of four Cuban-Americans.

2001 – David Criswell, director of the Univ. of Houston Space Systems Operations, proposed a “Lunar Solar Power System” to collect solar energy on the moon, convert it to microwaves, and beam it to Earth for electrical power.

2001 – A $200 million US Air Force B-1 bomber crashed into the India Ocean near Diego Garcia Island. The 4 crewmen were rescued.

2001 – In Afghanistan al Qaeda fighters at Tora Bora were given a new ultimatum to surrender and turn over their leaders.

2001 – Lt. Gen. Abdullah Hendropriyono, the Indonesia intelligence chief, said that a network of al Qaeda training camps were located on Sulawesi Island.

2002 – North Korea said it was immediately activating the nuclear reactor at Yongbyon that was shut down in 1994, due to suspension of fuel deliveries.

2003 – Pres. Bush signed legislation calling for economic penalties against Syria for not doing enough to fight terrorism.

2003 – An investigation by the Defense Contract Audit Agency of the U.S. Defense Department finds evidence indicating that the Halliburton Company subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root overcharged the government as much as $61 million for fuel delivered to Iraq.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*ELROD, HENRY TALMAGE
Rank and organization: Captain, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 27 September 1905, Rebecca, Ga. Entered service at: Ashburn, Ga. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while attached to Marine Fighting Squadron 211, during action against enemy Japanese land, surface and aerial units at Wake Island, 8 to 23 December 1941. Engaging vastly superior forces of enemy bombers and warships on 9 and 12 December, Capt. Elrod shot down 2 of a flight of 22 hostile planes and, executing repeated bombing and strafing runs at extremely low altitude and close range, succeeded in inflicting deadly damage upon a large Japanese vessel, thereby sinking the first major warship to be destroyed by small caliber bombs delivered from a fighter-type aircraft.

When his plane was disabled by hostile fire and no other ships were operative, Capt. Elrod assumed command of 1 flank of the line set up in defiance of the enemy landing and, conducting a brilliant defense, enabled his men to hold their positions and repulse intense hostile fusillades to provide covering fire for unarmed ammunition carriers. Capturing an automatic weapon during 1 enemy rush in force, he gave his own firearm to 1 of his men and fought on vigorously against the Japanese. Responsible in a large measure for the strength of his sector’s gallant resistance, on 23 December, Capt. Elrod led his men with bold aggressiveness until he fell, mortally wounded. His superb skill as a pilot, daring leadership and unswerving devotion to duty distinguished him among the defenders of Wake Island, and his valiant conduct reflects the highest credit upon himself and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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14 December

1782 – Charleston, SC, was evacuated by British.

1799 – George Washington, the American revolutionary leader and first president of the United States, dies of acute laryngitis at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia. He was 67 years old. George Washington was born in 1732 to a farm family in Westmoreland County, Virginia. His first direct military experience came as a lieutenant colonel in the Virginia colonial militia in 1754, when he led a small expedition against the French in the Ohio River valley on behalf of the governor of Virginia. Two years later, Washington took command of the defenses of the western Virginian frontier during the French and Indian War. After the war’s fighting moved elsewhere, he resigned from his military post, returned to a planter’s life, and took a seat in Virginia’s House of Burgesses. During the next two decades, Washington openly opposed the escalating British taxation and repression of the American colonies.

In 1774, he represented Virginia at the Continental Congress. After the American Revolution erupted in 1775, Washington was nominated to be commander in chief of the newly established Continental Army. Some in the Continental Congress opposed his appointment, thinking other candidates were better equipped for the post, but he was ultimately chosen because as a Virginian his leadership helped bind the Southern colonies more closely to the rebellion in New England. With his inexperienced and poorly equipped army of civilian soldiers, General Washington led an effective war of harassment against British forces in America while encouraging the intervention of the French into the conflict on behalf of the colonists. On October 19, 1781, with the surrender of British General Charles Lord Cornwallis’ massive British army at Yorktown, Virginia, General Washington had defeated one of the most powerful nations on earth.

After the war, the victorious general retired to his estate at Mount Vernon, but in 1787 he heeded his nation’s call and returned to politics to preside over the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The drafters created the office of president with him in mind, and in February 1789 Washington was unanimously elected the first president of the United States. As president, Washington sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. Of his presidency, he said, “I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent.” He successfully implemented executive authority, making good use of brilliant politicians such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his cabinet, and quieted fears of presidential tyranny.

In 1792, he was unanimously reelected but four years later refused a third term. In 1797, he finally began a long-awaited retirement at his estate in Virginia. He died two years later. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous eulogy for the father of the United States: “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

1814 – The steamboat Enterprise, designed by keelboat captain Henry Miller Shreve, arrived in New Orleans with guns and ammunition for Gen. Jackson. It was immediately commandeered for military service.

1814 – A British squadron captures U.S. gunboats in Battle of Lake Borgne, LA. The Battle of Lake Borgne was a naval battle between the Royal Navy and the United States Navy in the American South theatre of the War of 1812. It occurred on Lake Borgne and was part of the British advance on New Orleans.

1819 – Alabama was admitted as the 22nd state, making 11 slave states and 11 free states. Alabama is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Tennessee to the north, Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to the south, and Mississippi to the west. At 1,300 miles (2,100 km), Alabama has one of the longest navigable inland waterways in the nation.

1836 – The Toledo War (1835–36), also known as the Michigan–Ohio War, was the almost bloodless boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan. Originating from conflicting state and federal legislation passed between 1787 and 1805, the dispute resulted from poor understanding of geographical features of the Great Lakes at the time. Varying interpretations of the law caused the governments of Ohio and Michigan to both claim sovereignty over a 468-square-mile (1,210 km2) region along the border, now known as the Toledo Strip. When Michigan petitioned for statehood in 1835, it sought to include the disputed territory within its boundaries; Ohio’s congressional delegation was in turn able to stall Michigan’s admission to the Union.

Beginning in 1835, both sides passed legislation attempting to force the other side’s capitulation. Ohio’s governor Robert Lucas and Michigan’s 24-year-old “Boy Governor” Stevens T. Mason were both unwilling to cede jurisdiction of the Strip, so they raised militias and helped institute criminal penalties for citizens submitting to the others authority. The militias were mobilized and sent to positions on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting there was little interaction between the two forces. The single military confrontation of the “war” ended with a report of shots being fired into the air, incurring no casualties. During the summer of 1836, Congress proposed a compromise whereby Michigan gave up its claim to the strip in exchange for its statehood and approximately three-quarters of the Upper Peninsula.

The compromise was considered a poor outcome for Michigan; nearly all of the Upper Peninsula was still Indian territory at the time. Voters in a state convention in September soundly rejected the proposal. In December 1836, the Michigan government, facing a dire financial crisis and pressure from Congress and President Andrew Jackson, called another convention (called the “Frost-bitten Convention”) which accepted the compromise that resolved the Toledo War. The later discovery of copper and iron deposits and the plentiful timber in the Upper Peninsula more than offset Michigan’s economic loss in surrendering Toledo.

1854 – Congress authorized appointment of first lifeboat station keepers at $200 per year each and superintendents for Long Island and New Jersey serving under Secretary of Treasury who “may also establish such stations at such lighthouses, as, in his judgment, he shall deem best.”

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1863 – General Beauregard ordered Lieutenant Dixon, CSA, to proceed with submarine H. L. Hunley to the mouth of Charleston harbor and “sink and destroy any vessel of the enemy with which he can come in conflict.” The General directed that “such assistance- as may he practicable” he rendered to Lieutenant Dixon.

1863 – President Lincoln announces a grant of amnesty for Mrs. Emilie Todd Helm, Mary Lincoln’s half sister and the widow of a Confederate general. The pardon was one of the first under Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction, which he had announced less than a week before. The plan was the president’s blueprint for the reintegration of the South into the Union. Part of the plan allowed for former Confederates to be granted amnesty if they took an oath to the United States. The option was open to all but the highest officials of the Confederacy. Emilie Todd Helm was the wife of Benjamin Helm, who, like the Lincolns, was a Kentucky native. Lincoln was said to be a great admirer of Helm, a West Point and Harvard graduate. Lincoln had offered Helm a position in the U.S. Army, but Helm opted to join the Confederates instead. Helm led a group of Kentuckians known as the “Orphan Brigade,” since they could not return to their Union-held native state during the war. Helm was killed at the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863.After her husband’s death, Helm made her way through Union lines to Washington. She stayed in the White House and the Lincolns tried to keep her visit a secret. General Daniel Sickles, who had been wounded at Gettysburg five months prior, told Lincoln that he should not have a rebel in his house. Lincoln replied, “General Sickles, my wife and I are in the habit of choosing our own guests. We do not need from our friends either advice or assistance in the matter.” After Lincoln granted her pardon, Emilie Helm returned to Kentucky.

1863 – Generl James Longstreet attacked Union troops at Bean’s Station, Tennessee.

1864 – Union gunboats supporting General Sherman aided in the capture of Forts Beaulieu and Rosedew in Ossabaw Sound, Georgia, the outer defenses of Savannah. Wooden steamer U.S.S. Winona, Lieutenant Commander Dana, U.S.S. Sonoma, Lieutenant Commander Scott, and mortar gunboats shelled the forts until they were abandoned by the defenders on 21 December. Winona’s log recorded on that date: “At 10:05 saw the American Ensign flying on Fort Beaulieu. Ships cheered; captain left in the gig and proceeded up to the fort.”

1896 – James H. Doolittle, American Air Force general, was born. He commanded the first bombing mission over Japan. His Tokyo raid was a great boost for American war morale.

1902 – The Commercial Pacific Cable Company lays the first Pacific telegraph cable, from San Francisco to Honolulu.

1903 – The Wright brothers make their first attempt to fly with the Wright Flyer at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. With the help of men from the nearby government life-saving station (today’s Coast Guard), the Wrights moved the Flyer and its launching rail to the incline of a nearby sand dune, Big Kill Devil Hill, intending to make a gravity-assisted takeoff. The brothers tossed a coin to decide who would get the first chance at piloting, and Wilbur won. The airplane left the rail, but Wilbur pulled up too sharply, stalled, and came down in about three seconds with minor damage. Repairs after the abortive first flight took three days.

1916 – People of Denmark voted to sell Danish West Indies to United States for $25 million.

1939 – League of Nations, the international peacekeeping organization formed at the end of World War I, expels the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in response to the Soviets’ invasion of Finland on October 30. Although the League of Nations was more or less the brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson, the United States, which was to have sat on the Executive Council, never joined. Isolationists in the Senate–put off by America’s intervention in World War I, which they felt was more of a European civil war than a true world war–prevented American participation. While the League was born with the exalted mission of preventing another “Great War,” it proved ineffectual, being unable to protect China from a Japanese invasion or Ethiopia from an Italian one. The League was also useless in reacting to German remilitarization, which was a violation of the Treaty of Versailles, the document that formally set the peace terms for the end of World War I.

Germany and Japan voluntarily withdrew from the League in 1933, and Italy left in 1937. The true imperial designs of the Soviet Union soon became apparent with its occupation of eastern Poland in September of 1939, ostensibly with the intention of protecting Russian “blood brothers,” Ukrainians and Byelorussians, who were supposedly menaced by the Poles. Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were then terrorized into signing “mutual assistance” pacts, primarily one-sided agreements that gave the USSR air and naval bases in those countries. But the invasion of Finland, where no provocation or pact could credibly be adduced to justify the aggression, resulted in worldwide reaction. President Roosevelt, although an “ally” of the USSR, condemned the invasion, causing the Soviets to withdraw from the New York World’s Fair. And finally, the League of Nations, drawing almost its last breath, expelled it.

1939 – The German liner Columbus (33,000 tons) leaves Vera Cruz in an attempt to run home. The American cruiser Tuscaloosa shadows the ship, while on neutrality patrol, and broadcast its location on open radio.

1941 – US Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau asked his assistant Harry Dexter White to prepare a paper outlining the possibilities for coordinated monetary arrangements between the US and its allies. White’s proposal said the primary goal should be to stabilize the exchange rates of the Allied countries to encourage the flow of capital. The later led to the establishment of the gold standard at Bretton Woods, N.H., in 1944.

1941 – U.S. Marines made a stand in battle for Wake Island. Wake Island defenders were left with one aircraft surviving Japanese attacks.

1942 – Japanese reinforcement land about 30 miles west of Gona and begin marching toward the Australian flank. In Buna, the American’s take the village, but the Japanese still hold the well fortified Government Station.

1944 – Congress established the rank of General of Army, the 5-star General.

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1944 – Rank of Fleet Admiral, U.S. Navy (five star admiral) is established. It is interesting to note that each of these officers followed a differently patterned naval career. Only eight years of seniority separated them. They served as younger officers when the Navy was making its expansion in aviation and submarine development. One of these officers was essentially a destroyer officer and aviator with only one short tour ashore in Washington. One was a submariner with European training in diesel propulsion, a big ship sailor with shore cruises in Washington including Chief of Naval Personnel. One had almost all his sea duty in big ships and with the exception of one tour, all shore duty in Washington, including being chief of two bureaus. Only one had a seagoing career in the surface, submarine and aviation branches of the service with shore tours including the head of the Postgraduate School and the Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. Three served as Chiefs of Naval Operations. The Navy’s Fleet Admirals were: William Daniel Leahy, Ernest Joseph King, Chester William Nimitz, and William Frederick Halsey, Jr.

1944 – The former NYK liner Oryoku Maru left Manila with 1619 American POWs packed in the holds. Unknowingly, U.S. Navy planes from the carrier USS Hornet attacked, causing the Hell Ship to sink the following day. Only 200 of the men survived.

1944 – US 3rd Army continues advancing east of Sarreguemines while US 9st Army reaches the Roer River bank.

1944 – US Task Force 38 (Admiral McCain) launches air strikes on airfields throughout Luzon. TF38 includes 13 carriers, 8 battleships and numerous cruisers and destroyers. The attacks are in support of the American landing on Mindoro.

1945 – Captain Sue S. Dauser receives the first Distinguished Service Medal awarded to a nurse.

1946 – The United Nations General Assembly voted to establish the U.N. headquarters in New York City. The UN adopted a disarmament resolution prohibiting the A-Bomb.

1950 – The Navy announced the successful withdrawal of U.N. forces from Chinnampo. Approximately 7,000 soldiers and civilian refugees were evacuated from the Pyongyang area.

1952 – President-elect Eisenhower announced a new policy of firmness in dealing with the communists on his return from Korea.

1958 – The United States, Britain and France rejected Soviet demands that they withdraw their troops from West Berlin and agreed to liquidate the Allied occupation in West Berlin.

1960 – A U.S. B-52 bomber set a 10,000 mile non-stop record without refueling.

1961 – In a public exchange of letters with South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment. Kennedy, concerned with the recent advances made by the communist insurgency movement in South Vietnam wrote, “We shall promptly increase our assistance to your defense effort.” Kennedy’s chief military adviser, Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor, and Special Assistant for National Security Affairs Walt W. Rostow had just returned from a fact-finding trip to Saigon and urged the president to increase U.S. economic and military advisory support to Diem. The military support was to include intensive training of local self-defense troops by American military advisers. Additionally, Taylor and Rostow advocated a significant increase in airplanes, helicopters, and support personnel.

In a secret appendix to their report, Taylor and Rostow recommended the deployment of 8,000 American combat troops, which could be used to support the South Vietnamese forces in combat operations against the insurgents. To overcome Diem’s resistance to foreign troops–which he saw as a potential Viet Cong propaganda windfall–Taylor and Rostow suggested that the forces were to be called a “flood control team.” Kennedy, who wanted to stop the communists but also wanted to be cautious about the degree of involvement, accepted most of the recommendations, but did not commit U.S. combat troops. In return for the support, Kennedy requested that Diem liberalize his regime and institute land reform and other measures to win the support of his people. Diem initially refused, but consented when he was threatened with a reduction in the promised aid. In the long run, however, his reforms did not go far enough and the increased American aid proved insufficient in stemming the tide of the insurgency.

Diem was murdered during a coup by his own generals in November 1963. Shortly thereafter, Kennedy was assassinated. At the time of his death, there were more than 16,000 U.S. advisers in South Vietnam. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, rapidly escalated the war, which resulted in the commitment of U.S. ground forces and eventually more than 500,000 American troops in Vietnam.

1962 – The U.S. space probe Mariner 2 approached Venus, transmitting information about the planet.

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1963 – A US military spokesman in Saigon reports that guerrilla attacks on hamlets, outposts, and patrols in November have resulted in 2,800 government casualties and 2,900 Vietcong losses. The Vietcong have captured enough weapons to arm five 300-man battalions.

1964 – Operation Barrel Roll, the name given to the first phase of the bombing plan approved by President Lyndon B. Johnson on December 1, begins with U.S. planes attacking “targets of opportunity” in northern Laos. This operation was initiated in response to a Pathet Lao offensive in the Plaine des Jarres in north central Laos. The Pathet Lao were communist guerrillas who were fighting to overthrow the Royal Lao government. Operation Barrel Roll was designed to provide air support for the Royal Laotian Army and CIA-trained Hmong (mountain people) irregular forces led by Gen. Vang Pao. In addition to these operations, there was also another part of the war in Laos which was conducted in the eastern part of the country along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran out of North Vietnam through Laos and south along the South Vietnamese-Cambodian border. The North Vietnamese used this trail network as the main avenue by which they supplied and reinforced their troops in South Vietnam. Operations Steel Tiger and Tiger Hound were initiated in April and December 1965 respectively to bomb the trail in an intensive and protracted attempt to interdict the massive amounts of men and supplies moving along the corridor.

By 1973, when Operations Barrel Roll, Steel Tiger, and Tiger Hound were terminated, Laos had become the most heavily bombed country in the world. During these operations, allied aircraft dropped more than 3 million tons of bombs, three times the amount dropped on North Vietnam. U.S. spending for these bombing campaigns was 10 times that of the Laotian national budget.

1965 – Navy announces completion of 1,272 ft. radio tower at North West Cape, Australia, highest manmade structure in the Southern Hemisphere at that time, as a link in fleet communications.

1967 – Israel submitted to the United Nations a five-year plan to solve the Arab refugee problem conditioned on a general peace settlement between Israel and the Arab states.

1972 – Astronauts Schmitt and Cernan blasted off from the moon to join the command module America in lunar orbit, thus ending America’s manned lunar exploration for the 20th century. Apollo 17 astronauts blasted off from the moon after three days of exploration on lunar surface.

1980 – After four days of meetings, members of NATO warned the Soviets to stay out of the internal affairs of Poland, saying that intervention would effectively destroy the détente between East and West.

1980 – CIA report claims that the Soviet Union delivered nearly $7 billion worth of military assistance to Third World nations in 1979, and made over $8 billion in arms sales during that same year. The study also noted that there were nearly 51,000 communist military advisors in Third World countries. The report indicated that the arms sales increased instability and chances for military conflict. The CIA study portrayed an alarming growth in Soviet military assistance to the Third World, particularly to nations in the Middle East and Africa. According to the report, Syria, Iraq, and South Yemen were the primary recipients of aid to the Middle East while Angola and Ethiopia received most of the arms sold to Africa. Much of this assistance was in the form of sophisticated weapons such as MiG fighter-bombers and surface-to-air missiles. Almost two-thirds of the military advisors were Cubans whom Fidel Castro assigned to Angola.

Despite this massive effort, the study concluded that, “Moscow has recruited few adherents to its ideology.” Nevertheless, the economic advantages were significant. Together with an expanded program of economic assistance, Soviet arms sales to the Third World helped open markets and provide hard currency for the Russian economy. Soviet trade with the Third World increased from just over $250 million in 1955 to over $13 billion in 1978. In addition, the Soviets were able to obtain sources for natural gas (Afghanistan), oil (Iraq and Syria), and aluminum (Turkey). The report ended on an ominous note, suggesting that Soviet arms sales to the Third World-particularly to the Middle East-were dangerously increasing instability and the chances for war.

1986 – The experimental aircraft Voyager, piloted by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, took off from Edwards Air Force Base in California on the first non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world. The trip took nine days.

1988 – In a dramatic policy shift, President Reagan authorized the United States to enter into a “substantive dialogue” with the Palestine Liberation Organization, after chairman Yasser Arafat said he was renouncing “all forms of terrorism.”

1990 – President Bush prodded Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to agree to talks on the Persian Gulf crisis by January 3rd.

1992 – Easing a 17-year trade embargo, the United States allowed its companies to sign contracts in Vietnam.

1994 – Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic asked former U.S. President Jimmy Carter to mediate a lasting peace in Bosnia.

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1995 – An agreement for peace in Bosnia, reached at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio, was formally signed. Presidents Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia and Franjo Tudjman of Croatia signed the Bosnian peace treaty in Paris. The agreement divided Bosnia into 2 autonomous territories and granted 51% of Bosnia to the Muslim-Croat federation and 49% to the Serbs. Elections were scheduled and a force of 60,000 Western troops was planned for deployment. A 3-member presidency and a national parliament was also part of the plan.

1997 – Iran’s new president, Mohammad Khatami, called for a dialogue with the people of the United States — a nation reviled by his predecessors as “The Great Satan.”

1999 – In Seattle Ahmed Ressam (32) was arrested after crossing the border at Port Angeles from Canada with a car trunk with over 150 pounds of bomb-making materials that included 200 pounds of urea, timing devices and a bottle of RDX, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine. Canadian authorities later issued an arrest warrant for Abdelmajed Dahoumane for possessing or making explosives. Dahoumane was arrested in Algeria In Oct, 2000. In 2001 Ressam admitted that he planned to detonate a bomb at the LA Int’l. Airport. Mokhtar Haouari provided fake ID and $3,000 to Ressam. Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison in 2002.

1999 – In Panama former US Pres. Jimmy Carter symbolically turned over the Panama Canal. The official ownership transfer date was December 31st.

2000 – U.S. businessman Edward Pope was pardoned and released by Russia after being convicted of espionage.

2001 – American and British commandos behind a screen of local Afghan fighters contained the last remnants of al Qaeda forces in the White Mountains of Tora Bora. American Marines occupied Kandahar airport.

2001 – European leaders agreed to send 4,000 troops to Afghanistan.

2002 – Jordanian police announced the arrest of two alleged al-Qaida members in the October killing of American diplomat Laurence Foley.

2003 – In Afghanistan a landmark constitutional convention began with solemn prayers.

2004 – President Bush awarded the Presidential Medal of Honor to General Tommy Franks, Paul Bremer, and George Tenet, for their efforts in the war in Iraq.

2004 – Shootouts erupted between residents of a slum outside Haiti’s capital and UN troops after hundreds of international peacekeepers stormed the stronghold of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in an attempt to control flashpoints of violence. 4 people were killed.

2004 – In Iraq a suicide car bomber killed seven people at a Green Zone checkpoint, the second attack in two days near the same gate.

2006 – The U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer warned that al-Qaeda cell operatives were controlling the Islamic Courts Union, the Islamist faction of Somalia rapidly taking control of the southern area of the country. Frazer later announced that the United States has no intention of committing troops to Somalia to root out al-Qaeda.

2008 – Muntadhar al-Zaidi throws his shoes at then-U.S. President George W. Bush during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BROGAN, JAMES
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company G, 6th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Simon Valley, Ariz., 14 December 1877. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 9 January 1880. Citation: Engaged singlehanded 2 renegade Indians until his horse was shot under him and then pursued them so long as he was able.

NEPPEL, RALPH G.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company M, 329th Infantry, 83d Infantry Division. Place and date: Birgel, Germany, 14 December 1944. Entered service at: Glidden, lowa. Birth: Willey, lowa. G.O. No.: 77, 10 September 1945. Citation: He was leader of a machinegun squad defending an approach to the village of Birgel, Germany, on 14 December 1944, when an enemy tank, supported by 20 infantrymen, counterattacked. He held his fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and then raked the foot soldiers beside the tank killing several of them.

The enemy armor continued to press forward and, at the pointblank range of 30 yards, fired a high-velocity shell into the American emplacement, wounding the entire squad. Sgt. Neppel, blown 10 yards from his gun, had 1 leg severed below the knee and suffered other wounds. Despite his injuries and the danger from the onrushing tank and infantry, he dragged himself back to his position on his elbows, remounted his gun and killed the remaining enemy riflemen. Stripped of its infantry protection, the tank was forced to withdraw. By his superb courage and indomitable fighting spirit, Sgt. Neppel inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and broke a determined counterattack.

NETT, ROBERT B.
Rank and organization: Captain (then Lieutenant), U.S. Army, Company E, 305th Infantry, 77th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Cognon, Leyte, Philippine Islands, 14 December 1944. Entered service at: New Haven, Conn. Birth: New Haven, Conn. G.O. No.: 16, 8 February 1946. Citation: He commanded Company E in an attack against a reinforced enemy battalion which had held up the American advance for 2 days from its entrenched positions around a 3-story concrete building. With another infantry company and armored vehicles, Company E advanced against heavy machinegun and other automatic weapons fire with Lt. Nett spearheading the assault against the strongpoint.

During the fierce hand-to-hand encounter which ensued, he killed 7 deeply entrenched Japanese with his rifle and bayonet and, although seriously wounded, gallantly continued to lead his men forward, refusing to relinquish his command. Again he was severely wounded, but, still unwilling to retire, pressed ahead with his troops to assure the capture of the objective. Wounded once more in the final assault, he calmly made all arrangements for the resumption of the advance, turned over his command to another officer, and then walked unaided to the rear for medical treatment. By his remarkable courage in continuing forward through sheer determination despite successive wounds, Lt. Nett provided an inspiring example for his men and was instrumental in the capture of a vital strongpoint.

*THOMAS, CHARLES L.
Citation: For extraordinary heroism in action on 14 December 1944, near Climbach, France. While riding in the lead vehicle of a task force organized to storm and capture the village of Climbach, France, then First Lieutenant Thomas’s armored scout car was subjected to intense enemy artillery, self-propelled gun, and small arms fire. Although wounded by the initial burst of hostile fire, Lieutenant Thomas signaled the remainder of the column to halt and, despite the severity of his wounds, assisted the crew of the wrecked car in dismounting. Upon leaving the scant protection which the vehicle afforded, Lieutenant Thomas was again subjected to a hail of enemy fire which inflicted multiple gunshot wounds in his chest, legs, and left arm.

Despite the intense pain caused by these wounds, Lieutenant Thomas ordered and directed the dispersion and emplacement of two antitank guns which in a few moments were promptly and effectively returning the enemy fire. Realizing that he could no longer remain in command of the platoon, he signaled to the platoon commander to join him. Lieutenant Thomas then thoroughly oriented him on enemy gun dispositions and the general situation. Only after he was certain that his junior officer was in full control of the situation did he permit himself to be evacuated. First Lieutenant Thomas’ outstanding heroism were an inpiration to his men and exemplify the highest traditions of the Armed Forces.

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15 December

1778 – British and French fleets clash in the Battle of St. Lucia. The Battle of St. Lucia or the Battle of the Cul de Sac was a naval battle fought off the island of St. Lucia in the West Indies during the American War of Independence on 15 December 1778, between the British Royal Navy and the French Navy.

1791 – Following ratification by the state of Virginia, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, become the law of the land. In September 1789, the first Congress of the United States approved 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. The amendments were designed to protect the basic rights of U.S. citizens, guaranteeing the freedom of speech, press, assembly, and exercise of religion; the right to fair legal procedure and to bear arms; and that powers not delegated to the federal government would be reserved for the states and the people. Influenced by the English Bill of Rights of 1689, the Bill of Rights was also drawn from Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, drafted by George Mason in 1776. Mason, a native Virginian, was a lifelong champion of individual liberties, and in 1787 he attended the Constitutional Convention and criticized the final document for lacking constitutional protection of basic political rights.

In the ratification struggle that followed, Mason and other critics agreed to support the Constitution in exchange for the assurance that amendments would be passed immediately. On December 15, 1791, Virginia became the 10th of 14 states to approve 10 of the 12 amendments, thus giving the Bill of Rights the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it legal. Of the two amendments not ratified, the first concerned the population system of representation, while the second prohibited laws varying the payment of congressional members from taking effect until an election intervened. The first of these two amendments was never ratified, while the second was finally ratified more than 200 years later, in 1992.

1862 – Nathan B. Forrest crossed the Tennessee River at Clifton with 2,500 men to raid the communications around Vicksburg.

1862 – In New Orleans, Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler turned his command over to Nathaniel Banks. The citizens of New Orleans held farewell parties for Butler, “The Beast,” but only after he had already left. Maj. Gen Benjamin Butler was given the unusual nickname “Spoons” due to his apparent penchant for stealing the silver while occupying New Orleans. He was also called “Beast” for alleged insults to the women in the town. Both the names were coined by Confederates.

1864 – The once powerful Confederate Army of Tennessee is nearly destroyed when a Union army commanded by General George Thomas swarms over the Rebel trenches around Nashville. This was the sad finale in a disastrous year for the General John Bell Hood’s Confederates. The Rebels lost a long summer campaign for Atlanta in September when Hood abandoned the city to the army of William T. Sherman. Hood then took his diminished force north into Tennessee. He hoped to draw Sherman out of the deep South, but Sherman had enough troops to split his force and send part of it to chase Hood into Tennessee. In November, Sherman took the remainder of his army on his march across Georgia. On November 30, Hood attacked the troops of General John Schofield at Franklin, Tennessee. The Confederates suffered heavy casualties and much of the army’s leadership structure was destroyed: twelve generals were killed or wounded along with 60 regimental leaders.

When Schofield moved north to Nashville to join Thomas, Hood followed him and dug his army in outside of Nashville’s formidable defenses. Thomas saw his chance to deal a decisive blow to Hood. More than 50,000 Yankees faced a Rebel force that now totaled less than 20,000. Historians have long questioned why Hood even approached the strongly fortified city with the odds so stacked against him. Early in the morning of December 15, Thomas sent a force under General James Steedman against the Confederates’ right flank. The Union troops overran the Confederate trenches and drove the Rebels back more than a mile.

The short December day halted the fighting, but Thomas struck again on December 16. This time, the entire Confederate line gave way and sent Hood’s men from the field in a total rout. Only General Stephen Lee’s valiant rear-guard action prevented total destruction of the Confederate army.More than 6,000 Rebels were killed or wounded and 3,000 Yankees lost their lives. Hood and his damaged army retreated to Mississippi, the Army of Tennessee no longer a viable offensive fighting force.

1864 – As Major General Thomas opened his offensive in the pivotal battle of Nashville, gunboats of the Mississippi Squadron, commanded by Lieutenant Commander Fitch, operated closely with the Union Army by engaging batteries on the Cumberland River and helping to secure a resounding victory for Thomas. On the night of 14 December, Fitch, together with the seven gunboats of his command, had moved down toward the main Confederate battery guarding the river and Major General Forrest’s far left. Fitch described the joint effort: “Acting Volunteer Lieutenant Howard then returned to where I was, just above their works, and reported but four guns in position. These I could easily have silenced and driven off, but our army had not yet sufficiently advanced to insure their capture. I therefore maneuvered around above them till the afternoon, when our cavalry had reached the desired position in the rear; the Neosho and Carondelet then moved down again and the rebels, finding the position they were in, had tried to remove the guns, but were too late; our cavalry closed in and took them with but little resistance.”

The Union gunboats then engaged other batteries down the river, in some cases silencing them with gun- -fire and in others absorbing the attention of the Confederate gunners while Union cavalry encircled them. By the afternoon of 15 December, Hood’s batteries on the Cumberland had been captured and his left flank, further inland, was in full retreat. In reply to congratulations from President Lincoln on his important victory, Thomas remarked: “I must not forget to report the operations of Brigadier-General Johnson in successfully driving the enemy, with the cooperation of the gunboats, under Lieutenant Commander Fitch, from their established batteries on the Cumberland River below the City of Nashville.

1864 – An expedition under Acting Master William G. Morris, including U.S.S. Coeur De Lion and U.S.S. Mercury, seized and burned more than thirty large boats. The Confederates had been massing them on the Coan River, Virginia. Defending soldiers were also driven off in a brief engagement.

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1890 – After many years of successfully resisting white efforts to destroy him and the Sioux people, the great Sioux chief and holy man Sitting Bull is killed by Indian police at the Standing Rock reservation in South Dakota. One of the most famous Native Americans of the 19th century, Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) was a fierce enemy of Anglo-Americans from a young age. Deeply devoted to the traditional ways, Sitting Bull believed that contact with non-Indians undermined the strength and identity of the Sioux and would lead to their ultimate decline. However, Sitting Bull’s tactics were generally more defensive than aggressive, especially as he grew older and became a Sioux leader. Fundamentally, Sitting Bull and those associated with his tribe wished only to be left alone to pursue their traditional ways, but the Anglo settlers’ growing interest in the land and the resulting confinement of Indians to government-controlled reservations inevitably led to conflicts.

Sitting Bull’s refusal to follow an 1875 order to bring his people to the Sioux reservation directly led to the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which the Sioux and Cheyenne wiped out five troops of Custer’s 7th Cavalry. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada for four years. Faced with mass starvation among his people, Sitting Bull finally returned to the United States and surrendered in 1883. Sitting Bull was assigned to the Standing Rock reservation in present-day South Dakota, where he maintained considerable power despite the best efforts of the Indian bureau agents to undermine his influence. When the apocalyptic spiritual revival movement known as the Ghost Dance began to grow in popularity among the Sioux in 1890, Indian agents feared it might lead to an Indian uprising. Wrongly believing that Sitting Bull was the driving force behind the Ghost Dance, agent James McLaughlin sent Indian police to arrest the chief at his small cabin on the Grand River. The Indian police rousted the naked chief from his bed at 6:00 in the morning, hoping to spirit him away before his guards and neighbors knew what had happened.

When the fifty-nine-year-old chief refused to go quietly, a crowd gathered and a few hotheaded young men threatened the Indian police. Someone fired a shot that hit one of the Indian police; they retaliated by shooting Sitting Bull in the chest and head. The great chief was killed instantly. Before the ensuing gunfight ended, twelve other Indians were dead and three were wounded. The man who had nobly resisted the encroachment of whites and their culture for nearly three decades was buried in a far corner of the post cemetery at Fort Yates. Two weeks later, the army brutally suppressed the Ghost Dance movement with the massacre of a band of Sioux at Wounded Knee, the final act in the long and tragic history of the American war against the Plains Indians.

1914 – The outbreak of fighting in Europe triggered the closing of the New York Stock Exchange, as market officials looked to prevent a rapid-fire liquidation of the European account, then worth roughly $2.4 billion. But, after being closed for over four months, the NYSE got back into the swing of things on this day, albeit with a tight set of trading restrictions designed to prevent fiscal disaster.

1924 – Soviets warned the U.S. against repeated entry of ships into the territorial waters of the USSR.

1933 – The Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution officially becomes effective, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and transportation of alcohol.

1938 – Groundbreaking ceremonies for the Jefferson Memorial took place in Washington, D.C.

1941 – An American Federation of Labor council adopted a no-strike policy in war industries, which included automotive plants being converted to military production (domestic automobile manufacturing stopped completely from 1941 to 1944). The U.S. was gearing up for the worst years of World War II.

1942 – Admiral Tanaka’s supply flotilla begins missions to aid the building of an airfield on New Georgia to support the Japanese positions on Guadalcanal.

1942 – The Battle of Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse begins during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The battle, part of which is sometimes called the Battle of the Gifu, lasted to 23 January 1943 and was primarily an engagement between United States and Imperial Japanese forces in the hills near the Matanikau River area on Guadalcanal during the Guadalcanal Campaign. The U.S. forces were under the overall command of Alexander Patch and the Japanese forces were under the overall command of Harukichi Hyakutake. In the battle, U.S. Soldiers and Marines, assisted by native Solomon Islanders, attacked Japanese Army (IJA) forces defending well-fortified and entrenched positions on several hills and ridges. The most prominent hills were called Mount Austen, the Galloping Horse, and the Sea Horse by the Americans.

The U.S. was attempting to destroy the Japanese forces on Guadalcanal and the Japanese were trying to hold their defensive positions until reinforcements could arrive. Both sides experienced extreme difficulties in fighting in the thick jungles and tropical environment that existed in the battle area. Many of the American troops were also involved in their first combat operations. The Japanese were mostly cut off from resupply and suffered greatly from malnourishment and lack of medical care. After some difficulty, the U.S. succeeded in taking Mount Austen, in the process reducing a strongly defended position called the Gifu, as well as the Galloping Horse and the Sea Horse. In the meantime, the Japanese secretly decided to abandon Guadalcanal and withdrew to the west coast of the island. From that location most of the surviving Japanese troops were successfully evacuated during the first week of February 1943.

1943 – The US 5th Army begins new attacks. The 2nd Corps renews its drive toward San Pietro and Monte Lungo. To the right the 6th Corps attacks as well. The 1st Moroccan Division performs well.

1943 – The US 112th Cavalry Regiment (General Cunningham), with Coast Guard support, lands at Arawe, off the island of New Britain. This is a diversionary operation. Task Force 76 (Admiral Barbey) provides naval support for the operation. There is an air attack on the Japanese airfield at Cape Gloucester in support of the operation as well.

1944 – On the island of Mindoro (about 75 miles from Manila), American forces, under the command of General Dunckel, land at San Augustin. The force consists of part of US 24th Division and a parachute regiment. There is almost no resistance and American troops advance up to 8 miles inland. Naval support includes 3 battleships and 6 escort carriers. One carrier and two destroyers are damaged by Kamikaze attacks. Meanwhile, TF38 continues air strikes on airfields on Luzon. Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings.

1944 – The US 7th Army enters Germany, along the Palatinate frontier, from Alsace between Wissembourg and Lauterbourg.

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1944 – Army Air Force Band leader and trombonist Glenn Miller boarded a single-engine C-64 Norseman in England for a flight to France, where he was to make arrangements for a Christmas broadcast. The plane never reached France and no trace of it or its occupants was ever found. Iowa-born Glenn Miller became a professional musician after graduating from high school. By the time he volunteered for military service in 1942, the Glenn Miller Orchestra was world famous and had appeared in two motion pictures.

Miller persuaded the U.S. Army to accept his service to “put a little more spring into the feet of our marching men and a little more joy into their hearts.” For the next 18 months, Miller’s 50-member band stayed busy with morale-building concerts and radio broadcasts. No cause has ever been established for the loss of Miller’s aircraft, but the Norseman did not have de-icing equipment on board and it is likely that icy weather forced the plane down in the English Channel.

1944 – In Hungary a gold train departed Budapest on orders from Adolf Eichmann. In May it was intercepted by American forces in Austria. Some of the valuables were requisitioned by US commanders and the rest was later auctioned in NY and the proceeds given to a UN agency to help Jewish refugees. Kenneth Alford later authored “The Spoils of World War II.”

1945 – General Douglas MacArthur, in his capacity as Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in the Pacific, brings an end to Shintoism as Japan’s established religion. The Shinto system included the belief that the emperor, in this case Hirohito, was divine. On September 2, 1945 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, MacArthur signed the instrument of Japanese surrender on behalf of the victorious Allies. Before the economic and political reforms the Allies devised for Japan’s future could be enacted, however, the country had to be demilitarized. Step one in the plan to reform Japan entailed the demobilization of Japan’s armed forces, and the return of all troops from abroad.

Japan had had a long history of its foreign policy being dominated by the military, as evidenced by Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoye’s failed attempts to reform his government and being virtually pushed out of power by career army officer Hideki Tojo. Step two was the dismantling of Shintoism as the Japanese national religion. Allied powers believed that serious democratic reforms, and a constitutional form of government, could not be put into place as long as the Japanese people looked to an emperor as their ultimate authority. Hirohito was forced to renounce his divine status, and his powers were severely limited–he was reduced to little more than a figurehead. And not merely religion, but even compulsory courses on ethics–the power to influence the Japanese population’s traditional religious and moral duties–were wrenched from state control as part of a larger decentralization of all power.

1946 – Vietnam leader Ho Chi Minh sent a note to the new French Premier, Leon Blum, asking for peace talks.

1946 – U.S.-backed Iranian troops evict the leadership of the breakaway Republic of Mahabad, a short-lived self-governing Kurdish state in present-day Iran, putting an end to the Iran crisis of 1946. The Iran crisis of 1946, also known as the Iran-Azerbaijan Crisis, followed the end of World War II and stemmed from the Soviet Union’s refusal to relinquish occupied Iranian territory, despite repeated assurances. In 1941 Iran had been jointly invaded and occupied by the Allied powers of the Soviet Red Army in the north and by the British in the centre and south. Iran was used by the Americans and the British as a transportation route to provide vital supplies to the Soviet Union’s war efforts. As of August 1941, the United States was a neutral nation and had not entered as a belligerent in World War II.

Therefore, the bloc known as ‘The Allies’ were principally (with Poland and France occupied by Germany in 1939 and 1940, respectively) the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, recently forming their alliance after the German invasion of territories of the Western Soviet Union in June 1941. In the aftermath of the occupation of Iran, those Allied forces agreed to withdraw from Iran within six months after the cessation of hostilities. However, when this deadline came in early 1946, the Soviets, under Joseph Stalin, remained in Iran and local pro-Soviet Iranians proclaimed a separatist People’s Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Mahabad.

In late 1945, in addition to the People’s Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Mahabad also came into existence. Soon, the alliance of the Kurdish and People’s Azerbaijani forces, supported in arms and training by the Soviet Union, engaged in fighting with Iranian forces, resulting in a total of 2,000 casualties. Negotiation by Iranian premier Ahmad Qavam and diplomatic pressure on the Soviets by the United States eventually led to Soviet withdrawal. The crisis is seen as one of the early conflicts in the growing Cold War at the time.

1948 – The Secretary of the Navy signed a “Memorandum of Agreement” with the State Department which laid the basis for the modern Marine Security Guard program at U.S. embassies throughout the world.

1948 – Former State Department official Alger Hiss was indicted by a federal grand jury in New York on charges of perjury. They charged that he lied in denying that he gave Chambers confidential documents and that he had spoken with Chambers in Feb and Mar of 1938. A first trial ended in a hung jury. Hiss, accused of lying about dealings with confessed Communist spy Whittaker Chambers, was convicted in 1950 and served nearly four years in prison.

1950 – The F-86 Sabre jets of the U.S. Air Force’s 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing flew their first missions of the Korean War.

1950 – U.N. forces withdraw south of the 38th parallel. Eighth Army established the Imjin River defense line north of Seoul.

1960 – Richard Pavlick is arrested for plotting to assassinate U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy. Richard Paul Pavlick (February 13, 1887 – November 11, 1975) was a retired postal worker from New Hampshire who stalked U.S. President-Elect John F. Kennedy, with the intent of assassinating him. On December 11, 1960 in Palm Beach, Florida, Pavlick positioned himself to carry out the assassination by blowing up Kennedy and himself with dynamite, but delayed the attempt because Kennedy was with his wife and children. He was then arrested before he was able to stage another attempt.

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1965 – In the first raid on a major North Vietnamese industrial target, U.S. Air Force planes destroy a thermal power plant at Uong Bi, l4 miles north of Haiphong. The plant reportedly supplied about 15 percent of North Vietnam’s total electric power production.

1965 – Launch of Gemini 6 with Captain Walter M. Schirra, Jr., USN, as Command Pilot. The mission included 16 orbits in 25 hours and 51 minutes. Recovery was by HS-11 helicopters from USS Wasp (CVS-18).

1965 – Two U.S. manned spacecraft, Gemini 6 and Gemini 7, maneuvered to within 10 feet of each other while in orbit.

1969 – President Richard Nixon announces that 50,000 additional U.S. troops will be pulled out of South Vietnam by April 15, 1970. This was the third reduction since the June Midway conference, when Nixon announced his Vietnamization program. Under the Vietnamization program, the South Vietnamese forces would receive intensified training and new equipment so they could gradually assume overall responsibility for the war. Concurrent with this effort, Nixon announced that he would begin to bring U.S. troops home. This third increment would bring the total reductions to 115,000. By January 1972, there were only around 70,000 U.S. troops left in South Vietnam. Noting the steady withdrawal of American forces, the North Vietnamese decided to launch a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972.

The South Vietnamese forces, supported by American advisers and U.S. airpower, reeled under the onslaught but ultimately prevailed, holding on despite overwhelming odds. After much posturing and many lengthy negotiations (with additional “motivation” contributed by Nixon’s bombing of North Vietnam in December 1972), National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Le Duc Tho, hammered out a peace agreement. A cease-fire went into effect on January 27, 1973. The war was over for the United States, but fighting soon resumed between North and South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese held out for nearly two years, but succumbed when the United States cut off all military support. When the North Vietnamese launched a new offensive in March 1975, South Vietnam fell in just 55 days.

1978 – In one of the most dramatic announcements of the Cold War, President Jimmy Carter states that as of January 1, 1979, the United States will formally recognize the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) and sever relations with Taiwan. Following Mao Zedong’s successful revolution in China in 1949, the United States steadfastly refused to recognize the new communist regime. Instead, America continued to recognize and supply the Nationalist Chinese government that had been established by Chiang Kai-shek on the island of Taiwan. In 1950, during the Korean War, U.S. and PRC armed forces clashed. During the 1960s, the United States was angered by PRC support and aid to North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. By the 1970s, however, a new set of circumstances existed. From the U.S. viewpoint, closer relations with the PRC would bring economic and political benefits. Economically, American businessmen were eager to try and exploit the huge Chinese market.

Politically, U.S. policymakers believed that they could play the “China card”-using closer diplomatic relations with the PRC to pressure the Soviets into becoming more malleable on a variety of issues, including arms agreements. The PRC also had come to desire better relations with its old enemy. It sought the large increase in trade with the United States that would result from normalized relations, and particularly looked forward to the technology it might obtain from America. The PRC was also looking for allies. A military showdown with its former ally, Vietnam, was in the making and Vietnam had a mutual support treaty with the Soviets. Carter’s announcement that diplomatic ties would be severed with Taiwan (which the PRC insisted on) angered many in Congress. The Taiwan Relations Act was quickly passed in retaliation. It gave Taiwan nearly the same status as any other nation recognized by the United States and also mandated that arms sales continue to the Nationalist government. In place of the U.S. embassy in Taiwan, an “unofficial” representative, called the American Institute in Taiwan, would continue to serve U.S. interests in the country.

1979 – The deposed Shah of Iran left the United States for Panama, the same day the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Iran should release all its American hostages.

1988 – End of Earnest Will convoy operations to escort reflagged tankers in the Persian Gulf.

1990 – With one month left before a UN deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait, Iraq gave no indication it was prepared to pull out.

1991 – Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev asked U.S. Secretary of State James Baker for formal U.S. recognition of the various Soviet republics that had declared independence.

1997 – US Defense Sec. Cohen ordered all 1.5 million men and women in uniform to be inoculated against anthrax.

1997 – In Missouri the nation’s last workable Minuteman II missile silo was destroyed in Dederick. It was the last of 150 in Missouri aimed at the Soviet Union. The missiles were deactivated and the silos destroyed due to the 1995 signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

1998 – Richard Butler, chairman of the UN Special Commission overseeing the disarmament of Iraq, reported that Saddam’s government continued to obstruct inspections.

1998 – A 40-nation conference on the Dayton accord opened in Madrid.

1998 – US forces in the Persian Gulf were ordered on high alert following credible information of an imminent terrorist attack.

1998 – The Endeavour shuttle and crew returned to Cape Canaveral in a night time landing following NASA’s first space station-building mission.

1999 – The US and China agreed to a $28 million compensation package for damage to the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 7. China agreed to pay $2.87 million for damage to the US Embassy and consular offices.

1999 – In North Korea a US led consortium signed a $4.6 billion deal to build 2 nuclear reactors in Kumho.

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2000 – The US Army planned to hold closing ceremonies for the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. The school planned to reopen in January as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.

2000 – Mazen Al-Najjar, a Palestinian immigrant who had taught at the Univ. of South Florida, was released following 3½ years in jail on secret evidence. He still faced deportation and was suspected of having ties with the Syrian-based Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

2001 – Anthony Zinni, US envoy to Israel, left after his 20 days in the region failed to produce a cease-fire.

2001 – With a crash and a large dust cloud, a 50-foot tall section of steel, the last standing piece of the World Trade Center’s façade, was brought down in New York.

2003 – The US Navy seized a boat carrying nearly two tons of hashish in the Persian Gulf. It was soon considered as the first hard evidence of al-Qaida links to drug smuggling.

2003 – Cambodia’s prime minister ordered the destruction of the country’s surface-to-air missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists. Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in Phnom Penh with U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray.

2003 – In Pakistan police arrested 10 people suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida in two nighttime raids at Rawalpindi.

2003 – Oil prices fall 4% on the news that U.S. military forces capture Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit, Iraq.

2004 – A US interceptor missile failed to fire in a test flight from the Marshall Islands. It was the 1st test flight for the missile defense system in 2 years.

2005 – Iraq holds it’s first Parliamentary election. over 2600 precincts are established, and 300,000 election observers watch as Iraqi voters fill 275 seats in their new Parliament.

2005 – Introduction of the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor into USAF active service. The Raptor achieved Full Operational Capability (FOC) in December 2007, when General John Corley of Air Combat Command (ACC) officially declared the F-22s of the integrated active duty 1st Fighter Wing and Virginia Air National Guard 192d Fighter Wing fully operational.

2006 – NATO forces launched Operation Falcon Summit with the intention of expelling Taliban fighters from the Panjawi and Zhari districts of Kandahar. Canadian troops had been fighting with Taliban fighters in the area for several months. Although the operation was under British command, the majority of movements and elements on the ground were Canadians operating from forward operating bases set up in the district during the fighting of Operation Mountain Thrust and Operation Medusa.

2006 – First flight of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is a family of single-seat, single-engine, all weather stealth multirole fighters undergoing testing and final development. The fifth generation combat aircraft is designed to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air defense missions. The F-35 has three main models: the F-35A conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) variant, the F-35B short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) variant, and the F-35C carrier-based CATOBAR (CV) variant. The F-35 is descended from the X-35, which was the winning design of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. It is being designed and built by an aerospace industry team led by Lockheed Martin.

Other major F-35 industry partners include Northrop Grumman, Pratt & Whitney and BAE Systems. The F-35 variants are intended to provide the bulk of its manned tactical airpower for the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy over the coming decades. Deliveries of the F-35 for the U.S. military are scheduled to be completed in 2037. F-35 JSF development is being principally funded by the United States with additional funding from partners. The partner nations are either NATO members or close U.S. allies. The United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Canada, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Turkey are part of the active development program; Several additional countries have ordered, or are considering ordering, the F-35.

2007 – The focus of this operation was Iskandariyah, Babil province. On the first day of the operation, Coalition forces uncovered and destroyed a large tunnel network used by AQI to hide weapons and fighters along the banks of the Euphrates River. A large cache was turned over to coalition forces by a Concerned Local Citizen group on the same day. Operation Marne Roundup concluded at the beginning of January 2008.

2010 – Data confirms that Voyager 1 has entered the heliopause, the area of space where the Sun’s solar wind is stopped by the interstellar wind. It is believed the probe will now leave the Solar System within the next four years.

2011 – The United States flag is lowered in Baghdad marking the end of U.S. military operations in Iraq after eight years of the Iraq War. The last U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq on 18 December, although the US embassy and consulates continue to maintain a staff of more than 20,000 including US Marine Embassy Guards and between 4,000 and 5,000 private military contractors.

2011 – A French court convicts Venezuela-born terrorist Carlos the Jackal of organizing four deadly attacks in the 1980s.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CHURCHILL, SAMUEL J.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company G, 2d Illinois Light Artillery. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 15 December 1864. Entered service at: DeKalb County, Ill. Birth: Rutland County, Vt. Date of issue: 20 January 1897. Citation: When the fire of the enemy’s batteries compelled the men of his detachment for a short time to seek shelter, he stood manfully at his post and for some minutes worked his gun alone.

SAPP, ISACC
Rank and organization: Seaman, Engineer’s Force, U.S. Navy. Born: 1844, Philadelphia, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 169, 8 February 1872. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Shenandoah during the rescue of a shipmate at Villefranche, 15 December 1871. Jumping overboard, Sapp gallantly assisted in saving Charles Prince, seaman, from drowning.

*JOHNSON, LEROY
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company K, 126th Infantry, 32d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Limon, Leyte, Philippine Islands, 15 December 1944. Entered service at: Oakdale, La. Birth: Caney Creek, La. G.O. No.: 83, 2 October 1945. Citation: He was squad leader of a 9-man patrol sent to reconnoiter a ridge held by a well-entrenched enemy force. Seeing an enemy machinegun position, he ordered his men to remain behind while he crawled to within 6 yards of the gun. One of the enemy crew jumped up and prepared to man the weapon. Quickly withdrawing, Sgt. Johnson rejoined his patrol and reported the situation to his commanding officer.

Ordered to destroy the gun, which covered the approaches to several other enemy positions, he chose 3 other men, armed them with hand grenades, and led them to a point near the objective. After taking partial cover behind a log, the men had knocked out the gun and begun an assault when hostile troops on the flank hurled several grenades. As he started for cover, Sgt. Johnson saw 2 unexploded grenades which had fallen near his men. Knowing that his comrades would be wounded or killed by the explosion, he deliberately threw himself on the grenades and received their full charge in his body. Fatally wounded by the blast, he died soon afterward. Through his outstanding gallantry in sacrificing his life for his comrades, Sgt. Johnson provided a shining example of the highest traditions of the U.S. Army.

VLUG, DIRK J.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, 126th Infantry, 32d Infantry Division. Place and date. Near Limon, Leyte, Philippine Islands, 15 December 1944. Entered service at: Grand Rapids, Mich. Birth: Maple Lake, Minn. G.O. No.: 60, 26 June 1946. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty when an American roadblock on the Ormoc Road was attacked by a group of enemy tanks. He left his covered position, and with a rocket launcher and 6 rounds of ammunition, advanced alone under intense machinegun and 37-mm. fire. Loading single-handedly, he destroyed the first tank, killing its occupants with a single round.

As the crew of the second tank started to dismount and attack him, he killed 1 of the foe with his pistol, forcing the survivors to return to their vehicle, which he then destroyed with a second round. Three more hostile tanks moved up the road, so he flanked the first and eliminated it, and then, despite a hail of enemy fire, pressed forward again to destroy another. With his last round of ammunition he struck the remaining vehicle, causing it to crash down a steep embankment. Through his sustained heroism in the face of superior forces, Pfc. Vlug alone destroyed 5 enemy tanks and greatly facilitated successful accomplishment of his battalion’s mission.

LYNCH, ALLEN JAMES
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company D, 1st Battalion (Airmobile), 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). place and date: Near My An (2), Binh Dinh province, Republic of Vietnam, 15 December 1967. Entered service at: Chicago, Ill. Born: 28 October 1945, Chicago, Ill. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Lynch (then Sp4c.) distinguished himself while serving as a radio telephone operator with Company D. While serving in the forward element on an operation near the village of My An, his unit became heavily engaged with a numerically superior enemy force. Quickly and accurately assessing the situation, Sgt. Lynch provided his commander with information which subsequently proved essential to the unit’s successful actions. Observing 3 wounded comrades Lying exposed to enemy fire, Sgt. Lynch dashed across 50 meters of open ground through a withering hail of enemy fire to administer aid.

Reconnoitering a nearby trench for a covered position to protect the wounded from intense hostile fire, he killed 2 enemy soldiers at point blank range. With the trench cleared, he unhesitatingly returned to the fire-swept area 3 times to carry the wounded men to safety. When his company was forced to withdraw by the superior firepower of the enemy, Sgt. Lynch remained to aid his comrades at the risk of his life rather than abandon them. Alone, he defended his isolated position for 2 hours against the advancing enemy. Using only his rifle and a grenade, he stopped them just short of his trench, killing 5. Again, disregarding his safety in the face of withering hostile fire, he crossed 70 meters of exposed terrain 5 times to carry his wounded comrades to a more secure area. Once he had assured their comfort and safety, Sgt. Lynch located the counterattacking friendly company to assist in directing the attack and evacuating the 3 casualties. His gallantry at the risk of his life is in the highest traditions of the military service, Sgt. Lynch has reflected great credit on himself, the 12th Cavalry, and the U.S. Army.

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16 December

1689 – English Parliament adopted a Bill of Rights after Glorious Revolution. The Bill of Rights included a right to bear arms.

1773 – In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor. The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. When three tea ships, the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver, arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists demanded that the tea be returned to England.

After Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson refused, Patriot leader Samuel Adams organized the “tea party” with about 60 members of the Sons of Liberty, his underground resistance group. The British tea dumped in Boston Harbor on the night of December 16 was valued at some 18,000 pounds. Parliament, outraged by the blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.

1821 – LT Robert F. Stockton and Dr. Eli Ayers, a naval surgeon and member of American Colonizing Society, induce a local African king to sell territory for a colony which became the Republic of Liberia.

1826 – In an act that foreshadowed the American rebellions to come, Benjamin Edwards rides into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and proclaims himself the ruler of the Republic of Fredonia. The brother of a corrupt backer of an American colony in Texas, Benjamin Edwards made the bold (and perhaps foolish) decision to rebel against the Mexican government while his brother was away in the United States raising money for his colony. Under the empresario system–which was created by the Mexican government in the 1820s to encourage colonization of its northern provinces–men like the Edwards were allowed to settle Anglo families in Texas. However, many of the Anglo settlers retained stronger ties to the United States than to Mexico, and Benjamin Edwards hoped that many former Americans would support his attempt to split from Mexico.

Accompanied by a force of about 30 men, Edwards seized a stone fort in Nacogdoches and declared that the new “Republic of Fredonia” was now independent of Mexican control. Edwards claimed his new nation extended from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande River, and would be governed under the principles of “Independence, Liberty, and Justice.” In a bid to build up a defense against the Mexican soldiers who were on their way to quell the rebellion, Edwards quickly negotiated an agreement with the Cherokee Indians offering to share Texas in exchange for military aid. Edwards was less successful in winning the support of the local Anglo and Mexican inhabitants of Nacogdoches, in whose name he was supposedly acting. When the Mexican militia approached Nacogdoches six weeks later, Edwards’ ill-planned revolution quickly disintegrated and he fled to the United States for sanctuary.

While short-lived and premature, Edwards’ Fredonian Rebellion nonetheless reflected the growing tensions between the American colonialists in Texas and their Mexican rulers. Less than a decade later, in 1835, other Texans followed in Edwards’ footsteps and staged the far more successful revolution that established the independent Republic of Texas.

1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis names General Joseph Johnston commander of the Army of Tennessee. Johnston replaced Braxton Bragg, who managed to lose all of Tennessee to the Union during 1863. A Virginia native, Johnston graduated from West Point in 1829 along with Robert E. Lee. Johnston fought in the Black Hawk, Creek, and Seminole wars of the 1830s before serving with distinction in the Mexican War. When Virginia seceded from the Union after the firing on Fort Sumter, Johnston joined his native state and accepted a commission in the Confederate army. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run and commanded the Army of Northern Virginia during the early stages of the Peninsular Campaign in 1862. When he was wounded at the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, Lee replaced Johnston. After recovering from his wounds, Johnston was sent to coordinate the operations of the armies the Tennessee and Mississippi regions. Since he did not have a command of his own, Johnston resented this duty.

In 1863, Johnston made a futile attempt to relieve John C. Pemberton’s army at Vicksburg. He wanted Pemberton to fight his way out of Vicksburg, but Union General Ulysses S. Grant had Pemberton trapped. The surrender of Pemberton’s army put additional stress on the already strained relationship between Johnston and President Davis.After the campaigns of 1863, however, Davis felt he had little choice but to name Johnston commander of the Army of Tennessee. The Confederates were losing large sections of territory to the Union. Bragg was literally maneuvered right out of Tennessee during the summer, although he engineered a victory at Chickamauga before laying siege to Union troops at Chattanooga.

When Grant broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga in November, Bragg resigned his command. Davis reluctantly appointed Johnston to save the situation in the West. Johnston took the field with his army in the spring of 1864, when Union General William T. Sherman began his drive toward Atlanta. Johnston employed a defensive strategy that avoided direct battle with Sherman but which also resulted in lost territory as Johnston slowly backed up to Atlanta. Johnston’s command lasted until July 1864, when Davis replaced Johnston after the Army of the Tennessee was backed into Atlanta.

1864 – Union General George Thomas continues his attack on the army of Confederate General John Bell Hood at Nashville. Hood’s drastically outnumbered force retreated, and only some heroic rear-guard action prevented the total destruction of the Confederate army.

1864 – Acting Master Charles A. Pettit, U.S.S. Monticello, performed a dangerous reconnaissance off New Inlet, North Carolina, removing several Confederate torpedoes and their firing apparatus near the base of Fort Caswell. Pettit’s expedition was part of the extensive Union preparations for the bombardment and assault on Fort Fisher and the defenses of Wilmington planned for late December.

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1897 – The 1st submarine with an internal combustion engine was demonstrated.

1907 – Great White Fleet departs Hampton Roads, VA to circumnavigate the world. The “Great White Fleet” sent around the world by President Theodore Roosevelt from 16 December 1907 to 22 February 1909 consisted of sixteen new battleships of the Atlantic Fleet. The battleships were painted white except for gilded scrollwork on their bows. The Atlantic Fleet battleships only later came to be known as the “Great White Fleet.” The fourteen-month long voyage was a grand pageant of American sea power. The squadrons were manned by 14,000 sailors. They covered some 43,000 miles and made twenty port calls on six continents. The battleships were accompanied during the first leg of their voyage by a “Torpedo Flotilla” of six early destroyers, as well as by several auxiliary ships. The destroyers and their tender did not actually steam in company with the battleships, but followed their own itinerary from Hampton Roads to San Francisco. Two battleships were detached from the fleet at San Francisco, and two others substituted.

With the USS Connecticut as flagship under the command of Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans, the fleet sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 16 December 1907 for Trinidad, British West Indies, thence to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Sandy Point, Chile; Callao, Peru; Magdalena Bay, Mexico, and up the west coast, arriving at San Francisco, 6 May 1908. After the arrival of the fleet off the west coast, the USS Glacier was detached and later became the supply ship of the Pacific Fleet. At this time also, the USS Nebraska, Captain Reginald F. Nicholson, and the USS Wisconsin, Captain Frank E. Beatty, were substituted for the USS Maine and USS Alabama. At San Francisco, Rear Admiral Charles S. Sperry assumed command of the Fleet, owing to the poor health of Admiral Evans. Leaving that port on 7 July, 1908, the U.S. Atlantic Fleet visited Honolulu, Hawaii; Auckland, New Zealand; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Manilia, Phillipine Islands; Yokohama, Japan; Colombo, Ceylon; arriving at Suez, Egypt, on 3 January 1909.

In Egypt, word was received of an earthquake in Sicily, thus affording an opportunity for the United States to show it’s friendship to Italy by offering aid to the sufferers. The Connecticut, Illinois, Culgoa and Yankton were dispatched to Messina at once. The crew of the Illinois recovered the bodies of the American consul and his wife, entombed in the ruins. The Scorpion, the Fleet’s station ship at Constantinople, and the Celtic, a refrigerator ship fitted out in New York, were hurried to Messina, relieving the Connecticut and Illinois, so that they could continue on the cruise. Leaving Messina on 9 January 1909, the Fleet stopped at Naples, Italy, thence to Gibraltar, arriving at Hampton Roads, Virginia, on 22 February 1909. There President Roosevelt reviewed the Fleet as it passed into the roadstead.

1915 – Albert Einstein published his “General Theory of Relativity.” { E=MC² }. ( In the year 2000 David Bodanis authored “E=MC²: A Biography of the World’s Most Famous Equation.” ).

1941 – USS Swordfish (SS-193) sinks Japanese cargo ship Atsutasan Maru.

1942 – Pharmacist’s Mate First Class Harry B. Roby, USNR, performs an appendectomy on Torpedoman First Class W. R. Jones on board USS Grayback (SS-208). It is only the second appendectomy performed on board a submarine.

1942 – Admiral Tanaka’s supply run is attacked again, US dive bombers sink the destroyer Kagero off Guadalcanal. On land, US troops move on Mount Austen.

1944 – With the Anglo-Americans closing in on Germany from the west and the Soviets approaching from the east, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler orders a massive attack against the western Allies by three German armies. The German counterattack out of the densely wooded Ardennes region of Belgium took the Allies entirely by surprise, and the experienced German troops wrought havoc on the American line, creating a triangular “bulge” 60 miles deep and 50 miles wide along the Allied front. Conditions of fog and mist prevented the unleashing of Allied air superiority, and for several days Hitler’s desperate gamble seemed to be paying off.

However, unlike the French in 1940, the embattled Americans kept up a fierce resistance even after their lines of communication had been broken, buying time for a three-point counteroffensive led by British General Bernard Montgomery and Americans generals Omar Bradley and George Patton. The Germans threw 250,000 soldiers into the initial assault, 14 German infantry divisions guarded by five panzer divisions-against a mere 80,000 Americans. Their assault came in early morning at the weakest part of the Allied line, an 80-mile poorly protected stretch of hilly, woody forest (the Allies simply believed the Ardennes too difficult to traverse, and therefore an unlikely location for a German offensive). Between the vulnerability of the thin, isolated American units and the thick fog that prevented Allied air cover from discovering German movement, the Germans were able to push the Americans into retreat.

One particularly effective German trick was the use of English-speaking German commandos who infiltrated American lines and, using captured U.S. uniforms, trucks, and jeeps, impersonated U.S. military and sabotaged communications. The ploy caused widespread chaos and suspicion among the American troops as to the identity of fellow soldiers–even after the ruse was discovered. Even General Omar Bradley himself had to prove his identity three times–by answering questions about football and Betty Grable–before being allowed to pass a sentry point.

The battle raged for three weeks, resulting in a massive loss of American and civilian life. Nazi atrocities abounded, including the murder of 72 American soldiers by SS soldiers in the Ardennes town of Malmedy. Historian Stephen Ambrose estimated that by war’s end, “Of the 600,000 GIs involved, almost 20,000 were killed, another 20,000 were captured, and 40,000 were wounded.” The United States also suffered its second-largest surrender of troops of the war: More than 7,500 members of the 106th Infantry Division capitulated at one time at Schnee Eifel. The devastating ferocity of the conflict also made desertion an issue for the American troops; General Eisenhower was forced to make an example of Private Eddie Slovik, the first American executed for desertion since the Civil War.

Fighting was particularly fierce at the town of Bastogne, where the 101st Airborne Division and part of the 10th Armored Division were encircled by German forces within the bulge. On December 22, the German commander besieging the town demanded that the Americans surrender or face annihilation. U.S. Major General Anthony McAuliffe prepared a typed reply that read simply: “To the German Commander: Nuts!! From the American Commander.” The Americans who delivered the message explained to the perplexed Germans that the one-word reply was translatable as “Go to hell”.

Heavy fighting continued at Bastogne, but the 101st held on. On December 23, the skies finally cleared over the battle areas, and the Allied air forces inflicted heavy damage on German tanks and transport, which were jammed solidly along the main roads. On December 26, Bastogne was relieved by elements of General Patton’s 3rd Army. A major Allied counteroffensive began at the end of December, and by January 21 the Germans had been pushed back to their original line. Germany’s last major offensive of the war had cost them 120,000 men, 1,600 planes, and 700 tanks.

1944 – Japanese planes attack American shipping while US aircraft strike at air bases (in continuing operations by TF38). On Mindoro, the landing forces consolidates the beachhead and begins construction of an landing strip.

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1950 – In the wake of the massive Chinese intervention in the Korean War, President Harry S. Truman declares a state of emergency. Proclaiming that “Communist imperialism” threatened the world’s people, Truman called upon the American people to help construct an “arsenal of freedom.” In November, the stakes in the Korean War dramatically escalated with the intervention of hundreds of thousands of communist Chinese troops. Prior to their arrival on the battlefield, the U.S. forces seemed on the verge of victory in Korea. Just days after General Douglas MacArthur declared an “end the war offensive,” however, massive elements of the Chinese army smashed into the American lines and drove the U.S. forces back.

The “limited war” in Korea threatened to turn into a widespread conflict. Against this backdrop, Truman issued his state of emergency and the U.S. military-industrial complex went into full preparations for a possible third world war. The president’s proclamation vastly expanded his executive powers and gave Mobilization Director Charles E. Wilson nearly unlimited authority to coordinate the country’s defense program. Such an increase in government power had not been seen since World War II. The Soviet Union, which Truman blamed for most of the current world problems in the course of his speech, blasted the United States for “warmongering.”

Congress, most of America’s allies, and the American people appeared to be strongly supportive of the President’s tough talk and actions. Truman’s speech, and the events preceding it, indicated that the Cold War-so long a battle of words and threats-had become an actual military reality. The Korean War lasted from 1950 to 1953.

1950 – The U.S. 24th Infantry Division received the Distinguished Unit Citation (now the Presidential Unit Citation) for “extraordinary heroism in combat against a numerically superior enemy.” The division, commanded by Major General William F. Dean, by then a prisoner of war, was the first U.S. division to enter the Korean War.

1952 – The U.S. Air Force’s 3rd Bomb Wing completed its 25,000th sortie of the Korean War.

1953 – Former WWII US Air Force Flying Ace turned Record Breaking Test Pilot Charles E. Yeager flew 2,575 kph in Bell X-1A.

1960 – A United Airlines DC-8 with 83 passengers on board collided with a TWA Super Constellation carrying 42 in the New York city area. Coast Guard helicopters, working with the aircraft of the Army, Navy and New York Police Department, transported the injured passengers from the Constellation’s wreck on Staten Island to a nearby hospital. Coast Guard vessels also searched the New York harbor area. The debris they picked up was used by the Civil Aeronautics Board in its determination of the cause of the mishap.

1961 – Operation Farm Gate aircraft are authorized to fly combat missions, provided a Vietnamese crew member is aboard. Because the 1954 Geneva Agreements prohibit the introduction of bombers into Indochina, US B-26 and SC-47 bombers are re-designated, ‘reconnaissance bombers.’

1965 – Gen. William Westmoreland, Commander of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam, sends a request for more troops. With nearly 200,000 U.S. military personnel in South Vietnam already, Westmoreland sent Defense Secretary Robert McNamara a message stating that he would need an additional 243,000 men by the end of 1966. Citing a rapidly deteriorating military situation in which the South Vietnamese were losing the equivalent of an infantry battalion (500 soldiers) a week in battle, Westmoreland predicted that he would need a total of 600,000 men by the end of 1967 to defeat the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. Although the high tide of U.S. troop strength in South Vietnam never reached the 600,000, there were more than 540,000 U.S. troops in South Vietnam by 1969.

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1972 – Henry Kissinger announces at a news conference in Washington that the North Vietnamese have walked out of the ongoing private negotiations in Paris. President Richard Nixon turned to private negotiations in August 1969 because of the all but total impasse in the official negotiations that had been in session since May 1968. The fact that these private talks were being conducted was not disclosed until January 25, 1972, when Nixon, in response to criticism that his administration had not made its best efforts to end the war, revealed that Kissinger had been conducting secret negotiations with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris.

Although Kissinger had been able to make some progress in the private negotiations, the talks failed to achieve what President Nixon regarded as “just and fair agreement to end the war.” The central disagreement between Kissinger and the North Vietnamese negotiators was over the question of who would rule South Vietnam after any negotiated cease-fire. The North Vietnamese negotiators, headed by Le Duc Tho, demanded that the government of Nguyen Van Thieu be dissolved, that the South Vietnamese army be disbanded, and that a coalition government be installed, which would then negotiate for a truce.

At the same time, the South Vietnamese were making their own demands. Over 100,000 North Vietnamese troops had occupied territory in South Vietnam during the 1972 Easter Offensive. Nguyen Van Thieu demanded that the North Vietnamese recognize Saigon’s sovereignty over South Vietnam, which would make the continued presence of the North Vietnamese troops in the south illegal. The North Vietnamese refused Thieu’s demands, saying that they would not recognize Thieu’s government and walked out of the negotiations. Kissinger charged that Hanoi was to blame for the failure to reach an agreement, and asserted that the U.S. would not be blackmailed or stampeded into an agreement. North Vietnam criticized the U.S. for breaking the agreement to maintain silence on the private negotiations. Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives back to the conference table within 72 hours “or else.”

The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon’s demand on December 18th, and the president gave the order to launch Operation Linebacker II, an intensified bombing campaign of North Vietnam. Over the next 11 days–with the exception of Christmas Day–the “Christmas bombing” continued unabated. In all, roughly tons of bombs over North Vietnam, and Air Force and Navy fighter-bombers added another 5,000 tons. On December 28th, the North Vietnamese agreed to Nixon’s conditions for re-opening the negotiations and the next day, the president called an end to Linebacker II.

1979 – Libya joined four other OPEC nations in raising the price of crude oil. Since the U.S. bought much of its oil from Libya, the price hike had an almost immediate effect on American gas prices. Gas became costly, and the cost of motoring rose. Heating-oil prices also jumped–a tough blow at the beginning of winter.

1989 – Federal Judge Robert Vance is instantly killed by a powerful explosion after opening a package mailed to his house in Birmingham, Alabama. Two days later, a mail bomb killed Robert Robinson, an attorney in Savannah, Georgia, in his office. Two other bomb packages, sent to the federal courthouse in Atlanta and to a NAACP lawyer, were intercepted before their intended victims opened them. The FBI immediately assigned a task force to find the terrorist, naming their operation VANPAC (for Vance package bomb). The investigators used nearly every forensic method available: DNA profiles were made from the saliva on the stamps, and both the paint on the boxes and the nails that acted as the bomb’s shrapnel were traced back to the manufacturer.

The first good lead came from an examination of the typewritten letters found in the unexploded packages. The typewriter that had been used was slightly defective, so investigators examined the judicial records of several states to see if any other documents or letters had come from the same defective typewriter. Indeed, at an Atlanta courthouse, the FBI located a letter from Enterprise, Alabama, with the same problem. Although FBI investigators couldn’t find any other clues in Enterprise, an officer remembered that Walter LeRoy Moody had been convicted in 1972 for setting off a pipe bomb with a similar design to that of the 1989 bombs. A search of Moody’s home failed to turn up evidence linking him to the VANPAC bombs, but bomb experts compared his 1972 bomb to the VANPAC explosives and determined that there was little doubt that the same man had made them all.

But Moody’s wife provided the key evidence against him: She admitted that her husband had sent her to make copies of the threatening letters. Her story was later verified when a copy store employee’s partial fingerprint was found on one of the letters. Purportedly, Moody was upset by the judicial system. In June 1991, a federal jury convicted Moody on charges related to the bombings and sentenced him to 400 years in prison.

1991 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin met for four hours with visiting U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, after which Yeltsin said the new Commonwealth of Independent States would begin operating by the end of the year.

1991 – Nearly 300 members of the 8th Marines arrived at Guantanamo Bay to participate in Haitian humanitarian efforts for 6,000 refugees.

1992 – US Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger said Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic had to answer for atrocities committed in former Yugoslavia. In 2000 a US federal jury ordered Radovan Karadzic to pay $745 million to a group of women, who accused him of atrocities.

1996 – The US, EU and other countries agreed to a package of economic and military assistance to Lebanon worth $2.2 billion. The US said that its aid would increase to more than $20 million next year.

1997 – A Pentagon-appointed panel concluded that the Army, Navy and Air Force should segregate male and female recruits in their earliest phases of basic training.

1997 – The Galileo spacecraft flew to within 124 miles of the surface and recorded images of Europa. Volcanic ice flows implicated a vast ocean below the surface. Giant lightning bolts on Jupiter, a hundred times more powerful that those on Earth, were reported via the spacecraft and it indicated a magnetic field around Ganymede. It also indicated an atmosphere of hydrogen and carbon dioxide around Callisto. Metallic cores inside Io, Ganymede and Europa and the lack of a similar core inside Callisto was also indicated.

1997 – U.N. weapons monitor Richard Butler left Iraq after failing to persuade President Saddam Hussein to open his palaces to inspections.

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1998 – In Operation Desert Fox, Navy cruise missiles attack Iraq. President Clinton ordered a sustained series of missile strikes against Iraq forces in response to Saddam Hussein’s continued defiance of UN weapons inspectors. Iraqi envoy Nizar Hamdoon accused UN weapons inspector Richard Butler of producing a biased report on weapons inspections. The strike came one day the before scheduled vote on Clinton’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and days before the beginning of Ramadan. Some 200 missiles fell on Iraq in the first 24 hours of the attack and initial reports indicated two people killed and 30 injured. The House Republicans postponed impeachment by at least 24 hours.

1998 – Federal prosecutors in NYC charged 5 men in the Aug 7 bombing of the American Embassy in Tanzania. Mustafa Mohamed Fadhil of Egypt, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani of Tanzania, and Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam and Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan of Kenya. A 6th man, “Ahmed the German,” detonated the explosive device and was killed.

2000 – Federal prisoner Theodore Kaczynski (58), aka the Unabomber, donated his writings to a special collection at the Univ. of Michigan, where he received his doctorate in 1977.

2001 – It was reported that all the anthrax spores mailed to Capital Hill were identical to stocks from the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. (USAMRIID), maintained since 1980.

2001 – In Afghanistan 25 bin Laden soldiers were captured and 200 were killed in the Tora Bora region. After 9 weeks of fighting, Afghan militia leaders claimed control of the last mountain bastion of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida fighters.

2001 – The EU held a weekend summit near Brussels and declared their nascent joint military force operational. A constitutional convention was planned as well as the admittance of 10 new members over the next 2 years.

2002 – President Bush named Thomas Kean, former Governor of New Jersey, to replace Henry Kissinger as head of the September 11th investigation panel.

2003 – U.S. special envoy James A. Baker III said France, Germany and the US agreed to seek reductions in Iraq’s foreign debt within the Paris Club of creditor nations.

2003 – In Afghanistan several dozen delegates broke away from a crucial constitutional assembly to celebrate the inauguration of the Kabul-Kandahar highway, a vital artery linking the capital with the lawless and poverty-stricken south.

2004 – Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein met with a lawyer for the first time since his capture a year earlier.

2004 – Rebel strikes across Baghdad killed 10 people, including three paramilitary policemen and a government official.

2009 – Coalition troops began Operation Septentrion, a 36-hour operation in the Uzbin Valley (east of Kabul). The force of 1100 troops included 800 members of the French Foreign Legion together with 200 US special forces and Afghan soldiers. The purpose of Operation Septentrion was “reaffirming the sovereignty of Afghan security forces in the north of the Uzbeen Valley,” according to a French military spokesperson, and also to plant an Afghan flag in a key strategic village. While 75% of the Uzbin Valley had been under coalition control, a corner of it had remained in Taliban hands.

2013 – American judge Richard J. Leon of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia rules that the National Security Agency collecting domestic phone records was unconstitutional in Klayman vs Obama. A stay has been placed on the ruling pending an appeal by the US Government.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

ANDERSON, MARION T.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company D, 51st Indiana Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Kokomo, Ind. Birth: Decatur County, Ind. Date of issue: 1 September 1893. Citation: Led his regiment over 5 lines of the enemy’s works, where he fell, severely wounded.

CARR, FRANKLIN
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company D, 124th Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Stark County, Ohio. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Recapture of U.S. guidon from a rebel battery.

COLWELL, OLIVER
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company G, 95th Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at:——. Birth: Champaign County, Ohio. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag.

CURTIS, JOHN C.
Rank and organization: Sergeant Major, 9th Connecticut Infantry. Place and date: At Baton Rouge, La., 5 August 1862. Entered service at: Bridgeport, Conn. Birth: Bridgeport, Conn. Date of issue: 16 December 1896. Citation: Voluntarily sought the line of battle and alone and unaided captured 2 prisoners, driving them before him to regimental headquarters at the point of the bayonet.

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GARRETT, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company G, 41st Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at:——. Birth: England. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: With several companions dashed forward, the first to enter the enemy’s works, taking possession of 4 pieces of artillery and captured the flag of the 13th Mississippi Infantry (C.S.A.).

GERE, THOMAS P.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant and Adjutant, 5th Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Chemung County, N.Y. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 4th Mississippi (C.S.A.).

HOLCOMB, DANIEL 1.
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 41st Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Brentwood Hills, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Hartford, Ohio. Date of issue. 22 February 1865. Citation. Capture of Confederate guidon.

KALTENBACH, LUTHER
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company F, 12th lowa Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Honey Creek, lowa. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag, of 44th Mississippi Infantry (C.S.A.).

MAY, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 32d lowa Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Maysville, Franklin County, lowa. Birth: Pennsylvania. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Ran ahead of his regiment over the enemy’s works and captured from its bearer the flag of Bonanchad’s Confederate battery (C.S.A.).

McCLEARY, CHARLES H.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company C. 72d Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Sandusky County, Ohio. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 4th Florida Infantry (C.S.A.), while in advance of his lines.

MOORE, WILBUR F.
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 117th Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Lebanon, St. Clair County, Ill. Birth: Lebanon, St. Clair County, Ill. Date of issue: 22 February 1865. Citation: Captured flag of a Confederate battery while far in advance of the Union lines.

PARKS, JAMES W.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company F, 11th Missouri Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Xenia, Clay County, Ill. Birth: Lawrence County, Ohio. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag.

POST, PHILIP SIDNEY
Rank and organization: Colonel, 59th Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 15-16 December 1864. Entered service at: Galesburg, Ill. Born: 19 March 1833, Flordia, Orange County, N.Y. Date of issue: 18 March 1893. Citation: Led his brigade in an attack upon a strong position under a terrific fire of grape, canister, and musketry; was struck down by a grapeshot after he had reached the enemy’s works.

SIMMONS, WILLIAM T.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant, Company C, 11th Missouri Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: ——. Born: 29 January 1843, Green County, Ill. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 34th Alabama Infantry (C.S.A ). Being the first to enter the works, he shot and wounded the enemy color bearer.

SLOAN, ANDREW J.
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 12th lowa Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Colesburg, Delaware County, lowa. Birth: Bedford County, Pa. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Captured flag of 1st Louisiana Battery (C.S.A.).

SMITH, OTIS W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company G, 95th Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at:——. Birth: Logan County, Ohio. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag of 6th Florida Infantry (C.S.A.).

STOKES, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Private, Company C, 122d Illinois Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Jerseyville, Ill. Birth. England. Date of issue: 24 February 1865. Citation: Capture of flag.

WELCH, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 11th Missouri Infantry. Place and date: At Nashville, Tenn., 16 December 1864. Entered service at: Keokuk, Lee County, lowa. Birth: Brown County, lowa. Date of issue: 24 February 1965 Citation: Captured the flag of the 13th Alabama Infantry (C.S.A.).

EDWARDS, WALTER ATLEE
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy. Place and date: Sea of Marmora, Turkey, 16 December 1922. Born: 8 November 1886, Philadelphia, Pa. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 123, 4 February 1924. (Medal presented by President Coolidge at the White House on 2 February 1924.) Other Navy award: Navy Cross. Citation: For heroism in rescuing 482 men, women and children from the French military transport Vinh-Long, destroyed by fire in the Sea of Marmora, Turkey, on 16 December 1922. Lt. Comdr. Edwards, commanding the U.S.S. Bainbridge, placed his vessel alongside the bow of the transport and, in spite of several violent explosions which occurred on the burning vessel, maintained his ship in that position until all who were alive were taken on board. Of a total of 495 on board, 482 were rescued by his coolness, judgment and professional skill, which were combined with a degree of heroism that must reflect new glory on the U.S. Navy.

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McGARlTY, VERNON
Rank and organization: Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company L, 393d Infantry, 99th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Krinkelt, Belgium, 16 December 1944. Entered service at: Model, Tenn. Born: 1 December 1921, Right, Tenn. G.O. No.: 6, 11 January 1946. Citation: He was painfully wounded in an artillery barrage that preceded the powerful counteroffensive launched by the Germans near Krinkelt, Belgium, on the morning of 16 December 1944. He made his way to an aid station, received treatment, and then refused to be evacuated, choosing to return to his hard-pressed men instead. The fury of the enemy’s great Western Front offensive swirled about the position held by T/Sgt. McGarity’s small force, but so tenaciously did these men fight on orders to stand firm at all costs that they could not be dislodged despite murderous enemy fire and the breakdown of their communications. During the day the heroic squad leader rescued 1 of his friends who had been wounded in a forward position, and throughout the night he exhorted his comrades to repulse the enemy’s attempts at infiltration. When morning came and the Germans attacked with tanks and infantry, he braved heavy fire to run to an advantageous position where he immobilized the enemy’s lead tank with a round from a rocket launcher.

Fire from his squad drove the attacking infantrymen back, and 3 supporting tanks withdrew. He rescued, under heavy fire, another wounded American, and then directed devastating fire on a light cannon which had been brought up by the hostile troops to clear resistance from the area. When ammunition began to run low, T/Sgt. McGarity, remembering an old ammunition hole about 100 yards distant in the general direction of the enemy, braved a concentration of hostile fire to replenish his unit’s supply. By circuitous route the enemy managed to emplace a machinegun to the rear and flank of the squad’s position, cutting off the only escape route. Unhesitatingly, the gallant soldier took it upon himself to destroy this menace single-handedly. He left cover, and while under steady fire from the enemy, killed or wounded all the hostile gunners with deadly accurate rifle fire and prevented all attempts to reman the gun. Only when the squad’s last round had been fired was the enemy able to advance and capture the intrepid leader and his men. The extraordinary bravery and extreme devotion to duty of T/Sgt. McGarity supported a remarkable delaying action which provided the time necessary for assembling reserves and forming a line against which the German striking power was shattered.

MURRAY, CHARLES P., JR.
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company C, 30th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Kaysersberg, France, 16 December 1944. Entered service at: Wilmington, N.C. Birth: Baltimore, Md. G.O. No.: 63, 1 August 1945. Citation: For commanding Company C, 30th Infantry, displaying supreme courage and heroic initiative near Kaysersberg, France, on 16 December 1944, while leading a reinforced platoon into enemy territory. Descending into a valley beneath hilltop positions held by our troops, he observed a force of 200 Germans pouring deadly mortar, bazooka, machinegun, and small arms fire into an American battalion occupying the crest of the ridge. The enemy’s position in a sunken road, though hidden from the ridge, was open to a flank attack by 1st Lt. Murray’s patrol but he hesitated to commit so small a force to battle with the superior and strongly disposed enemy.

Crawling out ahead of his troops to a vantage point, he called by radio for artillery fire. His shells bracketed the German force, but when he was about to correct the range his radio went dead. He returned to his patrol, secured grenades and a rifle to launch them and went back to his self-appointed outpost. His first shots disclosed his position; the enemy directed heavy fire against him as he methodically fired his missiles into the narrow defile.

Again he returned to his patrol. With an automatic rifle and ammunition, he once more moved to his exposed position. Burst after burst he fired into the enemy, killing 20, wounding many others, and completely disorganizing its ranks, which began to withdraw. He prevented the removal of 3 German mortars by knocking out a truck. By that time a mortar had been brought to his support. 1st Lt. Murray directed fire of this weapon, causing further casualties and confusion in the German ranks.

Calling on his patrol to follow, he then moved out toward his original objective, possession of a bridge and construction of a roadblock. He captured 10 Germans in foxholes. An eleventh, while pretending to surrender, threw a grenade which knocked him to the ground, inflicting 8 wounds. Though suffering and bleeding profusely, he refused to return to the rear until he had chosen the spot for the block and had seen his men correctly deployed. By his single-handed attack on an overwhelming force and by his intrepid and heroic fighting, 1st Lt. Murray stopped a counterattack, established an advance position against formidable odds, and provided an inspiring example for the men of his command.

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17 December

1750 – Deborah Sampson, was born. She fought in the American Revolution as a man under the alias Robert Shurtleff.

1777 – George Washington’s army returned to winter quarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

1777 – France recognized American independence.

1812 – War of 1812: U.S. forces attack a Lenape village in the Battle of the Mississinewa. The Battle of the Mississinewa, also known as Mississineway, was an expedition ordered by William Henry Harrison against Miami Indian villages in response to the attacks on Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison in the Indiana Territory. The site is near the city of Marion, Indiana. Today, the location is the site of Mississinewa 1812, the largest War of 1812 reenactment in the United States, which is held every October. The annual festival draws thousands of visitors from all over the world.

1835 – US Marines assist firefighters in efforts to control the Great Fire of New York as the fire levels lower Manhattan. The Great Fire of 1835 began in a five-story warehouse at 25 Merchant Street (now called Beaver Street) at the intersection with Pearl Street between Hanover Square, Manhattan and Wall Street in the snow-covered city and was fed by gale-force winds blowing from the northwest towards the East River. With temperatures as low as −17 °F (−27 °C) and the East River frozen solid, firefighters had to cut holes in the ice to get water. Water then froze in the hoses and pumps.

Attempts to blow up buildings in its path (a technique later regarded as counterproductive) were thwarted by a lack of gunpowder in Manhattan. Firefighters coming to help from Philadelphia said they could see signs of the fire there. About 2 a.m. Marines arrived with gunpowder from the Brooklyn Navy Yard and blew up buildings in the fire’s path. By then it covered 50 acres (200,000 m2), 17 blocks of the city, destroying between 530 and 700 buildings.

The area is now reported as Coenties Slip in the south to Maiden Lane in the north and from William Street in the west to the East River. The losses were estimated at twenty million dollars, which, in today’s value would be hundreds of millions. Twenty people were killed.

1846 – Ships under Commodore Matthew Calbraith Perry capture Laguna de Terminos during Mexican War.

1861 – The Stonewall Brigade began to dismantle Dam No. 5 of the C&O Canal.

1861 – Flag Officer Foote, Commanding U.S. Naval Forces, Western Waters, issued General Order regarding observance of Sunday on board ships of his flotilla: “It is the wish. . . that on Sunday the public worship of Almighty God may be observed . . . and that the respective commanders will either themselves, or cause other persons to pronounce prayers publicly on Sunday. . .”

Foote added: “Discipline to be permanent must be based on moral grounds, and officers must in themselves, show a good example in morals, order, and patriotism to secure these qualities in the men.” Since 1775 Navy Regulations have required that religious services be held on board ships of the Navy in peace and war.

1862 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant lashes out at cotton speculators when he expels all Jews from his department in the west. At the time, Grant was trying to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last major Confederate stronghold on the Mississippi River. Grant’s army now effectively controlled much territory in western Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and parts of Kentucky and Arkansas. As in other parts of the South, Grant was dealing with thousands of escaped slaves. John Eaton, a chaplain, devised a program through which the freed slaves picked cotton from abandoned fields and received part of the proceeds when it was sold by the government. Grant also had to deal with numerous speculators who followed his army in search of cotton. Cotton supplies were very short in the North, and these speculators could buy bales in the captured territories and sell it quickly for a good profit.

In December, Grant’s father arrived for a visit with two friends from Cincinnati. Grant soon realized that the friends, who were Jews, were speculators hoping to gain access to captured cotton. Grant was furious and fired off his notorious Order No. 11: “The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the department within twenty-four hours from receipt of this order.” The fallout from his action was swift. Among 30 Jewish families expelled from Paducah, Kentucky, was Cesar Kaskel, who rallied support in Congress against the order. Shortly after the uproar, President Lincoln ordered Grant to rescind the order. Grant later admitted to his wife that the criticism of his hasty action was well deserved. As Julia Grant put it, the general had “no right to make an order against any special sect.”

1863 – Lieutenant Commander Fitch, USS Moose, reported that he had sent landing parties ashore at Seven Mile Island and Palmyra, Tennessee, where they had destroyed distilleries used by Confederate guerrilla troops.

1900 – Ellis Island immigration center re -opened following an 1897 fire.

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1903 – Near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first successful flight in history of a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Orville piloted the gasoline-powered, propeller-driven biplane, which stayed aloft for 12 seconds and covered 120 feet on its inaugural flight. Orville and Wilbur Wright grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and developed an interest in aviation after learning of the glider flights of the German engineer Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s. Unlike their older brothers, Orville and Wilbur did not attend college, but they possessed extraordinary technical ability and a sophisticated approach to solving problems in mechanical design. They built printing presses and in 1892 opened a bicycle sales and repair shop. Soon, they were building their own bicycles, and this experience, combined with profits from their various businesses, allowed them to pursue actively their dream of building the world’s first airplane.

After exhaustively researching other engineers’ efforts to build a heavier-than-air, controlled aircraft, the Wright brothers wrote the U.S. Weather Bureau inquiring about a suitable place to conduct glider tests. They settled on Kitty Hawk, an isolated village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, which offered steady winds and sand dunes from which to glide and land softly. Their first glider, tested in 1900, performed poorly, but a new design, tested in 1901, was more successful. Later that year, they built a wind tunnel where they tested nearly 200 wings and airframes of different shapes and designs. The brothers’ systematic experimentations paid off–they flew hundreds of successful flights in their 1902 glider at Kill Devils Hills near Kitty Hawk. Their biplane glider featured a steering system, based on a movable rudder, that solved the problem of controlled flight. They were now ready for powered flight.

In Dayton, they designed a 12-horsepower internal combustion engine with the assistance of machinist Charles Taylor and built a new aircraft to house it. They transported their aircraft in pieces to Kitty Hawk in the autumn of 1903, assembled it, made a few further tests, and on December 14th Orville made the first attempt at powered flight. The engine stalled during take-off and the plane was damaged, and they spent three days repairing it. Then at 10:35 a.m. on December 17th, in front of five witnesses, the aircraft ran down a monorail track and into the air, staying aloft for 12 seconds and flying 120 feet. The modern aviation age was born.

Three more tests were made that day, with Wilbur and Orville alternately flying the airplane. Wilbur flew the last flight, covering 852 feet in 59 seconds. During the next few years, the Wright brothers further developed their airplanes but kept a low profile about their successes in order to secure patents and contracts for their flying machines. By 1905, their aircraft could perform complex maneuvers and remain aloft for up to 39 minutes at a time. In 1908, they traveled to France and made their first public flights, arousing widespread public excitement. In 1909, the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps purchased an especially constructed plane, and the brothers founded the Wright Company to build and market their aircraft. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912; Orville lived until 1948. The historic Wright brothers’ aircraft of 1903 is on permanent display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC.


1903 – Life-Saving Service personnel from Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station helped carry materials to the launch site for the first successful heavier-than-air aircraft flight by the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, NC. The life-savers were John T. Daniels, W.S. Dough and A.D. Etheridge.

1925 – Col. William “Billy” Mitchell was convicted of insubordination at his court -martial. Mitchell was found guilty of conduct prejudicial to the good of the armed services. He was awarded the Medal of Honor 20 years after his death.

1927 – U.S. Secretary of State Kellogg suggested a worldwide pact renouncing war.

1938 – German chemist Otto Hahn discovers the nuclear fission of the heavy element uranium, the scientific and technological basis of nuclear energy.

1940 – President Roosevelt gives a press conference outlining a scheme which he plans to introduce to bring further aid to Britain which he will call Lend-Lease. His argument is that if a neighbor’s house is on fire it is only sensible to lend him a hose to stop the fire spreading to your own house, and that it would be stupid to think of asking for payment in such circumstances.

1941 – Admiral Chester W. Nimitz named Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet, to relieve Admiral Husband Kimmel. Admiral William Pye becomes acting commander until Nimitz’s arrival. Admiral Kimmel had enjoyed a successful military career, beginning in 1915 as an aide to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He served admirably on battleships in World War I, winning command of several in the interwar period. At the outbreak of World War II, Kimmel had already attained the rank of rear admiral and was commanding the cruiser forces at Pearl Harbor.

In January 1941, he was promoted to commander of the Pacific Fleet, replacing James Richardson, who FDR relieved of duty after Richardson objected to basing the fleet at Pearl Harbor. If Kimmel had a weakness, it was that he was a creature of habit, of routine. He knew only what had been done before, and lacked imagination-and therefore insight-regarding the unprecedented. So, even as word was out that Japan was likely to make a first strike against the United States as the negotiations in Washington floundered, Kimmel took no extraordinary actions at Pearl Harbor. In fact, he believed that a sneak attack was more likely at Wake Island or Midway Island, and requested from Lieutenant General Walter Short, Commander of the Army at Pearl Harbor, extra antiaircraft artillery for support there (none could be spared). Kimmel’s predictability was extremely easy to read by Japanese military observers and made his fleet highly vulnerable. As a result, Kimmel was held accountable, to a certain degree, for the absolute devastation wrought on December 7th.

Although he had no more reason than anyone else to believe Pearl Harbor was a possible Japanese target, a scapegoat had to be found to appease public outrage. He avoided a probable court-martial when he requested early retirement. When Admiral Kimmel’s Story, an “as told to” autobiography, was published in 1955, Kimmel made it plain that he believed FDR sacrificed him-and his career-to take suspicion off himself; Kimmel believed Roosevelt knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed, although no evidence has ever been adduced to support his allegation.

1941 – 17 SB 2U-3s of Marine Scout Bomber Squadron 281 flew 1,137 miles, the longest massed flight over water.

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