This Date in Military History:

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HAYDEN, JOSEPH B.
Rank and organization: Quartermaster, U.S. Navy. Born: 1834, Maryland. Accredited to: Maryland. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ticonderoga, as quartermaster in charge of steering the ship into action, during attacks on Fort Fisher, 13 to 15 January 1865. Hayden steered the ship into position in the line of battle where she maintained a well-directed fire upon the batteries to the left of the palisades during the initial phases of the engagement. Although several of the enemy’s shots fell over and around the vessel, the Ticonderoga fought her guns gallantly throughout 3 consecutive days of battle until the flag was planted on one of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels.

JONES, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1820, Baltimore, Md. Accredited to: Maryland. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ticonderoga during attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864; and 13 to 15 January 1865. Despite heavy return fire by the enemy and the explosion of the 100-pounder Parrott rifle which killed 8 men and wounded 12 more, Jones, as captain of a gun, performed his duties with skill and courage during the first 2 days of battle. As his ship again took position on the line on the 13th, he remained steadfast as the Ticonderoga maintained a well-placed fire upon the batteries on shore, and thereafter, as she materially lessened the power of guns on the mound which had been turned upon our assaulting columns. During this action the flag was planted on one side of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels.

KANE, THOMAS
Rank and organization: Captain of the Hold, U.S. Navy. Born: 1841
Jersey City, N.J. Accredited to: New Jersey. G.O. No.: 84, 3 October 1867. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Nereus during the attack on Fort Fisher, on 15 January 1865. Kane, as captain of the hold, displayed outstanding skill and courage as his ship maintained its well-directed fire against fortifications on shore despite the enemy’s return fire. When a rebel steamer was discovered in the river back of the fort, the Nereus, with forward rifle guns trained, drove the ship off at the third fire. The gallant ship’s participation contributed to the planting of the flag on one of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels.

LEAR, NICHOLAS
Rank and organization. Quartermaster, U.S. Navy. Born: 1826, Rhode Island. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: Lear served on board the U.S.S. New Ironsides during action in several attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864; and 13, 14, and 15 January 1865. The ship steamed in and took the lead in the ironclad division close inshore and immediately opened its starboard battery in a barrage of well-directed fire to cause several fires and explosions and dismount several guns during the first 2 days of fighting. Taken under fire as she steamed into position on 13 January, the New Ironsides fought all day and took on ammunition at night despite severe weather conditions. When the enemy came out of his bombproofs to defend the fort against the storming party, the ship’s battery disabled nearly every gun on the fort facing the shore before the cease-fire order was given by the flagship.

MERRILL, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Private, Company I, 142d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 15 January 1865. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Queensberry, N.Y. Date of issue: 28 December 1914. Citation: Voluntarily advanced with the head of the column and cut down the palisading.

MILLIKEN, DANIEL
Rank and organization: Quarter Gunner, U.S. Navy. Born: 1838 Maine. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation Milliken served on board the U.S.S. New Ironsides during action in several attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864_ and 13,14 and 15 January 1865. The ship steamed in and took the lead in the Ironclad division close inshore and immediately opened its starboard battery in a barrage of well directed fire to cause several fires and explosions and dismount several guns during the first 2 days of fighting. Taken under fire as she steamed into position on 13 January, the New Ironsides fought all day and took on ammunition at night despite severe weather conditions. When the enemy came out of his bombproofs to defend the fort against the storming party, the ship’s battery disabled nearly every gun on the fort facing the shore before the cease_fire orders were given by the flagship.

MILLS, CHARLES
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1843, Upster, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Minnesota, in action during the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Landing on the beach with the assaulting party from his ship, Mills charged up to the palisades and, when more than two_thirds of the men became seized with panic and retreated on the run, risked his life to remain with a wounded officer. With the enemy concentrating his fire on the group, he waited until after dark before assisting the wounded man from the field.

MURPHY, MICHAEL C.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 170th New York Infantry. Place and date: At North Anna River, Va., 24 May 1864. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 15 January 1897. Citation: This officer, commanding the regiment, kept it on the field exposed to the fire of the enemy for 3 hours without being able to fire one shot in return because of the ammunition being exhausted.

PENNYPACKER, GALUSHA
Rank and organization: Colonel, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 15 January 1865. Entered service at: West Chester, Pa. Born: 1 June 1844, Valley Forge, Pa. Date of issue: 17 August 1891. Citation: Gallantly led the charge over a traverse and planted the colors of one of his regiments thereon, was severely wounded.

PRANCE, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Captain of the Main Top, U.S. Navy. Born: 1827, France. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ticonderoga during attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864; and 13 to 15 January 1865. Despite heavy return fire by the enemy and the explosion of the 100-pounder Parrott rifle which killed 8 men and wounded 12 more, Prance as captain of a gun, performed his duties with skill and courage during the first 2 days of battle. As his ship again took position on the line on the 13th, he remained steadfast as the Ticonderoga maintained a well_placed fire upon the batteries on shore, and thereafter as she materially lessened the power of guns on the mound which had been turned upon our assaulting columns. During this action the flag was planted on one of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels.

PROVINCE, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1842, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba during the assault on Fort Fisher on 15 January 1865. As one of a boat crew detailed to one of the generals on shore, Province bravely entered the fort in the assault and accompanied his party in carrying dispatches at the height of the battle. He was 1 of 6 men who entered the fort in the assault from the fleet.

RANNAHAN. JOHN
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 1836, County of Monahan, Ireland. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Minnesota in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Landing on the beach with the assaulting party from his ship, Cpl. Rannahan advanced to the top of the sandhill and partly through the breach in the palisades despite enemy fire which killed or wounded many officers and men. When more than two_thirds of the men became seized with panic and retreated on the run, he remained with the party until dark when it came safely away, bringing its wounded, its arms and its colors.

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SAVAGE, AUZELLA
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1846, Maine. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. When the landing party to which he was attached charged on the fort with a cheer, and the determination to plant the colors on the ramparts, Savage remained steadfast when more than two_thirds of the marines and sailors fell back in panic during the fight. When enemy fire shot away the flagstaff above his hand, he bravely seized the remainder of the staff and brought his colors safely off.

SHEPARD, LOUIS C.
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1843, Ohio. Accredited to: Ohio. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: Served as seaman on board the U.S.S. Wabash in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Advancing gallantly through severe enemy fire while armed only with a revolver and cutlass which made it impossible to return the fire at that range, Shepard succeeded in reaching the angle of the fort and in going on, to be one of the few who entered the fort. When the rest of the body of men to his rear were forced to retreat under a devastating fire, he was forced to withdraw through lack of support and to seek the shelter of one of the mounds near the stockade from which point he succeeded in regaining the safety of his ship.

SHIPMAN, WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1831, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ticonderoga in the attack upon Fort Fisher on 15 January 1865. As captain of No. 2 gun, stationed near the 100_pounder Parrott rifle when it burst into fragments, killing 8 men and wounding 12 more, Shipman promptly recognized the effect produced by the explosion and, despite the carnage surrounding them, and the enemy’s fire, encouraged the men at their guns by exclaiming “Go ahead, boys! This is only the fortunes of war!”

SHIVERS, JOHN
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 1830 Canada. Accredited to: New Jersey. G.O. No.. 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Minnesota, in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Landing on the beach with the assaulting party from his ship, Pvt. Shivers advanced to the top of the sand hill and partly through the breach in the palisades despite enemy fire which killed or wounded many officers and men. When more than two thirds of the men became seized with panic and retreated on the run, he remained with the party until dark when it came safely away, bringing its wounded, its arms and its colors.

SUMMERS, ROBERT
Rank and organization. Chief Quartermaster, U.S. Navy. Born: 1838, Prussia. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: Summers served on board the U.S.S. Ticonderoga in the attacks on Fort Fisher, 13 to 15 January 1865. The ship took position in the line of battle and maintained a well directed fire upon the batteries to the left of the palisades during the initial phase of the engagement. Although several of the enemy’s shots fell over and around the vessel, the Ticonderoga fought her guns gallantly throughout 3 consecutive days of battle until the flag was planted on one of the strongest fortifications possessed by the rebels.

SWANSON, JOHN
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1842, Sweden. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba during the assault on Fort Fisher on 15 January 1865. As one of a boat crew detailed to one of the generals on shore, Swanson bravely entered the fort in the assault and accompanied his party in carrying dispatches at the height of the battle. He was 1 of 6 men who entered the fort in the assault from the fleet.

SWATTON, EDWARD
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1836, New York, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba during the assault on Fort Fisher on 15 January 1865. As one of a boat crew detailed to one of the generals on shore, Swatton bravely entered the fort in the assault and accompanied his party in carrying dispatches at the height of the battle. He was 1 of 6 men who entered the fort in the assault from the fleet.

THOMPSON, HENRY A.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 1841, England. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Minnesota in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Landing on the beach with the assaulting party from his ship, Private Thompson advanced partly through a breach in the palisades and nearer to the fort than any man from his ship despite enemy fire which killed or wounded many officers and men. When more than two_thirds of the men became seized with panic and retreated on the run, he remained with the party until dark, when it came safely away, bringing its wounded, its arms and its colors.

TOMLIN, ANDREW J.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 1844, Goshen, N.J. Accredited to: New Jersey. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: As corporal of the guard on board the U.S.S. Wabash during the assault on Fort Fisher, on 15 January 1865. As 1 of 200 marines assembled to hold a line of entrenchments in the rear of the fort which the enemy threatened to attack in force following a retreat in panic by more than two thirds of the assaulting ground forces, Cpl. Tomlin took position in line and remained until morning when relief troops arrived from the fort. When one of his comrades was struck down by enemy fire, he unhesitatingly advanced under a withering fire of musketry into an open plain close to the fort and assisted the wounded man to a place of safety.

TRIPP, OTHNIEL
Rank and organization: Chief Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 1826, Maine. Accredited to: Maine. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Seneca in the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Despite severe enemy fire which halted an attempt by his assaulting party to enter the stockade, Tripp boldly charged through the gap in the stockade although the center of the line, being totally unprotected, fell back along the open beach and left too few in the ranks to attempt an offensive operation.

WAINWRIGHT, JOHN
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, Company F, 97th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 15 January 1865. Entered service at: West Chester, Pa. Born: 13 July 1839, Syracuse, Onondaga County, N.Y. Date of issue: 24 June 1890. Citation: Gallant and meritorious conduct, where, as first lieutenant, he commanded the regiment.

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WEBSTER, HENRY S.
Rank and organization: Landsman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1845, Stockholm, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 49, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Susquehanna during the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. When enemy fire halted the attempt by his landing party to enter the fort and more than two thirds of the men fell back along the open beach, Webster voluntarily remained with one of his wounded officers, under fire, until aid could be obtained to bring him to the rear.

WHITE, JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Captain of the Gun, U.S. Navy. Born: 1840, Washington, D.C. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: White served on board the U.S.S. New Ironsides during action in several attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864; and 13,14, and 15 January 1865. The ship steamed in and took the lead in the ironclad division close inshore and immediately opened its starboard battery in a barrage of well directed fire to cause several fires and explosions and dismount several guns during the first 2 days of fighting. Taken under fire as she steamed into position on 13 January, the New Ironsides fought all day and took on ammunition at night despite severe weather conditions. When the enemy came out of his bombproofs to defend the fort against the storming party, the ships battery disabled nearly every gun on the fort facing the shore before the ceasefire order was given by the flagship.

WILCOX, FRANKLIN L.
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1831, Paris, N.Y. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Minnesota in action during the assault on Fort Fisher, 15 January 1865. Landing on the beach with the assaulting party from his ship, Wilcox advanced to the top of the sand hill and partly through the breach in the palisades despite enemy fire which killed and wounded many officers and men. When more than two-thirds of the men became seized with panic and retreated on the run, he remained with the party until dark when it came safely away, bringing its wounded, its arms and its colors.

WILLIAMS, AUGUSTUS
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1842, Norway. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Santiago de Cuba during the assault by the fleet on Fort Fisher, on 15 January 1865. When the landing party to which he was attached charged on the fort with a cheer, and with determination to plant their colors on the ramparts, Williams remained steadfast when they reached the foot of the fort and more than two thirds of the marines and sailors fell back in panic. Taking cover when the enemy concentrated his fre on the remainder of the group, he alone remained with his executive officer, subsequently withdrawing from the field after dark.

WILLIS, RICHARD
Rank and organization: Coxswain, U.S. Navy. Born: 1826, England. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 59, 22 June 1865. Citation: Willis served on board the U.S.S. New Ironsides during action in several attacks on Fort Fisher, 24 and 25 December 1864; and 13, 14 and 15 January 1865. The ship steamed in and took the lead in the ironclad division close inshore and immediately opened its starboard battery in a barrage of well directed fire to cause several fires and explosions and dismount several guns during the first 2 days of fighting. Taken under fire as she steamed into position on 13 January, the New Ironsides fought all day and took on ammunition at night, despite severe weather conditions. When the enemy troops came out of their bombproofs to defend the fort against the storming party, the ship’s battery disabled nearly every gun on the fort facing the shore before the ceasefire order was given by the flagship.

BEYER, ARTHUR O.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, Company C, 603d Tank Destroyer Battalion. Place and date: Near Arloncourt, Belgium, 15 January 1945. Entered service at: St. Ansgar, lowa. Born: 20 May 1909, Rock Township, Mitchell County, lowa. G.O. No.: 73, 30 August 1945. Citation: He displayed conspicuous gallantry in action. His platoon, in which he was a tank-destroyer gunner, was held up by antitank, machinegun, and rifle fire from enemy troops dug in along a ridge about 200 yards to the front. Noting a machinegun position in this defense line, he fired upon it with his 76-mm. gun killing 1 man and silencing the weapon. He dismounted from his vehicle and, under direct enemy observation, crossed open ground to capture the 2 remaining members of the crew. Another machinegun, about 250 yards to the left, continued to fire on him.

Through withering fire, he advanced on the position. Throwing a grenade into the emplacement, he killed one crewmember and again captured the 2 survivors. He was subjected to concentrated small-arms fire but, with great bravery, he worked his way a quarter mile along the ridge, attacking hostile soldiers in their foxholes with his carbine and grenades. When he had completed his self-imposed mission against powerful German forces, he had destroyed 2 machinegun positions, killed 8 of the enemy and captured 18 prisoners, including 2 bazooka teams. Cpl. Beyer’s intrepid action and unflinching determination to close with and destroy the enemy eliminated the German defense line and enabled his task force to gain its objective.

JOHNSON, DWIGHT H.
Rank and organization: Specialist Fifth Class, U.S. Army, Company B, 1st Battalion, 69th Armor, 4th Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Dak To, Kontum Province, Republic of Vietnam, 15 January 1968. Entered service at: Detriot, Mich. Born: 7 May 1947, Detroit, Mich. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp5c. Johnson, a tank driver with Company B, was a member of a reaction force moving to aid other elements of his platoon, which was in heavy contact with a battalion size North Vietnamese force. Sp5c. Johnson’s tank, upon reaching the point of contact, threw a track and became immobilized. Realizing that he could do no more as a driver, he climbed out of the vehicle, armed only with a .45 caliber pistol. Despite intense hostile fire, Sp5c. Johnson killed several enemy soldiers before he had expended his ammunition. Returning to his tank through a heavy volume of antitank rocket, small arms and automatic weapons fire, he obtained a sub-machine gun with which to continue his fight against the advancing enemy. Armed with this weapon, Sp5c. Johnson again braved deadly enemy fire to return to the center of the ambush site where he courageously eliminated more of the determined foe. Engaged in extremely close combat when the last of his ammunition was expended, he killed an enemy soldier with the stock end of his submachine gun.

Now weaponless, Sp5c. Johnson ignored the enemy fire around him, climbed into his platoon sergeant’s tank, extricated a wounded crewmember and carried him to an armored personnel carrier. He then returned to the same tank and assisted in firing the main gun until it jammed. In a magnificent display of courage, Sp5c. Johnson exited the tank and again armed only with a .45 caliber pistol, engaged several North Vietnamese troops in close proximity to the vehicle. Fighting his way through devastating fire and remounting his own immobilized tank, he remained fully exposed to the enemy as he bravely and skillfully engaged them with the tank’s externally-mounted .50 caliber machine gun; where he remained until the situation was brought under control. Sp5c. Johnson’s profound concern for his fellow soldiers, at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit upon himself and the U.S. Army.

*LANGHORN, GARFIELD M.
Rank and organization: Private First class, U.S. Army, Troop C, 7th Squadron (Airmobile), 17th Cavalry, 1st Aviation Brigade. place and date: Pleiku province, Republic of Vietnam, 15 January 1969. Entered service at: Brooklyn, N.Y. Born: 10 September 1948, Cumberland, Va. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Langhorn distinguished himself while serving as a radio operator with Troop C, near Plei Djereng in Pleiku province. Pfc. Langhorn’s platoon was inserted into a landing zone to rescue 2 pilots of a Cobra helicopter shot down by enemy fire on a heavily timbered slope. He provided radio coordination with the command-and-control aircraft overhead while the troops hacked their way through dense undergrowth to the wreckage, where both aviators were found dead. As the men were taking the bodies to a pickup site, they suddenly came under intense fire from North Vietnamese soldiers in camouflaged bunkers to the front and right flank, and within minutes they were surrounded.

Pfc. Langhorn immediately radioed for help from the orbiting gunships, which began to place mini-gun and rocket fire on the aggressors. He then lay between the platoon leader and another man, operating the radio and providing covering fire for the wounded who had been moved to the center of the small perimeter. Darkness soon fell, making it impossible for the gunships to give accurate support, and the aggressors began to probe the perimeter. An enemy hand grenade landed in front of Pfc. Langhorn and a few feet from personnel who had become casualties. Choosing to protect these wounded, he unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, scooped it beneath his body and absorbed the blast. By sacrificing himself, he saved the lives of his comrades. Pfc. Langhorn’s extraordinary heroism at the cost of his life was in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect great credit on himself, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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16 January

1780 – The Battle of Cape St. Vincent took place off the southern coast of Portugal during the American War of Independence. A British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney defeated a Spanish squadron under Don Juan de Lángara. The battle is sometimes referred to as the Moonlight Battle because it was unusual for naval battles in the Age of Sail to take place at night. It was also the first major naval victory for the British over their European enemies in the war and proved the value of copper sheathing the hulls of warships. Admiral Rodney was escorting a fleet of supply ships to relieve the Spanish siege of Gibraltar with a fleet of about twenty ships of the line when he encountered Lángara’s squadron south of Cape St. Vincent.

When Lángara saw the size of the British fleet, he attempted to make for the safety of Cádiz, but the copper-sheathed British ships chased his fleet down. In a running battle that lasted from mid-afternoon until after midnight, the British captured four Spanish ships, including Lángara’s flagship. Two other ships were also captured, but their final disposition is unclear; some Spanish sources indicate they were retaken by their Spanish crews, while Rodney’s report indicates the ships were grounded and destroyed. After the battle Rodney successfully resupplied Gibraltar and Minorca before continuing on to the West Indies station. Lángara was released on parole, and was promoted to lieutenant general by King Carlos III.

1847 – A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory. Still only in his early mid-30s at the time, Fremont had already won national acclaim for his leadership of two important explorations of the West with the military’s Corps of Topographical Engineers. Shortly after the government published Fremont’s meticulously accurate maps of the Far West, they became indispensable guides for the growing numbers of overland emigrants heading for California and Oregon. In 1845, though, the lines between military exploration and military conquest began to blur when President James Polk sent Captain Fremont and his men on a third “scientific” mission to explore the Rockies and Sierra Nevada-with 60 armed men accompanying them. Polk’s ambition to take California from Mexico was no secret, and Fremont’s expedition was clearly designed to place a military force near the region in case of war. When Mexico and the U.S. declared war in May 1846, Fremont and his men were in Oregon. Upon hearing the news, Fremont immediately headed south, calling his return “the first step in the conquest of California.” When the Anglo-American population of California learned of Fremont’s arrival, many of them began to rebel against their Mexican leaders. In June, a small band of American settlers seized Sonoma and raised a flag with a bear facing a five-pointed star-with this act, the revolutionaries declared the independent Republic of California. The Bear Flag Republic was short-lived. In August, Fremont and General Robert Stockton occupied Los Angeles.

By January 1847, they had put down the small number of Californians determined to maintain a nation independent of the United States. With California now clearly in the U.S. hands, Stockton agreed to appoint Fremont as the territorial governor. However, a dispute broke out within the army over the legitimacy of Fremont’s appointment, and the young captain’s detractors accused him of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline. Recalled to Washington for a court martial, Fremont was found guilty of all three charges, and his appointment to take the position of governor was revoked. Though President Polk pardoned him and ordered him back to active duty in the army, Fremont was deeply embittered, and he resigned from the military and returned to California a private citizen. Although he never regained the governorship of California, the turmoil of Fremont’s early political career did not harm his future prospects. In 1851, citizens of California elected him a senator, and became the territorial governor of Arizona in 1878. Today, however, Fremont’s youthful accomplishments as an explorer and mapmaker are more celebrated than his subsequent political career.

1861 – The Crittenden Compromise, the last chance to keep North and South together, dies in the U.S. Senate. Proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the compromise was a series of constitutional amendments. The amendments would continue the old Missouri Compromise provisions of 1820, which divided the west along the latitude of 36ý 30″. North of this line, slavery was prohibited. The Missouri Compromise was negated by the Compromise of 1850, which allowed a vote by territorial residents (popular sovereignty) to decide the issue of slavery. Other amendments protected slavery in the District of Columbia, forbade federal interference with the interstate slave trade, and compensated owners whose slaves escaped to the free states. Essentially, the Crittenden Compromise sought to alleviate all concerns of the southern states. Four states had already left the Union when it was proposed, but Crittenden hoped the compromise would lure them back. Crittenden thought he could muster support from both South and North and avert either a split of the nation or a civil war.

The major problem with the plan was that it called for a complete compromise by the Republicans with virtually no concession on the part of the South. The Republican Party formed in 1854 solely for the purpose of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories, particularly the areas north of the Missouri Compromise line. Just six years later, the party elected a president, Abraham Lincoln, over the complete opposition of the slave states. Crittenden was asking the Republicans to abandon their most key issues. The vote was 25 against the compromise and 23 in favor of it. All 25 votes against it were cast by Republicans, and six senators from states that were in the process of seceding abstained. One Republican editorial insisted that the party “cannot be made to surrender the fruits of its recent victory.” There would be no compromise; with the secession of states continuing, the country marched inexorably towards civil war.

1862 – Gunfire and boat Crews, including Marines, from U.S.S. Hatteras, Commander Emmons, destroyed a Confederate battery, seven small vessels loaded with cotton and turpentine ready to run the blockade, a railroad depot and wharf, and the telegraph office at Cedar Keys, Florida. A small detachment of Confederate troops was taken prisoner. Such unceasing attack from the sea on any point of her long coastline and inland waterways cost the South sorely in losses, economic disruption, and dispersion of strength in defense.

1865 – General William T. Sherman begins a march through the Carolinas.

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1865 – With Fort Fisher lost and foreseeing that the Union fleet’s entrance into the Cape Fear River would cut the waterborne communications system, General Bragg ordered the evacuation of the remaining Confederate positions at the mouth of the river. At 7 a.m. Forts Caswell and Campbell were abandoned and destroyed. Fort Holmes on Smith’s Island and Fort Johnson at Smithville were likewise destroyed by the retreating garrisons, which fell back on Fort Anderson, on the west bank of the Cape Fear River between Fort Fisher and Wilmington. “The Yankees,” wrote one Confederate, not perceiving the full import of the fateful results, “have made a barren capture. . . .” In fact, however, Wilmington, the last major port open to blockade runners, was now effectively sealed and General Lee was cut off from his only remaining supply line from Europe. Rear Admiral Porter recognized the implications of the Union victory more clearly. He wrote Captain Godon: . . . the death knell of another fort is booming in the distance. Fort Caswell with its powerful batteries is in flames and being blown up, and thus is sealed the door through which this rebellion is fed.”

1900 – The U.S. Senate consented to the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 by which the UK renounced its rights to the Samoan Islands.

1928– Allies lifted the blockade on trade with Russia.

1940 – Hitler cancels an attack in the West due to bad weather and the capture of German attack plans in Belgium.

1942 – Japan’s advance into Burma begins.

1943 – On Guadalcanal, American forces advance west and southwest of their perimeter. Japanese positions overlooking the upper part of the Matanikau River are captured.

1943 – In converging attacks near Sanananda, New Guinea, the US 163rd Infantry Regiment and the Australian 18th Brigade are making progress.

1944 – Eisenhower assumes supreme command of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe.

1944 – The U.S. First and Third armies link up at Houffalize, effectively ending the Battle of the Bulge.

1945 – Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he commits suicide. Hitler retired to his bunker after deciding to remain in Berlin for the last great siege of the war. Fifty-five feet under the chancellery (Hitler’s headquarters as chancellor), the shelter contained 18 small rooms and was fully self-sufficient, with its own water and electrical supply. He left only rarely (once to decorate a squadron of Hitler Youth) and spent most of his time micromanaging what was left of German defenses and entertaining Nazi colleagues like Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Constantly at his side during this time were his companion, Eva Braun, and his Alsatian, Blondi. On April 29th, Hitler married Eva in their bunker hideaway. Eva Braun met Hitler while working as an assistant to Hitler’s official photographer. Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler’s political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator.

Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the bunker even as the Russians closed in. Only hours after they were united in marriage, both Hitler and Eva committed suicide. Warned by officers that the Russians were only about a day from overtaking the chancellery and urged to escape to Berchtesgarden, a small town in the Bavarian Alps where Hitler owned a home, the dictator instead chose to take his life. Both he and his wife swallowed cyanide capsules (which had been tested for their efficacy on his “beloved” dog and her pups). For good measure, he shot himself with his pistol.

1945 – In the Ardennes the US 1st and 3rd Armies link up at Houffalize. An Allied offensive aimed at eliminating the German bridgehead across the Rhine River, 8 miles north of Strasbourg, begins about 0200 hrs.

1952 – Knowing Korean requirements firsthand, General Earle E. Partridge, former Fifth Air Force Commander, put the full resources of the USAF Air Research and Development Command into searching for ways to increase the performance of the F-86 Sabre during this period. This top-priority effort led to the improved wing design “F” model that entered service with the 51st Wing in August 1952. The aircraft’s operating altitude increased to 52,000 feet and its maximum speed went to Mach 1.05. In addition, the F-86F could make tighter turns at high altitudes.

1955 – A six month period of martial law ends in Russell County, Ala., and the last of about 300 Guardsmen leave for home. Phenix City had a national reputation for gambling, bootleg liquor, prostitution and other vices. The Guard became involved when Gov. Gordon Persons determined that the county and city were out of control. In July 1954, a key witness due to testify for a grand jury about local corruption was murdered. The governor appointed Maj. Gen. Walter Hanna, commander of the 31st Infantry Division, to take charge of the situation and “clean up” the county. Over the next few months, Hanna’s men (rotating to a total of 300) destroyed slot machines, roulette tables and other gambling equipment. The illegal bars were shut and the brothels closed down. By early 1955, the clean up program was about complete, all with no loss of life.

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1964 – President Johnson approves Oplan 34A, operations to be conducted by South Vietnamese forces supported by the United States to gather intelligence and conduct sabotage to destabilize the North Vietnamese regime. Actual operations began in February and involved raids by South Vietnamese commandos operating under U.S. orders against North Vietnamese coastal and island installations. Although American forces were not directly involved in the actual raids, U.S. Navy ships were on station to conduct electronic surveillance and monitor North Vietnamese defense responses under another program called Operation De Soto. The Oplan 34A attacks played a major role in what became known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

On August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese patrol boats attacked the destroyer USS Maddox, which was conducting a De Soto mission in the area. Two days after the first attack, there was another incident that still remains unclear. The Maddox, joined by destroyer USS C. Turner Joy, engaged what were believed to be more attacking North Vietnamese patrol boats. Although it was questionable whether the second attack actually happened, the incident provided the rationale for retaliatory air attacks and the subsequent Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which became the basis for the initial escalation of the war in Vietnam and ultimately the insertion of U.S. combat troops into the area.

1969 – President Johnson established the Meritorious Service Medal per Executive Order No. 11448. The Executive Order was amended by President Reagan per Executive Order 12312, dated 2 July 1981, to authorize award to members of the armed forces of friendly foreign nations. Awarded to members of the Armed Forces of the United States who distinguished themselves by outstanding non-combat meritorious achievement or service to the United States subsequent to 16 January 1969, normally, the acts or services rendered must be comparable to that required for the Legion of Merit but in a duty of lesser though considerable responsibility.

1969 –An agreement is reached in Paris for the opening of expanded peace talks. It was agreed that representatives of the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front would sit at a circular table without nameplates, flags or markings. The talks had been plagued from the beginning by procedural questions, and the participants literally jockeyed for desirable positions at the negotiating table. Prolonged discussions over the shape of the negotiating table were finally resolved by the placement of two square tables separated by a round table. Seemingly insignificant matters as the table placement and seating arrangement became fodder for many arguments between the delegations at the negotiations.

1979 –Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran. In 1941, British and Soviet troops occupied Iran, and the first Pahlavi shah, who they regarded with suspicion, was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza. The new shah promised to act as a constitutional monarch but often meddled in the elected government’s affairs. After a Communist plot against him was thwarted in 1949, he took on even more powers. However, in the early 1950s, the shah was eclipsed by Mohammad Mosaddeq, a zealous Iranian nationalist who convinced the Parliament to nationalize Britain’s extensive oil interests in Iran. Mohammad Reza, who maintained close relations with Britain and the United States, opposed the decision. Nevertheless, he was forced in 1951 to appoint Mosaddeq premier, and two years of tension followed.

In August 1953, Mohammad Reza attempted to dismiss Mosaddeq, but the premier’s popular support was so great that the shah himself was forced out of Iran. A few days later, British and U.S. intelligence agents orchestrated a stunning coup d’etat against Mosaddeq, and the shah returned to take power as the sole leader of Iran. He repealed Mosaddeq’s legislation and became a close Cold War ally of the United States in the Middle East. In 1963, the shah launched his “White Revolution,” a broad government program that included land reform, infrastructure development, voting rights for women, and the reduction of illiteracy. Although these programs were applauded by many in Iran, Islamic leaders were critical of what they saw as the westernization of Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric, was particularly vocal in his criticism and called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1964, Khomeini was exiled and settled across the border in Iraq, where he sent radio messages to incite his supporters. The shah saw himself foremost as a Persian king and in 1971 held an extravagant celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy.

In 1976, he formally replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. Religious discontent grew, and the shah became more repressive, using his brutal secret police force to suppress opposition. This alienated students and intellectuals in Iran, and support for Khomeini grew. Discontent was also rampant in the poor and middle classes, who felt that the economic developments of the White Revolution had only benefited the ruling elite. In 1978, anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran’s major cities. On September 8, 1978, the shah’s security force fired on a large group of demonstrators, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Two months later, thousands took to the streets of Tehran, rioting and destroying symbols of westernization, such as banks and liquor stores. Khomeini called for the shah’s immediate overthrow, and on December 11 a group of soldiers mutinied and attacked the shah’s security officers. With that, his regime collapsed and the shah fled. The shah traveled to several countries before entering the United States in October 1979 for medical treatment of his cancer. In Tehran, Islamic militants responded on November 4 by storming the U.S. embassy and taking the staff hostage. With the approval of Khomeini, the militants demanded the return of the shah to Iran to stand trial for his crimes. The United States refused to negotiate, and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died in Egypt in July 1980.

1986 – First meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) develops and promotes voluntary Internet standards, in particular the standards that comprise the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP). It is an open standards organization, with no formal membership or membership requirements. All participants and managers are volunteers, though their work is usually funded by their employers or sponsors. The IETF started out as an activity supported by the US federal government, but since 1993 it has operated as a standards development function under the auspices of the Internet Society, an international membership-based non-profit organization.

1990 – The Coast Guard Cutter Mellon fires a Harpoon missile, the first cutter to do so.

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1990 – In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict. The fighting–and the official Soviet reaction to it–was an indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, and of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s weakening political power. Strife in Azerbaijan was the result of centuries of tensions between the Islamic Azerbaijanis and the Christian Armenians. Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the communist regime managed to maintain relative peace between the two groups, but with the gradual weakening of the Soviet Union during the late-1980s, ethnic rivalries began to re-emerge. In its weakened state, the Soviet Union chose to only partially involve itself in the conflict. The approach was unusual–had it occurred under the strict communist regime of the Cold War’s peak, such a tense internal conflict would likely have been immediately and forcefully quelled.

In the latest outbreak of violence, Armenians took the brunt of the attacks and nearly 60 people were killed. Armenian spokesmen condemned the lack of action on the part of the Gorbachev regime and pleaded for military intervention. Soviet officials, however, were not eager to leap into the ethnic fray and attempted to downplay the seriousness of the situation in the press. One Soviet official declared that the fighting in Azerbaijan was not a “civil war,” but merely “national strife.” Some Gorbachev supporters even voiced the suspicion that the violence in the region was being stirred up by anti-Gorbachev activists merely to discredit the regime. Gorbachev dispatched 11,000 Soviet troops to quiet the situation, and the United States government supported his action as a humanitarian response to the killings and terror. The troops Gorbachev sent did little to alleviate the situation–over the next two years, ethnic violence in Azerbaijan continued, and the weakening Soviet regime was unable to bring a lasting resolution to the situation. Less than two years later, Gorbachev resigned from power and the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

1991 –At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere. At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code-name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House. The operation was conducted by an international coalition under the command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure, and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war. On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. Kuwait was liberated in less than four days, and a majority of Iraq’s armed forces surrendered, retreated into Iraq, or were destroyed. On February 28, President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. One hundred and twenty-five American soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War, with another 21 regarded as missing in action.

1993 – Operation Restore Hope in Somalia reaches peak US troop strength: 25,800.

1997 – At the outset of his first term as president, Bill Clinton moved to deregulate the weapons industry. While the move hardly pleased anti-monopolists and latter-day trustbusters, it was a boon to an industry that, with the close of the Cold War, was seemingly staring at a bleak future. Indeed, deregulation opened the flood gates to a series of large-scale mergers, as the some of the nation’s main weapons manufacturers hopped into bed with each other in order to protect their bottom lines. And, this day in 1997 brought another super-sized deal, as the Massachusetts-based Raytheon Corp., then the nation’s sixth-largest weapons contractor, inked a deal to acquire Hughes Electronics, which had previously been General Motors’ weapons unit and then the country’s fourth-largest military manufacturer. All told, the acquisition cost Raytheon $9.5 billion: the company agreed to pay $5.1 billion in freshly issued stock, and also pledged to pick up $4.4 billion of Hughes’ hefty debts. Though the deal pleased Wall Street both Raytheon and G.M.ýs respective stocks posted decent gains on the day it raised the ire of anti-trust officials. However, in fall of 1997, the U.S. Defense and Justice departments gave the green light to the pick-up, provided Hughes divest itself of some of its previously held businesses. Though the deal left Raytheon in a seemingly potent position in the defense electronics field, the company still engaged in two sizeable rounds of layoffs in 1998.

1999 – The US and North Korea opened talks on inspections of a suspected underground nuclear facility.

2000 – In Kosovo an American soldier, Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi (35), was charged with the rape and murder of an 11-year-old Albanian girl.

2002 – Richard Reid, the al Qaeda trained shoe-bomber, was indicted on 9 counts in Boston.

2002 – Mokhtar Haouari was sentenced to 24 years in prison for providing fake ID and $3,000 to Ahmed Ressam in 1999. Ressam planned to detonate explosives at the LA Int’l. Airport during millennium celebrations.

2002 – U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that John Walker Lindh would be brought the the United States to face trial. He was charged in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., with conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens, providing support to terrorist organizations, and engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban of Afghanistan.

2003 – The US government announced that men from Bangladesh, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and Kuwait will be subject to fingerprints, photographs and interviews in addition to men from 18 other Arab and Muslim countries.

2003 – The shuttle Columbia carried a crew of 7 for a 16-day mission. Col. Ilan Ramon was aboard as Israel’s 1st astronaut. The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.

2004 – Paul Bremmer, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, said the US will revise its plan to create self-rule in Iraq, following consultations with President Bush.

2004 – The US Army awarded Halliburton a 2-year contract worth up to $1.2 billion to rebuild the oil industry in southern Iraq.

2004 – NASA said it would not send another shuttle mission to service and repair the Hubble Space Telescope.

2005 – The US military freed 81 Afghan prisoners, and the Afghan government was negotiating the release of hundreds more from American custody.

2005 – The first Kuwaiti released from Guantanamo Bay was taken into government custody after he arrived home.

2006 – Former United States President Gerald Ford is hospitalized with pneumonia.

2014 – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter finds the Beagle 2 spacecraft that disappeared in 2003 intact on the surface of Mars. An error had stopped the spacecraft’s solar panels from working and communicating back to Earth.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

NEAHR, ZACHARIAH C.
Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 142d New York Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Fisher, N.C., 16 January 1865. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Canajoharie, N.Y. Date of issue: 11 September 1890. Citation: Voluntarily advanced with the head of the column and cut down the palisading.

CALUGAS, JOSE
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Battery B, 88th Field Artillery, Philippine Scouts. Place and date: At Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, 16 January 1942. Entered service at: Fort Stotsenburg, Philippine Islands. Born: 29 December 1907, Barrio Tagsing, Leon, Ploilo, Philippine Islands. G.O. No.: 10, 24 February 1942. Citation: The action for which the award was made took place near Culis, Bataan Province, Philippine Islands, on 16 January 1942. A battery gun position was bombed and shelled by the enemy until 1 gun was put out of commission and all the cannoneers were killed or wounded. Sgt. Calugas, a mess sergeant of another battery, voluntarily and without orders ran 1,000 yards across the shell-swept area to the gun position. There he organized a volunteer squad which placed the gun back in commission and fired effectively against the enemy, although the position remained under constant and heavy Japanese artillery fire.

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17 January

1766 – A committee of English merchants working for the repeal of the Stamp Act presents a petition to Parliament citing the increase in merchant bankruptcies resulting from the colonial nonimportation movement.

1781 – The Battle of Cowpens took place in the latter part of the Southern Campaign of the American Revolution and of the Revolution itself. It became known as the turning point of the war in the South, part of a chain of events leading to Patriot victory at Yorktown. The Cowpens victory was one over a crack British regular army and brought together strong armies and leaders who made their mark on history. From the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge on, the British had made early and mostly futile efforts in the South, including a failed naval expedition to take Charleston in 1776. Such victories boosted Patriot morale and blunted British efforts, but, by 1779-80, with stalemate in the North, British strategists again looked south. They came south for a number of reasons, primarily to assist Southern Loyalists and help them regain control of colonial governments, and then push north, to crush the rebellion. They estimated that many of the population would rally to the Crown.

In 1779-80, British redcoats indeed came South en masse, capturing first, Savannah and then Charleston and Camden in South Carolina, in the process, defeating and capturing much of the Southern Continental Army. Such victories gave the British confidence they would soon control the entire South, that Loyalists would flock to their cause. Conquering these population centers, however, gave the British a false sense of victory they didn’t count on so much opposition in the backcountry. Conflict in the backcountry, to their rear, turned out to be their Achilles’ heel. The Southern Campaign, especially in the backcountry, was essentially a civil war as the colonial population split between Patriot and Loyalist. Conflict came, often pitting neighbor against neighbor and re-igniting old feuds and animosities. Those of both sides organized militia, often engaging each other. The countryside was devastated, and raids and reprisals were the order of the day.

Into this conflict, General George Washington sent the very capable Nathanael Greene to take command of the Southern army. Against military custom, Greene, just two weeks into his command, split his army, sending General Daniel Morgan southwest of the Catawba River to cut supply lines and hamper British operations in the backcountry, and, in doing so “spirit up the people”. General Cornwallis, British commander in the South, countered Greene’s move by sending Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton to block Morgan’s actions. Tarleton was only twenty-six, but he was an able commander, both feared and hated – hated especially for his victory at the Waxhaws. There, Tarleton was said to have continued the fight against remnants of the Continental Army trying to surrender. His refusal, tradition says, of offering no quarter, led to the derisive term “Tarleton’s Quarter”.

These events set the stage for the Battle of Cowpens. On January 12, 1781, Tarleton’s scouts located Morgan’s army at Grindal’s Shoals on the Pacolet River in South Carolina’s backcountry and thus began an aggressive pursuit. Tarleton, fretting about heavy rains and flooded rivers, gained ground as his army proceeded toward the flood-swollen Pacolet. As Tarleton grew closer, Morgan retreated north to Burr’s Mill on Thicketty Creek. On January 16, with Tarleton reported to have crossed the Pacolet and much closer than expected, Morgan and his army made a hasty retreat, so quickly as to leave their breakfast behind. Soon, he intersected with and traveled west on the Green River Road. Here, with the flood-swollen Broad River six miles to his back, Morgan decided to make a stand at the Cowpens, a well-known crossroads and frontier pasturing ground.

The term “cowpens”, endemic to such South Carolina pastureland and associated early cattle industry, would be etched in history. The field itself was some 500 yards long and just as wide, a park-like setting dotted with trees, but devoid of undergrowth, having been kept clear by cattle grazing in the spring on native grasses and peavine. There was forage at the Cowpens for horses, and evidence of free-ranging cattle for food. Morgan, too, since he had learned of Tarleton’s pursuit, had spread the word for militia units to rendezvous at the Cowpens. Many knew the geography some were Overmountain men who had camped at the Cowpens on their journey to the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Camp was made in a swale between two small hills, and through the night Andrew Pickens’ militia drifted into camp. Morgan moved among the campfires and offered encouragement; his speeches to militia and Continentals alike were command performances. He spoke emotionally of past battles, talked of the battle plan, and lashed out against the British. His words were especially effective with the militia the “Old Waggoner” of French and Indian War days and the hero of Saratoga, spoke their language. He knew how to motivate them even proposing a competition of bravery between Georgia and Carolina units. By the time he was through, one soldier observed that the army was “in good spirits and very willing to fight”. But, as one observed, Morgan hardly slept a wink that night. Dawn at the Cowpens on January 17, 1781, was clear and bitterly cold. Morgan, his scouts bearing news of Tarleton’s approach, moved among his men, shouting, “Boys, get up! Benny’s coming!

Tarleton, playing catch up, and having marched his army since two in the morning, ordered formation on the Green River Road for the attack. His aggressive style was made even now more urgent, since there were rumors of Overmountain men on the way, reminiscent of events at Kings Mountain. Yet he was confident of victory: he reasoned he had Morgan hemmed in by the Broad, and the undulating park-like terrain was ideal for his dragoons. He thought Morgan must be desperate, indeed, to have stopped at such a place. Perhaps Morgan saw it differently: in some past battles, Patriot militia had fled in face of fearsome bayonet charges – but now the Broad at Morgan’s back could prevent such a retreat. In reality, though, Morgan had no choice – to cross the flood-swollen Broad risked having his army cut down by the feared and fast-traveling Tarleton.

Tarleton pressed the attack head on, his line extending across the meadow, his artillery in the middle, and fifty Dragoons on each side. It was as if Morgan knew he would make a frontal assault – it was his style of fighting. To face Tarleton, he organized his troops into three lines. First, out front and hiding behind trees were selected sharpshooters. At the onset of battle they picked off numbers of Tarleton’s Dragoons, traditionally listed as fifteen, shooting especially at officers, and warding off an attempt to gain initial supremacy. With the Dragoons in retreat, and their initial part completed, the sharpshooters retreated 150 yards or more back to join the second line, the militia commanded by Andrew Pickens. Morgan used the militia well, asking them to get off two volleys and promised their retreat to the third line made up of John Eager Howard’s Continentals, again close to 150 yards back. Some of the militia indeed got off two volleys as the British neared, but, as they retreated and reached supposed safety behind the Continental line, Tarleton sent his feared Dragoons after them. As the militia dodged behind trees and parried saber slashes with their rifles, William Washington’s Patriot cavalry thundered onto the field of battle, seemingly, out of nowhere.

The surprised British Dragoons, already scattered and sensing a rout, were overwhelmed, and according to historian Babits, lost eighteen men in the clash. As they fled the field, infantry on both sides fired volley after volley. The British advanced in a trot, with beating drums, the shrill sounds of fifes, and shouts of halloo. Morgan, in response, cheering his men on, said to give them the Indian halloo back. Riding to the front, he rallied the militia, crying out, “form, form, my brave fellows! Old Morgan was never beaten!” Now Tarleton’s 71st Highlanders, held in reserve, entered the charge toward the Continental line, the wild wail of bagpipes adding to the noise and confusion. A John Eager Howard order for the right flank to face slightly right to counter a charge from that direction, was, in the noise of battle, misunderstood as a call to retreat. As other companies along the line followed suite, Morgan rode up to ask Howard if he were beaten.

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As Howard pointed to the unbroken ranks and the orderly retreat and assured him they were not, Morgan spurred his horse on and ordered the retreating units to face about, and then, on order, fire in unison. The firing took a heavy toll on the British, who, by that time had sensed victory and had broken ranks in a wild charge. This event and a fierce Patriot bayonet charge in return broke the British charge and turned the tide of battle. The re-formed militia and cavalry re-entered the battle, leading to double envelopment of the British, perfectly timed. British infantry began surrendering en masse. Tarleton and some of his army fought valiantly on; others refused his orders and fled the field. Finally, Tarleton, himself, saw the futility of continued battle, and with a handful of his men, fled from whence he came, down the Green River Road.

In one of the most dramatic moments of the battle, William Washington, racing ahead of his cavalry, dueled hand-to-hand with Tarleton and two of his officers. Washington’s life was saved only when his young bugler fired his pistol at an Englishman with raised saber. Tarleton and his remaining forces galloped away to Cornwallis’ camp. Stragglers from the battle were overtaken, but Tarleton escaped to tell the awful news to Cornwallis. The battle was over in an hour. It was a complete victory for the Patriot force. British losses were staggering: 110 dead, over 200 wounded and 500 captured. Morgan lost only 12 killed and 60 wounded, a count he received from those reporting directly to him.

Knowing Cornwallis would come after him, Morgan saw to it that the dead were buried – the legend says in wolf pits — and headed north with his army. Crossing the Broad at Island Ford , he proceeded to Gilbert Town, and, yet burdened as he was by the prisoners, pressed swiftly northeastward toward the Catawba River, and some amount of safety. The prisoners were taken via Salisbury on to Winchester, Virginia. Soon Morgan and Greene reunited and conferred, Morgan wanting to seek protection in the mountains and Greene wanting to march north to Virginia for supplies. Greene won the point, gently reminding Morgan that he was in command.

Soon after Morgan retired from his duty because of ill health— rheumatism, and recurring bouts of malarial fever. Now it was Greene and his army on the move north. Cornwallis, distressed by the news from Cowpens, and wondering aloud how such an interior force could defeat Tarleton’s crack troops, indeed came after him. Now it was a race for the Dan River on the Virginia line, Cornwallis having burned his baggage and swiftly pursuing Greene. Cornwallis was subsequently delayed by Patriot units stationed at Catawba River crossings. Greene won the race, and, in doing so, believed he had Cornwallis where he wanted — far from urban supply centers and short of food. Returning to Guilford Courthouse, he fought Cornwallis’ army employing with some success, Morgan’s tactics at Cowpens.

At battle’s end, the British were technically the winners as Greene’s forces retreated. If it could be called a victory, it was a costly one: Five hundred British lay dead or wounded. When the news of the battle reached London, a member of the House of Commons said, “Another such victory would ruin the British army”. Perhaps the army was already ruined, and Greene’s strategy of attrition was working. Soon, Greene’s strategy was evident: Cornwallis and his weary army gave up on the Carolinas and moved on to Virginia. On October 18, 1781, the British army surrendered at Yorktown. Cowpens, in its part in the Revolution, was a surprising victory and a turning point that changed the psychology of the entire war. Now, there was revenge – the Patriot rallying cry Tarleton’s Quarter. Morgan’s unorthodox but tactical masterpiece had indeed “spirited up the people”, not just those of the backcountry Carolinas, but those in all the colonies. In the process, he gave Tarleton and the British a “devil of a whipping”.

1798 – In Paris, speaking for the US diplomatic mission to France, John Marshall formally rejects the bribes requested by agents of Foreign Minister Tallyrand (the XYZ Affiar) in exchange for the French presence at the negotiating table regarding the ongoing undeclared naval Quasi-War. The US commission also reiterates its position against French interference with US commercial shipping. Negotiations will end with an unsatisfactory French reply on March 18th.

1832 – USS Peacock makes contact with Vietnamese court officials.

1865 – General William T. Sherman’s army is rained in at Savannah, Georgia, as it waits to begin marching into the Carolinas. In the fall of 1864, Sherman and his army marched across Georgia and destroyed nearly everything in their path. Sherman reasoned that the war would end sooner if the conflict were taken to the civilian South, a view shared by President Lincoln and General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant. Sherman’s men tore up railroads, burned grain stores, carried away livestock, and left plantations in ruins. The Yankees captured the port city of Savannah just before Christmas, and Sherman paused for three weeks to rest his troops and resupply his force. After his rest, he planned to move into the Carolinas and subject those states to the same brutal treatment that Georgia received. His 60,000 troops were divided into two wings. General Oliver O. Howard was to take two corps and move northeast to Charleston, South Carolina, while General Henry Slocum was to move northwest toward Augusta, Georgia. These were just diversions to the main target: Columbia, South Carolina.

As Sherman was preparing to move, the rains began. On January 17, the Yankees waited while heavy rains pelted the region. The downpour lasted for ten days, the heaviest rainfall in 20 years. Some of Sherman’s aides thought a winter campaign in the Carolinas would be difficult with such wet weather, but Sherman had spent four years in Charleston as a young lieutenant in the army, and he believed that the march was possible. He also possessed an army that was ready to continue its assault on the Confederacy. Sherman wrote to his wife that he “…never saw a more confident army…The soldiers think I know everything and that they can do anything.” Sherman’s army did not begin moving until the end of the month. When the army finally did move, it conducted a campaign against South Carolina that was worse than that against Georgia. Sherman wanted to exact revenge on the state that had led secession and started the war by firing on Fort Sumter.

1865 – Naval forces, commanded by Lieutenant Moreau Forrest of the Mississippi Squadron, cooperated with Army cavalry in a successful attack on the town of Somerville, Alabama. The expedition resulted in the capture of 90 prisoners, 150 horses and one piece of artillery.

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1873 – In November 1872, soldiers and settlers attacked Modoc Indian leader Captain Jack’s camp on Lost River. After the battle, about 50 Modocs fled to the strategic position of the lava beds between Tule Lake and present-day Canby, California. Jack lived in the stronghold and successfully defended it for about one year. The first battle for the stronghold took place in January 1873, and the second in April 1873. During the repeated attacks by soldiers and settlers, Captain Jack was able to use the lava beds to his advantage, and only a few people were ever allowed to enter the stronghold to negotiate with him. After several unsuccessful attempts at resolving the whole problem, negotiators sent word back to Washington that the Modocs must be defeated militarily. Captain Jack surrendered on June 1, 1873, and was executed along with five other Modoc men on October 3, 1873. Those remaining in Jack’s band were removed to Indian territory in Oklahoma. In 1909, most surviving Modocs returned to the Klamath Reservation. It is important to note that Jack never signed a treaty, and that he defended the stronghold with only a few Indians while the number of men fighting against him at times exceeded 300.

1878 – A treaty between the US and Samoa is ratified by Congress. The harbor of Pago Pago will be given to the US Navy for use as a refueling station.

1893 –On the Hawaiian Islands, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives. The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century, and in the early 18th century the first American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii and by the mid-19th century had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life, and in 1840 a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority. Four years later, Sanford B. Dole was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to American parents.

During the next four decades, Hawaii entered into a number of political and economic treaties with the United States, and in 1887 a U.S. naval base was established at Pearl Harbor as part of a new Hawaiian constitution. Sugar exports to the United States expanded greatly during the next four years, and U.S. investors and American sugar planters on the islands broadened their domination over Hawaiian affairs. However, in 1891 Liliuokalani, the sister of the late King Kalakaua, ascended to the throne, refusing to recognize the constitution of 1887 and replacing it with a constitution increasing her personal authority. In January 1893, a revolutionary “Committee of Safety,” organized by Sanford B. Dole, staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the tacit support of the United States. On February 1, Minister John Stevens recognized Dole’s new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation.

President Grover Cleveland sent a new U.S. minister to Hawaii to restore Queen Liliuokalani to the throne under the 1887 constitution, but Dole refused to step aside and instead proclaimed the independent Republic of Hawaii. Cleveland was unwilling to overthrow the government by force, and his successor, President William McKinley, negotiated a treaty with the Republic of Hawaii in 1897. In 1898, the Spanish-American War broke out, and the strategic use of the naval base at Pearl Harbor during the war convinced Congress to approve formal annexation. Two years later, Hawaii was organized into a formal U.S. territory and in 1959 entered the United States as the 50th state.

1899 – The United States takes possession of Wake Island in the Pacific Ocean.

1900 – US (CDR Taussig in USS Bennington) takes formal possession of Wake Island actually an atoll with three islets (Wake, Wilkes, and Peale), 3 sq mi (7.8 sq km), central Pacific, between Hawaii and Guam. It is a U.S. commercial and military base under the jurisdiction of the Federal Aviation Agency. There is no indigenous population. Wake Island was discovered by the Spanish in 1568, visited by the British in 1796 and named after Capt. William Wake, and annexed by the United States in 1898. The island became (1935) a commercial air base on the route to Asia and later served as a U.S. military base. In Dec., 1941, Wake Island was seized by the Japanese. U.S. forces bombed the island from 1942 until Japan’s surrender in 1945.

1917 –The Virgin Islands are bought from Denmark for $25,000,000. The islands are an important strategic base guarding the Panama Canal.

1942 – The convoy PQ-8 is attacked by U-Boats. This is the first such attack on an Arctic convoy. One destroyer and one merchantman are sunk by U-454.

1943 – The Australians penetrate the Japanese positions at Sanananda but the Japanese continue to resist here and against the US forces at Giruwa on New Guinea.

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1944 – Operation Panther, the Allied invasion of Cassino, in central Italy, is launched. The Italian Campaign had been underway for more than six months. Beginning with the invasion of Sicily, the Allies had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula against German resistance–the Italians had already surrendered and signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943. The ancient town of Cassino, near the Rapido River, was a strategic point in the German Gustav Line, a defensive front across central Italy and based at the Rapido, Garigliano, and Sangro rivers. Taking Cassino would mean a breach in the German line and their inevitable retreat farther north. Although the campaign to take Cassino commenced in January, the town was not safely in Allied hands until May. The campaign caused considerable destruction, including the bombing of the ancient Benedictine abbey Monte Cassino, which took the lives of a bishop and several monks.

1945 – Soviet troops liberate the Polish capital from German occupation. Warsaw was a battleground since the opening day of fighting in the European theater. Germany declared war by launching an air raid on September 1, 1939, and followed up with a siege that killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians and wreaked havoc on historic monuments. Deprived of electricity, water, and food, and with 25 percent of the city’s homes destroyed, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27. The USSR had snatched a part of eastern Poland as part of the “fine print” of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) signed in August 1939, but soon after found itself at war with its “ally.” In August 1944, the Soviets began pushing the Germans west, advancing on Warsaw. The Polish Home Army, fearful that the Soviets would march on Warsaw to battle the Germans and never leave the capital, led an uprising against the German occupiers.

The Polish residents hoped that if they could defeat the Germans themselves, the Allies would help install the Polish anticommunist government-in-exile after the war. Unfortunately, the Soviets, rather than aiding the Polish uprising, which they encouraged in the name of beating back their common enemy, stood idly by and watched as the Germans slaughtered the Poles and sent survivors to concentration camps. This destroyed any native Polish resistance to a pro-Soviet communist government, an essential part of Stalin’s postwar territorial designs. After Stalin mobilized 180 divisions against the Germans in Poland and East Prussia, Gen. Georgi Zhukov’s troops crossed the Vistula north and south of the Polish capital, liberating the city from Germans-and grabbing it for the USSR. By that time, Warsaw’s prewar population of approximately 1.3 million had been reduced to a mere 153,000.

1946 – The United Nations Security Council held its first meeting at Church House, Westminster, in London, England.

1951 – Eighth Army re-entered Suwon. This was the most favorable entry in Eighth Army’s journal since the Chinese intervention in the war in late November 1950.

1951 – A 4th FIG detachment began operating from Taegu, restoring F-86 operations in Korea. For the first time, the Sabres flew in the air-to-ground role as fighter-bombers, conducting armed reconnaissance and close air support missions. Far East Air Forces temporarily suspended Tarzon bombing missions because of a shortage of the radio-guided bombs. Only three, earmarked for emergencies, remained in the theater.

1952 – Two MiG-15s were destroyed after accidentally colliding with each other during air combat with F-86s.

1953 – The 98th BW attacked the Pyongyang radio installation, which was forty-two feet underground and only a thousand feet from a possible POW camp. The eleven B-29s scored eight to ten hits with 2,000-pound general-purpose bombs, but these did not penetrate deeply enough to destroy the radio station.

1955 – USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the first nuclear-powered submarine, is commissioned and sends message “underway on nuclear power”

1961 – In his farewell address to the nation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns the American people to keep a careful eye on what he calls the “military-industrial complex” that has developed in the post-World War II years. A fiscal conservative, Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953. In his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that frankly shocked some of his listeners. Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the U.S. afford the “emergency improvisation” that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was “compelled to create a permanent armaments industry” and a huge military force. He admitted that the Cold War made clear the “imperative need for this development,” but he was gravely concerned about “the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”

Eisenhower’s blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America’s defense. For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment. Necessary though that development might be, Eisenhower warned, this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.

1964 – Battle of Thanh Phu Island. Six American crewmen of MACV’s Utility Tactical Transport (UTT) Co. are KIA when their UH-1B helicopters are shot down in the Mekong Delta.

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1966 – A B-52 bomber collides with KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. It was not the first or last accident involving American nuclear bombs. As a means of maintaining first-strike capability during the Cold War, U.S. bombers laden with nuclear weapons circled the earth ceaselessly for decades. In a military operation of this magnitude, it was inevitable that accidents would occur. The Pentagon admits to more than three-dozen accidents in which bombers either crashed or caught fire on the runway, resulting in nuclear contamination from a damaged or destroyed bomb and/or the loss of a nuclear weapon. One of the only “Broken Arrows” to receive widespread publicity occurred on January 17, 1966, when a B-52 bomber crashed into a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain. The bomber was returning to its North Carolina base following a routine airborne alert mission along the southern route of the Strategic Air Command when it attempted to refuel with a jet tanker. The B-52 collided with the fueling boom of the tanker, ripping the bomber open and igniting the fuel. The KC-135 exploded, killing all four of its crew members, but four members of the seven-man B-52 crew managed to parachute to safety.

None of the bombs were armed, but explosive material in two of the bombs that fell to earth exploded upon impact, forming craters and scattering radioactive plutonium over the fields of Palomares. A third bomb landed in a dry riverbed and was recovered relatively intact. The fourth bomb fell into the sea at an unknown location. Palomares, a remote fishing and farming community, was soon filled with nearly 2,000 U.S. military personnel and Spanish civil guards who rushed to clean up the debris and decontaminate the area. The U.S. personnel took precautions to prevent overexposure to the radiation, but the Spanish workers, who lived in a country that lacked experience with nuclear technology, did not. Eventually some 1,400 tons of radioactive soil and vegetation were shipped to the United States for disposal. Meanwhile, at sea, 33 U.S. Navy vessels were involved in the search for the lost hydrogen bomb. Using an IBM computer, experts tried to calculate where the bomb might have landed, but the impact area was still too large for an effective search. Finally, an eyewitness account by a Spanish fisherman led the investigators to a one-mile area. On March 15, a submarine spotted the bomb, and on April 7 it was recovered. It was damaged but intact.

Studies on the effects of the nuclear accident on the people of Palomares was limited, but the United States eventually settled some 500 claims by residents whose health was adversely affected. Because the accident happened in a foreign country, it received far more publicity than did the dozen or so similar crashes that occurred within U.S. borders. As a security measure, U.S. authorities do not announce nuclear weapons accidents, and some American citizens may have unknowingly been exposed to radiation that resulted from aircraft crashes and emergency bomb jettisons. Today, two hydrogen bombs and a uranium core lie in yet undetermined locations in the Wassaw Sound off Georgia, in the Puget Sound off Washington, and in swamplands near Goldsboro, North Carolina.


1971 – Led by South Vietnamese Lt. Gen. Do Cao Tri, and with U.S. air support and advisers, some 300 paratroopers raid a communist prisoner of war camp near the town of Mimot in Cambodia on information that 20 U.S. prisoners were being held there. They found the camp empty, but captured 30 enemy soldiers and sustained no casualties.

1972 –President Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign any negotiated peace agreement would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam. Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had been working behind the scenes in secret negotiations with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris to reach a settlement to end the war. However, Thieu stubbornly refused to even discuss any peace proposal that recognized the Viet Cong as a viable participant in the post-war political solution in South Vietnam. As it turned out, the secret negotiations were not close to reaching an agreement because the North Vietnamese launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. With the help of U.S. airpower and advisers on the ground, the South Vietnamese withstood the North Vietnamese attack, and by December, Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives were back in Paris and close to an agreement. Among Thieu’s demands was the request that all North Vietnamese troops had to be withdrawn from South Vietnam before he would agree to any peace settlement. The North Vietnamese walked out of the negotiations in protest.

In response, President Nixon initiated Operation Linebacker II, a massive bombing campaign against Hanoi, to force the North Vietnamese back to the negotiating table. After 11 days of intense bombing, Hanoi agreed to return to the talks in Paris. When Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the main North Vietnamese negotiator, met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23 and a cease-fire went into effect five days later. Again, President Thieu refused to sign the Accords, but Nixon promised to come to the aid of South Vietnam if the communists violated the terms of the peace treaty, and Thieu agreed to sign. Unfortunately for Thieu and the South Vietnamese, Nixon was forced from office by the Watergate scandal in August 1974, and no U.S. aid came when the North Vietnamese launched a general offensive in March 1975. South Vietnam succumbed in 55 days.

1990 – A federal judge in Miami set March 1990 for the trial of ex-Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges. After initial delays, Noriega was tried and convicted of racketeering and conspiracy to distribute cocaine, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison, later cut to 30 years.

1991 – The Persian Gulf War began as Coalition planes struck targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The first Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel were launched. There were reports of death and injury, and possibly even chemical weapons being used. For a few tense hours, it looked as though Israel would retaliate against Iraq, causing the allied coalition to break up. Six months of preparation and diplomacy might be undone by a few poorly aimed, 1950s-vintage ballistic missiles. Later that evening, U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missiles were launched against the incoming Scuds, and for the first time in history, a ballistic missile was shot down by another missile. The use of Patriot missiles in Israel’s defense helped to keep that country out of the Gulf War, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the American-European-Arab coalition. Jeffrey Zahn became the 1st US pilot shot down. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher (33) was shot down over western Iraq. The ruins of his plane were found in 1993.

1993 – The United States, accusing Iraq of a series of military provocations, unleashed Tomahawk missiles against a military complex eight miles from downtown Baghdad.

1996 – Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers were handed long prison sentences for plotting to blow up New York-area landmarks.

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1996 – Iraq agrees to talks concerning a U.N. plan to allow for the Iraqi sale of $1 billion of oil for 90 days for a 180-day trial period. Under U.N. Security Council Resolution 986, proceeds from the sale would be used for humanitarian purposes. In the past, Iraq has opposed clauses 6 and 8b contained in Resolution 986. Clause 6 stipulates that oil exports under this plan must pass through the 1.6-million b/d Iraq-Turkey pipeline, which currently is unusable because of sludge build-ups and pumping station damage. By most estimates, the line would take a minimum of three months to repair. Clause 8b states that part of the proceeds from the sales would be disbursed under U.N. supervision to Kurdish provinces in northern Iraq. Negotiations between Iraq and the U.N. are scheduled to begin February 6, 1996.

1997 – A $40 million navigation satellite for the US Air Force blew up on takeoff at Cape Canaveral.

1998 – US military began to clear away over 50,000 land mines around Guantanamo Naval base.

1998 – In Iraq Sadam Hussein threatened to expel all UN arms inspectors in 6 months if the country is not cleared of suspicions about weapons programs and if sanctions are not lifted.

1999 – US talks with North Korea over inspection of an underground nuclear site were adjourned. North Korea demanded $300 million in compensation to inspect the Kumchangni site.

2001 – U.S. President Bill Clinton posthumously promotes William Clark, of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, from Lieutenant to Captain.

2002 – US Sec. of State Powell visited Afghanistan and pledged that the US would not abandon the country.

2002 – In Arizona 2 A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jets collided and 1 pilot was killed.

2003 – Tom Ridge sailed through Senate confirmation hearings on his way to becoming the nation’s first Homeland Security Department chief.

2003 – On the 12th anniversary of the Gulf War, a defiant Saddam Hussein called on his people to rise up and defend the nation against a new U.S.-led attack.

2003 – Iraq awards a contract to Russian company Stroitransgaz for a small oil field in western Iraq and sets aside two others for Russian companies. Some analysts interpret these awards as an attempt at rapprochement between Iraq and Russia after Iraq canceled a giant contract with Russia’s Lukoil in December 2002.

2007 – United States President George W. Bush announces that the NSA has ended its practice of warrantless wiretapping for domestic surveillance, and will go to the courts for warrants in the future.

2009 – North Korea claims to have “weaponized” 30.8 kilograms of plutonium, enough for four to five nuclear warheads.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

GREEN, JOHN
Rank and organization: Major, 1st U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At the Lava Beds, Calif., 17 January 1873. Entered service at: Ohio. Birth: Germany. Date of issue: 18 November 1897. Citation: In order to reassure his command, this officer, in the most fearless manner and exposed to very great danger, walked in front of the line; the command, thus encouraged, advanced over the lava upon the Indians who were concealed among the rocks.

SKINNER, JOHN O.
Rank and organization: Contract Surgeon, U.S. Army. Place and date: At Lava Beds, Oreg., 17 January 1873. Entered service at: Maryland. Birth: Maryland. Date of issue: Unknown. Citation: Rescued a wounded soldier who lay under a close and heavy fire during the assault on the Modoc stronghold after 2 soldiers had unsuccessfully attempted to make the rescue and both had been wounded in doing so.

*SLOAT, DONALD P.
Rank and Organization: Specialist Fourth Class. U.S. Army, 3rd Platoon, Delta Company, 1st Infantry Regiment, 196th Brigade. Place and Date: Hawk Hill Fire Base, Quang Tin, Republic of Vietnam. 17 January 1970. Entered Service At: March 19, 1959. Born: 2 February 1949. Departed: Yes (01/17/1970). G.O. Number:. Date of Issue: 09/15/2014. Accredited To:. Citation: On the morning of Jan. 17, 1970, Sloat’s squad was conducting a patrol, serving as a blocking element in support of tanks and armored personnel carriers from F Troop in the Que Son valley. As the squad moved through dense terrain up a small hill in file formation, the lead Soldier tripped a wire attached to a hand grenade booby-trap, set up by enemy forces. When the grenade rolled down the hill toward Sloat, he had a choice.

He could hit the ground and seek cover, or pick up the grenade and throw it away from his fellow Soldiers. After initially attempting to throw the grenade, Sloat realized that detonation was imminent, and that two or three men near him would be killed or seriously injured if he couldn’t shield them from the blast. In an instant, Sloat chose to draw the grenade to his body, shielding his squad members from the blast, and saving their lives. Sloat’s actions define the ultimate sacrifice of laying down his own life in order to save the lives of his comrades. Specialist Four Donald P. Sloat’s extraordinary heroism and selflessness are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service, and reflect great credit upon himself, his unit, and the United States Army.

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18 January

1775 – The Continental Congress presents its petitions to the British Parliament.

1776 – James Wright (May 8, 1716 – November 20, 1785), an American colonial lawyer and jurist who was the last British Royal Governor of the Province of Georgia, was arrested by patriots for his enforcement of the Stamp Act. Wright had been appointed governor in November 1760, having previously served six months as Lieutenant Governor. When Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765, Georgia, under Wright’s administration and despite efforts of teh Sons of Liberty, was the only colony to actually use the revenue stamps. Wright would escape in February and in 1778, he became the only royal governor to regain control of his colony which he would maintain until the British loss in 1782 when he retired to England.

1778 – Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands when he sails past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons. In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the H.M.S. Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus. In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific and during the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia.

In 1776, he sailed from England again as commander of the H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery and in 1778 made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who were fascinated by the Europeans’ ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex. The ships then made a brief stop at Ni’ihau and headed north to look for the western end of a northwest passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Almost one year later, Cook’s two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands and found a safe harbor in Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay. It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. In Cook’s second visit, there was no question of this phenomenon. Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbor of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians, and at the time of Cook’s arrival the locals were engaged in a festival dedicated to Lono. Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods and for the next month exploited the Hawaiians’ good will. After one of the crewmembers died, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals, relations became strained.

On February 4, 1779, the British ships sailed from Kealakekua Bay, but rough seas damaged the foremast of the Resolution, and after only a week at sea the expedition was forced to return to Hawaii. The Hawaiians greeted Cook and his men by hurling rocks; they then stole a small cutter vessel from the Discovery. Negotiations with King Kalaniopuu for the return of the cutter collapsed after a lesser Hawaiian chief was shot to death and a mob of Hawaiians descended on Cook’s party. The captain and his men fired on the angry Hawaiians, but they were soon overwhelmed, and only a few managed to escape to the safety of the Resolution. Captain Cook himself was killed by the mob. A few days later, the Englishmen retaliated by firing their cannons and muskets at the shore, killing some 30 Hawaiians. The Resolution and Discovery eventually returned to England.

1787 – The newly activated Massachusetts militia force of 4400 men led by General Benjamin Lincoln assembles to combat the insurgents led by Daniel Shays in Springfield. This new force was called up by the governor in response to Shays’ march from Worcester to Springfield on December 26, 1786. There Shays linked up with forces lead by Lucas Day and together they out number the troops of General Shepherd. Shepherd’s men are guarding the federal arsenal in Springfield which Shays and Day have been menacing ever since.

1803 –Determined to begin the American exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark. Jefferson had been trying to mount a western expedition of exploration since the 1790s, and his determination to do so had only grown since he became president in 1801. In summer 1802, Jefferson began actively preparing for the mission, recruiting his young personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to be its leader. Throughout 1802, Jefferson and Lewis discussed the proposed mission, telling no one-not even Congress, which would have to approve the funds-of what they were contemplating. Jefferson directed Lewis to draw up an estimate of expenses. Basing his calculations on a party of one officer and 10 enlisted men-the number was deliberately kept small to avoid inspiring both congressional criticisms and Indian fears of invasion-Lewis carefully added up the costs for provisions, weapons, gunpowder, scientific instruments, and a large boat. The final tally came to $2,500. The largest item was $696, earmarked for gifts to Indians.

Following the advice of his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, Jefferson decided not to include the request in his general proposed annual budget, since it involved exploration outside of the nation’s own territory. Instead, on January 18, 1803, he sent a special secret message to Congress asking for the money, taking pains to stress that the proposed exploration would be an aid to American commerce. Jefferson noted that the Indians along the proposed route of exploration up the Missouri River “furnish a great supply of furs & pelts to the trade of another nation carried on in a high latitude.” If a route into this territory existed, “possibly with a single portage, from the Western ocean,” Jefferson suggested Americans might have a superior means of exploiting the fur trade. Though carefully couched in diplomatic language, Jefferson’s message to Congress was clear: a U.S. expedition might be able to steal the fur trade from the British and find the long hoped-for Northwest passage to the Pacific. Despite some mild resistance from Federalists who never saw any point in spending money on the West, Jefferson’s carefully worded request prevailed, and Congress approved the $2,500 appropriation by a sizeable margin.

It's no doubt seemed trivial in comparison to the $9,375,000 they had approved a week earlier for the Louisiana Purchase, which brought much of the territory Jefferson was proposing to explore under American control. With financing now assured, Lewis immediately began preparing for the expedition. Recruiting his old military friend, William Clark, to be his co-captain, the Corps of Discovery departed on their epic exploration of the uncharted regions in spring 1804.

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1813 – Joseph Farwell Glidden, inventor of barbed wire, was born. Glidden grew up on his father’s farms in New Hampshire and (later) New York State. In 1837 he married Clarissa Foster, and the couple bought a farm in De Kalb, Illinois. Glidden’s two sons with Clarissa later died in an epidemic, and Clarissa herself died in childbirth. In 1851 Glidden married Lucinda Warne. In 1873 Glidden saw an ineffective example of barbed wire, a “thorn hedge,” designed to keep cattle from trampling crops. Glidden began experimenting with ways to improved barbed wire, and the next year he received a patent for a machine that added the barbs to the wire mechanically, thus allowing for mass production. Glidden and his partner, Isaac L. Ellwood, established the Barb Fence Company in De Kalb, and in a few years, barbed wire was being used all over the West. Barbed wire accelerated the development of the region, closed the open range, and ended the golden age of the cowboy, who had roamed freely over wide stretches of land. Glidden was soon one of the richest men in America. He invested in the fancy Glidden Hotel in De Kalb and bought 180,000 acres of land in Texas, where he raised 15,000 head of cattle.

1836 – Jim Bowie arrives at the Alamo to assist its Texas defenders.

1836 – Marines reinforced Army to repulse Indians at Ft. Brooke, Florida the Army’s headquarters during the Second Seminole War.

1854 – William Walker, a US citizen, establishes himself as president of a new republic, Sonora, made up of the Mexican states of Sonora and Baja California. He will be tried in the US for breaching neutrality in the area.

1862 – John Tyler (71), the 10th president of the United States (1841-1845), was buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Va. He drank a mint julep every morning for breakfast. Tyler had joined the Confederacy after his presidency, serving as a member of the Confederate House of Representatives, and was designated a “sworn enemy of the United States.”

1862 – After marching for six hours through a cold rain that turned the road into a sea of mud, the vanguard of the Confederate force arrived near Logan’s Crossroads about 6:30am on January 19. At the foot of a ridge a mile-and-a-half from the crossroads, the advance Confederate cavalry met a strong picket force of Thomas’ 10th Indiana Infantry and 1st Kentucky Cavalry regiments. Far from being surprised in their camps, the Federals were on the watch, and this picket force stubbornly resisted the Confederate advance up the hill. When they reached the high ground, the pickets were reinforced by the rest of the 10th Indiana, and this force stood its ground against the advancing Confederates. Crittenden advanced with Zollicoffer’s own brigade in the lead. Zollicoffer put the 15th Mississippi Infantry in line of battle advancing up the road, with his other regiments following. This force was sufficient to push the Federals off the hill and into the woods below. However, the dawn was dark and misty, and the Confederates were spread out for miles along the narrow muddy road, slowing their advance. After fighting for nearly an hour on their own, the 10th Indiana and 1st Kentucky Cavalry were almost out of ammunition and in danger of being overrun. They fell back to a rail fence bordering a corn field, on a low ridge running perpendicular to the road. Here they were finally reinforced by the 4th Kentucky Infantry, and this fence line and ridge formed the basis for the main Federal battle line. The 10th Indiana fell back a short distance to regroup, and the troopers of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry sent their horses to the rear and fell in beside their infantry comrades in the 4th Kentucky. Unable to push this force further back, the 15th Mississippi began to move to their right under cover of a deep wooded ravine. From here, they could approach the Federal lines before engaging their enemy at close range.

This infuriated the commander of the 4th Kentucky, Col. Speed S. Fry, who climbed up on the fence and brandished his sword at the enemy, demanding that they stand up and fight like men. The Mississippians were eager to oblige him. After advancing nearly to the ridge line on the west of the road, almost flanking the Federals on their right, the Confederate advance stalled. Most of the soldiers had never been in a battle before, and the dark rainy morning, coupled with the smoke and din of battle and the lack of visibility in the dense woods, produced quite a bit of confusion. Gen. Zollicoffer, leading his brigade from the front with the 19th Tennessee Infantry, was sure that his men were firing on another Confederate regiment, and he rode forward in the road to reconnoiter. There he met Col. Fry, who had ridden to his right for the same purpose. Neither recognized the other (Zollicoffer was said to have been extremely nearsighted, and his own uniform was hidden from Fry’s view by a raincoat), and Zollicoffer ordered Fry to cease firing on his friends.

Fry, assuming Zollicoffer was a Federal officer whom he did not know, and also unsure of who the troops to his right were, answered that he would never intentionally fire on a friendly unit. As Fry moved back toward his own regiment, Capt. Henry M.R. Fogg of Zollicoffer’s staff suddenly rode out of the woods to warn Zollicoffer, firing his pistol at Fry. Fry and the Union soldiers near him immediately returned the fire, and Zollicoffer fell dead in the road. (Capt. Fogg was also killed in the battle, probably at this time.) Zollicoffer’s death threw his troops on that part of the field into confusion, and with no brigade commander to lead them, they made no further significant advances on the west of the road. However, the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee regiments launched a series of furious attacks on Fry’s position, some even reaching the fence, where they fought the Federals hand-to-hand. Bayonets were poked through the fence rails, and the Mississippians attacked swinging their long “cane” knives.

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The Confederates moved ever toward their right, threatening to turn the Federal left flank. But a section of Federal artillery appeared at the crucial moment and threw shells toward the Confederates, and the 2nd Minnesota and 9th Ohio regiments arrived to bolster the Union defenses. The Federals now had over four regiments at the point of action, opposing three Confederate regiments in direct contact with their enemy — less than ideal odds for the Southern attackers. For over an hour, the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee battled the Federals almost alone. Rutledge’s Confederate artillery fired a few rounds, and the 25th and 28th Tennessee regiments moved up to reinforce the troops fighting on the front line, but Crittenden was never able to bring up all the rest of his infantry and bring all of his forces to bear. Nor did he make use of his cavalry for any flanking movements. (Crittenden was severely criticized for his handling of the battle, and indeed, he may have been drinking at the time. He resigned his commission later in 1862.) The Confederates were further demoralized by the failure of many of their weapons to fire in the intermittent rain. Most of the Confederate force, particularly the Tennessee regiments, were armed with obsolete flintlock muskets.

Only the 15th Mississippi, 16th Alabama, and 29th Tennessee were partially armed with percussion muskets and rifles. One participant estimated that only a fifth of the Confederate muskets would fire. In their frustration, many of the Tennesseans were seen to smash their useless flintlocks against trees. In contrast to the Confederates, the Federals were finally able to concentrate their forces. The 1st and 2nd Tennessee and 12th Kentucky US regiments arrived to outflank and outnumber the hard fighting 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee, and Gen. Thomas, sensing the imminent collapse of the Confederate line, ordered a general advance of the Union force. (Some accounts indicate that this advance was less at the orders of Thomas, than it was simply a spirited action on the part of the subordinate Union leadership.) The 9th Ohio Infantry, a German regiment from Cincinnati, charged the Confederates with fixed bayonets. The Confederate left crumbled under the Ohioans’ bayonet charge, and the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee were forced to retreat to keep from being surrounded.

The courageous Lt. Bailie Peyton, Jr., commanding a company in the 20th Tennessee, was killed when he refused to retreat or surrender, but stood firing his pistol at the advancing enemy. The entire Union line advanced, forcing what was left of the Confederate army back to the top of the hill from which they had attacked. Here, the 16th Alabama and 17th and 29th Tennessee regiments opened a heavy fire on the Federals, momentarily halting their pursuit and allowing the front-line Confederate units to safely retreat. But for most of the Southern soldiers, their retreat turned into a rout. Many of the men simply turned and ran, throwing away their muskets and other implements of war in their haste to escape capture. Their courage and determination were simply not enough to overcome their fatigue from marching all night over muddy roads and fighting since dawn, their despair when their outmoded flintlocks refused to fire in the rain, and the confusion and lack of decisive leadership at their command level. After some three or four hours of hard fighting on a dark, rainy morning, the battle was over. The outmatched Southerners withdrew back down the road toward their camps. They rallied at their Beech Grove entrenchments, but Gen. Thomas arrived with his forces in the afternoon and promptly opened a bombardment on the Confederate camp, including a steamboat at the ferry on the river below. This fire was from a rifle battery that the Southern artillery could not match in range or accuracy.

With their backs to the river, this steamboat was the Confederates’ only lifeline for any withdrawal. Recognizing that his position was untenable, Crittenden ordered a withdrawal across the river that night. The Confederates left behind all of their artillery pieces and wagons, and most of their horses and camp equipment. When dawn on January 20th arrived and the Federals moved against the Confederate works, they found the camps abandoned and Crittenden’s force safely across the river. The Federal forces reported 246 casualties of the battle, including 39 killed in action (most of these are buried in the Mill Springs National Cemetery in Nancy). The Confederates suffered 533 casualties, including more than 120 killed in action. The bodies of Gen. Zollicoffer and Lt. Peyton were returned to their families, who had them buried with honor in Nashville. The remaining Southern dead were left on the field to be buried in mass graves, many near the site of Zollicoffer’s death.

1902 –The Isthmus Canal Commission in Washington shifted its support to Panama as the canal site. Following President McKinley’s assassination, Theodore Roosevelt became president. For him, there was no romance about the project, none of this nonsense about following a dream. The canal was practical, vital and indispensable to the U.S. destiny as a global power with supremacy over both its coastal oceans. Roosevelt was a proponent of a doctrine proposed by U.S. naval officer and scholar Thayer Mahan, who explained his theory in the 1890 book “Influence of Sea Power upon History.” The theory was that supremacy at sea was an integral part of commercial and military prowess. For Roosevelt, this made a U.S.-controlled canal an absolute necessity. A timely incident clearly demonstrated this truth to Roosevelt and the world. A naval base had been established in Cuba as a result of the Spanish-American War.

The battleship Maine, which was stationed there, was blown up on February 15, 1898, with 260 lives lost. At the time, another battleship, the Oregon had been stationed in San Francisco. To save the day, the Oregon was ordered to proceed at once to the Atlantic, a 12,000-mile course around the Horn. Sixty-seven days later, but fortunately, still in time, the vessel arrived off Florida to join in the Battle of Santiago Bay. The experience clearly showed the military significance of an Isthmian canal. As mentioned before, popular sentiment and the second Walker Commission were in favor of a Canal in Nicaragua, and the actions along those lines were being hastened through the U.S. House. At about this same time, the Compagnie Nouvelle held a stockholders meeting in Paris, and, fearing to get left out in the cold with their proposed deal with the Americans, ascribed a new value to their Panama assets of $40,000,000. This just happened to be the value put upon them by the Americans. Admiral Walker was quoted saying, “It put things on a very different footing.” The House, however, passed the Hepburn Bill favoring Nicaragua – two votes short of unanimous.

Through this, the White House had maintained silence; however, following the House vote, Roosevelt summoned the members of the Walker Commission for a closed-door meeting. There he let it be known that he wanted the French offer accepted and that the Commission was to provide a supplementary report unanimously favoring the Panama route. The Commission prepared the supplementary report reversing its original decision and coming out unanimously for Panama. President Roosevelt submitted the supplementary report to Congress in January 1902. Wisconsin Senator John Coit Spooner introduced an amendment to the Hepburn Bill authorizing the president to acquire the French company’s assets and concessions for a maximum price of $40,000,000. The bill stated that if arrangements could not be agreed upon between the United States and Colombia within “a reasonable time,” the President would be authorized to seek an agreement for the alternate route through Nicaragua.

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1902 – The famous “March Across Samar” ended during the Philippine Insurrection. In the morning of Sept. 28, 1901, hundreds of native fighters armed with bolos staged a successful surprise attack on U.S. Marines mostly eating breakfast in the town of Balangiga, on the southern coast of Samar Island in eastern Philippines. That event, described as the “worst single defeat” of the US military in the Philippines, became known to history as the “Balangiga Massacre.” The massacred troops were members of Company C, Ninth U.S. Infantry Regiment, who were stationed in Balangiga to keep its small port closed and prevent any trading. Their mission was intended to deprive the Filipino revolutionary forces of supplies during the Philippine-American War, which had spread to the Visayas. The U.S. military authorities retaliated with a “kill and burn” policy to take back Samar, deliberately equating a victorious town with an entire island, from Oct. 1901 to March 1902. Implemented by Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith of the U.S. Army, the campaign resulted in the disappearance of some 50,000 people, the minimum increment of Samar’s population between 1896 and 1903.

Among this human loss were the numerous civilian men, women, and children 10 years old and above, who were reported killed during combat operations to reduce Samar into a “howling wilderness.” “Of the 74 men of Company C, only 5 were uninjured: 12 were slightly wounded, 19 severely wounded, and 38 dead, including the three officers.” Nine more died during the boat escape towards Basey (Young). “A grand total of 26 [Americans] would survive the attack” and 250 natives were killed during the fight in the Balangiga plaza, excluding the many others who were killed while pursuing the escaping survivors. The church-and-convent was burned by some of the survivors before they escaped on bancas. The rest of the town had been burned by the “insurgents” when reinforcement troops from Basey arrived the day after the attack. They latter claimed the American dead were mutilated and treated with indescribable indignities (Schott). Weeks later, soldiers of the Eleventh Infantry entered the unoccupied town and took with them the two “Bells of Balangiga,” now displayed near the flagpole at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

After the relief of the 9th Infantry following the Balangiga Massacre, Basey became the headquarters of a battalion of U.S. Marines (attached to the Sixth Separate Brigade) under the command of Major Littleton W.T. Waller. At the end of 1901, the U.S. Marines undertook a disastrous forced march across the jungle of southern Samar, from Lanang in the east coast to Basey in the west, in their effort to break the back of the Filipino resistance. After their arrival in Basey, the tired, sick, and frustrated Marines, who lost ten of their comrades, executed by firing squad their nine remaining conscripted native carriers and two native guides. According to then U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, “the shooting of the native bearers by the orders of Major Waller was an act which sullied the American name.” Gen. Smith and Maj. Waller were both court-martialed. Gen. Smith was retired from the U.S. Army. But Major Waller rose to eventually become Major General of the U.S. Marines.

1903 – President Theodore Roosevelt sends a radio message to King Edward VII: the first transatlantic radio transmission originating in the United States.

1911 – Naval aviation was born when pilot Eugene B. Ely flew a Curtis biplane onto the deck of the USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco harbor.

1919 – The World War I Peace Congress opened in Versailles, France.

1943 – A wartime ban on the sale of pre-sliced bread in the United States — aimed at reducing bakeries’ demand for metal replacement parts — went into effect.

1943 – Tiger tanks are used for the first time at Bau Arada, Tunisia. Neither the British nor the US have anything which can face them on equal terms.

1943 – Two American cruisers and four destroyers bombard Japanese-held Attu Island.

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1950 – People’s Republic of China formally recognizes the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and agrees to furnish it military assistance; the Soviet Union extended diplomatic recognition to Hanoi on January 30. China and the Soviet Union provided massive military and economic aid to North Vietnam, which enabled North Vietnam to fight first the French and then the Americans. Chinese aid to North Vietnam between 1950 and 1970 is estimated at $20 billion. It is thought that China provided approximately three-quarters of the total military aid given to Hanoi since 1949, with the Soviets providing most of the rest. It would have been impossible for the North Vietnamese to continue the war without the aid from both the Chinese and Soviets.

1951 – FEAF Combat Cargo Command flew an extraordinary 109 C-119 sorties to drop more than 550 tons of supplies to front-line troops in Korea.

1951 – China rejected the U.N. cease-fire proposal as the Eighth Army re-entered Wonju without opposition.

1951 – Marines of the 1st Marine Division began mopping-up operations against guerrillas in the Pohang area, South Korea, following the Division’s return from its epic battle with Communist Chinese troops at the Chosin (Changjin) Reservoir.

1953 – The U.S. Coast Guards were dispatched from Sangley Point to save the crew of a Navy Lockheed P2V reconnaissance plane. They landed in 12-foot seas, risking their own crew to save their Navy counterparts. The Coast Guard fished 11 survivors from the wrecked plane. Tragically the Coast Guard’s port engine failed during take off, slamming the plane back into the cold waters of the South China Sea. Seven of the rescued Navy fliers survived this second crash; however, most of the Coast Guard crew was lost.

1953 – U.S. Navy carrier aircraft hit targets at Wonsan, Songjin, Hungnam and Changyon on the North Korea’s east coast while surface elements fired on Sinchon and Kosong targets.

1957 – Averaging speeds of over 500 miles per hour, three US Air Force jets complete a nonstop around-the-world flight.

1962 – The United States begins spraying foliage with herbicides in South Vietnam, in order to reveal the whereabouts of Vietcong guerrillas.

1968 – Operation Coronado X begins in Mekong Delta, Vietnam. This was a reaction operation where the Mobile Riverine Force drives the enemy from My Tho, Cai Lay, and Vinh Long cities during the Tet offensive. Prior to Tet, the MRF was operating in western Binh Tuong Province hoping to make contact with another large VC force as it had done there in early December. Thus the MRF was widely dispersed and well removed from the scene of the major battles that erupted during Tet; however, mobility was its great asset and the MRF moved quickly to participate in several sharp battles connected with the Tet offensive.

1969 – The expanded 4-party Vietnam peace talks begin in Paris.

1977 – Scientists identify a previously unknown bacterium as the cause of the mysterious Legionnaires’ disease. Legionellosis or Legion Fever) is a form of pneumonia caused by any species of Gram negative aerobic bacteria belonging to the genus Legionella. Over 90% of cases of Legionnaires’ disease are caused by the bacterium Legionella pneumophila. Legionnaires’ disease acquired its name in July 1976, when an outbreak of pneumonia occurred among people attending a convention of the American Legion at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. Of the 182 reported cases, mostly men, 29 died.

1977 – The Trident (C-4) missile development flight test program commenced when C4X-1 was launched from a flight pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Tokyo Rose, convicted during WWII for making propaganda broadcasts to US troops.

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1985 –For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. For the Reagan administration, efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone of its anticommunist foreign policy since it took office in 1981. Policies designed to economically and diplomatically isolate the Nicaraguan government were combined with monetary and material aid to the “Contras,” a paramilitary anti-Sandinista force that carried out armed attacks against the Sandinistas. Although some of these U.S. efforts were public knowledge, others were covert and remained hidden from public view. Charging that the Nicaraguan government was receiving weapons from the communist bloc and was using those arms to aid revolutions elsewhere in Central America, the Reagan administration even resorted to mining Nicaragua’s harbors. Infuriated by these acts, the Nicaraguan government appeared before the World Court and asked that orders be issued to the United States to cease the hostile activity and pay reparations for the damage.

On January 18, 1985, the United States walked out of the World Court, charging that the case was a “misuse of the court for political and propaganda purposes.” A State Department spokesperson stated that, “We profoundly hope that court does not go the way of other international organizations that have become politicized against the interests of the Western democracies.” Opponents of the Reagan policies roundly condemned the decision to walk out. Congressman Michael Barnes stated that he was “shocked and saddened that the Reagan Administration has so little confidence in its own policies that it chooses not even to defend them.” The Reagan administration’s decision in regards to the World Court had little impact on the continuing conflict in Central America. The Court heard Nicaragua’s case and decided against the United States; it charged that the U.S. violated international law with its actions against the Sandinistas, and ordered it to pay reparations to Nicaragua in June 1986. The U.S. government ignored the decision. Meanwhile, the Contra actions in Nicaragua achieved little more than death and destruction, and Congress banned further U.S. military aid to the Contras in 1988.

1991 – Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israeli cities.

1991 – Round-the-clock bombing of Iraqi targets continued in Operation Desert Storm.

1991 – USS Nicholas attacks and captures Iraqi offshore oil platforms.

1993 – Allied warplanes attacked targets in “no fly” zones in southern and northern Iraq.

1997 – Iraq agrees to export 25 million barrels of crude oil and 7 million barrels of petroleum products to Jordan in 1997. The total, which equates to 88,000 barrels per day, is 7% more than in 1996. Jordan relies entirely on Iraqi crude oil, which is shipped under a special exemption from United Nations’ sanctions against Iraq. Part of the oil is paid for at a reduced price ($19.10 per barrel in 1997, 25% higher than in 1996) and the rest of the oil goes toward reducing Iraq’s $1.3 billion debt to Jordan and paying for Jordanian exports of food and medicine to Iraq (slated to increase by 17% to $255 million in 1997).

2000 – A US test missile fired from the Marshall Islands failed to shoot down a mock warhead fired from a California air base. In a blow to the Pentagon’s push to develop a national missile defense by 2005, officials announced that a prototype missile interceptor had roared into space in search of a mock warhead over the Pacific, but had failed to hit it.

2002 – US forces took 6 terrorism suspects, held since October, from Bosnia after local courts ruled that there was too little evidence to hold them. The suspects included Bensayah Belkacem, a key European al Qaeda lieutenant.

2002 – Five Colombian police officers died while protecting a downed UH-1N helicopter. The US helicopter was destroyed to keep it out of rebel hands.

2003 – CGC Walnut departed from her homeport in Honolulu, Hawaii and began her 10,000 mile transit to the Persian Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This 45 day transit was completed as quickly as possible with brief stops for fuel and food along the way in Guam, Singapore, Kuwait. The cutter deployed with an oil spill recovery system in the event the regime of Saddam Hussein committed any acts of environmental terrorism. When those threats did not materialize, the cutter then conducted maritime interception operations enforcing U.N. Security Council resolutions, participated in the search for two downed United Kingdom helicopters, and patrolled and provided assistance to captured Iraqi offshore oil terminals being secured by Coast Guard port security personnel. The cutter’s crew completely replaced 30 buoys and repaired an additional five along the 41-mile Khawr Abd Allah Waterway. This ATON mission vastly improved the navigational safety of the waterway for humanitarian aid, commercial, and military vessels sailing to the port and was a critical step to economic recovery for the people of Iraq.

2004 – Pakistani agents arrested seven al-Qaida suspects and confiscated weapons during a raid in the southern city of Karachi.

2007 – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suggests that if the United States better armed the Iraqi armed forces, they would be able to dramatically draw back U.S. troops “in three to six months”.

2014 – The United States will officially recognize Somalia’s new government and officially open diplomatic relations with Somalia for the first time since the Battle of Mogadishu.

2014 – NASA scientists beam a picture of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a spacecraft orbiting the Moon, marking a first in laser communication.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

ENRIGHT, JOHN
Rank and organization: Landsman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1864, Lynn, Mass. Accredited to: Massachusetts. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Ranger off Ensenada, Mexico, 18 January 1886. Jumping overboard from that vessel, Enright rescued John Bell, ordinary seaman, and George Svensson, ordinary seaman, from drowning.

WALKER, FRANK O.
Rank and organization. Private, Company F, 46th Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: Near Taal, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 18 January 1900. Entered service at: Burlington, Mass. Birth: South Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 11 March 1902. Citation: Under heavy fire of the enemy he rescued a dying comrade who was sinking beneath the water.

*YNTEMA, GORDON DOUGLAS
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company D, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). Place and date: Near Thong Binh, Republic of Vietnam, 16-18 January 1968. Entered service at: Detroit, Mich. Born: 26 June 1945, Bethesda, Md. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life and above and beyond the call of duty. Sgt. Yntema, U.S. Army, distinguished himself while assigned to Detachment A-431, Company D. As part of a larger force of civilian irregulars from Camp Cai Cai, he accompanied 2 platoons to a blocking position east of the village of Thong Binh, where they became heavily engaged in a small-arms fire fight with the Viet Cong. Assuming control of the force when the Vietnamese commander was seriously wounded, he advanced his troops to within 50 meters of the enemy bunkers. After a fierce 30 minute fire fight, the enemy forced Sgt. Yntema to withdraw his men to a trench in order to afford them protection and still perform their assigned blocking mission. Under cover of machinegun fire, approximately 1 company of Viet Cong maneuvered into a position which pinned down the friendly platoons from 3 sides.

A dwindling ammunition supply, coupled with a Viet Cong mortar barrage which inflicted heavy losses on the exposed friendly troops, caused many of the irregulars to withdraw. Seriously wounded and ordered to withdraw himself, Sgt. Yntema refused to leave his fallen comrades. Under withering small arms and machinegun fire, he carried the wounded Vietnamese commander and a mortally wounded American Special Forces advisor to a small gully 50 meters away in order to shield them from the enemy fire. Sgt. Yntema then continued to repulse the attacking Viet Cong attempting to overrun his position until, out of ammunition and surrounded, he was offered the opportunity to surrender. Refusing, Sgt. Yntema stood his ground, using his rifle as a club to fight the approximately 15 Viet Cong attempting his capture. His resistance was so fierce that the Viet Cong were forced to shoot in order to overcome him. Sgt. Yntema’s personal bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and supreme self-sacrifice were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflect the utmost credit upon himself, the 1st Special Forces, and the U.S. Army.

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19 January

1760 – Cherokees unsuccessfully attack Fort Prince George in South Carolina to rescue tribe members held hostage by Governor Lyttleton. Lyttleton took the hostages as assurance of compliance with a peace treaty concluded in December 1759. Frustrated, the Cherokees turn to raids on southwest frontier settlements.

1770 – In an attempt to prevent the posting of broadsides by British soldiers stationed in New York, the Sons of Liberty, led by Alexander McDougall, engage in a skirmish with soldiers on Golden Hill. Along with the Boston Massacre and the Gaspée Affair, the event was one of the early violent incidents in what would become the American Revolution. During the imperial crisis with Britain in the 1760s, the Sons of Liberty (or “Liberty Boys”) in New York City sometimes erected “Liberty poles” to symbolize their displeasure with British authorities. The first such pole was put up in City Hall Park on May 21, 1766, in celebration of the repeal of the 1765 Stamp Act. After the New York Assembly finally voted to comply with the Quartering Act in December 1769, Alexander McDougall issued an anonymous broadside entitled “To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York”.

In response, on January 17, 1770, British soldiers sawed down a Liberty pole. The “red coats” also posted their own handbills which attacked the Sons of Liberty as “the real enemies of society” who “thought their freedom depended on a piece of wood”. On January 19, 1770, six weeks before the Boston Massacre, Isaac Sears and others tried to stop some soldiers from posting handbills. Sears captured some of the soldiers and marched his captives towards the mayor’s office, while the rest of the British soldiers ran to the barracks to sound the alarm. A crowd of townsfolk arrived along with a score of soldiers. The soldiers were surrounded and badly outnumbered. Another squad of soldiers arrived and the officer gave the order “Soldiers, draw your bayonets and cut your way through them.” More soldiers arrived and a group of officers arrived to disperse the soldiers before the situation got totally out of hand. Several of the soldiers were badly bruised and one a had a serious wound. Some of the townsfolk were wounded and one had been fatally stabbed.

1807 – The strong, healthy boy born to “Light Horse Harry” and Ann Carter Lee was the last Lee born at Stratford to survive to maturity. Though he spent fewer than four years there, his later boyhood visits left an impression that he carried throughout his life. As sometimes happens in distinguished families, one member seems to fall heir to the best qualities of the previous generations and none of the flaws. So it was with Robert Edward Lee. From both the Carters and the Lees he inherited a handsome countenance. From his father came rare physical strength and endurance. The sense of duty that Harry had learned from George Washington was vividly imparted to his son Robert. Even “Light Horse Harry’s” difficulties with money seemed to have produced positive responses in Robert, who throughout his life was meticulous and prudent in all finacial matters. Ann Carter Lee’s gentleness was inherited by Robert, and his loving care of his ailing mother was the mainstay of her life. With his father and elder brothers away, and his mother and sisters in failing health, Robert had become, by age 12, head of the household. On cold afternoons, when his mother was well enough, young Robert would stuff paper in the cracks of the carriage to block the wind and take her driving. Years later, when he left for West Point, Ann Lee wrote to a cousin, “How I will get on without Robert? He is both a son and daughter to me.”

Robert Lee’s choice of a military career was dictated by financial necessity. There was no money left to send him to Harvard, where his older brother Charles Carter studied. Such circumstances led him to an appointment to West Point Military Academy. Robert, who led the Cadet Corps in 1829, graduated second in his class. In four years he received not a single demerit, and he became one of the most popular cadets in his class. When he returned as the Academy’s superintendent years later, he won the same affectionate respect from the cadets for his compassion, sense of fairness and strong moral leadership. On June 30, 1831, while serving as Second Lieutenant of Engineers at Fort Monroe, Virginia, he married Mary Ann Randolph Custis of Arlington. Mary was the only daughter of George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington and the adopted grandson of George Washington.

Robert E. Lee shared his father’s reverence for the memory of the General and that bond with the Father of our Country served as an inspiration throughout Lee’s life. The couple moved into Arlington, the Custis house across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., which would later become Arlington National Cemetery. At the outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846, Robert was ordered to Mexico as a supervisor of road construction. His skills as a cavalryman in reconnaissance, however, soon captured the attention of General Winfield Scott, who came to rely on Robert for his sharp military expertise. It was in Mexico that Lee learned the battlefield tactics that would serve him so well in coming years.

In spite of his flawless performance as an engineer and his brilliance as an officer, promotion came slowly for Robert Lee. His assignments were lonely and difficult, and he found the separation from his family hard to bear. His love of Mary and his ever-increasing brood of children were the center of his life. The opportunity that won him enduring fame was one he would have preferred not to have taken. The Army of the United States had been his life’s work for 32 years, and he had given it his very best. On April 18, 1861, he was finally offered the reward for his service. On the eve of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, through Secretary Francis Blair, offered him command of the Union Army. There was little doubt as to Lee’s sentiments. He was utterly opposed to secession and considered slavery evil. His views on the United States were equally clear – “no north, no south, no east, no west,” he wrote, “but the broad Union in all its might and strength past and present.”

Blair’s offer forced Lee to choose between his strong conviction to see the country united in perpetuity and his responsibility to family, friends and his native Virginia. A heart-wrenching decision had to be made. After a long night at Arlington, searching for an answer to Blair’s offer, he finally came downstairs to Mary. “Well Mary,” he said calmly, “the question is settled. Here is my letter of resignation.” He could not, he told her, lift his hand against his own people. He had “endeavored to do what he thought was right,” and replied to Blair that “…though opposed to secession and a deprecating war, I could take no part in the invasion of the Southern States.” He resigned his commission and left his much beloved Arlington to “go back in sorrow to my people and share the misery of my native state.”

On June 1, 1862 Robert Edward Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in the Confederate capital of Richmond. Not until February 1865 was he named Commander in Chief of all Confederate forces, but the leadership throughout the war was undeniably his. His brilliance as a commander is legendary, and military colleges the world over study his compaigns as models of the science of war. That he held out against an army three times the size and a hundred times better equipped was no miracle. It was the result of leadership by a man of exceptional intelligence, daring, courage and integrity. His men all but worshiped him. He shared their rations, slept in tents as they did, and, most importantly, never asked more of them than he did of himself. Lee’s legendary command of the Confederate forces came to an end at Appomattox, Virginia in April 1865. “There is nothing left for me to do,” he said, “but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”

With the war now over, Lee set an example to all in his refusal to express bitterness. “Abandon your animosities,” he said, “and make your sons Americans.” He then set out to work for a permanent union of the states. Though his application to regain his citizenship was misplaced and not acted upon until 1975 – more than a century late – Lee worked tirelessly for a strong peace. With some hesitation he accepted the presidency of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, and there he strove to equip his students with the character and knowledge he knew would be necessary to restore the war-ravaged South. Lexington became his home, and there he died of heart problems on October 12, 1870. After his death, his name was joined with that of his lifelong hero, and Washington College became Washington and Lee University.

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1840 –During an exploring expedition, Captain Charles Wilkes sights the coast of eastern Antarctica and claims it for the United States. Wilkes’ group had set out in 1838, sailing around South America to the South Pacific and then to Antarctica, where they explored a 1,500-mile stretch of the eastern Antarctic coast that later became known as Wilkes Land. In 1842, the expedition returned to New York, having circumnavigated the globe. Antarctica was discovered by European and American explorers in the early part of the 19th century, and in February 1821 the first landing on the Antarctic continent was made by American John Davis at Hughes Bay on the Antarctic Peninsula. During the next century, many nations, including the United States, made territorial claims to portions of the almost-inhabitable continent. However, during the 1930s, conflicting claims led to international rivalry, and the United States, which led the world in the establishment of scientific bases, enacted an official policy of making no territorial claims while recognizing no other nation’s claims. In 1959, the Antarctic Treaty made Antarctica an international zone, set guidelines for scientific cooperation, and prohibited military operations, nuclear explosions, and the disposal of radioactive waste on the continent.

1847 – Angered by the abusive behavior of American soldiers occupying the city, Mexicans in Taos strike back by murdering the American-born New Mexican governor Charles Bent. The eldest of four brothers who all became prominent frontiersmen, Charles Bent began his involvement with the Wild West in 1822, when he left Virginia at the age of 23 to become a trader for the Missouri Fur Company. When that company was destroyed by cutthroat competition from John Jacob Astor’s powerful American Fur Company, Bent became a trader on the Santa Fe Trail. Building outlets in the Mexican cities of Santa Fe and New Mexico, and an Indian trading post on the Arkansas River called Bent’s Fort (in modern-day Colorado), Bent and his business partners eventually created the largest mercantile firm in the Southwest. Bent’s financial, political, and personal interests increasingly began to center on Taos, New Mexico. In the 1830s, he moved there and married Maria Ignacia Jaramillo, a wealthy widow from a prominent Mexican family. Bent’s new wife and his considerable wealth helped him win acceptance among the Mexican political elites, and he became a close associate of the New Mexican governor, Manuel Armijo.

However, when war between Mexico and the U.S. broke out in 1846, Bent revealed his true colors by welcoming General Stephen Kearney’s largely bloodless conquest of New Mexico with open arms. Kearney awarded Bent by appointing him to the governorship. Kearney and most of his soldiers then moved on to take California, leaving the new governor to fend for himself, and Bent soon discovered that his behavior had earned him many enemies in Taos. Many of the Mexican families naturally resented the American conquest of their home, and the Taos Indians had long disliked Bent because of his trade relations with their northern enemies. The small force of American soldiers left behind to maintain order exacerbated the bad feelings by treating the Mexicans with undisguised contempt.

On January 19, 1847, the people of Taos struck back. A violent mob attacked a Taos home that Bent was visiting, murdered his guards, and then killed and scalped Bent. Dragging Bent’s mangled body through the streets of Taos, the mob called for a full-scale rebellion against the American occupation, and by the end of the evening, 15 other Americans had been killed. Those who survived fled to Santa Fe to sound the alarm. Within two weeks, the American Colonel Sterling Price had quelled the rebellion and executed the supposed ringleaders. With the end of the Mexican War in 1848, New Mexico and all the rest of Mexico’s old northern frontier became the American Southwest.

1861 – Georgia became the 5th state to secede from the Union.

1862 – Union General George Thomas defeats Confederates commanded by George Crittenden in southern Kentucky. The battle, also called Mill Springs or Beech Grove, secured Union control of the region and resulted in the death of Confederate General Felix Zollicoffer. Zollicoffer commanded a brigade that moved across the Cumberland River in November 1861 in order to control as much of Kentucky as possible. Crittenden was the key Confederate commander in the region, and he arrived in early January to supervise Rebel operations. Crittenden had initially ordered a withdrawal to the south bank of the Cumberland, but he found Zollicoffer’s force safely entrenched on the north bank of the river, which was running unusually high. Thomas’s Yankees were just ten miles north. Crittenden ordered Zollicoffer to advance, and Thomas’ scouts detected the move. Thomas moved his troops south, and the two forces collided early in the morning of January 19th.

The Confederates attacked the Union left flank, then the center. As additional Federal troops arrived, the tide of battle turned. At one point, Zollicoffer approached a unit that he thought was part of his army. It was the 4th Kentucky, a Union regiment. Before he and his entourage could flee, a volley killed Zollicoffer. At about this time, the tide of battle turned for the Federals. Union troops pressed all along the line and the Confederates began to break en masse. Fortunately for the Confederates, Thomas’ troops were low on ammunition and could not take advantage of the situation. That night, Crittenden withdrew his forces across the swollen Cumberland but had to abandon most of its artillery and horses. The Confederates lost 400 men in the engagement; the Yankees lost about 250. Crittenden was heavily criticized for the defeat and he resigned that fall. The Union retained control of Kentucky, but the engagement was a prelude to the much larger Battle of Shiloh in April.

1883 – The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires, built by Thomas Edison, begins service at Roselle, New Jersey.

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1920 – The United States Senate votes against joining the League of Nations.

1943 – Two US cruisers and four destroyers bombard the Aleutian island of Attu.

1946 – Staged jointly by the USCG and USN, the first public demonstration of LORAN was held at Floyd Bennett Field in New York. Loran was originally developed to provide radionavigation service for U.S. coastal waters and was later expanded to include complete coverage of the continental U.S. as well as most of Alaska. Today twenty-four U.S. Loran-C stations work in partnership with Canadian and Russian stations to provide coverage in Canadian waters and in the Bering Sea. Loran-C provides better than 0.25 nautical mile absolute accuracy for suitably equipped users within the published areas.

1946 – General Douglas MacArthur establishes the International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals. Also known as the Tokyo Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, or simply the Tribunal, was convened on April 29, 1946, to try the leaders of the Empire of Japan for three types of war crimes. “Class A” crimes were reserved for those who participated in a joint conspiracy to start and wage war, and were brought against those in the highest decision-making bodies; “Class B” crimes were reserved for those who committed “conventional” atrocities or crimes against humanity; “Class C” crimes were reserved for those in “the planning, ordering, authorization, or failure to prevent such transgressions at higher levels in the command structure”. Twenty-eight Japanese military and political leaders were charged with Class A crimes, and more than 5,700 Japanese nationals were charged with Class B and C crimes, mostly entailing prisoner abuse. China held 13 tribunals of its own, resulting in 504 convictions and 149 executions.

1951 – Far East Air Forces launched a thirteen-day intensive air campaign, by fighters, light bombers, and medium bombers, to restrict to a trickle the supplies and reinforcements reaching enemy forces in the field.

1952 – The U.S. Navy hospital ship Repose departed Korean waters after the longest tour of duty for any such vessel during the Korean War — nearly one and one-half years.

1960 – The US signs a mutual defense treaty with Japan. Protests in Tokyo cause President Eisenhower to cancel a planned trip to Japan.

1961 –Outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower cautions incoming President John F. Kennedy that Laos is “the key to the entire area of Southeast Asia,” and might even require the direct intervention of U.S. combat troops. Fearing that the fall of Laos to the communist Pathet Lao forces might have a domino effect in Southeast Asia, President Kennedy sent a carrier task force to the Gulf of Siam in April 1961. However, he decided not to intervene in Laos with U.S. troops and in June 1961, he sent representatives to Geneva to work out a solution to the crisis. In 1962, an agreement was signed that called for the neutrality of Laos and set up a coalition government to run the country. By this time, Kennedy had turned his attention to South Vietnam, where a growing insurgency threatened to topple the pro-western government of Ngo Dinh Diem. Kennedy had already sent combat advisers to the South Vietnamese army and this commitment expanded over time. By the time Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, he had overseen the assignment of over 17,000 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam.

1968 – Cambodia charges that the United States and South Vietnam have crossed the border and killed three Cambodians.

1968 – “Sky Soldiers” from the 173rd Airborne Brigade begin Operation McLain with a reconnaissance-in-force operation in the Central Highlands. The purpose of this operation was to find and destroy the communist base camps in the area in order to promote better security for the province. The operation ended on January 31, 1970, with 1,042 enemy casualties.

1977 – President Gerald Ford pardons Iva Toguri D’Aquino (a.k.a. “Tokyo Rose”).

1980 – President Jimmy Carter announces the United States boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow.

1981 – The United States and Iran signed an agreement in Algiers paving the way for the release of 52 Americans held hostage for more than 14 months.

1986 – The first IBM PC computer virus is released into the wild. A boot sector virus dubbed (c)Brain, it was created by the Farooq Alvi Brothers in Lahore, Pakistan, reportedly to deter piracy of the software they had written.

1991 – During the Gulf War, Israel’s anti-missile force was boosted by additional Patriot missile batteries and U-S crews. A second Iraqi missile attack caused 29 injuries in Tel Aviv. Allied forces began bombarding Iraq’s elite Republican Guard.

1993 – The first American combat troops flew home from their humanitarian mission in Somalia.

1993 – Iraq agrees to allow UNSCOM flights in Iraq. Iraq had refused to allow UNSCOM to use its own aircraft in Iraq. Also, Iraq began incursions into the demilitarized zone with Kuwait, and increases its military activity in the no-fly zones. The U.N. Security Council states that Iraq’s actions were an “unacceptable and material” breach of Resolution 687 and warns Iraq of “serious consequences.” Shortly thereafter, the United States, UK, and France launch air raids on southern Iraq.

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1998 – The US and China signed an accord designed to avoid naval and air conflicts at sea.

1999 – In Serbia Gen’l. Wesley Clark and Gen’l. Klaus Naumann met with Pres. Milosevic and threatened him with NATO airstrikes due to the massacre of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

2001 – In Afghanistan UN sanctions began following a 30-day deadline for the handover of Osama bin Laden. The sanctions coincided with the worst drought in 30 years.

2002 – A US CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter crashed in Afghanistan after take off from Bagram air base. Marines Dwight Morgan and Walter Cohee III were killed.

2003 – Colombian AUC gunmen kidnapped three Americans (Robert Y. Pelton, Mark Wedeven and Megan A. Smaker) just north of the Colombian border in Panama. The writer and 2 hikers were released January 23rd.

2003 – Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei, the chief UN arms inspectors, sat down for urgent talks with Iraqi officials.

2003 – The United States offers Saddam Hussein immunity from prosecution if he leaves Iraq. US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld says in a television interview: “If to avoid a war, I would…recommend that some provision be made so that the senior leadership in that country [Iraq] and their families could be provided haven in some other country.”

2006 – The New Horizons probe is launched by NASA on the first mission to Pluto. New Horizons is a NASA space probe launched to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons and one or two Kuiper Belt objects, depending on which are in position to be explored. Part of the New Frontiers program, the mission was approved in 2001 following the cancellation of the Pluto Fast Flyby and Pluto Kuiper Express. The mission profile was proposed by a team led by principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute. After several delays on the launch site, New Horizons was launched on 19 January 2006 from Cape Canaveral. Launched directly into an Earth-and-solar-escape trajectory with an Earth-relative velocity of about 16.26 km/s (58,536 km/h; 36,373 mph), it set the record for the highest velocity of a human-made object from Earth. New Horizons should perform a flyby of the Pluto system on 14 July 2015.

2006 – Al Jazeera airs an audiotape from Osama bin Laden saying al-Qaeda is making preparations for attacks in the United States but offering a “long-term truce” to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan.

2010 – Scores of United States Navy troops land near the Haitian presidential palace, bringing food, water, and equipment following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that had devastated Haiti on 12 January.

2013 – NASA’s Curiosity rover finds calcium deposits on Mars similar to those seen on Earth when water circulates in cracks and rock fractures.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

McKEEVER, MICHAEL
Rank and organization: Private, Company K, 5th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Burnt Ordinary, Va., 19 January 1863. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Ireland. Date of issue: 2 August 1897. Citation: Was one of a small scouting party that charged and routed a mounted force of the enemy six times their number. He led the charge in a most gallant and distinguished manner, going far beyond the call of duty.

ROBINSON, JOHN
Rank and organization: Captain of the Hold, U.S. Navy. Born: 1840, Cuba. Accredited to: Maine. G.O. No.: 82, 23 February 1867. Citation: With Acting Ensign James H. Bunting, during the heavy gale which occurred in Pensacola Bay on the night of 19 January 1867, Robinson swam ashore with a line for the purpose of sending off a blow cock, which would facilitate getting up steam and prevent the vessel from stranding, thus voluntarily periling his life to save the vessel and the lives of others.

BEARSS, HIRAM IDDINGS
Rank and organization: Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps. Born: 13 April 1875, Peru, Ind. Appointed from: Indiana. Other Navy award: Distinguished Service Medal. Citation: For extraordinary heroism and eminent and conspicuous conduct in battle at the junction of the Cadacan and Sohoton Rivers, Samar, Philippine Islands, 17 November 1901. Col. Bearss (then Capt.), second in command of the columns upon their uniting ashore in the Sohoton River region, made a surprise attack on the fortified cliffs and completely routed the enemy, killing 30 and capturing and destroying the powder magazine, 40 lantacas (guns), rice, food and cuartels. Due to his courage, intelligence, discrimination and zeal, he successfully led his men up the cliffs by means of bamboo ladders to a height of 200 feet.

The cliffs were of soft stone of volcanic origin, in the nature of pumice, and were honeycombed with caves. Tons of rocks were suspended in platforms held in position by vine cables (known as bejuco) in readiness to be precipitated upon people below. After driving the insurgents from their position which was almost impregnable, being covered with numerous trails lined with poison spears, pits, etc., he led his men across the river, scaled the cliffs on the opposite side, and destroyed the camps there. Col. Bearss and the men under his command overcame incredible difficulties and dangers in destroying positions which, according to reports from old prisoners, had taken 3 years to perfect, were held as a final rallying point, and were never before penetrated by white troops. Col. Bearss also rendered distinguished public service in the presence of the enemy at Quinapundan River, Samar, Philippine Islands, on 19 January 1902.

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20 January

1781 – In Pompton , New Jersey, troops mutiny. They are suppressed on January 27th by General Robert Howe’s 600 strong force sent by Washington. Two leaders of the mutiny are executed.

1783 – The fighting of the Revolutionary War ended. Britain signed peace agreements with France and Spain, who allied against it in the American War of Independence. The peace agreement between the US and England will not go into effect until England and France reach a settlement.

1861 – Fort on Ship Island, Mississippi, seized by Confederates; Ship Island was a key base for operations in the Gulf of Mexico and at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

1863 – Union General Ambrose Burnside’s Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later. The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside’s force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee’s troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Yankees that winter. Now, Burnside sought to raise morale and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee’s left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Speed was essential to the operation. January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that last for four days.

Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army’s progress. In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The roads became unnavigable, and conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others’ paths. Horses, wagons, and cannon were stuck in mud, and the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees with shouts and signs that read “Burnside’s Army Stuck in the Mud.” Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, “strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion.” The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25th.

1887 – The U.S. Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.

1899 – The Philippine Commission is appointed by President McKinley. It is headed by Jacob G. Schurman who will suggest US rule of the islands until the Philippinos are ready for self-government. The move will prevent annexation by Germany which has moved its navy nearby. It will also make the US a major power in the Pacific, brining it into conflict with Japan.

1903 – Theordore Roosevelt issues Executive Order placing Midway Islands under jurisdiction of the Navy Department. The Midway Islands consist of a circular atoll, 6 miles in diameter, enclosing two islands. Lying about 1,150 miles west-northwest of Hawaii, the islands were first explored by Captain N. C. Brooks on July 5, 1859, in the name of the United States. The atoll was formally declared a U.S. possession in 1867, and in 1903 Theodore Roosevelt made it a naval reservation. The island was renamed “Midway” by the U.S. Navy in recognition of its geographic location on the route between California and Japan. Air traffic across the Pacific increased the island’s importance in the mid-1930s; the San Francisco–Manila mail route included a regular stop on Midway. Its military importance was soon recognized, and the navy began building an air and submarine base there in 1940.

1905 – The United States and the Dominican Republic sign a protocol giving the United States control of the Dominican Republic’s international debts. The US fears that European creditors will use the debt as justification for occupation of the Caribbean republic. As much as 90% of receipts have been stolen by corrupt public officials, leading to the crisis.

1914 – School for naval air training opens in Pensacola, FL.

1940 – The USA protests to Britain over the detention of its ships in Gibraltar.

1942 – Top Nazis met at Grossen-Wannsee, outside Berlin, and there formulated the infamous “Final Solution” to the Jewish question. Chaired by SS General Reinhard Heydrich, the one-day conference was designed to address the Nazi efforts at removing the Jews. The 15 top-ranking men of the German Reich agreed upon a blueprint for the extermination of Europe’s Jews. Their “final solution” called for exterminating Europe’s Jews. Until this time, the plan had been to deport all Jews to the island of Madagascar off Africa, but by 1942 this plan was rejected in favor of transporting Jews to the east where the able-bodied would become slave laborers for the Reich. SS chief Heinrich Himmler would be in charge. Those unfit to work would be, the conference minutes noted, “appropriately dealt with.” This phrase was left unexplained, but there was no doubt of its sinister meaning. After approving genocide as Nazi policy, the conference attendees adjourned for lunch. The minutes were taken by Adolf Eichmann.

1942 – Japanese aircraft from four carries make major attacks on Rabaul.

1943 – Japanese resistance on Mount Austen, Guadalcanal weakens. The garrison at the Gifu strongpoint has taken heavy losses from artillery.

1944 – Allied forces in Italy begin unsuccessful operations to cross the Rapido River and seize Cassino. At 20:00 36th US Division attempts to cross the Rapido river with two Infantry Regiments after an artillery barrage program. However, because of heavy German retaliatory fire only about 2 companies get across the river on the 141st Regiment’s front. On the other (143rd) Regiment’s front no troops get across at all.

1945 – The Allies signed a truce with the Hungarians.

1946 – By Executive Order, President Truman creates the Central Intelligence Group, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.

1949 – Point Four Program a program for economic aid to poor countries announced by United States President Harry S. Truman in his inaugural address for a full term as President.

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1951 – After weeks of almost unbroken absence, MiGs appeared again over Korea, resulting on this date in the first encounter between USAF F-84s and CCF MiG-15s.

1952 – The 40th Infantry Division, California Army National Guard, arrived in Korea.

1954 – The CIA built a tunnel from west Berlin to East Berlin to tap Soviet and East German communications.

1972 – In continued efforts to disrupt an anticipated communist offensive, a contingent of more than 10,000 South Vietnamese troops begin a sweep 45 miles northwest of Saigon to find and destroy enemy forces. There was much speculation that the North Vietnamese would launch such an offensive around the Tet (Chinese New Year) holiday. Although the communists did not attack during the Tet holiday in early February, in March they launched a massive invasion involving more than 150,000 main force troops and large amounts of tanks and artillery pieces. The battles raged throughout South Vietnam into the fall and resulted in some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

1981 – Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president as 52 American hostages boarded a plane in Tehran and headed toward freedom. Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.

1991 – During the Gulf War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by U-S Patriot rockets as they approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Iraqi television showed interviews with seven downed allied pilots, three of them Americans.

1994 – Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at The Citadel in South Carolina. She joined the cadet corps in August 1995, under court order, but soon dropped out, citing isolation and stress.

1999 – NATO moved forces within striking distance of Yugoslavia and warned Belgrade to stop its repression in Kosovo.

1999 – The U.N. releases more than $81 million to Iraq to buy equipment to increase its supply of electricity. Iraq, which suffers frequent power shortages, as power plants fail and electrical demand rises, applied to buy the necessary generating equipment in 1998, when the “Oil-for-Food” program was expanded to allow Iraq to begin rebuilding its crumbling public services. U.N. trade sanctions and a more limited oil sales program had earlier prevented the Iraqis from replacing the old equipment.

2001 – IAEA inspectors conduct inspections in Iraq which verified presence of nuclear material.

2003 – Secretary of State Colin Powell, faced with stiff resistance and calls to go slow, bluntly told the U.N. Security Council that the United Nations “must not shrink” from its responsibility to disarm Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

2003 – The chief UN arms inspectors and Iraqi officials agreed on practical steps to greater Iraqi cooperation in the UN disarmament program, including Baghdad’s encouragement of weapons scientists to submit to private UN interviews.

2003 – British defense secretary Geoff Hoon announces the deployment of 26,000 troops to the Gulf. The force includes more than 100 Challenger 2 battle tanks, 150 armored personnel carriers, and an air assault brigade, including 1,400 paratroopers. It is bigger than Britain’s contribution at the start of the 1991 Gulf war.

2003 – US military officials announce that they are sending a force of about 37,000 soldiers to the Persian Gulf region. This takes the number of US troops ordered to deploy to around 125,000.

2005 – U.S. President George W. Bush is sworn in for his second term, with a pledge to seek “freedom in all the world”.

2005 – Mars rover Opportunity uses its spectrometers to prove that Heat Shield Rock is a meteorite, the first to be found on another planet.

2006 – At 4 o’clock UTC NASA’s Pluto probe New Horizons crossed the orbit of the Moon, eight hours and thirty-five minutes after launch. This is a new Earth-to-Moon-distance flight record.

2006 – Three former workers at the Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio are indicted for repeatedly falsifying inspection reports and other information to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant’s owner, FirstEnergy Corporation, accepts a plea bargain and $28 million in fines in lieu of criminal prosecution.

2009 – Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th and first African-American President of the United States.

2011 – The largest rocket ever launched from the U.S. West Coast blasted off on Thursday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying a top secret satellite into orbit. The Delta IV Heavy rocket stood 23 stories tall, and its engines produced 2 million pounds of thrust, according to the 30th Space Wing of the U.S. Air Force. Blasting off at 1:10 p.m. Pacific time from Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg in California, the rocket carried a payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.

2011 – United States Congress blocks President of the United States Barack Obama’s attempts to close the prison for detainees of the War on Terror at Guantamo Bay, Cuba.

2013 – The second inauguration of Barack Obama as the President of the United States takes place in the Blue Room of the White House.

2013 – A NASA spacecraft, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, provides new evidence of a wet underground environment on Mars that adds to an increasingly complex picture of the Red Planet’s early evolution.

2014 – The United States rejects the invitation of Iran by the United Nations in peace talks involving Syria.

2014 – Certain sanctions against Iran are lifted by the European Union and the United States through a nuclear deal.

2014 – Kenneth Bae, an American prisoner in North Korea, releases a message to the United States for help.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

GOWAN, WILLIAM HENRY
Rank and organization: Boatswain’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 2 June 1884, Rye, New York. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 18, 19 March 1909. Citation: For bravery and extraordinary heroism displayed by him during a conflagration in Coquimbo, Chile, 20 January 1909.

WHEELER, GEORGE HUBER
Rank and organization: Shipfitter First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 26 September 1881, Charleston, S.C. Accredited to: South Carolina. G.O. No.: 18, 19 March 1909. Citation: For bravery and extraordinary heroism displayed by him during a conflagration in Coquimbo, Chile, 20 January 1909.

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21 January

1642 – Director of the New Netherlands colony, Willem Kieft, calls for a meeting of the Twelve (family representatives) to organize a military response to the increasing raids of the Hudson River Valley Tribe. This tribe is reacting to pressure from the growing Iroqois to the north and increasing European settlement in the south.

1785 – Chippewa, Delaware, Ottawa and Wyandot tribes signed a treaty of Fort McIntosh, ceding present-day Ohio to the United States.

1824 – Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, Confederate General, is born. Next to Robert E. Lee himself, Thomas J. Jackson is the most revered of all Confederate commanders. A graduate of West Point (1846), he had served in the artillery in the Mexican War, earning two brevets, before resigning to accept a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute. Thought strange by the cadets, he earned “Tom Fool Jackson” and “Old Blue Light” as nicknames. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was commissioned a colonel in the Virginia forces and dispatched to Harpers Ferry where he was active in organizing the raw recruits until relieved by Joe Johnston. Leaving Harpers Ferry, his brigade moved with Johnston to join Beauregard at Manassas.

In the fight at 1st Bull Run they were so distinguished that both the brigade and its commander were dubbed “Stonewall” by General Barnard Bee. (However, Bee may have been complaining that Jackson was not coming to his support). The 1st Brigade was the only Confederate brigade to have its nickname become its official designation. That fall Jackson was given command of the Valley with a promotion to major general. That winter he launched a dismal campaign into the western part of the state that resulted in a long feud with General William Loring and caused Jackson to submit his resignation, which he was talked out of.

In March he launched an attack on what he thought was a Union rear guard at Kernstown. Faulty intelligence from his cavalry chief, Turner Ashby, led to a defeat. A religious man, Jackson always regretted having fought on a Sunday. But the defeat had the desired result, halting reinforcements being sent to McClellan’s army from the Valley. In May Jackson defeated Fremont’s advance at McDowell and later that month launched a brilliant campaign that kept several Union commanders in the area off balance. He won victories at Front Royal, 1st Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic. He then joined Lee in the defense of Richmond but displayed a lack of vigor during the Seven Days. Detached from Lee, he swung off to the north to face John Pope’s army and after a slipshod battle at Cedar Mountain, slipped behind Pope and captured his Manassas junction supply base. He then hid along an incomplete branch railroad and awaited Lee and Longstreet. Attacked before they arrived, he held on until Longstreet could launch a devastating attack which brought a second Bull Run victory.

In the invasion of Maryland, Jackson was detached to capture Harpers Ferry and was afterwards distinguished at Antietam with Lee. He was promoted after this and given command of the now-official 2nd Corps. It had been known as a wing or command before this. He was disappointed with the victory at Fredericksburg because it could not be followed up. In his greatest day he led his corps around the Union right flank at Chancellorsville and routed the 11th Corps. Reconnoitering that night, he was returning to his own lines when he was mortally wounded by some of his own men. Following the amputation of his arm, he died eight days later on May 10, 1863, from pneumonia. Lee wrote of him with deep feeling: ” He has lost his left arm; but I have lost my right arm.”

A superb commander, he had several faults. Personnel problems haunted him, as in the feuds with Loring and with Garnett after Kernstown. His choices for promotion were often not first rate. He did not give his subordinates enough latitude, which denied them the training for higher positions under Lee’s loose command style. This was especially devastating in the case of his immediate successor, Richard Ewell. Although he was sometimes balky when in a subordinate position, Jackson was supreme on his own hook. Stonewall Jackson is buried in Lexington, Virginia.

1861 – U.S. Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four (five) other Southern senators made emotional farewell speeches. Just weeks after his home state of Mississippi seceded from the Union, Davis prepared to leave Washington, D.C., and the country he had served as a soldier, cabinet member and member of Congress. One more time, Davis enumerated the reasons why the South felt secession was its only recourse: “…when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which…threatens to be destructive to our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence….” Davis then apologized to any senators he may have offended, and finished his address by saying, “…it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu.”

1863 – Two Confederate ships drive away two Union ships as the Rebels recapture Sabine Pass, Texas, and open an important port for the Confederacy. Sabine Pass lay at the mouth of the Sabine River along the gulf coast of Texas. The Confederates constructed a major fort there in 1861. In September 1862, a Union force captured the fort and, shortly after, the port of Galveston to the southwest. The Yankees now controlled much of the Texas coast. In November, General John Bankhead Magruder arrived to change Southern fortunes in the area. Magruder was an early Confederate hero in Virginia, and now he was assigned the difficult task of expelling the Federals from Sabine Pass and Galveston.

Magruder’s efforts paid quick dividends. He recaptured Galveston and then turned his attention to Sabine Pass. The decks of two ships, the Bell and the Uncle Ben, were stacked with cotton bales. Sharpshooters were placed behind the bales and the ships steamed towards two Union ships, the Morning Light and the Velocity. Some of the sharpshooters became seasick and had to be removed, but the expedition continued. The Confederates chased the Yankee ships into open water, and the sharpshooters injured many Union gunners. After a one-hour battle, both Union ships surrendered. Magruder’s victory reopened the Texas coast for Confederate shipping. The Union tried to recapture Sabine Pass later in the year, but the effort was thwarted when less than 50 Confederates inside the fort at Sabine Pass held off a much larger Union force.

1864 – U.S.S. Sciota, Lieutenant Commander George H. Perkins, in company with U.S.S. Granite City, Acting Master Charles W. Lamson, joined several hundred troops in a reconnaisance of the Texas coast. Sciota and Granite City covered the troops at Smith’s Landing, Texas, and the subsequent foray down the Matagorda Peninsula. From the war’s outset this type of close naval support and cooperation with the army had been a potent factor in Union success in all theaters of the conflict.

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1903 – The US and Columbia sign the Hay-Herran Treaty, giving the US a 99 year lease and sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone.

1912 – US troops begin the occupation of Tiensin, China to protect US interests and the US diplomatic legation. They will cooperate with troops from Japan, Germany, England, Russia and others to protect the International Quarter.

1919 – The German Krupp plant began producing guns under the U.S. armistice terms.

1930 – An international arms meeting opened in London. The London Naval Conference, hosted by Britain, sought to establish naval disarmament and review the Washington Treaty of 1922, which limited tonnage of new battleships. After three months of meetings, representatives from Britain, the United States and Japan signed a treaty limiting battleship tonnage based on ratios between the nations. Italy and France declined to sign. A second naval conference in December 1935 did little to promote further disarmament and, by the beginning of World War II, Germany, Japan and the United States had all begun building battleships well over the limit of 35,000 tons stipulated by the original Washington Treaty.

1940 – Britain rejects American protests concerning the examination of mail carried aboard US merchant ships.

1941 – The United States lifted the ban on arms to the Soviet Union.

1942 – In North Africa, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel launches a drive to push the British eastward. While the British benefited from radio-intercept-derived Ultra information, the Germans enjoyed an even speedier intelligence source.

1942 – General Stilwell is nominated as Chief of Staff to Chaing Kai-shek in Taiwan.

1943 – A Nazi daylight air raid kills 34 in a London school. When the anticipated invasion of Britain failed to materialize in 1940, Londoners relaxed, but soon they faced a frightening new threat.

1943 – The Casablanca Directive is issued to the US and British strategic bombing forces in Europe by the Combined Chiefs of Staff. It sets out priorities for the continuing Allied attacks. Most of the reasoning is in line with the precision bombing ideas of the US leadership. As yet the US air forces have too few resources to carry out the full scheme and RAF Bomber Command will continue its area of bombing policy, in line with the vies of its Commander in Chief Sir Arthur Harris.

1943 – The Japanese resistance at Snananada and Giruwa on New Guinea is now almost completely overcome. The US troops and Australians begin mopping up.

1944 – Allied Forces chosen for the Anzio landing set sail from Naples.

1950 – In the conclusion to one of the most spectacular trials in U.S. history, former State Department official Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury. He was convicted of having perjured himself in regards to testimony about his alleged involvement in a Soviet spy ring before and during World War II. Hiss served nearly four years in jail, but steadfastly protested his innocence during and after his incarceration. The case against Hiss began in 1948, when Whittaker Chambers, an admitted ex-communist and an editor with Time magazine, testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and charged that Hiss was a communist in the 1930s and 1940s. Chambers also declared that Hiss, during his work in the Department of State during the 1930s, had passed him top secret reports. Hiss appeared before HUAC and vehemently denied the charges, stating that he did not even know Chambers. Later, after confronting Chambers face to face, Hiss admitted that he knew him, but that Chambers had been using another name at the time.

In short order, Chambers produced the famous “Pumpkin Papers”-copies of the documents he said Hiss passed him during the 1930s. They were dubbed the “Pumpkin Papers” because Chambers kept them hidden in a pumpkin in his pumpkin patch. Charges and countercharges about the spy accusations soon filled the air. Defenders of Hiss, such as Secretary of State Dean Acheson, declared that President Truman’s opponents were making a sacrificial lamb out of Hiss. Truman himself declared that HUAC was using “red herrings” to defame Hiss. Critics fired back that Truman and Acheson were “coddling” communists, and that Hiss was only the tip of the iceberg-they claimed that communists had penetrated the highest levels of the American government. Eventually, Hiss was brought to trial. Because the statute of limitations had run out, he was not tried for treason. Instead, he was charged with two counts of perjury–for lying about passing government documents to Chambers and for denying that he had seen Chambers since 1937.

In 1949, the first trial for perjury ended in a deadlocked jury. The second trial ended in January 1950 with a guilty verdict on both counts. The battle over the Hiss case continued long after the guilty verdict was handed down. Though many believed that Hiss was a much-maligned official who became a victim of the anticommunist hysteria of the late-1940s, others felt strongly that he was a lying communist agent. Hiss himself never deviated from his claim of innocence.

1951 – Communist troops force the UN army out of Inchon, Korea after a 12-hour attack.

1951 – Large numbers of MiG-15s attacked USAF jets, shooting down one F-80 and one F-84. Lt. Col. William E. Bertram of the 27th FEG shot down a MiG-15 to score the first USAF aerial victory by an F-84 Thunder Jet.

1953 – Aircraft from three carriers continue relentless assaults against communist supply buildups near Hungnam and Wonsan. Meanwhile, Air Force F-86 Sabre jets downed seven MiGs and damaged three others in a trio of engagements.

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