This Date in Military History:

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1808 – Anthracite coal was 1st burned as fuel, by Jesse Fell, experimentally, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Jesse Fell was an early political leader in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He was the first to successfully burn anthracite on an open air grate. His method and ‘discovery’ in 1808 led to the widespread use of coal as the fuel source that helped to foster America’s industrial revolution. He lived in the Fell House and Tavern until his death.

1809 – Robert Fulton patented the concept of the steamboat.

1811 – Pres. Madison prohibited trade with Britain for 3rd time in 4 years.

1812 – Alexander Hamilton Stephens (d.1883), Vice Pres (Confederacy), was born near Crawfordville, Georgia. Stephens, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1843 to 1859, was a delegate at the Montgomery meeting that formed a new union of the seceded states. He was elected vice president to Jefferson Davis on February 9, 1861. Stephens was later elected governor of Georgia in 1882 but died after serving just a few months.

1815 – News of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, finally reached the United States.

1854 – Commodore Matthew Perry pulled into Edo Bay, Japan, 12 months early with 9 warships to begin talks for a treaty.

1856 – President Franklin Pierce warns “border ruffians’ and the Free State men in Kansas to stop fighting. In May 1854 the Missouri Compromise, which ad stated that slavery would not extend above the 36’30” line was repealed in favor of Stephen Douglas’ Kansas-Nebraska. Compromise which held that popular sovereignty in each territory would decide the slavery issue. Pro-slavery Missourians flooded into Kansas nd eventually there were two governments in Kansas Territory, each outlawing the other.

1861 – The US House unanimously passed a resolution guaranteeing noninterference with slavery in any state.

1862 – Secretary of the Navy directs formation of organization to evaluate new inventions and technical development which eventually led to National Academy of Science.

1865 – U.S.S. Keystone State, Aries, Montgomery, Howquah, Emma, and Vicksburg engaged Half Moon Battery, situated on the coastal flank of the Confederate defense line which crossed the Cape Fear Peninsula six miles above Fort Fisher. This bombardment contained General Hoke’s division while General Schofield’s troops moved up the beach and behind their rear. Deteriorating weather, however, prevented the landing of the pontoons, and Schofield withdrew his troops to the Fort Fisher lines. Porter’s gunboats also engaged the west bank batteries.

1887 – President Grover Cleveland vetoes the Dependent Pension Bill. The bill had passed Congress in January and would have provided a pension to all honorably discharged veterans who had served a minimum of 90 days in the Army if they are manual laborers and unable to earn a living. Later, when the country experiences a deepening of the economic recession, the bill will pass as a rider.

1890 – President Benjamin Harrison orders 11 million acres of Sioux Reservation territory open for settlement. This will eventually lead to a revitalization movement known as the “Ghost Dance” that sprang up among the Sioux Indians of the western plains. These rituals held that an Indian Spirit soon would destroy the whites and return stolen lands. Federal troops will confront a band of Sioux-a non-violent group who had left the reservation fearful of being caught up in the Indian awakening-at Wounded Knee in the Dakota badlands. In this last battle waged on December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army massacred 150 Sioux men, women, and children; only 25 soldiers were killed. With the battle of Wounded Knee and the final distribution of Indian lands, the frontier era of American history had finally passed.

1904 – President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed strict neutrality for the U.S. in the Russo-Japanese War.

1904 – Marines landed at Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

1920 – Daniel “Chappie” James was born on this date in 1920. He was an African American pilot and military commander. From Pensacola, Florida, he learned to fly while attending the Tuskegee Institute and after graduation in 1942 continued civilian flight training until he received appointment as a Cadet in the Army Air Corps in January 1943. He was commissioned in July 1943 and throughout the remainder of World War II he trained pilots for the all-Black 99th Pursuit Squadron while working in other assignments. James was next stationed in Ohio and in the Philippines. During the Korean War he flew 101 fighter missions. From 1953 to 1956 he was at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and there was promoted to the rank of Major. After graduating from the Air Command-Staff School in 1957, he was assigned to staff duty in Washington.

From 1960 to 1967, he was stationed in England, Arizona and in Vietnam where from 1966-67 he flew 78 combat missions. By then a Colonel, James was Vice Commander of the 33rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Elgin Air Force Base, Florida, in 1967-69. From there he was promoted to Brigadier General, was named base commander of Wheelus Air Force Base in Libya. In March 1970 be became Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and advanced to Major General. In September 1974, with the rank of Lieutenant General, he became Vice Commander of the Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

In 1975, James became the first Black officer in the history of the United States military to attain 4-star full General rank. At that time he was named Commander of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD), with accountability for all aspects of the air defense of the United States and Canada. He was also much-sought after as a public speaker and devoted considerable time to addressing youth groups, particularly minority students. Daniel James died shortly after his retirement from the Air Force of a heart attack in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

1922 – US “intervention army” left Honduras.

1922 – BG John H. Russell was appointed U.S. High Commissioner and personal representative of the President to the government of Haiti. This nine-year assignment placed this future Commandant in supreme command of both the occupying American force and the Haitian Gendarmerie.

1939 – A Lockheed P-38 Lightning flies from California to New York in 7 hours 2 minutes.

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1942 – German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst, as well as the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, escape from the French port of Brest and make a mad dash up the English Channel to safety in German waters. The Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had been anchored at Brest since March 1941. The Prinz Eugen had been tied to the French port since the Bismarck sortie in May 1941, when it and the battleship Bismarck made their own mad dash through the Atlantic and the Denmark Strait to elude Royal Navy gunfire. All three were subject to periodic bombing raids–and damage–by the British, as the Brits attempted to ensure that the German warships never left the French coast. But despite the careful watch of British subs and aircraft, German Vice Admiral Otto Ciliax launched Operation Cerberus to lead the ships out of the French port.

The Germans, who had controlled and occupied France since June 1940, drew British fire deliberately, and the Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, and Prinz Eugen used the resulting skirmish as a defensive smoke screen. Six German destroyers and 21 torpedo boats accompanied the ships for protection as they moved north late on the night of February 11. In the morning, German planes provided air cover as well; ace pilot Adolf Galland led 250 other fighters in an unusually well coordinated joint effort of the German navy and Luftwaffe.

The British Royal Air Force also coordinated its attack with the Royal Navy Swordfish squadron, but a late start–the RAF did not realize until the afternoon of February 12 that the German squadron had pushed out to sea–and bad weather hindered their effort. All three German warships made it to a German port on February 13, although the Gneisenau and Scharnhorst had been damaged by British mines along the way. The British lost 40 aircraft and six Navy Swordfish in the confrontation, while the Germans lost a torpedo boat and 17 aircraft.

The “Channel Dash,” as it came to be called, was extremely embarrassing to the British, as it happened right under their noses. They would get revenge of a sort, though: British warships sunk the Scharnhorst in December 1944 as the German ship attempted to attack a Russian convoy. The Gneisenau was destroyed in a bombing raid while still in port undergoing repairs, and the Prinz Eugen survived the war, but was taken over by the U.S. Navy at war’s end.

1943 – General Eisenhower was selected to command the allied armies in Europe.

1944 – At the Anzio beachhead, German forces capture “The Factory” from the British 1st Division. Meanwhile forces of the US 5th Army continue to engage German defenders around Cassino. The US 34th Division makes an unsuccessful attempt to approach the Cassino monastery from the north.

1945 – A week of intensive bargaining by the leaders of the three major Allied powers ends in Yalta, a Soviet resort town on the Black Sea. It was the second conference of the “Big Three” Allied leaders–U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin–and the war had progressed mightily since their last meeting, which had taken place in Tehran in late 1943. What was then called the Crimea conference was held at the old summer palace of Czar Nicholas II on the outskirts of Yalta, now a city in the independent Ukraine. With victory over Germany three months away, Churchill and Stalin were more intent on dividing Europe into zones of political influence than in addressing military considerations. Germany would be divided into four zones of occupation administered by the three major powers and France and was to be thoroughly demilitarized and its war criminals brought to trial.

The Soviets were to administer those European countries they liberated but promised to hold free elections. The British and Americans would oversee the transition to democracy in countries such as Italy, Austria, and Greece. Final plans were made for the establishment of the United Nations, and a charter conference was scheduled to begin in San Francisco in April. A frail President Roosevelt, two months from his death, concentrated his efforts on gaining Soviet support for the U.S. war effort against Japan. The secret U.S. atomic bomb project had not yet tested a weapon, and it was estimated that an amphibious attack against Japan could cost hundreds of thousands of American lives. After being assured of an occupation zone in Korea, and possession of Sakhalin Island and other territories historically disputed between Russia and Japan, Stalin agreed to enter the Pacific War within two to three months of Germany’s surrender.

1945 – Elements of the US 8th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) capture the important road junction at Prum.

1951 – U.N. forces pushed north across the 38th parallel once again. Forty-five years after shipping out to fight in Korea, Col. Harry Summers, Jr., got new insight into what the war had been all about.

1951 – General MacArthur informed the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “It is evident that the enemy has lost his chance for achieving a decisive military decision in Korea.” This statement came on the eve of the Chinese fourth phase offensive.

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1951 – The Chinese fourth-phase offensive was launched against X Corps in central Korea along the Hoengsong-Wonju axis. The U.S. 2nd and 7th Infantry Divisions and the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team suffered 2,018 casualties during the Battle of Hoengsong. The largest single loss of U.S. soldiers happened when 530 men of the 15th and 503rd Field Artillery Battalions were completely overrun.

1952 – Captain Margaret G. Blake, the first Army nurse in Korea to earn the Bronze Star Medal, and one of the very few in any service to return voluntarily to Korea, finished her second tour of duty.

1953 – President Eisenhower refused a clemency appeal for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

1962 – Nine U.S. and South Vietnamese crewmen are killed in a SC-47 crash about 70 miles north of Saigon. The aircraft was part of Operation Farm Gate, a mission that had initially been designed to provide advisory support in assisting the South Vietnamese Air Force to increase its capability. In December, President John F. Kennedy expanded the Farm Gate mission to include limited combat missions by the U.S. Air Force pilots in support of South Vietnamese ground forces–the downed aircraft was part of this expanded effort. By late 1962, communist activity and combat intensity had increased so much that President Kennedy ordered a further expansion of Farm Gate.

In early 1963, additional aircraft arrived and new detachments were established at Pleiku and Soc Trang. Farm Gate was upgraded in early 1964 and then again in October 1965 when Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the replacement of South Vietnamese markings on Farm Gate aircraft with regular U.S. Air Force markings. By this point in the war, the Farm Gate squadrons were flying 80 percent of all missions in support of the South Vietnamese army. With the build up of U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam and the increase in an U.S. Air Force presence there, the role of the Farm Gate program gradually decreased in significance. The Farm Gate squadrons were moved to Thailand in 1967, and from there they launched missions against the North Vietnamese in Laos.

1964 – Cambodian Prince Sihanouk blamed the U.S. for a South Vietnamese air raid on a village in his country.

1965 – Pres. Lyndon Johnson ordered air strikes against targets in North Vietnam, in retaliation for guerrilla attacks on the American military in South Vietnam. The American “Rolling Thunder” bombing campaign intensified.

1971 – Eighty-seven countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union, sign the Seabed Arms Control Treaty outlawing nuclear weapons on the ocean floor in international waters.

1973 – Due to “Vietnamization” the post of Senior Coast Guard Officer, Vietnam was discontinued.

1973 – First release of American prisoners of war from Vietnam takes place.

1974 – Communist-led rebels showered artillery fire into a crowded area of Phnom Penh, killing 139 and injuring 46 others. As the war in Vietnam wound down with the signing of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, the war in neighboring Cambodia was going from bad to worse.

1979 – Followers of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran, nine days after the religious leader returned to his home country following 15 years of exile. Premier Bakhtiar resigned.

1991 – President Bush met with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin L. Powell, who had just returned from the Gulf region. Afterward, Bush said he would hold off on a ground war against Iraq for the time being, saying allied air strikes had been “very, very effective.”

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1994 – The space shuttle “Discovery” returned from an eight-day mission.

1995 – The space shuttle Discovery landed at Cape Canaveral, Fla., ending a historic rendezvous mission with Russia’s Mir space station.

1997 – Space shuttle Discovery was launched on a mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope.

1999 – US jets struck 7 Iraqi air defense sites.

2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour lifted into orbit with a crew of six under commander Kevin Kregel and a mission to map the Earth.

2000 – An early morning bomb exploded in NYC on the corner of Wall and Water streets in front of an office building owned by Barclay’s Bank. One person was slightly injured.

2001 – Two space commanders opened the door to Destiny, the American-made science laboratory attached the day before to the international space station.

2002 – The FBI issued a warning for a possible terrorist assault and identified Fawaz Yahya al-Rabeei, a Yemeni national, as a possible attacker.

2002 – In Afghanistan opium vendors shut down in Kandahar under US military orders.

2002 – In Jordan Raed Hijazi (33) was convicted and sentenced to be hung for plotting to blow up tourist sites during millennium celebrations.

2003 – Addressing a historic rift within NATO, Secretary of State Colin Powell told a congressional hearing the future of the military alliance was at risk if it failed to confront the crisis with Iraq.

2003 – The purported voice of Osama bin Laden, broadcast over the Al Jazeera network, told his followers to help Saddam Hussein fight Americans.

2004 – Philippine troops rescued Alastair Joseph Onglingswan (35), a kidnapped American businessman, who was chained by his neck and feet for 22 days by a lone abductor.

2005 – CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan quit amid a furor over remarks he’d made about journalists being targeted by the U.S. military in Iraq.

2008 – The United States files charges against six alleged al-Qaeda operatives including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks, seeking the death penalty for war crimes and murder.

2009 – Miami-based LEDET (Law Enforcement Detachment) 405, operating as part of Combined Task Force (CTF) 151 and conducting counter-piracy operations aboard USS Vella Gulf (CG-72) and USS Mahan (DDG-72) in the Gulf of Aden, assisted in the apprehension of 16 suspected pirates in a 24-hour period.

2010 – The European Parliament rejects an agreement that would have granted the United States Terrorist Finance Tracking Program unlimited access to the SWIFT bank transactions database.

2010 – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces that Iran is now a nuclear state, following a successful 20% uranium enrichment.

2014 – The Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyer USS Donald Cook of the U.S. Navy arrives at a Spanish base in Rota to begin deployment with the U.S. 6th Fleet.

2015 – The United States, United Kingdom, and France close their Yemeni embassies and evacuate their staff due to terrorist activities and continued unrest.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

TOBAN, JAMES W.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company C, 9th Michigan Cavalry. Place and date: At Aiken, S.C., 11 February 1865. Entered service at: Northfield, Mich. Born: 1844, Northfield, Mich. Date of issue: 9 July 1896. Citation: Voluntarily and at great personal risk returned, in the face of the advance of the enemy, and rescued from impending death or capture, Maj. William C. Stevens, 9th Michigan Cavalry, who had been thrown from his horse.

ATKINS, DANIEL
Rank and organization: Ship’s Cook, First Class, U.S. Navy. Born: 1867, Brunswick, Va. Accredited to: Virginia. G.O. No.: 489, 20 May 1898. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Cushing, 11 February 1898. Showing gallant conduct, Atkins attempted to save the life of the late Ens. Joseph C. Breckenridge, U.S. Navy, who fell overboard at sea from that vessel on this date.

EVERETTS, JOHN
Rank and organization: Gunner’s Mate, Third Class, U.S. Born: 25 August 1873, Therold, Canada. Accredited to: New G.O. No.: 489, 20 May 1898. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Cushing, 11 February 1898, Everetts displayed gallant conduct in attempting to save the life of the late Ens. Joseph C. Breckinridge, U.S. Navy, who fell overboard at sea from that vessel.

SMITH, ALBERT JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Marine Corps. Place and date: Marine Barracks, Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Fla., 11 February 1921. Entered service at: Michigan. Born: 31 July 1898, Calumet, Mich. G.O. No.: 72, 29 September 1921. Citation: At about 7:30 a.m. on the morning of 11 February 1921, Pvt. Smith, while on duty as a sentry, rescued Plen M. Phelps, late machinist’s mate second class, U.S. Navy, from a burning seaplane which had fallen near his post, gate No. 1, Marine Barracks, Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Fla. Despite the explosion of the gravity gasoline tank, with total disregard of personal safety, he pushed himself to a position where he could reach Phelps, who was pinned beneath the burning wreckage, and rescued him from the burning plane, in the performance of which he sustained painful burns about the head, neck and both hands.

DAHLGREN, EDWARD C.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant (then Sergeant), U.S. Army, Company E, 142d Infantry, 36th Infantry Division. Place and date: Oberhoffen, France, 11 February 1945. Entered service at: Portland, Maine. Birth: Perham, Maine. G.O. No.: 77, 10 September 1945. Citation: He led the 3d Platoon to the rescue of a similar unit which had been surrounded in an enemy counterattack at Oberhoffen, France. As he advanced along a street, he observed several Germans crossing a field about 100 yards away. Running into a barn, he took up a position in a window and swept the hostile troops with submachine gun fire, killing 6, wounding others, and completely disorganizing the group. His platoon then moved forward through intermittent sniper fire and made contact with the besieged Americans. When the 2 platoons had been reorganized, Sgt. Dahlgren continued to advance along the street until he drew fire from an enemy-held house.

In the face of machine pistol and rifle fire, he ran toward the building, hurled a grenade through the door, and blasted his way inside with his gun. This aggressive attack so rattled the Germans that all 8 men who held the strongpoint immediately surrendered. As Sgt. Dahlgren started toward the next house, hostile machinegun fire drove him to cover. He secured rifle grenades, stepped to an exposed position, and calmly launched his missiles from a difficult angle until he had destroyed the machinegun and killed its 2 operators. He moved to the rear of the house and suddenly came under the fire of a machinegun emplaced in a barn. Throwing a grenade into the structure, he rushed the position, firing his weapon as he ran; within, he overwhelmed 5 Germans. After reorganizing his unit he advanced to clear hostile riflemen from the building where he had destroyed the machinegun. He entered the house by a window and trapped the Germans in the cellar, where he tossed grenades into their midst, wounding several and forcing 10 more to surrender.

While reconnoitering another street with a comrade, he heard German voices in a house. An attack with rifle grenades drove the hostile troops to the cellar. Sgt. Dahlgren entered the building, kicked open the cellar door, and, firing several bursts down the stairway, called for the trapped enemy to surrender. Sixteen soldiers filed out with their hands in the air. The bold leadership and magnificent courage displayed by Sgt. Dahlgren in his heroic attacks were in a large measure responsible for repulsing an enemy counterattack and saving an American platoon from great danger.

*BENNETT, THOMAS W.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Army, 2d Platoon, Company B, 1st Battalion, 14th Infantry. Place and date: Chu Pa Region, Pleiku Province, Republic of Vietnam, 9-11 February 1969. Entered service at: Fairmont, W. Va. Born: 7 April 1947, Morgantown, W. Va. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Cpl. Bennett distinguished himself while serving as a platoon medical aidman with the 2d Platoon, Company B, during a reconnaissance-in-force mission. On 9 February the platoon was moving to assist the 1st Platoon of Company D which had run into a North Vietnamese ambush when it became heavily engaged by the intense small arms, automatic weapons, mortar and rocket fire from a well fortified and numerically superior enemy unit.

In the initial barrage of fire, 3 of the point members of the platoon fell wounded. Cpl. Bennett, with complete disregard for his safety, ran through the heavy fire to his fallen comrades, administered life-saving first aid under fire and then made repeated trips carrying the wounded men to positions of relative safety from which they would be medically evacuated from the battle position. Cpl. Bennett repeatedly braved the intense enemy fire moving across open areas to give aid and comfort to his wounded comrades. He valiantly exposed himself to the heavy fire in order to retrieve the bodies of several fallen personnel. Throughout the night and following day, Cpl. Bennett moved from position to position treating and comforting the several personnel who had suffered shrapnel and gunshot wounds.

On 11 February, Company B again moved in an assault on the well fortified enemy positions and became heavily engaged with the numerically superior enemy force. Five members of the company fell wounded in the initial assault. Cpl. Bennett ran to their aid without regard to the heavy fire. He treated 1 wounded comrade and began running toward another seriously wounded man. Although the wounded man was located forward of the company position covered by heavy enemy grazing fire and Cpl. Bennett was warned that it was impossible to reach the position, he leaped forward with complete disregard for his safety to save his comrade’s life. In attempting to save his fellow soldier, he was mortally wounded. Cpl. Bennett’s undaunted concern for his comrades at the cost 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, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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12 February

1663 – Cotton Mather (d.1728), American clergyman and witchcraft specialist, was born.

1733 – English colonists led by James Oglethorpe founded Savannah, Ga. Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe sailed up the Savannah River with 144 English men, women and children and in the name of King George II chartered the Georgia Crown Colony. He created the town of Savannah, to establish an ideal colony where silk and wine would be produced, based on a grid of streets around six large squares.

1793 – Congress passes the first fugitive slave law, requiring all states, including those that forbid slavery, to forcibly return slaves who have escaped from other states to their original owners. The laws stated that “no person held to service of labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such labor or service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” As Northern states abolished slavery, most relaxed enforcement of the 1793 law, and many passed laws ensuring fugitive slaves a jury trial. Several Northern states even enacted measures prohibiting state officials from aiding in the capture of runaway slaves or from jailing the fugitives.

This disregard of the first fugitive slave law enraged Southern states and led to the passage of a second fugitive slave law as part of the Compromise of 1850 between the North and South. The second fugitive slave law called for the return of slaves “on pain of heavy penalty” but permitted a jury trial under the condition that fugitives be prohibited from testifying in their own defense. Notable fugitive slave trials, such as the Dred Scott case of 1857, stirred up public opinion on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Meanwhile, fugitive slaves circumvented the law through the “Underground Railroad,” which was a network of persons, primarily free African Americans, who helped fugitives escape to freedom in the Northern states or Canada.

1802 – Revenue Marine (Revenue Cutter Service) has 38 commissioned officers in service, 9 captains, 10 first mates, 9 second mates and 10 third mates.

1806 – The Senate, acting on President Madison’s reports on British naval hostilities, issues a resolution condemning British actions as “unprovoked aggression” and “a violation of neutral rights.” The resolution has no effect on British policies.

1809 – Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US, was born in Hardin County (present-day Larue County), Kentucky. Lincoln was president of the United States during one of the most turbulent times in American history. Although roundly criticized during his own time, he is recognized as one of history’s greatest figures who preserved the Union during the Civil War and proved that democracy could be a lasting form of government. Lincoln entered national politics as a Whig congressman from Illinois, but he lost his seat after one term due to his unpopular position on the Mexican War and the extension of slavery into the territories. The 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Senate gave him a national reputation. In 1860, Lincoln became the first president elected from the new Republican Party. Abraham Lincoln was fatally shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865. In 1996 a new biography of Abraham Lincoln by David Donald was published.

1825 – William McIntosh, Chief of the Creek nation, signs the Treaty of Indian Springs ceding all Creek lands in Georgia to the United States and agreeing to vacate by 1 September 1826. A Creek mob, denouncing McIntosh as a traitor, kills him.

1828 – Confederate General Robert Ransom, Jr., is born in Warren County, North Carolina. Ransom attended West Point, graduating 18th out of 44 in 1850. For the next decade, he served on the frontier and as an instructor at his alma mater. Ransom was in Kansas during the violent clashes between pro- and anti-slave forces after the creation of the territory in 1854. He was a captain when North Carolina seceded in April 1861, receiving the same rank in the Confederate cavalry. Within a year, Ransom was a brigadier general serving in North Carolina, where he saw action against Union coastal raiders near Goldsboro. He was transferred to Virginia to defend Richmond, and his unit fought during the Seven Days battles in June and July 1862. Ransom commanded a brigade at Antietam in September, and a division at Fredericksburg in December. He returned to command troops in North Carolina in early 1863 and earned a promotion to major general. He next commanded the District of Southeast Virginia, where his troops guarded the railroads serving the capital at Richmond.

Ransom went to Tennessee in the fall of 1863 with General James Longstreet during the attempt to save Tennessee from the Yankees. He fought at Chickamauga and the Knoxville campaign with Longstreet before returning to command the Richmond defenses in 1864. He commanded a force that faced Union General Benjamin Butler southeast of the city, and his leadership helped bottle Butler’s force inside of a bend in the James River called the Bermuda Hundred. That summer, Ransom served with General Jubal Early during the Shenandoah Valley campaign. He ended the war commanding troops at Charleston, South Carolina. Ransom worked as a civil engineer and a farmer in his home state after the war, and he died at New Bern, North Carolina, in 1892.

1836 – Mexican General Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande en route to the Alamo.

1839 – Aroostook War took place over a boundary dispute between Maine and New Brunswick.

1846 – Mexican President, General Mariano Paredes, refuses to receive John Slidell of Louisiana who has been sent as an envoy by the United States.

1861 – State troops seized US munitions in Napoleon, Arkansas.

1863 – U.S.S. Queen of the West, Colonel C. R. Ellet, steamed up Red River and ascended Atchafalaya River where a landing party destroyed twelve Confederate Army wagons. That night, Queen of the West was fired on near Simmesport, Louisiana, Next day, Ellet returned to the scene of the attack and destroyed all the buildings on three adjoining plantations in reprisal. The vessel had previously run below Vicksburg to disrupt Confederate trade in the Red River area.

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1877 – The 1st news dispatch by telephone was made between Boston and Salem, Mass.

1880 – President Hayes issues a warning against illegal settlers in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The territory will be opened to settlement in 1889.

1893 – Omar Nelson Bradley, U.S. army general during World War II and the nation’s last 5-star general, is born. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1915, where he later taught mathematics. After years of administrative posts, Bradley was a brigadier general when the United States entered World War II. He commanded forces in North Africa and Sicily, then moved to command the American involvement in the D-Day invasion of 1944, ultimately liberating Paris, France from the German occupied forces. Quiet, polite and popular with enlisted men, Bradley has often been contrasted with his more blustery colleague, General George S. Patton, Jr. After the war, Bradley served in the Veterans’ Administration and as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retiring in 1953.

1914 – In Washington, D.C., the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial is put into place.

1915 – The cornerstone for the Lincoln Memorial was laid in Washington, D.C.

1918 – WW I Marines landed at Scapa Flow, Great Britain.

1924 – President Calvin Coolidge made the 1st presidential radio speech.

1935 – The USS Macon, the last U.S. Navy dirigible, crashed on its 55th flight off the coast of California, killing two people. After takeoff from Point Sur, California, a gust of wind tore off the ship’s upper fin, deflating its gas cells and causing the ship to fall into the sea. Two of Macon ‘s 83 crewmen died in the accident. The U.S. Navy lost the airships Shenandoah in 1925 and Akron in 1933. Some considered airships too dangerous for the program to continue at that point, and work on them in the United States halted temporarily. The German zeppelin Hindenburg crashed and burned in 1936.

1938 – German troops entered Austria.

1938 – Japan refused to reveal naval data requested by the U.S. and Britain.

1942 – The Anzac Squadron is formed at Suva in Fiji. It includes the cruiser Australia, USS Chicago, Achilles and Leander as well as two American destroyers.

1944 – On New Britain, US marines capture Gorissi, 25 miles east of Cape Gloucester. Meanwhile, Allied forces land on Rooke Island.

1944 – Forces of the US 5th Army are redeployed. The New Zealand Corps replaces the US 2nd Corps opposite Cassino. At Anzio, there is a lull in the battle. The British 1st Division is withdrawn from the line because of heavy losses. American General Lucas, commanding Allied forces on the beachhead, organizes an inner defensive perimeter.

1945 – The US 11th Corps has closed the neck of the Bataan Peninsula and is advancing southward to clear the Japanese forces from it.

1945 – USS Batfish (SS-310) sinks second Japanese submarine within three days.

1947 – First launching of guided missile (Loon) from a submarine, USS Cusk.

1948 – 1st Lt. Nancy Lieutenant became the 1st black in the army nursing corps.

1950 – Senator Joe McCarthy claimed to have yet another list of 205 communist government employees.

1950 – Albert Einstein warned against the hydrogen bomb.

1951 – I Corps forces regrouped south of the Han River while the ROK Capital Division took Yangyang.

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1953 – The Willys-Overland Company, which brought America the Jeep, celebrated its golden anniversary. The original design for an all-terrain troop transport vehicle–featuring four-wheel drive, masked fender-mount headlights, and a rifle rack under the dash–was submitted to the U.S. Armed Forces by the American Bantam Car Company in 1939. The Army loved Bantam’s design, but the production contract was ultimately given to Willys-Overland on the basis of its similar design and superior production capabilities. Mass production of the Willys Jeep began after the U.S. declaration of war in 1941.

By 1945, 600,000 Jeeps had rolled off the assembly lines and onto battlefields in Asia, Africa, and Europe. The name “Jeep” is supposedly derived from the Army’s request to car manufacturers to develop a “General Purpose” vehicle. “Gee Pee” turned to “Jeep” somewhere along the battle lines. The Willys Jeep became a cultural icon in the U.S. during World War II, as images of G.I.s in Gee Pees liberating Europe saturated the newsreels in movie theaters across the country. Unlike the Hummer of recent years, the Jeep was not a symbol of technological superiority but rather of the courage of the American spirit, a symbol cartoonist Bill Mauldin captured when he drew a weeping soldier firing a bullet into his broken down Willys Jeep. In 1945, Willys-Overland introduced the first civilian Jeep vehicle, the CJ-2A.

1955 – President Eisenhower sent 1st US “advisors” to South Vietnam to aid the government under Ngo Dinh Diem.

1963 – Construction begins on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

1966 – The South Vietnamese won two big battles in the Mekong Delta.

1972 – Senator Kennedy advocated amnesty for Vietnam draft resisters.

1972 – About 6,000 Cambodian troops launch a major operation to wrestle the religious center of Angkor Wat from 4,000 North Vietnamese troops entrenched around the famous Buddhist temple complex, which had been seized in June 1970. Fighting continued throughout the month. Even with the addition of 4,000 more troops, the Cambodians were unsuccessful, and eventually abandoned their efforts to expel the North Vietnamese.

1973 – The release of U.S. POWs begins in Hanoi as part of the Paris peace settlement. The return of U.S. POWs began when North Vietnam released 142 of 591 U.S. prisoners at Hanoi’s Gia Lam Airport. Part of what was called Operation Homecoming, the first 20 POWs arrived to a hero’s welcome at Travis Air Force Base in California on February 14. Operation Homecoming was completed on March 29, 1973, when the last of 591 U.S. prisoners were released and returned to the United States.

1988 – Two Soviet warships bump two U.S. navy vessels in waters claimed by the Soviet Union. The incident was an indication that even though the Cold War was slowly coming to a close, old tensions and animosities remained unabated. The incident between the ships took place in the Black Sea, off the Crimean peninsula. The American destroyer Caron and cruiser Yorktown were operating within the 12-mile territorial limit claimed by the Soviet Union. They were challenged by a Soviet frigate and destroyer and told to leave the waters. Then, according to a Navy spokesman, the Soviet ships “shouldered” the U.S. ships out of the way, bumping them slightly. There was no exchange of gunfire, and the American ships eventually departed from the area. There was no serious damage to either U.S. vessel or any injuries. In many ways, the incident was an unnecessarily provocative action by the United States. For many years, the United States had challenged the Russian claim of a 12-mile territorial limit in the waters off the Crimean peninsula.

However, the timing and the use of the Caron in this particular operation made this a rather foolish act. The United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in negotiations to limit long-range nuclear weapons, and in December 1987, the important INF Treaty, by which both the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate their medium-range nuclear missiles in Europe, had been signed. The Caron was well known as an intelligence gathering vessel and its appearance in waters claimed by the Soviets would be seen as suspicious at best. For their part, the Soviets probably overreacted. American ships regularly moved through the area and were usually unchallenged. Perhaps the Soviet military felt a message should be sent that Russia, which was experiencing severe economic and political problems, was still a nation to be taken seriously as a major military power.

1989 – The special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case and the Justice Department reached an agreement on protecting classified materials aimed at allowing the trial of Oliver North to proceed.

1990 – President Bush rejected Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s new initiative for troop reductions in Europe, but predicted a “major success” on arms control at the superpower summit in June.

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1997 – The Clinton administration gave permission to 10 U.S. news organizations to open bureaus in Cuba.

1997 – In Maine Philip Berrigan was arrested at an anti-nuclear protest. He was one of 6 activists later convicted for vandalizing a Navy guided missile destroyer at the Bath Iron Works.

1997 – The Discovery space shuttle lifted off and work was planned on the Hubble Space Telescope.

1997 – A U.S. admiral headquartered in Bahrain reports that tankers are smuggling tens of thousands of tons of fuel oil out of Iraq in violation of United Nations’ sanctions by reportedly skirting the shoals of Iran’s coast, apparently with Iranian approval.

1998 – NASA planned a rocket launch from Tortuguero base in Puerto Rico. 10 more rockets were planned for launch over the next 30 days.

1999 – President Clinton was acquitted by the Senate 55-45 on a perjury charge and 50-50 on an obstruction of justice charge. He once again apologized for burdening the nation with his conduct. Clinton told Americans he was “profoundly sorry” for what he had said and done in the Monica Lewinsky affair that triggered the impeachment drama.

2001 – NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid. The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker (NEAR Shoemaker), renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory for NASA to study the near-Earth asteroid Eros from close orbit over a period of a year. The mission succeeded in closing in with the asteroid and orbited it several times, finally terminating by touching down on the asteroid.

2002 – In Pakistan police arrested Ahmed Saeed Sheikh, the prime suspect in the kidnapping of WSJ reported Daniel Pearl. Pakistan charged 3 men in connection with the kidnapping. They and a fourth man were later convicted of Pearl’s murder.

2002 – Former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic went on trial in The Hague, accused of war crimes.

2003 – The UN nuclear agency declared North Korea in violation of international treaties, sending the dispute to the Security Council.

2003 – UN weapons inspectors in Iraq destroy a declared stockpile of mustard gas and artillery shells at a former weapons site.

2008 – The U.S. Senate votes to grant immunity to telecommunications companies for their role in NSA call database.

2010 – The United States successfully shoots down a launching ballistic missile using the Boeing YAL-1, a military Boeing 747-400F aircraft mounted with a chemical oxygen iodine laser weapon. The Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed (formerly Airborne Laser) weapons system is a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) mounted inside a modified Boeing 747-400F. It is primarily designed as a missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs), while in boost phase. The aircraft was designated YAL-1A in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Defense.

2013 – Following a seismic event recorded in South Korea, North Korea confirms that it has successfully tested a nuclear device, claiming that it is small enough to be weaponized.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*DELEAU, EMILE, JR.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company A, 142d Infantry, 36th Infantry Division. Place and date: Oberhoffen, France, 12 February 1945. Entered service at: Blaine, Ohio. Birth: Lansing, Ohio. G.O. No.: 60, 25 July 1945. Citation: He led a squad in the night attack on Oberhoffen, France, where fierce house-to-house fighting took place. After clearing 1 building of opposition, he moved his men toward a second house from which heavy machinegun fire came. He courageously exposed himself to hostile bullets and, firing his submachine gun as he went, advanced steadily toward the enemy position until close enough to hurl grenades through a window, killing 3 Germans and wrecking their gun. His progress was stopped by heavy rifle and machinegun fire from another house. Sgt. Deleau dashed through the door with his gun blazing. Within, he captured 10 Germans. The squad then took up a position for the night and awaited daylight to resume the attack.

At dawn of 2 February Sgt. Deleau pressed forward with his unit, killing 2 snipers as he advanced to a point where machinegun fire from a house barred the way. Despite vicious small-arms fire, Sgt. Deleau ran across an open area to reach the rear of the building, where he destroyed 1 machinegun and killed its 2 operators with a grenade. He worked to the front of the structure and located a second machinegun. Finding it impossible to toss a grenade into the house from his protected position, he fearlessly moved away from the building and was about to hurl his explosive when he was instantly killed by a burst from the gun he sought to knock out. With magnificent courage and daring aggressiveness, Sgt. Deleau cleared 4 well-defended houses of Germans, inflicted severe losses on the enemy and at the sacrifice of his own life aided his battalion to reach its objective with a minimum of casualties.

*LONG, CHARLES R.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Company M, 38th Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Hoengsong, Korea, 12 February 1951. Entered service at: Kansas City, Mo. Born: 10 December 1923, Kansas City, Mo. G.O. No.: 18, 1 February 1952. Citation: Sgt. Long, a member of Company M, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against an armed enemy of the United Nations. When Company M, in a defensive perimeter on Hill 300, was viciously attacked by a numerically superior hostile force at approximately 0300 hours and ordered to withdraw, Sgt. Long, a forward observer for the mortar platoon, voluntarily remained at his post to provide cover by directing mortar fire on the enemy. Maintaining radio contact with his platoon, Sgt. Long coolly directed accurate mortar fire on the advancing foe. He continued firing his carbine and throwing hand grenades until his position was surrounded and he was mortally wounded. Sgt. Long’s inspirational, valorous action halted the onslaught, exacted a heavy toll of enemy casualties, and enabled his company to withdraw, reorganize, counterattack, and regain the hill strongpoint. His unflinching courage and noble self-sacrifice reflect the highest credit on himself and are in keeping with the honored traditions of the military service.

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13 February

1566 – St. Augustine, Florida, was established.

1635 – The oldest public school in the United States, the Boston Public Latin School, was founded.

1741 – Andrew Bradford of Pennsylvania published the first American magazine. Titled “The American Magazine, or A Monthly View of the Political State of the British Colonies.” Bradford introduced his American Magazine just days before Benjamin Franklin founded his periodical called General Magazine in Philadelphia. Bradford’s survived 3 months while Franklin’s survived for 6 months.

1766 – Pennsylvania agent Benjamin Franklin testifies before Parliament against the Stamp Act. He cites the heavy cost borne by the colonies during the French and Indian War with minimum compensation from England and continuing colonial expenditures on military expeditions against the Natives. Franklin also notes that the colonial assemblies lack sufficient specie to pay for the use of the stamps required in expediting the business of the government. In addition Franklin offers a distinction between internal and external taxation, warns that the use of military power to enforce the Stamp Act might lead to open revolt, and concludes by advocating the repeal of the Stamp Act.

1795 – The University of North Carolina became the first U.S. state university to admit students with the arrival of Hinton James, who was the only student on campus for two weeks.

1819 – In Congress, the Missouri Bill is introduced. It would allow the Missouri Territory to draft a constitution and prepare for statehood. James Talmadge of New York proposes two anti-slavery amendments. One would ban the further introduction of slavery. The other would emancipate the children of slaves in Missouri, born after the admission of the territory as a state, at the age of 25. The amendments pass the House on 17 February, but fail in the Senate on 27 February.

1831 – Union General John Rawlins is born in Galena, Illinois. Rawlins was a close personal aide to General Ulysses S. Grant and was reported to have kept Grant from drinking heavily during the war. Rawlins’ family was originally from Virginia but had settled in Illinois shortly before Rawlins’ birth. When Rawlins was a teenager, his father abandoned the family and headed for the gold fields of California. The younger Rawlins received little formal education, but he studied law and was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1854. He became the city attorney in 1857 and became involved in state politics. He was an avid supporter of Senator Stephen Douglas and served as an elector for Douglas in 1860.

When the war began, Rawlins became the aide de camp to Grant. He was Grant’s principle staff officer throughout the war, and Grant said that Rawlins was nearly indispensable. Grant was known to be a heavy drinker when he served on the frontier in the 1850s, and there were rumors that he continued to drink during the early stages of the war. Rawlins appears to have been instrumental in keeping Grant from imbibing during the Civil War. After the war, Rawlins served in the west. He helped General Greenville Dodge survey the route for the Union Pacific Railroad, which later became part of the first transcontinental line. For his efforts, the town of Rawlins, Wyoming, was named after him. When Grant became president in 1869, Rawlins became secretary of war. His health declined after taking office, and he died just six months later. Rawlins is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

1833 – William Whedbee Kirkland (d.1915), Brig Gen (Confederate Army), was born.

1847 – General Kearney acts on orders to establish a new government in Monterey while Freemont still acts a governor in Los Angeles.

1854 – Admiral Perry anchors off Yokosuka, Japan to receive Emperor’s reply to treaty proposal. This agreement, forced on the Tokugawa shogunate by Commodore Perry’s menacing “black ships,” ended over two centuries of virtual exclusion (the exception being the Dutch) of foreign traders from the coast of Japan. The intrusion of the U.S. in the first place derived from the ill-treatment accorded American whaling crews when shipwrecked off the coast or landing for provisions or repairs. The treaty fully satisfied the U.S. government’s concerns in this regard but left to the future the equally important matter of opening the country to foreign trade; concluded in 1858 with the signing of the Harris treaty. Perry’s great achievement was widely recognized at the time. Perhaps there is no better praise for this naval veteran of 45 years’ service than the collective memorial sent by the American merchants at Canton to the Commodore in Sept. 1854 on his return trip to the U.S.: “You have conquered the obstinate will of man and, by overturning the cherished policy of an empire, have brought an estranged but cultured people into the family of nations. You have done this without violence, and the world has looked on with admiration to see the barriers of prejudice fall before the flag of our country without the firing of a shot.”

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1862 – The four day Battle of Fort Donelson, Tennessee, begins. After capturing Fort Henry on February 6, 1862, Grant advanced cross-country to invest Fort Donelson. The original garrison of the two forts was about 2,500 men, and Albert Johnston had dispatched about 12,000 reinforcements from Bowling Green, KY, under John Floyd to bolster the defense. A few men also arrived from Columbus, the western end of the Confederate defensive line. Grant had wanted to move fast, to prevent reinforcements arriving at all, but wretched weather (rain before and during his operations ruined the roads) delayed him and the Confederate troops arrived safely. Fort Donelson was a much stronger work than Fort Henry, larger, with a stronger garrison, about 100 feet above the river (so it had plunging fire on ships), and on a ridge which narrowed routes for infantry attack. The Confederates had a strong line on the next ridge outwards from the fort, with each of the Generals commanding a sector while Floyd (the senior) also had overall command. Grant deployed two divisions in line, with a third arriving. On the 12th, despite orders not to, McClernand had one of his brigades probe the Confederate defenses. They charged two or three times and found the defenses strong and well manned: Union losses were heavy. Grant had intended simply to surround the fort and have the Navy batter it into submission.

1865 – The Confederacy approved the recruitment of slaves as soldiers, as long as the approval of their owners was gained.

1887 – Alvin York, famed US soldier with 25 kills in WW I, was born.

1891 – David Dixon Porter (77), US rear admiral (Union), died.

1913 – Naval Radio Station, Arlington, VA begins operations.

1920 – The League of Nations recognized the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland.

1923 – Chuck Yeager is born. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager grew up in Myra, on the Mud River in West Virgina. His dirt-poor youth was filled with hillbilly themes that sound romantic today, but probably weren’t much fun at the time: making moonshine, eating cornmeal mush three times a day, shooting squirrels for dinner, chasing rats out of the kitchen, going barefoot all summer, butchering hogs, and stealing watermelons. At an early age Chuck could do well at anything requiring manual dexterity or math: ping pong, shooting, auto mechanics. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps when he graduated from Hamlin High School in 1941, and became an airplane mechanic. He hated flying, after throwing up his first time in the air. But when the chance came to become a “Flying Sergeant,” with three stripes and no K.P., he applied, and was accepted. His good coordination, mechanical abilities, and excellent memory enabled him to impress his instructors in flight training. Assigned to the 363rd Fighter Squadron, of the 357th Fighter Group, he moved up to P-39s with the squadron at Tonopah, Nevada.

The 357th FG shipped out for Europe in winter of 1943-44, and began operations in February, 1944, the first P-51 equipped unit in the Eighth Air Force. Yeager shot down his first Messerschmitt on his seventh mission (one of the early Mustang missions over Berlin), and the next day, March 5, three FW-190s caught him and shot him down. He bailed out over occupied France, being careful to delay pulling his ripcord until he had fallen far enough to avoid getting strafed by the German fighters. Ike decided to allow Yeager to return to combat in the summer of 1944, which he did with a vengeance, now flying a P-51D nicknamed "Gorgeous Glennis", gaudily decorated in the red-and-yellow trim of the 357th. At first, the pickings were slim, as the German fliers seemed to be laying low. He flew in a four plane division with Bud Anderson and Don Bochkay, two other double aces. On September 18, he flew in support of the Market Garden glider drops over Arnhem, but couldn’t do much to stop the appalling slaughter of the C-47s. By this time, he had been promoted to Lieutenant, a commissioned officer.

Yeager became an ‘ace-in-a-day’ on October 12, leading a bomber escort over Bremen. As he closed in on one Bf-109, the pilot broke left and collided with his wingman; both bailed out, giving Yeager credit for two victories without firing a shot. In a sharp dogfight, Yeager’s vision, flying skills, and gunnery gave him three more quick kills. He flew his last “combat” mission in January, 14 1945. After WW2, Chuck Yeager was assigned to be a test pilot at Muroc Field in California. The Army had developed a small, bullet-shaped aircraft, the Bell X-1, to challenge the sound barrier. A civilian pilot, Slick Goodlin, had taken the Bell X-1 to .7 Mach, when Yeager started to fly it. He pushed the small plane up to .8, .85, and then to .9 Mach. The date of Oct. 14, 1947 was set for the attempt to do Mach 1. Only a slight problem developed. Two nights before, after an evening at Pancho’s, Chuck and Glennis went out horseback riding, Chuck was thrown, and broke two ribs on his right side. He couldn’t have reported this to the Army doctors; they might have given the flight to someone else. So Yeager taped up his ribs and did his best to keep up appearances. On the day of the flight, it became apparent that, with his injured right side, he wouldn’t be able to shut the door of the Bell X-1. In the plane’s tiny cockpit; he could only use his (useless) right hand. He confessed his problem to Ridley, the flight engineer. In a stroke of genius, Ridley sawed off a short piece of broomstick handle; using it with his left hand, Yeager was able to get enough leverage to slam the door shut. And that day, Chuck Yeager became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound.

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{ Yeager continued... }

Through the 1950’s and 60’s, Yeager continued his successful career as an Air Force officer and test pilot. One of the planes he tested in 1963 was the NF-104, an F-104 with a rocket over the tailpipe, an airplane which theoretically could climb to over 120,000 feet. Yeager made the first three flights of the NF-104. On the fourth, he planned to exceed the magic 100,000 foot level. He cut in the rocket boosters at 60,000 feet and it roared upwards. He gets up to 104,000 feet before trouble set in. The NF-104’s nose wouldn’t go down. It went into a flat spin and tumbled down uncontrollably. At 21,000 feet, Yeager desperately popped the tail parachute rig, which briefly righted the attitude of the plane. But the nose promptly rose back up and the NF-104 began spinning again. It was hopeless.

At 7,000 feet Yeager ejected. He got tangled up with his seat and leftover rocket fuel, which burnt him horribly. He hit the ground in great pain and his face blackened and burned, but standing upright with his chute rolled up and his helmet in his arm when the rescue helicopter arrived. He went to Vietnam as commander of the 405th Fighter Wing in 1966 and flew 127 combat missions, and eventually rose to the rank of Brigadier General. In February 1968, he took command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., and in February 1968, led its deployment to Korea during the Pueblo crisis.

In July 1969, he became vice commander of the 17th Air Force, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and then, in January 1971, he was assigned as U.S. defense representative to Pakistan. On June 1, 1973, he commenced his final active duty assignment as director of the AF Safety and Inspection Center at Norton Air Force Base, Calif. After a 34-year military career, he retired on March 1, 1975. At the time of his retirement, he had flown more than 10,000 hours in more than 330 different types and models of aircraft. In 1986, Yeager was appointed to the Presidential Commission investigating the Challenger accident.

1929 – Congress passes the Cruiser Act authorizing the construction of 19 new cruisers and 1 aircraft carrier.

1936 – The first social security checks were put in the mail.

1942 – The official cancellation of Operation Sea Lion– the invasion of Britain — is announced. Previously it had merely been postponed.

1943 – The U.S. Marine Corps Women’s Reserve was formed. On June 7, 1946, Commandant of the Marine Corps General Alexander A. Vandegrift approved the retention of a small number of women on active duty. They would serve as a trained nucleus for possible mobilization emergencies. The demobilization of the Marine Corps Womens Reserve, 17,640 enlisted and 820 officers, was to be completed by Sept. 1, 1946. Of the 20,000 women who joined the Marine Corps during World War II, only 1,000 remained in the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve by July 1, 1946. Colonel Ruth Cheney Streeter recommended the position of director of the Marine Corps Women’s Reserve be strengthened and placed directly under the office of the commandant. On June 12, 1948, Congress passed legislation giving women regular military status, placing them on a par with their male counterparts in the U.S. armed forces.

1945 – First naval units enter Manila Bay since 1942. US Navy forces begin operations in Manila Bay, clearing minefields and shelling landing grounds. Corregidor is bombarded. In the ground fighting, the US 11th Airborne Division takes Cavite and completes the capture of Nichols Field.

1945 – American USAAF B-24 and B-29 bombers raid Iwo Jima in preparation for the landings later in the month. They drop a daily average of 450 tons of bombs over the course of 15 days (6800 tons).

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1945 – Hundreds of British bombers loaded with incendiaries and high-explosive bombs descend on Dresden, a historic city located in eastern Germany. Before the massive air raid of February 1945 it had not suffered a major Allied attack. By February 15, the city was a smoldering ruin and an unknown number of civilians–somewhere between 35,000 and 135,000–were dead. At Yalta. Churchill and Roosevelt, promised Stalin the bombing campaign against eastern Germany in preparation for the advancing Soviet forces would continue. Before World War II, Dresden was called “the Florence of the Elbe” and was regarded as one the world’s most beautiful cities for its architecture and museums. Although no German city remained isolated from Hitler’s war machine, Dresden’s contribution to the war effort was minimal compared with other German cities.

In February 1945, refugees fleeing the Russian advance in the east took refuge there. As Hitler had thrown much of his surviving forces into a defense of Berlin in the north, city defenses were minimal, and the Russians would have had little trouble capturing Dresden. It seemed an unlikely target for a major Allied air attack. On the night of February 13, hundreds of RAF bombers descended on Dresden in two waves, dropping their lethal cargo indiscriminately over the city. The city’s air defenses were so weak that only six Lancaster bombers were shot down. By the morning, some 800 British bombers had dropped 1,478 tons of high-explosive bombs and 1,182 tons of incendiaries on Dresden, creating a great firestorm that destroyed most of the city and killed numerous civilians. Later that day, as survivors made their way out of the smoldering city, over 300 U.S. bombers began bombing Dresden’s railways, bridges, and transportation facilities, killing thousands more.

On February 15, another 200 U.S. bombers continued their assault on the city’s infrastructure. All told, the bombers of the U.S. Eighth Air Force dropped 954 tons of high-explosive bombs and 294 tons of incendiaries on Dresden. Later, the Eighth Air Force would drop 2,800 more tons of bombs on Dresden in three other attacks before the war’s end. The Allies claimed that by bombing Dresden, they were disrupting important lines of communication that would have hindered the Soviet offensive. Because there were an unknown number of refugees in Dresden at the time of the Allied attack, it is impossible to know exactly how many civilians perished. After the war, investigators from various countries, and with varying political motives, calculated the number of civilians killed to be as little as 8,000 to more than 200,000. Estimates today range from 35,000 to 135,000.

1951 – At the Battle of Chipyong-ni, in Korea, U.N. troops contain the Chinese forces’ offensive in a four-day battle. Three CCF divisions surrounded UN troops, including members of the U.S. 23rd Regimental Combat Team and the French Battalion, at a crucial road junction at Chipyong-ni in central Korea. Twenty C-119s dropped supplies at night over a zone marked by burning gasoline-soaked rags. The surrounded troops held out until relieved by a friendly armored column. The 315th AD airlifted more than 800 sick and wounded U.S. troops from forward airstrips such as that at Wonju to Taegu and Pusan. This airlift used so many C-47s that they were not available for other airlift demands.

1953 – Senator Joseph McCarthy states that President Eisenhower’s foreign policy is being subverted by the Voice of America radio network.

1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson decides to undertake the sustained bombing of North Vietnam that he and his advisers have been contemplating for a year. Earlier in the month, the president had ordered Operation Flaming Dart in response to communist attacks on U.S. installations in South Vietnam. These retaliatory raids did not have the desired effect of causing the North Vietnamese to cease support of Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam, and out of frustration, Johnson turned to a more extensive use of airpower.

Called Operation Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign was designed to interdict North Vietnamese transportation routes in the southern part of North Vietnam and slow infiltration of personnel and supplies into South Vietnam. The first Rolling Thunder mission took place on March 2, 1965, when 100 U.S. Air Force and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) planes struck the Xom Bang ammunition dump 100 miles southeast of Hanoi. In July 1966, Rolling Thunder was expanded to include North Vietnamese ammunition dumps and oil storage facilities, and in the spring of 1967, it was further expanded to include power plants, factories, and airfields in the Hanoi-Haiphong area.

Operation Rolling Thunder was closely controlled by the White House and at times targets were personally selected by President Johnson. From 1965 to 1968, about 643,000 tons of bombs were dropped on North Vietnam. A total of nearly 900 U.S. aircraft were lost during Operation Rolling Thunder. The operation continued, with occasional suspensions, until President Johnson, under increasing domestic political pressure, halted it on October 31, 1968.

1968 – As an emergency measure in response to the 1968 communist Tet Offensive, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approves the deployment of 10,500 troops to cope with threats of a second offensive. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had argued against dispatching any reinforcements at the time because it would seriously deplete the strategic reserve, immediately sent McNamara a memorandum asking that 46,300 reservists and former servicemen be activated. Not wanting to test public opinion on what would no doubt be a controversial move, Johnson consigned the issue of the reservists to “study.” Ultimately, he decided against a large-scale activation of the reserve forces.

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1968 – Operation Coronado XI begins in Mekong Delta.1971 – 12,000 South Vietnamese troops crossed into Laos.

1972 – “1776” closed at 46th St Theater NYC after 1,217 performances.

1972 – Enemy attacks, in Vietnam, declined for the third day as the U.S. continued its intensive bombing strategy.

1989 – The judge in the Iran-Contra trial of Oliver North sent the jury home amid a continuing disagreement between the prosecution and defense over protecting classified materials.

1990 – At a conference in Ottawa, the United States and its European allies forged agreement with the Soviet Union and East Germany on a two-stage formula to reunite Germany.

1991 – Two Coast Guard HU-25A Falcon jets from Air Station Cape Cod, equipped with AIREYE technology depart for Saudi Arabia for the Inter-agency oil spill assessment team use. They were accompanied in flight by two C-130 aircraft from Air Station Clearwater carrying parts and deployment packages.

1995 – The Hague War Crimes Tribunal indicted 21 Serbs for atrocities against Croats and Muslims interned in a Bosnian prison camp. Zeljko Meakic, Bosnian Serb police officer, was charged with commanding the Serb Omarska camp in northwest Bosnia. Dusan Tadic, Bosnian Serb cafe owner, was charged for visiting Serb-run camps to beat and kill non-Serb inmates.

1997 – Discovery’s astronauts hauled the Hubble Space Telescope aboard the shuttle for a one billion mile tune up to allow it to peer even deeper into the far reaches of the universe.

1999 – Pres. Clinton announced that he would send some 4,000 troops to Kosovo as part of a NATO peacekeeping force if warring Serbs and ethnic Albanians reached a political settlement.

2001 – In Hawaii 2 Army Blackhawk helicopters crashed and 6 soldiers were killed.

2002 – Pres. Bush welcomed Pres. Musharraf to the White House. Musharraf sought a revival of arms deals and relaxed tariffs on textiles. The Bush administration agreed to $142 million in trade benefits.

2002 – John Walker Lindh pleaded innocent in federal court in Alexandria, Va., to conspiring to kill Americans and supporting the Taliban and terrorist organizations.

2002 – In Pakistan Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh (28), Islamic militant, said he believed WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl was dead. Sheikh said Pearl was shot and killed during a failed escape attempt on January 31st.

2002 – In Yemen Sameer Mohammed Ahmed al-Hada (25), an al Qaeda fugitive, died as troops closed in and a hand grenade exploded in his hand. Family members were also linked to al-Qaeda.

2002 – Iraq says that it will not allow United Nations arms inspectors to return to Iraq. Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan states, “There is no need for the spies of the [U.N.] inspection teams to return to Iraq since Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.” The United States has hinted that actions may be taken against the Iraqi government if U.N. arms inspectors are not allowed to return.

2003 – American Special Forces were reported to be in various parts of Iraq for what seemed to be the initial phases of a ground war.

2003 – US and British warplanes have struck an Iraqi surface-to-surface missile system located near Basra in southern Iraq that had been moved into striking range of US troops in Kuwait for the second time in two days.

2003 – A team of international missile experts conclude that an Iraqi ballistic missile program is in clear violation of UN mandates prohibiting Iraq from building medium and long-range missiles.

2003 – An investigative panel found that superheated air almost certainly seeped through a breach in space shuttle Columbia’s left wing and possibly its wheel compartment during the craft’s fiery descent, resulting in the deaths of all seven astronauts.

2004 – In Qatar Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev (51), Chechnya’s exiled former president, was assassinated when a bomb blew apart his car as he left a mosque with his teenage son (13). He was wanted by Russia for terrorism and ties to al-Qaida.

2004 – It was reported that police in Mauritania had arrested of five suspected members of Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.

2005 – Results from Iraq’s elections were released and showed that majority Shiite Muslims won 48% of the votes, giving the long-oppressed group significant power but not enough to form a government on its own.

2006 – Saddam Hussein is forced to attend the latest session of his trial, wearing a traditional Islamic robe rather than his usual crisp suit, as he shouted “Down with Bush.”

2008 – The United States Senate passes legislation to ban the Central Intelligence Agency from using certain interrogation methods including waterboarding, while at the same time still declining to define ‘torture’.

2010 – Operation Moshtarak, the first coalition operation lead by Afghan forces, to take out a Taliban stronghold near the village of Marjah, began. Involving 15,000 US, British, and Afghan troops, it is the largest joint operation since the 2001 invasion.

2011 – For the first time in more than 100 years the Umatilla, an American Indian tribe, are able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park, restoring a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

2014 – Afghanistan releases 65 prisoners from the Parwan Detention Facility despite concerns by the United States that the men were responsible for attacks on NATO and Afghan forces.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

HORTON, JAMES
Rank and organization: Captain of the Top, U.S. Navy. Born: 1850, Boston, Mass. Accredited to: Massachusetts. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Constitution, at sea, 13 February 1879, Horton showed courageous conduct in going over the stern during a heavy gale and cutting the fastenings of the ship’s rudder chains.

MATTHEWS, JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Captain of the Top, U.S. Navy. Born: 1849, Malta. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: For courageous conduct in going over the stern of the U.S.S. Constitution at sea, 13 February 1879, during a heavy gale, and cutting the fastenings of the ship’s rudder chains.

WILLIAMS, HENRY
Rank and organization: Carpenter’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born 1833 Canada. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884 Citation: For going over the stern of the U.S.S. Constitution, at sea, 13 February 1879, during a heavy gale, and performing important carpenter’s work upon her rudder.

*PEREZ, MANUEL, JR.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company A 511th Parachute Infantry, 11th Airborne Division. Place and date: Fort William McKinley, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 13 February 1945. Entered service at. Chicago, Ill. Born: 3 March 1923 Oklahoma City, Okla. G.O. No.: 124, 27 December 1945. Citation: He was lead scout for Company A, which had destroyed 11 of 12 pillboxes in a strongly fortified sector defending the approach to enemy-held Fort William McKinley on Luzon, Philippine Islands. In the reduction of these pillboxes, he killed 5 Japanese in the open and blasted others in pillboxes with grenades. Realizing the urgent need for taking the last emplacement, which contained 2 twin-mount .50-caliber dual-purpose machineguns, he took a circuitous route to within 20 yards of the position, killing 4 of the enemy in his advance. He threw a grenade into the pillbox, and, as the crew started withdrawing through a tunnel just to the rear of the emplacement, shot and killed 4 before exhausting his clip.

He had reloaded and killed 4 more when an escaping Japanese threw his rifle with fixed bayonet at him. In warding off this thrust, his own rifle was knocked to the ground. Seizing the Jap rifle, he continued firing, killing 2 more of the enemy. He rushed the remaining Japanese, killed 3 of them with the butt of the rifle and entered the pillbox, where he bayoneted the 1 surviving hostile soldier. Single-handedly, he killed 18 of the enemy in neutralizing the position that had held up the advance of his entire company. Through his courageous determination and heroic disregard of grave danger, Pfc. Perez made possible the successful advance of his unit toward a valuable objective and provided a lasting inspiration for his comrades.

*CREEK, THOMAS E.
Rank and organization: Lance Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps, Company I, 3d Battalion, 9th Marines, 3d Marine Division (Rein), FMF. Place and date: Near Cam Lo, Republic of Vietnam, 13 February. 1969. Entered service at: Amarillo, Texas. Born 7 April 1950, Joplin, Mo. Citation:: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a rifleman with Company 1 in action against enemy forces. L/Cpl. Creek’s squad was providing security for a convoy moving to resupply the Vandegrift Command Base when an enemy command detonated mine destroyed 1 of the vehicles and halted the convoy near the Cam Lo Resettlement Village. Almost immediately, the marines came under a heavy volume of hostile mortar fire followed by intense small-arms fire from a well-concealed enemy force. As his squad deployed to engage the enemy, L/Cpl. Creek quickly moved to a fighting position and aggressively engaged in the fire fight.

Observing a position from which he could more effectively deliver fire against the hostile forces. he completely disregarded his own safety as he fearlessly dashed across the fire-swept terrain and was seriously wounded by enemy fire. At the same time, an enemy grenade was thrown into the gully where he had fallen, landing between him and several companions. Fully realizing the inevitable results of his action, L/Cpl. Creek rolled on the grenade and absorbed the full force of the explosion with his body, thereby saving the lives of 5 of his fellow marines. As a result of his heroic action, his men were inspired to such aggressive action that the enemy was defeated and the convoy was able to continue its vital mission. L/Cpl. Creek’s indomitable courage, inspired the Marine Corps and the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

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14 February

1645 – Robert Ingle, commissioned by the English Parliament and captain of the tobacco ship Reformation, sailed to St. Mary’s (Maryland) and seized a Dutch trading ship. This marked the beginning of what came to known as “The Plundering Time.”

1688 – The Carolina colonial assembly denies the power of the Lords Proprietor, agents of the King, to invalidate the Fundamental Constitutions of 1669.

1778 – The American ship Ranger carried the recently adopted Star and Stripes to a foreign port for the first time as it arrived in France. The United States Flag is formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time, when French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte renders a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.

1779 – American Loyalists are defeated by Patriots at Kettle Creek, Ga. Colonel James Boyd and 700 loyalists set up camp along Kettle Creek on February 14, 1779, they knew to be prepared for an attack. Only a couple of days before, on February 11, 100 Patriots attacked them while crossing Van(n)’s Creek in spite of being outnumbered. Things were not going well for these Loyalists. Boyd expected additional men to assist in a strike against the Patriots. The skirmish at Vann’s Creek had alerted Colonels John Dooly and Andrew Pickens to the Loyalist’s presence in Wilkes County. As was the custom, the Loyalist sent scavengers out to find food. About 150 men were out searching for food when Pickens attacked with a combined total of 340 men in three columns, Col. Dooly on the right, Pickens in the middle and Elijah Clark, Dooly’s second in command on the left. A small advance guard was sent in front of the columns to scout the enemy.

Col. Pickens scouts were surprised by Boyd’s Loyalist sentries and opened fire. Alerted to the attack by the sound of gunfire, Boyd rallied his men and advanced with a small group to the top of a nearby hill, where they wait behind rocks and fallen trees for the Patriots. To the left and right the men under command of Dooly and Clarke had problems crossing the high water of the creek and nearby swamps. Pickens continued his advance to the fence on top of the hill, where Boyd’s men awaited the advancing Americans. On the approach of Pickens, the Loyalists opened fire. Men at the lead of the column fell victim to the first rounds.

Clarke and Dooly, unable to advance quickly through the cane, were helpless. By all accounts, outnumbered and caught by surprise, the Patriots were losing the battle. After the successful ambush, Boyd ordered his men to retreat to the camp by Kettle Creek. In one of those events frequently labeled as fate, Boyd fell to the ground, dying from a musket ball. Seeing this, his troops paniced and an orderly withdrawal turned into a nightmare for the 600 men under his command. Pickens rallied and advanced his men towards the Loyalist camp. At the same time Dooly’s men emerged from the swamp. Surrounded on three fronts, with the creek to their back, about 450 Tories followed Boyd’s second in command, Major Spurgen, across Kettle Creek. While they were crossing the creek, Lt. Col Elijah Clarke emerged on the other side and charged with 50 men.

The Loyalists fled, soundly defeated. Total losses: Loyalists 40-70 dead, 70 captured, Patriots 9 dead, 23 wounded. The men who fled the battlefield eventually made their way back to Wrightsville, although some were captured and hung later that year. Pickens, who became famous for his many battles in the Revolution would later write that Kettle Creek was the “severest chastisement” for the Loyalists in South Carolina and Georgia. Dooly was later brutally murdered by British Regulars.

1813 – Essex becomes first U.S. warship to round Cape Horn and enter the Pacific Ocean.

1814 – USS Constitution captures British Lovely Ann and Pictou.

1824 – Winfield Scott Hancock (d.1886), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.

1840 – Officers from USS Vincennes make first landing in Antarctica on floating ice.

1846 – James Polk became the first U.S. President to be photographed in office. President Polk and his cabinet assembled in the White House Dining Room—Thomas Jefferson’s old office—and sat for a formal portrait by John Plumbe, Jr., the first photograph of a president and his advisers and the first photograph known to have been taken inside the White House.

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1855 – Texas is linked by telegraph to the rest of the United States, with the completion of a connection between New Orleans and Marshall, Texas.

1859 – Oregon was admitted to the Union as the 33rd state. Oregon’s area was inhabited by many indigenous tribes before traders, explorers, and settlers arrived. An autonomous government was formed in Oregon Country in 1843, Oregon Territory was created in 1848.

1862 – Galena, the 1st US iron-clad warship for service at sea, was launched in Conn.

1862 – Gunboats U.S.S. St. Louis, Carondelet, Louisville, Pittsburg, Tyler, and Conestoga under Flag Officer Foote joined with General Grant in attacking Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River. Donelson, on high ground, could subject the gunboats to a plunging fire and was a more difficult objective than Fort Henry. Foote did not consider the gunboats properly prepared for the assault on Donelson so soon after the heavy action at Fort Henry; nevertheless, at the ”urgent request” of both Grant and General Halleck to reduce the fortifications, Foote moved against the Confederate works. Bitter fire at close range opened on both sides. St. Louis, the flagship, was hit fifty-nine times and lost steering control, as did Louisville. Both disabled vessels drifted down stream; the gunboat attack was broken off. Flag Officer Foote sustained injuries which forced him to give up command three months later.

1864 – Union General William T. Sherman enters Meridian, Mississippi, during a winter campaign that served as a precursor to Sherman’s “March to the Sea.” This often-overlooked campaign was the first attempt by the Union at total warfare, a strike aimed not just at military objectives but also at the will of the southern people. Sherman launched the campaign from Vicksburg, Mississippi, with the goal of destroying the rail center at Meridian and clearing central Mississippi of Confederate resistance. Sherman believed this would free additional Federal troops that he hoped to use on his planned campaign against Atlanta, Georgia, in the following months. Sherman led 25,000 troops east from Vicksburg and ordered another 7,000 under General William Sooy Smith to march southeast from Memphis, Tennessee. They planned to meet at Meridian in eastern Mississippi.

The Confederates had few troops with which to stop Sherman. General Leonidas Polk had less than 10,000 men to defend the state. Polk retreated from the capital at Jackson as Sherman approached, and some scattered cavalry units could not impede the Yankees’ progress. Polk tried to block the roads to Meridian so the Confederates could move as many supplies as possible from the city’s warehouses, but Sherman pushed into the city on February 14 in the middle of a torrential rain. After capturing Meridian, Sherman began to destroy the railroad and storage facilities while he waited for the arrival of Smith. Sherman later wrote: “For five days, 10,000 men worked hard and with a will in that work of destruction…Meridian, with its depots, storehouses, arsenals, hospitals, offices, hotels, and cantonments no longer exists.” Sherman waited until February 20 for Smith to arrive, but Smith never reached Meridian.

On February 21, Confederate troops under General Nathan Bedford Forrest waylaid Smith at West Point, Mississippi, and dealt the Federals a resounding defeat. Smith returned to Memphis, and Sherman turned back towards Vicksburg. Ultimately, Sherman failed to clear Mississippi of Rebels, and the Confederates repaired the rail lines within a month. Sherman did learn how to live off the land, however, and took notes on how to strike a blow against the civilian population of the South. He used that knowledge with devastating results in Georgia later that year.

1891 – William Tecumseh Sherman (b.1820), Union Civil War general, died. His famous “March to the Sea” changed the face of modern warfare. “Vox populi, vox humbug.” (The voice of the people is the voice of humbug).

1899 – Congress approved, and President McKinley signed, legislation authorizing states to use voting machines for federal elections.

1903 –An Act of Congress (31 Stat. L., 826, 827) that created the Department of Commerce and Labor provided for the transfer of the Lighthouse Service from the Treasury Department. This allowed the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to succeed to the authority vested in the Secretary of the Treasury under the existing legislation.

1912 – Arizona became the 48th state of the Union. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union. It was previously part of the territory of Alta California in New Spain before being passed down to independent Mexico and later ceded to the United States after the Mexican–American War. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.

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1912 – The 1st US submarine, the USS E-1, with diesel engines were commissioned at Groton, Ct. USS E-1 (SS-24) was an E-class submarine of the United States Navy. Originally named Skipjack, the boat was launched on 27 May 1911 by the Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts; sponsored by Mrs. D. R. Battles; renamed E-1 on 17 November 1911, Lieutenant Chester W. Nimitz in command.

1939 – The Third Reich launched the battleship Bismarck.

1940 – The British government announces that all British merchant ships in the North Sea will be armed. In addition, it will allow British citizens to volunteer for the Finnish Foreign Legion.

1942 – This Is War, a 13-week anti-fascist radio series, debuted in the midst of World War II. The only radio series to air on all four networks-ABC, NBC, CBS, and Mutual- the show featured such Hollywood stars as James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Tyrone Power in shows that promoted the Army, Navy, and Air Force.

1943 – German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. The Kasserine Pass was the site of the United States’ first major battle defeat of the war. General Erwin Rommel was dispatched to North Africa in February 1942, along with the new Afrika Korps, to prevent his Italian Axis partner from losing its territorial gains in the region to the British. Despite his skill, until this point Rommel had been unable to do much more than manage his own forces’ retreats, but the Battle of Kasserine Pass would finally display the “Desert Fox’s” strategic genius.

In the Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, British General Bernard Montgomery pushed Rommel out of Egypt and into Tunisia, behind the Mareth Line, a defensive fortification built by Vichy French forces. After taking several months to regroup, Rommel decided on a bold move. Rommel set his sites on Tunis, Tunisia’s capital and a key strategic goal for both Allied and Axis forces. Rommel determined that the weakest point in the Allied defensive line was at the Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide gap in Tunisia’s Dorsal Mountains, which was defended by American troops. His first strike was repulsed, but with tank reinforcements, Rommel broke through on February 20, inflicting devastating casualties on the U.S. forces. The Americans withdrew from their position, leaving behind most of their equipment. More than 1,000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel’s offensive, and hundreds were taken prisoner.

1944 – American and New Zealand forces land on the Green Islands.

1945 – 521 American heavy bombers flew daylight raids over Dresden, Germany following the British assault. The firestorm killed an estimated 135,000 people. At least 35,000 died and some people place the toll closer to 70,000. The novel “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut was set in Dresden during the firebombing where he was being held as a prisoner of war. US B-17 bombers dropped 771 more tons on Dresden while P-51 Mustang fighters strafed roads packed with soldiers and civilians fleeing the burning city.

1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.

1949 – The United States charged the USSR with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.

1951 – Operation ROUNDUP officially concluded and the 30-day battle of Wonju began as the 2nd Infantry Division repelled repeated attacks from seven Chinese divisions.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Colonel Royal N. “The King” Baker, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, downed his tenth enemy aircraft and became the third double ace of the war. (An ace has five enemy kills.) His F-86 Sabre was called “Angel Face & the Babes.”

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1962 – President John F. Kennedy authorizes U.S. military advisors in Vietnam to return fire if fired upon. At a news conference, he said, “The training missions we have [in South Vietnam] have been instructed that if they are fired upon, they are of course to fire back, but we have not sent combat troops in [the] generally understood sense of the word.” In effect, Kennedy was acknowledging that U.S. forces were involved in the fighting, but he wished to downplay any appearance of increased American involvement in the war. The next day former Vice President Nixon expressed hopes that President Kennedy would “step up the build-up and under no circumstances curtail it because of possible criticism.”

1971 – Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in White House.

1973 – U.S. and Hanoi set up a group to channel reconstruction aid directly to Hanoi. In 1972 the U.S. had begun to “de-Americanize” the Vietnam war. It was a policy of gradual withdrawal.

1978 – The 1st “micro on a chip” was patented by Texas Instruments.

1979 – Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.

1979 – Armed guerrillas attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

1989 – At a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agrees to free a number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a year; in return, Honduras promises to close bases being used by anti-Sandinista rebels. Within a year, elections in Nicaragua resulted in the defeat of the Sandinistas, removing what officials during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) referred to as a “beachhead of communism” in the Western Hemisphere. Nicaragua had been a Cold War battlefield ever since the Sandinista regime came to power in 1979, following the overthrow of long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza.

Almost immediately, U.S. officials criticized the new government, claiming that it was leftist-possibly Marxist-in its orientation. As relations between the United States and Nicaragua worsened, and Nicaragua moved toward a closer relationship with the communist bloc, the Reagan administration took action to bring down the Sandinista government. The foundation of this effort was economic and military aid totaling nearly one billion dollars by 1988 to the so-called Contras-anti-Sandinista rebels operating from Honduras and Costa Rica. By the late 1980s, concerns about regional stability and the widening Contra war effort spurred other Central American governments to work toward a solution to the Nicaraguan conflict. The February 1989 agreement was the culmination of that work, with Nicaragua promising free elections within a year in exchange for Honduran promises to close the Contra bases within its borders.

Contra leaders were quick to criticize the agreement, but it was obvious that their days were numbered. The Sandinista government declared that the agreement symbolized the failure of the U.S. effort to bring it down through force. Officials of the new administration of President George Bush in the United States adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards events in the region. Ronald Reagan and other officials who served during his tenure, however, were quick to take credit for the outcome of the meeting-despite the fact that they had not participated in it. They claimed that the U.S. pressure during the previous eight years, particularly support of the Contras, had forced the Sandinistas to agree to elections. When the Sandinistas-who were heavily favored to win the election–went down to a shocking electoral defeat in February 1990, Reaganites claimed total victory.

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1990 – Space probe Voyager 1 took photographs of entire solar system.

1991 – The Iraqi weapons depot at Ukhaydir was bombed. Iraqi authorities revealed to US authorities in 1996 that the site stored hundreds of rockets filled with mustard gas and nerve gas.

1998 – Authorities officially declared Eric Rudolph a suspect in the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and offered a $100,000 reward.

1999 – John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up that ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation, died in Atlanta at age 73. He wrote at least 4 novels and the memoir “Witness to Power: The Nixon Years.”

1999 – Iraq threatened Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with missile attacks for permitting US warplanes to fly from their countries.

1999 – In Rambouillet, France, Madeline Albright brought together the Serb and Albanian sides in the Kosovo peace talks and the talks were extended one week. The plan for a 3-year interim settlement included a NATO force of some 25,000 troops, who would collect the weapons of the Albanian rebels. In the plan the KLA was given 120 days to surrender its arms.

2000 – The Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft began its orbit around the asteroid Eros.

2002 – In Kabul, Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman, the Air Transportation Minister, was reported killed by a mob of Muslim pilgrims at Kabul Airport seeking transport to Mecca. Hamid Karzai later said senior officials were responsible and blamed the killing on a personal vendetta. Gen. Tawhidi and Gen. Beg were among the accused. Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah later said the attack was not premeditated.

2002 – In the Netherlands Slobodan Milosevic spoke on his own behalf on the 3rd day of his trial. He denied all blame for a decade of carnage in the Balkans and displayed pictures of victims of NATO air raids. Milosevic justified his actions as a “struggle against terrorism” and said he was a victim of twisted facts and “terrible fabrication.”

2002 – Palestinian Abu Zubaydah (30) was identified as the new chief of operations for al Qaeda and was believed to be organizing al Qaeda remnants for new attacks against the US.

2003 – Major powers rebuffed the United States in the U.N. Security Council and insisted on more time for weapons inspections in Iraq. Earlier, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix told the Council his teams had not found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but also stating that Iraq has still failed to fully cooperate.

2005 – President Bush asked Congress for an estimated $82 billion in additional funds to cover the costs of continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2007 – Operation Imposing Law, also known as Operation Law and Order, Operation Fardh al-Qanoon or Baghdad Security Plan(BSP), a joint Coalition-Iraqi security plan conducted throughout Baghdad, begins. Under the Surge plan developed in late 2006, Baghdad was to be divided into nine zones, with Iraqi and American soldiers working side-by-side to clear each sector of Shiite militias and Sunni insurgents and establish Joint Security Stations so that reconstruction programs could begin in safety. The U.S. military commander in Iraq, David Petraeus, went so far as to say Iraq would be “doomed” if this plan failed. Numerous members of Congress stated the plan was a critical period for the U.S. presence in Iraq.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken this Day

ARTHER, MATTHEW
Rank and organization: Signal Quartermaster, U.S. Navy. Born: 1835, Scotland. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. G.O. No.: 17, 10 July 1863. Citation: Served on board the U.S.S. Carondelet at the reduction of Forts Henry and Donelson, 6 and 14 February 1862 and other actions. Carrying out his duties as signal quartermaster and captain of the rifled bow gun, S/Q.M. Arther was conspicuous for valor and devotion, serving most faithfully, effectively and valiantly.

IRWIN, BERNARD J. D.
Rank and organization: Assistant Surgeon, U.S. Army. Place and date: Apache Pass, Ariz., 13-14 February 1861. Entered service at: New York. Born: 24 June 1830, Ireland. Date of issue: 24 January 1894. Citation: Voluntarily took command of troops and attacked and defeated hostile Indians he met on the way. Surgeon Irwin volunteered to go to the rescue of 2d Lt. George N. Bascom, 7th Infantry, who with 60 men was trapped by Chiricahua Apaches under Cochise. Irwin and 14 men, not having horses began the 100-mile march riding mules. After fighting and capturing Indians, recovering stolen horses and cattle, he reached Bascom’s column and help break his siege.

BONNEY, ROBERT EARL
Rank and organization: Chief Watertender, U.S. Navy, U.S.S. Hopkins. Place and date: Aboard U.S.S. Hopkins, 14 February 1910. Entered service at: Nashville, Tenn. Birth: Tennessee. Citation: While serving on board the U.S.S. Hopkins, Bonney displayed extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession on the occasion of the accident to one of the boilers of that vessel, 14 February 1910.

CLARY, EDWARD ALVIN
Rank and organization: Watertender, U.S. Navy. Born: 6 May 1883, Foxport, Ky. Accredited to: Kentucky. G.O. No.: 59, 23 March 1910. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Hopkins for extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession on the occasion of the accident to one of the boilers of that vessel, 14 February 1910.

*BIGELOW, ELMER CHARLES
Rank and organization: Watertender First Class, U.S. Naval Reserve. Born: 12 July 1920, Hebron, 111. Accredited to. Illinois. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving on board the U.S.S. Fletcher during action against enemy Japanese forces off Corregidor Island in the Philippines, 14 February 1945. Standing topside when an enemy shell struck the Fletcher, Bigelow, acting instantly as the deadly projectile exploded into fragments which penetrated the No. 1 gun magazine and set fire to several powder cases, picked up a pair of fire extinguishers and rushed below in a resolute attempt to quell the raging flames. Refusing to waste the precious time required to don rescue-breathing apparatus, he plunged through the blinding smoke billowing out of the magazine hatch and dropped into the blazing compartment.

Despite the acrid, burning powder smoke which seared his lungs with every agonizing breath, he worked rapidly and with instinctive sureness and succeeded in quickly extinguishing the fires and in cooling the cases and bulkheads, thereby preventing further damage to the stricken ship. Although he succumbed to his injuries on the following day, Bigelow, by his dauntless valor, unfaltering skill and prompt action in the critical emergency, had averted a magazine explosion which undoubtedly would have left his ship wallowing at the mercy of the furiously pounding Japanese guns on Corregidor, and his heroic spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of almost certain death enhanced and sustained the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life in the service of his country.

*SITMAN, WILLIAM S.
Rank and organization: Sergeant First Class, U.S. Army, Company M, 23d Infantry Regiment, 2d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Chipyong-ni, Korea, 14 February 1951. Entered service at: Bellwood, Pa. Birth: Bellwood, Pa. G.O. No.: 20, 1 February 1952. Citation: Sfc. Sitman distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against an armed enemy of the United Nations. Sfc. Sitman, a machine gun section leader of Company M, was attached to Company I, under attack by a numerically superior hostile force. During the encounter when an enemy grenade knocked out his machine gun, a squad from Company I, immediately emplaced a light machine gun and Sfc. Sitman and his men remained to provide security for the crew.

In the ensuing action, the enemy lobbed a grenade into the position and Sfc. Sitman, fully aware of the odds against him, selflessly threw himself on it, absorbing the full force of the explosion with his body. Although mortally wounded in this fearless display of valor, his intrepid act saved 5 men from death or serious injury, and enabled them to continue inflicting withering fire on the ruthless foe throughout the attack. Sfc. Sitman’s noble self-sacrifice and consummate devotion to duty reflect lasting glory on himself and uphold the honored traditions of the military service.

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15 February

1726 – Abraham Clark, Declaration of Independence signer, was born.

1762 – The British capture Fort Martiniqe, the main French port in the West Indies, and then St. Lucia and Grenada. Later in the year, Britain will also overrun the Spanish colonial outposts of Cuba and of Manila in the Philippines.

1764 – The city of St. Louis was established as a French trading post. Pierre Laclede Ligue and stepson Auguste Chouteau notched a couple of trees that marked the site for Laclede’s Landing that became St. Louis.

1798 – The first serious fist fight occurred in Congress.

1799 – The 1st US printed ballots were authorized in Pennsylvania.

1804 – New Jersey became the last northern state to abolish slavery.

1834 – In Madrid, the Van Ness Convention settles disputes between the US and Spain.

1835 – Union General Alexander Stewart Webb is born in New York City. Webb’s grandfather had fought at Bunker Hill during the American Revolution, and his father, James Watson Webb, was a prominent newspaper editor and diplomat who served as minister to Brazil during the Civil War. The younger Webb, known as Andy to his family, attended West Point and graduated in 1855, 13th in a class of 34. He taught mathematics at West Point and in Florida before the Civil War.

When the war broke out, Webb was assigned to defend Ft. Pickens, Florida, but was soon called to Washington and placed in the artillery in the army guarding the capital. He fought at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 as assistant to the chief of artillery, Major William Barry. A year later, Webb was in charge of the artillery at the Battle of Malvern Hill at the end of the Seven Days battles. In that engagement, Union cannon devastated attacking Confederate infantry, and Webb was commended for leading the artillery line. General Daniel Butterfield later said that Webb’s leadership saved the Union army from destruction.

Despite his numerous achievements, Webb was constantly passed over for promotion due to politics within the Army of the Potomac. He was closely associated with General George McClellan, and McClellan’s removal in late 1862 left Webb stalled at colonel. Even some of his West Point students became generals before Webb, but the promotion finally came in June 1863. The new brigadier general played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg just a few weeks later.

On July 3, Webb commanded troops defending the center of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. He rallied his troops as they received the brunt of Pickett’s Charge, and his actions earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor. Webb fought with the Army of the Potomac during the great campaign in the spring of 1864, and he was wounded in the head at the Bloody Angle, the most vicious fighting in the Battle of Spotsylvania. He was out of action for nearly eight months. When he returned, he became chief of staff for army commander General George Meade.

After the war, Webb taught at West Point, served as president of the College of the City of New York, and wrote extensively about the war. He died in Riverdale, New York, in 1911. A statue of Webb adorns the Gettysburg battlefield near the spot where he earned the Medal of Honor.

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1838 – In defiance of the new “gag rule” adopted 19 December 1837, Representative John Quincy Adams introduces 350 petitions against slavery into the House. The petitions are tabled.

1847 – The House of Representatives approves a bill for negotiations to purchase occupied territory from Mexico. The bill includes the Wilmot Proviso. David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The amended bill was passed in the House, but the Senate adjourned without voting on it. In the next session of Congress (1847), a new bill providing for a $3-million appropriation was introduced, and Wilmot again proposed an antislavery amendment to it. The amended bill passed the House, but the Senate drew up its own bill, which excluded the proviso.

1856 – USS Supply, commanded by LT David Dixon Porter, sails from Smyrna, Syria, bound for Indianola, Texas, with a load of 21 camels intended for experimental use in the American desert west of the Rockies.

1861 – Fort Point was completed & garrisoned. It never fired cannon in anger.

1862 – Grant [on his 3rd day there] launched a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn. With the fort surrounded, the Confederates, commanded by Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, launched a surprise attack against Grant’s army in an attempt to open an escape route to Nashville, Tennessee. Grant, who was away from the battlefield at the start of the attack, arrived to rally his men and counterattack. Despite achieving partial success and opening the way for a retreat, Floyd lost his nerve and ordered his men back to the fort. The following morning, Floyd and his second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow, relinquished command to Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner (later Governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky), who agreed to accept Grant’s terms of unconditional surrender.

1862 – Four Confederate gunboats under Commodore Tattnall attacked Union batteries at Venus Point, on Savannah River, Georgia, but were forced back to Savannah. Tattnall was attempting to effect the passage of steamer Ida from Fort Pulaski to Savannah.

1864 – U.S.S. Forest Rose, Acting Lieutenant John V. Johnson, came to the relief of Union soldiers who were hard pressed by attacking Confederate troops at Waterproof, Louisiana. The 260- ton gunboat compelled the Southerners to retire under a heavy bombardment. The commander of the Northerners ashore wrote Johnston: “I hope you will not consider it [mere] flattering when I say I never before saw more accurate artillery firing than you did in these engagements, invariably putting your shells in the right place ordered. My officers and men now feel perfectly secure against a large force, so long as we have the assistance of Captain Johnston and his most excellent drilled crew. . . . ”

1869 – Charges of treason against Confederate President Jefferson Davis were dropped.

1888 – A fishing dispute between the US and Canada comes to an end with the Bayard-Chamberlain Treaty signed in Washington. The Senate refuses to ratify the treaty, partly because it provides for reciprocal tariffs, which are anathema to high-tariff industrialists, but the two countries proceed on an amicable basis, generally following the provisions of the treaty anyway.

1892 – First head of the Defense Department, James V. Forrestal born in Matteawan (now Beacon), New York.
His government service began in June 1940 as a special assistant to President Roosevelt. In August 1940 the president nominated Forrestal to fill the new position of under secretary of the Navy. Assigned by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox to handle contracts, tax and legal affairs, and liaison with several other government agencies, Forrestal built his office into an efficient organization. Most importantly, he ran very effectively the Navy’s machinery for industrial mobilization and procurement.

By 19 May 1944 when he became secretary of the Navy, succeeding Knox who had died of a heart attack, he had become well-known in Washington as a highly capable administrator and manager. He guided the Navy through the last year of the war and the two difficult years of demobilization after the Japanese surrender. Forrestal participated prominently in development of the National Security Act of 1947, even though he had opposed unification of the Navy and War Departments. Forrestal brought to his new office a deep distrust of the Soviet Union and a determination to make the new national security structure workable.

Not only the first but one of the most notable secretaries of defense, his contributions have been commemorated by a bronze bust at the Pentagon’s Mall Entrance and by the designation of a major federal office building in downtown Washington as the Forrestal Building. Some months after he left office, the House Armed Services Committee, with which he had worked closely over the years, described his administration as secretary of defense as “able, sensitive, restrained, and far-sighted.”

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1898 – A massive explosion of unknown origin sinks the battleship USS Maine in Cuba’s Havana harbor, killing 260 of the fewer than 400 American crew members aboard. One of the first American battleships, the Maine weighed more than 6,000 tons and was built at a cost of more than $2 million. Ostensibly on a friendly visit, the Maine had been sent to Cuba to protect the interests of Americans there after a rebellion against Spanish rule broke out in Havana in January. An official U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry ruled in March that the ship was blown up by a mine, without directly placing the blame on Spain.

Much of Congress and a majority of the American public expressed little doubt that Spain was responsible and called for a declaration of war. Subsequent diplomatic failures to resolve the Maine matter, coupled with United States indignation over Spain’s brutal suppression of the Cuban rebellion and continued losses to American investment, led to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in April 1898. Within three months, the United States had decisively defeated Spanish forces on land and sea, and in August an armistice halted the fighting.

On December 12, 1898, the Treaty of Paris was signed between the United States and Spain, officially ending the Spanish-American War and granting the United States its first overseas empire with the ceding of such former Spanish possessions as Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. In 1976, a team of American naval investigators concluded that the Maine explosion was likely caused by a fire that ignited its ammunition stocks, not by a Spanish mine or act of sabotage.

1905 – Lewis Wallace (77), US politician, general, writer (Ben Hur), artist and inventor, died. His paintings included “The Conspirators,” a depiction of those accused in the assassination of Pres. Lincoln. He had 8 registered US patents and was accomplished at playing and making violins. His home in Crawfordsville, Indiana, is now a museum.

1911 – Congress transferred Fort Trumbull, New London, CT from War Department to Treasury Department for the use of the USRCS.

1918 – The 1st WW I US army troopship was torpedoed & sunk off Ireland by Germany.

1919 – The American Legion was organized in Paris.

1933 – President-elect Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami. Giuseppa Zangara, an unemployed New Jersey bricklayer from Italy, fired five pistol shots at the back of President-elect Franklin Roosevelt’s head from only twenty-five feet away. While all five rounds missed their target, each bullet found a separate victim. One of these was Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago.

1934 – In 1932, America was plagued by poverty and unemployment, prompting President Franklin Roosevelt to call on Congress to establish a Federal institution for doling out funds to the nation’s needy. The result was the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA), which funneled money to states and oversaw the subsequent distribution and relief efforts. FERA was a massive and costly project: the administration spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 billion a year, or nearly 2 percent of America’s income. FERA needed a steady supply of capital and Congress was willing to oblige; on this day in 1934 legislators passed the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, which provided an infusion of funds for the administration.

1940 – In reply to the British governments announcement that British merchant ships in the North Sea will be armed, the German government announces that all such ships will be treated as warships. U-boat commanders are ordered attack without warning any ship which is likely to come under British control. This directive means that any neutral ship sailing towards a British-controlled war zone — such as the English Channel, can be attacked without warning. Any ship following a zig-zag course is also liable to be sunk without warning.

1941 – President Roosevelt sends James B. Conant, President of Harvard University, to Britain to discuss military technology.

1943 – The Germans broke the U.S. lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia. Troops under the command of Rommel, now commanding the Italian 1st Army, join the Axis offensive. A detachment of the 15th Panzer Division, along with Italian armor, strikes Gafsa and captures the town. Most of Rommel’s forces are defending the Mareth Line where the last of the rearguard is now arriving from Libya.

1944 – Allied aircraft bomb the historic monastery on the crest of Monte Cassino. German forces, which have not occupied the position previously, move into the ruins of the monestary. The New Zealand Corps (part of US 5th Army) follows-up the bombing with an assault which fails.

1944 – The 3rd Amphibious Force (Admiral Wilkinson) lands elements of the New Zealand 3rd Division (General Barrowclough) on the Green Islands, north of Bougainville. US Task Force 39 (Admiral Merrill) provides escort.

1945 – During the day, the US 8th Air Force raids Dresden where the fire storm continues.

1945 – A regiment from US 11th Corps is landed at the southern tip of Bataan on Luzon to help in the operations of the remainder of the corps. The fighting in Manila continues.

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1946 – ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer) was the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was Turing-complete, digital, and capable of being reprogrammed to solve “a large class of numerical problems”. ENIAC was initially designed to calculate artillery firing tables for the United States Army’s Ballistic Research Laboratory. When ENIAC was announced in 1946 it was heralded in the press as a “Giant Brain”. It had a speed of one thousand times that of electro-mechanical machines. This computational power, coupled with general-purpose programmability, excited scientists and industrialists.

ENIAC’s design and construction was financed by the United States Army, Ordnance Corps, Research and Development Command which was led by Major General Gladeon Marcus Barnes. He was Chief of Research and Engineering, the Chief of the Research and Development Service, Office of the Chief of Ordnance during World War II. The construction contract was signed on June 5, 1943, and work on the computer began in secret by the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering starting the following month under the code name “Project PX”. The completed machine was announced to the public the evening of February 14, 1946 and formally dedicated the next day at the University of Pennsylvania, having cost almost $500,000 (approximately $6,000,000 today).

It was formally accepted by the U.S. Army Ordnance Corps in July 1946. ENIAC was shut down on November 9, 1946 for a refurbishment and a memory upgrade, and was transferred to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland in 1947. There, on July 29, 1947, it was turned on and was in continuous operation until 11:45 p.m. on October 2, 1955. Finished shortly after the end of World War II, one of its first programs was a study of the feasibility of the hydrogen bomb. A few months after its unveiling, in the summer of 1946, as part of “an extraordinary effort to jump-start research in the field” the Pentagon invited “the top people in electronics and mathematics from the United States and Great Britain” to a series of forty-eight lectures altogether called The Theory and Techniques for Design of Digital Computers more often named the Moore School Lectures. Half of these lectures were given by the inventors of ENIAC.

1950 – The Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, the two largest communist nations in the world, announce the signing of a mutual defense and assistance treaty. The negotiations for the treaty were conducted in Moscow between PRC leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and Foreign Minister Andrei Vishinsky. The treaty’s terms called for the Soviets to provide a $300 million credit to the PRC. It also mandated that the Soviet Union return to the Chinese the control of a major railroad and the cities of Port Arthur and Dairen in Manchuria, all of which had been seized by Russian forces near the end of World War II. The mutual defense section of the agreement primarily concerned any future aggression by Japan and “any other state directly or indirectly associated” with Japan. Zhou En-lai proudly declared that the linking of the two communist nations created a force that was “impossible to defeat.”

U.S. commentators viewed the treaty as proof positive that communism was a monolithic movement, being directed primarily from the Kremlin in Moscow. An article in the New York Times referred to the PRC as a Soviet “satellite.” As events made clear, however, the treaty was not exactly a concrete bond between communist countries. By the late-1950s, fissures were already beginning to appear in the Soviet-PRC alliance. Publicly, the Chinese charged that the Soviets were compromising the principles of Marxism-Leninism by adopting an attitude of “peaceful coexistence” with the capitalist nations of the West. By the early-1960s, Mao Zedong was openly declaring that the Soviet Union was actually allying itself with the United States against the Chinese revolution.

1951 – The communists were defeated at Chipyong-ni by the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division’s 23rd Infantry Regimental Combat Team (RCT) and the French Battalion. At the climax of the battle, the 1st Cavalry Division’s Task Force Crombez broke through to support the encircled 23rd RCT. After three days of intense combat and having suffered perhaps 8,000 casualties, the Chinese forces withdrew. The 23rd RCT suffered 52 killed, 42 missing and 259 wounded in action. This was the first major battlefield defeat of the Chinese communist forces in the war.

1951 – President Truman stated that the United Nations had authorized General MacArthur to re-cross the 38th parallel.

1953 – Radio Pyongyang went off the air when B-29s attacked the nearby Pingjang-ni communications center, damaging power lines and Twenty-two F-84s from the 474th Fighter-Bomber Wing bombed the generators at the Sui-ho hydroelectric plant. The fighter-bombers suffered no damage and the attack halted power production at Sui-ho for several months.

1954 – Canada and the United States agree to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska. The DEW Line was operational from 1957 to the late 1980s and it was the northernmost and most capable of three radar lines in Canada and Alaska; the joint Canadian-US Pinetree Line ran from Newfoundland to Vancouver Island, and the Mid-Canada Line ran somewhat north of this.

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1966 – In response to a letter from Ho Chi Minh asking that French President Charles De Gaulle use his influence to “prevent perfidious new maneuvers” by the United States in Southeast Asia, De Gaulle states that France is willing to do all that it could to end the war. As outlined by De Gaulle, the French believed that the Geneva agreements should be enforced, that Vietnam’s independence should be “guaranteed by the nonintervention of any outside powers,” and that the Vietnamese government should pursue a “policy of strict neutrality.” President Lyndon Johnson saw De Gaulle’s proposal as part of a continuing effort by the French leader to challenge U.S. leadership in Southeast Asia as well as in Europe. Seeing the American commitment in Vietnam as part of a larger global issue of American credibility, Johnson believed that the United States could not afford to abandon its South Vietnamese ally and rejected De Gaulle’s proposal without consideration.

1967 – Thirteen U.S. helicopters were shot down in one day in Vietnam.

1985 – The STS 51-E vehicle was moved to the launch pad.

1989 – The Soviet Union announced that the last of its troops had left Afghanistan, after more than nine years of military intervention.

1991 – Iraq proposed a conditional withdrawal from Kuwait, an offer dismissed by President Bush as a “cruel hoax.”

1994 – US asked Aristide to adopt a peace plan for Haiti.

1994 – Navy chief Admiral Frank Kelso II agreed to early retirement because of criticism over the Tail Hook sex abuse scandal.

1999 – Coast Guard recruiting ads began appearing on World Wrestling Federation cable television programs. The sponsorship package, which maintained the Coast Guard’s status as a PSA advertiser, included an in-program media feature called “The Coast Guard Rescue of the Week,” which aired during the show while a wrestler saved a teammate. WWF superstars also appeared at recruiting centers and Coast Guard units. The controversial recruiting program was approved of by the Commandant.

2000 – In Iraq a 2nd UN official quit in protest that sanctions were undermining humanitarian efforts.

2001 – President Bush said the Pentagon should review its policy on civilian participation in military exercises like the emergency ascent drill a Navy submarine was performing when it sank a Japanese fishing vessel off Hawaii.

2002 – American and Belgian officials said Sanjivan Ruprah, a Kenyan diamond mine owner, offered details between al Qaeda and the arms-trading operations of Victor Bout, a Russian broker described as the head of the world’s largest arms-trafficking organization.

2003 – American warplanes bombed two anti-aircraft missile sites in southern Iraq.2004 – Iraqi police arrested No. 41 on the American military’s most-wanted list, Baath Party official Mohammed Zimam Abdul-Razaq.

2005 – The United States recalls its ambassador to Syria, Margaret Scobey, in protest of alleged Syrian involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

2005 – United States, India and European Union countries recall their ambassadors from Nepal in protest of the takeover by King Gyanendra.

2007 – Operation Shurta Nasir or Operation Police Victory or the Battle of Hit was an operation led by U.S. troops and Iraqi SWAT teams trying to capture the town of Hit from Al-Qaeda forces. The goal of the mission was to eject the Al-Qaeda from the city and establish three Police Stations there to cement authority to the town. The Al-Qaeda retreating would be caught in the net of encircling U.S. troops which numbered 1,000 men. The operation was a success, and Hit was captured and freed from the terrorists.

2007 – U.S. and Iraqi forces pushed deeper into Sunni militant strongholds in Baghdad, mainly the Doura district in the south, where car-bombs were set off in their advance. In two incidents, car-bombs blew up as U.S. and Iraqi patrols passed and there were at least four civilian casualties. The operation began with very little resistance, and was hailed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as a “brilliant success.” There was a steep decline in violence during the first few days, but American Generals were more cautious about making judgments on its success early on.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

TWOMBLY, VOLTAIRE P.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company F, 2d lowa Infantry. Place and date: At Fort Donelson, Tenn., 15 February 1862. Entered service at: Keosauqua, Van Buren County, lowa. Birth: Van Buren County, lowa. Date of issue: 12 March 1897. Citation: Took the colors after 3 of the color guard had fallen, and although most instantly knocked down by a spent ball, immediately arose and bore the colors to the end of the engagement.

BURGER, JOSEPH
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Crystal Lake, Minn. Birth: Austria. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

CLARK, WILLIAM A.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Shelbyville, Minn. Birth: Pennsylvania. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

FLANNIGAN, JAMES
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Louisville, Scott County, Minn. Birth: New York. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

HANNA, MILTON
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Henderson, Minn. Birth: Lickland County, Ohio. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

HOLMES, LOVILO N.
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Mankato, Minn. Birth: Cattaraugus County, N.Y. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

PAY, BYRON E.
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Mankato, Minn. Born: 21 October 1844, LeRoy Township, Jefferson County, N.Y. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

VALE, JOHN
Rank and organization: Private, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Rochester, Minn. Birth: England. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

WRIGHT, SAMUEL
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 2d Minnesota Infantry. Place and date: At Nolensville, Tenn., 15 February 1863. Entered service at: Swan Lake, Minn. Birth: Indiana. Date of issue: 11 September 1897. Citation: Was one of a detachment of 16 men who heroically defended a wagon train against the attack of 125 cavalry, repulsed the attack and saved the train.

LOW, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1847, Canada. Accredited to: New York. G.O. No.: 326, 18 October 1884. Citation: For jumping overboard from the U.S.S. Tennessee at New Orleans, La., 15 February 1881, and sustaining, until picked up by a boat’s crew, N. P. Petersen, gunner’s mate, who had fallen overboard.

FLUCKEY, EUGENE BENNETT
Rank and organization: Commander, U.S. Navy, Commanding U.S.S. Barb. Place and date: Along coast of China, 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. Entered service at: Illinois. Born: S October 1913, Washington, D.C. Other Navy award: Navy Cross with 3 Gold Stars. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as commanding officer of the U.S.S. Barb during her 11th war patrol along the east coast of China from 19 December 1944 to 15 February 1945. After sinking a large enemy ammunition ship and damaging additional tonnage during a running 2-hour night battle on 8 January, Comdr. Fluckey, in an exceptional feat of brilliant deduction and bold tracking on 25 January, located a concentration of more than 30 enemy ships in the lower reaches of Nankuan Chiang (Mamkwan Harbor).

Fully aware that a safe retirement would necessitate an hour’s run at full speed through the uncharted, mined, and rock-obstructed waters, he bravely ordered, “Battle station–torpedoes!” In a daring penetration of the heavy enemy screen, and riding in 5 fathoms of water, he launched the Barb’s last forward torpedoes at 3,000-yard range. Quickly bringing the ship’s stern tubes to bear, he turned loose 4 more torpedoes into the enemy, obtaining 8 direct hits on 6 of the main targets to explode a large ammunition ship and cause inestimable damage by the resultant flying shells and other pyrotechnics. Clearing the treacherous area at high speed, he brought the Barb through to safety and 4 days later sank a large Japanese freighter to complete a record of heroic combat achievement, reflecting the highest credit upon Comdr. Fluckey, his gallant officers and men, and the U.S. Naval Service.

GORDON, NATHAN GREEN
Rank and organization: Lieutenant, U.S. Navy, commander of Catalina patrol plane. Place and date: Bismarck Sea, 15 February 1944. Entered service at: Arkansas. Born: 4 September 1916, Morrilton, Ark. Citation: For extraordinary heroism above and beyond the call of duty as commander of a Catalina patrol plane in rescuing personnel of the U.S. Army 5th Air Force shot down in combat over Kavieng Harbor in the Bismarck Sea, 15 February 1944. On air alert in the vicinity of Vitu Islands, Lt. (then Lt. j.g.) Gordon unhesitatingly responded to a report of the crash and flew boldly into the harbor, defying close-range fire from enemy shore guns to make 3 separate landings in full view of the Japanese and pick up 9 men, several of them injured.

With his cumbersome flying boat dangerously overloaded, he made a brilliant takeoff despite heavy swells and almost total absence of wind and set a course for base, only to receive the report of another group stranded in a rubber life raft 600 yards from the enemy shore. Promptly turning back, he again risked his life to set his plane down under direct fire of the heaviest defenses of Kavieng and take aboard 6 more survivors, coolly making his fourth dexterous takeoff with 15 rescued officers and men. By his exceptional daring, personal valor, and incomparable airmanship under most perilous conditions, Lt. Gordon prevented certain death or capture of our airmen by the Japanese.

*WILLETT, LOUIS E.
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Army, Company C, 1st Battalion, 12th Infantry, 4th Infantry Division. Place and date: Kontum Province, Republic of Vietnam, 15 February 1967. Entered service at: Brooklyn, N.Y. Born: 19 June 1945, Brooklyn, N.Y. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Pfc. Willett distinguished himself while serving as a rifleman in Company C, during combat operations. His squad was conducting a security sweep when it made contact with a large enemy force. The squad was immediately engaged with a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire and pinned to the ground. Despite the deadly fusillade, Pfc. Willett rose to his feet firing rapid bursts from his weapon and moved to a position from which he placed highly effective fire on the enemy.

His action allowed the remainder of his squad to begin to withdraw from the superior enemy force toward the company perimeter. Pfc. Willett covered the squad’s withdrawal, but his position drew heavy enemy machinegun fire, and he received multiple wounds enabling the enemy again to pin down the remainder of the squad. Pfc. Willett struggled to an upright position, and, disregarding his painful wounds, he again engaged the enemy with his rifle to allow his squad to continue its movement and to evacuate several of his comrades who were by now wounded. Moving from position to position, he engaged the enemy at close range until he was mortally wounded.

By his unselfish acts of bravery, Pfc. Willett insured the withdrawal of his comrades to the company position, saving their lives at the cost of his life. Pfc. Willett’s valorous actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of the U.S. Army and reflect great credit upon himself and the Armed Forces of his country.

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16 February

1724 – Christopher Gadsden, the “Sam Adams of the South,” is born in Charleston, South Carolina. Gadsden (died August 28, 1805), a soldier and statesman, was the principal leader of the South Carolina Patriot movement in the American Revolution. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the War of Independence. He was also the designer of the famous Gadsden flag. He was the son of Thomas Gadsden, who had served in the Royal Navy before becoming customs collector for the port of Charleston. Christopher was sent to school near Bristol, England. He returned to America in 1740, and served as an apprentice in a counting house in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He inherited a large fortune from his parents, who died in 1741. From 1745 to 1746 he served during King George’s War as a purser on a British warship. He entered into mercantile ventures, and by 1747 he had earned enough to return to South Carolina and buy back the land his father had sold because he needed the money to pay off debts. He built Beneventum Plantation House about 1750. Gadsden began his rise to prominence as a merchant and patriot in Charleston. He prospered as a merchant, and built the wharf in Charleston that still bears his name. He served as captain of a militia company during a 1759 expedition against the Cherokees. He was first elected to the Commons House of Assembly in 1757, and began a long friction with autocratic royal governors.

In 1765 the assembly made him one of their delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, which was called to protest the Stamp Act. While his fellow delegates Thomas Lynch and John Rutledge served on committees to draft appeals to the House of Lords and Commons respectively, Gadsden refused any such assignment, since in his view Parliament had no rights in the matter. He addressed himself with outspoken support for the Declaration of Rights produced by the Congress. His addresses brought him to the attention of Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, and the two began a long correspondence and friendship. Gadsden was eventually known as “the Sam Adams of the South”. On his return from New York, Gadsden became one of the founders and leaders of the Charleston Sons of Liberty. He had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the militia. He was elected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774 and the Second Continental Congress the following year. He left Congress early in 1776 to assume command of the 1st South Carolina Regiment of the Continental Army and to serve in the Provincial Congress of South Carolina.

In February 1776, South Carolina President John Rutledge named him a brigadier general in charge of the state’s military forces. As the British prepared to attack Charleston, Major General Charles Lee ordered outlying positions abandoned. Rutledge and the local officers disagreed. A compromise was reached and as William Moultrie prepared the defenses on Sullivan’s Island, Gadsden paid for, and his regiment built, a bridge that would allow their escape if the position were threatened. The British attack was repulsed. In 1778, Gadsden was a member of the South Carolina convention that drafted a new state constitution. That same year he was named the Lieutenant Governor, to replace Henry Laurens who was away at the Continental Congress. He would serve in that office until 1780. Actually, for the first year and a half his office was called “Vice President of South Carolina,” but when the new constitution was adopted, the title was changed to the modern usage.

When the British laid siege to Charleston in 1780, John Rutledge, as president of the council fled to North Carolina to ensure a “government in exile” should the city fall. Gadsden remained, along with Governor Rawlins Lowndes. General Benjamin Lincoln surrendered the Continental Army garrison on May 12 to General Sir Henry Clinton. At the same time, Gadsden represented the civil government and surrendered the city. He was sent on parole to his Charleston house. After General Sir Henry Clinton returned to New York, the new British commander in the South, General Cornwallis changed the rules. On the morning of August 27, he arrested about 20 of the civil officers then on parole. They were marched as prisoners to a ship and taken to St. Augustine, Florida. When they arrived, Governor Tonyn offered the freedom of the town if they would give their parole. Most accepted, but Gadsden refused claiming that the British had already violated one parole, and he could not give his word to a false system. As a result, he spent the next 42 weeks in solitary confinement in a prison room at the old Spanish fortress of Castillo de San Marcos.

When they were finally released in 1781, they were sent by merchant ship to Philadelphia. Once there, Gadsden learned of the defeat of Cornwallis’ subordinate Banastre Tarleton at Cowpens and Cornwallis’ subsequent movement to Yorktown. Gadsden hurried home to help the restoration of South Carolina’s civil government. Gadsden was returned to the state’s House of Representatives, then meeting at Jacksonboro. At this session, Governor Randolph and de facto President Rutledge both surrendered their offices. Gadsden was elected as the governor, but felt he had to decline. His health was still impaired from his imprisonment, and an active governor was needed since the British had not yet given up Charleston. Gadsden was also a member of the state convention in 1788 and voted for ratification of the United States Constitution. He died from an accidental fall on August 28, 1805, in Charleston, and is buried there in St. Phillip’s Churchyard.

1741 – Benjamin Franklin’s General Magazine (2nd US Mag) began publishing.

1760 – Cherokee Indians held hostage at Fort St. George by South Carolina Governor Lyttleton are killed in revenge for Indian attacks on frontier settlements that broke a peace treaty of December 1759. This leads to a renewal of Cherokee attacks.

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1804 – During the First Barbary War, U.S. Lieutenant Stephen Decatur leads a military mission that famed British Admiral Horatio Nelson calls the “most daring act of the age.” In June 1801, President Thomas Jefferson ordered U.S. Navy vessels to the Mediterranean Sea in protest of continuing raids against U.S. ships by pirates from the Barbary states–Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripolitania. American sailors were often abducted along with the captured booty and ransomed back to the United States at an exorbitant price. After two years of minor confrontations, sustained action began in June 1803 when a small U.S. expeditionary force attacked Tripoli harbor in present-day Libya. In October 1803, the U.S. frigate Philadelphia ran aground near Tripoli and was captured by Tripolitan gunboats. The Americans feared that the well-constructed warship would be both a formidable addition to the Tripolitan navy and an innovative model for building future Tripolitan frigates.

Hoping to prevent the Barbary pirates from gaining this military advantage, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a daring expedition into Tripoli harbor to destroy the captured American vessel on February 16, 1804. After disguising himself and his men as Maltese sailors, Decatur’s force of 74 men, which included nine U.S. Marines, sailed into Tripoli harbor on a small two-mast ship. The Americans approached the USS Philadelphia without drawing fire from the Tripoli shore guns, boarded the ship, and attacked its Tripolitan crew, capturing or killing all but two. After setting fire to the frigate, Decatur and his men escaped without the loss of a single American. The Philadelphia subsequently exploded when its gunpowder reserve was lit by the spreading fire. Six months later, Decatur returned to Tripoli Harbor as part of a larger American offensive and emerged as a hero again during the so-called “Battle of the Gunboats,” a naval battle that saw hand-to-hand combat between the Americans and the Tripolitans.

1815 – USS Constitution captures British Susannah.

1823 – John Daniel Imboden (d.1895), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.

1852 – Henry and Clement Studebaker founded H & C Studebaker, a blacksmith and wagon building business, in South Bend, Indiana. The brothers made their fortune manufacturing during the Civil War, as The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company became the world’s largest manufacturer of horse-drawn carriages. With the advent of the automobile, Studebaker converted its business to car manufacturing, becoming one of the larger independent automobile manufacturers. During World War II, Studebaker manufactured airplanes for the war effort and emphasized its patriotic role by releasing cars called “The President,” “The Champion,” and “The Commander.” Like many of the independents, Studebaker fared well during the war by producing affordable family cars.

After the war, the Big Three, bolstered by their new government-subsidized production facilities, were too much for many of the independents. Studebaker was no exception. Post World War II competition drove Studebaker to its limits, and the company merged with the Packard Corporation in 1954. Financial hardship continued however as they continued to lose money over the next several years. Studebaker rebounded in 1959 with the introduction of the compact Lark but it was shortlived. The 1956 Cruiser marked the end of the Studebaker after 114 years.

1862 – General Ulysses S. Grant finishes a spectacular campaign by capturing Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. This battle came ten days after Grant’s capture of Fort Henry, just ten miles to the west on the Tennessee River, and opened the way for Union occupation of central Tennessee. After Grant surround Fort Henry and forced the surrender of 100 men, he moved east to the much more formidable Fort Donelson. The fort sat on a high bluff and had a garrison of 6,000. After the fall of Fort Henry, an additional 15,000 reinforcements were sent to aid Fort Donelson. Grant crossed the narrow strip of land between the two rivers with only about 15,000 troops. One of Grant’s officers, Brigadier General John McClernand, initiated the battle on February 13 when he tried to capture a Rebel Battery along Fort Donelson’s outer works. Although unsuccessful, this action probably convinced the Confederates that they faced a superior force, even though they actually outnumbered Grant. Over the next three days, Grant tightened the noose around Fort Donelson by moving a flotilla up the Cumberland River to shell the fort from the east.

On February 15, the Confederates tried to break out of the Yankee perimeter. An attack on the Union right flank and center sent the Federals back in retreat, but then Confederate General Gideon Pillow made a fatal miscalculation. Thinking he could win the battle, Pillow threw away the chance to retreat from Fort Donelson. Instead, he pressed the attack but the Union retreat halted. Now, Grant assaulted the Confederate right wing, which he correctly suspected had been weakened to mount the attack on the other end of the line. The Confederates were surrounded, with their backs to the Cumberland River. They made an attempt to escape, but only about 5,000 troops got away. These included Colonel Nathan Bedford Forrest and 500 cavalrymen. Forrest later became a legendary leader in the west and his exploits over the next three years caused much aggravation to the Union army. When the Rebels asked for terms of surrender, Grant replied that no terms “except unconditional and immediate surrender” would be acceptable.

This earned Ulysses S. Grant the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” Grant. The loss of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson were unmitigated disasters for the Confederates. Kentucky was lost and Tennessee lay wide open to the Yankees.

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