This Date in Military History:

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15 April

1715 – The Pocotaligo Massacre triggers the start of the Yamasee War in colonial South Carolina. When the warnings about a possible Ochese Creek uprising reached the South Carolina government, they listened and acted. The government sent a party to the main Upper Yamasee town of Pocotaligo (near present-day Yemassee, South Carolina). They hoped to obtain Yamasee assistance in arranging an emergency summit with the Ochese Creek leaders. The delegation’s visit to Pocotaligo triggered the start of the war. The delegation that visited Pocotaligo consisted of Samuel Warner and William Bray, sent by the Board of Commissioners. They were joined by Thomas Nairne and John Wright, two of the most important people of South Carolina’s Indian trading system. Two others, Seymour Burroughs and an unknown South Carolinian, also joined.

On the evening of April 14, 1715, the day before Good Friday, the men spoke to an assembly of Yamasee. They promised to make special efforts to redress Yamasee grievances. They also said that Governor Craven was on the way to the village. During the night, as the South Carolinians slept, the Yamasee debated over what to do. There were some who were not fully pledged to a war, but in the end the choice was made. After applying war paint, the Yamasee woke the Carolinians and attacked them. Two of the six men escaped. Seymour Burroughs fled and, although shot twice, raised an alarm in the Port Royal settlements. The Yamasee killed Nairne, Wright, Warner, and Bray. The unknown South Carolinian hid in a nearby swamp, from which he witnessed the ritual death-by-torture of Nairne.

1783 – Preliminary articles of peace ending the American Revolutionary War (or American War of Independence) are ratified.

1791 – Surveyor General Andrew Ellicott consecrated the southern tip of the triangular District of Columbia at Jones Point.

1813 – U.S. troops under James Wilkinson sieged the Spanish-held city of Mobile in future state of Alabama.

1820 – Evander McNair, Brig General (Confederate Army), died in 1902, was born.

1837 – Horace Porter (d.1921), Bvt Brig General (Union Army), was born.

1850 – The city of San Francisco was incorporated.

1861 – Three days after the attack on Fort Sumter, S.C., President Lincoln declared a state of insurrection and called for 75,000 Volunteers to quell the insurrection that soon became the American Civil War.

1864 – General Steele’s Union troops occupied Camden, Arkansas.

1865 – President Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, dies from an assassin’s bullet. Shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theater in Washington the night before, Lincoln lived for nine hours before succumbing to the severe head wound he sustained. Lincoln’s death came just after the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lincoln had just served the most difficult presidency in history, successfully leading the country through civil war. His job was exhausting and overwhelming at times. He had to manage a tremendous military effort, deal with diverse opinions in his own Republican party, counter his Democratic critics, maintain morale on the northern home front, and keep foreign countries such as France and Great Britain from recognizing the Confederacy. He did all of this, and changed American history when he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, converting the war goal from reunion of the nation to a crusade to end slavery. Now, the great man was dead. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton said, “Now, he belongs to the ages.”

Word spread quickly across the nation, stunning a people who were still celebrating the Union victory. Troops in the field wept, as did General Ulysses S. Grant, the overall Union commander. Perhaps no group was more grief stricken than the freed slaves. Although abolitionists considered Lincoln slow in moving against slavery, many freedmen saw “Father Abraham” as their savior. They faced an uncertain world, and now had lost their most powerful proponent. Lincoln’s funeral was held on April 19, before a funeral train carried his body back to his hometown of Springfield, Illinois. During the two-week journey, hundreds of thousands gathered along the railroad tracks to pay their respects, and the casket was unloaded for public viewing at several stops. He and his son, Willie, who died in the White House of typhoid fever in 1862, were interred on May 4th.

1885 – Naval forces land at Panama to protect American interests during revolution.

1889 – A marshal’s posse killed and captured a group of Sooners, settlers who stole onto the Public Domain territory in Oklahoma in hopes of claiming it legally, just nine days before the official start of the land rush.

1900 – Filipino guerrillas launch a surprise attack on U.S. infantry and begin a four-day siege of Catubig, Philippines. The Siege of Catubig was a long and bloody engagement in which Filipino guerrillas launched a surprise attack against a detachment of U.S. infantry, and then forced them to abandon the town after a four-day siege. The attack was very similar to the Balangiga Massacre farther south of Catubig a year later.

1912 – USS Chester and USS Salem sailed from MA to assist RMS Titanic survivors.

1918 – First Marine Aviation Force formed at Marine Flying Field, Miami, FL.

1919 – Jane Arminda Delano (b.1862), founder of the American Red Cross Nursing Service, died in France while on a Red Cross mission and was buried there. She was posthumously awarded the US Distinguished Service Medal, the 1st female recipient. In 1920 She was brought back to the U.S. and re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery.

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1920 – Two security guards are killed during a mid-afternoon armed robbery of a shoe company in South Braintree, Massachusetts. Out of this rather unremarkable crime grew one of the most famous trials in American history and a landmark case in forensic crime detection. Both Fred Parmenter and Alessandro Berardelli were shot several times as they attempted to move the payroll boxes of their New England shoe company. The two armed thieves, identified by witnesses as “Italian-looking,” fled in a Buick. The car was found abandoned in the woods several days later. Through evidence found in the car, police suspected that a man named Mike Boda was involved. However, Boda was one step ahead of the authorities, and he fled to Italy. Police did manage to catch Boda’s colleagues, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were each carrying loaded weapons at the time of their arrest. Sacco had a .32 caliber handgun-the same type as was used to kill the security guards-and bullets from the same manufacturer as those recovered from the shooting. Vanzetti was identified as a participant in a previous robbery attempt of a different shoe company.

Sacco and Vanzetti were anarchists, believing that social justice would come only through the destruction of governments. In the early 1920s, mainstream America was starting to develop a fear of communism and radical politics. Sacco and Vanzetti, recognizing the uphill battle ahead, tried to put this fear to their advantage by drumming up support from the left wing with claims that the prosecution was politically motivated. Millions of dollars were raised for their defense by the radical left around the world. American embassies were even bombed in response to the Sacco-Vanzetti case. The well-funded defense put up a good fight, bringing forth nearly 100 witnesses to testify on the defendants’ behalf. Ultimately, eyewitness identification wasn’t the crucial issue; rather, it was the ballistics tests on the murder weapon. Prosecution experts, with rather primitive instruments, testified that Sacco’s gun was the murder weapon. Defense experts claimed just the opposite.

In the end, on July 14, 1921, Sacco and Vanzetti were found guilty and sentenced to die. However, the ballistics issue refused to go away as Sacco and Vanzetti waited on death row. In addition, a jailhouse confession by another criminal fueled the controversy. In 1927, Massachusetts Governor A. T. Fuller ordered another inquiry to advise him on the clemency request of the two anarchists. In the meantime, there had been many scientific advances in the field of forensics. The comparison microscope was now available for new ballistics tests and proved beyond a doubt that Sacco’s gun was indeed the murder weapon. A defense expert was even reported to have remarked upon seeing the new results, “Well, what do you know about that?”

Sacco and Vanzetti were executed in August 1927, but even the new evidence didn’t completely quell the controversy. In October 1961, and again in March 1983, new investigations were conducted into the matter, but both revealed that Sacco’s revolver was indeed the one that fired the bullet and killed the security guards.

1922 – Wyoming Democratic Senator John Kendrick introduced a resolution that set in motion one of the most significant investigations in Senate history. On the previous day, the Wall Street Journal had reported an unprecedented secret arrangement in which the Secretary of the Interior, without competitive bidding, had leased the U.S. naval petroleum reserve at Wyoming’s Teapot Dome to a private oil company. Wisconsin Republican Senator Robert La Follette arranged for the Senate Committee on Public Lands to investigate the matter. His suspicions deepened after someone ransacked his Russell Building office.

1943 – US forces prepare for an invasion of the Aleutian Island, Attu, held by the Japanese. The US 7th Division, preparing for deployment in North Africa, is earmarked for the operation.

1944 – The US 15th Air Force sends 500 sorties to Bucharest and Ploesti.

1944 – U.S. plans Operation Wedlock, an invasion of the Kurile Islands of northern Japan. American and Canadian troops, aided by the Ninth Fleet and American bombers ordered to bomb the islands every day, prepare to occupy the islands long disputed between Japan and Russia. The plan was a fiction. There was no invasion–or a Ninth Fleet. It was all a ruse to divert Japanese attention away from the Marianas Islands, the Allies’ true target. Operation Forager, the real thing, was launched on June 15, 1944, with a landing on Saipan, one of the three Marianas Islands. It was a U.S. success, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Japanese–both from combat and ritual suicide–including that of the Japanese commander, Lieutenant General Yoshitsugu Saito.

1945 – US troops occupied the concentration camp at Colditz.

1945 – Commenting on the death of American President Franklin Roosevelt in his Order of the Day, Adolf Hitler proclaimed: “Now that fate has removed from the earth the greatest war criminal of all time, the turning point of this war will be decided.”

1945 – On Okinawa, the US 6th Marine Division assaults Yae Hill but is driven back by the Japanese defense.

1945 – Units of the US 9th Army, which have crossed the Elbe River near Magdeburg, are forced to retreat. The US 1st Army takes Leuna. Meanwhile, Operation Venerable is launched against the German garrison in the fortress of Royan, at the mouth of the Gironde River; heavy napalm bomb attacks by the US 8th Air Force and shelling by the Free French battleship Lorraine are followed by an attack by Free French and American forces.

1945 – In Italy, both US 5th and British 8th Armies continue their attacks. Elements of the Polish 2nd Corps (part of British 8th Army) has reached the Sillario River after crossing the Santero River.

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1951 – Lieutenant General James A. Van Fleet took command of Eighth Army. Van Fleet, a 1915 West Point graduate with the class “the stars fell on,” commanded a machine gun battalion in World War I, led the 8th Infantry Regiment ashore at Normandy and by the end of World War II was a major general commanding a corps. In the late 1940s he was head of a joint U.S. military advisory group in Greece where he advised Greek forces in successfully stopping a communist-supported insurgency.

1952 – President Harry Truman signed the official Japanese peace treaty.

1952 – The 1st B-52 prototype test flight was made. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) since the 1950s. The bomber is capable of carrying up to 70,000 pounds (32,000 kg) of weapons. Beginning with the successful contract bid in June 1946, the B-52 design evolved from a straight-wing aircraft powered by six turboprop engines to the final prototype YB-52 with eight turbojet engines and swept wings. Built to carry nuclear weapons for Cold War-era deterrence missions, the B-52 Stratofortress replaced the Convair B-36. A veteran of several wars, the B-52 has dropped only conventional munitions in combat. The B-52’s official name Stratofortress is rarely used in informal circumstances, and it has become common to refer to the aircraft as the BUFF (Big Ugly Fat Fucker).

The B-52 has been in active service with the USAF since 1955. As of 2012, 85 were in active service with nine in reserve. The bombers flew under the Strategic Air Command (SAC) until it was inactivated in 1992 and its aircraft absorbed into the Air Combat Command (ACC); in 2010 all B-52 Stratofortresses were transferred from the ACC to the new Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). Superior performance at high subsonic speeds and relatively low operating costs have kept the B-52 in service despite the advent of later, more advanced aircraft, including the canceled Mach 3 B-70 Valkyrie, the variable-geometry B-1 Lancer, and the stealth B-2 Spirit. The B-52 completed fifty years of continuous service with its original operator in 2005; after being upgraded between 2013 and 2015, it is expected to serve into the 2040s.

1959 – Four months after leading a successful revolution in Cuba, Fidel Castro visits the United States. The visit was marked by tensions between Castro and the American government. On January 1, 1959, Castro’s revolutionary forces overthrew the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. From the beginning of the new regime in Cuba, U.S. officials worried about the bearded revolutionary. Castro’s anti-American rhetoric, his stated plans to nationalize foreign properties in Cuba, and his association with a number of suspected leftists (including his second-in-command, Che Guevara) prompted American diplomats to keep a wary eye on him. Though he worried politicians, American reporters adored him–his tales of the days spent fighting a guerrilla war in Cuba, the fatigues and combat boots he favored, and his bushy beard cut a striking figure.

In April 1959, Castro accepted an invitation from the American Society of Newspaper Editors to visit the U.S. The trip got off to an inauspicious start when it became clear that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had no intention of meeting with Castro. Instead, Eisenhower went to the golf course to avoid any chance meeting with Castro. Castro gave a talk to the Council on Foreign Affairs, a New York-based group of private citizens and former government officials interested in U.S. international relations. Castro was confrontational during the session, indicating that Cuba would not beg the United States for economic assistance. Angered by some of the questions from the audience, Castro abruptly left the meeting.

Finally, before departing for Cuba, Castro met with Vice President Richard Nixon. Privately, Nixon hoped that his talk would push Castro “in the right direction,” and away from any radical policies, but he came away from his discussion full of doubt about the possibility of reorienting Castro’s thinking. Nixon concluded that Castro was “either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline-my guess is the former.” Relations between the United States and Castro deteriorated rapidly following the April visit. In less than a year, President Eisenhower ordered the CIA to begin arming and training a group of Cuban exiles to attack Cuba (the disastrous attack, known as the Bay of Pigs invasion, was eventually carried out during the Kennedy administration). The heated Cold War animosity between America and Cuba would last for over 40 years.

1961 – US CIA pilots knocked out part of the Cuban air force.

1961 – Launching of first nuclear-powered frigate, USS Bainbridge, at Quincy, MA.

1962 – The first Marine air unit is sent to Vietnam. 15 Sikorsky UH-34D combat helicopters of the US 362nd Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron (HMM-362), arrive from the aircraft carrier Princeton. based near Soc Trang, 100 miles southwest of Saigon, the 450 Marines and their craft, as task unit dubbed ‘Shoofly’, reinforce the three US Army helicopter companies already in Vietnam, and carry supplies and troops to isolated or threatened villages and troop concentrations.

1964 – US planes conduct an armed reconnaissance over Highways 7 and 8 in North Vietnam. They drop 9 tons of bombs on the boat landing at Muongsen. The operation includes the first night raid on North Vietnam by US planes; sites near Hanoi are being prepared to receive SAM II missiles from the USSR.

1967 – Protests of US policy in Vietnam are held in New York City and San Francisco. NYC speakers include martin Luther King, Jr., Stokley Charmichael and Benjamin Spock. 200 draft cards are burned in Central Park. Attendance is estimated at 125,000 in NYC and 20,000 in San Francisco.

1967 – Two US Air Force F-100 Supersabre jets miss intended targets, hitting South Vietnam Army battalion positions 23 miles east of Quinhon. 41 killed and at least 50 wounded.

1968 – A USMC operation which will last 10 months begins around Khesahn, named Scotland II. It will result in a listed 3311 enemy casualties.

1969 – North Korea shot at US airplane above Japan Sea.

1969 – The 173rd Airborne Brigade begins a pacification operation that will conclude on New Year’s Day 1971. Washington Green, through the An Lao Valley in Binhdinh Province will produce 1957 enemy casualties.

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1969 – North Korea shoots down a United States Navy EC-121 aircraft over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 on board. The 1969 EC-121 shootdown incident occurred on April 15, 1969 when a United States Navy Lockheed EC-121M Warning Star on a reconnaissance mission was shot down by North Korean MiG-17 aircraft over the Sea of Japan. The plane crashed 90 nautical miles (167 km) off the North Korean coast and all 31 Americans on board were killed. The Nixon administration chose not to retaliate against North Korea apart from staging a naval demonstration in the Sea of Japan a few days later. Instead it resumed the reconnaissance flights within a week to demonstrate that it would not be intimidated by the action while at the same time avoiding a confrontation.

1970 – As part of the third phase of U.S. troop withdrawals announced by President Nixon, the 1st Infantry Division departs Vietnam. One of the most distinguished units in the U.S. Army, the 1st Infantry Division was organized in May 1917 and served with distinction in both World War I and II. It was deployed to the area north of Saigon in October 1965, one of the first Army infantry divisions to arrive in Vietnam. The division consisted of seven battalions of light infantry and two battalions of mechanized infantry. Other combat elements included an armored reconnaissance unit and four battalions of artillery. The approaches to Saigon and the border regions between Vietnam and Cambodia were the major battlefields for the 1st Infantry Division. It took part in large-scale operations such as Operation Junction City (February-May 1967) and the Tet Offensive of 1968. The division also conducted major operations in conjunction with South Vietnamese forces in the region. It returned to Fort Riley, Kansas, upon its departure from South Vietnam. The 1st Infantry Division was awarded the Vietnamese Civil Action Medal and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm. Among other individual awards, its soldiers won 11 Medals of Honor, 67 Distinguished Service Crosses, and 905 Silver Stars for bravery. The division suffered 20,770 soldiers killed or wounded in action, slightly more than the 20,659 casualties the division suffered in World War II.

1970 – Also part of the third phase of US withdrawal, a force of 12,900 marines depart South Vietnam. Units include the 26th marines, the 1st Antitank Battalion, most of the 1st Tank Battalion, 3rd Amphibian Tractor Battalion, and the 1st Shore Party battalion. There are now 429,200 US troops in Vietnam.

1971 – North Vietnamese troops ambushed a company of Delta Raiders from the 101st Airborne Division near Fire Support Base Bastogne in Vietnam. The American troops were on a rescue mission.

1971 – III MAF Redeployed to Okinawa after six years of service in Vietnam.

1972 – North Vietnamese forces overrun Fire Base Charlie, 20 miles northwest of Kontum as part of their continuing Central Highlands offensive.

1986 – The United States launches Operation El Dorado Canyon, its bombing raids against Libyan targets in response to a bombing in West Germany that killed two U.S. servicemen. The attack was carried out by the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps via air strikes, in response to the 1986 Berlin discotheque bombing. There were 40 reported Libyan casualties, and one US plane was shot down, resulting in the death of two airmen.

1986 – The Libyan military (on orders from dictator Moammar Gadhafi) fired a missile (or missiles) at the Coast Guard LORAN Station Lampedusa, off the coast of Italy. The missile(s) missed by a wide margin and there were no casualties.

1988 – The Soviet Union began the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, more than eight years after Soviet forces had entered the country.

1992 – Countries barred Libyan jets from their airspace and ordered diplomats to go home because of Libya’s refusal to turn over suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on arms sales and air travel against Libya to prod Gadhafi into surrendering two suspects wanted in the Pan Am 103.

1997 – The Justice Department inspector general reported that FBI crime lab agents produced flawed scientific work or inaccurate testimony in major cases such as the Oklahoma City bombing.

1997 – The US military said it would allow American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services.

1998 – A U.N. Human Rights Commission report states that Saddam Hussein ordered the execution of at least 1,500 people in last year, mostly for political reasons. The report, by a former foreign minister of the Netherlands, says human rights conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate.

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1999 – The US Pentagon planned to ask for 30,000 reservists and National Guard members for NATO support. Pres. Clinton was expected to ask for $5.9 billion in emergency spending to cover US costs in the Kosovo operation.

1999 – NATO bombed TV transmitters, military installations and bridges throughout Yugoslavia. Military targets in Montenegro were struck as was the city of Subotica, near the Hungarian border.

2002 – Operation Mountain Lion began and was designed to find enemy fighters in the Gardez and Khost regions, destroy those that were there and deny them control of the area and an opportunity to reorganize their forces. Operation Mountain Lion was the first major initiative since Operation Anaconda, a 12-day running battle, which ended in March 2002 in the eastern Shah-i-Kot Mountains.

2003 – In the 28th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom selected Iraqi leaders met with retired US Lt. Gen. Jay Garner to shape a new government with 13 goals, the 1st being “Iraq must be democratic.” Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States has no plans to go to war with Syria. Marines came under fire while seizing an airstrip on the outskirts of Tikrit.

2003 – Seven Iraqis died when American troops opened fire to keep an angry crowd from storming a government complex in Mosul. US troops in Baghdad arrested Abu Abbas, head of the Palestinian terrorist group that attacked the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985.

2003 – US forces cut off oil flow from Iraq to Syria. Oil flow had reached 130,000 barrels a day providing both countries over $10 million a month in profits.

2003 – Slovakia President Rudolf Schuster signed an accession document committing Slovakia to joining NATO, the next-to-last step on the long road to membership in the military alliance.

2004 – The Pentagon told 20,000 US soldiers in Iraq that their tours would be extended.

2004 – A man identifying himself as Osama bin Laden offered a “truce” to European countries that do not attack Muslims, saying it would begin when their soldiers leave Islamic nations, according to a recording broadcast on Arab satellite networks.

2004 – In Iraq 3 Japanese hostages who had been threatened with death unless Tokyo withdrew its troops from Iraq were released.

2013 – Two bombs explode near the finish line at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, killing three people and injuring 264 others.


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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

*GONSALVES, HAROLD
Rank and organization: Private First Class, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Born: 28 January 1926, Alameda, Calif. Accredited to: California. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as Acting Scout Sergeant with the 4th Battalion, 15th Marines, 6th Marine Division, during action against enemy Japanese forces on Okinawa Shima in the Ryukyu Chain, 15 April 1945. Undaunted by the powerfully organized opposition encountered on Motobu Peninsula during the fierce assault waged by his battalion against the Japanese stronghold at Mount Yaetake, Pfc. Gonsalves repeatedly braved the terrific enemy bombardment to aid his forward observation team in directing well-placed artillery fire. When his commanding officer determined to move into the front lines in order to register a more effective bombardment in the enemy’s defensive position, he unhesitatingly advanced uphill with the officer and another Marine despite a slashing barrage of enemy mortar and rifle fire.

As they reached the front and a Japanese grenade fell close within the group, instantly Pfc. Gonsalves dived on the deadly missile, absorbing the exploding charge in his own body and thereby protecting the others from serious and perhaps fatal wounds. Stouthearted and indomitable, Pfc. Gonsalves readily yielded his own chances of survival that his fellow marines might carry on the relentless battle against a fanatic enemy and his cool decision, prompt action and valiant spirit of self-sacrifice in the face of certain death reflect the highest credit upon himself and upon the U.S. Naval Service.

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16 April

1789 – George Washington left Mount Vernon, Va., for the first presidential inauguration in New York.

1818 – U.S. Senate ratified the Rush-Bagot amendment to form an unarmed U.S.-Canada border. The Rush-Bagot Agreement between Great Britain and the U.S. had to do with mutual disarmament on the Great Lakes. In the exchange of notes between British minister to the U.S. Charles Bagot and Richard Rush, Acting Secretary of State, the countries agreed to limits on their inland naval forces. A sequel to the Treaty of Ghent, the agreement was approved by the U.S. Senate on April 16, 1818.

1861 – US president Lincoln outlawed business with confederate states.

1862 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis approved conscription act for white males between 18 and 35.

1862 – The District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia, becomes law.

1862 – Battle at Dam No. 1 in Virginia. Part of the Battle of Yorktown or Siege of Yorktown that was fought from April 5 to May 4, 1862, as part of the Peninsula Campaign of the American Civil War. On April 16, the Union probed the defensive line at Dam No. 1, the point on the Warwick River near Lee’s Mill where Hancock had reported a potential weakness on April 6. After the brief skirmish with Hancock’s men, Magruder realized the weakness of his position and ordered it strengthened. Three regiments under Brig. Gen. Howell Cobb, with six other regiments nearby, were improving their position on the west bank of the river overlooking the dam. McClellan became concerned that this strengthening might impede his installation of siege batteries. His order to Brig. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith, a division commander in the IV Corps, was to avoid a general engagement, but to “hamper the enemy” in completing their defensive works. Following an artillery bombardment at 8 a.m., Brig. Gen. William T. H. Brooks and his Vermont Brigade sent skirmishers forward to fire on the Confederates.

In a visit to the front, McClellan told Smith to cross the river if it appeared the Confederates were withdrawing, a movement that was already underway by early afternoon. At 3 p.m., four companies of the 3rd Vermont Infantry crossed the dam and routed the remaining defenders. Behind the lines, Cobb organized a defense with his brother, Colonel Thomas Cobb of the Georgia Legion, and attacked the Vermonters, who had occupied the Confederate rifle pits. In battle, drummer Julian Scott made several trips across the fire-swept creek in order to assist in bringing off wounded soldiers. Later he was awarded the Medal of Honor, along with First Sergeant Edward Holton and Captain Samuel E. Pingree. Unable to obtain reinforcements, the Vermont companies withdrew across the dam, suffering casualties as they retreated.

At about 5 p.m., Baldy Smith ordered the 6th Vermont to attack Confederate positions downstream from the dam while the 4th Vermont demonstrated at the dam itself. This maneuver failed as the 6th Vermont came under heavy Confederate fire and were forced to withdraw. Some of the wounded men were drowned as they fell into the shallow pond behind the dam. From a Union perspective, the action at Dam No. 1 was pointless, but it cost them casualties of 35 dead and 121 wounded; the Confederate casualties were between 60 and 75. Baldy Smith, who was thrown from his unruly horse twice during action, was accused of drunkenness on duty, but a congressional investigation found the allegation to be groundless.

1863 – Gunboats under Rear Admiral Porter engaged and ran past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg shepherding Army transports to New Carthage below the Southern citadel. The force included U.S.S. Benton, Lafayette, Louisville, Pittsburg, Mound City, Carondelet, and Tuscumbia; U.S.S. General Sterling Price was lashed to the starboard side of Lafayette for the passage, as was tug Ivy to Benton. Each hip, except Benton, also towed a coal barge containing 10,000 bushels of coal. Lafayette, Captain Walke, hampered by the ship lashed to her side, received nine ”effective” shots through her casemate and had her coal barge sunk. Transport Henry Clay was sunk, with no loss of life, during the passage and another, Forest Queen, was temporarily disabled but was successfully aided by Tuscumbia, Lieutenant Commander James W. Shirk.

Under fire for 2 1/2 hours, beginning shortly after 11 p.m. on the 16th, the squadron suffered what Porter termed only “very light” loss. He reported that all ships were ready for service within half an hour after the passage. ”Altogether,” he remarked, ”we were very fortunate; the vessels had some narrow escapes, but were saved in most instances by the precautions taken to protect them. They were covered with heavy logs and bales of wet hay, which were found to be an excellent defense.” A memorandum in the Secretary of the Navy’s office recorded: “The passage of the fleet by Vicks-burg was a damper to the spirits of all rebel sympathizers along the Mississippi for everyone was so impressed with the absurdity of our gunboats getting safely past their batteries without being knocked to pieces that they would not admit to themselves that it would be undertaken until they saw the gunboats moving down the river all safe and sound. Vicksburg was despaired of from that moment.” The successful steaming of the squadron past the heavy batteries contributed to the early seizure of Grand Gulf, the eventual fall of Vicksburg itself, and ultimately the total control of the entire Mississippi.

1865 – The Navy Department directed that on 17 April a gun be fired in honor of the late President Lincoln each half hour, from sunrise to sunset, that all flags be kept at half-mast until after the funeral, and that officers wear mourning crepe for six months.

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1917 – Vladimir Lenin, born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, returns to Petrograd after 10 years of exile. Lenin is the leader of the Bolshevik Party. The removal of Czar Nicholas II and the lack of effectiveness of the Kerensky government has created conditions in Russia, that Lenin and the Bolsheviks believe they can use to their advantage. The Bolsheviks are the revolutionary wing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party which found itself at odds with the Mensheviks, a branch of the party that favored democratic gradualism into a socialist state. Lenin helped to found the party in 1903. The two factions fully split in 1912. Lenin’s exile, beginning 1907, stemmed from his involvement in the Russian Revolution of 1905, which won temporary concessions from the Czar, including a written constitution and an elected legislature, but once order was restored, Nicholas II nullified both and Lenin was forced to leave. Lenin viewed WWI was an imperialist war and called on “proletarian” soldiers to turn their guns on their leaders and capitalists who had sent them into the trenches. Russia’s prosecution of the war, had been disastrous, and fed into the dissatisfaction of the rank and file and of the civilian population, Russian casualties were greater than those sustained by any other nation, the economy was hopelessly disrupted by the war, and in March began the riots and demonstrations that would drive Nicholas II from power.

German authorities, believing, correctly, that his presence would disrupt the Russian war effort allowed Lenin to traverse Germany from Switzerland in a sealed train car. In July, he was forced to flee to Finland, but his call for “peace, land, and bread” met with increasing popular support, and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the Petrograd soviet. In October, Lenin secretly returned to Petrograd, and on November 7 the Bolshevik-led Red Guards deposed the Provisional Government and proclaimed soviet rule. Lenin became the virtual dictator of the world’s first Marxist state. His government made peace with Germany, nationalized industry, and distributed land but, beginning in 1918, had to fight a devastating civil war against czarist forces. In 1920, the czarists were defeated, and in 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was established. Upon Lenin’s death in early 1924, his body was embalmed and placed in a mausoleum near the Moscow Kremlin. Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in his honor. After a struggle of succession, fellow revolutionary Joseph Stalin succeeded Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

1942 – Japanese overcome all resistance on Cebu and land 4000 troops on Panay.

1944 – The destroyer USS Laffey survived horrific damage from attacks by 22 Japanese aircraft off Okinawa.

1944 – The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort (DE) USS Joyce, along with her sister ship USS Peterson and a Navy DE sank the U-550 off New York after the U-boat torpedoed a tanker that was part of a convoy the warships were escorting to England.

1945 – In his first speech to Congress, President Truman pledged to carry out the war and peace policies of his predecessor, President Roosevelt.

1945 – Just four days after President Franklin Roosevelt passed away–the federal government tacked another year on to the term of one of Roosevelt’s key pieces of wartime legislation, the Lend-Lease Act. The Lend-Lease bill was originally enacted in 1941, when the U.S. was wavering between entering World War II and remaining neutral. Roosevelt, however, was increasingly committed to the fight against fascism; he was also under growing pressure from British Prime Minister Winston Churchill to cease the practice of selling, rather than lending or outright giving, war materials to England. The Lend-Lease legislation remedied this situation, as America now served as “the great arsenal of democracy,” providing Great Britain with money and military machinery; in return, England could make repayments either “in kind or property, or any other direct or indirect benefit which the President deems satisfactory.” As the war progressed, the U.S. expanded the Lend Lease system to include China and Russia. All told, the U.S. funneled $50.6 billion worth of Lend-Lease aid to the Allies during the war, the majority of which went to Britain and the USSR.

1945 – US 7th Army units reach the outskirts of Nuremberg. The special prisoner of war camp at Colditz is liberated by other Allied units during the day.

1945– The US 77th Infantry Division lands on the small island of Ie Shima and encounters heavy Japanese resistance.

1945 – American forces land on Fort Frank and find it abandoned. This completes the capture of the islands in Manila Bay.

1946 – 1st US launch of captured V-2 rocket was at White Sands, NM. It reached 8 km.

1947 – Multimillionaire and financier Bernard Baruch, in a speech given during the unveiling of his portrait in the South Carolina House of Representatives, coins the term “Cold War” to describe relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. The phrase stuck, and for over 40 years it was a mainstay in the language of American diplomacy. Baruch had served as an advisor to presidents on economic and foreign policy issues since the days of Woodrow Wilson. In 1919, he was one of the U.S. advisers at the Paris Peace Conference that ended World War I. During the 1930s, he frequently advised Franklin D. Roosevelt and members of Congress on international finance and issues of neutrality.

After World War II, he remained a trusted adviser to the new administration of Harry S. Truman. His speech in April 1947, however, was given in a completely different context. A portrait of the native South Carolinian was to be hung in the state’s House of Representatives, and Baruch was invited for its unveiling. Most guests expected that he would give a brief talk, but Baruch instead launched into a scorching attack on the industrial labor problems in the country. It was only through “unity” between labor and management, he declared, that the United States could hope to play its role as the major force by which “the world can renew itself physically or spiritually.”

He called for longer workweeks, no-strike pledges from unions, and no-layoff pledges from management. It was imperative that American business and industry pull itself together, Baruch warned. “Let us not be deceived-we are today in the midst of a cold war. Our enemies are to be found abroad and at home. Let us never forget this: Our unrest is the heart of their success. The peace of the world is the hope and the goal of our political system; it is the despair and defeat of those who stand against us. We can depend only on ourselves.” The term “Cold War” was instantly embraced by American newspapers and magazines as an apt description of the situation between the United States and the Soviet Union: a war without fighting or bloodshed, but a battle nonetheless.

1947 – Act of Congress gives Navy Nurse Corps members commissioned rank.

1951 – General and Mrs. MacArthur departed Haneda Airport for the United States. Nearly 500,000 Japanese turned out to say goodbye.

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1953 – During the Battle of Pork Chop Hill, the 17th and 31st Infantry Regiments of the 7th Infantry Division were hit hard by the Communist Chinese and sustained heavy casualties.

1954 – Vice-President Nixon tells a convention of newspaper editors that the United States may be ‘putting our own boys in [Indochina]…regardless of allied support.’ in Washington the desire to see colonialism end has given way to the desire to ‘contain’ Communism and to the belief that the was fostered from the outside. Nixon claims there would be no war were it not for Communist China.

1961 – In a nationally broadcast speech, Cuban leader Fidel Castro declares that he is a Marxist–Leninist and that Cuba is going to adopt Communism.

1961 – Pres. Kennedy called off the CIA air strikes in Cuba. The message did not reach the 1,511 commandos headed for the Bay of Pigs.

1968 – The Pentagon announced the “Vietnamization” of the war; troops will begin coming home.

1969 – President Nixon sends a message of Prince Sihanouk of Cambodia; “In conformity with the UN Charter, the United States recognizes and respects the sovereignty, independence, neutrality, and territorial integrity of the kingdom of Cambodia within its present frontiers.” Sihanouk reports he is ready to resume diplomatic relations with the US.

1970 – At least 100 ethnic Vietnamese civilians are killed by rampaging Cambodian troops at Takeo, 50 miles south of Phnom Penh.

1972 – From Cape Canaveral, Florida, Apollo 16, the fifth of six U.S. lunar landing missions, is successfully launched on its 238,000-mile journey to the moon. On April 20, astronauts John W. Young and Charles M. Duke descended to the lunar surface from Apollo 16, which remained in orbit around the moon with a third astronaut, Thomas K. Mattingly, in command. Young and Duke remained on the moon for nearly three days, and spent more than 20 hours exploring the surface of Earth’s only satellite. The two astronauts used the Lunar Rover vehicle to collect more than 200 pounds of rock before returning to Apollo 16 on April 23. Four days later, the three astronauts returned to Earth, safely splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.

1972 – In an effort to help blunt the ongoing North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, the United States resumes bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong after a four-year lull. In the first use of B-52s against both Hanoi and Haiphong, and the first attacks against both cities since November 1968, 18 B-52s and about 100 U.S. Navy and Air Force fighter-bombers struck supply dumps near Haiphong’s harbor. Sixty fighter-bombers hit petroleum storage facilities near Hanoi, with another wave of planes striking later in the afternoon. White House spokesmen announced that the United States would bomb military targets anywhere in Vietnam in order to help the South Vietnamese defend against the communist onslaught. These actions were part of the U.S. response to the North Vietnamese offensive, which had begun on March 30th.

The North Vietnamese had launched a massive invasion designed to strike the knockout blow that would win the war for the communists. The attack was called the Nguyen Hue Offensive by the North Vietnamese, but was also more commonly known to Americans as the “Easter Offensive.” The attacking force of North Vietnamese included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south. The fighting, which continued into the fall, was some of the most desperate of the war as the South Vietnamese fought for their very survival. They prevailed against the invaders with the help of U.S. advisors and massive American airpower.

1975 – Cambodian Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh.

1977 – The ban on women attending West Point was lifted.

1978 – Lucius D. Clay, General and Governor of US Zone West Germany (airlift), died at 80.

1991 – President Bush announced that US forces would be sent into northern Iraq to assist Kurdish refugees.

1999 – President Clinton defended NATO airstrikes against Serbian targets during visits to Michigan and Massachusetts, saying U.S. involvement in Kosovo was a moral imperative.

1999 – Thousands of refugees poured out of Kosovo as NATO blasted oil refineries, military barracks and airports around Yugoslavia. At least 5,000 refugees crossed into Macedonia, and 8,000 into Albania. Some 100,000 were believed to be enroute to Macedonia.

1999 – NATO troops began to pull out of refugee camps in Macedonia. Management of the camps was turned over to Macedonian NGOs supervised by the UNHCR. Refugees were reported to be in fear of the Macedonian police.

2000 – In Washington DC police blocked some 10,000 protesters from disrupting the meetings of the World Bank and the IMF. Finance ministers and central bankers issued a statement that pledged to seek greater debt relief for the poorest countries and to reform the IMF to prevent future financial crises.

2003 – During a visit to a fighter jet factory in St. Louis, President Bush called for lifting economic sanctions against Iraq as commanders of both the U.S. military and the reconstruction effort prepared to move into the country.

2003 – NATO agreed to take command of the UN peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan.

2004 – President Bush said he is handing over the lead role in the Iraqi political transition to the UN’s top envoy.

2004 – In Iraq U.S. military and civilian officials met with leaders from Fallujah, the first known direct negotiations between Americans and city representatives since the siege of Fallujah began April 5th.

2013 – Mail to the US Senate is suspended after letter sent to U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS) tests positive for the poisonous substance ricin at an offsite Congressional mail facility. The letter is being sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, for further testing.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BATES, NORMAN F.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company E, 4th Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: ——. Birth: Vermont. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag and bearer.

BEBB, EDWARD J.
Rank and organization: Private, Company D, 4th Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Henry County, lowa. Birth: Butler County, Ohio. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag.

BIRDSALL, HORATIO L.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 3d Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Keokuk, Lee County, lowa. Birth: Monroe County, N.Y. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag and bearer.

COSGRIFF, RICHARD H.
Rank and organization: Private, Company L, 4th Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Wapello, Louisa County, lowa. Birth: Dunkirk County, N.Y. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag in a personal encounter with its bearer.

HAYS, JOHN H.
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 4th Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Oskaloosa, Mahaska County, lowa. Birth: Jefferson County, Ohio. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag and bearer Austin’s Battery (C.S.A.).

HOLTON, EDWARD A.
Rank and organization: First Sergeant, Company I, 6th Vermont Infantry. Place and date: At Lees Mills, Va., 16 April 1862. Entered service at: Williston, Vt. Birth: Westminster, Vt. Date of issue: 9 July 1892. Citation: Rescued the colors of his regiment under heavy fire, the color bearer having been shot down while the troops were in retreat.

LEONARD, WILLIAM E.
Rank and organization: Private, Company F, 85th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Deep Bottom, Va., 16 April 1864. Entered service at: Jacksonville, Pa. Birth: Greene County, Pa. Date of issue: 6 April 1865. Citation: Capture of battle flag.

LOYD, GEORGE
Rank and organization: Private, Company A, 122d Ohio Infantry. Place and date: At Petersburg, Va., 2 April 1865. Entered service at. ——. Birth: Muskingum County, Ohio. Date of issue: 16 April 1891. Citation: Capture of division flag of General Heath.

MORGAN, RICHARD H.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company A, 4th Iowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Taylor, Freemont County, lowa. Birth: Dubois County, Ind. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag inside the enemy’s works, contesting for its possession with its bearer.

PINGREE, SAMUEL E.
Rank and organization: Captain, Company F, 3d Vermont Infantry Place and date: Lees Mills, Va., 16 April 1862. Entered service at. Hartford, Vt. Birth: Salisbury, N.H. Date of issue: 17 August 1891. Citation: Gallantly led his company across a wide, deep creek, drove the enemy from the rifle pits, which were within 2 yards of the farther bank, and remained at the head of his men until a second time severely wounded.

SCOTT, JULIAN A.
Rank and organization: Drummer, Company E, 3d Vermont Infantry. Place and date. At Lees Mills, Va., 16 April 1862. Entered service at. Johnson, Vt. Birth: Johnson, Vt. Date of issue: February 1865. Citation: Crossed the creek under a terrific fire of musketry several times to assist in bringing off the wounded.

TIBBETS, ANDREW W.
Rank and organization: Private, Company I, 3d lowa Cavalry. Place and date: At Columbus, Ga., 16 April 1865. Entered service at: Appanoose County, Iowa. Birth: Clark County, Ind. Date of issue: 17 June 1865. Citation: Capture of flag and bearer, Austin’s Battery (C.S.A.).

YOUNG, HORATIO N.
Rank and organization: Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 19 July 1845, Calaise, Maine. G.O. No.: 32, 16 April 1864. Citation: On board the U.S.S. Lehigh, Charleston Harbor, 16 November 1863, during the hazardous task of freeing the Lehigh, which had grounded, and was under heavy enemy fire from Fort Moultrie. After several previous attempts had been made, Young succeeded in passing in a small boat from the Lehigh to the Nahant with a line bent on a hawser. This courageous action while under severe enemy fire enabled the Lehigh to be freed from her helpless position.

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BUSH, RICHARD EARL
Rank and organization: Corporal, U .S. Marine Corps Reserve, 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 6th Marine Division. Place and date: Mount Yaetake on Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 16 April 1945. Entered service at: Kentucky. Born: 23 December 1923, Glasgow, Ky. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty as a squad leader serving with the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines, 6th Marine Division, in action against enemy Japanese forces, during the final assault against Mount Yaetake on Okinawa, Ryukyu Islands, 16 April 1945. Rallying his men forward with indomitable determination, Cpl. Bush boldly defied the slashing fury of concentrated Japanese artillery fire pouring down from the gun-studded mountain fortress to lead his squad up the face of the rocky precipice, sweep over the ridge, and drive the defending troops from their deeply entrenched position.

With his unit, the first to break through to the inner defense of Mount Yaetake, he fought relentlessly in the forefront of the action until seriously wounded and evacuated with others under protecting rocks. Although prostrate under medical treatment when a Japanese hand grenade landed in the midst of the group, Cpl. Bush, alert and courageous in extremity as in battle, unhesitatingly pulled the deadly missile to himself and absorbed the shattering violence of the exploding charge in his body, thereby saving his fellow marines from severe injury or death despite the certain peril to his own life. By his valiant leadership and aggressive tactics in the face of savage opposition, Cpl. Bush contributed materially to the success of the sustained drive toward the conquest of this fiercely defended outpost of the Japanese Empire. His constant concern for the welfare of his men, his resolute spirit of self-sacrifice, and his unwavering devotion to duty throughout the bitter conflict enhance and sustain the highest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

DEWEY, DUANE E.
Rank and organization: Corporal, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Company E, 2d Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division (Rein.). Place and date: Near Panmunjon, Korea, 16 April 1952. Entered service at: Muskegon, Mich. Born: 16 November 1931, Grand Rapids, Mich. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as a gunner in a machine gun platoon of Company E, in action against enemy aggressor forces. When an enemy grenade landed close to his position while he and his assistant gunner were receiving medical attention for their wounds during a fierce night attack by numerically superior hostile forces, Cpl. Dewey, although suffering intense pain, immediately pulled the corpsman to the ground and, shouting a warning to the other marines around him. bravely smothered the deadly missile with his body, personally absorbing the full force of the explosion to save his comrades from possible injury or death. His indomitable courage, outstanding initiative, and valiant efforts in behalf of others in the face of almost certain death reflect the highest credit upon Cpl. Dewey and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

*INGALLS, GEORGE ALAN
Rank and organization: Specialist Fourth Class, U.S. Army, Company A, 2d Battalion, 5th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Place and date: Near Duc Pho, Republic of Vietnam, 16 April 1967. Entered service at: Los Angeles, Calif. Born: 9 March 1946, Hanford, Calif. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Sp4c. Ingalls, a member of Company A, accompanied his squad on a night ambush mission. Shortly after the ambush was established, an enemy soldier entered the killing zone and was shot when he tried to evade capture. Other enemy soldiers were expected to enter the area, and the ambush was maintained in the same location.

Two quiet hours passed without incident, then suddenly a hand grenade was thrown from the nearby dense undergrowth into the center of the squad’s position. The grenade did not explode, but shortly thereafter a second grenade landed directly between Sp4c. Ingalls and a nearby comrade. Although he could have jumped to a safe position, Sp4c. Ingalls, in a spontaneous act of great courage, threw himself on the grenade and absorbed its full blast. The explosion mortally wounded Sp4c. Ingalls, but his heroic action saved the lives of the remaining members of his squad. His gallantry and selfless devotion to his comrades are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service and reflects great credit upon Sp4c. Ingalls, his unit, and the U.S. Army.

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17 April

1492 – Spain and Christopher Columbus sign a contract, the Capitulations of Santa Fe, for his voyage to Asia to acquire spices. They granted Columbus the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea, the Viceroy, the Governor-General and honorific Don, and also the tenth part of all riches to be obtained from his intended voyage. When Columbus’ proposal was initially rejected, Isabella I of Castile convoked another assembly, made up from sailors, philosophers, astrologers and others to reexamine the project. The experts considered absurd the distances between Spain and the Indies that Columbus calculated. The monarchs also became doubting, but a group of influential courtiers convinced them that they would lose little if the project failed and would gain much if it succeeded. Among those advisors were the Archbishop of Toledo Hernando de Talavera, the notary Luis de Santángel and the chamberlain Juan Cabrero.

1524 – Giovanni da Verrazano, Florentine navigator, explored from Cape Fear to Newfoundland and discovered New York Bay and the Hudson River of present-day New York harbor.

1741 – Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1778 – Sloop-of-war Ranger captures a British brig.

1790 – American statesman, printer, scientist, and writer Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia at age 84. Born in Boston in 1706, Franklin became at 12 years old an apprentice to his half brother James, a printer and publisher. He learned the printing trade and in 1723 went to Philadelphia to work after a dispute with his brother. After a sojourn in London, he started a printing and publishing press with a friend in 1728. In 1729, the company won a contract to publish Pennsylvania’s paper currency and also began publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette, which was regarded as one of the better colonial newspapers. From 1732 to 1757, he wrote and published Poor Richard’s Almanack, an instructive and humorous periodical in which Franklin coined such practical American proverbs as “God helps those who help themselves” and “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” As his own wealth and prestige grew, Franklin took on greater civic responsibilities in Philadelphia and helped establish the city’s first circulating library, police force, volunteer fire company, and an academy that became the University of Pennsylvania.

From 1737 to 1753, he was postmaster of Philadelphia and during this time also served as a clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature. In 1753, he became deputy postmaster general, in charge of mail in all the northern colonies. Deeply interesting in science and technology, he invented the Franklin stove, which is still manufactured today, and bifocal eyeglasses, among other practical inventions. In 1748, he turned his printing business over to his partner so he would have more time for his experiments. The phenomenon of electricity fascinated him, and in a dramatic experiment he flew a kite in a thunderstorm to prove that lightning is an electrical discharge. He later invented the lightning rod. Many terms used in discussing electricity, including positive, negative, battery, and conductor, were coined by Franklin in his scientific papers. He was the first American scientist to be highly regarded in European scientific circles. Franklin was active in colonial affairs and in 1754 proposed the union of the colonies, which was rejected by Britain.

In 1757, he went to London to argue for the right to tax the massive estates of the Penn family in Pennsylvania, and in 1764 went again to ask for a new charter for Pennsylvania. He was in England when Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. His initial failure to actively oppose the controversial act drew wide criticism in the colonies, but he soon redeemed himself by stoutly defending American rights before the House of Commons. With tensions between the American colonies and Britain rising, he stayed on in London and served as agent for several colonies. In 1775, he returned to America as the American Revolution approached and was a delegate at the Continental Congress. In 1776, he helped draft the Declaration of Independence and in July signed the final document. Ironically, Franklin’s illegitimate son, William Franklin, whom Franklin and his wife had raised, had at the same time emerged as a leader of the Loyalists.

In 1776, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin, one of the embattled United States’ most prominent statesmen, to France as a diplomat. Warmly embraced, he succeeded in 1778 in securing two treaties that provided the Americans with significant military and economic aid. In 1781, with French help, the British were defeated. With John Jay and John Adams, Franklin then negotiated the Treaty of Paris with Britain, which was signed in 1783. In 1785, Franklin returned to the United States. In his last great public service, he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and worked hard for the document’s ratification. After his death in 1790, Philadelphia gave him the largest funeral the city had ever seen.

1797 – Sir Ralph Abercromby attacks San Juan, Puerto Rico, in what would be one of the largest invasions of the Spanish territories in America. The attack was carried out facing the historic town of Miramar. Lieutenant-General Sir Ralph Abercromby invaded the island of Puerto Rico with a force of 6,000-13,000 men, which included German soldiers and Royal Marines and a 60 to 64 ship armada. The Spanish spotted an enemy convoy off the coastline that morning. Upon this sighting, the Governor, Brigadier General Ramón de Castro, summoned his military Chiefs to immediately put a defense plan into action. Along strategic points throughout the coastline, garrison troops were placed into position. While attempting to maneuver ships into the inlet, the British fleet encountered a problem. There was an underwater reef that was very narrow so that only frigates and smaller transport ships could enter. The British placed two frigates at the opening of the port to deny entrance to other ships.

On April 18, anchored British ships began bombarding points where the Spanish had taken defensive positions to protect the beach. After some minor battles, the British sent a ship flying diplomatic colors to the entrance of the port and was met by an aide-de-camp who was given a message for the Commanding Officer of the city. In the message, they demanded the immediate surrender of Spanish forces. The British ship did not wait for a response, and in some confusion later in the night, a Spanish ship carrying a reply message came under fire. Controlling the port became a chess match as the Spanish fleet mimicked every move by the British armada. The British were able to land many small groups of soldiers along the beach, some of which were German soldiers who were fighting alongside the British. During the day on April 19, two German soldiers were captured. One of the soldiers had in his possession a hand-written paper containing a name of a city resident. The Spanish, fearing a traitor in their ranks, had this man arrested.

The order was given on Friday, April 21 by the Spanish to destroy San Antonio bridge to eliminate an opportunity of the British forces to take cover and advance their position. Saturday April 22, the Spanish began taking up defensive positions after noticing large regiments of British flying their colors just out of range of the Spanish cannons. Trenches were dug and spiked boards were emplaced to slow the impending attack. On Monday, April 24, Militia Sergeant Francisco Diaz was chosen to lead a party of 70 men to attack a British position. They met approximately 300 British soldiers who they were able to force to retreat despite their superior number. The raiding party found a cannon battery and captured fourteen prisoners. The British then staged a counterattack and the Spanish raiding party was forced to flee. Fierce fighting continued for the next five days. Both sides suffered heavy loses. On Sunday, April 30th, British ceased their attack and began their retreat from San Juan.

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1805 – The Revenue cutter Louisiana engaged two pirates that had been fitted out at New Orleans. Twenty shots were exchanged but the pirate vessels escaped.

1808 – The Bayonne Decree by Napoleon I of France ordered the seizure of U.S. ships on the pretext that they were in violation of the U. S. Embargo Act (22 December 1807), resulting in over ten million dollars in United States goods and ships being confiscated.

1824 – Russia abandoned all North American claims south of 54′ longitude 40′ latitude.

1849 – The United States’ relationship with Japan at the end of the 1840s was one of extreme caution. The establishment of dialogue between the US and Japan was in its infancy and no relationships had yet been formed; very little, in fact, was known about Japan. Thus, the crew of the Preble found themselves in a very uncomfortable position when, without that country’s permission, they sailed into Japanese waters and weighed anchor off Nagasaki on April 17, 1849. The Preble’s mission was to rescue American merchant marine sailors who were being held in a Japanese prison as spies. While the Preble was at Hong Kong, the US Navy had received word from the Dutch merchants in Canton that the Japanese were holding fifteen American sailors that had been shipwrecked off of the coast of Japan during a whaling expedition. Their whaling ship, the Lagoda, had gone down in the Japan Sea with 1,300 barrels of oil on June 2 after hitting a shoal in heavy fog.

Sailing orders to Captain Glynn addressed the issue of international relations: In your correspondence with the Japanese, your conduct will be conciliatory but firm. You will be careful not to violate the laws or customs of the Country, or by any means prejudice the success of any pacific policy our government may be inclined to pursue. Nevertheless you may be placed in situations¼ which cannot be foreseen¼ . In all such cases, every confidence is reposed in your discretion and ability to guard the interests as well as the honor of your country. At the arrival of the Preble in Nagasaki, small boats were sent out to her from which notes attached to bamboo sticks were thrown on board the Preble’s deck. Captain Glynn immediately threw them overboard insisting on being afforded the respect of speaking with a representative in person.

Over the next three days, several officials and interpreters came aboard to negotiate with Captain Glynn. The Captain, under frequent questioning about his rank and the disposition of the United States Naval forces, stood his ground and continually argued to speak with higher ranking officials. Glynn delivered an ultimatum on April 22, saying that in three days he would go ashore to speak personally with the governor of Nagasaki for the release of the prisoners. The next day, the American prisoners were released to Dutch traders on shore and conveyed to the Preble. Captain Glynn did not converse with any officials after that and the Preble reported back to the East India Squadron in Hong Kong with the rescued passengers.

1861 – The Virginia State Convention voted to secede from the Union. Virginia became the eighth state to secede from the Union.

1861 – U.S.S. Powhatan, Lieutenant D. D. Porter, arrived off Pensacola. Under her protecting guns, 600 troops on board steamer Atlantic were landed at Fort Pickens to complete its reinforcement. President Lincoln had stated “I want that fort saved at all hazards.” The President’s wish was fulfilled, and use of the best harbor on the Gulf was denied the Confederacy for the entire war, while serving the Union indispensably in the blockade and the series of devastating assaults from the sea that divided and destroyed the South.

1863 – Grierson’s Raid begins – troops under Union Army Colonel Benjamin Grierson attack central Mississippi. Grierson’s Raid was a Union cavalry raid during the Vicksburg Campaign of the American Civil War. It ran to May 2, 1863, as a diversion from Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s main attack plan on Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1863 – Gunboats under Rear Admiral Porter engaged and ran past the Confederate batteries at Vicksburg shepherding Army transports to New Carthage below the Southern citadel. The force included U.S.S. Benton, Lafayette, Louisville, Pittsburg, Mound City, Carondelet, and Tuscumbia; U.S.S. General Sterling Price was lashed to the starboard side of Lafayette for the passage, as was tug Ivy to Benton. Each hip, except Benton, also towed a coal barge containing 10,000 bushels of coal. Lafayette, Captain Walke, hampered by the ship lashed to her side, received nine ”effective” shots through her casemate and had her coal barge sunk. Transport Henry Clay was sunk, with no loss of life, during the passage and another, Forest Queen, was temporarily disabled but was successfully aided by Tuscumbia, Lieutenant Commander James W. Shirk. Under fire for 2 1/2 hours, beginning shortly after 11 p.m. on the 16th, the squadron suffered what Porter termed only “very light” loss.

He reported that all ships were ready for service within half an hour after the passage. ”Altogether,” he remarked, ”we were very fortunate; the vessels had some narrow escapes, but were saved in most instances by the precautions taken to protect them. They were covered with heavy logs and bales of wet hay, which were found to be an excellent defense.” A memorandum in the Secretary of the Navy’s office recorded: “The passage of the fleet by Vicksburg was a damper to the spirits of all rebel sympathizers along the Mississippi for everyone was so impressed with the absurdity of our gunboats getting safely past their batteries without being knocked to pieces that they would not admit to themselves that it would be undertaken until they saw the gunboats moving down the river all safe and sound. Vicksburg was despaired of from that moment.” The successful steaming of the squadron past the heavy batteries contributed to the early seizure of Grand Gulf, the eventual fall of Vicksburg itself, and ultimately the total control of the entire Mississippi.

1864 – General Grant banned the trading of prisoners of war.

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1864 – Confederate forces attack Plymouth, North Carolina, in an attempt to recapture ports lost to the Union two years before. The four-day battle ended with the fall of Plymouth, but the Yankees kept the city bottled up with a flotilla on nearby Albemarle Sound. In 1862, the Union captured Plymouth and several other points along the North Carolina coast. In doing so, they deprived the Confederacy of several ports for blockade-runners and the agricultural products from several fertile counties. In the spring of 1864, the Confederates mounted a campaign to reverse these defeats. General George Pickett led a division to the area and launched a failed attack on New Bern in February. Now, General Robert Hoke assumed command and moved his army against Plymouth, fifty miles north of New Bern. He planned an attack using the C.S.S. Albemarle, an ironclad that was still being built on the Roanoke River inland from Plymouth.

With 7,000 men, Hoke attacked the 2,800-man Union garrison at Plymouth on April 17. His troops began to capture some of the outer defenses, but he needed the Albemarle to bomb the city from the river. The ironclad moved from its makeshift shipyard on April 17, but it was still under construction. With workers aboard, Captain James Cooke moved down the Roanoke. The Albemarle’s rudder broke and the engine stalled, so it took two days to reach Plymouth. When it arrived, the Rebel ship took on two Yankee ships, sinking one and forcing the other to retreat. With the ironclad on the scene, Hoke’s men captured Plymouth on April 20th.

The Confederates lost 163 men killed and 554 wounded, but captured the entire Union garrison and vast amounts of supplies and arms. The Union lost about 150 killed and wounded, but several hundred of the captured soldiers eventually died at the notorious Andersonville Prison in Georgia. The Rebel victory was limited by the fact that the Albemarle was still pinned in the Roanoke River. The crew tried to fight past a Union flotilla on Albemarle Sound on May 5, but it could not escape. It was destroyed in a Union raid on Plymouth on October 27, 1864. Yankee troops recaptured the city four days later.

1864 – There was a bread revolt in Savannah, Georgia.

1865 – Mary Surratt was arrested as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination.

1865 – The Confederate ironclad Jackson (previously Muscogee) was destroyed at Columbus, Georgia, after Union Army forces overran Southern defenses at the city in an attack that began the preceding night. Major General George H. Thomas reported: “The rebel ram Jackson, nearly ready for sea, and carrying six 7-inch [rifled] guns, fell into our hands and was destroyed, as well as the navy yard, foundries, the arsenal and armory, sword and pistol factory . . . all of which were burned.” Twelve miles below the city the Union troops found the burned hulk of C.S.S. Chattahoochee which the Confederates themselves h4 destroyed. The navy yard at Columbus had been a key facility in the building of the machinery for Southern ironclads.

1897 – The Aurora, Texas, UFO incident reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897 when, according to locals, a UFO crashed on a farm near Aurora, Texas. The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO incident 50 years later) is claimed to have resulted in a fatality from the crash and the alleged alien body is to have been buried in an unmarked grave at the local cemetery.

1907 – The Ellis Island immigration center in New York Harbor processed a record 11,747 immigrants, part of a record 1,004,756 for the year. Between 1820 and 1970, the year 1907 saw the largest number of immigrants to the U.S., 1,285,349. Between 1905 and 1915, the annual immigration numbers topped 1 million six times.

1917 – French and British forces near Ypres halt a second German offensive that had had as it’s objective the sea port of Northern France. General Erich Luddendorf and the German General Staff being laying plans for a third offensive. Meanwhile, the British are also planning an offensive to consolidate their position; securing the Belgian coast and connecting with the Dutch frontier. These plans are prelude to the Third battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele.

1943 – The US 8th Air Force carries out a daylight bombing raid on aircraft factories in Bremen. Of 115 B-17 bombers employed, 16 are lost on the mission.

1943 – Admiral Yamamoto flew from Truk to Rabaul.

1943 – Lieutenant Ross P. Bullard and Boatswain’s Mate First Class C. S. “Mike” Hall boarded the U-175 at sea after their cutter, the CGC Spencer, blasted the U-boat to the surface with depth charges when the U-boat attempted to attack the convoy the Spencer was escorting. They were part of a boarding party sent to seize the U-boat before the Nazi crew could scuttle it. The damage to the U-boat was severe, however, and it sank after both had boarded it and climbed the conning tower. Both men ended up in the water as it slipped beneath the waves. Nevertheless, they carry the distinction of being the first American servicemen to board an enemy warship underway at sea since the War of 1812. The Navy credited the Spencer with the kill. She rescued 19 of the U-boat’s crew and her sister cutter, Duane, rescued 22. One Spencer crewman was killed by friendly fire during the battle.

1944 – US B-17 and B-24 bombers attack Sofia, Bulgaria.

1944 – US B-17 and B-24 bombers attack Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

1945 – U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Boris T. Pash commandeers over half a ton of uranium at Strassfut, Germany, in an effort to prevent the Russians from developing an A-bomb. Pash was head of the Alsos Group, organized to search for German scientists in the postwar environment in order to prevent the Russians, previously Allies but now a potential threat, from capturing any scientists and putting them to work at their own atomic research plants. Uranium piles were also rich “catches,” as they were necessary to the development of atomic weapons.

1945 – There are American landings in the Moro Gulf at Cotabatu. The assault units are from US 24th Infantry Division from US 10th Corps (General Sibert). Admiral Noble commands 3 cruisers and a destroyer force in support. The American forces which landed at Zamboanga early in March have already cleared a large part of the southwest of the island, but the majority of the Japanese 35th Army (General Suzuki) remains intact. There is no initial opposition to the new landings.

1951 – Operation DAUNTLESS continued to advance against weakened communist resistance in the 24th and 25th Infantry Division zones. A company of the 24th Infantry Division’s 6th Tank Battalion moved up Route 3 to within seven miles of Kumhwa without contact.

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1960 – The International Control Commission, which oversees the implementation of the Geneva Agreements of 1954, agrees to A South Vietnamese government request for the United States to double it’s Military Advisory Assistance Group (MAAG) presence to 685. North Vietnam protests the approval and accuses the United States of turning South Vietnam into ‘a US military base for the preparation of a new war.’

1961 – The Bay of Pigs invasion begins when a CIA financed and trained group of Cuban refugees lands in Cuba and attempts to topple the communist government of Fidel Castro. The attack was an utter failure. Fidel Castro had been a concern to U.S. policymakers since he seized power in Cuba with a revolution in January 1959. Castro’s attacks on U.S. companies and interests in Cuba, his inflammatory anti-American rhetoric, and Cuba’s movement toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union led U.S. officials to conclude that the Cuban leader was a threat to U.S. interests in the Western Hemisphere. In March 1960, President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the CIA to train and arm a force of Cuban exiles for an armed attack on Cuba. John F. Kennedy inherited this program when he became president in 1961. Though many of his military advisors indicated that an amphibious assault on Cuba by a group of lightly armed exiles had little chance for success, Kennedy gave the go-ahead for the attack.

On April 17, 1961, around 1,200 exiles, armed with American weapons and using American landing craft, waded ashore at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The hope was that the exile force would serve as a rallying point for the Cuban citizenry, who would rise up and overthrow Castro’s government. The plan immediately fell apart–the landing force met with unexpectedly rapid counterattacks from Castro’s military, the tiny Cuban air force sank most of the exiles’ supply ships, the United States refrained from providing necessary air support, and the expected uprising never happened. Over 100 of the attackers were killed, and more than 1,100 were captured.

The failure at the Bay of Pigs cost the United States dearly. Castro used the attack by the “Yankee imperialists” to solidify his power in Cuba and he requested additional Soviet military aid. Eventually that aid included missiles, and the construction of missile bases in Cuba sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union nearly came to blows over the issue. Further, throughout much of Latin America, the United States was pilloried for its use of armed force in trying to unseat Castro, a man who was considered a hero to many for his stance against U.S. interference and imperialism. Kennedy tried to redeem himself by publicly accepting blame for the attack and its subsequent failure, but the botched mission left the young president looking vulnerable and indecisive.

1964 – Secretary of State Dean Rusk, CIA Officer William Bundy, and Army Chief of Staff General Earle Wheeler, visit Saigon where they review the latest US plans for covert actions against North Vietnam with Ambassador Lodge.

1969 – Paris peace talks show no progress as Communist negotiators reject allied proposals for mutual withdrawal, demanding that US forces leave at once and unconditionally.

1970 – With the world anxiously watching, Apollo 13, a U.S. lunar spacecraft that suffered a severe malfunction on its journey to the moon, safely returns to Earth. On April 11, the third manned lunar landing mission was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying astronauts James A. Lovell, John L. Swigert, and Fred W. Haise. The mission was headed for a landing on the Fra Mauro highlands of the moon. However, two days into the mission, disaster struck 200,000 miles from Earth when oxygen tank No. 2 blew up in the spacecraft. Mission commander Lovell reported to mission control on Earth: “Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” and it was discovered that the normal supply of oxygen, electricity, light, and water had been disrupted. The landing mission was aborted, and the astronauts and controllers on Earth scrambled to come up with emergency procedures. The crippled spacecraft continued to the moon, circled it, and began a long, cold journey back to Earth. The astronauts and mission control were faced with enormous logistical problems in stabilizing the spacecraft and its air supply, as well as providing enough energy to the damaged fuel cells to allow successful reentry into Earth’s atmosphere. Navigation was another problem, and Apollo 13’s course was repeatedly corrected with dramatic and untested maneuvers. On April 17, tragedy turned to triumph as the Apollo 13 astronauts touched down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

1972 – Hundreds of students are arrested and 800 National Guardsmen are ordered onto the campus of the University of Maryland in response to demonstrations against the school’s ROTC program and members.

1973 – The Senate Armed Services Committee begins a probe into allegations that the US Air Force made thousands of secret B-52 raids into Cambodia in 1969 and 1970 in violation of Cambodian neutrality. The Pentagon acknowledges that the raids were authorized by President Nixon and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird. Prince Sihanouk denies that he requested or authorized the bombing. Nixon and laird deny that they knew of or authorized falsification of the records of these missions.

1975 – The Khmer Rouge troops capture Phnom Penh and government forces surrender. The war between government troops and the communist insurgents had been raging since March 1970, when Lt. Gen. Lon Nol had ousted Prince Norodom Sihanouk in a bloodless coup and proclaimed the establishment of the Khmer Republic. Between 1970 and 1975, Lon Nol and his army, the Forces Armees Nationale Khmer (FANK), with U.S. support and military aid, battled the communist Khmer Rouge for control of Cambodia. During the five years of bitter fighting, approximately 10 percent of Cambodia’s 7 million people died. When the U.S. forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves fighting the communists alone. Without U.S. support, Lon Nol’s forces fought on, but eventually succumbed to the Khmer Rouge. With the surrender, the victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and set about reordering Cambodian society. This resulted in a killing spree and the notorious “killing fields.” Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

1983 – Mark W. Clark (87), US General (WW II), died.

1986 – IBM produced its 1st megabit-chip.

1987 – LT Tom McClay received a direct commission as a flight officer for duty with the Coast Guard’s E2C Hawkeyes. LT McClay was the first Coast Guard flight officer.

1986 – The bodies of American librarian Peter Kilburn and two Britons were found near Beirut; the three hostages had been slain in apparent retaliation for the U.S. raid on Libya.

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1995 – President Clinton signed an executive order stripping the classified label from most national security documents that were at least 25 years old.

1995 – An Air Force jet exploded and crashed in a wooded area in eastern Alabama, killing eight people, including an assistant Air Force secretary and a two-star general.

1998 – The space shuttle Columbia blasted off with 7 astronauts and a menagerie of creatures to test the effects of space travel on the nervous system.

1999 – The US launched the 505-foot Navy destroyer Winston S. Churchill at the Bath Iron Works in Maine.

1999 – NATO forces launched the 25th night of bombing against Yugoslavia in the strongest attacks thus far. General Wesley Clark, NATO’s commander, warned Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to change his policies in Kosovo or see his military machine destroyed.

1999 – In Iraq US fighter planes bombed anti-aircraft sites in the northern no-fly zone.

2000 – The Clinton administration approved the sale of upgraded missiles and a long-range radar system for Taiwan but not 4 hi-tech destroyers.

2000 – In Spokane, Washington, Robert L. Yates Jr., a National Guardsman and the father of 5, was arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old prostitute and suspected in the murder of as many as 17 other slayings in Washington state.

2000 – In the Philippines Abu Sayyaf rebels on Basilan Island threatened to kidnap and kill Americans if the US does not release the men convicted for bombing the World Trade Center in New York.

2001 – US envoys arrived in China to resolved issues of the US spy plane collision with a Chinese jet.

2001 – In Mississippi voters decided to keep the Confederate emblem on the state flag by a margin of 65 to 35%.

2002 – A US fighter jet accidentally dropped a laser-guided bomb on Canadian forces near Kandahar, Afghanistan, and 4 soldiers were killed. On Sep 12 two U.S. F-16 fighter pilots were charged with manslaughter and assault in the “friendly fire” bombing of Canadian troops that killed four soldiers and injured eight. In 2004 USAF pilot Maj. Harry Schmidt was found guilty of dereliction of duty. He received a reprimand and was docked a month’s pay.

2003 – In the 30th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom American forces released more than 900 Iraqi prisoners, beginning the process of sorting through the thousands detained in the month-old war. Coalition forces still held 6,850 prisoners. The Bush administration planned to send in a 1,000-man team to search for weapons of mass destruction.

2003 – US Special Forces captured Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti (5 of clubs), a half brother of Saddam Hussein. He was 3rd the list of 55 former Iraqi officials wanted by the US.

2003 – The US Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha (MET Alpha) found an Iraqi scientist who led the them to sites that contained precursors for a banned toxic agent.

2003 – A riot broke out at a Baghdad bank after thieves blew a hole in the vault and dropped children in to bring out fistfuls of cash. As ordinary Iraqis protested vehemently, US troops calmed the situation by arresting the thieves and removed $4 million in US dollars for safekeeping.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

CRILLEY, FRANK WILLIAM
Rank and organization: Chief Gunner’s Mate, U.S. Navy. Born: 13 September 1883, Trenton, N.J. Accredited to: Pennsylvania. (19 November 1928). Citation: For display of extraordinary heroism in the line of his profession above and beyond the call of duty during the diving operations in connection with the sinking in a depth of water 304 feet, of the U.S.S. F-4 with all on board, as a result of loss of depth control, which occurred off Honolulu, T.H., on 25 March 1915. On 17 April 1915, William F. Loughman, chief gunner’s mate, U.S. Navy, who had descended to the wreck and had examined one of the wire hawsers attached to it, upon starting his ascent, and when at a depth of 250 feet beneath the surface of the water, had his lifeline and air hose so badly fouled by this hawser that he was unable to free himself; he could neither ascend nor descend.

On account of the length of time that Loughman had already been subjected to the great pressure due to the depth of water, and of the uncertainty of the additional time he would have to be subjected to this pressure before he could be brought to the surface, it was imperative that steps be taken at once to clear him. Instantly, realizing the desperate case of his comrade, Crilley volunteered to go to his aid, immediately donned a diving suit and descended. After a lapse of time of 2 hours and 11 minutes, Crilley was brought to the surface, having by a superb exhibition of skill, coolness, endurance and fortitude, untangled the snarl of lines and cleared his imperiled comrade, so that he was brought, still alive, to the surface.

COVINGTON, JESSE WHITFIELD
Rank and organization: Ship’s Cook Third Class, U.S. Navy. Place and date: At sea aboard the U.S.S. Stewart, 17 April 1918. Entered service at: California. Born: 16 September 1889, Haywood, Tenn. G.O. No.: 403, 1918. Citation: For extraordinary heroism following internal explosion of the Florence H. The sea in the vicinity of wreckage was covered by a mass of boxes of smokeless powder, which were repeatedly exploding. Jesse W. Covington, of the U.S.S. Stewart, plunged overboard to rescue a survivor who was surrounded by powder boxes and too exhausted to help himself, fully realizing that similar powder boxes in the vicinity were continually exploding and that he was thereby risking his life in saving the life of this man.

UPTON, FRANK MONROE
Rank and organization: Quartermaster, U.S. Navy. Born: 29 April 1896, Loveland, Colo. Accredited to: Colorado. G.O. No.: 403, 1918. Citation: For extraordinary heroism following internal explosion of the Florence H, on 17 April 1918. The sea in the vicinity of wreckage was covered by a mass of boxes of smokeless powder, which were repeatedly exploding. Frank M. Upton, of the U.S.S. Stewart, plunged overboard to rescue a survivor who was surrounded by powder boxes and too exhausted to help himself. Fully realizing the danger from continual explosion of similar powder boxes in the vicinity, he risked his life to save the life of this man.

BURKE, FRANK (also known as FRANCIS X. BURKE)
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, U.S. Army, 15th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Nuremberg, Germany, 17 April 1945. Entered service at: Jersey City, N.J. Born: 29 September 1918, New York, N.Y. G.O. No.: 4, 9 January 1946. Citation: He fought with extreme gallantry in the streets of war-torn Nuremberg, Germany, where the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, was engaged in rooting out fanatical defenders of the citadel of Nazism. As battalion transportation officer he had gone forward to select a motor-pool site, when, in a desire to perform more than his assigned duties and participate in the fight, he advanced beyond the lines of the forward riflemen. Detecting a group of about 10 Germans making preparations for a local counterattack, he rushed back to a nearby American company, secured a light machinegun with ammunition, and daringly opened fire on this superior force, which deployed and returned his fire with machine pistols, rifles, and rocket launchers. From another angle a German machinegun tried to blast him from his emplacement, but 1st Lt. Burke killed this gun crew and drove off the survivors of the unit he had originally attacked.

Giving his next attention to enemy infantrymen in ruined buildings, he picked up a rifle dashed more than 100 yards through intense fire and engaged the Germans from behind an abandoned tank. A sniper nearly hit him from a cellar only 20 yards away, but he dispatched this adversary by running directly to the basement window, firing a full clip into it and then plunging through the darkened aperture to complete the job. He withdrew from the fight only long enough to replace his jammed rifle and secure grenades, then re-engaged the Germans. Finding his shots ineffective, he pulled the pins from 2 grenades, and, holding 1 in each hand, rushed the enemy-held building, hurling his missiles just as the enemy threw a potato masher grenade at him. In the triple explosion the Germans were wiped out and 1st Lt. Burke was dazed; but he emerged from the shower of debris that engulfed him, recovered his rifle, and went on to kill 3 more Germans and meet the charge of a machine pistol man, whom he cut down with 3 calmly delivered shots.

He then retired toward the American lines and there assisted a platoon in a raging, 30-minute fight against formidable armed hostile forces. This enemy group was repulsed, and the intrepid fighter moved to another friendly group which broke the power of a German unit armed with a 20-mm. gun in a fierce fire fight. In 4 hours of heroic action, 1st Lt. Burke single-handedly killed 11 and wounded 3 enemy soldiers and took a leading role in engagements in which an additional 29 enemy were killed or wounded. His extraordinary bravery and superb fighting skill were an inspiration to his comrades, and his entirely voluntary mission into extremely dangerous territory hastened the fall of Nuremberg, in his battalion’s sector.

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18 April

1689 – Bostonians rise up in rebellion against Sir Edmund Andros. The 1689 Boston revolt was a popular uprising against the rule of Sir Edmund Andros, the governor of the Dominion of New England. A well-organized “mob” of provincial militia and citizens formed in the city and arrested dominion officials. Members of the Church of England, believed by Puritans to sympathize with the administration of the dominion, were also taken into custody by the rebels. Neither faction sustained casualties during the revolt. Leaders of the former Massachusetts Bay Colony then reclaimed control of the government. In other colonies, members of governments displaced by the dominion were returned to power. Andros, commissioned governor of New England in 1686, had earned the enmity of the local populace by enforcing the restrictive Navigation Acts, denying the validity of existing land titles, restricting town meetings, and appointing unpopular regular officers to lead colonial militia, among other actions. Furthermore, he had infuriated Puritans in Boston by promoting the Church of England, which was disliked by many Nonconformist New England colonists.

1775 – In Massachusetts, British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Patriot minutemen. By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston. In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents.

On April 18th, he ordered British troops to march against Concord and Lexington. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a British military action for some time, and upon learning of the British plan Revere and Dawes set off across the Massachusetts countryside. Taking separate routes in case one of them were captured, Dawes left Boston by the Boston Neck peninsula, and Revere crossed the Charles River to Charlestown by boat. As the two couriers made their way, Patriots in Charlestown waited for a signal from Boston informing them of the British troop movement. As previously agreed, one lantern would be hung in the steeple of Boston’s Old North Church, the highest point in the city, if the British were marching out of the city by Boston Neck, and two if they were crossing the Charles River to Cambridge. Two lanterns were hung, and the armed Patriots set out for Lexington and Concord accordingly.

Along the way, Revere and Dawes roused hundreds of minutemen, who armed themselves and set out to oppose the British. Revere arrived in Lexington shortly before Dawes, but together they warned Adams and Hancock and then set out for Concord. Along the way, they were joined by Samuel Prescott, a young Patriot who had been riding home after visiting a friend. Early in the morning of April 19, a British patrol captured Revere, and Dawes lost his horse, forcing him to walk back to Lexington on foot. However, Prescott escaped and rode on to Concord to warn the Patriots there. After being roughly questioned for an hour or two, Revere was released when the patrol heard minutemen alarm guns being fired on their approach to Lexington. Around 5 a.m., 700 British troops under Major John Pitcairn arrived at the town to find a 77-man-strong colonial militia under Captain John Parker waiting for them on Lexington’s common green. Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun.

1778 – John Paul Jones attacked the British revenue cutter Husar near the Isle of Man, but it escaped. Soon thereafter he raided Whitehaven and burned one coal ship.

1805 – The Revenue cutter Louisiana recaptured the merchant brig Felicity from privateers off the mouth of the Mississippi River.

1806 – Putatively hoping to locate sailors who had deserted the Royal Navy, the British began to impress American merchant ships. Though the deserters often took refuge on American vessels, the British often simply seized any sailors–deserters or no–who failed to prove their American citizenship. So, on this day in 1806, Congress fired back at England by passing the Nicholson Act (nee the Non-Importation Act), legislation which effectively shut the door on the importation of numerous British goods to America. The legislation blocked the trade of brass, tin, textiles and other items that could either be produced in the States or imported from other countries. The Nicholson Act took effect in December of 1806; but, a mere month later, President Thomas Jefferson lifted the trade blockade in hopes of speeding treaty negotiations with Britain. U.S. Minister James Monroe brokered a deal with Britain, albeit one that did little to spare America’s commercial ships. In 1808, the government reinstated the Nicholson Act, though it did little to prevent America and England from sailing into another war.

1818 – A regiment of Indians and blacks was defeated at the Battle of Suwanna, in Florida, ending the first Seminole War. 1838 Aug 18, A 6-ship American expedition sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, under Lt. Charles Wilkes to search for the continent of Antarctica.

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1847 – U.S. forces defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle of the war. On 12 April, Lieutenant Pierre G. T. Beauregard, of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, had determined that possession of Atalaya Hill would enable the Mexican position to be turned, and on 15 April, Captain Robert E. Lee discovered a path around the Mexican left to the hill. General David E. Twiggs’ division took the hill on 17 April, advancing up the slopes to El Telegrafo. Santa Anna reinforced El Telegrafo with Brigadier General Ciriaco Vasquez’s 2d Light, 4th, and 11th Infantry. Captain Edward J. Steptoe set up his battery on Atalaya Hill and Major James C. Burnham set up a howitzer across the river. At 7:00 am on 18 April, Twiggs directed William S. Harney’s brigade to move against the front of El Telegrafo while Bennett C. Riley attacked from the rear.

The combination easily took the hill, killing General Vasquez, and Captain John B. Magruder turned the Mexican guns on the retreating Mexicans. Simultaneously, James Shields’ brigade attacked the Mexican camp and took possession of the Jalapa road. Once they realized they were surrounded, the Mexican commanders on the three hills surrendered and by 10:00 am, the remaining Mexican forces fled. General Santa Anna, caught off guard by the Fourth Regiment of the Illinois Volunteer Infantry, was compelled to ride off without his artificial leg, which was captured by U.S. forces and is still on display at the Illinois State Military Museum, in Springfield, Illinois.

1848 – U.S. Navy expedition to explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan, commanded by LT William F. Lynch, reaches the Dead Sea.

1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee turned down an offer to command the Union armies.

1861 – Battle of Harpers Ferry, VA.

1862 – Union mortar boats, Commander D. D. Porter, began a five day bombardment of Fort Jackson. Moored some 3,000 yards from Fort Jackson, they concentrated their heavy shells, up to 285 pounds, for six days and nights on this nearest fort from which they were hidden by intervening woods. The garrison heroically endured the fire and stuck to their guns.

1862 – Confederate Congress, hoping to stem the constant sweeping of the seas and inland waters by the Union fleets, passed an act authorizing contracts for the purchase of not more than six ironclads to be paid for in cotton.

1864 – Landing party from U.S.S. Commodore Read, Commander F. A. Parker, destroyed a Confederate base together with a quantity of equipment and supplies at Circus Point on the Rappahannock River, Virginia.

1864 – At Poison Springs, Arkansas, Confederate soldiers under the command of General Samuel Maxey capture a Union forage train and slaughter black troops escorting the expedition. The Battle of Poison Springs was part of broad Union offensive in the region of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. General Nathaniel Banks had led a Yankee force through Louisiana in March and April, but a defeat in northwestern Louisiana at the Battle of Mansfield on April 8 sent Banks in retreat. Union forces nearby in Arkansas were moving towards Banks’ projected thrust into Texas with the intention of securing southwestern Arkansas for the Federals. Union General Frederick Steele occupied Camden, Arkansas, on April 15. Two days later, he sent Colonel John Williams and 1,100 of his 14,000-man force to gather 5,000 bushels of corn discovered west of Camden. The force arrived to find that Confederate marauders had destroyed half of the store, but the Yankees loaded the rest into some 200 wagons and prepared to return to Camden.

On the way back Maxey and 3,600 Confederates intercepted them. Maxey placed General John Marmaduke in charge of the attack that ensued. Williams positioned part of his force, the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry, between the wagon train the Confederate lines. The regiment was the first black unit in the army, comprised primarily of ex-slaves. The determined soldiers of the 1st Kansas stopped the first two Rebel attacks, but they were running low on ammunition. A third assault overwhelmed the Kansans, and the rout was on. Williams gathered the remnants of his force and retreated from the abandoned wagons. More than 300 Yankee troops were killed, wounded, or captured, while the Confederates lost just 13 killed and 81 wounded.

Most shocking was the Rebel treatment of the black troops. No black troops were captured, and those left wounded on the battlefield were brutally killed, scalped, and stripped. The Washington Telegraph, the major Confederate newspaper in Arkansas, justified the atrocity by declaring “We cannot treat Negroes taken in arms as prisoners of war without a destruction of social system for which we contend.”

1865 – Dr. Samuel A. Mudd originally claimed to have never met Booth during his initial interview with investigating detectives. Presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth, injured and fleeing Ford’s Theatre, had knocked on the door of Dr. Mudd for help.

1865 – Confederate Gen Joseph Johnston surrendered to Gen W.T. Sherman in North Carolina.

1934 – Hitler named Joachim von Ribbentrop, ambassador for disarmament.

1942 – First issue of the newspaper for U.S. armed forces, Stars and Stripes, was published.

1942 – From the decks of the USS Hornet, Col. Doolittle leads 16 B-25 bombers for a raid on Tokyo. They launch from the maximum range, 650 miles from their target. Essentially unarmed to extend their flying range, the B-25’s fly unmolested to Tokyo and drop their bombs, proceeding to China where they land at the very limits of their fuel. Although the bombing does minimal damage physically, the psychological impact is great. For the Americans, this raid symbolizes the first “strike back” at the Japanese and raises American morale substantially. The Japanese, buoyed by their constant success in the Pacific are now forced to contemplate the implications of the war if it is allowed to be carried to Japanese soil. This change in Japanese attitude will affect military decisions in such crucial battles as the battle of Midway and the Coral Sea. For the Americans, the raid signifies that the Japanese are not invulnerable and therefore can ultimately be defeated.

1943 – Traveling in a bomber, the Commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor, is shot down by P-38 Lighting fighters over Bougainville. Yamamoto is killed. This action is the result the interception of a coded Japanese message announcing a visit by Yamamoto. The Japanese fail to deduce that their codes are insecure.

1943 – A massive convoy of 100 transport aircraft leaves Sicily with supplies for the Axis forces. At least half the planes are shot down by Allied fighters.

1944 – American B-17 and B-24 bombers attack the Heinkel works at Oranienburg and other targets near Berlin. British Mosquito bombers strike Berlin.

1945 – Ernie Pyle was killed by enemy fire on the island of Ie Shima. After his death, President Harry S. Truman spoke of how Pyle “told the story of the American fighting man as the American fighting men wanted it told.” He was buried in his hometown of Dana, Indiana, next to local soldiers who had fallen in battle. During World War II, journalist Ernie Pyle, America’s most popular war correspondent, is killed by Japanese machine-gun fire on the island of Ie Shima in the Pacific. Pyle, born in Dana, Indiana, first began writing a column for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain in 1935. Eventually syndicated to some 200 U.S. newspapers, Pyle’s column, which related the lives and hopes of typical citizens, captured America’s affection.

In 1942, after the United States entered World War II, Pyle went overseas as a war correspondent. He covered the North Africa campaign, the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and on June 7, 1944, went ashore at Normandy the day after Allied forces landed. Pyle, who always wrote about the experiences of enlisted men rather than the battles they participated in, described the D-Day scene: “It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn’t know they were in the water, for they were dead.” The same year, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence and in 1945 traveled to the Pacific to cover the war against Japan.

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1945 – The last German forces resisting in the Ruhr Pocket surrender. Field Marshal Model, commanding German Army Group B inside the pocket, commits suicide. About 325,000 German prisoners have been taken in this area by the Allied forces. Meanwhile, the US 9th Army captures Magdeburg and troops of US 3rd Army cross the Czechoslovakian border after a rapid advance.

1945 – Airship training for U.S. Coast Guard personnel (nine officers & 30 enlisted men) began at NAVAIRSTA Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1949 – The keel for the aircraft carrier USS United States is laid down at Newport News Drydock and Shipbuilding. However, construction is canceled five days later, this would be the last straw culminating in the Revolt of the Admirals.

1946 – US recognized Tito’s Yugoslavia government.

1946 – The League of Nations was dissolved.

1948 – International Court of Justice opened at Hague, Netherlands.

1951 – Having completed their tour of duty, the first 385 to rotate out of Korea, set sail from Korea to Japan and finally back to the United States.

1961 – Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev sent a letter to Pres. Kennedy with an “urgent call” to end “aggression” against Cuba.

1965 – US planes hit targets that include barracks at Dongthanh, a ferryboat in the Song Trac River, and highways in the southern section of North Vietnam.

1966 – In a Senate speech, majority leader Mike Mansfield (D-MT) declares that the current political crisis in Vietnam makes it urgent that the US engage in direct talks with North Vietnam, Communist China, ‘and such elements in South Vietnam as may be essential to the making and keeping of a peaceful settlement’ of the war. Peking rejects the proposal.

1967 – The US pledges an additional $150 million in economic aid for a total annual amount of $700 million, a new annual record.

1967 – General Westmoreland notifies the Joint Chiefs of additional troop needs. For an ‘optimum force,’ he requests four and two-thirds divisions — 201,250 more troops — to boost the total US strength in Vietnam to 671,616 men.
1969 – At a news conference, President Nixon says he feels the prospects for peace have “significantly improved” since he took office. He cited the greater political stability of the Saigon government and the improvement in the South Vietnamese armed forces as proof. With these remarks, Nixon was trying to set the stage for a major announcement he would make at the Midway conference in June. While conferring with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, Nixon announced that the United States would be pursuing a three-pronged strategy to end the war. Efforts would be increased to improve the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so that they could assume responsibility for the war against the North Vietnamese–Nixon described this effort as “Vietnamization.” As the South Vietnamese became more capable, U.S. forces would be withdrawn from South Vietnam. At the same time, U.S. negotiators would continue to try to reach a negotiated settlement to the war with the communists at the Paris peace talks.

This announcement represented a significant change in the nature of the U.S. commitment to the war, as the United States would be withdrawing troops from the war for the first time. The first U.S. soldiers were withdrawn in the fall of 1969 and the withdrawals continued periodically through 1972. At the same time, the United States increased the advisory effort and provided massive amounts of new equipment and weapons to the South Vietnamese as well. When the North Vietnamese launched a massive invasion in the spring of 1972, the South Vietnamese wavered, but eventually rallied with U.S. support and prevailed over the North Vietnamese. Nixon proclaimed that the South Vietnamese victory validated his strategy. In fact, a peace agreement was finalized in January 1973, but the fighting continued anyway. The U.S. did not deliver the aid it had promised in the case of continued attacks-the South Vietnamese held out for two years but they succumbed to the North Vietnamese in April 1975.

1971 – South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky denounces US Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern’s stated interest in investigating charges that Ky is implicated in opium smuggling.

1971 – Over the next four days, US jets carry out a 30th raid since 1 January against missile sites and anti-aircraft positions in North Vietnam.

1972 – Secretary of Defense Melvin laird before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the does not rule out the possibility of blockading and mining Haiphong harbor. Every area of North Vietnam, he says, is subject to bombing for the protection of the 85,000 US troops still in Vietnam.

1978 – The U.S. Senate voted 68-32 to turn the Panama Canal over to Panamanian control on December 31, 1999.

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1983 – The U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, is almost completely destroyed by a car-bomb explosion that kills 63 people, including the suicide bomber and 17 Americans. The terrorist attack was carried out in protest of the U.S. military presence in Lebanon. In 1975, a bloody civil war erupted in Lebanon, with Palestinian and leftist Muslim guerrillas battling militias of the Christian Phalange Party, the Maronite Christian community, and other groups. During the next few years, Syrian, Israeli, and United Nations interventions failed to resolve the factional fighting, and on August 20, 1982, a multinational force featuring U.S. Marines landed in Beirut to oversee the Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon. The Marines left Lebanese territory on September 10 but returned on September 29, following the massacre of Palestinian refugees by a Christian militia.

The next day, the first U.S. Marine to die during the mission was killed while defusing a bomb, and on April 18, 1983, the U.S. embassy in Beirut was bombed. On October 23, Lebanese terrorists evaded security measures and drove a truck packed with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. military personnel. Fifty-eight French soldiers were killed almost simultaneously in a separate suicide terrorist attack. On February 7, 1984, U.S. President Ronald Reagan announced the end of U.S. participation in the peacekeeping force, and on February 26 the last U.S. Marines left Beirut.

1988 – The United States launches Operation Praying Mantis against Iranian naval forces in the largest naval battle since World War II. Operation Praying Mantis was an attack by U.S. naval forces within Iranian territorial waters in retaliation for the Iranian mining of the Persian Gulf during the Iran–Iraq war and the subsequent damage to an American warship. On 14 April, the guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts had struck a mine while deployed in the Persian Gulf as part of Operation Earnest Will, the 1987–88 convoy missions in which U.S. warships escorted reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers to protect them from Iranian attacks. The explosion blew a 25-foot (7.6-meter) hole in the Roberts’s hull and nearly sank it. The crew saved their ship with no loss of life, and Roberts was towed to Dubai on 16 April.

After the mining, U.S. Navy divers recovered other mines in the area. When the serial numbers were found to match those of mines seized along with the Iran Ajr the previous September, U.S. military officials planned a retaliatory operation against Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf. This battle was the largest of the five major U.S. surface engagements since the Second World War, which also include the Battle of Chumonchin Chan during the Korean War, the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the Battle of Dong Hoi during the Vietnam War, and the Action in the Gulf of Sidra in 1986. It also marked the U.S. Navy’s first exchange of anti-ship missiles by ships.

1989 – Thousands of Chinese students take to the streets in Beijing to protest government policies and issue a call for greater democracy in the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). The protests grew until the Chinese government ruthlessly suppressed them in June during what came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. During the mid-1980s, the communist government of the PRC had been slowly edging toward a liberalization of the nation’s strict state-controlled economy, in an attempt to attract more foreign investment and increase the nation’s foreign trade. This action sparked a call among many Chinese citizens, including many students, for reform of the country’s communist-dominated political system. By early 1989, peaceful protests against the government began in some of China’s largest cities. The biggest protest was held on April 18 in the capital city of Beijing. Marching through Tiananmen Square in the center of the city, thousands of students carried banners, chanted slogans, and sang songs calling for a more democratic political atmosphere. The government’s response to the demonstrations became progressively harsher. Government officials who showed any sympathy to the protesters were purged. Several of the demonstration leaders were arrested, and a propaganda campaign was directed at the marching students, declaring that they sought to “create chaos under the heavens.”

On June 3, 1989, with the protests growing larger every day and foreign journalists capturing the dramatic events on film, the Chinese army was directed to crush the movement. An unknown number of Chinese protesters were killed (estimates range into the thousands) during what came to be known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre. In the United States, the protests attracted widespread attention. Many Americans assumed that China, like the Soviet Union and the communist nations of Eastern Europe, had been moving toward a free market and political democracy. The brutal government repression of the protests shocked the American public. The U.S. government temporarily suspended arms sales to China and imposed a few economic sanctions, but the actions were largely symbolic. Growing U.S. trade and investment in China and the fear that a severe U.S. reaction to the massacre might result in a diplomatic rupture limited the official U.S. response.

1992 – Serbia issued a protest to the United States, accusing Washington of siding with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia in the Yugoslav crisis.

1994 – Former President Richard Nixon suffered a stroke at his home in Park Ridge, N.J., and was taken to New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center; he died four days later.

1996 – The US government will deliver $368 million in military equipment to Pakistan that was paid for in the 1980’s. Pakistan will also get $120 mil in cash that it paid for weapons and spare parts that were never manufactured.

1999 – NATO requested from Bulgaria the use of its airspace.

1999 – In Yugoslavia NATO bombers hit refineries, bridges and other targets in the 25th straight day of attacks and the heaviest strikes to date. 70% of fuel storage capability was now destroyed and Yugoslavia no longer had the ability to refine oil. In Pancevo a refinery, fertilizer plant and American-built petrochemical complex were destroyed and a dense toxic cloud was released with potential long term consequences. Pancevo’s industrial zone was bombed over 20 times within a 2-month period and created an environmental disaster.

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2001 – US negotiators said China agreed to discuss the return of the US spy plane following a day of unproductive talks. Beijing and Washington staked out opposing positions on who was to blame for the incident.

2002 – Afghanistan’s former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, returned to his country after 29 years in exile.

2003 – Burt Rutan, aircraft designer, unveiled SpaceShipOne, a rocket-powered spacecraft. He hoped to win the $10 million 1996 X Prize, offered for the 1st private launch of 3-people to an altitude of 62.5 miles twice in 2 weeks.

2003 – Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi said he expects an Iraqi interim authority to take over most government functions from the U.S. military in “a matter of weeks rather than months.” Protesters marched in Baghdad denouncing US presence. Kurds were reported expelling Arab families from towns and villages where they had lived decades ago.

2003 – Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim (4 of clubs), a senior leader of the shattered Baath party, was handed over to US forces overnight by Iraqi Kurds near the northern city of Mosul. US troops in Baghdad uncovered numerous boxes of UC currency estimated at $650 million.

2003 – Iraqi police captured Hikmat Ibrahim al-Azzawi (8 of diamonds), a deputy prime minister and number 45 on an American list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis.

2003 – North Korea said it was ready to begin reprocessing more than 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. US experts said it will give the communist state enough plutonium to make several atomic bombs.

2003 – Poland signed a deal to buy 48 US-made F-16 jet fighters for $3.5 billion, the biggest defense contract by a former Soviet bloc country since the end of the Cold War.

2009 – Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi is charged with espionage and imprisoned in Iran until 2017.

2009 – Canada’s HMCS Winnipeg and the United States’ USS Halyburton thwart Somali pirates’ attack on a Norwegian oil tanker.

2010 – Former President of the United States George Washington owes $300,000 for overdue library books he borrowed from New York Society Library five months into his presidency and which he failed to return.

2010 – US and Iraqi forces killed Abu Ayyub al-Masri the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq in a joint American and Iraqi operation near Tikrit, Iraq. The coalition forces believed al-Masri to be wearing a suicide vest and proceeded cautiously. After the lengthy exchange of fire and bombing of the house, the Iraqi troops stormed inside and found two women still alive, one of whom was al-Masri’s wife, and four dead men, identified as al-Masri, Abu Abdullah al-Rashid al-Baghdadi, an assistant to al-Masri, and al-Baghdadi’s son. A suicide vest was indeed found on al-Masri’s corpse, as the Iraqi Army subsequently stated. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the killings of Abu Omar al-Baghdadi and Abu Ayyub al-Masri at a news conference in Baghdad and showed reporters photographs of their bloody corpses. “The attack was carried out by ground forces which surrounded the house, and also through the use of missiles,” Mr Maliki said. “During the operation computers were seized with e-mails and messages to the two biggest terrorists, Osama bin Laden and [his deputy] Ayman al-Zawahiri”, Maliki added. U.S. forces commander Gen. Raymond Odierno praised the operation. “The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al-Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency”, he said. “There is still work to do but this is a significant step forward in ridding Iraq of terrorists.”

2012 – Senior U.S. officials condemn graphic photos depicting their troops posing with the mangled corpses of suspected Afghan suicide bombers on at least two separate occasions months apart. The Los Angeles Times defends its publication of the photos after being warned against the move by the U.S. military.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

DALY, MICHAEL J.
Rank and organization: Captain (then Lieutenant), U.S. Army, Company A, 15th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Nuremberg, Germany, 18 April 1945. Entered service at: Southport, Conn. Born: 15 September 1924, New York, N.Y. G.O. No.: 77, 10 September 1945. Citation: Early in the morning of 18 April 1945, he led his company through the shell-battered, sniper-infested wreckage of Nuremberg, Germany. When bl1stering machinegun fire caught his unit in an exposed position, he ordered his men to take cover, dashed forward alone, and, as bullets whined about him, shot the 3-man guncrew with his carbine. Continuing the advance at the head of his company, he located an enemy patrol armed with rocket launchers which threatened friendly armor. He again went forward alone, secured a vantage point and opened fire on the Germans.

Immediately he became the target for concentrated machine pistol and rocket fire, which blasted the rubble about him. Calmly, he continued to shoot at the patrol until he had killed all 6 enemy infantrymen. Continuing boldly far in front of his company, he entered a park, where as his men advanced, a German machinegun opened up on them without warning. With his carbine, he killed the gunner; and then, from a completely exposed position, he directed machinegun fire on the remainder of the crew until all were dead. In a final duel, he wiped out a third machinegun emplacement with rifle fire at a range of 10 yards. By fearlessly engaging in 4 single-handed fire fights with a desperate, powerfully armed enemy, Lt. Daly, voluntarily taking all major risks himself and protecting his men at every opportunity, killed 15 Germans, silenced 3 enemy machineguns and wiped out an entire enemy patrol. His heroism during the lone bitter struggle with fanatical enemy forces was an inspiration to the valiant Americans who took Nuremberg.

*MERRELL, JOSEPH F.
Rank and organization: Private, U.S. Army, Company I, 15th Infantry, 3d Infantry Division. Place and date: Near Lohe, Germany, 18 April 1945. Entered service at: Staten Island, N.Y. Birth: Staten Island, N.Y. G.O. No.: 21, 26 February 1946. Citation: He made a gallant, 1-man attack against vastly superior enemy forces near Lohe, Germany. His unit, attempting a quick conquest of hostile hill positions that would open the route to Nuremberg before the enemy could organize his defense of that city, was pinned down by brutal fire from rifles, machine pistols, and 2 heavy machineguns. Entirely on his own initiative, Pvt. Merrell began a single-handed assault. He ran 100 yards through concentrated fire, barely escaping death at each stride, and at pointblank range engaged 4 German machine pistolmen with his rifle, killing all of them while their bullets ripped his uniform.

As he started forward again, his rifle was smashed by a sniper’s bullet, leaving him armed only with 3 grenades. But he did not hesitate. He zigzagged 200 yards through a hail of bullets to within 10 yards of the first machinegun, where he hurled 2 grenades and then rushed the position ready to fight with his bare hands if necessary. In the emplacement he seized a Luger pistol and killed what Germans had survived the grenade blast. Rearmed, he crawled toward the second machinegun located 30 yards away, killing 4 Germans in camouflaged foxholes on the way, but himself receiving a critical wound in the abdomen. And yet he went on, staggering, bleeding, disregarding bullets which tore through the folds of his clothing and glanced off his helmet. He threw his last grenade into the machinegun nest and stumbled on to wipe out the crew. He had completed this self-appointed task when a machine pistol burst killed him instantly. In his spectacular 1-man attack Pvt. Merrell killed 6 Germans in the first machinegun emplacement, 7 in the next, and an additional 10 infantrymen who were astride his path to the weapons which would have decimated his unit had he not assumed the burden of the assault and stormed the enemy positions with utter fearlessness, intrepidity of the highest order, and a willingness to sacrifice his own life so that his comrades could go on to victory.

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19 April

1721 – Roger Sherman, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1764 – The English Parliament banned the American colonies from printing paper money.

1775 – At about 5 a.m., 700 British troops, on a mission to capture Patriot leaders and seize a Patriot arsenal, march into Lexington to find 77 armed minutemen under Captain John Parker waiting for them on the town’s common green. British Major John Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment’s hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the “shot heard around the world” was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead or dying and 10 others were wounded. Only one British soldier was injured, but the American Revolution had begun. By 1775, tensions between the American colonies and the British government approached the breaking point, especially in Massachusetts, where Patriot leaders formed a shadow revolutionary government and trained militias to prepare for armed conflict with the British troops occupying Boston.

In the spring of 1775, General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, received instructions from England to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents. On April 18, he ordered British troops to march against the Patriot arsenal at Concord and capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. The Boston Patriots had been preparing for such a military action by the British for some time, and upon learning of the British plan, Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes were ordered to set out to rouse the militiamen and warn Adams and Hancock. When the British troops arrived at Lexington, Adams, Hancock, and Revere had already fled to Philadelphia, and a group of militiamen were waiting. The Patriots were routed within minutes, but warfare had begun, leading to calls to arms across the Massachusetts countryside.

When the British troops reached Concord at about 7 a.m., they found themselves encircled by hundreds of armed Patriots. They managed to destroy the military supplies the Americans had collected but were soon advanced against by a gang of minutemen, who inflicted numerous casualties. Lieutenant Colonel Frances Smith, the overall commander of the British force, ordered his men to return to Boston without directly engaging the Americans. As the British retraced their 16-mile journey, their lines were constantly beset by Patriot marksmen firing at them Indian-style from behind trees, rocks, and stone walls.

At Lexington, Captain Parker’s militia had its revenge, killing several British soldiers as the Red Coats hastily marched through his town. By the time the British finally reached the safety of Boston, nearly 300 British soldiers had been killed, wounded, or were missing in action. The Patriots suffered fewer than 100 casualties. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first battles of the American Revolution, a conflict that would escalate from a colonial uprising into a world war that, seven years later, would give birth to the independent United States of America.

1778 – Marines participated in the USS Ranger’s capturing and sinking of a British schooner off the coast of Ireland.

1782 – Netherlands recognized the United States. John Adams secures the Dutch Republic’s recognition of the United States as an independent government. The house which he had purchased in The Hague, Netherlands becomes the first American embassy.

1783 – George Washington proclaims end of hostilities.

1802 – Spain reopened the New Orleans port to American merchants.

1861 – President Lincoln issued proclamation declaring blockade of Southern ports from South Carolina to Texas Of the blockade Admiral David Dixon Potter was to later write: “So efficiently was the blockade maintained and so greatly was it strengthened from time to time, that foreign statesmen, who at the beginning of the war, did not hesitate to pronounce the blockade of nearly three thousand miles of coast a moral impossibility, twelve months after its establishment were forced to admit that the proofs of its efficiency were so comprehensive and conclusive that no objections to it could be made.”

1861 – Captain David Glasgow Farragut, though born in the South and with a southern wife, chose to remain loyal to the Union and left his home in Norfolk, Virginia, to take up residence in New York City.

1861 – Residents of Baltimore, Maryland, attack a Union regiment while the group makes its way to Washington, D.C. Baltimore’s hostilities to the North were already well known, as just two percent of the city’s voters cast their ballots for Abraham Lincoln while nearly half supported John Breckinridge, the Southern Democratic Party candidate. Lincoln was to pass through Baltimore on his way to Washington for his inauguration, but death threats forced the president-elect to slip through the city in the middle of the night in disguise. Baltimore was a cauldron of secessionist feeling, and these tensions boiled over on April 18. Pro-Confederate volunteers gathered at Bolton Station to hurl insults and rocks at Pennsylvania troops as they changed trains en route to Washington.

Now, on April 19, the 6th Massachusetts regiment disembarked from a train and was met with an even more hostile crowd. Tensions rose as the 11 companies of the 6th arrived. Cobblestones rained down on the soldiers as they prepared to transfer from the President Street Station to Camden Station. Shots were fired, and when the smoke cleared four Massachusetts soldiers lay dead along with 12 Baltimoreans, while 36 troops and an undetermined number of civilians were wounded. Washington was effectively cut off from the North. In the following months, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and hundreds of secessionist leaders were rounded up. Within six months, the Union was again in control of Baltimore.

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1864 – C.S.S. Albemarle, Commander Cooke, attacked Union warships off Plymouth, North Carolina, at 3:30 in the morning. The heralded and long awaited ram had departed Hamilton on the evening of the 17th. While en route, a portion of the machinery broke down” and “the rudderhead broke off,” but repairs were promptly made; and, despite the navigational hazards of the crooked Roanoke River, Cooke anchored above Plymouth at 10 p.m. on the 18th. Failing to rendezvous with Confederate troops as planned, Cooke dispatched a boat to determine the position of the Union gunboats and shore batteries. Shortly after midnight, 19 April, the party returned and reported that Albemarle could pass over the Union obstructions because of the high stage of the water. Cooke weighed anchor and stood down to engage. Meanwhile, anticipating an attack by the ram, Lieutenant Commander Flusser lashed wooden double-enders U.S.S. Miami and Southfield together for mutual protection and concentration of firepower.

As Albemarle appeared, he gallantly headed the two light wooden ships directly at the Southern ram, firing as they approached. Albemarle struck Southfield, Acting Lieutenant Charles A. French, a devastating blow with her ram. It was reported that she “tore a hole clear through to the boiler” and Cooke stated that his ship plunged ten feet into the side of the wooden gunboat. Though backing immediately after the impact, Albemarle could not at once wrench herself free from the sinking Southfield and thus could not reply effectively to the fire poured into her by Miami. At last her prow was freed as Southfield sank, and Cooke forced Flusser’s ship to withdraw under a heavy cannonade. Small steamer U.S.S. Ceres and 105-ton tin clad Whitehead moved downriver also. The shot of the Union ships had been ineffective against the heavily plated, sloping sides of the ram. Early in the engagement, Lieutenant Commander Flusser had been killed. Albemarle now controlled the water approaches to Plymouth and rendered invaluable support to Confederate army moves ashore giving the South a taste of the priceless advantage Union armies enjoyed in all theaters throughout the war.

1865 – Lieutenant W. H. Parker, commanding naval escort entrusted with the Confederate archives, treasury, and President Davis’ wife, successfully evaded Federal patrols en route southward from Charlotte and arrived at Washington, Georgia, on the 17th. Parker, still without orders as to the disposition of his precious trust and unable to learn of the whereabouts of President Davis and his party (including Secretary Mallory), decided to push on through to Augusta, Georgia, where he hoped to find ranking civilian and military officials. The escort commander recorded: “We left the ladies behind at the tavern in Washington for we expected now a fight at any time.” The escort again, however, managed to elude Federal patrols and arrived without incident at Augusta where Parker placed his entrusted cargo in bank vaults and posted a guard around the building. Having learned upon arrival that armistice negotiations between Generals Sherman and Johnston were in progress, the escort commander decided to remain in the city and await the outcome of the conference.

1865 – U.S.S. Lexington, Acting Lieutenant William Flye, conveyed Colonel John T. Sprague, Chief of Staff to General John Pope, from Cairo and up the Red River to meet Confederate General Kirby Smith. At the ensuing conference, Smith was given the terms under which the surrender of his forces would be accepted.

1892 – Charles Duryea drives the first automobile in the United States, in Springfield, Massachusetts. Charles engineered the car and his brother Frank built it. The Duryea’s “motor wagon” was a used horse drawn buggy that the brothers had purchased for $70 and into which they had installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition.

1898 – Congress passed a resolution recognizing Cuban independence and demanding that Spain relinquish authority over Cuba. President McKinley was also authorized to use military force to put the resolution into effect.

1915 – Aviation engineers working for Dutch-born Anthony Fokker develop the mechanical interrupter gear, which allows machine gun bullets to be fired through rotating aircraft propeller blades.

1919 – Leslie Irvin of the United States makes the first successful voluntary free-fall parachute jump using a new kind of self-contained parachute. Irvin was born in Los Angeles. He became a stunt-man for the fledgling Californian film industry, for which he had to perform acrobatics on trapezes from balloons and then make descents using a parachute, the Type-A. Irvin made his first jump when aged fourteen. For a film called Sky High, he first jumped from an aircraft from 1,000 feet in 1914. He developed his own static line parachute as a life-saving device in 1918 and jumped with it several times. He joined the Army Air Service’s parachute research team, and at McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio. After World War I, Major E. L. Hoffman of the Army Air Service led an effort to develop an improved parachute for exiting airplanes by bringing together the best elements of multiple parachute designs. Participants included Irvin and James Floyd Smith. The team eventually created the Airplane Parachute Type-A.

1933 – The United States went off the gold standard by presidential proclamation. FDR tied this with orders that 445,000 newly minted gold $20 “Double Eagle” coins be destroyed. Ten coins escaped and one was scheduled for auction in 2002. The coin fetched $7.59 million.

1938 – General Francisco Franco declared victory in the Spanish Civil War.

1938 – RCA-NBC launches its first regular TV broadcasts. The programs, broadcast from the Empire State Building, were an experiment and aired only five hours a week. Very few TV sets existed at the time to receive the programs.

1939 – Connecticut finally approved Bill of Rights.

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1942 – In Burma, General Alexander confers with his field commanders (British Brigadier General Slim and American Lieutenant General Stilwell). Meanwhile, the Japanese strike at the weak and poorly led Chinese 55th Division, which the Japanese find idly sitting in its bivouacs. The Chinese are attacked from three directions at once and the division disintegrates. Soldiers flee into the hills. The 93rd Chinese Division moves in to help, sees the chaos, and retreats without fighting.

1942 – On Bataan, Japanese resources are overwhelmed by thousands of American and Filipino prisoners who assemble in the town of Balanga.

1944 – The British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean (Admiral Somerville) is reinforced with the USS Saratoga. The carrier aircraft attack Japanese positions at Sabang and nearby airfields. One plane is lost and 27 Japanese planes are claimed to have been shot down.

1944 – The House of Representatives approves an extension of Lend-Lease legislation.

1945 – US aircraft carrier Franklin was heavily damaged in Japanese air raid.

1945 – In the advance by US 1st Corps units, on the northwest coast of Luzon, Vigan is taken.

1945 – On Okinawa, the US 24th Corps now has three divisions in the line and all three begin attacks after a heavy ground and air bombardment. The heaviest efforts are on coastal flanks.

1945 – The US 1st Army captures Leipzig. The British 2nd Army reaches the Elbe south of Namburg.

1951 – General Douglas MacArthur, relieved of his command by President Truman, bids farewell to Congress, quote:

“I am closing my 52 years of military service. When I joined the Army, even before the turn of the century, it was the fulfillment of all of my boyish hopes and dreams. The world has turned over many times since I took the oath on the plain at West Point, and the hopes and dreams have long since vanished, but I still remember the refrain of one of the most popular barrack ballads of that day which proclaimed most proudly that ‘old soldiers never die; they just fade away.’

“And like the old soldier of that ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty.

“Good Bye.”

1951 – I and IX Corps reached the Utah Line, south of the Iron Triangle.

1952 – The U.N. delegation informed the communists that only 70,000 of 132,000 of the prisoners of war held by the United Nations Command were willing to return home.

1964 – Several Laotian generals attempt a coup, but with the support of the US Ambassador, Souvanna Phouma regains control of the coalition government. The Pathet Lao reject the coalition and go on the offensive.

1965 – US military and civilian leaders, including Secretary of Defense McNamara, and JCS Chairman Earle Wheeler, meet at Honolulu with General Westmoreland and Ambassador Taylor. They agree to more than double the US military force (from 40,200 to 82,000) and to bring the forces of Australia and South Korea up to 7250 men. Taylor initially opposes the increase, but he is outvoted and apparently won over.

1965 – An article in Electronics magazine by Gordon Moore, later Intel Chairman, noted that chips seem to double in power every 18 months. Thus was born Moore’s Law. Moore later asserted that his claim was that the number of components that can be packed on a computer chip doubles every 2 years. Articles often misquote Moore and claim an annual doubling. In 2005 Intel offered $10,000 for a pristine copy of the magazine.

1967 – The US proposes widening the currently 6-mile wide DMZ by an additional 10 miles on each side with troops on both sides withdrawn behind the wider buffer. North Vietnam rejects the proposal as it does not include their primary condition for peace talks–an end to air attacks on North Vietnam.

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1968 – Operation Delaware/Lam Son 216 through the Ashau Valley begins and will run for nearly a month. The 1st Cavalry Division commander describes the Valley as a ‘top logistical support base” for the NVA, ‘as important to him as Camranh bay is to us.’ The intent is to prevent a new attack on Hue.

1969 – The US turns over the first 20 of 60 jet fighter-bombers to the South Vietnamese Air Force.

1972 – US 7th Fleet warships, while bombarding the North Vietnamese coast, are attacked by MiGs and patrol boats as Hanoi begins to challenge US naval presence in The Tonkin Gulf for the first time since 1964. The destroyer USS Higbee is badly damaged.

1973 – Representative Elizabeth Holtzman (D-NY) and four Air Force officers file suit in Federal Distric Court to halt the ‘secret American bombing of Cambodia.’

1977 – Alex Haley, former historian of the US Coast Guard, received a special Pulitzer Prize for his book “Roots.”

1982 – Astronauts Sally K. Ride and Guion S. Bluford Jr. became the first woman and first African-American to be tapped by NASA for U.S. space missions.

1987 – Maxwell D. Taylor (85), US commander 101st airborne (WW II), died.

1989 – The battleship USS Iowa’s number 2 turret exploded while on maneuvers northeast of Puerto Rico. 47 sailors were killed and a $4 million investigation was launched .The Navy attempted to lay the blame on Clayton Hartwig, a seaman described disappointed in a gay affair.

1990 – Nicaragua’s nine-year-old civil war appeared near an end as Contra guerrillas, leftist Sandinistas and the incoming government agreed to a truce and a deadline for the rebels to disarm.

1993 – At Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launches a tear-gas assault on the Branch Davidian compound, ending a tense 51-day standoff between the federal government and an armed religious cult. By the end of the day, the compound was burned to the ground, and some 80 Branch Davidians, including 22 children, had perished in the inferno.

On February 28, 1993, agents of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) launched a raid against the Branch Davidian compound as part of an investigation into illegal possession of firearms and explosives by the Christian cult. As the agents attempted to penetrate the complex, gunfire erupted, beginning an extended gun battle that left four ATF agents dead and 15 wounded. Six Branch Davidians were fatally wounded, and several more were injured, including David Koresh, the cult’s founder and leader.

After 45 minutes of shooting, the ATF agents withdrew, and a cease-fire was negotiated over the telephone. The operation, which involved more than 100 ATF agents, was one of the largest ever mounted by the bureau and resulted in the highest casualties of any ATF operation.

David Koresh was born Vernon Wayne Howell in Houston, Texas, in 1959. In 1981, he joined the Branch Davidians, a sect of the Seventh Day Adventist Church founded in 1934 by a Bulgarian immigrant named Victor Houteff. Koresh, who possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the Bible, rapidly rose in the hierarchy of the small religious community, eventually entering into a power struggle with the Davidians’ leader, George Roden. For a short time, Koresh retreated with his followers to eastern Texas, but in late 1987 he returned to Mount Carmel with seven armed followers and raided the compound, severely wounding Roden. Koresh went on trial for attempted murder, but the charge was dropped after his case was declared a mistrial.

By 1990, he was the leader of the Branch Davidians and legally changed his name to David Koresh, with David representing his status as head of the biblical House of David, and Koresh a transliteration of the Hebrew name for Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Jews held captive in Babylon to return to Israel. Koresh took several wives at Mount Carmel and fathered at least 12 children from these women.. There is also evidence that Koresh may have harshly disciplined some of the 100 or so Branch Davidians living inside the compound, particularly his children. A central aspect of Koresh’s religious teachings was his assertion that the apocalyptic events predicted in the Bible’s book of Revelation were imminent, making it necessary, he asserted, for the Davidians to stockpile weapons and explosives in preparation.

Following the unsuccessful ATF raid, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over the situation. A standoff with the Branch Davidians stretched into seven weeks, and little progress was made in the telephone negotiations, as the Davidians had stockpiled years of food and other necessities before the raid.

On April 18, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno approved a tear-gas assault on the compound, and at approximately 6:00 a.m. on April 19 the Branch Davidians were informed of the imminent attack and asked to surrender, which they refused to do. A few minutes later, two armored engineering vehicles began inserting gas into the building and were joined by Bradleys, which fired tear-gas canisters through the compound’s windows. The Branch Davidians, many with gas masks on, refused to evacuate, and by 11:40 a.m. the last of some 100 tear-gas canisters was fired into the compound.

Just after noon, a fire erupted at one or more locations on the compound, and minutes later nine Davidians fled the rapidly spreading blaze. Gunfire was reported but ceased as the compound was completely engulfed by the flames. Koresh and at least 80 of his followers, including 22 children, died during the federal government’s second disastrous assault on Mount Carmel. The FBI and the Justice Department maintained there was conclusive evidence that the Branch Davidian members ignited the fire, citing an eyewitness account and various forensic data.

Of the gunfire reported during the fire, the government argued that the Davidians were either killing each other as part of a suicide pact or were killing dissenters who attempted to escape the Koresh-ordered suicide by fire. Most of the surviving Branch Davidians contested this official position, as do some critics in the press and elsewhere, whose charges against the ATF and FBI’s handling of the Waco standoff ranged from incompetence to premeditated murder.

In 1999, the FBI admitted they used tear-gas grenades in the assault, which have been known to cause fires because of their incendiary properties.

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1995 – A massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, kills 168 people and injures hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a Ryder truck parked outside the front of the building, went off at 9:02 a.m. as people were preparing for the workday. Among the victims of America’s worst incident of domestic terrorism were 19 children who were in the daycare center on the first floor of the building. A little over an hour after the explosion, Oklahoma state trooper Charles Hangar pulled over a car without license plates in the town of Perry. Noticing a bulge in the driver’s jacket, Hangar arrested the driver, Timothy McVeigh, and confiscated his concealed gun. McVeigh was held in jail for gun and traffic violations. Meanwhile, a sketch of the man who was seen driving the Ryder truck in Oklahoma City was distributed across the country. On April 21, Hangar saw the sketch and managed to stop McVeigh’s impending release. When investigators looked into McVeigh’s background, they quickly learned that he had ties to militant right-wing groups and was particularly incensed by the Branch Davidian incident in Waco, Texas.

The Oklahoma City bomb exploded exactly two years after David Koresh and his followers were killed in the federal government’s raid of the cult compound. Soon, three friends of McVeigh-Terry and James Nichols, and Michael Fortier-were also arrested for their involvement in the bombing. McVeigh and Terry Nichols had gone through basic training together after joining the Army on the same day in 1988. Although Nichols was discharged in 1989, McVeigh had served in Operation Desert Storm before quitting the Army when he was rejected for the Special Forces course. Acquaintances of McVeigh knew that he was obsessed with a book called The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of a race war caused by right-wing extremists in the United States. The book begins with the bombing of the FBI headquarters.

McVeigh also told his sister Jennifer that he planned on doing “something big” in April 1995. With Nichols and Fortier’s assistance, McVeigh assembled a bomb that contained nearly 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and racing fuel. After Fortier testified against his former friend, McVeigh was convicted in June 1997. The jury imposed a death sentence. Terry Nichols was convicted of being an accessory to the mass murder, and he received a life sentence. On June 11, 2001, McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.

1995 – Coast Guardsmen from the Coast Guard Institute and a Coast Guard reservist respond to the Alfred P. Murrah bomb scene soon after the explosion and helped set up security zones, directed traffic, searched for survivors, and whatever else was needed. They also took over a church kitchen and opened what later became nicknamed “Cafe Coast Guard.” A rotating 9-person team worked around the clock to provide meals to the volunteer workers.

1999 – In Hallac, Kosovo, 20 Albanian men were killed by Serb paramilitaries. 11 were shot in a vacant lot and 9 were killed in their homes. They were buried in a mass grave and later reburied individually just before NATO forces moved into Kosovo.

1999 – In Puerto Rico two US Marine jets in training dropped bombs over the island of Vieques and missed their targets. One civilian, David Sanes Rodriguez, was killed and 4 people were injured.

1999 – Yugoslav authorities shut down the Morini border crossing to Albania. NATO bombing continued and a Serb government headquarters building in Novi Sad was badly damaged. An estimated 500,000 to 850,000 ethnic Albanians remained were still inside Kosovo.

2001 – US and Chinese negotiators failed to reach any agreement over the US spy plane. The Chinese showed video images from flights last year and the US presented a written proposal for the return of the plane.

2001 – The space shuttle Endeavour went into orbit with 7 astronauts on an 11-day mission to install a billion-dollar robot arm on the International Space Station.

2001 – A US cargo ship departed from Jacksonville, Florida for Cuba, the 1st scheduled ship in 40 years. 2 days later the ship failed to dock in Cuba.

2002 – US and British planes bombed Iraqi air defense systems in response to anti-aircraft fire.

2002 – The space shuttle Atlantis returned to Earth after installing the first girder in what eventually will be a giant framework at the international space station.2003 – US forces captured Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Ghafar (4 of hearts), Saddam’s scientific research minister.

2003 – A Pakistani helicopter flying over tribal areas in southern Pakistan came under fire from the ground, injuring three US officials and four Pakistani army personnel.

2004 – In Iraq US officials and local leaders in Fallujah agreed to a number of measures to reduce tensions.

2008 – Muqtada al-Sadr threatens a new rebellion if a United States-Iraqi crackdown against his followers continues.

2009 – United States President Barack Obama announces that Central Intelligence Agency personnel who employed enhanced interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects will not be prosecuted.

2011 – U.S. serviceman PFC Bradley Manning, pending court martial for the release of reams of classified documents to the Wikileaks website, is moved by officials from the Marine stockade at Quantico, VA to a military prison in Kansas.

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Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day

BETTS, CHARLES M.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel, 15th Pennsylvania Cavalry. Place and date: At Greensboro, N.C., 19 April 1865. Entered service at: Philadelphia, Pa. Birth: Bucks County, Pa. Date of issue: 10 October 1892. Citation: With a force of but 75 men, while on a scouting expedition, by a judicious disposition of his men, surprised and captured an entire battalion of the enemy’s cavalry.

ELLIOTT, RUSSELL C.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, Company B, 3d Massachusetts Cavalry. Place and date: At Natchitoches, La., 19 April 1864. Entered service at: Boston, Mass. Birth: Concord, N.H. Date of issue: 20 November 1896. Citation: Seeing a Confederate officer in advance of his command, charged on him alone and unaided and captured him.

LANGBEIN, J. C. JULIUS
Rank and organization: Musician, Company B, 9th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Camden, N.C., 19 April 1862. Entered service at: New York, N.Y. Born: 29 September 1846, Germany. Date of issue: 7 January 1895. Citation: A drummer boy, 15 years of age, he voluntarily and under a heavy fire went to the aid of a wounded officer, procured medical ass1stance for him, and aided in carrying him to a place of safety.

STEVENS, HAZARD
Rank and organization: Captain and Assistant Adjutant General, U.S. Volunteers. Place and Date: At Fort Huger, Va., 19 April 1863. Entered service at: Olympia, Washington Territory. Born: 9 June 1842, Newport, R.I. Date of issue: 13 June 1894. Citation: Gallantly led a party that assaulted and captured the fort.

CARSON, ANTHONY J.
Rank and organization: Corporal, Company H, 43d Infantry, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Catubig, Samar, Philippine Islands, 15-19 April 1900. Entered service at: Malden, Mass. Birth: Boston, Mass. Date of issue: 4 January 1906. Citation: Assumed command of a detachment of the company which had survived an overwhelming attack of the enemy, and by his bravery and untiring efforts and the exercise of extraordinary good judgment in the handling of his men successfully withstood for 2 days the attacks of a large force of the enemy, thereby saving the lives of the survivors and protecting the wounded until relief came.

THORSNESS, LEO K.
Rank and organization: Lieutenant Colonel (then Maj.), U.S. Air Force, 357th Tactical Fighter Squadron. Place and date: Over North Vietnam, 19 April 1967. Entered service at: Walnut Grove, Minn. Born: 14 February 1932, Walnut Grove, Minn. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. As pilot of an F- 105 aircraft, Lt. Col. Thorsness was on a surface-to-air missile suppression mission over North Vietnam. Lt. Col. Thorsness and his wingman attacked and silenced a surface-to-air missile site with air-to-ground missiles, and then destroyed a second surface-to-air missile site with bombs. In tile attack on the second missile site, Lt. Col. Thorsness’ wingman was shot down by intensive antiaircraft fire, and the 2 crewmembers abandoned their aircraft. Lt. Col. Thorsness circled the descending parachutes to keep the crewmembers in sight and relay their position to the Search and Rescue Center.

During this maneuver, a MIG-17 was sighted in the area. Lt. Col. Thorsness immediately initiated an attack and destroyed the MIG. Because his aircraft was low on fuel, he was forced to depart the area in search of a tanker. Upon being advised that 2 helicopters were orbiting over the downed crew’s position and that there were hostile MlGs in the area posing a serious threat to the helicopters, Lt. Col. Thorsness, despite his low fuel condition, decided to return alone through a hostile environment of surface-to-air missile and antiaircraft defenses to the downed crew’s position. As he approached the area, he spotted 4 MIG-17 aircraft and immediately initiated an attack on the MlGs, damaging 1 and driving the others away from the rescue scene.

When it became apparent that an aircraft in the area was critically low on fuel and the crew would have to abandon the aircraft unless they could reach a tanker, Lt. Col. Thorsness, although critically short on fuel himself, helped to avert further possible loss of life and a friendly aircraft by recovering at a forward operating base, thus allowing the aircraft in emergency fuel condition to refuel safely. Lt. Col. Thorsness’ extraordinary heroism, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery involving conspicuous risk of life were in the highest traditions of the military service, and have reflected great credit upon himself and the U.S. Air Force.


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20 April

1657 – Freedom of religion is granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (later New York City).

1769 – Ottawa Chief Pontiac (b~1720) was murdered by an Indian in Cahokia.

1775 – British troops began the siege of Boston. The Siege of Boston lasted through March 17, 1776 and was the opening phase of the American War of Independence. New England militiamen prevented the movement by land of the British Army garrisoned in what was then the peninsular town of Boston, Massachusetts. Both sides had to deal with resource supply and personnel issues over the course of the siege. British resupply and reinforcement activities were limited to sea access. After eleven months of siege the British abandoned Boston by sailing to Nova Scotia. The siege began following the Battles of Lexington and Concord, when the militia from surrounding Massachusetts communities limited land access to Boston. The Continental Congress formed the Continental Army from the militia, with George Washington as its Commander in Chief.

In June 1775, the British seized Bunker and Breed’s Hills, but their casualties were heavy and their gains were insufficient to break the Continental Army’s hold on land access to Boston. Military actions during the remainder of the siege were limited to occasional raids, minor skirmishes, and sniper fire. In November 1775, Washington sent the 25-year-old bookseller-turned-soldier Henry Knox to bring to Boston the heavy artillery that had been captured at Fort Ticonderoga. In a technically complex and demanding operation, Knox brought many cannons to the Boston area by January 1776. In March 1776, these artillery fortified Dorchester Heights, which overlooked Boston and its harbor and threatened the British supply lifeline. The British commander William Howe saw the British position as indefensible and withdrew the British forces in Boston to the British stronghold at Halifax, Nova Scotia on March 17th... (celebrated today as Evacuation Day).

1777 – New York adopted a new constitution as an independent state.

1789 – President George Washington arrives in Philadelphia after his first inauguration to elaborate welcome at Gray’s Ferry just after noon.

1796 – Congress authorizes completion of 3 frigates.

1827 – John Gibbon (d.1896), Major General (Union volunteers), was born.

1836 – The Territory of Wisconsin was established by Congress. The Territory of Wisconsin was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed until May 29, 1848, when an eastern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Wisconsin. Belmont was initially chosen as the capital of the territory. In 1837, the territorial legislature met in Burlington, just north of the Skunk River on the Mississippi, which became part of the Iowa Territory in 1838. In that year, 1838, the territorial capitol of Wisconsin was moved to Madison.

1861 – Colonel Robert E. Lee resigns from the United States army two days after he was offered command of the Union army and three days after his native state, Virginia, seceded from the Union. Lee opposed secession, but he was a loyal son of Virginia. His official resignation was only one sentence, but he wrote a longer explanation to his friend and mentor, General Winfield Scott, later that day. Lee had fought under Scott during the Mexican War, and he revealed to his former commander the depth of his struggle. Lee interviewed with Scott on April 18, and explained that he would have resigned then “but for the struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have devoted the best years of my life and all the ability I possess.” Lee expressed gratitude for the kindness shown him by all in the army during his 25-year service, but Lee was most grateful to Scott. “To no one, general, have I been as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration…”

He concluded with this poignant sentiment: “Save in the defense of my native State, I never desire again to draw my sword.” But draw it he would. Two days later, Lee was appointed commander of Virginia’s forces with the rank of major general. He spent the next few months raising troops in Virginia, and in July he was sent to western Virginia to advise Confederate commanders struggling to maintain control over the mountainous region. Lee did little to build his reputation there as the Confederates experienced a series of setbacks, and he returned to Richmond when the Union gained control of the area. The next year, Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia after General Joseph Johnston was wounded in battle. Lee quickly turned the tables on Union General George B. McClellan, as he would several other commanders of the Army of the Potomac. His brilliance as a battlefield tactician earned him a place among the great military leaders of all time.

1861 – Thaddeus Lowe’s balloon landed in South Carolina only to be surrounded by a group of incredulous Carolinians who believed he was a spy. Lowe managed to persuade the crowd that his 500-mile trip from Cincinnati, Ohio, was merely an innocent aerial journey to test his strange craft. He later tried to convince the Union to use his skill as a balloonist.

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1861 – Norfolk Navy Yard partially destroyed to prevent Yard facilities from falling into Confederate hands and abandoned by Union forces. U.S. S. Pennsylvania, Germantown’, Raritan. Columbia, and Dolphin were burned to water’s edge. U.S.S. Delaware, Columbus, Plymouth, and Merrimack (later C.S.S. Virginia) were burned and sunk. Old frigate U.S.S. United States was abandoned. U.S.S. Pawnee, Commodore Paulding, and tug Yankee. towing U.S.S. Cumberland, escaped; Pawnee returned to Washington to augment small defenses at the Capital. This major Yard was of prime importance to the South. The Confederacy had limited industrial capacity, and possession of the Norfolk Yard provided her with guns and other ordnance materiel, and, equally as important, gave her a drydock and an industrial plant in which to manufacture crucially needed items. In large measure, guns for the batteries and fortifications erected by the Confederates on the Atlantic coast and rivers during 1861 came from the Norfolk Yard.

1862 – U.S.S. Itasca, Lieutenant Caldwell, and U.S.S. Pinola, Lieutenant Crosby, under direction of Commander Bell, breached the obstructions below Forts Jackson and St. Philip under heavy fire, opening the way for Flag Officer Farragut’s fleet.

1863 – A joint Army-Navy attack succeeded in capturing a strong Confederate position at Hill’s Point on the Nansemond River, Virginia, taking 5 howitzers and some 160 prisoners, as well as denying the South the use of an effective position from which to shell the flotilla guarding the Union Army position near Suffolk. Later that night, 20 April, the Confederates evacuated their battery at Reed’s Ferrys. Though there were intermittent skirmishes for almost 2 weeks following this action, the back of the planned Confederate offensive was broken.

1863 – U.S.S. Estrella, Lieutenant Commander Cooke, with U.S.S. Clifton, Arina, and Calhoun, engaged and received the surrender of Fort Burton, Butte a’ la Rose, Louisiana.

1871 – With passage of the Third Force Act, popularly known as the Ku Klux Act, Congress authorizes President Ulysses S. Grant to declare martial law, impose heavy penalties against terrorist organizations, and use military force to suppress the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Founded in 1865 by a group of Confederate veterans, the KKK rapidly grew from a secret social fraternity to a paramilitary force bent on reversing the federal government’s progressive Reconstruction Era-activities in the South, especially policies that elevated the rights of the local African-American population.

The name of the Ku Klux Klan was derived from the Greek word kyklos, meaning “circle,” and the Scottish-Gaelic word “clan,” which was probably chosen for the sake of alliteration.

Under a platform of philosophized white racial superiority, the group employed violence as a means of pushing back Reconstruction and its enfranchisement of African-Americans. Former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the KKK’s first grand wizard and in 1869 unsuccessfully tried to disband it after he grew critical of the Klan’s excessive violence. Most prominent in counties where the races were relatively balanced, the KKK engaged in terrorist raids against African-Americans and white Republicans at night, employing intimidation, destruction of property, assault, and murder to achieve its aims and influence upcoming elections. In a few Southern states, Republicans organized militia units to break up the Klan.

In 1871, passage of the Ku Klux Act led to nine South Carolina counties being placed under martial law and thousands of arrests. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act unconstitutional, but by that time Reconstruction had ended, and the KKK had faded away. The 20th century would see two revivals of the KKK: one in response to immigration in the 1910s and ’20s, and another in response to the African-American civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.

1871 – Secretary of Treasury authorized to employ crews of experienced surf men at lifeboat stations at maximum rate of $40 per month, marking the end of the volunteer system. This was the beginning of direct Federal control over life-saving activities.

1889 – Adolf Hitler, leader of National Socialist Party (1921-1945), was born in Braunau, Austria. He was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933-1945 and started World War II by invading Poland. He committed suicide in his Berlin bunker. The German Fascist leader, promised to bring Germany to the promised land on one condition: that the state would have total control over all the organs, organizations, and citizens of the nation.

1898 – President McKinley signed a congressional resolution recognizing Cuban independence from Spain. He signed the Joint Resolution for War with Spain that authorized U.S. military intervention to Cuban independence.

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