March 24th ~ {continued...}

2003 – In the 6th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US forces began strikes against the Medina Division of the Republican Guard guarding Baghdad. Hussein appeared on Iraqi TV as coalition forces held over 3,000 prisoners. 10 Marines were killed in combat around Nasiriya.

2003 – After Coalition forces have pushed further into Iraq securing most of the southern oilfields over the weekend, Kuwaiti fire fighters are able to enter Iraq and are able to extinguish one of the wellhead fires. Iraq’s southern fields represent about 40% of the country’s output. Damage is assessed to be relatively minimal. Some pockets or Iraqi resistance in the southern oilfields remain, however. Furthermore, heavy Iraqi resistance in some parts of Iraq gives rise to market speculation that the war could last longer than initially thought.

2003 – Arab League foreign ministers adopted a resolution that called for the US and Britain to withdraw their troops from Iraq immediately and without conditions.

2003 – In Georgia Pres. Shevardnadze confirmed that the US was flying U-2 spy planes over the Pankisi Gorge area to help fight Chechen rebel infiltration.

2003 – Saddam Hussein appeared on Iraqi TV telling his nation that “victory is soon.”

2003 – Iraqi state television showed two men said to have been the U.S. crew of an Apache helicopter forced down during heavy fighting in central Iraq. Chief Warrant Officer David Williams and Chief Warrant Officer Ronald D. Young Junior spent three weeks in captivity before they were released along with five other POWs.

2004 – A NASA unpiloted X-43A jet, part of its Hyper-X program, reached a record speed of 5,200 mph, Mach 6.83, after a rocket boosted it to 3,500 mph. It used a new engine called a supersonic-combustion ramjet, or scramjet.

2004 – Insurgents bombed an oil well in northern Iraq, sparking a fire that raged for 24 hours before being extinguished.

2005 – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the US will release $3.2 million in aid to Guatemala for its progress in overhauling a military once blamed for human rights abuses.

2005 – Canada denied a US deserter’s bid for asylum.

2011 – Lian Yang, a US citizen, pleads guilty to conspiring to violate the Arms Export Control Act by trying to sell radiation-hardened” military and aerospace technology to the People’s Republic of China.

March 25th ~

1584 – Sir Walter Raleigh, English explorer, courtier, and writer, renewed Humphrey Gilbert’s patent to explore North America. He went on to settle the Virginia colony on Roanoke Island, naming it after the virgin queen.

1609 – Henry Hudson embarked on an exploration for Dutch East India Co.

1634 – The first colonists to Maryland arrive at St. Clement’s Island on Maryland’s western shore and found the settlement of St. Mary’s. In 1632, King Charles I of England granted a charter to George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, yielding him proprietary rights to a region east of the Potomac River in exchange for a share of the income derived from the land. The territory was named Maryland in honor of Henrietta Maria, the queen consort of Charles I. Before settlement began, George Calvert died and was succeeded by his son Cecilius, who sought to establish Maryland as a haven for Roman Catholics persecuted in England. In March 1634, the first English settlers–a carefully selected group of Catholics and Protestants–arrived at St. Clement’s Island aboard the Ark and the Dove. Religious conflict was strong in ensuing years as the American Puritans, growing more numerous in Maryland and supported by Puritans in England, set out to revoke the religious freedoms guaranteed in the founding of the colony.

In 1649, Maryland Governor William Stone responded by passing an act ensuring religious liberty and justice to all who believed in Jesus Christ. In 1654, however, the so-called Toleration Act was repealed after Puritans seized control of the colony, leading to a brief civil war that ended with Lord Baltimore losing control of propriety rights over Maryland in March 1655. Although the Calverts later regained control of Maryland, anti-Catholic activity persisted until the 19th century, when many Catholic immigrants to America chose Baltimore as their home and helped enact laws to protect their free practice of religion.

1655 – Puritans jailed Governor Stone after a military victory over Catholic forces in the colony of Maryland.

1774 – English Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill.

1776 – The Continental Congress authorized a medal for General George Washington.

1785 – The Mount Vernon Conference begins. This was a three day meeting of delegates from Virginia and Maryland who discussed commercial issues related to their mutual water border at George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, Virginia. The ensuing report known as the Mount Vernon Compact, or the Compact of 1785 was ratified later by both state legislatures and became the earliest move of individual states toward closer union under the Articles of Confederation. The Mount Vernon Conference was followed by more states attending the Annapolis Convention at Mann’s Tavern the next year, with both events being precursors to the 1787 Philadelphia Convention that drafted the United States Constitution.

1804 – The Secretary of the Navy approved the first formal uniform of the Marine Corps.

1813 – The first U.S. flag flown in battle was on the frigate Essex in the Pacific. USS Essex takes Neryeda, first capture by U.S. Navy in Pacific. Early in 1813, the USS ESSEX, under the Command of Captain David Porter, USN, rounded Cape Horn and became the first Navy ship to carry the American flag into the Pacific Ocean. The ESSEX began operating in Pacific waters and captured a British commerce raider, several British merchantmen, and several large British whaling ships.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1843 – Seventeen Texans, who picked black beans from a jar otherwise filled with white beans, were executed by a Mexican firing squad. After months of raiding, captivity and escapes in Northern Mexico, Mexican president Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the execution of one tenth of the 176 Texas freebooters of the Mier Expedition.

1856 – A.E. Burnside patented the Burnside carbine.

1862 – C.S.S. Pamlico, Lieutenant William G. Dozier, and C.S.S. Oregon, Acting Master Abraham L. Myers, engaged U.S.S. New London, Lieutenant Read, at Pass Christian, Mississippi. The rifled gun on board Pamlico jammed during the nearly two hour engagement, and the Confederate ves­sels broke off the action, neither side having been damaged in the test of the strength of Flag Officer Farragut’s gathering forces. Transports with General Butler and troops arrived at Ship Island which, until Pensacola was retaken, became the principal base for operations west of Key West.

Flag Officer Farragut wrote: “I am now packed and ready for my departure to the mouth of the Mississippi River . . I spent last evening very pleasantly with General Butler. He does not appear to have any very difficult plan of operations, but simply to follow in my wake and hold what I can take. God grant that may be all that we attempt . . victory. If I die in the attempt, it will only be what every officer has to expect. He who dies in doing his duty to his country, and at peace with his God, has played out the drama of life to the best advantage.”

1863 – The first Army Medal of Honor is presented to PVT Jacob Parrott of the 33rd Ohio Infantry. Four others are so honored this day as well.

1863 – Before daybreak, rams Switzerland and Lancaster got underway to run past Vicksburg to join Rear Admiral Farragut below with U.S.S. Hartford and Albatross. Colonel C. R. Ellet reported: ‘The wind was extremely unfavorable, and notwithstanding the caution with which the boats put Out into the middle of the stream, the puff of their escape pipes could be heard with fatal distinctness below. The flashing of the enemy’s signal lights from battery to battery as we neared the city showed me that concealment was useless.” Under full steam, the rams rounded the bend into a concentrated fire from the Confederate works.

On board Switzerland, Colonel Ellet noted: ”Shot after shot struck my boat, tearing everything to pieces before them.” La,’-caster, under Lieutenant Colonel John A. Ellet, followed, steaming steadily down river, “but,” the senior Ellet reported, “I could see the splinters fly from her at every discharge.” Directly in front of the main Vicksburg batteries, a shell plunged into Switzerland’s boiler, stopping the engines. The pilots, who “stood their posts like men,” kept the ram in the river and she floated down, still under a hail of shot, to safety.

The Lancaster, meanwhile, received a fatal shot which pierced her steam drum ” and enveloped the entire vessel in a terrible cloud of steam About this time,” reported her commanding officer, ”a heavy plunging shot struck her in the frailest part of her stern, passing longitudinally through her and piercing the hull in the center near the bow, causing an enormous leak in the vessel.” She sank almost immediately. The planned joint attack on Warrenton was called off because of the extensive repairs required by the Switzerland.

1865 – Battle of Bluff Spring, FL.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1865 – Confederate General Robert E. Lee makes Fort Stedman his last attack of the war in a desperate attempt to break out of Petersburg, Virginia. The attack failed, and within a week Lee was evacuating his positions around Petersburg. For nine months, Petersburg was under siege by the Army of the Potomac and the overall Union commander, General Ulysses S. Grant. The two great armies had fought a bloody campaign in the spring of 1864, and then settled into trenches that eventually stretched for fifty miles around Petersburg and the Confederate capital of Richmond. Lee could not win this war of attrition, but his men held out through the winter of 1864 to 1865.

Now, Lee realized the growing Yankee army could overwhelm his diminishing force when the spring brought better weather for an assault. He ordered General John B. Gordon to find a weak point in the Federal defenses and attack. Gordon selected Fort Stedman, an earthen redoubt with a moat and nine-foot walls. Although imposing, Gordon believed it offered the greatest chance for success since it was located just 150 yards from the Confederate lines–the narrowest gap along the entire front. At 4:00 a.m. on March 25, 11,000 Rebels hurled themselves at the Union lines. They overwhelmed the surprised Yankees in Fort Stedman and captured 1,000 yards of trenches. General Grant wired Rear Admiral Porter that General Lee’s soldiers had broken through the right of the Union’s line and that he thought they would strike toward the essential James River supply base at City Point a few miles from the breakthrough. “I would suggest putting one or two gunboats on the Appomattox up as high as the pontoon bridge,” he told the Admiral. Porter immediately ordered gunboats up the Appomattox River to guard the pontoon bridge “at all times.

Simultaneously, U.S.S. Wilderness, Acting Master Henry Arey, was ordered up the Chickahominy River to communicate with General Sheridan, carry intelligence about any Con-federate activity along the river, and bring back dispatches from Sheridan for Grant. Lee’s attack was his last bold gamble for great stakes. Never one to submit tamely to even the most formidable odds, he sought in the surprise assault to cripple Grant’s army so that the overwhelming spring attack the Federals were building up could not be launched. Lee hoped that then he could speed to North Carolina with part of his veterans, join General Johnston and crush Sherman while still holding the Richmond-Petersburg front. Had the attack gone as well in its later stages as it did in the first onslaught, he would have been within range of City Point, only some ten miles away.

The wholesale destruction of the host of supply ships, mountains of stores, and vast arsenal would have ended Grant’s plant for seizing Richmond that spring. After daylight, however, the Confederate momentum waned. Gordon’s men took up defensive positions, and Union reinforcements arrived to turn the tide. The Rebels were unable to hold the captured ground, and they were driven back to their original position. The Union lost 1,000 men killed, wounded, and captured, while the Lee lost probably three times that number, including 1,500 captured during the retreat. Already outnumbered, these loses were more than Lee’s army could bear. Lee wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis that it would be impossible to maintain the Petersburg line much longer. On March 29, Grant began his offensive, and Petersburg fell on April 3. Two weeks after the Battle of Fort Stedman, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Court House in Virginia.

1879 – Little Wolf, often called “the greatest of the fighting Cheyenne,” surrenders to his friend Lieutenant W. P. Clark. Little Wolf was the chief of the Bowstring Soldiers, an elite Cheyenne military society. In the spring of 1879, while still traveling north, Little Wolf and his followers were overtaken by a cavalry force under the leadership of Captain W.P. Clark, an old friend of Little Wolf’s.

The confrontation might easily have turned violent, but with his force of warriors diminished and his people tired, Little Wolf was reluctant to fight the more powerful American army. Clark’s civilized and gracious treatment of Little Wolf helped convince the chief that further resistance was pointless, and he agreed to surrender. After returning to the reservation, Little Wolf briefly served as a scout for General Nelson A. Miles. However, during this time he disgraced himself among his people by killing one of his tribesmen. The formerly celebrated Cheyenne warrior lived out the rest of his life on the reservation but had no official influence among his own people.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1898 – Assist. SECNAV Theodore Roosevelt proposes Navy investigate military application of Samuel Langley’s flying machine, beginning naval aviation. Langley had been experimenting for over a decade with steam powered flying machines and was attempting to adapt a working steam model to an internal combustion powered design.

1901 – Cubans are beginning to fear annexation.

1905 – Rebel battle flags that were captured during the war were returned to the South.

1915 – The Navy’s first underwater disaster occurred when the submarine F-4 exploded and sank off Honolulu Harbor. 21 lives were lost. F-4 was one of the first submarines assigned to the new naval facility at Pearl Harbor in the years prior to World War I. On March 25, 1915, the submarine vanished on routine patrol, and was later discovered a mile off Fort Armstrong, 300 feet underwater. No one had ever salvaged a vessel from such a depth before, and Navy attempts proved fruitless for several months. One diver was later awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing another diver at the crushing depths. Finally, using specially constructed pontoons, the submarine was raised on August 31, 1915 and towed to Pearl Harbor.

1928 – James A. Lovell Jr, USN, astronaut (Gemini 7, 12, Apollo 8, 13), was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

1936 – Britain, the U.S. and France signed a naval accord in London.

1940 – The U.S. agreed to give Britain and France access to all American warplanes.

1942 – Rear Admiral John Wilcox commanding Task Force 39 with the battleship Washington, two cruiser and six destroyers sail for Scapa Flow to protect British home waters for the duration of Operation Ironclad — the British invasion of Vichy French controlled Madagascar. This is a reflection of the heavy Allied losses in capital ships to Japanese action in the Pacific.

1943 – By nightfall the US 1st Armored Division has nearly reached the Tebaga Gap. Von Arnim is worried about this attack and the threat from US troops at Makanssy, and therefore begins to pull his German and Italian infantry out of the Mareth Line.

1944 – On Manus, a final drive by US forces eliminates most of the remaining Japanese forces. On Los Negros, Japanese resistance has been reduced to scattered groups and isolated individuals.

1944 – Japanese patrols sight large American naval forces heading for Palau Island.

1945 – US 1st Army units, principally from US 3rd Corps, begin to break out of the Remagen bridgehead. The US 8th Corps (part of US 3rd Army) begins to cross the Rhine River near Boppard. To the south, Darmstadt is taken by US 12th Corps units who crossed at Nierstein. Other units have advanced farther east to the Main near Hanau and Aschaffenburg.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1945 – After 35 days of bitter fighting, the amphibious assault on the rocky fortress of Iwo Jima finally appeared over. On the night of 25 March, however, a 300-man Japanese force launched a vicious final counterattack in the vicinity of Airfield Number 2. Army pilots, Seabees and Marines of the 5th Pioneer Battalion and 28th Marines fought the fanatical Japanese force till morning but suffered heavy casualties –more than l00 killed and another 200 American wounded. Nearly all of the Japanese force was killed in the battle.

1945 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conduct air raids on Okinawa. US TF52 (Admiral Dungin), with 17 escort carriers begin air raids on the same targets. Meanwhile, there is an American bombardment of the island of Kerama Retto, to the west of Okinawa, as well. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the American ships. Japanese Kamikaze attacks begin, under the direction of Admiral Ugaki, with 26 planes scoring 8 hits including one on the American battleship Nevada.

1945 – American B-24 Liberator bombers of the US 5th Air Force destroy a hydroelectric power station on the island of Formosa (Taiwan).

1945 – Bombers of the US 8th Air Force bomb Hamburg with the nominal objective of striking the underground oil stores.

1948 – The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. The 1948 Tinker Air Force Base tornadoes were two tornadoes which struck Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 20 and 25, 1948. The March 20 tornado was the costliest tornado in Oklahoma history at the time. Tinker’s meteorologists Major Ernest J. Fawbush and Captain Robert C. Miller investigated surface and upper-air weather data from this and past tornado outbreaks, hoping to be able to identify conditions which were favorable for tornadoes.

By March 24, they had compiled several possible tornado indicators, and decided it would be difficult, but possible, to identify large tornado threat areas in the future. On March 25, meteorologists at the base noticed the extreme similarity between the weather conditions of that day and March 20, and later in the day issued a “tornado forecast”, which was verified when a tornado struck the base that evening. Equipment which could be, had been moved to bomb-proof shelters, and base personnel had been moved to safer areas.This was the first official tornado forecast, as well as the first successful tornado forecast, in recorded history. Due to lives and costs saved, Fawbush and Miller continued their tornado forecasts, which verified at quite a high rate over the next three years. At first, they kept their forecasts secret.

In the spring and summer of 1949, they issued eighteen forecasts for tornadoes within a 100-square-mile (260 km2) ≈area, and all eighteen proved successful. In the subsequent years, while not explicitly using the word “tornado”, the Weather Bureau used the pair’s forecasts to predict “severe local storms”. The synoptic pattern which occurred on March 25 later became known as the “Miller type-B” pattern and is recognized as one of the most potent severe weather setups.

1952 – The U.S., Britain, and France rejected the Soviet proposal for an armed, reunified, neutral Germany.

1952 – Three hundred and seven U.N. fighter-bombers dropped 260 tons of bombs on the rail line between Chongju and Sinanju.

1953 – The USS Missouri fired on targets at Kojo, North Korea, the last time her guns fire until the Persian Gulf War of 1992.

1955 – East Germany was granted full sovereignty by occupying power, USSR.

1958 – Elvis Presley’s active duty service began and lasted two years, until March 5, 1960.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1960 – A guided missile, a Regulus I, was launched from a nuclear powered submarine, the USS Halibut, for the first time. Halibut is also the first submarine to be designed and built from the keel up to launch guided missiles.

1961 – Elvis Presley (26) performed live on the USS Arizona, a fund raiser for a memorial. Col. Parker, Presley’s manager, came up with the brilliant idea to have Elvis Presley give the benefit concert in the 4,000-seat Bloch Arena next to the entrance to Pearl Harbor.

1968 – After being told by Defense Secretary Clark Clifford that the Vietnam War is a “real loser,” President Johnson, still uncertain about his course of action, decides to convene a nine-man panel of retired presidential advisors. The group, which became known as the “Wise Men,” included the respected generals Omar Bradley and Matthew Ridgway, distinguished State Department figures like Dean Acheson and George Ball, and McGeorge Bundy, National Security advisor to both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

After two days of deliberation the group reached a consensus: they advised against any further troop increases and recommended that the administration seek a negotiated peace. Although Johnson was initially furious at their conclusions, he quickly came to believe that they were right. On March 31, Johnson announced on television that he was restricting the bombing of North Vietnam to the area just north of the Demilitarized Zone. Additionally, he committed the United States to discuss peace at any time or place. Then Johnson announced that he would not pursue reelection for the presidency.

1968 – A Harris Poll reports that in the past six weeks “basic” support for the war among Americans declined from 74 percent to 54 percent. The poll also revealed that 60 percent of those questioned regarded the Tet Offensive as a defeat of U.S. objectives in Vietnam. Despite Gen. William Westmoreland’s assurances in late 1967 that the United States was making headway in the war, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong had launched a massive offensive during the Tet holiday that began in late January 1968.

Although the communist forces were soundly defeated during this offensive, the scope and extent of the attacks won the communists a major psychological victory in the United States, where the events of Tet confirmed a growing disenchantment with the seemingly never-ending war for increasing numbers of Americans.

1975 – Hue was lost and Da Nang was endangered. The U.S. ordered a refugee airlift to remove those in danger.

1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.

1980 – Three hostages are released by terrorists holding the Dominican embassy in Bogota, but U.S. Ambassador Diego Ascencio still among the captives.

1981 – The U.S. Embassy in San Salvador was damaged when gunmen attacked, firing rocket propelled grenades and machine guns.

March 25th ~ {continued...}

1986 – President Ronald Reagan ordered emergency aid for the Honduran army. U.S. helicopters took Honduran troops to the Nicaraguan border.

1986 – Supreme Court ruled that the Air Force could ban wearing of yarmulkes.

1992 – Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi backed away from an offer to turn over two suspects in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League.

1994 – At the end of a largely unsuccessful 15-month mission, the last U.S. troops depart Somalia, leaving 20,000 U.N. troops behind to keep the peace and facilitate “nation building” in the divided country.

1995 – Two Americans who had strayed across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq were sentenced to eight years in prison. However, David Daliberti and William Barloon were released by Iraq the following July.

1996 – An 81-day standoff by the anti-government Freemen. A group of 18 people including 3 children, who call themselves the Freeman, shut themselves up on a 960 acre farm near Jordan, Montana. Many of them are wanted on state and federal charges that include writing bad checks and threatening a federal judge. Ongoing negotiations have proved fruitless and the FBI ordered in 3 armored vehicles and a helicopter.

1996 – China halted its 18-day intimidating naval exercises around Taiwan led by the new guided-missile destroyer Harbin.

1996 – France, Britain and the US signed a treaty to ban nuclear weapons from the South Pacific.

1997 – Former President George Bush, 73, parachuted from a plane over the Arizona desert.

1998 – Russia promised to support a comprehensive arms embargo against Yugoslavia, but did not support new sanctions urged by the US.

1999 – NATO forces struck Serbian air defenses and other sites for a second night as Serb forces stepped up their efforts to crush resistance in Kosovo. The village of Goden was burned by Serb forces and 174 residents were forced to leave. 20 men were kept back and presumed killed.

2003 – The US Navy brought in 2 specially trained bottle-nosed Atlantic dolphins to help ferret out mines in the approaches of the port of Umm Qasr.

2003 – In the 7th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US aircraft dropped more than 2,000 precision-guided bombs on Iraq since the war’s start. The “smart” bombs were produced for a relatively cheap $20,000 each.

2003 – Six satellite jamming devices, which Iraq was using to try to thwart American precision guided weapons, were destroyed in the last 2 nights.

2003 – Some 150-500 Iraqi fighters were killed in fighting east of Najaf.

2003 – A light plane carrying 3 Americans crashed in southern Colombia while searching for 3 other Americans captured by rebels last month.

2004 – The United States used its veto power to quash a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel for killing Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin in a missile strike.

2005 – Washington announced it would sell F-16 fighters to Pakistan.

2013 – The United States agrees to hand over Bagram Jail, its main detention facility in Afghanistan, to the country’s government.

March 26th ~

1701 – The English Board of Trade advises the king to create royal colonies of all of the American charter colonies.

1753 – Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford, English physicist and diplomat, was born. He was a Tory spy in the American Revolution and discovered that heat equaled motion, which led to the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

1790 – US Congress passed a Naturalization Act. It required a 2-year residency.

1804 – Congress ordered the removal of Indians east of the Mississippi to Louisiana.

1804 – The Louisiana Purchase was divided into the Territory of Orleans and the District of Louisiana.

1864 – General James B. McPherson assumes command of the Union Army of the Tennessee after William T. Sherman is elevated to commander of the Division of the Mississippi, the overall leader in the West.

1865 – A detachment of sailors led by Acting Ensign Peyton H. Randolph of U.S.S. Benton joined troops under the command of Brigadier General B.G. Farrar. They lead a combined expedition to Trinity, Louisiana, where they captured a small number of Confederate soldiers as well as horses, arms and stores.

1910 – US forbade immigration to criminals, anarchists, paupers and the sick.

1914 – William Westmoreland, U.S. army general during the Vietnam War, is born. General Westmoreland took command in Vietnam in June 1964 replacing Gen. Paul Harkins. He was instrumental in raising the level of US forces deployed in Vietnam and in developing the strategies implemented in the region. Westmoreland continuously requested for an increase in manpower in Vietnam and President Johnson, who had his own troubles at home, refused to send more troops and finally recalled Westmoreland after he successfully stopped the North Vietnamese Tet Offensive in 1968. He was replaced by General Creighton W. Abrams. He maintained for many years that the policy in Vietnam had been the right one. General Westmoreland retired in 1972.

1930 – Congress appropriated $50,000 for Inter-American highway.

1942 – ADM King becomes both Chief of Naval Operations and Commander, U.S. Fleet.

1943 – Elsie S. Ott, US army nurse, became the 1st woman to receive air medal.

March 26th ~ {continued...}

1943 – Battle of Komandorski Islands, prevents Japanese reinforcements from reaching Attu. An American squadran of 2 cruisers and 4 destroyers (under the command of Admiral McMorris) meets a Japanese squadron of 4 cruisers and 5 destroyers (under the command of Admiral Hosogaya) off the Komandorski Islands. A traditional gun engagement begins and a cruiser on each side is badly damaged. Hosogaya decides to break off at this point although he has a clear superiority which is beginning to tell.

1944 – Japanese patrols again sight large American naval forces heading for Palau Island. They decide to disperse their warships.

1944 – In Italy, a major reorganization of the Allied forces takes place. The New Zealand Corps is taken out of the line and broken up. Other units of the Eighth Army are brought from the east side to replace it along with the French Corps. The next Allied offensive will not be until May when this reorganization is complete.

1945 – Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton attack at Remagen on the Rhine.

1945 – The US 7th Army begins to send units of US 15th and US 6th Corps across the Rhine River between Worms and Mannheim. To the north all the Allied armies continue to advance.

1945 – On Iwo Jima, the few hundred Japanese troops remaining on the island mount a final suicide attack. They are wiped out by elements of the 5th Marine Division, which have been assigned the task of reducing the last pockets of resistance. About 200 of the Japanese garrison of 20,700 remain alive as prisoners of the marines of US 5th Amphibious Corps. American casualties have been almost 6,000 dead and 17,200 wounded.

1945 – About 14,000 men commanded by General Arnold and drawn from the units of the Americal Division land just south of Cebu City on the island of Cebu. Admiral Berkey leads a bombardment group in support.

1945 – US naval forces (TF58 and TF52) continue air strikes on Okinawa. US Task Force 54 (Admiral Deyo), with 10 battleships, 10 cruisers and 33 destroyers, begin the main bombardment of Okinawa. The US 77th Infantry Division (General Bruce) lands on Kerama Retto and overruns the small Japanese garrison. The British Pacific Fleet (Admiral Rawlings), also designated Task Force 57, with 4 fleet carriers, 2 battleships, 5 cruisers and 11 destroyers, attacks airfields and other targets on Sakashima Gunto. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the Allied ships. Coast Guardsmen participated in the landings at Geruma Shima, Hokaji Shima, and Takashiki in the Ryukyu Islands.

1946 – International Ice Patrol resumed after being suspended during World War II.

1947 – FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warned HUAC that communists had launched “a furtive attack on Hollywood” 12 years earlier.

1950 – During a radio broadcast dealing with a Senate investigation into communists in the U.S. Department of State, news is leaked that Senator Joseph McCarthy has charged Professor Owen Lattimore with being a top spy for the Soviet Union.

1951 – The United States Air Force flag design was approved.

1953 – In talks with French Premier Rene Mayer, Eisenhower offers increased aid to the French fighting in Indochina.

March 26th ~ {continued...}

1954 – The U.S. set off the second H-bomb blast in four weeks in the Marshall Islands at Bikini Island. The 15-megaton device was 750 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The blast contaminated the neighboring island of Rongelap and nearly 100 people on the island and other downwind atolls.

1958 – The U.S. Army launched America’s third successful satellite, Explorer 3. Explorer 3 (international designation 1958 Gamma) was an artificial satellite of the Earth, nearly identical to the first United States artificial satellite Explorer 1 in its design and mission. It was the second successful launch in the Explorer program.

1966 – Operation Jackstay in Navy’s first amphibious assault in Vietnam’s inland waters. Operation JACKSTAY begins with an amphibious assault on the Long Thanh peninsula by the US Marines. The RVN committed two Marine battalions. In late February and early March, the VC had attacked two cargo ships on the shipping channel to Saigon and MACV requested that this force be used to clear their base area. This operation, 39 miles southeast of Saigon in the Rung Sat Special Zone, is the southernmost large-scale employment of U.S. forces in Vietnam to date. It terminates on 6 April 1966. They claimed at least 63 enemy KIAs while suffering 5 US KIA, 2 US MIA and 25 US WIA.

1968 – Operation Bold Dragon III began in Mekong Delta it is under the direct control of the Chief of Naval Operations, Vietnam. The force included two SEAL platoons operating from U.S. naval vessels off the coast of Long Tau and Ba Xuyen during Phase I and off Phu Quc Island in Phase II. It was supported by Army and HA(L)-3 helicopters.

1970 – 500th nuclear explosion since 1945 was announced by the US.

1975 – The city of Hue, in northernmost South Vietnam, falls to the North Vietnamese. Hue was the most recent major city in South Vietnam to fall to the communists during their new offensive. The offensive had started in December 1974, when the North Vietnamese had launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border.

1976 – The United States and Turkey sign a four-year military pact, reopening US bases in Turkey.

1979 – The Camp David peace treaty was signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at the White House.

1980 – Ayatollah Mohammad Behesti calls for trials of the US hostages in Iran if the Shah is not returned.

1982 – Ground was broken in Washington D.C. for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial designed by Maya Lin of Yale. It was dedicated November 13th.

1983 – US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.

1987 – NASA launches Fltsatcom-6. It failed to reach orbit.

1989 – The first free elections took place in the Soviet Union. Boris Yeltsin was elected. Voters in the Soviet Union filled 1,500 of more than 2,000 seats in the new Congress of People’s Deputies, beginning embarrassing defeats for the Communist Party.

1991 – The Bush administration indicated it would not aid rebels seeking to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

March 26th ~ {continued...}

1993 – President Clinton promised a “full-court press” against Bosnian Serbs to secure their agreement to a United Nations peace plan endorsed by Bosnian Muslims and Croats.

1998 – U.N. Inspectors gain entry into the first Iraqi presidential palace.

1999 – American-led NATO forces launched a third night of airstrikes against Yugoslavia and 2 MiG-29 fighters were shot down as Serbian troops continued to sweep ethnic Albanian villages in Kosovo.

1999 – The UN Security Council defeated a Russian resolution demanding an immediate end to NATO attacks on Yugoslavia. In Russia NATO representatives were from Moscow.

2001 – A US Army plane crashed in Germany and 2 pilots were killed. In Scotland US Air Force F15C fighter jets were lost during training. The body of one pilot, Lt. Col. Kenneth John Hyvonen, and F15 wreckage was found the next day. Wreckage of the 2nd F15 was found after 2 days. The body of Capt. Kirk Jones was found March 30th.

2003 – In the 8th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom about 1,000 members of the US Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade parachute into northern Iraq and seize control of an airfield. The U.S. Navy announces that Iraq’s Persian Gulf oil export terminal of Mina al-Bakr has escaped sabotage and is ready to resume operations.

2003 – NATO officially signed up 7 eastern European nations to become members: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.

2004 – West of Baghdad, U.S. Marines and gunmen fought an hour-long battle that left four Iraqis dead and six wounded. A U.S. Marine and an ABC freelance cameraman were killed during a bitter, hours-long firefight between American troops and Iraqi insurgents in the city of Fallujah.

2007 – The military commission process begins for detainees accused by the United States of war crimes, with the first person to face trial being Australian David Hicks. Hicks pleads guilty to providing material support for terrorists.

2008 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at Cape Canaveral, Florida in a rare nighttime landing ending a 16-day mission to the International Space Station.

2008 – A federal indictment of a former official of Life for Relief and Development claims that Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi Intelligence Service paid for a U.S. congressional delegation’s trip to the country during the buildup to the war. A spokesman for the Department of Justice said the congressmen on the State Department-approved trip were not aware of this, and that “[n]one of the congressional representatives are accused of any wrongdoing.”

2010 – US President Obama and Russian President Medvedev finalize a new arms control treaty to further reduce the nuclear arsenals of each country still remaining since the Cold War.

2014 – North Korea fires two mid-range ballistic missiles as the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea meet to discuss the security threat it poses to the region.

**2233** – James Tiberius Kirk, science fiction Captain of USS Enterprise (Star Trek), was born.

March 27th ~

1780 – The Battle of Rantowle’s Bridge. Two companies of British Light Infantry, American Loyalist Volunteers, and one company of Dragoons, crossed at Rantowle’s in scows; the rest of the army crossed yesterday. Col. Hamilton, of the North Carolinians, and Dr. Smith, of the Hospital, proceeding about a mile in front of the army, to Gov. Rutledge’s house, were immediately surrounded by three hundred Continental Light Horse, and they consequently made prisoners. The British Dragoons fell in with them soon after, and had a skirmish; the Rebels soon gave way. Master Sergeant Mcintosh, of the Georgia Dragoons was badly wounded in the face by a broadsword. Several Dragoons of the Legion were wounded. How many of the Rebels got hurt we can’t learn; but they did not keep up the combat long enough for many to receive damage. This morning, Capt. Saunders, who came in with the flag on the 24th, was sent out; his attendant, Capt. Wilkinson, not being mentioned in the body of the flag, is detained as a prisoner of war. We took up our ground on Gov. Rutledge’s plantation, about one mile from his house, where we remained all night.

1794 – President Washington and Congress authorized creation of the U.S. Navy. The bill authorizes construction of 6 frigates, including Constitution. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own navy. The establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, and make it easier to seek out support from foreign countries.

Detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the world’s preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned seven ocean-going cruisers, starting with the schooner USS Hannah, to interdict British supply ships, and reported the captures to the Congress. The Continental Navy achieved mixed results; it was successful in a number of engagements and raided many British merchant vessels, but it lost 24 of its vessels and at one point was reduced to two in active service.

1794 – James Monroe is appointed the American minister to France replacing Governeur Morris, whose recall the French have requested because of his royalist sympathies and meddling.

1799 – USS Constitution recaptures American sloop Neutrality from France.

1802 – The Treaty of Aliens between France, Spain, England, and the Netherlands ends European hostilities, offering US shipping a break from trade restraints.

1813 – In a US attack on Fort George, near the mouth of the Niagra River, LTC Winfield Scott with a 4000-man force captures the 1600-man British garrison under General John Vincent. The British withdraw from Lake Erie. This action permits Captain Oliver Hazard Perry to surreptitiously remove five vessels form the Black Rock shipyard and take them to Presque Isle in order to reinforce the flotilla under construction there.

1814 – General Jackson led U.S. soldiers who killed 700 Creek Indians at Horseshoe Bend, La. [in Northern Alabama] Jackson lost 49 men. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend (also known as Tehopeka, Tohopeka, Cholocco Litabixbee, or The Horseshoe), was fought during the War of 1812 in the Mississippi Territory, now central Alabama. United States forces and Indian allies under Major General Andrew Jackson defeated the Red Sticks, a part of the Creek Indian tribe who opposed American expansion, effectively ending the Creek War.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1836 – In a disastrous setback for the Texans resisting Santa Anna’s dictatorial regime, the Mexican army defeats and executes 417 Texas revolutionaries at Goliad. Long accustomed to enjoying considerable autonomy from their Mexican rulers, many Anglo Texan settlers reacted with alarm when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna proclaimed himself dictator of Mexico in 1835. Santa Anna immediately imposed martial law and attempted to disarm the Texans. Yet, this move merely fed the flames of Texan resistance.

In November 1853, Texan leaders proclaimed their resistance to Santa Anna’s dictatorship, though they stopped short of calling for independence. The next month, the Texans managed to defeat 800 Mexican soldiers stationed in San Antonio. However, the rebel leaders remained deeply divided over what to do next, making them vulnerable to Santa Anna’s ruthless determination to suppress dissension. While the Texas rebels dallied, Santa Anna moved decisively.

In mid-February he led a massive Mexican army across the Rio Grande, and after a 13-day siege of the Alamo, crushed the rebels in San Antonio. Meanwhile, to the south, Santa Ann’s chief lieutenant, General Urrea, moved to destroy another faction of the rebel army attempting to defend the town of Goliad. Disagreements among the Texans had led to a division of the rebel forces. James W. Fannin was left with only slightly more than 300 Texans to protect Goliad, a position the rebels needed in order to maintain their supply routes to the Gulf Coast.

As Urrea’s much larger 1400-man army approached, Fannin acted with indecision, wondering if he should go to the aid of the besieged men at the Alamo. Belatedly, Fannin attempted to fall back from the approaching Mexican army, but his retreat order came too late. On March 19, Urrea surrounded the small column of rebel soldiers on an open prairie, where they were trapped without food, water, or cover. After repulsing one Mexican assault, Fannin realized there was no chance of escape. Rather than see his force annihilated, Fannin surrendered.

Apparently, some among the Texans who surrendered believed they would be treated as prisoners of war. Santa Anna, however, had clearly stated several months before that he considered the rebels to be traitors who would be given no quarter. In obedience to Santa Anna’s orders, on this day in 1836 Urrea ordered his men to open fire on Fannin and his soldiers, along with about 100 other captured Texans.

More than 400 men were executed that day at Goliad. Ironically, rather than serving to crush the Texas rebellion, the Goliad Massacre helped inspire and unify the Texans. Now determined to break completely from Mexico, the Texas revolutionaries began to yell “Remember Goliad!” along with the more famous battle cry, “Remember the Alamo!” Less than a month later, Texan forces under General Sam Houston dealt a stunning blow to Santa Anna’s army in the Battle of San Jacinto, and Texas won its independence.

1862 – Flag Officer Du Pont reported to Secretary of the Navy Welles that Confederate batteries on Skiddaway and Green Islands, Georgia, had been withdrawn and placed nearer Savannah. This gives Union forces complete control of Wassaw and Ossabaw Sounds and the mouths of the Vernon and Wilmington Rivers, important approaches to the city.

1863 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis called for this to be a day of fasting and prayer.

1863 – U.S.S. Pawnee, Commander Balch, supported an Army landing on Cole’s Island, South Carolina; Balch joined the Army command ashore for a reconnaissance of the island.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1865 – Combined Army-Navy operations, the latter commanded by Rear Admiral Thatcher, aimed at capturing the city of Mobile commenced. The objective was Spanish Fort, located near the mouth of the Blakely River and was the key to the city’s defenses. Six tinclads and supporting gun-boats steamed up the Blakely River to cut the fort’s communications with Mobile while the army began to move against the fort’s outworks. The river had been thickly sown with torpedoes which necessitated sweeping operations ahead of the advancing ironclads. These efforts, directed by Commander Peirce Crosby of U.S.S. Metacomet, netted 150 torpedoes. Nevertheless, a number of the Confederate weapons eluded the Union with telling results. In the next five days three Northern warships would be sunk in the Blakely.

1865 – President Lincoln meets with Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman at City Point, Virginia, to plot the last stages of the war. Lincoln came to Virginia just as Grant was preparing to attack Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s lines around Petersburg and Richmond, an assault that promised to end the siege that had dragged on for 10 months. Meanwhile, Sherman’s force was steamrolling northward through the Carolinas.

The three architects of Union victory met for the first time as a group–Sherman and Lincoln had never met–to plot the final destruction of the Confederacy. Lincoln came to Grant’s headquarters at City Point at the general-in-chief’s request. Lincoln boarded the River Queen with his wife Mary and son Tad on March 23, and the first family had a hectic visit. Lincoln went to the Petersburg lines and witnessed a Union bombardment and a small skirmish. He also reviewed troops, visited wounded soldiers, and then met with Grant and Sherman. Sherman had traveled from Goldsboro, North Carolina, to the coast before catching a steamer to Virginia.

During the meeting, Lincoln expressed his concern that that Confederate armies might slip away. He was worried that Lee might escape Petersburg and flee to North Carolina, where he could join forces with Joseph Johnston to forge a new Confederate army that could continue the war for months. Grant and Sherman confidently assured the president that the end was in sight. Lincoln emphasized to his generals that any surrender terms must preserve the Union war aims of emancipation and a pledge of equality for the freed slaves. After meeting the next day with Admiral David Dixon Porter, the three went their separate ways. In less than four weeks, Grant and Sherman had secured the surrender of the Confederacy.

1866 – President Andrew Johnson vetoed the civil rights bill, which later became the 14th amendment.

1880 – USS Constellation departs New York with food for famine victims in Ireland.

1884 – The first long-distance telephone call was made, between Boston and New York City.

1886 – Famous Apache warrior, Geronimo, surrenders to the U.S. Army, ending the main phase of the Apache Wars.

1898 – Following an antiwar policy in the face of great pressure for what John Hay calls “a splendid little war,” McKinley instructs the US minister to Spain to demand the following: a temporary truce with the Cuban rebels, revocation of the reconcentrado order, US arbitration of a peaceful settlement, and relief to be sent to Cuba.

1899 – The first international radio transmission between England and France was achieved by the Italian inventor G. Marconi.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1899 – Emilio Aguinaldo leads Filipino forces for the only time during the Philippine–American War at the Battle of Marilao River. The Battle of Marilao River was fought in Marilao, Bulacan, Philippines, during the Philippine–American War. It was one of the most celebrated river crossings of the whole war, wherein American forces crossed the Marilao River, which was 80 yards wide and too deep to ford, while under Filipino fire from the opposite bank.

The American official account had admitted that Aguinaldo acted with a great sense of military strategy, averting disastrous routs while succeeding to sustain heavy damage on the enemy (that is, the Americans). The losses in the American drive to Malolos, the account also stated, had proved the Filipinos’ effective fighting quality.

1912 – In Washington, D.C., Helen Taft, wife of President William Taft, and the Viscountess Chinda, wife of the Japanese ambassador, plant two Yoshina cherry trees on the northern bank of the Potomac River, near the Jefferson Memorial. The event was held in celebration of a gift, by the Japanese government, of 3,020 cherry trees to the U.S. government. The planting of Japanese cherry trees along the Potomac was first proposed by socialite Eliza Scidmore, who raised money for the endeavor. Helen Taft had lived in Japan while her husband was president of the Philippine Commission, and knowing the beauty of cherry blossoms she embraced Scidmore’s idea.

After learning of the first lady’s interest, the Japanese consul in New York suggested making a gift of the trees to the U.S. government from the city of Tokyo. In January 1910, 2,000 Japanese cherry trees arrived in Washington from Japan but had fallen prey to disease during the journey. In response, a private Japanese citizen donated the funds to transport a new batch of trees, and 3,020 specimens were taken from the famous collection on the bank of the Arakawa River in Adachi Ward, a suburb of Tokyo. In March 1912, the trees arrived in Washington, and on March 27th the first two trees were planted along the Potomac River’s Tidal Basin in a formal ceremony.

The rest of the trees were then planted along the basin, in East Potomac Park, and on the White House grounds. The blossoming trees proved immediately popular with visitors to Washington’s Mall area, and in 1934 city commissioners sponsored a three-day celebration of the late March blossoming of the trees, which grew into the annual Cherry Blossom Festival. After World War II, cuttings from Washington’s cherry trees were sent back to Japan to restore the Tokyo collection that was decimated by American bombing attacks during the war.

1930 – 1st US radio broadcast from a ship at sea.

1933 – Japan left the League of Nations.

1941 – Roosevelt’s $7,000,000,000 Appropriations Bill for Lend-Lease passes into law.

1941 – Britain leased defense bases in Trinidad to the U.S. for a period of 99 years.

1941 – Tokeo Yoshikawa arrived in Oahu, Hawaii, to begin spying for Japan on the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor.

1942 – All RAF aircraft and the remainder of Chennault’s American volunteer air force are withdrawn from Burma.

1943 – US began an assault on Fondouk-pass, Tunisia.

1945 – General Dwight D. Eisenhower told reporters in Paris that German defenses on the Western Front had been broken.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1943 – Battle of the Komandorski Islands – In the Aleutian Islands the battle begins when United States Navy forces intercept Japanese attempting to reinforce a garrison at Kiska. The Battle of the Komandorski Islands was a naval battle between American and Japanese forces in the North Pacific area of the Pacific Ocean, south of the Soviet Komandorski Islands. It is considered one of the most unusual naval engagements of World War II being one of the few entirely between surface vessels–neither force had submarine or air escort.

1945 – Iwo Jima was occupied, after 22,000 Japanese and 6,000 US killed.

1945 – US 9th Army begins to penetrate south into the Ruhr industrial area. US 3rd Army has now crossed the Main both west of Frankfurt, where Wiesbaden is attacked, and to the east.

1945 – The last German V2 rocket lands southeast of London at Orpington. The V2 campaign has killed over 2700 British civilians and injured 6500. As well as the 1115 launched at British targets, a further 2050 were aimed at Antwerp, Brussels and Liege.

1945 – Cebu City is captured by the US landing force. As on the other islands, the Japanese are beginning to withdraw to inland strongholds where they will be confined and worn down by Filipino forces. Only on Luzon, Mindanao and Negros will the prolonged presence of US troops be necessary. In Manila Bay, an American force lands on Caballo Island, better known to the Americans as Fort Hughes, where they encounter strong Japanese resistance.

1945 – US naval forces, including TF58 and TF52, continue air strikes on Okinawa and TF54 continues bombarding the island. The British Pacific Fleet (Admiral Rawlings), also designated Task Force 57, again attacks airfields and other targets on Sakashima Gunto. A Japanese attack by explosive boats fails. Unsuccessful submarine attacks continue.

1945 – Operation Starvation, the aerial mining of Japan’s ports and waterways begins.

1951 – Carrier Group 101, the first all-Reserve naval air group, entered the war aboard the USS Boxer. Two days later, the group flew its first combat missions.

1952 – Elements of the U.S. Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel in Korea, the original dividing line between the two Koreas.

1953 – The 5th Marines, supported by the 2d Battalion, 7th Marines, in the first full day of fighting after the Chinese assault the previous evening of Outpost Vegas on Korea’s western front, counterattacked to regain enemy-held positions. Companies E and F of 2/7, down to only three platoons between them, managed to regain partial control of Outpost Vegas that day.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James P. Hagerstrom, 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing, flying his F-86 Sabre “MiG Poison,” qualified as the 28th ace of the Korean War and his wings only ace.

1956 – US seized the US communist newspaper “Daily Worker.”

1958 – The U.S. announced a plan to explore space near the moon.

1965 – Following several days of consultations with the Cambodian government, South Vietnamese troops, supported by artillery and air strikes, launch their first major military operation into Cambodia. The South Vietnamese encountered a 300-man Viet Cong force in the Kandal province and reported killing 53 communist soldiers. Two teams of U.S. helicopter gunships took part in the action. Three South Vietnamese soldiers were killed and seven wounded.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1973 – The White House announces that, at the request of Cambodian President Lon Nol, the bombing of Cambodia will continue until communist forces cease military operations and agree to a cease-fire.

1975 – The 1st pipe of the Alaska oil pipeline was laid at Tonsina River.

1984 – Tanker war” begins with Iraqi attacks on shipping near the Iranian coast. In coming months, many tankers are attacked by both Iran and Iraq, war risk insurance premiums for tankers soar, and oil tanker traffic in the Gulf (particularly to Iran’s Kharg Island terminal) is reduced.

1987 – The Marine Corps charged that Sgt. Clayton J. Lonetree, a Marine guard, had escorted Soviet agents through the U.S. Embassy in Moscow — an accusation that was later dropped, although Lonetree was convicted of espionage.

1988 – The U.S. Senate ratified the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

1990 – The U.S. government begins the operation of TV Marti, which broadcast television programs into communist Cuba. The project marked yet another failed attempt to undermine the regime of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. TV Marti was put together under the auspices of the Voice of America, the U.S. radio and television broadcasting system established in the 1940s to beam news and propaganda throughout the world, particularly directed toward communist nations. The new addition to this propaganda arsenal, TV Marti, was primarily the result of intense lobbying by Cuban-American interest groups and a handful of senators and representatives from south Florida and New Jersey (areas with large Cuban-American populations).

TV Marti programming tried to give Cubans an accurate look at American life. The legality and effectiveness of TV Marti were immediately issues for debate. International law forbade the transmitting of television signals into another nation if the transmission interfered with regular programming. TV Marti representatives argued that the signal was being sent on unused channels in Cuba. As for how effective it was, Cuba immediately worked to jam the signal as soon as TV Marti launched, so only a few people on the outskirts of Havana could conceivably see the broadcasts. The first day’s programming included some footage of old World Series games, music videos, and replays of the old “Kate and Allie” sitcom.

TV Marti was a powerful indication of the strength of Cold War animosities and the Cuban-American lobby in the United States. The United States and Cuba had been locked in a diplomatic war since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, and the United States resorted to a number of different schemes to try to unseat the dictator during the following decades. During that time, the Cuban-American lobby, which was well organized and well funded, became a powerful voice in Washington. Despite the fact that TV Marti was a dismal failure in terms of weakening the Castro regime, it continues to receive funding and is still in operation.

1991 – In a surprising flap, President Bush publicly disagreed with General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who claimed he had urged further fighting in the Persian Gulf War at the time Bush ordered a cease-fire. Schwarzkopf later apologized to Bush.

March 27th ~ {continued...}

1996 – The UN Security Council (Resolution 1051) established an export-import monitoring system for Iraq and demanded full cooperation.

1998 – In Columbia rebels under Comandante Romana freed 9 Columbian hostages but held 4 American birdwatchers and an Italian businessman for ransom.

1999 – NATO expanded its air assault on Yugoslavia in the fourth straight day of attacks. A $42 million US F-117A stealth fighter was downed over Yugoslavia during continued NATO airstrikes. The downed American pilot was rescued by US forces. The wreckage was later believed to have been sold.

2001 – In its first specific accusation against a detained U.S.-based scholar, China said Gao Zhan had confessed to spying for foreign intelligence agencies. The US denied employing her as a spy. Gao, who had been detained on Feb. 11, was released the following July. In 2003 Gao Zhan admitted to illegal profits of over $539,000 from selling 80 microprocessors to the Chinese government.

2002 – The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, “The Stick”, returns to Norfolk Naval yards after participating in combat and support operations in and over Afghanistan. The Stick now holds the record for a carrier’s continuous days at sea with 159, beating the USS Eisenhower’s previous record of 152 set in 1982.

2003 – The Bush administration seized $1.62 billion in Iraqi assets already frozen in the US. The money would be used to help rebuild Iraq once Saddam Hussein is ousted.

2003 – In the 9th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom a British armored unit destroyed 14 Iraqi tanks trying to break out of the besieged city of Basra. A sea-borne relief operation was postponed after discovering Iraqi mines in the shipping channel leading to the recently captured Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Heavy bombing on Baghdad destroyed a main telephone exchange.

2003 – Coast Guard cutter Wrangell, home ported in Portland, Maine, along with a Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Honolulu, escorted the first waterborne humanitarian aid shipment into the port of Umm Qasr without incident, while members of Coast Guard Port Security Unit 311, from San Pedro, Calif., assisted other coalition forces protecting the harbor. The shipment, consisting of vital aid donated by numerous countries, was carried aboard the British ship RFA Sir Galahad.

2004 – The 15-nation Caribbean Community withheld recognition from Haiti’s U.S.-backed interim government as leaders closed a summit renewing calls for a U.N. investigation into the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

2006 – Zacarias Moussaoui testifies in an American court that he and Richard Reid planned to fly a passenger jet into the White House as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks, contradicting his previous testimony.

2007 – United States District Court Judge Thomas Hogan dismisses a case of alleged torture against former United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld brought by nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

2011 – NATO assumes control of military operations in Libya.

March 28th ~

1774 – Britain passed the second Coercive Act, the Massachusetts Government Act, which revoked the Massachusetts colonial charter and removed certain democratic elements of the government. The upper legislative house would be appointed by the crown, as would sheriffs who, in turn, would appoint juries. Additionally, the Massachusetts Government Act placed restrictions on the number of town meetings that could be held.

1776 – Juan Bautista de Anza, one of the great western pathfinders of the 18th century, arrives at the future site of San Francisco with 247 colonists. Though little known among Americans because of his Spanish origins, Anza’s accomplishments as a western trailblazer merit comparison with those of Lewis and Clark, John Fremont, and Kit Carson.

Anza established a presidio, or military fort, on the tip of the San Francisco peninsula. Six months later, a Spanish Franciscan priest founded a mission near the presidio that he named in honor of St. Francis of Assisi-in Spanish, San Francisco de Asiacutes. The most northerly outpost of the Spanish Empire in America, San Francisco remained an isolated and quiet settlement for more than half a century after Anza founded the first settlement. It was not until the 1830s that an expansionist United States began to realize the commercial potential of the magnificent natural harbor. In the wake of the Mexican War, the U.S. took possession of California in 1848, though San Francisco was still only a small town of 900 at that time. With the discovery of gold that year at Sutter’s Fort, however, San Francisco boomed.

By 1852, San Francisco was home to more than 36,000 people. The founder of San Francisco did not live to see it flourish. After establishing the San Francisco presidio, Anza returned to Mexico. In 1777, he was appointed governor of New Mexico, where he eventually negotiated a critical peace treaty with Commanche Indians, who agreed to join the Spanish in making war on the Apache. In declining health, Anza retired as governor in 1786 and returned to Sonora. He died two years later, still only in his early 50s and remembered as one of greatest trailblazers and soldiers in Spain’s northern borderlands.

1800 – Essex becomes first U.S. Navy vessel to pass Cape of Good Hope.

1814 – HMS Phoebe and Cherub capture USS Essex off Valparaiso, Chile. Before capture, Essex had captured 24 British prizes during the War of 1812. Two-thirds of Essex’s crew is killed but 13-year old Midshipman David Farragut survives.

1818 – Wade Hampton, Confederate general in the American Civil War, is born in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a member of one of the richest families in the antebellum South. He owned and operated many plantations in Mississippi and South Carolina. Hampton served in the General Assembly as a Representative from 1852-1857 and a Senator from 1858-1861. He resigned from the Senate to accept a colonel’s commission in the Confederate Army. He received many promotions, rising to Lieutenant General in 1865. Hampton evacuated Columbia in 1865 when General Sherman entered the city.

March 28th ~ {continued...}

1834 – The nasty battle over the Second Bank of the United States took another turn on this day in 1834, as the Senate voted to censure President Andrew Jackson for abusing his authority and meddling with the bank’s finances. In particular, the resolution, introduced by Jackson’s archenemy Henry Clay, took the President to task for removing funds from the bank in the fall of 1833.

An ardent supporter of states’ rights, Jackson, along with help from Treasury Secretary Robert Taney, who was also censured by the Senate, transferred chunks of the money from the national bank to state institutions. Though Jackson claimed that the transfer was a response to the bank’s putatively partisan position during the 1832 elections, he was seemingly making a bald-faced play to kill the bank. Following the censure, the pugnacious president marshaled his forces and attempted to overturn the Senate’s ruling. Though his initial efforts were rebuffed, Jackson eventually won the day.

Thanks in large part to Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the censure was stripped from the Senate records in early 1837. More importantly, Jackson successfully blocked the bank from renewing its charter. Defeated bank leader Nelson Biddle instead opted to obtain a state banking license from Pennsylvania.

1845 – Mexico dropped diplomatic relations with US.

1846 – US troops commanded by General Zachary Taylor move onto the left bank of the Rio Grande River, considered Mexican territory.

1848 – USS Supply reaches the Bay of Acre, anchoring under Mount Carmel near the village of Haifa, during expedition to explore the Dead Sea and the River Jordan.

1862 – Union forces stop the Confederate invasion of New Mexico territory when they turn the Rebels back at Glorieta Pass. This action was part of the broader movement by the Confederates to capture New Mexico and other parts of the West. This would secure territory that the Rebels thought was rightfully theirs but had been denied them by political compromises made before the Civil War. Furthermore, the cash-strapped Confederacy could use western mines to fill their treasury.

From San Antonio, the Rebels moved into southern New Mexico (which included Arizona) and captured the towns of Mesilla, Doýa Ana, and Tucson. General Henry H. Sibley, with 3,000 troops, now moved north against the Federal stronghold at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande. Sibley’s force collided with Union troops at Val Verde near Fort Craig on February 21, but the Yankees were unable to stop the invasion. Sibley left parts of his army to occupy Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and the rest of the troops headed east of Santa Fe along the Pecos River. Their next target was the Union garrison at Fort Union, an outpost on the other side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

At Pigeon’s Ranch near Glorieta Pass, they encountered a Yankee force of 1,300 Colorado volunteers under Colonel John Slough. The battle began at 11:00 a.m., and the Federal force was thrown back before taking cover among the adobe buildings of Pigeon’s Ranch. A Confederate attack late in the afternoon pushed the Union troops further down the pass, but nightfall halted the advance. Union troops snatched victory from the jaws of defeat when Major John Chivington led an attack on the Confederate supply train, burning 90 wagons and killing 800 animals.

With their supplies destroyed, the Confederates had to withdraw to Santa Fe. They lost 36 men killed, 70 wounded, and 25 captured. The Union army lost 38 killed, 64 wounded, and 20 captured. After a week in Santa Fe, the Rebels withdrew down the Rio Grande. By June, the Yankees controlled New Mexico again. The Confederates did not return for the rest of the war.

1863 – U.S.S. Diana, Acting Master Thomas L. Peterson, reconnoitering the Atchafalaya River, Louisiana, with troops embarked, was attacked by Confederate sharpshooters and fieldpieces. In action that lasted almost 3 hours, casualties were heavy, Diana’s ”tiller ropes were shot away, the engines disabled, and she finally drifted ashore when it was impossible to fight or defend her longer, and she ultimately surrendered to the enemy.”

March 28th ~ {continued...}

1864 – A gunfight erupted in Charleston, Illinois between Union soldiers and Civil War opponents known as ‘Copperheads.’ In easterm Illinois, many Democrats were pro-southern while the Republicans were uniformly pro-Union. Disturbances had occurred earlier in the area, and Copperheads had been killed in Mattoon and Paris. In March, 1863, at Charleston there had been a highly controversial trial of Union deserters. On the day of the riot a large crowd had gathered here for a Democratic rally. Union soldiers were in town on leave. Drinking and fighting led to gunfire. Nine men killed and twelve wounded before troops arrived from Mattoon and quelled the disturbance. Five are killed and twenty wounded.

1870 – 129 Marines seized and destroyed illicit distilleries in “Irishtown” (Brooklyn), New York.

1885 – The Salvation Army was officially organized in the U.S.

1898 – The Supreme Court ruled that a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants was a U.S. citizen, and therefore could not be deported under the Chinese Exclusion Act.

1918 – Marines were placed under the command of French Marshall Foch in WW I.

1933 – German Reichstag conferred dictatorial powers on Hitler.

1935 – Goddard used gyroscopes to control a rocket.

1940 – Sumner Welles, Under-Secretary of State, reports to Roosevelt about his mission to the belligerent countries in Europe.

1942 – A British ship, the HMS Capbeltown, a Lend-Lease American destroyer, which was specifically rammed into a German occupied dry-dock in France, exploded, knocking the area out of action for the German battleship Tirpitz.

1945 – Stalin receives a personal telegram from General Eisenhower (Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force) giving details of his order of battle and saying that he intends to send the main weight of his advance across southern Germany and Austria. The main thrust is to be toward Erfurt and Leipzig and a secondary effort is to go for Nuremberg, Regensburg and Linz. The British protest the signal sent to Stalin, suggesting that decisions of such importance should not be taken by Eisenhower alone and that he also overstepping the authority in communicating directly with the Soviets.

Both Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff would prefer the advance to be directed on Berlin as had been the plan up to now for the political value of this move. However, President Roosevelt, weakened by his illness, leaves most military decisions to General Marshall and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Marshall confirms his support for Eisenhower in response to the British protest.

1945 – Marburg is taken by US 3rd Corps (part of US 1st Army) which has made a rapid advance from the Remagen bridgehead.

1945 – US naval forces, including TF58 and TF52, continue air strikes on Okinawa while TF54 continues bombarding the island. Japanese Kamikaze and submarine attacks continue.

March 28th ~ {continued...}

1946 – The State Department releases the so-called Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which outlines a plan for international control of atomic energy. The report represented an attempt by the United States to maintain its superiority in the field of atomic weapons while also trying to avoid a costly and dangerous arms race with the Soviet Union. The March 1946 report had been instigated by a rather hastily assembled proposal put forward by Secretary of State James Byrnes at the Moscow Conference in December 1945. Byrnes presented a hazy plan for some sort of United Nations control of atomic energy; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin agreed to the idea. President Harry S. Truman was livid when he learned of Byrnes’s proposal.

By the time of the meeting in Moscow, Truman had come to the conclusion that the Soviets were dangerous adversaries who must be met with force. Giving up America’s nuclear monopoly was not appealing. Nevertheless, he ordered the Department of State to put together a preliminary plan, assuming that America had such a huge head start in atomic power that the Soviets could never really catch up. In addition, perhaps an international body could help avert a potentially dangerous arms race with the Soviets.

In the meantime, while this organization was being established, the United States would maintain its atomic monopoly. In June 1946, Truman selected businessman Bernard Baruch to present the plan at the United Nations. Baruch, however, changed many of the key points of the plan and insisted that the United States would have an ultimate veto power on any issues arising in connection with the plan. The Soviets quickly rejected the idea so the vote was never held in the United Nations. The United States and the Soviet Union would go their own ways in developing their nuclear arsenals. In 1949, the Soviets exploded an atomic device and the nuclear arms race was on.

1953 – The Chinese agreed to the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners proposed by U.N. Forces Commander General Mark Clark and further proposed that prisoners unwilling to be repatriated be transferred to a neutral state.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Colonel James K. Johnson, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, became the 29th ace of the Korean War.

1961 – A U.S. national intelligence estimate prepared for President John F. Kennedy declares that South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem and the Republic of Vietnam are facing an extremely critical situation. As evidence, the reports cites that more than half of the rural region surrounding Saigon is under communist control and points to a barely failed coup against Diem the preceding November. Not only were Diem’s forces losing to the Viet Cong on the battlefield, the report alleged that he had not effectively dealt with the discontent among a large segment of South Vietnamese society, which had given rise to the coup against him.

The report questioned Diem’s ability to rally the people against the communists. Kennedy wondered what to do about Diem, who was staunchly anticommunist but did not have a lot of credibility with the South Vietnamese people because he was Catholic while the country was predominantly Buddhist. Kennedy and his advisers tried to convince Diem to put in place land reform and other measures that might build popular support, but Diem steadfastly refused to make any meaningful concessions to his opponents. He was assassinated in November 1963 during a coup by a group of South Vietnamese generals.

1962 – The U.S. Air Force announced research into the use of lasers to intercept missiles and satellites.

1967 – UN Sec. General U Thant made public proposals for peace in Vietnam.

1968 – The U.S. lost its first aircraft in Vietnam. An F-111 vanished in a combat mission over North Vietnam. Republic Aircraft’s F-105 Thunderchief, better known as the ‘Thud,’ was the Air Force’s war-horse in Vietnam.

March 28th ~ {continued...}

1969 – Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States and one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War II, dies in Washington, D.C., at the age of 78. Born in Denison, Texas, in 1890, Eisenhower graduated from the United States Military Academy in 1915, and after World War I he steadily rose in the peacetime ranks of the U.S. Army. After the U.S. entrance into World War II, he was appointed commanding general of the European theater of operations and oversaw U.S. troops massing in Great Britain.

In 1942, Eisenhower, who had never commanded troops in the field, was put in charge of Operation Torch, the Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria. As supreme commander of a mixed force of Allied nationalities, services, and equipment, Eisenhower designed a system of unified command and rapidly won the respect of his British and Canadian subordinates.

From North Africa, he successfully directed the invasions of Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy, and in January 1944 was appointed supreme Allied commander of Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of northwestern Europe. Although Eisenhower left much of the specific planning for the actual Allied landing in the hands of his capable staff, such as British Field Marshall Montgomery, he served as a brilliant organizer and administrator both before and after the successful invasion.

After the war, he briefly served as president of Columbia University before returning to military service in 1951 as supreme commander of the combined land and air forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Pressure on Eisenhower to run for U.S. president was great, however, and in the spring of 1952 he relinquished his NATO command to run for president on the Republican ticket.

In November 1952, “Ike” won a resounding victory in the presidential elections and in 1956 was reelected in a landslide. A popular president, he oversaw a period of great economic growth in the United States and deftly navigated the country through increasing Cold War tension on the world stage. In 1961, he retired with his wife, Mamie Doud Eisenhower, to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He died in 1969 and was buried on a family plot in Abilene, Kansas.

March 28th ~ {continued...}

1979 – At 4 a.m. the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry begins when a pressure valve in the Unit-2 reactor at Three Mile Island fails to close. Cooling water, contaminated with radiation, drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the core began to dangerously overheat. The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant was built in 1974 on a sandbar on Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna River, just 10 miles downstream from the state capitol in Harrisburg. In 1978, a second state-of-the-art reactor began operating on Three Mile Island, which was lauded for generating affordable and reliable energy in a time of energy crises. After the cooling water began to drain out of the broken pressure valve on the morning of March 28, 1979, emergency cooling pumps automatically went into operation. Left alone, these safety devices would have prevented the development of a larger crisis.

However, human operators in the control room misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency water system. The reactor was also shut down, but residual heat from the fission process was still being released. By early morning, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees, just 1,000 degrees short of meltdown. In the meltdown scenario, the core melts, and deadly radiation drifts across the countryside, fatally sickening a potentially great number of people. As the plant operators struggled to understand what had happened, the contaminated water was releasing radioactive gases throughout the plant. The radiation levels, though not immediately life-threatening, were dangerous, and the core cooked further as the contaminated water was contained and precautions were taken to protect the operators.

Shortly after 8 a.m., word of the accident leaked to the outside world. The plant’s parent company, Metropolitan Edison, downplayed the crisis and claimed that no radiation had been detected off plant grounds, but the same day inspectors detected slightly increased levels of radiation nearby as a result of the contaminated water leak. Pennsylvania Governor Dick Thornburgh considered calling an evacuation. Finally, at about 8 p.m., plant operators realized they needed to get water moving through the core again and restarted the pumps. The temperature began to drop, and pressure in the reactor was reduced. The reactor had come within less than an hour of a complete meltdown. More than half the core was destroyed or molten, but it had not broken its protective shell, and no radiation was escaping. The crisis was apparently over.

Two days later, however, on March 30, a bubble of highly flammable hydrogen gas was discovered within the reactor building. The bubble of gas was created two days before when exposed core materials reacted with super-heated steam. On March 28, some of this gas had exploded, releasing a small amount of radiation into the atmosphere. At that time, plant operators had not registered the explosion, which sounded like a ventilation door closing. After the radiation leak was discovered on March 30, residents were advised to stay indoors. Experts were uncertain if the hydrogen bubble would create further meltdown or possibly a giant explosion, and as a precaution Governor Thornburgh advised “pregnant women and pre-school age children to leave the area within a five-mile radius of the Three Mile Island facility until further notice.”

This led to the panic the governor had hoped to avoid; within days, more than 100,000 people had fled surrounding towns. On April 1, President Jimmy Carter arrived at Three Mile Island to inspect the plant. Carter, a trained nuclear engineer, had helped dismantle a damaged Canadian nuclear reactor while serving in the U.S. Navy. His visit achieved its aim of calming local residents and the nation. That afternoon, experts agreed that the hydrogen bubble was not in danger of exploding. Slowly, the hydrogen was bled from the system as the reactor cooled.

At the height of the crisis, plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation, but no one outside Three Mile Island had their health adversely affected by the accident. Nonetheless, the incident greatly eroded the public’s faith in nuclear power. The unharmed Unit-1 reactor at Three Mile Island, which was shut down during the crisis, did not resume operation until 1985. Cleanup continued on Unit-2 until 1990, but it was too damaged to be rendered usable again. In the more than two decades since the accident at Three Mile Island, not a single new nuclear power plant has been ordered in the United States.