December 31st ~ { continued... }

1968 – The bloodiest year of the war comes to an end. At year’s end, 536,040 American servicemen were stationed in Vietnam, an increase of over 50,000 from 1967. Estimates from Headquarters U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam indicated that 181,150 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese were killed during the year.

However, Allied losses were also up: 27,915 South Vietnamese, 14,584 Americans (a 56 percent increase over 1967), and 979 South Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders, and Thais were reported killed during 1968. Since January 1961, more than 31,000 U.S. servicemen had been killed in Vietnam and over 200,000 U.S. personnel had been wounded.

Contributing to the high casualty number was the Tet Offensive launched by the communists. Conducted in the early weeks of the year, it was a crushing military defeat for the communists, but the size and scope of the attacks caught the American and South Vietnamese allies completely by surprise. The early reporting of a smashing communist victory went largely uncorrected in the media and this led to a psychological victory for the communists.

The heavy U.S. casualties incurred during the offensive coupled with the disillusionment over the earlier overly optimistic reports of progress in the war accelerated the growing disenchantment with President Johnson’s conduct of the war. Johnson, frustrated with his inability to reach a solution in Vietnam, announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept the Democratic nomination for president. Johnson’s announcement did not dampen the wave of antiwar protests that climaxed with the bloody confrontation between protesters and police outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.

1970 – Congress authorized the Eisenhower dollar coin.

1971 – The gradual U.S. withdrawal from the conflict in Southeast Asia is reflected in reduced annual casualty figures. The number of Americans killed in action dropped to 1,386 from the previous year total of 4,204. South Vietnam losses for the year totalled 21,500 men, while the combined Viet Cong and North Vietnamese total was estimated at 97,000 killed in action. After 10 years of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, a total of 45,627 American soldiers had been killed. The U.S. troop levels, which started the year at 280,000, were down to 159,000. This troop reduction was a direct result of the shifting American goal for the Vietnam War-no longer attempting a military victory, the U.S. was trying to gracefully extricate itself from the situation by transferring responsibility for the war to the South Vietnamese.

1972 – With the end of Linebacker II, the most intense U.S. bombing operation of the Vietnam War, U.S. and communist negotiators prepare to return to the secret Paris peace talks scheduled to reconvene on January 2. In a statement issued in Paris, the Hanoi delegation to the public peace talks asserted that the U.S. bombing did not succeed in “subjugating the Vietnamese people,” and called attention to the losses of U.S. planes and the unfavorable world reaction to the raids. Despite the public denial that the Linebacker II raids forced them back, the communists returned to the negotiating table. When the negotiators met in January, the talks moved along quickly and on January 23, 1973, the United States, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), and the Viet Cong signed a cease-fire agreement that took effect five days later. In 1972, the American troop level in South Vietnam was reduced from 159,000 to only 24,000. Under the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, all of the personnel would be withdrawn by March 1973.

1974 – Private U.S. citizens were allowed to buy and own gold for the first time in more than 40 years.

1978 – Flags at both the American embassy in Taipei and the Taiwanese embassy in the United States are lowered for the last time as U.S. relations with Taiwan officially come to an end. On January 1, 1979 the United States officially recognized the government of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. The American decision to sever relations with Taiwan and grant recognition to the People’s Republic of China was hotly resented by representatives of the Chinese Nationalist government.

In a brief ceremony accompanying the lowering of the Taiwanese flag, a Chinese Nationalist official declared that the action “did not mean that we are giving up our fight against communism.” He strongly criticized American President Jimmy Carter for cutting off ties with “a loyal friend and ally of the United States” in exchange for normalizing relations with “our enemy, the Chinese Communist regime.” American officials had little comment, except to assure those seeking visas and other services in Taiwan that the U.S. embassy would continue to help them until March 1, 1979. At that time, a “nongovernmental” office would take over those duties.

It was a rather quiet end to nearly 30 years of American refusal to grant official recognition to the communist government of mainland China. The U.S. decision to maintain strong relations with the Nationalist government on Taiwan had been the main roadblock to diplomatic relations between America and the People’s Republic of China. By the late 1970s, the desire for closer economic relations with communist China and the belief that diplomatic relations with the PRC might act as a buffer against Soviet aggression led U.S. officials to view continued relations with Taiwan as counterproductive.
President Carter’s decision to sever relations with Taiwan removed that obstacle. One of the oldest and most antagonistic relationships of the Cold War seemed to be thawing.

1991 – This was the last day of existence for the USSR.

1992 – President Bush visited Somalia, where he saw firsthand the famine racking the east African nation. He praised U.S. troops that provided relief to the starving population.

1994 – Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a U.N.-brokered cease-fire agreement.

1995 – The first US tanks crossed a pontoon bridge over the Sava River from Croatia to Bosnia to start the deployment of 20,000 US troops under IFOR, the Implementation Force under NATO command.

1995 – Bosnian government officials and Bosnian Serb leaders signed a UN-brokered cease-fire agreement.

1997 – The US State Dept. reported that Iraq had ordered the summary execution of “hundreds if not thousands” of political detainees in recent weeks. The exiled Iraqi Communist party in London said 1,500 prisoners were killed on Nov 21st. The exiled Iraqi National Congress said 800 prisoners were recently executed. A former Dutch foreign minister and UN Human Rights investigator said about 200 were reportedly executed. Iraq denied the charges.

1999 – The United States Government hands control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama.

2000 – The US signed a treaty for the creation of the 1st permanent international court despite objections by conservatives and the Pentagon.

2001 – The US designated 6 more entities as suspected terrorist organizations. 5 groups were active in the UK, the 6th was active in Spain.

2001 – The US planned to deploy elements of the 101st Airborne Division to replace Marines near Kandahar. US troops moved by helicopter to Helmand province, the region where Mohammed Omar was suspected to be.

2002 – President Bush told reporters an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally “would cripple our economy.”

2002 – Two U.N. nuclear inspectors expelled by North Korea arrived in China, leaving the communist nation’s nuclear program isolated from international scrutiny.

2003 – In Iraq gunfire erupted in Kirkuk as hundreds of Arabs and Turkmen marched in protest over fears of Kurdish domination in the oil-rich northern city.

2003 – The U.S. Department of Defense says that the task of importing gasoline for civilian use in Iraq will be handled by the Defense Energy Support Center, a Department of Defense agency that supplies fuel to the military, instead of a subsidiary of Halliburton Company. Halliburton had been criticized for allegedly overcharging the government under its no-bid contract. Almost a year later those allegations will be found groundless.

2011 – NASA succeeds in putting the first of two Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory satellites in orbit around the Moon.

2011 – President Barack Obama signs a law providing for new sanctions against Iran.

January 1st ~ New Years Day

1600 – Scotland begins its numbered year on January 1 instead of March 25. The rest of Great Britain follows suite in 1752.

1698 – The Abenaki Indians and Massachusetts colonists sign a treaty halting hostilities between the two.

1735 – Paul Revere was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He attended North Grammar School. He served for a short time in the French and Indian War. After the war, he married Sarah Orne and entered his father’s silversmith business. Paul Revere soon became interested in the issue of American liberty. He received lots of attention from political cartoons he drew. Paul Revere was a member of the “Sons of Liberty.”

On December 16, 1773, he took part in the Boston Tea Party. On April 18, 1775, Revere and William Dawes were sent to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock of British plans to march from Boston to seize military stores at Concord. A signal was established to warn if the British were coming by land or by sea. From the steeple of the Old North Church in Boston, two lanterns would mean the British were coming by sea, and one would mean by land. One lantern was lit. The British were coming by land.

Revere left Boston around 10 PM. Along the road to Lexington, he warned residents that “the British are coming!” He arrived in Lexington around midnight riding a borrowed horse. At 1 AM, Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott left for Concord. Revere was captured. Only Prescott got through to Concord. Revere was released without his horse and returned to Lexington. At Lexington he joined Adams and Hancock and fled into safety in Burlington. Revere returned to rescue valuable papers in Hancock’s trunk. When the British arrived on April 19, the minutemen were waiting for them.

In 1778 and 1779, Revere commanded a garrison at Castle Williams in Boston Harbor. Revere left the service in disrepute. During and after the war, Revere continued his silversmith trade in Boston. He died on May 10, 1818.

1745 – Anthony Wayne was born near Philadelphia at Waynes Borough, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Wayne was named for his grandfather, who had fought for the British army before emigrating to America. After studying in Philadelphia, Wayne surveyed the coast of Nova Scotia and later returned to the family farm in Pennsylvania.

With the outbreak of war with England in 1776, Wayne was commissioned a colonel and assisted General Benedict Arnold in his retreat from Quebec. He held various positions with the Continental Army and endured the long winter of 1777-78 at Valley Forge. In 1779, Wayne and his troops captured the English garrison at Stony Point, N.Y. Sent south in 1781, Wayne and his command were hemmed in by British General Charles Cornwallis’ superior forces at Green Springs, Va., but managed to escape with his men. He then served under General Nathaniel Greene, helping to force the British out of Georgia and South Carolina in 1782.

Wayne was recalled as a major general by Washington in 1792 to lead the Legion of the United States against the native American forces in Ohio and Indiana. The United States under Generals Harmar and St. Clair had suffered successive defeats to a confederation of tribes, Wayne’s troops defeated the native Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, Ohio. The victory led to the Wayne’s Treaty of Greeneville in 1795, which opened the Northwest Territory to white settlement.

After accepting the surrender of Detroit in 1796, he was seized with a severe attack of gout and died at Fort Presque Isle, Penn., Dec. 15, 1796. In 1809, his son retrieved the skeleton of the general, reinterring the flesh there and returning the bones to be buried in the family cemetery in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

1776 – The Burning of Norfolk was an incident during the American War of Independence. British Royal Navy ships in the harbor of Norfolk, Virginia began shelling the town, and landing parties came ashore to burn specific properties. The town, whose significantly Tory (Loyalist) population had fled, was occupied by Whig (Revolutionary) forces from Virginia and North Carolina. Although these forces worked to drive off the landing parties, they did nothing to impede the progress of the flames, and began burning and looting Tory properties.

After three days, most of the town had been destroyed, principally by the action of the Whig forces. The destruction was completed by Whig forces in early February to deny use of even the remnants to the British. Norfolk was the last significant foothold of British authority in Virginia; after raiding Virginia’s coastal areas for a time, its last Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, left for good in August 1776.

1752 – Great Britain (excluding Scotland) and its colonies, move New Year to January 1. Previously the British have observed the New Year on March 25. Scotland had changed to January 1 in 1600.

1780 – American patriots conduct a continuing guerrilla campaign against the British in the territory surrounding Augusta, Georgia.

1781 – The Pennsylvania Line Mutiny began, and ended with negotiated settlement on January 8, 1781. The negotiated terms were concluded by January 29, 1781. The mutiny was the most successful and consequential insurrection by Continental Army soldiers during the American Revolutionary War. Although the mutineers demanded a change in their conditions, they refused to defect to the British despite enticement by British Army General Sir Henry Clinton.

When negotiations with the Supreme Executive Council of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania promised satisfactory resolution, many of the soldiers returned to arms for the Continental Army and participated in future campaigns. This mutiny inspired a similar insurrection by the New Jersey Line, but instead of a favorable negotiated settlement, several New Jersey soldiers were executed for treason to bring their units back to order.

1782– The supporters of the British cause, the Loyalists, begin to leave the US, mainly for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Among the first to leave are those from the New England states and New York. If they stay, the Loyalists fear legal charges of treason or collaboration, and property confiscation.

January 1st ~ { continued... }

1804 – The tradition of the Marine Band serenading the Commandant was established.

1808 – A U.S. law banning the import of slaves comes into effect, but is widely ignored.

1815 – At New Orleans, British commander Sir Edward Pakenham leads an attack against the US fortifications around the city. Under General Andrew Jackson, the US Artillery proves superior, and the British are forced to withdraw in order to await reinforcements.

1862 – U.S.S. Yankee, Lieutenant Eastman, and U.S.S. Anacostia, Lieutenant Oscar C. Badger, exchanged fire with Confederate batteries at Cockpit Point, Potomac River; Yankee was damaged slightly. Attacks by ships of the Potomac Flotilla were instrumental in forcing the withdrawal of strong Confederate emplacements along the river. Batteries at Cockpit and Shipping Point were abandoned by 9 March 1862.

1863 – Confederate General Braxton Bragg and Union General William Rosecrans readjust their troops as the Battle of Murfreesboro continues.

1863 – President Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation, calling on the Union army to liberate all slaves in states still in rebellion as “an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity.” These three million slaves were declared to be “then, thenceforward, and forever free.”

The proclamation exempted the border slave states that remained in the Union at the start of the Civil War and all or parts of three Confederate states controlled by the Union army. As a Republican politician, Lincoln had fought to isolate slavery from the new territories, not outlaw it outright, and this policy carried over into his presidency. Even after the Civil War began, Lincoln, though he privately detested slavery, moved cautiously on the emancipation issue.

However, in 1862, the federal government began to realize the strategic advantages of emancipation: The liberation of slaves would weaken the Confederacy by depriving it of a major portion of its labor force, which would in turn strengthen the Union by producing an influx of manpower. That year, Congress annulled the fugitive slave laws, prohibited slavery in the U.S. territories, and authorized Lincoln to employ freed slaves in the army. Following the major Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September, Lincoln issued a warning of his intent to issue an Emancipation Proclamation for all states still in rebellion on New Year’s Day.

The Emancipation Proclamation transformed the Civil War from a war against secession into a war for “a new birth of freedom,” as Lincoln stated in his Gettysburg Address in 1863. This ideological change discouraged the intervention of France or England on the Confederacy’s behalf and enabled the Union to enlist the 200,000 African-American soldiers and sailors who volunteered to fight between January 1, 1863, and the conclusion of the war. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution formally abolished slavery.

1863 – Confederate warships under Major Leon Smith, CSA, defeated Union blockading forces at Galveston in a fierce surprise attack combined with an assault ashore by Confederate troops that resulted in the capture of the Northern Army company stationed there. Smith’s flotilla included the improvised cotton-clad gunboats C.S.S. Bayou City and Neptune, with Army sharpshooting boarding parties embarked, and tenders John F. Carr and Lucy Gwin.

The Union squadron under Commander William B. Renshaw, U.S.S. Harriet Lane, Owasco, Corypheus, Sachem, Clifton, and Westfield, was caught off guard. Despite the surprise, Harriet Lane, Commander Jonathan M. Wainwright, put up a gallant fight. She rammed Bayou City, but without much damage. In turn she was rammed by Neptune, which was so damaged by the resulting impact and a shot from Harriet Lane taken at the waterline that she sank in 8 feet of water.

Bayou City, meanwhile, turned and rammed Harriet Lane so heavily that the two ships could not be separated. The troops from the cotton-clad clambered over the bulwarks to board Harriet Lane. Commander Wainwright was killed in the wild hand-to-hand combat and his ship was captured. In the meantime, Westfield, Commander Renshaw, had run aground in Bolivar Channel prior to the action, could not be gotten off, and was destroyed to prevent her capture. Renshaw and a boat crew were killed when Westfield blew up prematurely. The small ships comprising the remainder of the blockading force ran through heavy Confederate fire from ashore and stood out to sea.

Surprise and boldness in execution, as often in the long history of warfare, had won another victory. The tribute paid by Major General John Bankhead Magruder, CSA, was well deserved. “The alacrity with which officers and men, all of them totally unacquainted with this novel kind of service, some of whom had never seen a ship before, volunteered for an enterprise so extraordinarily and apparently desperate in its character, and the bold and dashing manner in which the plan was executed, are certainly deserving of the highest praise.”

1883– William Jacob Donovan, American lawyer and director of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), was born in Buffalo, N.Y. Distinguished service in World War I won him medals and the nickname Wild Bill Donovan. He was prominent in Republican politics and served (1925-29) in the office of the Attorney General. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent him on foreign missions, and in 1942 he was made head of the newly created OSS, which he made into a formidable and successful intelligence agency.

Donovan was given the rank of major general and served until 1945, and later returned to public service as ambassador to Thailand (1953-54). His enthusiasm for covert operations and paramilitary interventions helped shape the psychology of the Central Intelligence Agency, which replaced the OSS as the premier U.S. intelligence agency in 1947.

1915 – The German submarine U-24 sinks the British battleship Formidable off the coast of Plymouth Massachusetts.

1920 – Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer and his assistant J. Edgar Hoover, begin prosecution of what he perceives as a “Red Menace.” Without warrants Palmer authorizes raids on private homes and labor headquarters across the country, targeting in particular the members and offices of the International Workers of the World (IWW) known as “wobblies.”

In one night he pounces on 33 separate cities and arrests 4000 people. Many are Russians, some are Communists, but most are victims of Palmer’s grab for fame. In Detroit 300 totally innocent people are held for a week, one day without food. Palmer finds no signs of imminent revolution, nor even much radicalism, but he will enjoy public adulation around the country until early May.

January 1st ~ { continued... }

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill issue a declaration, signed by representatives of 26 countries, called the “United Nations.” The signatories of the declaration vowed to create an international postwar peacekeeping organization. On December 22, 1941, Churchill arrived in Washington, D.C., for the Arcadia Conference, a discussion with President Roosevelt about a unified Anglo-American war strategy and a future peace.

The attack on Pearl Harbor meant that the U.S. was involved in the war, and it was important for Great Britain and America to create and project a unified front against Axis powers. Toward that end, Churchill and Roosevelt created a combined general staff to coordinate military strategy against both Germany and Japan and to draft a plan for a future joint invasion of the Continent. Among the most far-reaching achievements of the Arcadia Conference was the United Nations agreement.

Led by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, the signatories agreed to use all available resources to defeat the Axis powers. It was agreed that no single country would sue for a separate peace with Germany, Italy, or Japan-they would act in concert. Perhaps most important, the signatories promised to pursue the creation of a future international peacekeeping organization dedicated to ensuring “life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and to preserve the rights of man and justice.”

1944 – American aircraft attack a Japanese convoy off Kavieng, New Ireland. The planes are from the carrier task group led by Admiral Sherman.

1945 – In Operation Bodenplatte, The German Luftwaffe makes a series of heavy attacks on Allied airfields in Belgium, Holland and northern France. They have assembled around 800 planes of all types for this effort by deploying every available machine and pilot. Many of the pilots have had so little training that they must fly special formations with an experienced pilot in the lead providing the navigation for the whole force.

The Allies are surprised and lose many aircraft on the ground. Among the German aircraft losses for the day are a considerable number of planes shot down by German anti-aircraft fire. Allied losses amount to 300 planes opposed to about 200 German aircraft shot down. Meanwhile, the land battle in the Ardennes continues with the Allied counterattacks gathering force. The most notable gains are by the US 8th Corps. Farther south in Alsace the forces of German Army Group G begins an offensive in the Sarreguemines area (Operation Nordwind) towards Strasbourg. The US 7th Army retires before this attack on orders from Eisenhower.

1946 – The U.S. Coast Guard, which had operated as a service under the U.S. Navy since 1 November 1941, was returned to the U .S. Treasury Department, pursuant to Executive Order 9666, dated 28 December 1945.

1946 – An American soldier accepts the surrender of about 20 Japanese soldiers who only discovered that the war was over by reading it in the newspaper. On the island of Corregidor, located at the mouth of Manila Bay, a lone soldier on detail for the American Graves Registration was busy recording the makeshift graves of American soldiers who had lost their lives fighting the Japanese. He was interrupted when approximately 20 Japanese soldiers approached him-literally waving a white flag. They had been living in an underground tunnel built during the war and learned that their country had already surrendered when one of them ventured out in search of water and found a newspaper announcing Japan’s defeat.

1947 – The American and British occupation zones in Germany, after World War II, merge to form the Bizone, that later became West Germany.

1950 – Mary T. Sproul commissioned as first female doctor in Navy.

1951 – As almost half a million Chinese Communist and North Korean troops launched a new ground offensive. They take Inchon and Kimpo Airfied. Fifth Air Force embarked on a campaign of air raids on enemy troop columns.

1951 – General MacArthur told the Japanese that the Korean War might force Japan to rearm.

1954 – NBC makes the first coast-to-coast NTSC color broadcast when it telecast the Tournament of Roses Parade, with public demonstrations given across the United States on prototype color receivers.

1955- The United States Foreign Operations Administration begins sending aid to Southeast Asia.
Cambodia, Laos, and South Vietnam will receive $216,000,000 this year.

1955 – In pledging new military assistance to South Vietnam, the United States cites the aid agreement of 23 December 1950 signed by the United States, France, and the French Associated States of Indochina.

1955 – Chief of the US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) Indochina Lieutenant General John W. O’Daniel is assigned to assist the South Vietnamese government in organizing and training the South Vietnamese Army. All US aid to Vietnam goes directly to Saigon.

1958 – The U.S. Coast Guard ceased listening continuously for distress calls on 2670 kilocycles. Although the countries of the world had agreed at the Atlantic City Convention of the International Telecommunication Union in 1947 to use 2182 kilocycles for international maritime mobile radiotelephone calling and distress, the U.S. Coast Guard had continued listening on the old frequency until the public had had sufficient time to change to the new one.

January 1st ~ { continued... }

1959 – Cuban dictator Batista falls from power: In the face of a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista flees the island nation. As celebration and chaos intermingled in the Cuban capitol of Havana, U.S. policymakers debated how best to deal with the radical Castro and the ominous rumblings of anti-Americanism in Cuba.

The United States government had supported the American-friendly Batista regime since it came to power in 1952. After Fidel Castro, together with a handful of supporters that included the professional revolutionary Che Guevara, landed in Cuba to unseat Batista in December 1956, the U.S. continued to support Batista. Suspicious of what they believed to be Castro’s leftist ideology and fearful that his ultimate goals might include attacks on U.S. investments and properties in Cuba, American officials were nearly unanimous in opposing his revolutionary movement.

Cuban support for Castro’s revolution, however, spread and grew in the late 1950s, partially due to his personal charisma and nationalistic rhetoric, but also because of the increasingly rampant corruption, brutality, and inefficiency within the Batista government. This reality forced U.S. policymakers to slowly withdraw their support from Batista and begin a search in Cuba for an alternative to both the dictator and Castro. American efforts to find a “middle road” between Batista and Castro ultimately failed.

On January 1, 1959, Batista and a number of his supporters fled Cuba. Tens of thousands of Cubans (and thousands of Cuban-Americans in the United States) joyously celebrated the end of the dictator’s regime. Castro’s supporters moved quickly to establish their power. Judge Manuel Urrutia was named as provisional president. Castro and his band of guerrilla fighters triumphantly entered Havana on January 7. In the years that followed, the U.S. attitude toward the new revolutionary government would move from cautiously suspicious to downright hostile.

As the Castro government moved toward a closer relationship with the Soviet Union, and Castro declared himself to be a Marxist-Leninist, relations between the U.S. and Cuba collapsed into mutual enmity, which continued only somewhat abated through the following decades.

1962 – Navy SEAL teams established. In March 1961, Arleigh Burke, Chief of Naval Operations, recommended the establishment of guerrilla and counter-guerrilla units. These units would be able to operate from sea, air or land. This was the beginning of the Navy SEALs.

All SEALs came from the Navy’s Underwater Demolition Teams, who had already gained extensive experience in commando warfare in Korea; however, the Underwater Demolition Teams were still necessary to the Navy’s amphibious force. The first two teams were formed in January 1962 and stationed on both US coasts: Team One at Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, in San Diego, California and Team Two at Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Formed entirely with personnel from UDTs, the SEALs mission was to conduct counter guerilla warfare and clandestine operations in maritime and riverine environments.

Men of the newly formed SEAL Teams were trained in such unconventional areas as hand-to-hand combat, high-altitude parachuting, demolitions, and foreign languages. The SEALs attended Underwater Demolition Team replacement training and they spent some time training in UDTs. Upon making it to a SEAL team, they would undergo a SEAL Basic Indoctrination (SBI) training class at Camp Kerry in the Cuyamaca Mountains. After SBI training class, they would enter a platoon and conduct platoon training.

1964 – Fatah, the Palestinian guerrilla group founded by Yasser Arafat, made its 1st armed attack against Israel. The annual celebration of this day came to be known as Fatah Day.

1966 – 1st Marine Division advance elements arrive in Vietnam: On this day, advance elements of the 1st Regiment of the Marine 1st Division arrive in Vietnam. The entire division followed by the end of March. The division established its headquarters at Chu Lai and was given responsibility for the two southernmost provinces of I Corps (the military region just south of the DMZ). At the peak of its strength, the 1st Marine Division consisted of four regiments of infantry: the 1st, 5th, 7th, and 27th Marines. It also included the 11th Artillery regiment, which consisted of six battalions of 105-mm, 155-mm, and 8-inch howitzers.

Other divisional combat units included the 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Antitank Battalion, 1st Amphibious Tractor Company, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, and the 1st Force Reconnaissance Company. The division numbered nearly 20,000 marines by the time all elements had arrived in South Vietnam. During the Tet Offensive of 1968, the 1st Marine Division assisted the South Vietnamese army forces in recapturing the imperial city of Hue. The 1st Marine Division was withdrawn from Vietnam in the spring of 1971 and moved to its current base at Camp Pendleton, California.

During the course of the Vietnam War, 20 members of the 1st Marine Division won the Medal of Honor for conspicuous bravery on the battlefield. The 1st Marine Division was twice awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for gallantry in action in Vietnam and received the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry with Palm and the Vietnamese Civil Action Award.

1967 – Operation Sam Houston begins: Operation Sam Houston begins as a continuation of border surveillance operations in Pleiku and Kontum Provinces in the Central Highlands by units from the U.S. 4th and 25th Infantry Divisions. The purpose of the operation was to interdict the movement of North Vietnamese troops and equipment into South Vietnam from communist sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos. The operation ended on April 5. A total of 169 U.S. soldiers were killed in action; 733 enemy casualties were reported.

1970 – Unix time begins at 00:00:00 UTC/GMT. Unix time (aka POSIX time or Epoch time), is a system for describing instants in time, defined as the number of seconds that have elapsed since 00:00:00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), Thursday, 1 January 1970, not counting leap seconds. It is used widely in Unix-like and many other operating systems and file formats. Due to its handling of leap seconds, it is neither a linear representation of time nor a true representation of UTC. Unix time may be checked on most Unix systems by typing date +%s on the command line.

1979 – The United States and China held celebrations in Washington and Beijing to mark the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Deng Xiaoping arranged to visit the US.

January 1st ~ { continued... }

1981 – Palau achieves self-government though it is not independent from the United States. It signed a Compact of Free Association with the United States in 1982.

1983 – The ARPANET officially changes to using the Internet Protocol, creating the Internet.

1985– The Coast Guard cutter Citrus was rammed by the M/V Pacific Star during a boarding incident. The Pacific Star then sank after being scuttled by her crew. There were no casualties. The seven crewmen were arrested on drug charges.

1985 – The Internet’s Domain Name System (DNS) is created. DNS is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities. Most prominently, it translates easily memorized domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for the purpose of locating computer services and devices worldwide. The Domain Name System is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet.

1986 – As the United States builds its strength in the Mediterranean, Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi threatens to retaliate if attacked.

1996 – Retired US Admiral Arleigh Burke, remembered for his World War II heroics, died at Bethesda Naval Hospital at age 94.

2000 – The arrival of 2000 saw no terrorist attacks, Y2K meltdowns or mass suicides among doomsday cults, but instead saw seven continents stepping joyously and peacefully into the New Year.

2001 – Pres. Bush announced that envoy Gen. Anthony Zinni would return to the Middle East to push for steps to renew peace talks.

2002 – The Open Skies mutual surveillance treaty, initially signed in 1992, officially comes into force and currently has 34 States Parties. It establishes a program of unarmed aerial surveillance flights over the entire territory of its participants.

The concept of “mutual aerial observation” was initially proposed to Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin at the Geneva Conference of 1955 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower; however, the Soviets promptly rejected the concept and it lay dormant for several years.

The treaty was eventually signed as an initiative of US president (and former Director of Central Intelligence) George H. W. Bush in 1989. Negotiated by the then-members of NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the agreement was signed in Helsinki, Finland, on March 24, 1992.

2002 – Pakistan ordered the country’s military intelligence agency to cut off backing for Islamic militant groups fighting in Kashmir.

2003 – U.S. and British warplanes attacked an Iraqi mobile radar system after it entered the southern no-fly zone.

2003 – Joe Foss (87), former South Dakota Gov. and World War II hero who also served as president of the National Rifle Association and commissioner of the American Football League, died at an Arizona hospital.

2003 – In Bosnia the EU hoisted its dark blue banner to officially mark the transfer of peacekeeping duties from the United Nations, while NATO-led troops handed over control of Sarajevo’s airport to Bosnian authorities.

2004 – The US Navy seized a 4th drug-smuggling vessel in the Persian Gulf with about 2,800 pounds of hashish. Street value was estimated at $11 million.

2004 – North Korea confirmed that it would allow a U.S. delegation to visit its main nuclear complex next week, the first such inspection since the isolated communist country expelled UN monitors more than a year ago.

2009 – The United States handed control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein’s presidential palace to the Iraqi government in a ceremonial move described by the country’s prime minister as a restoration of Iraq’s sovereignty. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he would propose 1 January be declared national “Sovereignty Day”. “This palace is the symbol of Iraqi sovereignty and by restoring it, a real message is directed to all Iraqi people that Iraqi sovereignty has returned to its natural status”, al-Maliki said.

2012 – The second of NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory spacecraft is in orbit around the moon.

January 2nd ~

1762 – During the course of the Seven Years War, England declares war on Spain, who is preparing to ally herself with the French and Austrians.

1777 – Loyalist Lieutenant Colonel John Morris, a half-pay lieutenant of the 47th Regiment of Foot who had previous military service, convinced Brigadier General Skinner and the British that he could raise a battalion. With the British entry into New Jersey in late November of 1776, his plans commenced. As quickly as he raised men they were thrown into action. Four of his men were killed in battle and as many as thirty others captured near Monmouth Court House in Freehold.

1777 – The Battle of the Assunpink Creek, also known as the Second Battle of Trenton, was a battle between American and British troops that took place in and around Trenton, New Jersey during the American War of Independence, and resulted in an American victory. Following a surprise victory at the Battle of Trenton early in the morning of December 26, 1776, General George Washington of the Continental Army and his council of war expected a strong British counter-attack. Washington and his council decided to meet this attack in Trenton, and established a defensive position south of the Assunpink Creek. Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis led the British forces southward in the aftermath of the December 26th battle. Leaving 1,400 men under Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood in Princeton, Cornwallis advanced on Trenton with about 5,000 men on January 2. His advance was significantly slowed by defensive skirmishing by American riflemen under the command of Edward Hand, and the advance guard did not reach Trenton until twilight.

After assaulting the American positions three times, and being repulsed each time, Cornwallis decided to wait and finish the battle the next day. Washington moved his army around Cornwallis’s camp that night and attacked Mawhood at Princeton the next day. That defeat prompted the British to withdraw from most of New Jersey for the winter.

1788 – Georgia votes to ratify the U.S. Constitution, becoming the fourth state in the modern United States. Named after King George II, Georgia was first settled by Europeans in 1733, when a group of British debtors led by English philanthropist James E. Oglethorpe traveled up the Savannah River and established Georgia’s first permanent settlement–the town of Savannah.

In 1742, as part of a larger conflict between Spain and Great Britain, Oglethorpe defeated the Spanish on St. Simons Island in Georgia, effectively ending Spanish claims to the territory of Georgia. Georgia, rich in export potential, was one of the most prosperous British colonies in America and was thus slower than the other colonies to resent the oppressive acts of the Parliament and King George III. However, by the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, Georgian Patriots had organized, and delegates were sent to the Second Continental Congress. During the war, Georgia was heavily divided between Loyalists and Patriots, and the British soon held most of the state. Savannah served as a key British base for their southern war operations, and the grim four-year British occupation won many Georgians over to the Patriot cause. In 1788, Georgia became the first southern state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1791 – Big Bottom massacre in the Ohio Country, marking the beginning of the Northwest Indian War. The Big Bottom massacre occurred near present-day Stockport now in Morgan County, Ohio. Delaware and Wyandot Indians surprised a new settlement at the edge of the flood plain, or “bottom” land of the Muskingum River; they stormed the blockhouse and killed eleven men, one woman, and two children. Three settlers were captured while four others escaped into the woods. The Ohio Company of Associates acted immediately after this to provide greater protection for settlers.

1811 – Senator Timothy Pickering, a Federalist from Massachusetts, becomes the first senator to be censured when the Senate approves a censure motion against him by a vote of 20 to seven. Pickering was accused of violating congressional law by publicly revealing secret documents communicated by the president to the Senate. During the Revolutionary War, Pickering served as General George Washington’s adjutant general and in 1791 was appointed postmaster general by President Washington.

In 1795, he briefly served as Washington’s secretary of war before being appointed secretary of state in 1795. He retained his post under the administration of President John Adams but was dismissed in 1800, when Adams, a moderate Federalist, learned that he had been plotting with Alexander Hamilton to steer the United States into war with revolutionary France. Returning to Massachusetts, he was elected a U.S. senator, but resigned after he was censured for revealing to the public secret foreign policy documents sent by the president to Congress. An outspoken opponent of the War of 1812, Pickering was elected as a representative from Massachusetts in 1813 and served two terms before retiring from politics.

1861 – The USS Brooklyn is readied at Norfolk to aid Fort Sumter.

1861 – Colonel Charles Stone is put in charge of organizing the Washington D.C. militia.

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1863 – The battle of Stones River concludes when the Union troops of William Rosecrans defeat Confederates under Braxton Bragg at Murfeesboro, just south of Nashville. This battle was a crucial engagement in the contest for central Tennessee, and provided a Union victory during a very bleak period for the North.

The end of 1862 found Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland in Nashville, thirty miles north of Bragg’s troops. Rosecrans assumed command of the army only in October, with the understanding that he would attack Bragg and drive the Confederates from central Tennessee. This move was delayed throughout the fall by John Morgan’s cavalry, who harassed the federals and threatened their supply line. Finally, the day after Christmas, Rosecrans moved his force south to meet Bragg.

The armies collided along Stones River on New Year’s Eve. Facing a larger Union force (42,000 Union soldiers to 35,000 Confederates), Bragg launched an attack in bitterly cold morning fog against the Yankees’ right flank. The attack was initially successful in driving the Union back, but the Yankees did not break. A day of heavy fighting brought frightful casualties, and the suffering was compounded by the frigid weather. The Confederates came close to winning, but were not quite able to turn the Union flank against Stones River. The new year dawned the next day with each army still in the field and ready for another fight.

The strike came on January 2, and the Confederates lost the battle. Bragg attacked against the advice of his generals and lost the confidence of his army. The Union troops repelled the assault, and Bragg was forced back to Chattanooga. The North was in control of central Tennessee, and the Union victory provided a much-needed moral boost in the aftermath of the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg.

Stones River was a hard-fought and very bloody engagement, with some of the highest casualty rates of the war. The Confederates lost 33 percent of their force, while 31 percent of the Union force was either killed, wounded, or missing. Combined casualties totaled nearly 25,000 men. Lincoln later wrote to Rosecrans, “…you gave us a hard victory which, had there been a defeat instead, the nation could scarcely have lived over.”

1900 – American Statesman and diplomat John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China.

1904 – U.S. Marines are sent to Santo Domingo to aid the government against rebel forces backed by European interests opposed to the government of Carols F. Morales. Morales had stopped payment on all foreign debts to attempt to negotiate more favorable terms. In 1905 the US will arrange a customs receivership that will pay off the debts.

1918 – Russian Bolsheviks threaten to re-enter the war unless Germany returns occupied territory.

1920 – The second Palmer Raid takes place with another 6,000 suspected communists and anarchists arrested and held without trial. The Palmer Raids were attempts by the United States Department of Justice to arrest and deport radical leftists, especially anarchists, from the United States. The raids and arrests occurred in November 1919 and January 1920 under the leadership of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer.

Though more than 500 foreign citizens were deported, including a number of prominent leftist leaders, Palmer’s efforts were largely frustrated by officials at the U.S. Department of Labor who had responsibility for deportations and who objected to Palmer’s methods. The Palmer Raids occurred in the larger context of the Red Scare, the term given to fear of and reaction against political radicals in the U.S. in the years immediately following World War I.

1932 – Japanese forces in Manchuria set up a puppet government known as Manchukuo.

1933 – US troops leave Nicaragua. They have been there since 1926 trying to keep peace between the Liberal government and the Conservative forces of Augusto Sandino (Sandinistas) elements, but in 1932, isolationist feeling in the Congress leads to continued funding of the mission to be withdrawn.

1941 – The Andrews Sisters recorded “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.”

1941 – Roosevelt announces a plan to mass-produce 7500-ton freighters. 200 will be produced to a standard design and will be known as Liberty Ships.

1942 – In the Philippines, the city of Manila and the U.S. Naval base at Cavite fall to Japanese forces. The American and Philippino Allies establish their defenses on the approaches to the Bataan Peninsula.

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1942 – The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) convicts 33 members of a German spy ring headed by Fritz Joubert Duquesne in the largest espionage case in United States history—the Duquesne Spy Ring. Of those arrested on the charge of espionage, 19 pleaded guilty. The remaining 14 men who entered pleas of not guilty were brought to jury trial in Federal District Court, Brooklyn, New York, on September 3, 1941; and all found guilty on December 13, 1941.

On January 2, 1942, the group was sentenced to serve a total of over 300 years in prison. The German spies who formed the Duquesne spy ring were placed in key jobs in the United States to get information that could be used in the event of war and to carry out acts of sabotage: one person opened a restaurant and used his position to get information from his customers; another person worked on an airline so that he could report Allied ships that were crossing the Atlantic Ocean; others in the ring worked as delivery people so that they could deliver secret messages alongside normal messages. William G. Sebold, who had been recruited as a spy for Germany, was a major factor in the FBI’s successful resolution of this case through his work as a double agent for the United States government.

For nearly two years the FBI ran a radio station in New York for the ring, learning what Germany was sending to its spies in the United States while controlling the information that was being transmitted to Germany. Sebold’s success as a counterespionage agent was demonstrated by the successful prosecution of the German agents. One German spymaster later commented that the ring’s roundup delivered “the death blow” to their espionage efforts in the United States. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called his concerted FBI swoop on Duquesne’s ring the greatest spy roundup in U.S. history.

1942 – Navy Airship Patrol Group 1 and Air Ship Squadron 12 are established at Lakehurst, N.J. The U.S. Navy was the only military service in the world to use airships—also known as blimps – during the war. The U.S. Navy was actually behind the times in the use of blimps; it didn’t get around to ordering its first until 1915, at which time even the U.S. Army was using them.

By the close of World War I, the Navy had recognized their value and was using several blimps for patrolling coastlines for enemy submarines. They proved extremely effective; in fact, no convoy supported by blimp surveillance ever lost a ship. Between the wars, it was agreed that the Army would use non-rigid airships to patrol the coasts of the United States, while the Navy would use rigid airships (which were aluminum-hulled and kept their shape whether or not they were filled with gas) for long-range scouting and fleet support. The Navy ended its construction and employment of the rigid airships in the 1930s after two, the Akron and the Macon, crashed at sea.

In 1937, the Army transferred all its remaining non-rigid blimps to the Navy. Meanwhile, in the civilian world, the Hindenburg, a commercial dirigible, burst into flames over Lakehurst on May 6, 1937. Thirty-six of the 97 passengers aboard were killed. The explosion was caused by an electric discharge that ignited a hydrogen gas leak; the tragedy effectively ended the use of airships for commercial travel, but they were still used to great advantage in the U.S. military. At the outbreak of World War II, the Navy had 10 blimps in service; that number expanded to 167 by the end of the war. The only U.S. blimp lost was the K-74, which, on July 18, 1943, spotted a German U-boat. The blimp opened fire on the submarine and damaged it, but only one of its two depth charges released. The submarine fired back and sent the blimp into the sea, but the crew was rescued. The only German blimp involved in the war was a passenger craft, Graf Zeppelin, which was used for electronic surveillance just before the outbreak of the war.

1943 – Japanese positions at Buna, New Guinea are stormed by troops from Eichelberger’s US 1st Corps. Fighting continues around Sanananda.

1943 – US troops on Guadalcanal launch another assault up Mount Austen. Some progress is made but the Gifu strongpoint remains in Japanese control.

1944 – On New Britain, the American 7th Marine Regiment launches attacks to expand its beachhead near Cape Gloucester but fails to meet its objectives.

1944 – US Task Force 38 (Admiral Barbey) lands 2400 troops of the 126th Regiment (General Martin) of the 32nd Division at Saidor. Both the airfield and the harbor are secured. An Allied cruiser and destroyer force, led by Admiral Crutchley, provides cover for the landing. To the east, Australian forces advance to Sialum.

1945 – In the Ardennes, Third Army troops take Bonnerue, Hubertmont and Remagne. In Alsace Seventh Army withdraws under German pressure.

1945 – About 1000 USAAF bombers nominally attack troop concentrations and communications in western Germany while about 1000 RAF bombers strike Nuremburg and Ludwigshafen.

1945 – An American Sikorsky helicopter is used in convoy escort duties for the first time.

1945 – In the Carolines, Fais Island is occupied by an American amphibious force.

1951 – For the first time, a C-47 dropped flares to illuminate B-26 and F-82 night attacks on enemy forces. The flares also deterred enemy night attacks on U.S. troops. Fifth Air Force withdrew forward-based F-86s assigned to the 4th FIW from enemy-threatened Kimpo Airfield near Seoul to the wing’s home station at Johnson AB, Japan.

1951 – The U.N. Cease-Fire Group reported the Chinese rejection of their efforts. Meanwhile, the U.N. Command proposed nonforcible repatriation for prisoners of war of both sides.

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1963 – In Vietnam, the Viet Cong down five U.S. helicopters in the Mekong Delta. 30 Americans are reported dead.

1963 – At Ap Bac, a village in the Mekong Delta 50 miles southwest of Saigon, the Viet Cong inflict heavy casualties on a much larger South Vietnamese force. About 2,500 troops of South Vietnam’s 7th Infantry Division—equipped with automatic weapons, armored amphibious personnel carriers, and supported by bombers and helicopters – failed to defeat a group of 300 guerrillas who escaped after inflicting heavy losses on the South Vietnamese. By the time the battle was over, the South Vietnamese suffered 80 killed and over 100 wounded in action. The battle was seen as symbolic of the poor fighting ability of the South Vietnamese army, revealing that government troops could neither cope with the strategy nor match the fighting spirit of the Viet Cong. Even with superior numbers and the assistance of American technology and planning, the South Vietnamese could not defeat the Viet Cong. South Vietnamese officials in Saigon were irate with U.S. advisers’ candid assessments of the action, which were highly critical of the South Vietnamese soldiers and their leaders. The Lao Dong party (the ruling Vietnamese Workers’ Party) in Hanoi called the battle at Ap Bac a victory, saying that it “signified the coming of the new revolutionary armed forces in the South.”

1966 – American G.I.s move into the Mekong Delta for the first time.

1967 – Operation Bolo: 30 US Air Force F-4 Phantom jets, operating from Ubon in Thailand, shoot down a third of North Vietnam’s MiG-21s, loosing only one Phantom. Over the previous two years of Air Force and Navy air strikes, only 10 planes had been lost to enemy MiGs. American pilots were forbidden from attacking Hanoi’s airfields fearing that killing Soviet or Chinese advisers that could be there would draw those nations more directly into the war. Knowing this, the Vietnamese People’s Air Force would simply fly their MiGs through the American bombing formations and loiter just long enough to get the crews to drop their bombs and extra fuel early, preventing the strategic strikes without firing a shot. US 7th Air Force selected Colonel Robin Olds to lead an ambush to stop the harassment.

To lure out the North Vietnamese, American F-4s would fly the same routes into the country as the heavyset F-105 bombers—and at the same altitudes and speeds while using the same radio call signs. Meanwhile, signal-snooping aircraft would keep track of the MiGs. Special C-130B-IIs would listen in on enemy radio chatter and feed information straight to American pilots throughout the mission. These specialized aircraft and personnel not only made sure the Vietnamese were responding as expected, but also kept watch in case Chinese jets decided to join the battle. Olds wanted to know if Russian or North Korean advisers were actually in the cockpits when the fighting started. Hanoi’s pilots were caught completely off guard. When Olds’ strike team started its attack, the C-130s picked up enemy pilots shocked to find that “the sky is full of F-4s,” according to the declassified report. “Where are the F-105s? You briefed us to expect F-105s!” Seven MiGs were shot down. After a series of additional aerial ambushes, the Vietnamese People’s Air Force grounded its MiGs and completely revised its procedures.

At the end of the year, Washington approved strikes on Hanoi’s air bases. During this operation, Col. Robin Olds shot down one of the MiGs, becoming the first and only U.S. Air Force ace with victories in both World War II and Vietnam.

1969 – Operation Barrier Reef, The fourth and last interdiction barrier in the Mekong Delta is established with naval patrols operating on the LaGrange-Ong Long Canal fro, Tuyen Nhon on the Vam Co Tay Rover to An Long on the Mekong began.

1973 – The United States admits the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital.

1980 – In reaction to the December 1979 Soviet military intervention into Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter requests that the Senate postpone action on the SALT-II nuclear weapons treaty and recalls the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. These actions indicated that the U.S.-Soviet relationship had been severely damaged by the Russian action in Afghanistan and that the age of détente had ended. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the establishment by the Soviets of a puppet government in that nation, brought U.S. relations with the Soviet Union to the breaking point. Carter’s press secretary, Jodie Powell, called the Russian action “a serious threat to peace.”

On January 2, he announced that the Carter administration had asked the Senate to postpone deliberations on SALT-II, the complicated treaty dealing with nuclear arms. Carter also recalled U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Thomas J. Watson, Jr. home, ostensibly for “consultation.” As Carter administration officials made clear, however, this action was intended to send a very strong message to the Soviets that military intervention in Afghanistan was unacceptable. In addition, the Carter administration was thinking about new trade restrictions against the Soviets and a boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics, which were to be held in Moscow.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan marked a critical turning point in U.S.-Soviet relations. With the action, the age of détente and the closer diplomatic and economic relations that were established during the presidency of Richard Nixon came to an end. Carter lost the election of 1980 to Ronald Reagan, who promised-and delivered-an even more vigorous anticommunist foreign policy.

1993 – President Bush arrived in Moscow to sign a strategic arms treaty with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who hailed the agreement as “our joint gift to the people of the Earth.”

1997 – Letter bombs began arriving into the US from Egypt. Four were addressed to the Washington bureau of Al-Hayat, an Arab language daily. Others went to Leavenworth, Kansas. They contained the plastic explosive semtex.

2002 – Troops of the 101st Airborne Division begin to replace Marines that have been in Kandahar, Afghanistan since November of 2001.

2004 – The NASA Stardust spacecraft took pictures of the Wild-2 comet tail and collected particles on “aerogel,” a silica foam 99.8% air, the lightest material ever made.

2006 – U.S. Marines operating out of Lamu, Kenya, were said to be assisting Kenyan forces patrolling the border with Somalia with the interception of Islamists.

2007 – Former US President Gerald Ford’s state funeral takes place at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. His casket is later moved to his hometown Grand Rapids, Michigan for burial on Wednesday January 3, 2007.

2011 – US President Barack Obama signs the 9/11 health bill into law to cover the cost of medical care for rescue workers and others sickened by toxic fumes and dust after the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

2014 – Armed tribesmen and ISIS militants control the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, after days of violence that erupted as a protest camp was removed.

2015 – Abu Anas al-Libi, a one-time associate of Osama bin Laden, dies in New York, United States while awaiting trial for allegedly plotting the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

January 3rd ~

1749 – Benning Wentworth issues the first of the New Hampshire Grants, leading to the establishment of Vermont.

1777 – General George Washington defeats the British led by British General Lord Charles Cornwallis, at Princeton, New Jersey. On the night of January 2, George Washington, Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, repulsed a British attack at the Battle of the Assunpink Creek in Trenton.

That night, he evacuated his position, circled around General Lord Cornwallis’ army, and went to attack the British garrison at Princeton. Brigadier General Hugh Mercer of the Continental Army, clashed with two regiments under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Mawhood of the British Army. Mercer and his troops were overrun and Washington sent some militia under Brigadier General John Cadwalader to help him. The militia, on seeing the flight of Mercer’s men, also began to flee. Washington rode up with reinforcements and rallied the fleeing militia. He then led the attack on Mawhood’s troops, driving them back. Mawhood gave the order to retreat and most of the troops tried to flee to Cornwallis in Trenton.

In Princeton itself, Brigadier General John Sullivan encouraged some British troops who had taken refuge in Nassau Hall to surrender, ending the battle. After the battle, Washington moved his army to Morristown, and with their third defeat in 10 days, the British evacuated southern New Jersey. With the victory at Princeton, morale rose in the ranks and more men began to enlist in the army. The battle (while considered minor by British standards) was the last major action of Washington’s winter New Jersey campaign.

1781 – Mutinous Pennsylvania troops make camp near Princeton, New Jersey, and elect representatives to bargain with the Pennsylvania state officials. Negotiations resolve the crisis, although over half of the mutineers will leave the army.

1794 – In answer to British orders in council of November 3, 1793, calling for the seizure of neutral ships carrying French West Indian exports. President James Madison presents seven commercial resolutions in the House of Representatives. These resolutions seek remedies against any nations threatening American shipping and trade. After much discussion, none of the resolutions are passed.

1823 – Stephen F. Austin received a grant from the Mexican government and began colonization in the region of the Brazos River in Texas.

1834 – Escalating the tensions that would lead to rebellion and war, the Mexican government imprisons the Texas colonizer Stephen Austin in Mexico City. Stephen Fuller Austin was a reluctant revolutionary. His father, Moses Austin, won permission from the Mexican government in 1821 to settle 300 Anglo-American families in Texas. When Moses died before realizing his plans, Stephen took over and established the fledgling Texas community on the lower reaches of the Colorado and Brazos Rivers.

Periodic upheavals in the government of the young Mexican Republic forced Austin to constantly return to Mexico City where he argued for the rights of the American colonists in Texas, representing their interests as a colonial founder. Yet, Austin remained confident that an Anglo-American state could succeed within the boundaries of the Mexican nation. Mexican authorities were less certain. Alarmed by the growing numbers of former Americans migrating to Texas (8,000 in Austin’s colonies alone by 1832) and rumors the U.S. intended to annex the region, the Mexican government began to limit immigration in 1830. Though Austin found loopholes allowing him to circumvent the policy, the Mexican policy angered many Anglo-American colonists who already had a long list of grievances against their distant government.

In 1833, a group of colonial leaders met to draft a constitution that would create a new Anglo-dominated Mexican state of Texas by splitting away from the Mexican-dominated Coahuila region it had previously been tied to. The colonists hoped that by decreasing the influence of native Mexicans, whose culture and loyalties were more closely wedded to Mexico City, they could argue more effectively for American-style reforms. Once they had hammered out a new constitution, the colonial leaders directed Austin to travel to Mexico City to present it to the government along with a list of other demands. Austin conceded to the will of the people, but President Santa Ana refused to grant Texas separate status from Coahuila and threw Austin in prison on suspicion of inciting insurrection.

When he was finally released eight months later in August 1835, Austin found that the Anglo-American colonists were on the brink of rebellion. They were now demanding a Republic of Texas that would break entirely from the Mexican nation. Reluctantly, Austin abandoned his hope that the Anglo Texans could somehow remain a part of Mexico, and he began to prepare for war. The following year Austin helped lead the Texan rebels to victory over the Mexicans and assisted in the creation of the independent Republic of Texas. Defeated by Sam Houston in a bid for the presidency of the new nation, Austin instead took the position of secretary of state. He died in office later that year.

1847 – General Winfield Scott, who has taken command of the Gulf expedition in Mexico, orders 9000 men from General Taylor’s force to assault Vera Cruz.

1861 – The state of Georgia takes over Federal Fort Pulaski. It will return to Federal hands in April of the next year.

1861 – Just two weeks after South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, the state of Delaware rejects a similar proposal. There had been little doubt that Delaware would remain with the North. Delaware was technically a slave state, but the institution was rare by 1861. There were 20,000 blacks living there, but only 1,800 of them were slaves–Delaware was industrializing, and most of the commercial ties were with Pennsylvania.

In 1790, 15 percent of Delaware’s population was enslaved, but by 1850 that figure had dropped to less than three percent. In the state’s largest city, Wilmington, there were only four bondsmen. Most of the slaves were concentrated in Sussex, the southernmost of the state’s three counties. After South Carolina ratified the ordinance of secession on December 20, 1860, other states considered similar proposals. Although there were some Southern sympathizers, Delaware had a Unionist governor and the legislature was dominated by Unionists.

On January 3, the legislature voted overwhelmingly to remain with the United States. For the Union, Delaware’s decision was only a temporary respite from the parade of seceding states. Over the next several weeks, six states joined South Carolina in seceding; four more left after the South captured Fort Sumter in April 1861.

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1904 – Marines from USS Dixie arrive in Panama.

1916 – Three armored Japanese cruisers are ordered to guard the Suez Canal.1920 – The last of the U.S. troops depart France.

1925 – In Italy, Mussolini announced that he would take dictatorial powers.

1933 – The Japanese take Shuangyashan, China, killing 500 Chinese.

1940 – British warships detain the American SS Mormacsun.

1940 – President Roosevelt requests $1.8 billion for national defense in his annual budget request to Congress.

1942 – Chiang Kai-shek is named Commander in Chief of all Allied forces in China.

1943 – A US B-17 bomber was downed over France following a bombing run over a German submarine base in southern France. John Roten, navigator, was the only survivor. Roten spent 28 months as a POW.

1944 – CDR Frank Erickson flies plasma in a Coast Guard HNS-1 helicopter from Brooklyn to a hospital in Sandy Hook, NJ in the first recorded mission of mercy conducted by a rotary wing aircraft.

1944 – Top Marine ace MAJ Boyington captured after shooting down 28 aircraft.

1944 – Fighting in the Borgen Bay area of New Britain continues but US forces are still unable to bring up armor.

1945 – In preparation for planned assaults against Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and mainland Japan, Gen. Douglas MacArthur is placed in command of all U.S. ground forces and Adm. Chester Nimitz is placed in command of all U.S. naval forces. This effectively ended the concept of unified commands, in which one man oversaw more than one service from more than one country in a distinct region.

Douglas MacArthur’s career was one of striking achievement. His performance during World War I combat in France won him decorations for valor and earned him the distinction of becoming the youngest general in the Army at the time. He retired from the Army in 1934, but was then appointed head of the Philippine Army by its president (the Philippines had U.S. Commonwealth status at the time). When World War II erupted, MacArthur was called back to active service as commanding general of the U.S. Army in the Far East. He was convinced he could defeat Japan if Japan invaded the Philippines. In the long term he was correct, but in the short term the United States suffered disastrous defeats at Bataan and Corregidor. By the time U.S. forces were compelled to surrender, he had already shipped out on orders from President Roosevelt. As he left, he uttered his immortal line: “I shall return.”

Refusing to admit defeat, MacArthur took supreme command of a unified force in the Southwest Pacific, capturing New Guinea from the Japanese with an innovative “leap frog” strategy. True to his word, MacArthur returned to the Philippines in October 1944. With the help of the U.S. Navy, which destroyed the Japanese fleet and left the Japanese garrisons on the islands without reinforcements, the Army defeated the Japanese resistance. In January 1945, he was given control of all American land forces in the Pacific; by March, MacArthur was able to hand control of the Philippine capital back to its president.

Admiral Nimitz, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, fought in World War I as chief of staff to the commander of the Atlantic submarine force, an experience that forever convinced him of the efficacy of submarine warfare. Upon America’s entry into World War II, Nimitz was made commander in chief of the unified Pacific Fleet (Ocean Area), putting him in control of both air and sea forces. He oversaw American victories at Midway and the Battle of the Coral Sea, and directed further victories at the Solomon Islands, the Gilbert Islands, the Philippines, and finally, as commander of all naval forces in the Pacific, in Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Both MacArthur and Nimitz had the honor of accepting the formal Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945, aboard the USS Missouri.

1945 – Third Fleet carriers begin a 2 day attack against Formosa destroying 100 aircraft with loss of only 22 aircraft. VMF-124 and VMF-213 from the USS Essex struck Formosa and the Ryukyu Islands in the first Marine land strike off a carrier.

1945 – In the Ardennes the fighting continues. There are desperate German attacks on the narrow corridor leading to Bastogne which manage to upset the timetable of the US attacks a little but achieve nothing else. Forces from the US Third and now also the First Armies are attacking toward Houffaliza from the south and north. In Alsace the German attacks and the American retreat continue. The US VI Corps is being pressed particularly hard around Bitche. Farther south there is also fighting near Strasbourg.

1947 – Proceedings of the U.S. Congress are televised for the first time.

1951 – As massive numbers of Chinese troops crossed the frozen Han River east and west of Seoul, Eighth Army began evacuating the South Korean capital. The ROK government began moving to Pusan. In one of the largest FEAF Bomber Command air raids, more than sixty B-29s dropped 650 tons of incendiary bombs on Pyongyang. UN forces burned nearly 500,000 gallons of fuel and 23,000 gallons of napalm at Kimpo in preparation for abandoning the base to the advancing enemy. Far East Air Forces flew 958 combat sorties, a one-day record.1958 – The Air Force forms two squadrons of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) armed with medium-range ballistic missiles.

1957 – The International Control Commission reports that neither North Vietnam nor South Vietnam have been fulfilling their obligations under the 1954 Geneva Agreements.

1959 – Fidel Castro takes command of the Cuban army.

1959 – President Eisenhower signs a special proclamation admitting the territory of Alaska into the Union as the 49th and largest state. The European discovery of Alaska came in 1741, when a Russian expedition led by Danish navigator Vitus Bering sighted the Alaskan mainland. Russian hunters were soon making incursions into Alaska, and the native Aleut population suffered greatly after being exposed to foreign diseases.

In 1784, Grigory Shelikhov established the first permanent Russian colony in Alaska on Kodiak Island. In the early 19th century, Russian settlements spread down the west coast of North America, with the southernmost fort located near Bodega Bay in California. Russian activity in the New World declined in the 1820s, and the British and Americans were granted trading rights in Alaska after a few minor diplomatic conflicts.

In the 1860s, a nearly bankrupt Russia decided to offer Alaska for sale to the United States, which earlier had expressed interest in such a purchase. On March 30, 1867, Secretary of State William H. Seward signed a treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million. Despite the bargain price of roughly two cents an acre, the Alaskan purchase was ridiculed in Congress and in the press as “Seward’s folly,” “Seward’s icebox,” and President Andrew Johnson’s “polar bear garden.”

Nevertheless, the Senate ratified purchase of the tremendous landmass, one-fifth the size of the rest of the United States. Despite a slow start in settlement by Americans from the continental United States, the discovery of gold in 1898 brought a rapid influx of people to the territory. Alaska, rich in natural resources, has been contributing to American prosperity ever since.

January 3rd ~ { continued...}

1961 – The United States severs diplomatic relations with Cuba over the latter’s nationalization of American assets.

1961 – A core explosion and meltdown at the SL-1, a government-run reactor near Idaho Falls, Idaho, kills three workers.

1966 – Cambodia warns the United Nations of retaliation unless the United States and South Vietnam end intrusions.

1967 – Jack Ruby, the Dallas nightclub owner who killed the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, dies of cancer in a Dallas hospital. The Texas Court of Appeals had recently overturned his death sentence for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald and was scheduled to grant him a new trial. On November 24, 1963, two days after Kennedy’s assassination, Lee Harvey Oswald was brought to the basement of the Dallas police headquarters on his way to a more secure county jail. A crowd of police and press with live television cameras rolling gathered to witness his departure.

As Oswald came into the room, Jack Ruby emerged from the crowd and fatally wounded him with a single shot from a concealed .38 revolver. Ruby, who was immediately detained, claimed he was distraught over the president’s assassination. Some called him a hero, but he was nonetheless charged with first-degree murder. Jack Ruby, originally known as Jacob Rubenstein, operated strip joints and dance halls in Dallas and had minor connections to organized crime. He also had a relationship with a number of Dallas policemen, which amounted to various favors in exchange for leniency in their monitoring of his establishments. He features prominently in Kennedy assassination theories, and many believe he killed Oswald to keep him from revealing a larger conspiracy. In his trial, Ruby denied the charge, maintaining that he was acting out of patriotism.

In March 1964, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. The official Warren Commission report of 1964 concluded that neither Oswald nor Ruby were part of a larger conspiracy, either domestic or international, to assassinate President Kennedy. Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

1978 – North Vietnamese troops reportedly occupy 400 square miles in Cambodia. North Vietnamese Army (NVA) troops were using Laos and Cambodia as staging areas for attacks against allied forces.

1986 – President Ronald Reagan orders economic sanctions against Libya in retaliation for its involvement in terrorist attacks in Rome and Vienna.

1990 – Ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican’s diplomatic mission. He is flown to Florida and arraigned on drug-trafficking charges.

1991 – The 102nd Congress convened, plunging immediately into acrimonious debate over the Persian Gulf crisis. President Bush proposed direct talks between Secretary of State James A. Baker the Third and Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz.

1993 – In Moscow, Russia, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin sign the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).

1999 – The Mars Polar Lander is launched. Also known as the Mars Surveyor ’98 Lander, was a 290-kilogram robotic spacecraft lander to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe, a region near the south pole on Mars. It formed part of the Mars Surveyor ’98 mission.

On December 3, 1999, however, after the descent phase was expected to be complete, the lander failed to reestablish communication with Earth. It was determined that the most likely cause of the mishap was premature termination of the engine firing prior to the lander touching the surface, causing it to strike the planet at a high velocity.

2003 – US warplanes hit an al Qaeda compound in the Khost region south of Tora Bora and Islamic fighters near Baghran were reported to be in negotiations.

2003 – US announced increased military operations in Somalia and prepared to send Marines there. It was suspected that Al Qaeda fighters might attempt fleeing to Somalia.

2003 – The USCGC Boutwell departed Alameda in preparation for supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. She began operations in the Arabian Gulf on 14 February 2003. Prior to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, her crew conducted maritime interception boardings to enforce U.N. sanctions against Iraq.

At the outbreak of hostilities and throughout the conflict, she operated in the strategically critical and politically sensitive Khawr Abd Allah and Shaat Al Arab Waterways, providing force protection to the massive coalition fleet, securing Iraqi oil terminals, and preventing the movement of weapons, personnel or equipment by Saddam Hussein’s regime or other guerilla or terrorist forces.

2004 – The NASA spacecraft Spirit landed on Mars at the Gusev Crater. It was the 4th successful US landing on Mars.

2005 – Three U.S. Presidents – George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H. W. Bush – make a joint appeal urging Americans to aid the tsunamis’ victims. Bush makes a presidential proclamation to fly the U.S. flag at half staff from 3-7 Jan in honor of the tsunami victims.

2009 – The first block of the blockchain of the decentralized payment system Bitcoin, called the Genesis block, was established by the creator of the system, Satoshi Nakamoto.

2010 – The United States and United Kingdom close their embassies in Yemen, citing threats from Al-Qaeda.

2014 – The United States evacuates additional diplomatic personnel at its embassy in Juba, South Sudan, due to the deteriorating security situation.

2014 – ISIS proclaimed an Islamic state in Fallujah. After prolonged tensions, the newly formed Army of Mujahedeen, the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic Front launched an offensive against ISIS-held territory in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. A spokesman for the rebels said that rebels had attacked ISIS in up to 80% of all ISIS-held villages in Idlib and 65% of those in Aleppo.

January 4th ~

1780 – A snowstorm hits Washington’s army at Morristown New Jersey.

1846 – General Mariano Paredes becomes the President of Mexico, announcing he will defend all territory he considers Mexico’s.

1847 – Samuel Colt rescues the future of his faltering gun company by winning a contract to provide the U.S. government with 1,000 of his .44 caliber revolvers. Before Colt began mass-producing his popular revolvers in 1847, handguns had not played a significant role in the history of either the American West or the nation as a whole.

Expensive and inaccurate, short-barreled handguns were impractical for the majority of Americans, though a handful of elite still insisted on using dueling pistols to solve disputes in highly formalized combat. When choosing a practical weapon for self-defense and close-quarter fighting, most Americans preferred knives, and western pioneers especially favored the deadly and versatile Bowie knife. That began to change when Samuel Colt patented his percussion-repeating revolver in 1836. The heart of Colt’s invention was a mechanism that combined a single rifled barrel with a revolving chamber that held five or six shots. When the weapon was cocked for firing, the chamber revolved automatically to bring the next shot into line with the barrel.

Though still far less accurate than a well-made hunting rifle, the Colt revolver could be aimed with reasonable precision at a short distance (30 to 40 yards in the hands of an expert), because the interior bore was “rifled”–cut with a series of grooves spiraling down its length. The spiral grooves caused the slug to spin rapidly as it left the barrel, giving it gyroscopic stability. The five or six-shoot capacity also made accuracy less important, since a missed shot could quickly be followed with others. Yet most cowboys, gamblers, and gunslingers could never have afforded such a revolver if not for the de facto subsidy the federal government provided to Colt by purchasing his revolvers in such great quantities. After the first batch of revolvers proved popular with soldiers, the federal government became one of Colt’s biggest customers, providing him with the much-needed capital to improve his production facilities.

With the help of Eli Whitney and other inventors, Colt developed a system of mass production and interchangeable parts for his pistols that greatly lowered their cost. Though never cheap, by the early 1850s, Colt revolvers were inexpensive enough to be a favorite with Americans headed westward during the California Gold Rush. Between 1850 and 1860, Colt sold 170,000 of his “pocket” revolvers and 98,000 “belt” revolvers, mostly to civilians looking for a powerful and effective means of self-defense in the Wild West.

1861 – 40 Marines left Navy Yard, Washington, D.C. to garrison Fort Washington.

1863 – Union General Henry Halleck, by direction of President Abraham Lincoln, orders General Ulysses Grant to revoke his infamous General Order No. 11 that expelled Jews from his operational area.

1863 – Blockading ship USS Quaker City captures the sloop Mercury carrying dispatches emphasizing desperate plight of the South.

1863 – Confederate General Roger Weightman Hanson dies at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His death was a result of wounds sustained two days earlier at the Battle of Stones River. Hanson was born in 1827 in Clark City, Tennessee. He served during the Mexican War and was a lawyer and a colonel in the Kentucky State Guard before the Civil War. He joined the Confederate army in September 1861 and received a commission as colonel in the 2nd Kentucky. He was assigned to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River and when Union General Ulysses S. Grant captured the post on February 16, 1862, Hanson was sent to a Federal prison.

He was exchanged after eight months and placed in command of the “Orphan Brigade.” The Orphan Brigade was a unit composed of 5,000 Kentucky residents who were cut off from their homes by the Union occupation of their state. In December 1862, Hanson and his men marched with General John Hunt Morgan’s cavalry to Hartsville, Tennessee, on a raid that netted 2,000 Union prisoners. The brigade then joined the Army of Tennessee for the Stones River campaign later that month. During the battle, which lasted from December 31, 1862, to January 2, 1863, the Orphan Brigade participated in a failed attack on Union artillery positions. The cannonade against the Kentucky fighters was so strong that one Union officer commented that the Confederates must have thought that they had, “opened the door of Hell, and the devil himself was there to greet them.” Hanson was struck in the leg during the attack, and he died the following morning.

1865 – A landing party under Acting Master James C. Tole from U.S.S. Don captured several torpedoes and powder on the right bank of the Rappahannock River about six miles from its mouth. The success of Confederate torpedo warfare beginning with the destruction of U.S.S. Cairo (see 12 December 1862) had led to increased efforts in this new area of war at sea, first under the genius of Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, then under Commander Hunter Davidson. Throughout the remaining months of the war–and for some time thereafter Southern torpedoes (or mines) would take a heavy toll of Union shipping.

January 4th ~ {continued...}

1896 – Six years after Wilford Woodruff, president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto reforming political, religious, and economic life in Utah, the territory is admitted into the Union as the 45th state. In 1823, Vermont-born Joseph Smith claimed that an angel named Moroni visited him and told him about an ancient Hebrew text that had lost been lost for 1,500 years. The holy text, supposedly engraved on gold plates by a Native-American historian in the fourth century, related the story of Jewish peoples who had lived in America in ancient times.

Over the next six years, Smith dictated an English translation of this text to his wife and other scribes, and in 1830, The Book of Mormon was published. In the same year, Smith founded the Church of Christ, later known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in Fayette, New York. The religion rapidly gained converts and Smith set up Mormon communities in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. However, the Christian sect was also heavily criticized for its unorthodox practices and on June 27, 1844, Smith and his brother were murdered in a jail cell by an anti-Mormon mob in Carthage, Illinois. Two years later, Smith’s successor, Brigham Young, led an exodus of persecuted Mormons from Nauvoo, Illinois, along the western wagon trails in search of religious and political freedom. In July 1847, the 148 initial Mormon pioneers reached Utah’s Valley of the Great Salt Lake.

Upon viewing the valley, Young declared: “This is the place,” and the pioneers began preparations for the tens of thousands of Mormon migrants who would follow. In 1850, President Millard Fillmore named Young the first governor of the territory of Utah, and the territory enjoyed relative autonomy for several years. Relations became strained, however, when reports reached Washington that Mormon leaders were disregarding federal law and had publicly sanctioned the practice of polygamy.

In 1857, President James Buchanan removed Young, a polygamist with over 20 wives, from his position as governor, and sent U.S. army troops to Utah to establish federal authority. Tensions between the territory of Utah and the federal government continued until Wilford Woodruff, the president of the Mormon church, issued his Manifesto in 1890, renouncing the traditional practice of polygamy, and reducing the domination of the church over Utah communities. Six years later, the territory of Utah was granted statehood.

1889 – The Oklahoma Land Run opens 2 million acres of unused Oklahoma Territory to first serve first come settlers on April 22nd.

1902 – The French offered to sell their Nicaraguan Canal rights to the U.S.

1910 – Commissioning of USS Michigan (BB-27), the first U.S. dreadnought battleship.

1921 – Congress overrode President Wilson’s veto, reactivating the War Finance Corps to aid struggling farmers.

1928 – Marines participated in the Battle of Quilali during the occupation of Nicaragua.

1941 – On the Greek-Albanian front, the Greeks launch an attack towards Valona from Berat to Klisura against the Italians.

1942 – Japanese forces begin the evacuation of Guadalcanal. The Japanese base at Munda is bombarded by the US TF 67. A second group of cruisers and destroyers is in support.

1943 – US Task Force 67, commanded by Admiral Ainsworth, bombards the Japanese base at Munda, on New Georgia. A second group of cruisers and destroyers is in support of the effort. Proximity fuses for antiaircraft ammunition is used for the first time by one of the vessels involved in the bombardment.

1944 – Operation Carpetbagger: U.S. aircraft begin dropping supplies to guerrilla forces throughout Western Europe. The action demonstrated that the U.S. believed guerrillas were a vital support to the formal armies of the Allies in their battle against the Axis powers. Virtually every country that experienced Axis invasion raised a guerrilla force; they were especially effective and numerous in Italy, France, China, Greece, the Philippines, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. Also referred to as a “partisan force,” a guerrilla army is defined roughly as a member of a small-scale “irregular” fighting force that relies on the limited and quick engagements of a conventional fighting force. Their main weapon is sabotage-in addition to killing enemy soldiers, the goal is to incapacitate or destroy communication lines, transportation centers, and supply lines.

In Italy, the partisan resistance to fascism began with assaults against Mussolini and his “black shirts.” Upon Italy’s surrender, the guerrillas turned their attention to the German occupiers, especially in the north. By the summer of 1944, resistance fighters immobilized eight of the 26 German divisions in northern Italy. By the end of the war, Italian guerillas controlled Venice, Milan, and Genoa, but at a considerable cost—all told, the Italian resistance lost roughly 50,000 fighters. Perhaps the most renowned wartime guerrilla force was the French Resistance – also known as the “Free French” force – which began as two separate groups. One faction was organized and led by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, who left France upon the Vichy/Petain armistice with Germany but rallied his forces via the British airwaves.

The other arm of the movement began in Africa under the direction of the commander in chief of the French forces in North Africa, Gen. Henri Giraud. De Gaulle eventually joined Giraud in Africa after tension began to build between de Gaulle and the British. Initially, de Gaulle agreed to share power with Giraud in the organization and control of the exiled French forces, but Giraud resigned in 1943, apparently unwilling to stand in de Gaulle’s shadow or struggle against his deft political maneuvering.

The Allies realized that guerrilla activity was essential to ending the war and supported the patriots with airdrops. The American support was critical, because guerrillas fought admirably in difficult conditions. Those partisans who were captured by the enemy were invariably treated barbarically (torture was not uncommon), as were any civilians who had aided them in their mission. Tens of thousands of guerillas died in the course of the war, but were never awarded the formal recognition given the “official” fighting forces, despite the enormous risks and sacrifices.

1944 – Admiral Sherman’s carrier group attacks Kavieng. The Japanese destroyer Fujimitsu is damaged.

1944 – Fifth Army launches new attacks on a ten-mile from along the south end of the Gustav line in Italy.

1945 – The fighting in the Ardennes continues; a German counterattack near Bastogne is repulsed by troops of US 3rd Army. There are attacks by US 8th and 3rd Corps and by the British 30th Corps. Some of the units of the 6th SS Panzer Army (Dietrich) are withdrawn and sent to the Eastern Front. In Alsace, the German attacks in the Bitche area continue.

1945 – Americans B-24 Liberator bombers attack Clark Field in Manila, on Luzon and claim to destroy 20 Japanese aircraft. Shipping near Luzon is also attacked. It is claimed that 35 Japanese vessels have been sunk or severely damaged.

1945 – US jeep-aircraft carrier Ommaney Bay sinks after kamikaze attack.

1951 – For the third time in six months, Seoul changed hands as CCF troops moved in. The last USAF aircraft left Kimpo Airfield. Eighth Army regrouped behind the Pyongtaek-Wonju-Samchok line as Seoul fell to the communists for the second time in the war. Britain’s 27th Commonwealth Infantry Brigade covered the U.N. withdrawal, then blew the bridges over the Han River. Naval guns of Task Force 90 held the communists at bay while 69,000 U.N. troops withdrew by sea from the port of Inchon on Amphibious Group 3 vessels.

1952 – The French Army in Indochina launches Operation Nenuphar in hopes of ejecting a Viet Minh division from the Ba Tai forest.

1953 – Fifth Air Force mounted a 124-plane strike against the Huichon supply center.

1955 – The United States agrees to pay Japan two million dollars in damages resulting from atomic testing in the Marshall Islands.

January 4th ~ { continued...}

1965 – Johnson reaffirms commitment to South Vietnam: In his State of the Union message, President Lyndon B. Johnson reaffirms U.S. commitment to support South Vietnam in fighting communist aggression. In justifying the continued support to Saigon, Johnson pointed outthat U.S. presidents had been giving the South Vietnamese help for 10 years, and, he said, “Our own security is tied to the peace of Asia.”

1974 – President Richard Nixon refuses to hand over tape recordings and documents that had been subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee. Marking the beginning of the end of his Presidency, Nixon would resign from office in disgrace eight months later.

1975 – The Khmer Rouge launches its newest assault in its five-year war in Phnom Penh. The war in Cambodia would go on until the spring of 1975.

1979 – Ohio officials approve an out-of-court settlement awarding $675,000 to the victims and families in the 1970 shootings at Kent State University, in which four students were killed and nine wounded by National Guard troops.

1980 – President Carter announces US boycott of Moscow Olympics.

1989 – Aircraft (VF-32) from USS John F. Kennedy shoot down 2 hostile Libyan Migs over the Mediterranean.

1991 – With a week and a-half left before a U-N deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq agreed to hold its first high-level talks with the United States since the start of the Persian Gulf crisis.

1991 – Marines evacuated 260 U.S. and foreign citizens from the American Embassy, Mogadishu, Somalia, during Operation Eastern Exit.

1992 – President Bush, visiting Singapore as part of a Pacific trade tour, announced plans to shift to Singapore the Navy logistics command that was being evicted from the Philippines.

1996 – Bowing to pressure from NATO and the United States, Bosnian Serbs freed 16 civilians who had entered Serb-held territory after NATO forces had declared roads in Bosnia open to all.

1999 – Iraq and Jordan renew an agreement that will provide Jordan with Iraqi crude oil and refined petroleum products. Jordan’s 1998 imports of Iraqi crude oil and refined petroleum products, including fuel oil and diesel, were estimated to have averaged about 100,000 barrels per day. This figure is expected to increase by 5%-7% in 1999.

2002 – US Army Special Forces Sgt. Ross Chapman (31) was killed by enemy fire near Khost, Afghanistan. He became the 1st US soldier to die there by enemy fire.

2004 – Rival Afghan factions agreed to a new national constitution. 502 delegates accepted a system with a strong president and a weaker parliament.

2004 – Spirit, a NASA Mars rover, lands successfully on Mars at 04:35 UTC.

2007 – Bush replaces key military Leadership in Iraq: Navy Admiral William J. Fallon replaces General John Abizaid as CENTCOM commander and General David Petraeus replaces General George Casey as Commander of Multinational Force Iraq.

2007 – NASA announces that Cassini-Huygens found methane lakes on Titan, a moon of Saturn.

2010 – NASA’s Kepler telescope detects its first five exoplanets.

2012 – CGC Healy, under the command of CAPT Beverly Havlik, embarked on the first-ever Arctic domestic icebreaking mission while escorting the Russian tanker vessel Renda through 800 miles of Bering Sea pack ice to deliver 1.3 million gallons of fuel to ice-bound Nome, Alaska. After 10 days of intense, close aboard ice escorting, the two vessels safely arrive on 14 January 2012 and began a 60-hour, over-the-ice fuel transfer while hove to in the ice 468 yards offshore of Nome.

January 5th ~

1779 – Stephen Decatur, American naval hero during actions against the Barbay pirates and the War of 1812, is born.

1781 – A British naval expedition led by Benedict Arnold burned Richmond, Va., causing Governor Thomas Jefferson to flee as the Virginia militia, led by Sampson Mathews, defended the city. It was Arnold’s greatest success as a British commander.

Arnold’s 1,600 largely Loyalist troops sailed up the James River at the beginning of January, eventually landing in Westover, Virginia. Leaving Westover on the afternoon of January 4, Arnold and his men arrived at the virtually undefended capital city of Richmond the next afternoon. Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson, had frantically attempted to prepare the city for attack by moving all arms & other Military Stores and records from the city to a foundry five miles outside Richmond.

As news of Arnold’s unexpectedly rapid approach reached him, Jefferson then tried to orchestrate their removal to Westham, seven miles further north. He was too late–Arnold’s men quickly reached and burned the foundry and then proceeded towards Westham, which Jefferson had asked the formidable Prussian military advisor Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben to guard. Finding von Steuben, Arnold chose to return to Richmond, burning much of the city the following morning. Only 200 militiamen responded to Governor Jefferson’s call to defend the capital–most Virginians had already served and therefore thought they were under no further obligation to answer such calls.

Despite this untenable military position, the author of the Declaration of Independence was criticized by some for fleeing Richmond during the crisis. Later, two months after Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, he was cleared of any wrong doing during his term as governor. Jefferson went on to become the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, and his presidential victory over the Federalists is remembered as The Revolution of 1800.

After the war, Benedict Arnold attempted and failed to establish businesses in Canada and London. He died a pauper on June 14, 1801, and lays buried in his Continental Army uniform at St. Mary’s Church, Middlesex, London. To this day, his name remains synonymous with the word “traitor” in the United States.

1782 – The British withdraw from Wilmington, North Carolina as part of their plan to evacuate from all the towns they have occupied during the War for Independence.

1795 – France announces its awareness of Jay’s treaty between the US and Britain.

1838 – President Martin Van Buren issues a neutrality proclamation forbidding US citizens from taking part in the Canadian insurrection. The privately owned US steamship Caroline, leased by Canadian revolutionaries, has been destroyed by Canadian militiamen on 29 December. President Van Buren orders General Winfield Scott to post militamen along the Canadian frontier.

1846 – Boldly reversing its long-standing policy of “free and open” occupation in the disputed Oregon Territory, the U.S. House of Representatives passes a resolution calling for an end to British-American sharing of the region. The United States, one congressman asserted, had “the right of our manifest destiny to spread over our whole continent.” In different circumstances, such aggressive posturing might have led to war.

The British, through their Hudson Bay Company at the mouth of the Columbia River, had a reasonable claim to the disputed territory of modern-day Washington. In contrast, the only part of the Oregon Territory the U.S. could legitimately claim by settlement was the area below the Columbia River. Above the river, there were only eight recently arrived Americans in 1845. Nonetheless, the aggressively expansionistic President James Polk coveted Oregon Territory up to the 49th parallel (the modern-day border with Canada). Yet Polk was also on the verge of war with Mexico in his drive to take that nation’s northern provinces, and he had no desire to fight the British and Mexicans at the same time.

Consequently, Polk had to move cautiously. Some of his fellow Democrats in the Congress pushed him to be even more aggressive, demanding that Americans control the territory all the way up to the 54th parallel, approximately where Edmonton, Alberta, is today. For five months, debate raged in Congress over the “Oregon controversy,” but the House resolution in January made it clear that the U.S. was determined to end the joint occupation with Great Britain.

Luckily, the British agreed to abandon their claim to the area north of the Columbia and accept the 49th parallel as a border. The Hudson Bay Company already had decided to relocate its principal trading post from the Columbia River area to Vancouver Island, leaving the British with little interest in maintaining their claim to area. Despite the cries of betrayal from the advocates of the 54th parallel, Polk wisely accepted the British offer to place the border on the 49th parallel. The new boundary not only gave the U.S. more territory than it had any legitimate claim to, but it also left Polk free to pursue his next objective: a war with Mexico for control of the Southwest.

1855 – USS Plymouth crew skirmish with Chinese troops.

January 5th ~ { continued...}

1861 – The “Star of the West,” a Union merchant vessel, leaves New York with supplies and 250 troops to relieve the beleaguered Fort Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina. This incident came during the sensitive days following the secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860.

The primary cause for secession was the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln to the presidency the month before, but it was President James Buchanan, a Democrat, who had to deal with the first crisis after South Carolina’s departure. Inside of Fort Sumter were Major Robert Anderson and 80 Federal soldiers who were surrounded by hostile South Carolinians, who were demanding evacuation by the Yankees. Anderson informed officials in Washington that he needed supplies within a few weeks. Buchanan was reluctant to make any provocative moves but felt that some attempt to save Sumter should be made.

The “Star of the West” was chosen because a civilian vessel was less likely to agitate South Carolinians. It left New York on January 5, but it did not complete its mission. Arriving on January 9, the “Star of the West” encountered an alert South Carolina militia. Word of the mission had leaked to everyone, it seemed, except Anderson. He had received no notification of the mission and was surprised when cannon from the shore opened fire on the approaching ship. One shot hit the “Star of the West,” and the ship turned around before taking any more damage. Anderson withheld his fire on the hostile shore batteries, and the standoff in Charleston Harbor continued until April. Then, the South Carolinians opened the massive bombardment that started the Civil War.

1861 – Alabama state troops take possession of Forts Morgan and Gaines at the entrance to Mobile Bay.

1861 – Secretary of the Navy Toucey ordered Fort Washington-on the Maryland side of the Potomac– garrisoned “to protect public property.” Forty Marines from Washington Navy Yard under Captain Algernon S. Taylor, USMC, were sent to the Fort-a vital link in the defense of the Nation’s Capital by land or water.

1904 – American Marines arrive in Seoul, Korea, to guard the U.S. legation there.

1933 – President Calvin Coolidge passes away at age 51. John Calvin Coolidge Jr. had been born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4, 1872. His father, John Coolidge, was a successful farmer who served in the Vermont House of Representatives and the Vermont Senate, among other positions. Coolidge’s mother died when he was 12 years old, and his teenage sister, Abigail Grace Coolidge, died several years later. Coolidge attended Amherst College in Massachusetts, and later apprenticed at a law firm in Northampton. In 1897, he was admitted to the bar, opening his own law office in 1898. In 1905, Coolidge married Grace Anna Goodhue, a teacher at a school for the deaf. The two were nearly opposites: While Grace was talkative and social, Calvin was stoic and serious. In 1896, Coolidge campaigned locally for Republican presidential candidate William McKinley.

In 1898, he won election to the Northampton City Council, and then to the offices of city solicitor and clerk of courts. In 1906, Coolidge was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a Progressive Republican. He went on to serve as mayor of Northampton before returning to the state legislature, this time serving in the Senate. After his election in January 1914, Coolidge delivered a speech entitled Have Faith in Massachusetts, which summarized his philosophy of government. His reputation grew with the publication of his speeches. He was elected lieutenant governor and then governor in the 1918 race. A crisis during Coolidge’s tenure as governor brought him national attention.

In 1919, many Boston policemen went on strike after the city’s police commissioner tried to block their unionization with the American Federation of Labor. Coolidge took control of the situation, calling in the National Guard and speaking candidly with AFL leader Samuel Gompers. His actions, while discouraging to supporters of organized labor, made Coolidge a favorite among the nation’s conservatives, and laid the groundwork for his presidential run in 1920. After 10 ballots, Republican delegates settled on Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio as their presidential nominee in 1920, and Coolidge was nominated as vice president. Harding and Coolidge beat opponents James M. Cox and Franklin D. Roosevelt in a landslide, taking every state outside of the South. Coolidge was the first vice president to attend cabinet meetings, in addition to giving speeches and performing other official duties. The Coolidges attended Washington parties, where guests remarked on the terse and quiet demeanor of “Silent Cal.”

On August 2, 1923, President Harding died while traveling in California. Coolidge was in Vermont visiting his family home, which had neither electricity nor a telephone, when a messenger brought word of Harding’s death. Coolidge addressed Congress in December, giving the first presidential speech to be broadcast to the nation over the radio. His agenda mirrored Harding’s to a large extent. Coolidge signed the Immigration Act later that year, restricting immigration from southern and eastern European countries. President Coolidge was nominated for the presidency in 1924. Shortly after the convention, however, he experienced a personal tragedy. Coolidge’s younger son, Calvin Jr., developed an infected blister and, several days later, died of sepsis. Coolidge became depressed. In spite of his subdued campaigning, he won a popular vote majority of 2.5 million over his two opponents’ combined total.

During Coolidge’s presidency, the United States experienced the period of rapid economic growth that characterized the “Roaring Twenties.” With the exception of favoring tariffs, Coolidge disdained regulation. Coolidge was also suspicious of foreign alliances, discouraging American membership in the League of Nations. Like Harding, Coolidge refused to recognize the Soviet Union. Coolidge spoke out in favor of civil rights. He refused to appoint any known members of the Ku Klux Klan to office, appointed African Americans to government positions and advocated for anti-lynching laws.

In 1924, Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, granting full citizenship to all Native Americans while permitting them to retain tribal land rights. In the summer of 1927, Coolidge traveled to the Black Hills of South Dakota. During his vacation, Coolidge issued a short statement indicating that he would not seek a second full term as president. The statement read: “I do not choose to run for President in 1928.”

January 5th ~ { continued...}

1940 – FM radio is demonstrated to the Federal Communications Commission for the first time.

1942 – U.S. and Filipino troops complete their withdrawal to a new defensive line along the base of the Bataan peninsula.

1943 – USS Helena (CL-50) fired first proximity fused projectile in combat and shot down Japanese dive bomber in southwest Pacific.

1943 – General Clark’s Fifth Army becomes operational in Tunisia.

1943 – On Guadalcanal the Japanese begin their planned withdrawal. US forces fail to take note of the evacuation. Japanese resistance on Mount Austen is maintained despite growing American pressure.

1944 – Elements of the US 32nd Division at Saidor encounter Japanese forces while patrolling westward from their positions. Australian forces advancing westward along the north coast of the Huon Peninsula capture Kelanoa.

1945 – Admiral Smith leads a force of cruisers and destroyers to shell Iwo Jima, Haha Jima and Chichi Jima. There is a simultaneous attack by USAAF B-29 Superfortress bombers.

1945 – Admiral McCrea leads three cruisers and nine destroyers to bombard Suribachi Wan in the Kuriles.

1945 – The Soviet government gives formal recognition to the Polish Lublin Committee as the Provisional Government of Poland. The USA and Britain declare their continued recognition of the Polish government in exile, based in London. On the eve of a major offensive into Poland, the Soviet Union decides to recognize the pro-Soviet Lublin Committee as the Provisional Government of Poland instead of the government-in-exile that was temporarily being headquartered in London.

On September 1, 1939, a massive German army invaded Poland. Sixteen days later, the USSR invaded Poland from the east. During this tumultuous period, Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski became leader of a Polish government-in-exile in London. He developed a good working relationship with the Allies until April 1943, when Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin broke off Polish-Soviet diplomatic relations after Sikorski requested that the Red Cross investigate the alleged Soviet slaughter of Polish officers in the Katyn forest of eastern Poland in 1942. As the war progressed and the Soviets battled the Germans in western Poland, the Polish government-in-exile began to fear that Soviet domination might follow if the Soviets defeated Germany for control of the Polish territory. Stanislaw Mikolajczyk, Sikorski’s successor as the provisional government head, pleaded with the Allies to secure Poland’s postwar borders and sovereignty, but no such assurances were granted.

In August 1944, the Polish Home Army, fearful that the Soviets would march on Warsaw to battle the Germans and never leave the capital, led an uprising against the German occupiers. They hoped that if they could defeat the Germans, the Allies would help install the anti-Communist government-in-exile after the war. Unfortunately, the Soviets, rather than aiding the uprising that they encouraged in the name of beating back their common enemy, stood idly by and watched as the Germans slaughtered the Poles and sent survivors to concentration camps. With native Polish resistance eradicated, and in anticipation of one last offensive against the Germans, the Soviet Union created its own pro-communist Polish provisional government to counter the anti-communist government-in-exile.

At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, the Allies agreed that an interim government would be formed from both the pro- and anti-communist sides, with free elections to follow. The Soviets had other plans, though, and promptly turned the exhausted and battered Poland into a nondemocratic satellite country, which it remained until 1989.

1945 – In the Ardennes, the US 3rd Army reports reduced activity on its line while US 1st Army continues its attacks. There are German attacks just north of Strasbourg. Eisenhower’s decision to divide command responsibility for the Allied defenses around the bulge between Montgomery in the north and Bradley in the south is made public.

1951 – Fifty-nine B-29s dropped 672 tons of incendiary bombs on Pyongyang. The 18 FBG staged its final missions from Suwon. U.S. ground troops burned the buildings at Suwon’s airfield before withdrawing.

1953 – Twelve B-29s of the 307th BW bombed the Huichon supply areas and railroad bridge.

1957 – In response to the increasingly tense situation in the Middle East, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers a proposal to Congress that calls for a new and more proactive U.S. policy in the region. The “Eisenhower Doctrine,” as the proposal soon came to be known, established the Middle East as a Cold War battlefield. The United States believed that the situation in the Middle East degenerated badly during 1956, and Egypt leader Gamal Nasser was deemed largely responsible. The U.S. used Nasser’s anti-western nationalism and his increasingly close relations with the Soviet Union as justification for withdrawing U.S. support for the construction of the Aswan Dam on the Nile River in July 1956.

Less than a month later, Nasser seized control of the Suez Canal. This action prompted, in late October, a coordinated attack by French, British, and Israeli military on Egypt. Suddenly, it appeared that the Middle East might be the site of World War III. In response to these disturbing developments, President Eisenhower called for “joint action by the Congress and the Executive” in meeting the “increased danger from International Communism” in the Middle East. Specifically, he asked for authorization to begin new programs of economic and military cooperation with friendly nations in the region. He also requested authorization to use U.S. troops “to secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations.” Eisenhower did not ask for a specific appropriation of funds at the time; nevertheless, he indicated that he would seek $200 million for economic and military aid in each of the years 1958 and 1959. Only such action, he warned, would dissuade “power-hungry Communists” from interfering in the Middle East.

While some newspapers and critics were uneasy with the open-ended policy for U.S. action in the Middle East (the Chicago Tribune called the doctrine “goofy”), the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate responded with overwhelming votes in favor of Eisenhower’s proposal. The “Eisenhower Doctrine” received its first call to action in the summer of 1958, when civil strife in Lebanon led that nation’s president to request U.S. assistance. Nearly 15,000 U.S. troops were sent to help quell the disturbances. With the Eisenhower Doctrine and the first action taken in its name, the United States demonstrated its interest in Middle East developments.

January 5th ~ { continued...}

1967 – 1st Battalion, 9th U.S. Marines and South Vietnamese Marine Brigade Force Bravo conduct amphibious operations in the Kien Hoa Province in the Mekong Delta, located 62 miles south of Saigon. This action, part of Operation Deckhouse V, marked the first time that U.S. combat troops were used in the Mekong Delta. The target area, called the Thanh Phu Secret Zone by the Viet Cong guerrillas, was believed to contain communist ammunition dumps, ordinance and engineering workshops, hospitals, and indoctrination centers. During the course of the operation, which lasted until January 15, seven U.S. Marines and 21 Viet Cong were killed.

1968 – U.S. forces in Vietnam launch Operation Niagara I to locate enemy units around the Marine base at Khe Sanh.

1968 – First Male Nurse Corps officer in Regular Navy, LT Clarence W. Cote.

1969 – President-elect Richard Nixon names Henry Cabot Lodge to succeed W. Averell Harriman as chief U.S. negotiator at the Paris peace talks. Lawrence Edward Walsh, a New York lawyer and former deputy attorney general, was named deputy chief negotiator to replace Cyrus R. Vance. Marshall Green, an Asian affairs expert and ambassador to Indonesia, was assigned to assist the negotiating team. The peace talks started on May 10, 1968, but had been plagued from the beginning by procedural questions that inhibited any meaningful negotiations or progress. Unfortunately, the change in personnel had no effect in fostering more meaningful negotiations.

1972 – United States President Richard Nixon orders the development of a Space Shuttle program.

1979 – Vietnamese troops occupy Phnom Penh and the Cambodian ruler Pol Pot is ousted from power.

1989 – Lawrence E. Walsh, the special prosecutor in the Iran-Contra case, asked for a dismissal of two charges against Oliver North, citing the Reagan administration’s refusal to release material sought by North.

1991 – President Bush met at Camp David, Maryland, with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar to discuss the Persian Gulf crisis. The same day, a pretaped radio address by Bush was broadcast in which the president warned Iraq: “Time is running out.”

1994 – The Clinton administration said North Korea had agreed to allow renewed international inspections of seven nuclear sites.

1999 – Four U.S. Air Force and Navy jets fired at Iraqi MiGs testing the “no-fly” zone over southern Iraq in the first such confrontation in more than six years. 6 missiles fired by 2 US F-15s missed the 4 MiG 25s out of Iraq.

2002 – Singapore reported that authorities had arrested 15 suspected militants between Dec 9-24, some of whom were al Qaeda trained in Afghanistan.

2005 – Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a Marine charged with desertion in Iraq after mysteriously disappearing from his post was again declared a deserter, this time for failing to report to his U.S. base.

2005 – The head of the IAEA said Iran has agreed to give U.N. inspectors access to a huge military site that the United States alleges is linked to a secret nuclear weapons program.

2005 – Iraq’s intelligence chief said as many as 30,000 well-trained terrorists are actively operating throughout Iraq at the behest of former regime leaders based in Syria.

2007 – United States President George W. Bush will nominate Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, to replace Alejandro Daniel Wolff as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. If Khalilzad is confirmed by the Senate, he will be the first Muslim to serve in the position, and he will continue to be the highest serving Muslim American official in the U.S. government.

2015 – The Justice Department charges two American citizens of Gambian descent with violating the Neutrality Act by helping to finance and lead the 2014 Gambian coup d’état attempt. One is a retired US Army Sergeant.

January 6th ~

1777 – General Washington establishes winter quarters for the exhausted Continental Army in the hills surrounding Morristown, New Jersey.

1779 – Pushing northward from Florida, British forces led by General Augustine Prevost capture Fort Sunbury, Georgia and attack Augusta, Georgia.

1781 – The Battle of Jersey was an attempt by French forces to invade the Isle of Jersey and remove the threat the island posed to French and American shipping in the American War of Independence. The British Isle of Jersey was used as a base for privateering by the British, and France, engaged in the war as an ally of the United States, sent an expedition to gain control of the island. The expedition ultimately failed, and its commander, Baron Phillipe de Rullecourt, died of wounds sustained in the fighting. The battle is often remembered for the death of the British officer Major Peirson, and a painting based on his final moments by John Singleton Copley.

1818 – During the course of Florida’s First Seminole War, General Andrew Jackson sends a letter through Tennessee congressman John Rhea to President Monroe suggesting that he can capture Spanish Florida for the United States in a 60-day military campaign. President Monroe’s failure to respond to the letter will be taken by Jackson as tacit approval for his proposed plan.

1827 – Confederate General John Calvin Brown is born in Giles City, Tennessee. Brown served in the Army of Tennessee during the war, was wounded three times, and captured once. Brown was a prominent attorney in Pulaski, Tennessee, prior to the war. He opposed secession and was an elector for the Constitutional Union Party during the election of 1860; the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell for president and tried to steer a middle road between North and South.

When Tennessee seceded in April 1861, Brown enlisted as a private in the Confederate Army. His time as an enlisted man was brief, however, as he was made a colonel in the 3rd Tennessee within a month. Brown’s unit was stationed at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River when it was captured by General Ulysses S. Grant in February 1862. Brown was a prisoner for six months. After he was exchanged, he was promoted to brigadier general and was wounded at the Battle of Perryville in October 1862. He recovered in time to fight at Stones River two months later, but he was wounded again at Chickamauga in September 1863. He was back at his post for the siege of Chattanooga in October and November 1863.

Brown served the next year with the army through the Atlanta campaign, and he was part of the General John Bell Hood force that invaded Tennessee that fall. Brown was wounded for a third time at the Battle of Franklin on November 30. This battle was a disaster for the Confederates, as five other Rebel generals were wounded and six more killed during the engagement. Brown recovered in time to join General Joseph Johnston’s surviving force as it surrendered to General William T. Sherman in North Carolina at the end of the war. After the war, Brown served two terms as governor of Tennessee and was a railroad president. He died in 1889 at Boiling Springs, Tennessee.

1838 – Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph system using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code). Vail was central, with Samuel F. B. Morse, in developing and commercializing the telegraph between 1837 and 1844. Vail and Morse were the first two telegraph operators on Morse’s first experimental line between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, and Vail took charge of building and managing several early telegraph lines between 1845 and 1848.

He was also responsible for several technical innovations of Morse’s system, particularly the sending key and improved recording registers and relay magnets. Vail left the telegraph industry in 1848 because he believed that the managers of Morse’s lines did not fully value his contributions. His last assignment, superintendent of the Washington and New Orleans Telegraph Company, paid him only $900 a year, leading Vail to write to Morse, “I have made up my mind to leave the Telegraph to take care of itself, since it cannot take care of me. I shall, in a few months, leave Washington for New Jersey, … and bid adieu to the subject of the Telegraph for some more profitable business.”

1853 – President-elect of the United States Franklin Pierce and his family are involved in a train wreck near Andover, Massachusetts. Pierce’s 11-year-old son Benjamin is killed in the crash.

1861 – Florida troops seize the Federal arsenal at Apalachicola.

1895 – Former Hawaiian Queen Liluokalani is arrested after a failed coup attempt against the republican government of Sanford Dole.

1912 – New Mexico is admitted into the United States as the 47th state. Spanish explorers passed through the area that would become New Mexico in the early 16th century, encountering the well-preserved remains of a 13th-century Pueblo civilization. Exaggerated rumors about the hidden riches of these Pueblo cities encouraged the first full-scale Spanish expedition into New Mexico, led by Francisco Výsquez de Coronado in 1540. Instead of encountering the long-departed Pueblo people, the Spanish explorers met other indigenous groups, like the Apaches, who were fiercely resistant to the early Spanish missions and ranches in the area.

In 1609, Pedro de Peralta was made governor of the “Kingdom and Provinces of New Mexico,” and a year later he founded its capital at Santa Fe. In the late 17th century, Apache opposition to Spain’s colonial efforts briefly drove the Spanish out of New Mexico, but within a few decades they had returned. During the 18th century, the colonists expanded their ranching efforts and made attempts at farming and mining in the region. When Mexico achieved its independence from Spain in 1821, New Mexico became a province of Mexico, and trade was opened with the United States. In the next year, American settlers began arriving in New Mexico via the Santa Fe Trail.

In 1846, the Mexican-American War erupted, and U.S. General Stephen W. Kearny captured and occupied Santa Fe without significant Mexican opposition. Two years later, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded New Mexico to the United States, and in 1853 the territory was expanded to its present size through the Gadsden Purchase. The Apache and the Navaho resisted the colonial efforts of the U.S. as they had those of Spain and Mexico, and after three decades of bloodshed, Indian resistance finally ended with the surrender of Geronimo, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, in 1886.

After the suppression of New Mexico’s natives, the population of New Mexico expanded considerably, and many came to participate in the ranching boom brought on by the opening of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1879. In 1912, New Mexico was granted statehood.

January 6th ~ { continued...}

1919 – Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, dies at Sagamore Hill, his estate overlooking New York’s Long Island Sound. A dynamic and energetic politician, Theodore Roosevelt is credited with creating the modern presidency. As a young Republican, Roosevelt held a number of political posts in New York in the 1880s and ’90s and was a leader of reform Republicans in the state.

In 1898, as assistant secretary to the U.S. Navy, Roosevelt vehemently advocated war with Spain. When the Spanish-American War began, he formed the “Rough Riders,” a volunteer cavalry that became famous for its contribution to the United States victory at the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba. The publicity-minded Roosevelt rode his military fame to the New York governor’s seat in 1898 and to the vice presidency in 1900. In 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated, and Roosevelt, 43 years old, became the youngest president ever to assume the office. He stamped the presidency with a vitality that delighted most Americans and was elected to a second term in 1904. As an American expansionist, Roosevelt asserted his executive powers to defend U.S. interests throughout the Americas as he sought to balance the interests of farmers, workers, and the business class at home. He insisted on a strong navy, encouraged the independence of Panama and the construction of the Panama Canal, promoted the regulation of trusts and monopolies, and set aside land for America’s first national parks and monuments.

In 1906, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War. In 1912, three years after finishing his second term, Roosevelt ran for president again as the new Progressive Party candidate. Challenging his former vice president, President William Howard Taft, he campaigned on his “Square Deal” platform of social reform. In November, the divided Republican Party was defeated by Democrat Woodrow Wilson. In the last few years of his life, Roosevelt became a vocal advocate of the U.S. entrance into World War I and even sought to win a commission to lead a U.S. Army division in Europe. President Wilson declined, and after the war Roosevelt was a vocal opponent of his League of Nations. In 1919, Roosevelt died at his home in New York. The tropical diseases he had contracted during his travels likely caught up with him, and he died at the age of 60.

1921 – The U.S. Navy orders the sale of 125 flying boats to encourage commercial aviation.

1930 – The first diesel engine automobile trip is completed, from Indianapolis, Indiana, to New York, New York. Cummins Engine Company owner Clessie Cummins mounted a diesel engine in a used Packard Touring Car and set out for the National Automobile Show. The 800-mile trip from Indianapolis to New York City used 30 gallons of fuel, which cost $1.38, and showed that diesel was a viable alternative to the internal combustion engine.

1937 – The United States bans the shipment of arms to war-torn Spain. This does not prevent individuals from taking sides; in particular progressives, intellectuals and artists are sympathetic to the Loyalists and some will join in the fight against the forces of General Franco.

1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt asks Congress to support the Lend-lease Bill to help supply the Allies. He articulates the Four Freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from fear, and freedom from want, for the first time.

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt announces to Congress that he is authorizing the largest armaments production in the history of the United States. Committed to war in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. had to reassess its military preparedness, especially in light of the fact that its Pacific fleet was decimated by the Japanese air raid. Among those pressing President Roosevelt to double U.S. armaments and industrial production were Lord William Beaverbrook, the British minister of aircraft production, and members of the British Ministry of Supplies, who were meeting with their American counterparts at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. Beaverbrook, a newspaper publisher in civilian life, employed production techniques he learned in publishing to cut through red tape, improve efficiency, and boost British aircraft production to manufacturing 500 fighters a month, and he felt the U.S. could similarly beef up armament production.

Spurred on by Lord Beaverbrook and Prime Minister Churchill, Roosevelt agreed to the arms buildup. He announced to Congress that the first year of the supercharged production schedule would result in 45,000 aircraft, 45,000 tanks, 20,000 antiaircraft guns, and 8 million tons in new ships. Congressmen were stunned at the proposal, but Roosevelt was undeterred: “These figures and similar figures for a multitude of other implements of war will give the Japanese and Nazis a little idea of just what they accomplished.”

1944 – The US forces on New Britain manage to extend their bridgehead at Cape Gloucester southward to the Aogiri River.

1944 – In Burma, Brigadier General Merrill is designated to command a volunteer unit that becomes known as “Merrill’s Marauders”.

1944 – A joint RAF-USAAF statement discloses the hitherto secret development of jet aircraft in Britain and the USA. Full details of the Whittle turbojet given to General Arnold (USAAF) in July 1941 are revealed.

1945 – Boeing B-29 bombers in the Pacific strike new blows on Tokyo and Nanking.

1945 – Over 75 Japanese aircraft are destroyed at Kamikaze airfields on Luzon by US land and carrier based forces.

1945 – There are various local actions all along the Ardennes front. US 1st Army, part of British 21st Army Group, makes gains of 1000-3000 yards in an attack south of Stavelot, threatening the main German east-west supply road from Laroche to St. Vith.

1946 – Ho Chi Minh won North Vietnamese elections.

1947 – Pan American Airlines becomes the first commercial airline to schedule a flight around the world.

January 6th ~ { continued...}

1951 – FEAF Combat Cargo Command concluded a multi-day airlift of supplies to the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division, which was fighting to prevent a break in the UN defensive line across South Korea. 21 TCS C-47s landed 115 tons of cargo at Wonju, and C-119s of the 314th TCG dropped 460 tons of supplies to the division.

1958 – The Soviet Union announces plans to cut the size of its standing army by 300,000 troops in the coming year. The reduction was part of a 1956 policy announced by Krushchev in anticipation of “peaceful coexistence” with the West, and an indication that Cold War relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were undergoing a slight thaw in the mid- to late-1950s. The Soviet troop reduction was the latest in a series of reductions started in 1955. The new rollback of 300,000 troops brought the total troop reduction since 1955 to nearly 2 million. A Soviet official called the most recent action a “new, serious contribution to the cause of easing tensions and creating an atmosphere of confidence in the relations between states.” Nearly 60,000 of the 300,000 troops to be cut came from Soviet forces in Hungary and East Germany. Total Soviet forces still numbered close to 3 million, but the reduction was still seen as evidence of Khrushchev’s interest in “peaceful coexistence” with the West.

There was also an economic motivation to the troop cuts, though, since the funds used to keep 300,000 men in uniform could be redirected to the Soviet industrial infrastructure. In addition, the Soviet Union was facing a labor shortage, and 300,000 extra workers would help alleviate that problem. The Soviet action had little effect on U.S. policy. Despite Khrushchev’s talk of peaceful coexistence, the preceding two years of the Cold War gave U.S. officials little confidence in his sincerity. The brutal Soviet repression of the Hungarian revolt in 1956, the Suez Crisis of that same year, and the launch of the Sputnik satellite in 1957 convinced many U.S. statesmen that a tough, competitive stance toward the Russians was the best policy.

1960 – National Airlines Flight 2511, a domestic passenger flight from New York City, New York to Miami, Florida, exploded in midair. The National Airlines Douglas DC-6 was carrying five crew and 29 passengers, all of whom perished. The Civil Aeronautics Board investigation concluded that the plane was brought down by a dynamite bomb. No criminal charges were ever filed, nor was the blame for the bombing ever determined. The investigation remains open today. One of the victims was retired US Navy Vice Admiral Edward Orrick McDonnell, a Medal of Honor recipient and veteran of both World Wars.

1961 – Soviet Premier Nikita Kruschev declares that the Soviets will back all ‘wars of national liberation’ around the world. This will greatly influence the incoming Kennedy administration to support a strategy of ‘counterinsurgency,’ particularly in Vietnam.

1967 – Over 16,000 U.S. and 14,000 Vietnamese troops start their biggest attack on the Iron Triangle, northwest of Saigon.

1967 – United States Marine Corps and ARVN troops launch “Operation Deckhouse Five” in the Mekong River delta. “The ten-day sweep,” reported the AP from its daily military roundup from Saigon, “proved unproductive.” For the USMC, the operation was notable for the following reasons: it was a sizable, combined U.S. Marine and Vietnamese Marine amphibious operation and it was the last Special Landing Force (SLF) amphibious landing to take place beyond the boundaries of I Corps. An SLF was the designation of the Marine battalion and medium helicopter squadron (HMM) assigned to the Seventh Fleet Amphibious Ready Group. The SLF regularly conducted amphibious operations across Vietnamese beaches into areas of suspected People’s Liberation Armed Forces (PLAF) and People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) activity.

1971 – The Army drops charges of an alleged cover-up in the My Lai massacre against four officers. After the charges were dropped, a total of 11 people had been cleared of responsibility during the My Lai trials. The trials were a result of action that occurred in March 1968. During the incident, 1st Lt. William Calley, a platoon leader in the 23rd (Americal) Division, allegedly led his men to massacre innocent Vietnamese civilians, including women and children, in a cluster of hamlets in Son Tinh District in the coastal south of Chu Lai. By 1971, charges were pending only against Lt. Calley, Capt. Ernest Medina, and Capt. Eugene Kotouc.

On March 29, 1971, a Fort Benning court-martial jury found Calley guilty of the premeditated murder of at least 22 South Vietnamese civilians and sentenced him to life in prison. Kotouc was cleared by a court-martial on April 29, and Medina was acquitted on September 22. On May 19, the Army disciplined two generals for failing to conduct an adequate investigation of My Lai, demoting Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster from two-star to one-star rank. At the same time, both Koster and Brig. Gen. George W. Young Jr., his assistant divisional commander at the time of the massacre, were stripped of their Distinguished Service Medals, and letters of censure were placed in their personnel files.

The trials ended on December 17, when Col. Oren K. Henderson was acquitted of cover-up charges. He was the highest-ranking officer to be tried. Of those originally charged, only Calley was convicted. Many believed that Calley was a scapegoat, and the widespread public outcry against his life sentence moved President Nixon to intervene on April 3, 1971. He had Calley removed from the Fort Benning stockade and ordered him confined to quarters pending review of his case. On August 20, Calley’s life term was reduced to 20 years. In November 1974, a Federal Court judge ruled that Calley was convicted unjustly, citing “prejudicial publicity.” Although the Army disputed this ruling, Calley was paroled for good behavior after serving 40 months, 35 of which were spent in his own home.

1973 – A Mercedes-Benz 770K sedan, supposedly Adolf Hitler’s parade car, was sold at auction for $153,000.00, the most money ever paid for a car at auction at that time.

1974 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, daylight saving time commences nearly four months early in the United States.

1975 – Phuoc Binh, the capital of Phuoc Long Province, about 60 miles north of Saigon, falls to the North Vietnamese.

1978 – The US returns the Crown of St. Stephen to Hungary. The US had taken custody of it following World War II.

January 6th ~ { continued...}

1989 – The United States presented photographic evidence to the U.N. Security Council to justify its shoot down of two Libyan jet fighters as self-defense, evidence the Libyan ambassador said was faked.

1990 – Defense Secretary Dick Cheney told CNN the U.S. invasion of Panama should not be viewed as a new “Bush doctrine” inclined toward military intervention in countries where democratic elections had been subverted.

1991 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, in a television address, told his country to prepare for a long war against what he called “tyranny represented by the United States.”

1993 – In Somalia, Marines on a recon patrol in village of Afgoy kill a Somali gunman.

1995 – Haitians housed at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba were sent home by the U.S. military against the refugees’ will and over protests of refugee advocates.

1995 – Ramzi Ahmed Yousef and Abdul Hakim Murad were arrested in Manila, Philippines, when explosives that they were mixing blew up and alerted the police. In their apartment were found bomb-making manuals and timers and evidence that they intended to blow up US jetliners. They were found guilty by a jury in New York on September 5th, 1996.

1997 – Iraq informs its customers that it will reduce its contractual crude oil sales volumes in order to stay within the $1 billion limit for the first 90 days of the United Nations’ “Oil-for-Food” agreement.

2000 – The US Army replaced the Young & Rubicom ad agency after a 1999 recruit shortfall of 6,290. Rubicom held the contract for 12 years and crafted the slogan: “Be all that you can be.”

2001 – A NATO meeting was scheduled in Italy on the use of ammunition with depleted uranium following the deaths from cancer of 6 Italian soldiers following duty in the Balkans. 5 Balkan veterans from Belgium along with peacekeepers from Spain, Portugal and the Czech Republic had died of cancer.

2001 – After a bitterly contested election, Vice President Al Gore presides over a joint session of Congress that certifies George W. Bush as the winner of the 2000 election. In one of the closest Presidential elections in U.S. history, George W. Bush was finally declared the winner more then five weeks after the election due to the disputed Florida ballots. Gore became the third Presidential candidate to win the popular vote but lose the election after the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to halt Florida’s manual recount. The ruling in effect gave Florida’s 25 electoral votes to Bush giving him 271 to Gore’s 266 – where 270 is needed to win the election. George W. Bush took the oath of office on January 20, 2001 to become the 43rd President of the United States.

2002 – Anti-Taliban troops in Afghanistan planned to starve out 7 al Qaeda members holed up in a Kandahar hospital.

2002 – It was reported that Malaysia authorities had arrested 13 suspected members of extremist groups since Dec 9 with possible links to the Sep 11 attacks.

2002 – U.S. aircraft struck “approximately” four targets in Afghanistan centered around the Tora Bora and Kandahar regions. One of the strikes was against the Al Qaeda staging point of Zawar Kili. U.S. military forces entered and began searching the Zawar Kili complex.

2003 – U.S. warplanes bombed two Iraqi anti-aircraft radars that threatened pilots patrolling the southern no-fly zone.

2003 – Thousands of Marines, sailors and soldiers headed for the Persian Gulf region, shipping out from California, Georgia and Maryland as the buildup for a possible war with Iraq accelerated sharply.

2003 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused U.N. inspectors of engaging in “intelligence work” instead of searching for suspected nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in his country.

2004 – A previously undisclosed ruling by Lt. General Robert Flowers, head of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, exonerates Halliburton Company and its subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root of any wrongdoing in its fuel-delivery arrangements with a Kuwaiti supplier. The decision comes after Pentagon auditors asserted that the company had overcharged the U.S. government. A full audit of the company’s fuel contracts in Iraq is pending.

2005 – US Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, under scorching criticism at his confirmation hearing, condemned torture as an interrogation tactic and promised to prosecute abusers of terror suspects.

2008 – Five armed Iranian boats confront three U.S. Navy warships in international waters near the Strait of Hormuz.

2010 – The U.S. government lowers the threshold for information deemed important enough to put suspicious individuals on a watch list or no-fly list, or have their visa revoked as a result of the failed Christmas Day 2009 attack, officials said. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the material. Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who allegedly launched the failed attack, was not put on a no-fly list. That’s because the information his father provided a U.S. embassy about his son becoming radicalized and possibly going to Yemen did not meet then-applicable standards to put him on such a list or to cancel his visa.

2011 – The U.S. plans to send another 1,400 marines to Afghanistan, where approximately 100,000 U.S. troops are already engaged in the War in Afghanistan.

2012 – Acting on intelligence from other counter-piracy forces, the USS Carney boarded the Indian-flagged dhow, Al Qashmi. By the time the search team boarded, all evidence of potential piracy had been disposed of, though the crew said they were hijacked by the 9 pirates on board from a different vessel. The 9 suspected pirates were disarmed and given sufficient fuel and provisions to return to Somalia.

2012 – Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, the Iranian-backed Shiite militia that carried out deadly attacks on U.S. troops agrees to lay down its arms and join the political process in Iraq.

2015 – Officials in the American state of Massachusetts open a time capsule left behind by founding fathers Paul Revere and Samuel Adams. Among the items in the box were two dozen coins including a 1652 Pine Tree Shilling struck by colonists in defiance of England, a bronze medal portraying George Washington, a silver plate made by Revere, and colonial records and newspapers. The items will be displayed at the museum for some time before being placed back beneath the state house cornerstone, possibly with additional items from this era.

2015 – Cuba starts releasing political prisoners as part of an historic agreement with the United States announced last month but the numbers and names have not been disclosed for fear of jeopardizing the chances of the others.

2015 – A gunman shoots a doctor at the William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, and then kills himself.

January 7th ~

1608 – Disaster strikes Jamestown. The fort burns and leaves the colonists vulnerable to attack by Indians and the Spanish.

1699 – Hostilities end in King William’s War, with the signing of a treaty at Casco, Maine.

1718 – Israel Putnam, American Revolutionary War hero, was born. He planned the fortifications at the Battle of Bunker Hill and told his men, “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”

1782 – The first American commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opens. The Bank was a private business chartered on May 26, 1781 by the Confederation Congress and opened on January 4, 178, at the prodding of Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris. This was thus the nation’s first de facto central bank. When shares in the bank were sold to the public, Bank of North America became the country’s first initial public offering. It was succeeded in its role as central bank by the First Bank of the United States in 1791. It was not a bank in the ordinary sense but an organization formed for the purpose of financing supplies for the army.

1785 – Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard and American John Jeffries travel from Dover, England, to Calais, France, in a gas balloon.

1807 – In the Napoleonic Wars, a British order in council bars all commercial shipping in the coastal waters of France and her allies. This order is in response to Napoleon’s Berlin Decree of November 21, 1806, which ordered a naval blockade around the British Isles.

1863 – Confederate Brig. Gen. John S. Marmaduke’s expedition into Missouri reached Ozark, where it destroyed the Union post, and then approached Springfield on the morning of January 8. Springfield was an important Federal communications center and supply depot so the Rebels wished to destroy it. The Union army had constructed fortifications to defend the town. Their ranks, however, were depleted because Francis J. Herron’s two divisions had not yet returned from their victory at Prairie Grove on December 7.

After receiving a report on January 7 of the Rebels’ approach, Brig. Gen. Egbert B. Brown set about preparing for the attack and rounding up additional troops. Around 10:00 am, the Confederates advanced in battle line to the attack. The day included desperate fighting with attacks and counterattacks until after dark, but the Federal troops held and the Rebels withdrew during the night. Brown had been wounded during the day. The Confederates appeared in force the next morning but retired without attacking. The Federal depot was successfully defended, and Union strength in the area continued.

1865 – Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sioux warriors attack Julesburg, CO, in retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre. After the massacre, the survivors had fled north to the Republican River where the main body of Cheyenne were camped. The Cheyenne sent a messenger to the Sioux and Arapaho inviting them to join them in a war on the whites. In early January 1865, as many as 2000 Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho warriors shifted their camps closer to the South Platte Trail where it cut through the northeast corner of Colorado. On January 6, a small party hit a wagon train and killed twelve men.

Just before sunrise the following day, the majority of the Dog Soldiers and their allies concealed themselves in some sand hills a short distance from Fort Rankin and Julesburg, one mile up the Platte River, while the Cheyenne chief Big Crow slipped up to the fort. At first light he rushed the sentries stationed outside the walls. A sixty man cavalry troop quickly emerged from the gates to give chase and as soon as they were clear of the fort they were cut off from their base as more than a thousand warriors dashed from the sand hills and began to empty the cavalry saddles. All but a few were killed. As the remaining garrison prepared to defend the fort, the Indians raced up the Platte to the undefended Julesburg where they plundered at will while the soldiers at Fort Rankin could only watch and harmlessly fire their howitzers.

1904 – The distress signal “CQD” is established only to be replaced two years later by “SOS”.

1914 – The first ship, the Alexander la Valley, crossed the Panama Canal.

1916 – In response to pressure from the Wilson administration, Germany notifies the US of its intention to abide by international rules of naval warfare.

1918 – The Germans move 75,000 troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.

1918 – In Arver v. United States, the Supreme Court finds that conscription during war is authorized by the Constitution which gives Congress the power “to declare war…to raise and support armies.” There are several challenges to the government’s power to draft armies which collectively become knows as the Selective Service Law Cases.

1927 – The first transatlantic telephone service is established – from New York, New York to London, United Kingdom.

1932 – Prompted by the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, Secretary of State Stimson sends notes to Japan and China saying that the US will not recognize any territory taken in violation of the Kellog-Briand Treaty of 1928.