January 13th ~ {continued...}

1962 – In the first Farm Gate combat missions, T-28 fighter-bombers are flown in support of a South Vietnamese outpost under Viet Cong attack. By the end of the month, U.S. Air Force pilots had flown 229 Farm Gate sorties. Operation Farm Gate was initially designed to provide advisory support to assist the South Vietnamese Air Force in increasing its capability. The 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron arrived at Bien Hoa Airfield in November 1961 and began training South Vietnamese Air Force personnel with older, propeller-driven aircraft.

In December, President John F. Kennedy expanded Farm Gate to include limited combat missions by the U.S. Air Force pilots in support of South Vietnamese ground forces. By late 1962, communist activity and combat intensity had increased so much that President Kennedy ordered a further expansion of Farm Gate. In early 1963, additional aircraft arrived and new detachments were established at Pleiku and Soc Trang.

In early 1964, Farm Gate was upgraded again with the arrival of more modern aircraft. In October 1965, another squadron of A-1E aircraft was established at Bien Hoa. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the replacement of South Vietnamese markings on Farm Gate aircraft with regular U.S. Air Force markings. By this point in the war, the Farm Gate squadrons were flying 80 percent of all missions in support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). With the build up of U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam and the increase in U.S. Air Force presence there, the role of the Farm Gate program gradually decreased in significance. The Farm Gate squadrons were moved to Thailand in 1967, and from there they launched missions against the North Vietnamese in Laos.

1964 – USS Manley evacuates 54 American and 36 allied nationals after Zanzibar government is overthrown.

1965 – Two U.S. planes were shot down in Laos while on a combat mission.

1968 – The U.S. reported shifting most air targets from North Vietnam to Laos.

1972 – President Nixon announces that 70,000 U.S. troops will leave South Vietnam over the next three months, reducing U.S. troop strength there by May 1 to 69,000 troops. Since taking office, Nixon had withdrawn more than 400,000 American troops from Vietnam. With the reduction in total troop strength, U.S. combat deaths were down to less than 10 per week. However, Nixon still came under heavy criticism from those who charged that he was pulling out troops but, by turning to the use of air power instead of ground troops, was continuing the U.S. involvement in Vietnam rather than disengaging from the war. The last American troops would be withdrawn in March 1973 under the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords.

1980 – The United States offered Pakistan a two-year aid plan to counter the Soviet threat in Afghanistan.

1991 – UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar met with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in a bid to avoid war in the Persian Gulf.

1993 – American and allied warplanes raided southern Iraq.

1993 – Space Shuttle program: Endeavour heads for space for the third time as STS-54 launches from the Kennedy Space Center. STS-54 was a Space Transportation System (NASA Space Shuttle) mission using orbiter Endeavour. This was the third flight for Endeavour.

1997 – Seven black soldiers received the Medal of Honor for World War II valor; the lone survivor, former Lt. Vernon Baker, received his medal from President Clinton at the White House.

1998 – Iraq blocked a UN weapons inspection tem led by an American.

1999 – A KC-135 refueling tanker crashed while landing near Geilenkirchen, Germany, and 4 US airmen were killed. They were attached to an Air National Guard unit based in Spokane.

1999 – As many oil-producing countries try to cut excess global production, Iraq announces plans to raise its oil output to 3 million barrels per day from its current 2.5 million barrels per day, and then to 3.5 million barrels per day within two years. Faleh al-Khayat, the Iraqi Oil Ministry’s Director-General of Planning, says that the increases are contingent upon receiving spare parts for the country’s ailing oil industry, which has been under United Nations trade sanctions for more than eight years.

2000 – In Vitina, Kosovo, Merita Shabiu, an 11-year-old Albanian girl, was raped and murdered. On Jan 16 American soldier, Staff Sgt. Frank J. Ronghi (35), was charged for the rape and murder. He later confessed and was sentenced to life in prison.

2003 – US warplanes struck an anti-ship missile launcher in southern Iraq. US planes also dropped leaflets over An Najaf, about 85 miles southeast of Baghdad. It was the 14th drop in 3 months.

2003 – Protesters waved Puerto Rican flags and shouted “Navy get out!” as fighter jets dropped inert bombs over Vieques in what the Navy says will be its last round of training on the island.

2004 – A US soldier at Abu Ghraib prison reported US abuses of Iraqi prisoners. Criminal charges were lodged against 6 soldiers on March 20th.

2006 – The U.S. CIA attempts to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri by bombing Damadola, Pakistan, a village near the Afghanistan border. Anonymous U.S. government sources claim he was invited to a feast in the village, but did not attend.

2011 – The Wiki Leaks website honors a pledge made in July by offering financial aid to the legal team of Bradley Manning, a soldier accused by the United States of providing secret U.S. embassy cables for international public consumption. Manning later requested and underwent a sex change operation.

January 14th ~

1639 – In Hartford, Connecticut, the first constitution in the American colonies, the “Fundamental Orders,” is adopted by representatives of Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford. The Dutch discovered the Connecticut River in 1614, but English Puritans from Massachusetts largely accomplished European settlement of the region. During the 1630s, they flocked to the Connecticut valley from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and in 1638 representatives from the three major Puritan settlements in Connecticut met to set up a unified government for the new colony. Roger Ludlow, a lawyer, wrote much of the Fundamental Orders, and presented a binding and compact frame of government that put the welfare of the community above that of individuals. It was also the first written constitution in the world to declare the modern idea that “the foundation of authority is in the free consent of the people.” In 1662, the Charter of Connecticut superseded the Fundamental Orders; though the majority of the original document’s laws and statutes remained in force until 1818.

1741 – Benedict Arnold was born in Norwich, Connecticut; died in London, England, 14 June, 1801. His ancestor, William Arnold (born in Leamington, Warwickshire, in 1587), came to Providence in 1636, and was associated with Roger Williams as one of the fifty-four proprietors in the first settlement of Rhode island. His son Benedict moved to Newport, and was governor of the colony from 1663 to 1666, 1669 to 1672, 1677 to 1678, when he died. His son Benedict was a member of the assembly in 1695. His son Benedict, third of that name, moved to Norwich in 1730; was cooper, ship-owner, and sea-captain, town surveyor, collector, assessor, and selectman. He married, 8 Nov., 1733, Hannah, daughter of John Waterman, widow of Absalom King. Of their six children, only Benedict and Hannah lived to grow up. Benedict received a respectable school education, including some knowledge of Latin. He was romantic and adventurous, excessively proud and sensitive, governed rather by impulse than by principle. He was noted for physical strength and beauty, as well as for bravery. He possessed immense capacity both for good and for evil, and circumstances developed him in both directions.

At the age of fifteen he ran away from home and enlisted in the Connecticut army, marching to Albany and Lake George to resist the French invasion; but, getting weary of discipline, he deserted and made his way home alone through the wilderness. He was employed in a drug shop at Norwich until 1762, when he moved to New Haven and established himself in business as druggist and bookseller. He acquired a considerable property, and engaged in the West India trade, sometimes commanding his own ships, as his father had done. He also carried on trade with Canada, and often visited Quebec. On 22 Feb., 1767, he married Margaret, daughter of Samuel Mansfield. They had three sons, Benedict, Richard, and Henry. She died 19 June, 1775.

On one of his voyages, being at Honduras, he fought a duel with a British sea-captain who called him a “Damn Yankee”; the captain was wounded and apologized. He occasionally visited England. At noon of 20 April, 1775, the news of the Battle of Lexington reached New Haven, and Arnold, who was captain of the governor’s guards, about 60 in number, assembled them on the college green and offered to lead them to Boston. Gen. Wooster thought he had better wait for regular orders, and the selectmen refused to supply ammunition; but, upon Arnold’s threatening’ to break into the magazine, the selectmen yielded and furnished the ammunition, and the company marched to Cambridge. Arnold immediately proposed the capture of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and the plan was approved by Dr. Warren, chairman of the Committee of Safety. Arnold was commissioned as colonel by the provincial congress of Massachusetts, and directed to raise 400 men in the western counties and surprise the forts. The same scheme had been entertained in Connecticut, and troops from that colony and from Berkshire, with a number of “Green Mountain Boys,” had already started for the lakes under command of Ethan Allen. On meeting them Arnold claimed the command, but when it was refused he joined the expedition as a volunteer and entered Ticonderoga side by side with Allen. A few days later Arnold captured St. John’s. Massachusetts asked Connecticut to put him in command of these posts, but Connecticut preferred Allen. Arnold returned to Cambridge early in July, proposed to Washington the expedition against Quebec by way of the Kennebec and Chaudiere rivers, and was placed in command of 1,100 men and started from Cambridge 11 Sept. The enterprise, which was as difficult and dangerous as Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps, was conducted with consummate ability, but was nearly ruined by the misconduct of Col. Enos, who deserted and returned to Massachusetts with 200 men and the greater part of the provisions.

After frightful hardships, to which 200 more men succumbed, on 13 Nov., the little army climbed the heights of Abraham. As Arnold’s force was insufficient to storm the city, and the garrison would not come out to fight, he was obliged to await the arrival of Montgomery, who had just taken Montreal. In the great assault of 31 Dec., in which Montgomery was slain, Arnold received a wound in the leg. For his gallantry he was now made brigadier-general. He kept up the siege of Quebec till the following April, when Wooster arrived and took command. Arnold was put in command of Montreal. The British, being now heavily reinforced, were able to drive the Americans from Canada, and early in June Arnold effected a junction with Gates at Ticonderoga. During the summer he was busily occupied in building a fleet with which to oppose and delay the advance of the British up Lake Champlain.

On 11 Oct. he fought a terrible naval battle near Valcour Island, in which he was defeated by the overwhelming superiority of the enemy in number of ships and men; but he brought away part of his flotilla and all his surviving troops in safety to Ticonderoga, and his resistance had been so obstinate that it discouraged Gen. Carleton, who retired to Montreal for the winter. This relief of Ticonderoga made it possible to send 3,000 men from the northern army to the aid of Washington, and thus enabled that commander to strike his great blows at Trenton and Princeton. Among Allen’s men concerned in the capture of Ticonderoga in the preceding year was Lieut. John Brown, of Pittsfield, who on that occasion had some difficulty with Arnold. Brown now brought charges against Arnold of malfeasance while in command at Montreal, with reference to exactions of private property for the use of the army. The charges were investigated by the board of war, which pronounced them “cruel and groundless” and entirely exonerated Arnold, and the report was confirmed by congress. Nevertheless, some members of the congress found common ground in hostility toward Arnold. Gates had already begun to intrigue against General Schuyler, and Charles Lee had done his best to ruin Washington. The cabal or faction that afterward took its name from Conway was already forming. Arnold was conspicuous as an intimate friend of Schuyler and Washington, and their enemies began by striking at him. This petty persecution of the commander-in-chief by slighting and insulting his favorite officers was kept up until the last year of the war, and such men as Greene, Morgan, and Stark were almost driven from the service by it.

On 19 Feb., 1777, congress appointed five new major-generals–Stirling, Mifflin, St. Claire, Stephen, and Lincoln–thus passing over Arnold, who was the senior brigadier. None of these officers had rendered services at all comparable to his, and, coming as it did so soon after his heroic conduct on Lake Champlain, this action of congress naturally incensed him. He behaved very well, however, and expressed his willingness to serve under the men lately his juniors, while at the same time he requested congress to restore him to his relative rank. The last week in April 2,000 British troops under Gov. Tryon invaded Connecticut and destroyed the military stores at Danbury. They were opposed by Wooster with 600 men, and a skirmish ensued, in which that general was slain. By this time Arnold, who was at New Haven, on a visit to his family, arrived on the scene with several hundred militia, and there was a desperate fight at Ridgefield, in which Arnold had two horses shot from under him. The British were driven to their ships, and narrowly escaped capture. Arnold was now promoted to the rank of major-general and presented by congress with a fine horse, but his relative rank was not restored. While he was at Philadelphia inquiring into the reasons for the injustice that had been done him, the country was thrown into consternation by the news of Burgoyne’s advance and the fall of Ticonderoga. At Washington’s suggestion, Arnold again joined the northern army, and by a brilliant stratagem dispersed the army of St. Leger, which, in cooperation with Burgoyne, was coming down the Mohawk valley, and had laid siege to Fort Stanwix. After Schuyler had been superseded by Gates, Arnold was placed in command of the left wing of the army on Bemis heights.

In the battle of 19 Sept., at Freeman’s farm, he frustrated Burgoyne’s attempt to turn the American left, and held the enemy at bay till nightfall. If properly reinforced by Gates, he would probably have inflicted a crushing defeat upon Burgoyne. But Gates, who had already begun to dislike him as a friend of Schuyler, was enraged by his criticisms on the battle of Freeman’s farm, and sought to wreak his spite by withdrawing from his division some of its best troops. This gave rise to a fierce quarrel. Arnold asked permission to return to Philadelphia, and Gates granted it. But many officers, knowing that a decisive battle was imminent, and feeling no confidence in Gates, entreated Arnold to remain, and he did so. Gates issued no order directly superseding him, but took command of the left wing in person, giving the right wing to Lincoln. At the critical moment of the decisive battle of 7 Oct., Arnold rushed upon the field without orders, and in a series of magnificent charges broke through the British lines and put them to flight. The credit of this great victory, which secured for us the alliance with France, is due chiefly to Arnold, and in a less degree to Morgan. Gates was not on the field, and deserves no credit whatever. Just at the close of the battle Arnold was severely wounded in the leg that had been hurt at Quebec. He was carried on a litter to Albany, and remained there disabled until spring.

On 20 January 1778, he received from congress an antedated commission restoring him to his original seniority in the army. On 19 June, as he was still too lame for field service, Washington put him in command of Philadelphia, which the British had just evacuated. The Tory sentiment in that city was strong, and had been strengthened by disgust at the alliance with France, a feeling which Arnold seems to have shared. He soon became engaged to a Tory lady, Margaret, daughter of Edward Shippen, afterward chief justice of Pennsylvania. She was celebrated for her beauty, wit, and nobility of character. During the next two years Arnold associated much with the Tories, and his views of public affairs were no doubt influenced by this association. He lived extravagantly, and became involved in debt. He got into quarrels with many persons, especially with Joseph Reed, president of the executive council of the state. These troubles wrought upon him until he made up his mind to resign his commission, obtain a grant of land in central New York, settle it with some of his old soldiers, and end his days in rural seclusion. His request was favorably entertained by the New York legislature, but a long list of charges now brought against him by Reed drove the scheme from his mind. The charges were investigated by a committee of congress, and on all those that affected his integrity he was acquitted.

Two charges — first, of having once in a hurry granted a pass in which some due forms were overlooked, and, secondly, of having once used some public wagons, which were standing idle, for saving private property in danger from the enemy–were proved against him; but the committee thought these things too trivial to notice, and recommended an unqualified verdict of acquittal. Arnold then, considering himself vindicated, resigned his command of Philadelphia. But as Reed now represented that further evidence was forthcoming, congress referred the matter to another committee, which shirked the responsibility through fear of offending Pennsylvania, and handed the affair over to a court-martial. Arnold clamored for a speedy trial, but Reed succeeded in delaying it several months under pretence of collecting evidence.

On 26 January 1780, the court-martial rendered its verdict, which agreed in every particular with that of the committee of congress; but for the two trivial charges proved against Arnold, it was decided that he should receive a reprimand from the commander-in-chief. Washington, who considered Arnold the victim of persecution, couched the reprimand in such terms as to convert it into eulogy, and soon afterward offered Arnold the highest command under himself in the northern army for the next campaign.

But Arnold in an evil hour had allowed himself to be persuaded into the course that has blackened his name forever. Three years had elapsed since Saratoga, and the fortunes of the Americans, instead of improving, had grown worse and worse. France had as yet done but little for us, our southern army had been annihilated, our paper money had become worthless, our credit abroad had hardly begun to exist. Even Washington wrote that “he had almost ceased to hope.” The army, clad in rags, half-starved and unpaid, was nearly ripe for the mutiny that broke out a few months later, and desertions to the British lines averaged more than 100 a month. The spirit of desertion now seized upon Arnold, with whom the British commander had for some time tampered through the mediation of John Andre and an American loyalist, Beverley Robinson. Stung by the injustice he had suffered, and influenced by historic surroundings, Arnold made up his mind to play a part like that which Gen. Monk had played in the restoration of Charles II. to the British throne.

By putting the British in possession of the Hudson river, he would give them all that they had sought to obtain by the campaigns of 1776-’77; and the American cause would thus become so hopeless that an opportunity would be offered for negotiation. Arnold was assured that Lord North would renew the liberal terms already offered in 1778, which conceded everything that the Americans had demanded in 1775. By rendering a cardinal service to the British, he might hope to attain a position of such eminence as to conduct these negotiations, end the war, and restore America to her old allegiance, with her freedom from parliamentary control guaranteed. In order to realize these ambitious dreams, Arnold resorted to the blackest treachery. In July, 1780, he sought and obtained command of West Point in order to surrender it to the enemy. When his scheme was detected by the timely capture of Andre, he fled to the British at New York, a disgraced and hated traitor. Instead of getting control of affairs, like Gen. Monk, he had sold himself cheaply, receiving a brigadier-general’s place in the British army and a paltry sum of money.

In the spring of 1781 he conducted a plundering expedition into Virginia. In September of the same year he was sent to attack New London, in order to divert Washington from his southward march against Cornwallis. In the following winter he went with his wife to London, where he was well received by the king and the Tories, but frowned upon by the Whigs. In 1787 he moved to St. John’s, New Brunswick, and entered into mercantile business with his sons Richard and Henry. In 1791 he returned to London and settled there permanently. In 1792 he fought a bloodless duel with the earl of Landerdale, for a remark which the latter had made about him in tile House of Lords. His last years were embittered by remorse.

January 14th ~ {continued...}

1766 – The English Parliament convenes and immediately begins to reconsider the repercussions of the Stamp Act. Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Greenville advocates enforcement of the act by military force, while William Pitt supports the repeal of the Stamp Act, citing the principle of taxation without representation.

1784 – The United States ratified a peace treaty with England, the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War.

1860 – Unable to agree on anything else, the Committee of Thirty Three submits a proposed constitutional amendment protecting slavery in all areas where it already existed. The proposed measure was not enough to stem the tide of seceding states. After the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860, the states of the south began to talk of secession. The Republican Party was committed to restricting slavery in the western territories, and southerners feared an eventual campaign to eradicate the institution entirely from the country. As the new administration prepared to take over, attempts were made by many politicians in Washington to alleviate southern fears. The House of Representatives appointed the Committee of Thirty Three, one from each state, to investigate avenues of compromise that would keep the South from seceding. Most of the compromises involved the Republicans forfeiting their plan to keep slavery out of the western territories. This was, however, the entire reason for the existence of the party. As a result, many northern Congressmen would not agree to any such move.

Finally, on January 14, committee chair Thomas Corwin of Ohio submitted a plan calling for an amendment to protect slavery, enforce the fugitive slave laws, and repeal state personal liberty laws. In the 1850s, the South was increasingly concerned with slaves escaping to the North; the personal liberty laws made it difficult to get slaves back, and this was a motivating factor behind secession. South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama had already seceded by the time Corwin made his proposal. The plan died, and the nation continued on the road to war.

1861 – Union troops garrison Fort Taylor in Key West, Florida. In reaction to Florida’s secession, Capt. John Brannon occupied the fort, placing it in Union hands. Key West was an important outpost for the Union because numerous blockade-running ships were detained at Key West harbor and guarded by Fort Taylor’s cannons. The 10-inch Rodman and Columbiad cannons at the fort had a range of three miles. This was an impressive deterrent to the Confederate navy, preventing them from attempting to take the fort or the island of Key West. Proving to be a severe loss for the South, Fort Taylor remained in Union hands throughout the Civil War. By the time the three-story fort was finally finished in 1866 (21 years after it was begun), there were many impressive features included. Items such as sanitary facilities flushed by the tide and a desalination plant which produced drinking water from the sea were available as early as 1861. A total of 198 guns and a large supply of ammunition were on hand to secure the fort.

1861 – Union forces under General William T. Sherman occupy Meridian, Mississippi. His forces destroy supplies, bridges and railroads.

1864 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis writes to General Joseph E. Johnson, observing that troops may need to be sent to Alabama or Mississippi.

1891 – General Nelson Miles, commander of the U.S. Army troops in South Dakota, reports that the rebellious Sioux are finally returning to their reservation following the bloody massacre at Wounded Knee. Since the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, Miles fought to force resistant Indians all across the nation to give up their traditional ways and accept life on government-controlled reservations. His winter campaign in 1876-77 used force and diplomacy to win the surrender of many of the remnants of the Sioux and Cheyenne Indian party, including Crazy Horse and his followers, that had destroyed Custer’s forces in Montana. In 1877, Miles intercepted Chief Joseph and his Nez Perce people as they attempted to flee to Canada and Miles forced them to surrender. A decade later, he played a key role in convincing the last rebellious Apache warrior, Geronimo, to accept confinement on a Florida reservation.

By 1890, Miles had good reason to believe that he had succeeded in bringing an end to the last remnants of Indian resistance in the United States. Therefore, it was with growing alarm and consternation that he received reports of the Ghost Dance movement among his old enemy, the Sioux, on their reservations in South Dakota. Primarily a spiritual movement, many Anglo-Americans felt threatened by the Ghost Dance because it promised that if the Sioux returned to their traditional ways their white oppressors would be eliminated. As commander of the vast military division of the Missouri, Miles was responsible for any threat posed by the Ghost Dance movement. He reacted by concentrating his troops near the Sioux reservation in South Dakota to maintain control of the situation while simultaneously working to find a peaceful way to diffuse the growing tensions. Unfortunately, Miles’ decision to order the arrest of the old Sioux leader, Sitting Bull, only exacerbated the situation when it resulted in the respected chief’s death. News of Sitting Bulls’ death fanned the fears of some Sioux that the army was preparing to wipe them out in a massive campaign of genocide. Hundreds fled the reservation, and Miles dutifully dispatched troops to bring them back.

When the 7th Cavalry under Colonel James Forsyth attempted to disarm one band of Sioux near Wounded Knee on December 19, 1890, a brutal massacre erupted, which left nearly 150 Indians dead, many of them women and children. Had he actually been present at Wounded Knee that day (Miles commanded these events from his headquarters in Rapid City), the general might well have been able to resolve the confrontation peacefully. Miles viewed Wounded Knee as a foolish and avoidable blunder. Trying to salvage the situation, Miles increased both his military and diplomatic pressures.

On January 14, 1891, the Sioux submitted to his authority and returned to their reservation. Nearly a quarter century after the Battle of Little Bighorn, the general had crushed the last significant Indian uprising in American history.

1895 – Employees of the trolley railroad in Brooklyn, New York go on strike. Riots ensue which are eventually suppressed by the New York and Brooklyn militias.

January 14th ~ {continued...}

1911 – The USS Arkansas, the largest U.S. battleship, is launched from the yards of the New York Shipbuilding Company. A 26,000 ton Wyoming class battleship, she was built at Camden, New Jersey. Commissioned in September 1912, she spent her first seven years of service with the Atlantic Fleet. In 1913, Arkansas cruised in the Mediterranean, and in 1914 she participated in the U.S. intervention in Mexico. During July-December 1918, she operated with the British Grand Fleet as World War I approached and reached its conclusion. Transiting the Panama Canal in July 1919, Arkansas joined the Pacific Fleet, remaining there for two years before returning to the Atlantic. She carried Naval Academy midshipmen on cruises to Europe in 1923 and 1924, and to the west coast in 1925. After the latter voyage, the battleship underwent extensive modernization, receiving new oil-fired boilers, additional deck armor and a changed appearance, with only one smokestack and “basket” mast in place of the previous two of each. Through the next two decades, Arkansas primarily served in the Atlantic area, making annual Midshipmen’s cruises to Europe in 1929-31 and 1934-37. In 1932-34, she operated along the west coast on training operations, a mission that largely occupied her through the 1930s.

After war broke out in Europe in 1939, Arkansas continued her training duties, and, as relations with Germany deteriorated, took part in “operations short of war”. In the summer of 1941, she escorted occupation forces to Iceland and was present when President Roosevelt met Prime Minister Churchill at the Atlantic Charter Conference. Once the United States formally entered the war in December 1941, Arkansas was employed escorting Atlantic convoys, as well as continuing her training work. An overhaul in March-June 1942 again changed her appearance, with a new tripod foremast replacing the previous “basket” type. Her combat experience began in June 1944, when she used her twelve-inch guns to support the Normandy invasion and in bombardments of German defenses at Cherbourg. In August, she participated in the invasion of Southern France. Arkansas went to the Pacific in November 1944 and crossed the ocean to the war zone early in the next year.

In February-May 1945, she supported the conquests of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Once Japan had surrended, she transported veterans home from bases in the Pacific. By now thoroughly obsolete, the old battleship was assigned a final mission, to serve as a target ship for atomic bomb tests at Bikini, in the Marshalls. She survived the initial test, an air-burst, but was anchored in close proximity to the bomb used in the 25 July 1946 underwater shot. Arkansas was engulfed in the column of water driven up by the powerful blast and quickly sank. She remains on the bottom of Bikini Atoll to this day.

1920 – Caco insurrectionists were defeated in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

1940 – Eighteen members of the pro-Nazi Bund organization are arrested for conspiracy.

1942 – The United States and Great Britain agree to have the British Chiefs of Staff and the U.S. Joint Chiefs work together, either through meetings or representatives, to advise the leaders of both nations on military policy during the war. During the Arcadia Conference, which began on December 22, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., to discuss a unified Anglo-American war strategy and a future peace. Toward this end, the Combined Chiefs of Staff was created. The British Chiefs of Staff, composed of the three service heads (army, navy, air force), and their U.S. counterparts, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were made into one office, with the Combined Staff Planners and the Combined Secretariat offering administrative support.

1942 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all U.S. aliens to register with the government.

1942 – A small group of Japanese reinforcements lands near Cape Esperance, Guadalcanal, to prepare positions in that area to cover the planned evacuation.

1943 – Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt meet in Casablanca, Morocco, along with the Combined Chiefs of Staff, to discuss strategy and study the next phase of the war. This meeting marked the first time an American president left American soil during wartime. Participants also included leaders of the French government-in-exile, Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Gen. Henri Giraud, who were assured of a postwar united France. The success of the North Africa invasion, which resulted in the defeat of Vichy French forces, compelled President Roosevelt to meet with Prime Minister Churchill (Joseph Stalin, president and dictator of the USSR, declined an invitation to attend) to confer on how best to push forward an end to the war.

Top priority was given to destroying German U-boat patrols in the Atlantic and launching combined bombing missions. Most important, in a controversial declaration, they announced that the Allies would accept only unconditional surrender from the Axis powers, a decision that caused consternation on all sides as too extreme and allowing too little room for political maneuvering. The meeting was kept secret–even by newspapers that knew about it–until the participants left Morocco on January 27.

1943 – World War II: Franklin D. Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to travel by airplane while in office when he travels from Miami to Morocco to meet with Winston Churchill.

1944 – On New Britain, the fighting around the Cape Gloucester bridgehead continues. While the Japanese can score no positive success, they do manage to hold up the US advance.

1944 – The major rail unions accept terms suggested by President Roosevelt, avoiding a threatened strike. The railroads have, in fact, been run under the authority of Secretary of War Stimson since 27 December. They will be returned to private ownershipand operation on 18 January.

1945 – The US 1st Army achieves an advance 2 miles toward St. Vith in continuing attacks. British forces attacking southward from Laroche link up with elements of US 3rd Army advancing northwest from Bastogne

1945 – The US 8th Air Force resumes strategic operations after a month-long pause caused by the Battle of the Bulge. Some 600 B-17 and B-24 bombers strike oil targets and encounter heavy resistance from Luftwaffe fighters.

January 14th ~ {continued...}

1950 – Ho Chi Minh declares that the only true legal government is his Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The Soviet Union and China extend recognition, and China will start supplying the Vietminh with modern weapons.

1951 – Chinese Communist forces reached their furthest extent of advance into South Korea with the capture of Wonju.

1953 – Fifth Air Force F-86 Sabres destroyed eight MiG-15s, the most since Sept. 4, 1952. Fighters and light bombers continued to pound Sinanju while B-29s hit the rail yard at Chonguyong-ni and an ore processing area at Kajanbaeji.

1960 – Elvis Presley was promoted to Sergeant in the U.S. Army.

1964 – Lt. Gen. William Westmoreland is appointed deputy to Gen. Paul Harkins, chief of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV). It was generally accepted that Westmoreland would soon replace Harkins, whose insistently optimistic views on the progress of the war had increasingly come under criticism. On June 20, 1964, Harkins departed and Westmoreland did assume command of MACV. His initial task was to provide military advice and assistance to the government of South Vietnam.

However, with the commitment of U.S. ground troops, General Westmoreland assumed the added responsibility of commanding America’s armed forces in combat in Vietnam. One of the Vietnam War’s most controversial figures, Westmoreland received many honors (including being named Time Man of the Year in 1965) when the fighting was going well, but many Americans blamed him for the problems in Vietnam when the war turned sour. Having provided continually optimistic reports about the war, Westmoreland came under particularly heavy criticism in 1968, when the communists launched the massive surprise Tet Offensive on January 30. In July 1968, Westmoreland was appointed Chief of Staff of the Army, and General Creighton W. Abrams Jr. replaced him as commander of MACV.

1968 – U.S. joint-service Operation Niagara is launched to support the U.S. Marine base at Khe Sanh. The Khe Sanh base was the westernmost anchor of a series of combat bases and strongholds that stretched from the Cua Viet River on the coast of the South China Sea westward along Route 9 to the Laotian border. Intelligence sources revealed that the North Vietnamese Army was beginning to build up its forces in the area surrounding Khe Sanh. Operation Niagara was a joint U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps air campaign launched in support of the marines manning the base. Using sensors installed along the nearby DMZ and reconnaissance flights to pinpoint targets, 24,000 tactical fighter-bomber sorties and 2,700 B-52 strategic bomber sorties were flown between the start of the operation and March 31, 1968, when it was terminated. This airpower played a major role in the successful defense of Khe Sanh when it came under attack on January 21 and was subsequently besieged for 66 days until finally broken on April 7.

1969 – 25 crew members of the U.S. aircraft carrier Enterprise were killed and 85 injured in an explosion that ripped through the ship off Hawaii.

1980 – In a diplomatic rebuke to the Soviet Union, the U.N. General Assembly votes 104 to 18 to “deplore” the Russian intervention in Afghanistan. The resolution also requested the “immediate, unconditional and total withdrawal of the foreign troops from Afghanistan.” The immense margin of victory for the resolution indicated the worldwide disapproval for the December 1979 Soviet invasion and installation of a pro-communist puppet regime in Afghanistan. The General Assembly’s resolution had no direct impact on the Soviet Union’s actions. Russia had earlier vetoed a similar resolution introduced in the Security Council. However, the size of the General Assembly vote and the nations that voted for the resolution indicated that Cold War world politics might be changing.

Non-aligned nations (nations in the United Nations that claimed “non-alignment” with either the West or the communist bloc) and other Third World nations voted 78 to 9 in favor of the resolution (28 others abstained or were absent). Even the fiery rhetoric of the Cuban delegate (Cuba presided over the non-aligned nations) failed to sway many voters to defeat the proposal. “We know,” he declared, “the historic role of the Soviet Union and of United States imperialism.”

Several representatives from Asian, African, and Latin American nations-nations that had traditionally maintained a more or less neutral attitude toward the East-West conflict-did condemn the Soviet action in Afghanistan. The resolution was a victory for U.S. diplomats, who had been pushing for a statement from the international organization denouncing the Soviet invasion. The successful and overwhelming passage of the resolution indicated that Cold War alignments were perhaps undergoing an important and far-reaching alteration. Many of the so-called non-aligned nations and Third World countries were appalled by the Soviet action and drew closer to the United States. With the Cold War itself destined to last another decade, U.S. relations with such nations would take on more significance than ever before.

1991 – With time running out before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, Iraq’s National Assembly voted to give President Saddam Hussein full authority over the Persian Gulf crisis.

1992 – Historic Mideast peace talks continued in Washington, with Israel and Jordan holding their first-ever formal negotiations, and the Israelis continuing exchanges with Palestinian representatives.

1993 – Operation Condor Ratchet. 6 UH-60 Blackhawks from the 10th Mountain Division, carrying Alpha Co. 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry, Air-Assaults in and surrounds Abu Airfield next to village of Afgoy, Somalia.

1998 – In a show of support for Richard Butler, chairman of the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approves a statement deploring Iraq’s recent actions to impede inspections by U.N. weapons monitors.

1998 – Iraq begins exporting crude oil under the third phase of the United Nations sponsored “Oil-for-Food” program. First loadings are filling the million barrel tanker White Sea for French oil company Elf Aquitaine. Other companies expected to lift Iraqi crude in January include France’s Total, Italy’s Agip, Russia’s Lukoil, and China’s Sinochem.

1999 – The U.S. proposed the lifting of the U.N. ceilings on the sale of oil in Iraq. The restriction being that the money be used to buy medicine and food for the Iraqi people.

2002 – US warplanes began to seal caves near Khost, Afghanistan.

2003 – Hundreds of American soldiers arrived in Israel for joint maneuvers with anti-missile defenses, aimed at protecting against any Iraqi strikes if the United States attacks Iraq.

2003 – North Korea said that it was running out of patience and warned it was prepared to exercise “options” in its dispute with the United States over its nuclear activities.

2004 – Pres. Bush proposed a new space program that would send humans back to the moon by 2015 and establish a base to Mars and beyond. Bush said he would seek $12 billion for the initial stages of the plan.

2004 – The US Army launched an inquiry into conditions at Abu Ghraib prison a day after photos of abused prisoners were passed up the chain of command.

2004 – A UN agency said Libya has ratified the nuclear test ban treaty. The treaty is 12 nations short of the 44 ratifications needed for it to enter into force. Once it comes into force, the treaty bans any nuclear weapon test explosion in any environment.

2004 – The crew of the CGC Thetis rescued three shrimp fishermen from the fishing vessel Dona Nelly after they were in the water for 45 minutes after their vessel sank 15 miles off the coast of Brownsville, Texas.

2005 – Army SPC Charles Graner Jr., the reputed ringleader of a band of rogue guards at the Abu Ghraib prison, was convicted at Fort Hood, Texas, of abusing Iraqi detainees. He was later sentenced to 10 years in prison.

2005 – The Huygens probe lands on Saturn’s moon Titan near the Xanadu region. This was the first landing ever accomplished in the outer solar system. It touched down on land, although the possibility that it would touch down in an ocean was also taken into account in its design. The probe was designed to gather data for a few hours in the atmosphere, and possibly a short time at the surface. It continued to send data for about 90 minutes after touchdown. It remains the most distant landing of any man-made craft.

2008 – MESSENGER, a NASA mission, flies by Mercury, the second spacecraft to do so and the first in thirty-three years. MESSENGER (an acronym of MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) is a robotic NASA spacecraft orbiting the planet Mercury, the first spacecraft ever to do so. The 485-kilogram (1,069 lb) spacecraft was launched aboard a Delta II rocket in August 2004 to study Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field. The instruments carried by MESSENGER were used on a complex series of flybys – the spacecraft flew by Earth once, Venus twice, and Mercury itself three times, allowing it to decelerate relative to Mercury using minimal fuel. When MESSENGER entered orbit around Mercury on March 18, 2011, it then reactivated its science instruments on March 24, returning the first photo from Mercury orbit on March 29.

2009 – U.S. Federal Judge Richard J. Leon orders the release of 21-year-old Guantánamo Bay detainee Muhammad Hamid Al Qarani, who was imprisoned in 2002. Release was ordered because the evidence that he was an enemy combatant was mostly limited to statements from two other detainees whose credibility had been called into question by US government staff.

2011 – The Obama administration in the United States eases travel and other restrictions on Cuba.

2011 – The United States Treasury Department says “no” to calls by enraged American politicians to have Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks website added to its economic blacklist or sanctions list like so-called “terrorist groups”. The Treasury Department cites a lack of “evidence at this time”.

2011 – A court in America sentences Abdel Nur of Guyana to 15 years imprisonment after charging him with participation in a plot to blow up fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City.

January 15th ~

1776 – The British Crown contracts with the German state of Hesse-Cassel for the services of 12,000 mercenaries to assist British forces in the rebellious colonies.

1777 – New Connecticut (present day Vermont) declares its independence. The term Vermont Republic has been used by later historians for the government of what became modern Vermont from 1777 to 1791. In July 1777, partly in response to the Westminster massacre, delegates from 28 towns met and declared independence from jurisdictions and land claims of both British colonies and American states in New Hampshire and New York. They also abolished slavery within their boundaries.

The people of Vermont took part in the American Revolution and considered themselves Americans, even if Congress did not recognize the jurisdiction. Because of vehement objections from New York, which had conflicting property claims, the Continental Congress declined to recognize Vermont, then called the New Hampshire Grants. Vermont’s overtures to join the British Province of Quebec failed. In 1791, Vermont was admitted to the United States as the 14th state.

1782 – Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris goes before the U.S. Congress to recommend establishment of a national mint and decimal coinage.

1811 – In a secret session, Congress planned to annex Spanish East Florida.

1815 – During the War of 1812, American frigate USS President, commanded by Commodore Stephen Decatur, is captured by a squadron of four British frigates. After running aground before the engagement, the frigate President, now severely damaged, tried to break out of New York Harbor, but was intercepted by a British squadron of four frigates and was forced to surrender after a battle with HMS Endymion.

1823 – Matthew Brady was born in Warren County, in about 1823 (the exact place and year is not known). As a young man Brady moved to New York City and became a jewel-case manufacturer. Soon afterwards Brady met the inventor Samuel Morse who taught him about the daguerreotype process. In 1843 Brady began making special cases for daguerreotypes and the following year opened the Daguerreotype Miniature Gallery in New York.

In 1844 Brady opened a gallery in Washington and began his Illustrious Americans project. This included taking the portraits of people such as Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Douglass, Thaddeus Stevens, John Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, Edwin Stanton, Charles Sumner and William Seward. Brady sent twenty of these daguerreotypes to the Great Exhibition in London, where he won a medal for his achievements. Brady toured Europe in 1851 but when he returned he found his failing eyesight made taking photographs very difficult. He began to rely heavily on his chief assistant, Alexander Gardner, who was a leading expert in the new collodion (wet-plate process) that was rapidly displacing the daguerreotype.

In the 1850s Brady’s eyesight began to deteriorate and began to rely heavily on Alexander Gardner to run the business. In February, 1858, Gardner was put in charge of Brady’s gallery in Washington. He quickly developed a reputation as an outstanding portrait photographer. A supporter of the Republican Party, Brady made 35 portraits of Abraham Lincoln during the 1860 presidential campaign. After his victory Lincoln told friends that “Brady and the Copper Union speech made me President.” On the outbreak of the American Civil War there was a dramatic increase in the demand for work at Brady’s studios as soldiers wanted to be photographed in uniform before going to the front-line. The following officers in the Union Army were all photographed at the Matthew Brady Studio: Nathaniel Banks, Don Carlos Buell, Ambrose Burnside, Benjamin Butler, George Custer, David Farragut, John Gibbon, Winfield Hancock, Samuel Heintzelman, Joseph Hooker, Oliver Howard, David Hunter, John Logan, Irvin McDowell, George McClellan, James McPherson, George Meade, David Porter, William Rosecrans, John Schofield, William Sherman, Daniel Sickles, George Stoneman, Edwin Sumner, George Thomas, Emory Upton, James Wadsworth and Lew Wallace.

In July, 1861 Brady and Alfred Waud, an artist working for Harper’s Weekly, travelled to the front-line and witnessed Bull Run, the first major battle of the war. The battle was a disaster for the Union Army and Brady came close to being captured by the enemy. Soon after arriving back from the front Brady decided to make a photographic record of the American Civil War. He sent Alexander Gardner, James Gardner, Timothy O’Sullivan, William Pywell, George Barnard, and eighteen other men to travel throughout the country taking photographs of the war. Each one had his own travelling darkroom so that that collodion plates could be processed on the spot. This included Gardner’s famous President Lincoln on the Battlefield of Antietam and Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter (1863). Brady spent most of the time organizing his cameramen from his office in Washington. However, Brady did take photographs at Bull Run. One observer claimed that Brady at Bull Run showed “more pluck than many of the officers and soldiers who were in the fight.” He photographed the retreat and another witness pointed out that Brady “has fixed the cowards beyond the possibility of a doubt.”

During the American Civil War Brady spent over $100,000 in obtaining 10,000 prints. He expected the government to buy the photographs when the war ended. When the government refused to do this he was forced to sell his New York City studio and go into bankruptcy. Congress granted Brady $25,000 in 1875 but he remained deeply in debt. Depressed by his financial situation, Matthew Brady became an alcoholic and died the charity ward of Presbyterian Hospital in New York on 15th January, 1896.

1865 – Fort Fisher in North Carolina falls to Union forces, and Wilmington, the Confederacy’s most important blockade-running port, is closed. When President Lincoln declared a blockade of southern ports in 1861, Rebel engineers began construction on a fortress at the mouth of New Inlet, which provided access to Wilmington. Fort Fisher was constructed of timber and sand, and it posed a formidable challenge for the Yankees. The walls were more than 20 feet high and they bristled with large cannon. Land mines and palisades made from sharpened logs created even more obstacles for potential attackers. Union leadership did not make Fort Fisher a high priority until the last year of the war. After the Federals closed Mobile Bay in August 1864, attention turned to shutting down Wilmington. Union ships moved into place in December and began a massive bombardment on Christmas Eve. The next day, a small force failed to capture the fort but the attempt was renewed in January.

On January 13, a massive three-day bombardment began. On the third day, 9,000 Yankee infantry commanded by General Alfred Terry hit the beach and attacked Fort Fisher. The Confederates could not repulse the attack. The damage was heavy on both sides: the Union suffered more than 900 Army casualties and 380 Navy casualties, and the Confederates suffered 500 killed or wounded and over 1,000 captured. After the loss of this last major Confederate port, it was only three months before the war concluded.

1865 – At the request of Major General William T. Sherman, Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, issued orders to prepare for a combined naval and military demonstration before Charleston in order to draw attention from General Sherman’s march to the north. Before making the demonstration, it was necessary to locate and mark the numerous obstructions in the channel of Charleston harbor. Accordingly, this date orders were issued charging the commanders of the monitors with this duty. That evening, while searching for the Confederate obstructions, U.S.S. Patapsco, Lieutenant Commander Stephen P. Quackenbush, struck a torpedo (mine) near the entrance of the lower harbor and sank instantly with the loss of 64 officers and men, more than half her crew. She was the fourth monitor lost in the war, the second due to enemy torpedoes. Thereafter, only small boats and tugs were used in the search for obstructions and the objective of the joint expedition was changed to Bull’s Bay, a few miles northeast of Charleston.

January 15th ~ {continued...}

1908 – Edward Teller was born on January 15, 1908 in Budapest, Hungary. He left his homeland in 1926 to study in Germany. In 1930 he got his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Leipzig. With Hilter’s rise to power in Germany, Teller emigrated to the United States to take a teaching position at George Washington University in 1935. Teller, along with Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner, persuaded Albert Einstein to warn President Roosevelt of a potential Nazi atomic bomb. Teller was among the first scientists recruited to work on the Manhattan Project. During the Manhattan Project, Teller first worked with Szilard at the University of Chicago.

In 1943, he headed a group at Los Alamos in the Theoretical Physics division, however his obsession with the H-bomb caused tensions with other scientists, particularly Hans Bethe, the division leader. Teller left Los Alamos at the end of the war, returning to the University of Chicago. But when the Soviet Union conducted its first test of an atomic device in August 1949, he did his best to drum up support for a crash program to build a hydrogen bomb. When he and mathematician Stanislaw Ulam finally came up with an H-bomb design that would work, Teller was not chosen to head the project. He left Los Alamos and soon joined the newly established Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a rival nuclear weapons lab in California.

It was Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearings in 1954 that was the occasion for the final rift between Teller and many of his scientific colleagues. At Oppenheimer’s hearings, Teller testified that “I feel I would prefer to see the vital interests of this country in hands that I understand better and therefore trust more.” Teller has continued to be a tireless advocate of a strong defense policy, calling for the development of advanced thermonuclear weapons and continued nuclear testing. He is a vigorous proponent of an anti-ballistic missile shield. Teller is Director Emeritus at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

1916 – Details of the activities of Germany’s military attaché in Washington, Franz von Papen, go public generating widespread outrage. Sent to New York City in 1915, von Papen worked at the German Consulate. He was assigned to act as a spymaster, overseeing agents assigned to disrupt the conveyance of military supplies from American manufacturers to Britain (the United States was a neutral party at the time while Britain was at war with Germany). Under his direction, agents set up phony American armaments firms and contracted with Allied countries to provide them with arms. With the Allies hopelessly waiting, the agents would make excuses for continuous delays, with the arms never being delivered. Other schemes he set into place had firms buying up gunpowder in huge quantities which preventing it from becoming available for the Allies.

After being saddled with a number of incompetent and reckless agents, Papen was directed to oversee numerous sabotage efforts against U.S. interests. He set up a scheme to blow up part of the Canadian Pacific Railway in order to thwart the efforts of Canadian troops to reach England to fight on behalf of the British. The scheme failed and the saboteurs were captured. Papen also attempted to recruit German nationals living in the United States and persuading them to return to Germany to fight on behalf of their mother country. When this came to the attention of U.S. authorities, Papen was ordered to leave the United States.

1920 – The United States approved a $150 million loan to Poland, Austria and Armenia to aid in their war with the Russian communists.

1929 – The U.S. Senate ratifies the Kellogg-Briand anti-war pact. It was signed Aug. 27, 1928, condemning “recourse to war for the solution of international controversies.” It is more properly known as the Pact of Paris. In June, 1927, Aristide Briand, foreign minister of France, proposed to the U.S. government a treaty outlawing war between the two countries. Frank B. Kellogg, the U.S. Secretary of State, returned a proposal for a general pact against war, and after prolonged negotiations the Pact of Paris was signed by 15 nations—Australia, Belgium, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, the Irish Free State, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, and the United States. The contracting parties agreed that settlement of all conflicts, no matter of what origin or nature, that might arise among them should be sought only by pacific means and that war was to be renounced as an instrument of national policy. Although 62 nations ultimately ratified the pact, its effectiveness was vitiated by its failure to provide measures of enforcement. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was given an unenthusiastic reception by many countries.

The U.S. Senate, ratifying the treaty with only one dissenting vote, still insisted that there must be no curtailment of America’s right of self-defense and that the United States was not compelled to take action against countries that broke the treaty. The pact never made a meaningful contribution to international order, although it was invoked in 1929 with some success, when China and the USSR reached a tense moment over possession of the Chinese Eastern RR in Manchuria. Ultimately, however, the pact proved to be meaningless, especially with the practice of waging undeclared wars in the 1930s (e.g., the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and the German occupation of Austria in 1938).

1936 – In London, Japan quits all naval disarmament talks after being denied equality. The London Naval Conference. (1908–9), composed of delegates of 10 powers, resulted in the influential Declaration of London (see London, Declaration of). After World War I, U.S. President Harding called the Washington Conference. (1921–22). Several treaties resulted. The Five-Power Treaty limited tonnage of aircraft carriers and capital ships and arranged for the United States, Great Britain, and France to scrap a number of ships. Agreement was reached on a ratio of capital ships for Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy; the ratio was set at 5:5:3:1.67:1.67. Another five-power treaty made the rules of warfare applying to surface ships applicable also to submarines and outlawed the use of poison gas.

In the Four-Power Treaty, France, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States agreed to respect each other’s possessions in the Pacific. The status quo of naval fortifications in the W Pacific was to be maintained. Japan was to return Shandong to China, which was guaranteed territorial integrity and greater control over its tariff by two Nine-Power Treaties. The Washington Conference treaties were to remain in force until Dec. 31, 1936. The Geneva Conference. (1927) failed to reach agreement on more comprehensive limits for warships. At the London Conference. (1930), Japan won a 7:10:10 ratio with the United States and Great Britain in small cruisers and destroyers, remained at a 3:5:5 ratio with them in large cruisers, and won parity in submarines. France and Italy refused to take part in the new ratios, but, with the other three powers, agreed to defer further construction of capital ships. An escalator clause provided for naval expansion in case of any threat to national security by the naval building of a non-signatory nation.

The announcement in 1934 of Japan’s intention to withdraw from the Washington Conference treaties resulted in another London Conference. (1935). Japan withdrew from the conference when refused naval parity with the United States and Great Britain. These two powers and France signed (Mar. 25, 1936) an agreement to limit cruisers and destroyers to 8,000 tons and capital ships to 35,000 tons. Reports of Japanese building in excess of 35,000 tons led to a revision (1938) of the treaty limits on the size of capital ships, and with the outbreak of World War II in 1939 the treaties were completely abandoned.

January 15th ~ {continued...}

1942 – Marine Brigadier General H. R. Larsen is named first Military Governor of American Samoa.

1942 – The first “blackout” Cadillacs were completed. Due to restrictions on materials necessary to the war effort, these cars had painted trim rather than chrome. They also lacked spare tires and other luxuries.

1943 – The Pentagon, headquarters of the U.S. Department of Defense, was dedicated. Before the Pentagon was built, the United States Department of War was headquartered in the Greggory Building, a temporary structure erected during World War I along Constitution Avenue on the National Mall. The War Department, which was a civilian agency created to administer the U.S. Army, was spread out in additional temporary buildings on the National Mall, as well as dozens of other buildings in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia. In the late 1930s a new War Department Building was constructed at 21st and C Streets in Foggy Bottom but, upon completion, the new building did not solve the department’s space problem and ended up being used by the Department of State.

When World War II broke out in Europe, the War Department rapidly expanded in anticipation that the United States would be drawn into the conflict. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson found the situation unacceptable, with the Munitions Building overcrowded and the department spread out. Stimson told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May 1941 that the War Department needed additional space. On July 17, 1941, a congressional hearing took place, organized by Virginia congressman Clifton Woodrum, regarding proposals for new War Department buildings. Woodrum pressed Brigadier General Eugene Reybold, who was representing the War Department at the hearing, for an “overall solution” to the department’s “space problem” rather than building yet more temporary buildings. Reybold agreed to report back to the congressman within five days.

The War Department called upon its construction chief, General Brehon Somervell, to come up with a plan. Government officials agreed that the War Department building should be constructed across the Potomac River, in Arlington, Virginia. Requirements for the new building were that it be no more than four stories tall, and that it use a minimal amount of steel. The requirements meant that, instead of rising vertically, the building would be sprawling over a large area. Possible sites for the building included the Department of Agriculture’s Arlington Experimental Farm, adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, and the obsolete Washington Hoover Airport site.

The site originally chosen was Arlington Farms which had a roughly pentagonal shape, so the building was planned accordingly as an irregular pentagon. Concerned that the new building could obstruct the view of Washington, D.C. from Arlington Cemetery, President Roosevelt ended up selecting the Hoover Airport site instead. The building retained its pentagonal layout because a major redesign at that stage would have been costly, and Roosevelt liked the design. Freed of the constraints of the asymmetric Arlington Farms site, it was modified into a regular pentagon.

1943 – Captain Joe Foss bagged three Japanese planes for a record total of 26 kills.

1944 – The forces of US 2nd Corps (Keyes) capture Monte Trocchio. This completes the US 5th Army advance to the German defenses of the Gustav Line. In part, the operations serve to keep engaged German forces that might otherwise be available to respond to the planned landing at Anzio (January 22).

1945 – On Luzon, the US 14th Corps continues to advance south from the beachhead and has now crossed the Agno River. The US 1st Corps is attacking north and east but fails to reach its objective of Rosario.

1945 – American forces encounter heavy resistance in attacks toward St. Vith. US 1st Army troops have reached Houffalize, cutting off remaining German forces to the west in the Ardennes salient.

1949 – Chinese Communists occupy Tientsin after a 27-hour battle with Nationalist forces.

1951 – Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp, is sentenced to life imprisonment in a court in West Germany. Ilse Koch was nicknamed the “Witch of Buchenwald” for her extraordinary sadism. Born in Dresden, Germany, Ilse, a librarian, married SS. Col. Karl Koch in 1936. Colonel Koch, a man with his own reputation for sadism, was the commandant of the Sashsenhausen concentration camp, two miles north of Berlin. He was transferred after three years to Buchenwald concentration camp, 4.5 miles northwest of Weimar; the Buchenwald concentration camp held a total of 20,000 slave laborers during the war. Ilse, a large woman with red hair, was given free reign in the camp, whipping prisoners with her riding crop as she rode by on her horse, forcing prisoners to have sex with her, and, most horrifying, collecting lampshades, book covers, and gloves made from the skin of tattooed camp prisoners.

A German inmate gave the following testimony during the Nuremberg war trials: “All prisoners with tattooing on them were to report to the dispensary…. After the prisoners had been examined, the ones with the best and most artistic specimens were killed by injections. The corpses were then turned over to the pathological department, where the desired pieces of tattooed skin were detached from the bodies and treated further.” Karl Koch was arrested, ironically enough, by his SS superiors for “having gone too far.” It seems he had a penchant for stealing even the belongings of wealthy, well-placed Germans. He was tried and hanged in 1944.

Ilse Koch was tried for crimes against humanity at Nuremberg and sentenced to life in prison, but the American military governor of the occupied zone subsequently reduced her sentence to four years. His reason, “lack of evidence,” caused a Senate investigation back home. She was released but arrested again, tried by a West German court, and sentenced to life. She committed suicide in 1967 by hanging herself with a bedsheet.

January 15th ~ {continued...}

1951 – Operation WOLFHOUND commenced as a combined task force of infantry, armor, artillery and engineers mounted an attack towards the Suwon-Osan area. The principal component of this task force was the 25th Infantry Division’s 27th Infantry Regiment.

1953 –Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prior to taking office as the new secretary of state, John Foster Dulles argues that U.S. foreign policy must strive for the “liberation of captive peoples” living under communist rule. Though Dulles called for a more vigorous anticommunist policy, he remained vague about exactly how the “liberation” would take place. When asked during the hearing whether he supported the policy of containment, which sought to restrain the further expansion of communist power, Dulles responded by declaring, “We shall never have a secure peace or a happy world so long as Soviet communism dominates one-third of all of the peoples.”

Despite the vague specifics of the original declaration, Dulles’s call for action was soon put into practice. The Eisenhower administration conceived a wide-ranging program of political and psychological warfare, and overseas propaganda-produced and disseminated by the new United States Information Agency-became an important Cold War weapon. In Iran, Guatemala, and later, Cuba, the United States resorted to covert operations directed by the Central Intelligence Agency to destabilize foreign governments perceived to be a communist threat. In 1956, however, Dulles’s oft-repeated calls for the liberation of captive peoples backfired badly when Hungarian citizens rose up in revolt against the Soviet presence in their country. As the Russians crushed the uprising, the United States did nothing while Hungarian rebels pleaded helplessly for assistance.

1962 – Asked at a news conference if U.S. troops are fighting in Vietnam, President Kennedy answers “No.” He was technically correct, but U.S. soldiers were serving as combat advisers with the South Vietnamese army, and U.S. pilots were flying missions with the South Vietnamese Air Force. While acting in this advisory capacity, some soldiers invariably got wounded, and press correspondents based in Saigon were beginning to see casualties from the “support” missions and ask questions.

1967 – Some 462 Yale faculty members called for an end to the bombing in North Vietnam.

1970 – Muammar al-Qaddafi, the young Libyan army captain who deposed King Idris in September 1969, is proclaimed premier of Libya by the so-called General People’s Congress. Born in a tent in the Libyan desert, Qaddafi was the son of a Bedouin farmer. He attended university and the Libyan military academy and steadily rose in the ranks of the Libyan army. An ardent Arab nationalist, he plotted with a group of fellow officers to overthrow the Libyan monarchy, which they accomplished on September 1, 1969. Blending Islamic orthodoxy, revolutionary socialism, and Arab nationalism, Qaddafi established a fervently anti-Western dictatorship.

In 1970, he removed U.S. and British military bases and expelled Italian and Jewish Libyans. In 1973, he nationalized foreign-owned oil fields. He reinstated traditional Islamic laws, such as prohibition of alcoholic beverages and gambling, but liberated women and launched social programs that improved the standard of living in Libya. As part of his stated ambition to unite the Arab world, he sought closer relations with his Arab neighbors, especially Egypt. However, when Egypt and then other Arab nations began a peace process with Israel, Libya was increasingly isolated. Qaddafi’s government financed a wide variety of terrorist groups worldwide, from Palestinian guerrillas and Philippine Muslim rebels to the Irish Republican Army. During the 1980s, the West blamed him for numerous terrorist attacks in Europe, and in April 1986 U.S. war planes bombed Tripoli in retaliation for a bombing of a West German dance hall. Qaddafi was reportedly injured and his infant daughter killed in the U.S. attack.

In the late 1990s, Qaddafi sought to lead Libya out of its long international isolation by turning over to the West two suspects wanted for the 1988 explosion of an airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland. In response, Europe lifted sanctions against Libya. After years of rejection in the Arab world, Qaddafi also sought to forge stronger relations with non-Islamic African nations such as South Africa, remodeling himself as an elder African statesman.

1973 – Citing “progress” in the Paris peace negotiations between National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho of North Vietnam, President Richard Nixon halts the most concentrated bombing of the war, as well as mining, shelling, and all other offensive action against North Vietnam. The cessation of direct attacks against North Vietnam did not extend to South Vietnam, where the fighting continued as both sides jockeyed for control of territory before the anticipated cease-fire.

On December 13, North Vietnamese negotiators had walked out of secret talks with Kissinger. President Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives back to the conference table within 72 hours “or else.” The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon’s demand and the president ordered Operation Linebacker II, a full-scale air campaign against the Hanoi area. This operation was the most concentrated air offensive of the war. During the 11 days of the attack, 700 B-52 sorties and more than 1,000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped roughly 20,000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between Hanoi and Haiphong. On December 28, after 11 days of intensive bombing, the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the talks. When the negotiators met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 23 and a cease-fire went into effect five days later.

1974 – The first group of women ever enlisted as “regulars” in the U.S. Coast Guard began their 10-weeks of basic training at the Coast Guard Training Center in Cape May. Thirty-two women were in the initial group and formed Recruit Company Sierra-89.

1976 – Gerald Ford’s would-be assassin, Sara Jane Moore, is sentenced to life in prison.

January 15th ~ {continued...}

1991 – With hours remaining before a United Nations deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar made a final appeal to Saddam Hussein to remove his troops.

1993 – 20 men from 10th Mountain Divisions Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry kill 6 Somalis in Bale Dogle. No US casualties.

1998 – President Clinton presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 15 honorees.

1998 – The US and Singapore announced an agreement for US ships to use a planned $35 million naval base beginning in 2000.

1999 – In Iraq the US again fired at an air-defense site.

1999 – The United States proposes allowing Iraq to sell unlimited amounts of oil – but only if the proceeds go to buy food and other humanitarian supplies for the Iraqi people. The United Nations Security Council barred Iraq from freely exporting oil, its most valuable commodity, after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Concerned that sanctions were creating devastating hardships for Iraq’s 22 million people, the Council agreed in 1995 to let Iraq sell limited amounts of oil to pay for humanitarian supplies.

2000 – Madeleine Albright stopped in Colombia to discuss a $1.2 billion emergency aid package that included $400 million for 30 US Blackhawk helicopters to help in the drug war.

2002 – John Walker Lindh of Marin, Ca., was charged with conspiring to kill Americans as a Taliban member in Afghanistan.

2002 – Operation Enduring Freedom – Philippines (OEF-P) begins. Special Operations Command-Pacific (SOCPAC) troops are the core of OEF-P, an operation which supports the Government of the Republic of the Philippines counterterrorism efforts. Deployment involved more than 1,200 members of SOCPAC, headed by Brig. Gen. Donald C. Wurster. SOCPAC’s deployable joint task force HQ, Joint Task Force 510 (JTF 510), directed and carried out the operations. The mission was to advise the Armed Forces of the Philippines in combating terrorism in the Philippines.

Much of the mission (Exercise Balikatan 02-1) took place on the island of Basilan, a stronghold of al-Qaeda afilliate, Abu Sayyaf. Within OEF-Philippines was another project called Operation Smiles, an extensive program to provide medical care for local civilians of Basilan where the fighting had occurred. Operation Smiles included personnel from the Philippine Government as well as the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), JTF 510 and non governmental organizations. Among the results of this operation was the creation of 14 schools, seven clinics, three hospitals and over 20 fresh water wells. From the beginning of the project it had provided care and assistance to an estimated 18,000 Filipinos.

2004 – Iraqi bank notes bearing Saddam Hussein’s portrait became obsolete as a three-month period to exchange old bills for new ones came to an end. The new currency required 27 flights of 747 planes for delivery.

2005 – A military court at Fort Hood, Texas, sentenced Army SPC Charles Graner Jr. to 10 years behind bars for physically and sexually mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.

2005 – Sami Mohammed Ali Said al-Jaaf, also known as Abu Omar al-Kurdi, was arrested during a raid in Baghdad. On Jan 24 authorities announced the arrest of Al-Jaaf, an al-Qaida figure allegedly behind the vast majority of the car bombings in Baghdad.

2005 – Savo Todovic (52), a Bosnian Serb wanted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal for crimes he allegedly committed during the 1992-95 war, surrendered to Bosnian Serb police.

2006 – The Stardust spacecraft has successfully landed in the Dugway Proving Ground after collecting dust samples from the comet Wild 2. It is the first time extraterrestrial samples other than of the moon have been collected and the Stardust spacecraft is the fastest man-made object to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere.

2008 – The Pentagon announces plans to send 3,200 additional Marines to Afghanistan.

2012 – The Russian tanker Renda, accompanied by the US Coast Guard icebreaker USCGC Healy, prepares to deliver fuel to Nome, Alaska. A fall storm had blocked an earlier fuel delivery, leaving the city facing fuel shortages.

2015 – After contributing more than 650 search hours to the Indonesian-led search effort for AirAsia flight QZ8501, USS Sampson (DDG 102) and USS Fort Worth (LCS 3) concluded their assistance.

January 16th ~

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

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

1847 – A leader in the successful fight to wrest California away from Mexico, the explorer and mapmaker John C. Fremont briefly becomes governor of the newly won American territory. Still only in his early mid-30s at the time, Fremont had already won national acclaim for his leadership of two important explorations of the West with the military’s Corps of Topographical Engineers. Shortly after the government published Fremont’s meticulously accurate maps of the Far West, they became indispensable guides for the growing numbers of overland emigrants heading for California and Oregon.

In 1845, though, the lines between military exploration and military conquest began to blur when President James Polk sent Captain Fremont and his men on a third “scientific” mission to explore the Rockies and Sierra Nevada-with 60 armed men accompanying them. Polk’s ambition to take California from Mexico was no secret, and Fremont’s expedition was clearly designed to place a military force near the region in case of war. When Mexico and the U.S. declared war in May 1846, Fremont and his men were in Oregon. Upon hearing the news, Fremont immediately headed south, calling his return “the first step in the conquest of California.” When the Anglo-American population of California learned of Fremont’s arrival, many of them began to rebel against their Mexican leaders. In June, a small band of American settlers seized Sonoma and raised a flag with a bear facing a five-pointed star-with this act, the revolutionaries declared the independent Republic of California. The Bear Flag Republic was short-lived.

In August, Fremont and General Robert Stockton occupied Los Angeles. By January 1847, they had put down the small number of Californians determined to maintain a nation independent of the United States. With California now clearly in the U.S. hands, Stockton agreed to appoint Fremont as the territorial governor. However, a dispute broke out within the army over the legitimacy of Fremont’s appointment, and the young captain’s detractors accused him of mutiny, disobedience, and conduct prejudicial to military discipline.

Recalled to Washington for a court martial, Fremont was found guilty of all three charges, and his appointment to take the position of governor was revoked. Though President Polk pardoned him and ordered him back to active duty in the army, Fremont was deeply embittered, and he resigned from the military and returned to California a private citizen. Although he never regained the governorship of California, the turmoil of Fremont’s early political career did not harm his future prospects. In 1851, citizens of California elected him a senator, and became the territorial governor of Arizona in 1878. Today, however, Fremont’s youthful accomplishments as an explorer and mapmaker are more celebrated than his subsequent political career.

1861 – The Crittenden Compromise, the last chance to keep North and South together, dies in the U.S. Senate. Proposed by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky, the compromise was a series of constitutional amendments. The amendments would continue the old Missouri Compromise provisions of 1820, which divided the west along the latitude of 36ý 30″. North of this line, slavery was prohibited. The Missouri Compromise was negated by the Compromise of 1850, which allowed a vote by territorial residents (popular sovereignty) to decide the issue of slavery. Other amendments protected slavery in the District of Columbia, forbade federal interference with the interstate slave trade, and compensated owners whose slaves escaped to the free states.

Essentially, the Crittenden Compromise sought to alleviate all concerns of the southern states. Four states had already left the Union when it was proposed, but Crittenden hoped the compromise would lure them back. Crittenden thought he could muster support from both South and North and avert either a split of the nation or a civil war. The major problem with the plan was that it called for a complete compromise by the Republicans with virtually no concession on the part of the South.

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

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

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

1865 – With Fort Fisher lost and foreseeing that the Union fleet’s entrance into the Cape Fear River would cut the waterborne communications system, General Bragg ordered the evacuation of the remaining Confederate positions at the mouth of the river. At 7 a.m. Forts Caswell and Campbell were abandoned and destroyed. Fort Holmes on Smith’s Island and Fort Johnson at Smith-ville were likewise destroyed by the retreating garrisons, which fell back on Fort Anderson, on the west bank of the Cape Fear River between Fort Fisher and Wilmington. “The Yankees,” wrote one Confederate, not perceiving the full import of the fateful results, “have made a barren capture. . . .”

In fact, however, Wilmington, the last major port open to blockade runners, was now effectively sealed and General Lee was cut off from his only remaining supply line from Europe. Rear Admiral Porter recognized the implications of the Union victory more clearly. He wrote Captain Godon: . . . the death knell of another fort is booming in the distance. Fort Caswell with its powerful batteries is in flames and being blown up, and thus is sealed the door through which this rebellion is fed.”

January 16th ~ {continued}

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

1928 – Allies lifted the blockade on trade with Russia.

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

1942 – Japan’s advance into Burma begins.

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

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

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

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

1945 – Adolf Hitler takes to his underground bunker, where he remains for 105 days until he commits suicide. Hitler retired to his bunker after deciding to remain in Berlin for the last great siege of the war. Fifty-five feet under the chancellery (Hitler’s headquarters as chancellor), the shelter contained 18 small rooms and was fully self-sufficient, with its own water and electrical supply. He left only rarely (once to decorate a squadron of Hitler Youth) and spent most of his time micromanaging what was left of German defenses and entertaining Nazi colleagues like Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, and Joachim von Ribbentrop. Constantly at his side during this time were his companion, Eva Braun, and his Alsatian, Blondi.

On April 29, Hitler married Eva in their bunker hideaway. Eva Braun met Hitler while working as an assistant to Hitler’s official photographer. Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler’s political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator. Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the bunker even as the Russians closed in.

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

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

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

1955 – A six month period of martial law ends in Russell County, Ala., and the last of about 300 Guardsmen leave for home. Phenix City had a national reputation for gambling, bootleg liquor, prostitution and other vices. The Guard became involved when Gov. Gordon Persons determined that the county and city were out of control.

In July 1954, a key witness due to testify for a grand jury about local corruption was murdered. The governor appointed Maj. Gen. Walter Hanna, commander of the 31st Infantry Division, to take charge of the situation and “clean up” the county. Over the next few months, Hanna’s men (rotating to a total of 300) destroyed slot machines, roulette tables and other gambling equipment. The illegal bars were shut and the brothels closed down. By early 1955, the clean up program was about complete, all with no loss of life.

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

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

January 16th ~ {continued...}

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

1969 – An agreement is reached in Paris for the opening of expanded peace talks. It was agreed that representatives of the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, and the National Liberation Front would sit at a circular table without nameplates, flags or markings. The talks had been plagued from the beginning by procedural questions, and the participants literally jockeyed for desirable positions at the negotiating table.

Prolonged discussions over the shape of the negotiating table were finally resolved by the placement of two square tables separated by a round table. Seemingly insignificant matters as the table placement and seating arrangement became fodder for many arguments between the delegations at the negotiations.

1979 – Faced with an army mutiny and violent demonstrations against his rule, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the leader of Iran since 1941, is forced to flee the country. Fourteen days later, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the Islamic revolution, returned after 15 years of exile and took control of Iran.

In 1941, British and Soviet troops occupied Iran, and the first Pahlavi shah, who they regarded with suspicion, was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Mohammad Reza. The new shah promised to act as a constitutional monarch but often meddled in the elected government’s affairs. After a Communist plot against him was thwarted in 1949, he took on even more powers. However, in the early 1950s, the shah was eclipsed by Mohammad Mosaddeq, a zealous Iranian nationalist who convinced the Parliament to nationalize Britain’s extensive oil interests in Iran. Mohammad Reza, who maintained close relations with Britain and the United States, opposed the decision.

Nevertheless, he was forced in 1951 to appoint Mosaddeq premier, and two years of tension followed. In August 1953, Mohammad Reza attempted to dismiss Mosaddeq, but the premier’s popular support was so great that the shah himself was forced out of Iran. A few days later, British and U.S. intelligence agents orchestrated a stunning coup d’etat against Mosaddeq, and the shah returned to take power as the sole leader of Iran. He repealed Mosaddeq’s legislation and became a close Cold War ally of the United States in the Middle East.

In 1963, the shah launched his “White Revolution,” a broad government program that included land reform, infrastructure development, voting rights for women, and the reduction of illiteracy. Although these programs were applauded by many in Iran, Islamic leaders were critical of what they saw as the westernization of Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shiite cleric, was particularly vocal in his criticism and called for the overthrow of the shah and the establishment of an Islamic state. In 1964, Khomeini was exiled and settled across the border in Iraq, where he sent radio messages to incite his supporters. The shah saw himself foremost as a Persian king and in 1971 held an extravagant celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the pre-Islamic Persian monarchy.

In 1976, he formally replaced the Islamic calendar with a Persian calendar. Religious discontent grew, and the shah became more repressive, using his brutal secret police force to suppress opposition. This alienated students and intellectuals in Iran, and support for Khomeini grew. Discontent was also rampant in the poor and middle classes, who felt that the economic developments of the White Revolution had only benefited the ruling elite. In 1978, anti-shah demonstrations broke out in Iran’s major cities.

On September 8, 1978, the shah’s security force fired on a large group of demonstrators, killing hundreds and wounding thousands. Two months later, thousands took to the streets of Tehran, rioting and destroying symbols of westernization, such as banks and liquor stores. Khomeini called for the shah’s immediate overthrow, and on December 11 a group of soldiers mutinied and attacked the shah’s security officers. With that, his regime collapsed and the shah fled. The shah traveled to several countries before entering the United States in October 1979 for medical treatment of his cancer.

In Tehran, Islamic militants responded on November 4 by storming the U.S. embassy and taking the staff hostage. With the approval of Khomeini, the militants demanded the return of the shah to Iran to stand trial for his crimes. The United States refused to negotiate, and 52 American hostages were held for 444 days. Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi died in Egypt in July 1980.

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

1990 – In the wake of vicious fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in Azerbaijan, the Soviet government sends in 11,000 troops to quell the conflict. The fighting–and the official Soviet reaction to it–was an indication of the increasing ineffectiveness of the central Soviet government in maintaining control in the Soviet republics, and of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s weakening political power. Strife in Azerbaijan was the result of centuries of tensions between the Islamic Azerbaijanis and the Christian Armenians. Since the Russian Revolution in 1917, the communist regime managed to maintain relative peace between the two groups, but with the gradual weakening of the Soviet Union during the late-1980s, ethnic rivalries began to re-emerge.

In its weakened state, the Soviet Union chose to only partially involve itself in the conflict. The approach was unusual–had it occurred under the strict communist regime of the Cold War’s peak, such a tense internal conflict would likely have been immediately and forcefully quelled. In the latest outbreak of violence, Armenians took the brunt of the attacks and nearly 60 people were killed. Armenian spokesmen condemned the lack of action on the part of the Gorbachev regime and pleaded for military intervention. Soviet officials, however, were not eager to leap into the ethnic fray and attempted to downplay the seriousness of the situation in the press. One Soviet official declared that the fighting in Azerbaijan was not a “civil war,” but merely “national strife.”

January 16th ~ {continued...}

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

1991 –At midnight in Iraq, the United Nations deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait expires, and the Pentagon prepares to commence offensive operations to forcibly eject Iraq from its five-month occupation of its oil-rich neighbor. At 4:30 p.m. EST, the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf on bombing missions over Iraq. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire in television footage transmitted live via satellite from Baghdad and elsewhere.

At 7:00 p.m., Operation Desert Storm, the code-name for the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, was formally announced at the White House. The operation was conducted by an international coalition under the command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in a massive air war against Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure, and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war.

On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. Kuwait was liberated in less than four days, and a majority of Iraq’s armed forces surrendered, retreated into Iraq, or were destroyed. On February 28, President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and Iraq pledged to honor future coalition and U.N. peace terms. One hundred and twenty-five American soldiers were killed in the Persian Gulf War, with another 21 regarded as missing in action.

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

1997 – At the outset of his first term as president, Bill Clinton moved to deregulate the weapons industry. While the move hardly pleased anti-monopolists and latter-day trustbusters, it was a boon to an industry that, with the close of the Cold War, was seemingly staring at a bleak future. Indeed, deregulation opened the flood gates to a series of large-scale mergers, as the some of the nation’s main weapons manufacturers hopped into bed with each other in order to protect their bottom lines. And, this day in 1997 brought another super-sized deal, as the Massachusetts-based Raytheon Corp., then the nation’s sixth-largest weapons contractor, inked a deal to acquire Hughes Electronics, which had previously been General Motors’ weapons unit and then the country’s fourth-largest military manufacturer. All told, the acquisition cost Raytheon $9.5 billion: the company agreed to pay $5.1 billion in freshly issued stock, and also pledged to pick up $4.4 billion of Hughes’ hefty debts.

Though the deal pleased Wall Street both Raytheon and G.M.ýs respective stocks posted decent gains on the day it raised the ire of anti-trust officials. However, in fall of 1997, the U.S. Defense and Justice departments gave the green light to the pick-up, provided Hughes divest itself of some of its previously held businesses. Though the deal left Raytheon in a seemingly potent position in the defense electronics field, the company still engaged in two sizeable rounds of layoffs in 1998.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 17th ~

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

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

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

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

On January 12, 1781, Tarleton’s scouts located Morgan’s army at Grindal’s Shoals on the Pacolet River in South Carolina’s backcountry and thus began an aggressive pursuit. Tarleton, fretting about heavy rains and flooded rivers, gained ground as his army proceeded toward the flood-swollen Pacolet. As Tarleton grew closer, Morgan retreated north to Burr’s Mill on Thicketty Creek. On January 16, with Tarleton reported to have crossed the Pacolet and much closer than expected, Morgan and his army made a hasty retreat, so quickly as to leave their breakfast behind. Soon, he intersected with and traveled west on the Green River Road. Here, with the flood-swollen Broad River six miles to his back, Morgan decided to make a stand at the Cowpens, a well-known crossroads and frontier pasturing ground. The term “cowpens”, endemic to such South Carolina pastureland and associated early cattle industry, would be etched in history. The field itself was some 500 yards long and just as wide, a park-like setting dotted with trees, but devoid of undergrowth, having been kept clear by cattle grazing in the spring on native grasses and peavine. There was forage at the Cowpens for horses, and evidence of free-ranging cattle for food.

Morgan, too, since he had learned of Tarleton’s pursuit, had spread the word for militia units to rendezvous at the Cowpens. Many knew the geography some were Overmountain men who had camped at the Cowpens on their journey to the Battle of Kings Mountain. Camp was made in a swale between two small hills, and through the night Andrew Pickens’ militia drifted into camp. Morgan moved among the campfires and offered encouragement; his speeches to militia and Continentals alike were command performances. He spoke emotionally of past battles, talked of the battle plan, and lashed out against the British. His words were especially effective with the militia the “Old Waggoner” of French and Indian War days and the hero of Saratoga, spoke their language. He knew how to motivate them even proposing a competition of bravery between Georgia and Carolina units. By the time he was through, one soldier observed that the army was “in good spirits and very willing to fight”. But, as one observed, Morgan hardly slept a wink that night.

Dawn at the Cowpens on January 17, 1781, was clear and bitterly cold. Morgan, his scouts bearing news of Tarleton’s approach, moved among his men, shouting, “Boys, get up! Benny’s coming! Tarleton, playing catch up, and having marched his army since two in the morning, ordered formation on the Green River Road for the attack. His aggressive style was made even now more urgent, since there were rumors of Overmountain men on the way, reminiscent of events at Kings Mountain. Yet he was confident of victory: he reasoned he had Morgan hemmed in by the Broad, and the undulating park-like terrain was ideal for his dragoons. He thought Morgan must be desperate, indeed, to have stopped at such a place. Perhaps Morgan saw it differently: in some past battles, Patriot militia had fled in face of fearsome bayonet charges – but now the Broad at Morgan’s back could prevent such a retreat.

In reality, though, Morgan had no choice – to cross the flood-swollen Broad risked having his army cut down by the feared and fast-traveling Tarleton. Tarleton pressed the attack head on, his line extending across the meadow, his artillery in the middle, and fifty Dragoons on each side. It was as if Morgan knew he would make a frontal assault – it was his style of fighting. To face Tarleton, he organized his troops into three lines. First, out front and hiding behind trees were selected sharpshooters. At the onset of battle they picked off numbers of Tarleton’s Dragoons, traditionally listed as fifteen, shooting especially at officers, and warding off an attempt to gain initial supremacy. With the Dragoons in retreat, and their initial part completed, the sharpshooters retreated 150 yards or more back to join the second line, the militia commanded by Andrew Pickens. Morgan used the militia well, asking them to get off two volleys and promised their retreat to the third line made up of John Eager Howard’s Continentals, again close to 150 yards back. Some of the militia indeed got off two volleys as the British neared, but, as they retreated and reached supposed safety behind the Continental line, Tarleton sent his feared Dragoons after them.

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

As other companies along the line followed suite, Morgan rode up to ask Howard if he were beaten. As Howard pointed to the unbroken ranks and the orderly retreat and assured him they were not, Morgan spurred his horse on and ordered the retreating units to face about, and then, on order, fire in unison. The firing took a heavy toll on the British, who, by that time had sensed victory and had broken ranks in a wild charge. This event and a fierce Patriot bayonet charge in return broke the British charge and turned the tide of battle. The re-formed militia and cavalry re-entered the battle, leading to double envelopment of the British, perfectly timed. British infantry began surrendering en masse. Tarleton and some of his army fought valiantly on; others refused his orders and fled the field.

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

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

Now it was Greene and his army on the move north. Cornwallis, distressed by the news from Cowpens, and wondering aloud how such an interior force could defeat Tarleton’s crack troops, indeed came after him. Now it was a race for the Dan River on the Virginia line, Cornwallis having burned his baggage and swiftly pursuing Greene. Cornwallis was subsequently delayed by Patriot units stationed at Catawba River crossings. Greene won the race, and, in doing so, believed he had Cornwallis where he wanted — far from urban supply centers and short of food. Returning to Guilford Courthouse, he fought Cornwallis’ army employing with some success, Morgan’s tactics at Cowpens. At battle’s end, the British were technically the winners as Greene’s forces retreated. If it could be called a victory, it was a costly one: Five hundred British lay dead or wounded. When the news of the battle reached London, a member of the House of Commons said, “Another such victory would ruin the British army”. Perhaps the army was already ruined, and Greene’s strategy of attrition was working. Soon, Greene’s strategy was evident: Cornwallis and his weary army gave up on the Carolinas and moved on to Virginia.

On October 18, 1781, the British army surrendered at Yorktown. Cowpens, in its part in the Revolution, was a surprising victory and a turning point that changed the psychology of the entire war. Now, there was revenge – the Patriot rallying cry Tarleton’s Quarter. Morgan’s unorthodox but tactical masterpiece had indeed “spirited up the people”, not just those of the backcountry Carolinas, but those in all the colonies. In the process, he gave Tarleton and the British a “devil of a whipping”.

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

January 17th ~ {continued...}

1832 – USS Peacock makes contact with Vietnamese court officials

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

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

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

1873 – In November 1872, soldiers and settlers attacked Modoc Indian leader Captain Jack’s camp on Lost River. After the battle, about 50 Modocs fled to the strategic position of the lava beds between Tule Lake and present-day Canby, California. Jack lived in the stronghold and successfully defended it for about one year. The first battle for the stronghold took place in January 1873, and the second in April 1873. During the repeated attacks by soldiers and settlers, Captain Jack was able to use the lava beds to his advantage, and only a few people were ever allowed to enter the stronghold to negotiate with him.

After several unsuccessful attempts at resolving the whole problem, negotiators sent word back to Washington that the Modocs must be defeated militarily. Captain Jack surrendered on June 1, 1873, and was executed along with five other Modoc men on October 3, 1873. Those remaining in Jack’s band were removed to Indian territory in Oklahoma. In 1909, most surviving Modocs returned to the Klamath Reservation. It is important to note that Jack never signed a treaty, and that he defended the stronghold with only a few Indians while the number of men fighting against him at times exceeded 300.

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

1893 – On the Hawaiian Islands, a group of American sugar planters under Sanford Ballard Dole overthrow Queen Liliuokalani, the Hawaiian monarch, and establish a new provincial government with Dole as president. The coup occurred with the foreknowledge of John L. Stevens, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, and 300 U.S. Marines from the U.S. cruiser Boston were called to Hawaii, allegedly to protect American lives.

The first known settlers of the Hawaiian Islands were Polynesian voyagers who arrived sometime in the eighth century, and in the early 18th century the first American traders came to Hawaii to exploit the islands’ sandalwood, which was much valued in China at the time. In the 1830s, the sugar industry was introduced to Hawaii and by the mid-19th century had become well established. American missionaries and planters brought about great changes in Hawaiian political, cultural, economic, and religious life, and in 1840 a constitutional monarchy was established, stripping the Hawaiian monarch of much of his authority. Four years later, Sanford B. Dole was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to American parents.

During the next four decades, Hawaii entered into a number of political and economic treaties with the United States, and in 1887 a U.S. naval base was established at Pearl Harbor as part of a new Hawaiian constitution. Sugar exports to the United States expanded greatly during the next four years, and U.S. investors and American sugar planters on the islands broadened their domination over Hawaiian affairs. However, in 1891 Liliuokalani, the sister of the late King Kalakaua, ascended to the throne, refusing to recognize the constitution of 1887 and replacing it with a constitution increasing her personal authority.

In January 1893, a revolutionary “Committee of Safety,” organized by Sanford B. Dole, staged a coup against Queen Liliuokalani with the tacit support of the United States. On February 1, Minister John Stevens recognized Dole’s new government on his own authority and proclaimed Hawaii a U.S. protectorate. Dole submitted a treaty of annexation to the U.S. Senate, but most Democrats opposed it, especially after it was revealed that most Hawaiians did want annexation.

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

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

January 17th ~ {continued...}

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

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

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

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

1944 – Operation Panther, the Allied invasion of Cassino, in central Italy, is launched. The Italian Campaign had been underway for more than six months. Beginning with the invasion of Sicily, the Allies had been fighting their way up the Italian peninsula against German resistance–the Italians had already surrendered and signed an armistice with the Allies in September 1943.

The ancient town of Cassino, near the Rapido River, was a strategic point in the German Gustav Line, a defensive front across central Italy and based at the Rapido, Garigliano, and Sangro rivers. Taking Cassino would mean a breach in the German line and their inevitable retreat farther north. Although the campaign to take Cassino commenced in January, the town was not safely in Allied hands until May. The campaign caused considerable destruction, including the bombing of the ancient Benedictine abbey Monte Cassino, which took the lives of a bishop and several monks

1945 – Soviet troops liberate the Polish capital from German occupation. Warsaw was a battleground since the opening day of fighting in the European theater. Germany declared war by launching an air raid on September 1, 1939, and followed up with a siege that killed tens of thousands of Polish civilians and wreaked havoc on historic monuments. Deprived of electricity, water, and food, and with 25 percent of the city’s homes destroyed, Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 27. The USSR had snatched a part of eastern Poland as part of the “fine print” of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (also known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact) signed in August 1939, but soon after found itself at war with its “ally.” In August 1944, the Soviets began pushing the Germans west, advancing on Warsaw.

The Polish Home Army, fearful that the Soviets would march on Warsaw to battle the Germans and never leave the capital, led an uprising against the German occupiers. The Polish residents hoped that if they could defeat the Germans themselves, the Allies would help install the Polish anticommunist government-in-exile after the war. Unfortunately, the Soviets, rather than aiding the Polish uprising, which they encouraged in the name of beating back their common enemy, stood idly by and watched as the Germans slaughtered the Poles and sent survivors to concentration camps. This destroyed any native Polish resistance to a pro-Soviet communist government, an essential part of Stalin’s postwar territorial designs. After Stalin mobilized 180 divisions against the Germans in Poland and East Prussia, Gen. Georgi Zhukov’s troops crossed the Vistula north and south of the Polish capital, liberating the city from Germans-and grabbing it for the USSR. By that time, Warsaw’s prewar population of approximately 1.3 million had been reduced to a mere 153,000.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1961 – In his farewell address to the nation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns the American people to keep a careful eye on what he calls the “military-industrial complex” that has developed in the post-World War II years. A fiscal conservative, Eisenhower had been concerned about the growing size and cost of the American defense establishment since he became president in 1953. In his last presidential address to the American people, he expressed those concerns in terms that frankly shocked some of his listeners.

Eisenhower began by describing the changing nature of the American defense establishment since World War II. No longer could the U.S. afford the “emergency improvisation” that characterized its preparations for war against Germany and Japan. Instead, the United States was “compelled to create a permanent armaments industry” and a huge military force. He admitted that the Cold War made clear the “imperative need for this development,” but he was gravely concerned about “the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex.” In particular, he asked the American people to guard against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Eisenhower’s blunt language stunned some of his supporters. They believed that the man who led the country to victory in Europe in World War II and guided the nation through some of the darkest moments of the Cold War was too negative toward the military-industrial complex that was the backbone of America’s defense.

For most listeners, however, it seemed clear that Eisenhower was merely stating the obvious. World War II and the ensuing Cold War resulted in the development of a large and powerful defense establishment. Necessary though that development might be, Eisenhower warned, this new military-industrial complex could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.

January 17th ~ {continued...}

1966 – A B-52 bomber collides with KC-135 jet tanker over Spain’s Mediterranean coast, dropping three 70-kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. It was not the first or last accident involving American nuclear bombs. As a means of maintaining first-strike capability during the Cold War, U.S. bombers laden with nuclear weapons circled the earth ceaselessly for decades. In a military operation of this magnitude, it was inevitable that accidents would occur. The Pentagon admits to more than three-dozen accidents in which bombers either crashed or caught fire on the runway, resulting in nuclear contamination from a damaged or destroyed bomb and/or the loss of a nuclear weapon.

One of the only “Broken Arrows” to receive widespread publicity occurred on January 17, 1966, when a B-52 bomber crashed into a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain. The bomber was returning to its North Carolina base following a routine airborne alert mission along the southern route of the Strategic Air Command when it attempted to refuel with a jet tanker. The B-52 collided with the fueling boom of the tanker, ripping the bomber open and igniting the fuel. The KC-135 exploded, killing all four of its crew members, but four members of the seven-man B-52 crew managed to parachute to safety. None of the bombs were armed, but explosive material in two of the bombs that fell to earth exploded upon impact, forming craters and scattering radioactive plutonium over the fields of Palomares. A third bomb landed in a dry riverbed and was recovered relatively intact. The fourth bomb fell into the sea at an unknown location. Palomares, a remote fishing and farming community, was soon filled with nearly 2,000 U.S. military personnel and Spanish civil guards who rushed to clean up the debris and decontaminate the area. The U.S. personnel took precautions to prevent overexposure to the radiation, but the Spanish workers, who lived in a country that lacked experience with nuclear technology, did not. Eventually some 1,400 tons of radioactive soil and vegetation were shipped to the United States for disposal.

Meanwhile, at sea, 33 U.S. Navy vessels were involved in the search for the lost hydrogen bomb. Using an IBM computer, experts tried to calculate where the bomb might have landed, but the impact area was still too large for an effective search. Finally, an eyewitness account by a Spanish fisherman led the investigators to a one-mile area. On March 15, a submarine spotted the bomb, and on April 7 it was recovered. It was damaged but intact. Studies on the effects of the nuclear accident on the people of Palomares was limited, but the United States eventually settled some 500 claims by residents whose health was adversely affected. Because the accident happened in a foreign country, it received far more publicity than did the dozen or so similar crashes that occurred within U.S. borders.

As a security measure, U.S. authorities do not announce nuclear weapons accidents, and some American citizens may have unknowingly been exposed to radiation that resulted from aircraft crashes and emergency bomb jettisons. Today, two hydrogen bombs and a uranium core lie in yet undetermined locations in the Wassaw Sound off Georgia, in the Puget Sound off Washington, and in swamplands near Goldsboro, North Carolina.

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

1972 – President Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign any negotiated peace agreement would render it impossible for the United States to continue assistance to South Vietnam. Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had been working behind the scenes in secret negotiations with North Vietnamese representatives in Paris to reach a settlement to end the war.

However, Thieu stubbornly refused to even discuss any peace proposal that recognized the Viet Cong as a viable participant in the post-war political solution in South Vietnam. As it turned out, the secret negotiations were not close to reaching an agreement because the North Vietnamese launched a massive invasion of South Vietnam in March 1972. With the help of U.S. airpower and advisers on the ground, the South Vietnamese withstood the North Vietnamese attack, and by December, Kissinger and North Vietnamese representatives were back in Paris and close to an agreement. Among Thieu’s demands was the request that all North Vietnamese troops had to be withdrawn from South Vietnam before he would agree to any peace settlement. The North Vietnamese walked out of the negotiations in protest.

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

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

1991 – The Persian Gulf War began as Coalition planes struck targets in Iraq and Kuwait. The first Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel were launched. There were reports of death and injury, and possibly even chemical weapons being used. For a few tense hours, it looked as though Israel would retaliate against Iraq, causing the allied coalition to break up. Six months of preparation and diplomacy might be undone by a few poorly aimed, 1950s-vintage ballistic missiles.

Later that evening, U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missiles were launched against the incoming Scuds, and for the first time in history, a ballistic missile was shot down by another missile. The use of Patriot missiles in Israel’s defense helped to keep that country out of the Gulf War, thereby safeguarding the integrity of the American-European-Arab coalition. Jeffrey Zahn became the 1st US pilot shot down. Lt. Cmdr. Michael Scott Speicher (33) was shot down over western Iraq. The ruins of his plane were found in 1993.

January 17th ~ {continued...}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 18th ~

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

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

1778 – Captain James Cook becomes the first European to discover the Hawaiian Islands when he sails past the island of Oahu. Two days later, he landed at Waimea on the island of Kauai and named the island group the Sandwich Islands, in honor of John Montague, who was the earl of Sandwich and one his patrons. In 1768, Cook, a surveyor in the Royal Navy, was commissioned a lieutenant in command of the H.M.S. Endeavor and led an expedition that took scientists to Tahiti to chart the course of the planet Venus.

In 1771, he returned to England, having explored the coast of New Zealand and Australia and circumnavigated the globe. Beginning in 1772, he commanded a major mission to the South Pacific and during the next three years explored the Antarctic region, charted the New Hebrides, and discovered New Caledonia.

In 1776, he sailed from England again as commander of the H.M.S. Resolution and Discovery and in 1778 made his first visit to the Hawaiian Islands. Cook and his crew were welcomed by the Hawaiians, who were fascinated by the Europeans’ ships and their use of iron. Cook provisioned his ships by trading the metal, and his sailors traded iron nails for sex. The ships then made a brief stop at Ni’ihau and headed north to look for the western end of a northwest passage from the North Atlantic to the Pacific.

Almost one year later, Cook’s two ships returned to the Hawaiian Islands and found a safe harbor in Hawaii’s Kealakekua Bay. It is suspected that the Hawaiians attached religious significance to the first stay of the Europeans on their islands. In Cook’s second visit, there was no question of this phenomenon. Kealakekua Bay was considered the sacred harbor of Lono, the fertility god of the Hawaiians, and at the time of Cook’s arrival the locals were engaged in a festival dedicated to Lono.
Cook and his compatriots were welcomed as gods and for the next month exploited the Hawaiians’ good will. After one of the crewmembers died, exposing the Europeans as mere mortals, relations became strained.

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

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

1803 –Determined to begin the American exploration of the vast mysterious regions of the Far West, President Thomas Jefferson sends a special confidential message to Congress asking for money to fund the journey of Lewis and Clark. Jefferson had been trying to mount a western expedition of exploration since the 1790s, and his determination to do so had only grown since he became president in 1801. In summer 1802, Jefferson began actively preparing for the mission, recruiting his young personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to be its leader.

Throughout 1802, Jefferson and Lewis discussed the proposed mission, telling no one-not even Congress, which would have to approve the funds-of what they were contemplating. Jefferson directed Lewis to draw up an estimate of expenses. Basing his calculations on a party of one officer and 10 enlisted men-the number was deliberately kept small to avoid inspiring both congressional criticisms and Indian fears of invasion-Lewis carefully added up the costs for provisions, weapons, gunpowder, scientific instruments, and a large boat. The final tally came to $2,500. The largest item was $696, earmarked for gifts to Indians. Following the advice of his secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, Jefferson decided not to include the request in his general proposed annual budget, since it involved exploration outside of the nation’s own territory. Instead, on January 18, 1803, he sent a special secret message to Congress asking for the money, taking pains to stress that the proposed exploration would be an aid to American commerce.

January 18th ~ {continued...}

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

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

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

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

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

1862 – After marching for six hours through a cold rain that turned the road into a sea of mud, the vanguard of the Confederate force arrived near Logan’s Crossroads about 6:30am on January 19. At the foot of a ridge a mile-and-a-half from the crossroads, the advance Confederate cavalry met a strong picket force of Thomas’ 10th Indiana Infantry and 1st Kentucky Cavalry regiments. Far from being surprised in their camps, the Federals were on the watch, and this picket force stubbornly resisted the Confederate advance up the hill. When they reached the high ground, the pickets were reinforced by the rest of the 10th Indiana, and this force stood its ground against the advancing Confederates.

Crittenden advanced with Zollicoffer’s own brigade in the lead. Zollicoffer put the 15th Mississippi Infantry in line of battle advancing up the road, with his other regiments following. This force was sufficient to push the Federals off the hill and into the woods below. However, the dawn was dark and misty, and the Confederates were spread out for miles along the narrow muddy road, slowing their advance. After fighting for nearly an hour on their own, the 10th Indiana and 1st Kentucky Cavalry were almost out of ammunition and in danger of being overrun. They fell back to a rail fence bordering a corn field, on a low ridge running perpendicular to the road.

Here they were finally reinforced by the 4th Kentucky Infantry, and this fence line and ridge formed the basis for the main Federal battle line. The 10th Indiana fell back a short distance to regroup, and the troopers of the 1st Kentucky Cavalry sent their horses to the rear and fell in beside their infantry comrades in the 4th Kentucky. Unable to push this force further back, the 15th Mississippi began to move to their right under cover of a deep wooded ravine. From here, they could approach the Federal lines before engaging their enemy at close range.

This infuriated the commander of the 4th Kentucky, Col. Speed S. Fry, who climbed up on the fence and brandished his sword at the enemy, demanding that they stand up and fight like men. The Mississippians were eager to oblige him. After advancing nearly to the ridge line on the west of the road, almost flanking the Federals on their right, the Confederate advance stalled. Most of the soldiers had never been in a battle before, and the dark rainy morning, coupled with the smoke and din of battle and the lack of visibility in the dense woods, produced quite a bit of confusion.

January 18th ~ {continued...}

General Zollicoffer, leading his brigade from the front with the 19th Tennessee Infantry, was sure that his men were firing on another Confederate regiment, and he rode forward in the road to reconnoiter. There he met Col. Fry, who had ridden to his right for the same purpose. Neither recognized the other (Zollicoffer was said to have been extremely nearsighted, and his own uniform was hidden from Fry’s view by a raincoat), and Zollicoffer ordered Fry to cease firing on his friends. Fry, assuming Zollicoffer was a Federal officer whom he did not know, and also unsure of who the troops to his right were, answered that he would never intentionally fire on a friendly unit. As Fry moved back toward his own regiment, Capt. Henry M.R. Fogg of Zollicoffer’s staff suddenly rode out of the woods to warn Zollicoffer, firing his pistol at Fry.

Fry and the Union soldiers near him immediately returned the fire, and Zollicoffer fell dead in the road. (Capt. Fogg was also killed in the battle, probably at this time.) Zollicoffer’s death threw his troops on that part of the field into confusion, and with no brigade commander to lead them, they made no further significant advances on the west of the road.

However, the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee regiments launched a series of furious attacks on Fry’s position, some even reaching the fence, where they fought the Federals hand-to-hand. Bayonets were poked through the fence rails, and the Mississippians attacked swinging their long “cane” knives. The Confederates moved ever toward their right, threatening to turn the Federal left flank. But a section of Federal artillery appeared at the crucial moment and threw shells toward the Confederates, and the 2nd Minnesota and 9th Ohio regiments arrived to bolster the Union defenses.

The Federals now had over four regiments at the point of action, opposing three Confederate regiments in direct contact with their enemy — less than ideal odds for the Southern attackers. For over an hour, the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee battled the Federals almost alone. Rutledge’s Confederate artillery fired a few rounds, and the 25th and 28th Tennessee regiments moved up to reinforce the troops fighting on the front line, but Crittenden was never able to bring up all the rest of his infantry and bring all of his forces to bear. Nor did he make use of his cavalry for any flanking movements. (Crittenden was severely criticized for his handling of the battle, and indeed, he may have been drinking at the time. He resigned his commission later in 1862.)

The Confederates were further demoralized by the failure of many of their weapons to fire in the intermittent rain. Most of the Confederate force, particularly the Tennessee regiments, were armed with obsolete flintlock muskets. Only the 15th Mississippi, 16th Alabama, and 29th Tennessee were partially armed with percussion muskets and rifles. One participant estimated that only a fifth of the Confederate muskets would fire. In their frustration, many of the Tennesseans were seen to smash their useless flintlocks against trees. In contrast to the Confederates, the Federals were finally able to concentrate their forces.

The 1st and 2nd Tennessee and 12th Kentucky US regiments arrived to outflank and outnumber the hard fighting 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee, and Gen. Thomas, sensing the imminent collapse of the Confederate line, ordered a general advance of the Union force. (Some accounts indicate that this advance was less at the orders of Thomas, than it was simply a spirited action on the part of the subordinate Union leadership.) The 9th Ohio Infantry, a German regiment from Cincinnati, charged the Confederates with fixed bayonets. The Confederate left crumbled under the Ohioans’ bayonet charge, and the 15th Mississippi and 20th Tennessee were forced to retreat to keep from being surrounded. The courageous Lt. Bailie Peyton, Jr., commanding a company in the 20th Tennessee, was killed when he refused to retreat or surrender, but stood firing his pistol at the advancing enemy.

The entire Union line advanced, forcing what was left of the Confederate army back to the top of the hill from which they had attacked. Here, the 16th Alabama and 17th and 29th Tennessee regiments opened a heavy fire on the Federals, momentarily halting their pursuit and allowing the front-line Confederate units to safely retreat. But for most of the Southern soldiers, their retreat turned into a rout. Many of the men simply turned and ran, throwing away their muskets and other implements of war in their haste to escape capture. Their courage and determination were simply not enough to overcome their fatigue from marching all night over muddy roads and fighting since dawn, their despair when their outmoded flintlocks refused to fire in the rain, and the confusion and lack of decisive leadership at their command level.

After some three or four hours of hard fighting on a dark, rainy morning, the battle was over. The outmatched Southerners withdrew back down the road toward their camps. They rallied at their Beech Grove entrenchments, but Gen. Thomas arrived with his forces in the afternoon and promptly opened a bombardment on the Confederate camp, including a steamboat at the ferry on the river below. This fire was from a rifle battery that the Southern artillery could not match in range or accuracy. With their backs to the river, this steamboat was the Confederates’ only lifeline for any withdrawal. Recognizing that his position was untenable, Crittenden ordered a withdrawal across the river that night.

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

January 18th ~ {continued...}

1902 – The Isthmus Canal Commission in Washington shifted its support to Panama as the canal site. Following President McKinley’s assassination, Theodore Roosevelt became president. For him, there was no romance about the project, none of this nonsense about following a dream. The canal was practical, vital and indispensable to the U.S. destiny as a global power with supremacy over both its coastal oceans. Roosevelt was a proponent of a doctrine proposed by U.S. naval officer and scholar Thayer Mahan, who explained his theory in the 1890 book “Influence of Sea Power upon History.”

The theory was that supremacy at sea was an integral part of commercial and military prowess. For Roosevelt, this made a U.S.-controlled canal an absolute necessity. A timely incident clearly demonstrated this truth to Roosevelt and the world. A naval base had been established in Cuba as a result of the Spanish-American War. The battleship Maine, which was stationed there, was blown up on February 15, 1898, with 260 lives lost. At the time, another battleship, the Oregon had been stationed in San Francisco. To save the day, the Oregon was ordered to proceed at once to the Atlantic, a 12,000-mile course around the Horn. Sixty-seven days later, but fortunately, still in time, the vessel arrived off Florida to join in the Battle of Santiago Bay.

The experience clearly showed the military significance of an Isthmian canal. As mentioned before, popular sentiment and the second Walker Commission were in favor of a Canal in Nicaragua, and the actions along those lines were being hastened through the U.S. House. At about this same time, the Compagnie Nouvelle held a stockholders meeting in Paris, and, fearing to get left out in the cold with their proposed deal with the Americans, ascribed a new value to their Panama assets of $40,000,000. This just happened to be the value put upon them by the Americans. Admiral Walker was quoted saying, “It put things on a very different footing.” The House, however, passed the Hepburn Bill favoring Nicaragua – two votes short of unanimous.

Through this, the White House had maintained silence; however, following the House vote, Roosevelt summoned the members of the Walker Commission for a closed-door meeting. There he let it be known that he wanted the French offer accepted and that the Commission was to provide a supplementary report unanimously favoring the Panama route. The Commission prepared the supplementary report reversing its original decision and coming out unanimously for Panama.

President Roosevelt submitted the supplementary report to Congress in January 1902. Wisconsin Senator John Coit Spooner introduced an amendment to the Hepburn Bill authorizing the president to acquire the French company’s assets and concessions for a maximum price of $40,000,000. The bill stated that if arrangements could not be agreed upon between the United States and Colombia within “a reasonable time,” the President would be authorized to seek an agreement for the alternate route through Nicaragua.

1902 – The famous “March Across Samar” ended during the Philippine Insurrection. In the morning of Sept. 28, 1901, hundreds of native fighters armed with bolos staged a successful surprise attack on U.S. Marines mostly eating breakfast in the town of Balangiga, on the southern coast of Samar Island in eastern Philippines. That event, described as the “worst single defeat” of the US military in the Philippines, became known to history as the “Balangiga Massacre.”

The massacred troops were members of Company C, Ninth U.S. Infantry Regiment, who were stationed in Balangiga to keep its small port closed and prevent any trading. Their mission was intended to deprive the Filipino revolutionary forces of supplies during the Philippine-American War, which had spread to the Visayas. The U.S. military authorities retaliated with a “kill and burn” policy to take back Samar, deliberately equating a victorious town with an entire island, from Oct. 1901 to March 1902.

Implemented by Brig. Gen. Jacob H. Smith of the U.S. Army, the campaign resulted in the disappearance of some 50,000 people, the minimum increment of Samar’s population between 1896 and 1903. Among this human loss were the numerous civilian men, women, and children 10 years old and above, who were reported killed during combat operations to reduce Samar into a “howling wilderness.” “Of the 74 men of Company C, only 5 were uninjured: 12 were slightly wounded, 19 severely wounded, and 38 dead, including the three officers.” Nine more died during the boat escape towards Basey (Young). “A grand total of 26 [Americans] would survive the attack” and 250 natives were killed during the fight in the Balangiga plaza, excluding the many others who were killed while pursuing the escaping survivors.

The church-and-convent was burned by some of the survivors before they escaped on bancas. The rest of the town had been burned by the “insurgents” when reinforcement troops from Basey arrived the day after the attack. They latter claimed the American dead were mutilated and treated with indescribable indignities (Schott). Weeks later, soldiers of the Eleventh Infantry entered the unoccupied town and took with them the two “Bells of Balangiga,” now displayed near the flagpole at the F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.

After the relief of the 9th Infantry following the Balangiga Massacre, Basey became the headquarters of a battalion of U.S. Marines (attached to the Sixth Separate Brigade) under the command of Major Littleton W.T. Waller. At the end of 1901, the U.S. Marines undertook a disastrous forced march across the jungle of southern Samar, from Lanang in the east coast to Basey in the west, in their effort to break the back of the Filipino resistance. After their arrival in Basey, the tired, sick, and frustrated Marines, who lost ten of their comrades, executed by firing squad their nine remaining conscripted native carriers and two native guides.

According to then U.S. Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, “the shooting of the native bearers by the orders of Major Waller was an act which sullied the American name.” Gen. Smith and Maj. Waller were both court-martialed. Gen. Smith was retired from the U.S. Army. But Major Waller rose to eventually become Major General of the U.S. Marines.

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

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

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

January 18th ~ {continued...}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 18th ~ {continued...}

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

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

1985 – For the first time since joining the World Court in 1946, the United States walks out of a case. The case that caused the dramatic walkout concerned U.S. paramilitary activities against the Nicaraguan government. For the Reagan administration, efforts to undermine the Sandinista government in Nicaragua had been a keystone of its anticommunist foreign policy since it took office in 1981. Policies designed to economically and diplomatically isolate the Nicaraguan government were combined with monetary and material aid to the “Contras,” a paramilitary anti-Sandinista force that carried out armed attacks against the Sandinistas.

Although some of these U.S. efforts were public knowledge, others were covert and remained hidden from public view. Charging that the Nicaraguan government was receiving weapons from the communist bloc and was using those arms to aid revolutions elsewhere in Central America, the Reagan administration even resorted to mining Nicaragua’s harbors. Infuriated by these acts, the Nicaraguan government appeared before the World Court and asked that orders be issued to the United States to cease the hostile activity and pay reparations for the damage. On January 18, 1985, the United States walked out of the World Court, charging that the case was a “misuse of the court for political and propaganda purposes.”

A State Department spokesperson stated that, “We profoundly hope that court does not go the way of other international organizations that have become politicized against the interests of the Western democracies.” Opponents of the Reagan policies roundly condemned the decision to walk out. Congressman Michael Barnes stated that he was “shocked and saddened that the Reagan Administration has so little confidence in its own policies that it chooses not even to defend them.” The Reagan administration’s decision in regards to the World Court had little impact on the continuing conflict in Central America.

The Court heard Nicaragua’s case and decided against the United States; it charged that the U.S. violated international law with its actions against the Sandinistas, and ordered it to pay reparations to Nicaragua in June 1986. The U.S. government ignored the decision. Meanwhile, the Contra actions in Nicaragua achieved little more than death and destruction, and Congress banned further U.S. military aid to the Contras in 1988.

1991 – Iraq starts firing Scud missiles at Israeli cities.

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

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

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

1997 – Iraq agrees to export 25 million barrels of crude oil and 7 million barrels of petroleum products to Jordan in 1997. The total, which equates to 88,000 barrels per day, is 7% more than in 1996. Jordan relies entirely on Iraqi crude oil, which is shipped under a special exemption from United Nations’ sanctions against Iraq.

Part of the oil is paid for at a reduced price ($19.10 per barrel in 1997, 25% higher than in 1996) and the rest of the oil goes toward reducing Iraq’s $1.3 billion debt to Jordan and paying for Jordanian exports of food and medicine to Iraq (slated to increase by 17% to $255 million in 1997).