March 7th ~ {continued...}

1986 – Divers from the USS Preserver locate the crew cabin of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the ocean floor. The bodies of all the astronauts are still inside.

1991 – Iraq continued to explode oil fields in Kuwait.

1994 – The U.S. Navy issued its first permanent orders assigning women to regular duty on a combat ship — in this case, the USS Eisenhower.

1996 – Three US servicemen were convicted in the rape of a 12-year-old Okinawan girl and sentenced by a Japanese court to six and a-half to seven years in prison.

1996 – 1st surface photos of Pluto were photographed by Hubble Space Telescope.

1997 – The former Haiti police chief, Lt. Col. Michel Francois, was arrested in Honduras for helping to smuggle 33 tons of Columbian drugs through Haiti into the US. Francois had fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994.

1998 – Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking in Rome, said the United States wouldn’t tolerate any more violence in Kosovo, which she blamed on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

2001 – In Serbia NATO soldiers moved into the Kosovo village of Mijak to stem the flow of arms to Albanian guerrillas in Macedonia.

2003 – The US and its allies moved to set March 17 as the final deadline for Saddam Hussein to prove he has given up his weapons of mass destruction.

2003 – Mohamed ElBaradei, UN chief nuclear weapons inspector, expressed frustration at the quality of US information on Iraqi weapons and charged that some documents may have been faked.

2004 – In Haiti U.S. Marines shot and killed one of the gunmen who fired at a huge demonstration of protesters celebrating the flight from Haiti of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. That raised the toll to six dead and more than 30 injured in the protest.

2007 – Three Jordanians go on trial for plotting to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush.

2009 – The Kepler space observatory, designed to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars, is launched. Designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover dozens of Earth-size extra solar planets in or near the habitable zone and estimate how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets, Kepler’​s sole instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by extra solar planets that cross in front of their host star.

2011 – NATO decides to increase surveillance flights over Libya to a 24/7 basis.

2013 – Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, alleged spokesman for al-Qaeda and said to be the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden, is captured in Jordan and faces criminal charges in the United States.

2013 – In the United States, Senator Rand Paul ends a 13-hour filibuster to block voting on the nomination of John O. Brennan as the Director of the CIA, questioning President Barack Obama and his administration’s use of drones, and the stated legal justification for hypothetical lethal use within the United States targeting against noncombatants. Attorney General Eric Holder states that combat drones would not be used to target and kill, without due process, Americans not engaged in combat on American soil.

March 8th ~

1655 – John Casor becomes the first legally-recognized slave in England’s North American colonies where a crime was not committed. John Casor (surname also recorded as Cazara and Corsala), a servant in Northampton County in the Virginia Colony, in 1655 became the first person of African descent in Britain’s Thirteen Colonies to be declared as a slave for life as the result of a civil suit. In one of the earliest freedom suits, Casor argued that he was an indentured servant who had been forced by Johnson to serve past his term; he was freed and went to work for Robert Parker as an indentured servant. Johnson sued Parker for Casor’s services.

In ordering Casor returned to his master for life, Anthony Johnson, a free black, the court both declared Casor a slave and sustained the right of free blacks to own slaves. Slavery law hardened during Casor’s lifetime, though slavery is not considered restricted to people of African descent, as more than 500,000 Irish, as young as 10 years old were enslaved by England from 1610-1843, under the aims of King James I. In 1662, the Virginia colony passed a law incorporating the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, ruling that children of enslaved mothers would be born into slavery, regardless of their father’s race or status. This was in contradiction to English common law for English subjects, which based a child’s status on that of the father. In 1699 Virginia passed a law deporting all free blacks.

1690 – French and Algonquins destroy Schenectady, New York, killing 60 settlers, including ten women and at least twelve children.

1775 – An anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America”, the first article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery.

1777 – Regiments from Ansbach and Bayreuth, sent to support Great Britain in the American War of Independence, mutiny in the town of Ochsenfurt.

1782 – In Gnadenhutten, a Moravian missionary village in the Ohio territory, American militiamen massacre 96 Christian Delaware Indians in retaliation for raids executed by other tribes. The site of the village has been preserved. A reconstructed mission house and cooper’s house were built there, and a monument to the dead was erected. The burial mound is marked and has been maintained on the site.

1785 – Congress appoints Henry Knox as secretary of war. The post has been vacant for two years since the resignation of General Benjamin Lincoln.

1790 – George Washington delivered the first State of the Union address.

1796 – Back in the tender days of the nation’s infancy, the Supreme Court handed down an early decision on taxation in the case of Hylton v. United States. The Court, which delivered its decision on this day in 1796, ruled that the carriage tax, the issue at the heart of the case, was an indirect tax. As such, the carriage tax was deemed constitutional, marking the first time in U.S. history that Court had weighed in on the constitutionality of legislation that had been passed by Congress.

1813 – President Madison names Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin and Delaware Senator James A. Bayard as special peace commissioners to join US minister to Russia John Quincy Adams in St. Petersburg at the invitation of Czar Alexander I, who has offered to mediate between Great Britain and the US in the War of 1812. Bayard and Gallatin will arrive in St. Petersburg July 21st.

March 8th ~ {continued...}

1822 – President Monroe sends a special message to Congress proposing US recognition of the new Latin American republics that have recently achieved independence from Spain. Among them are Colombia, Peru, Argentina and Mexico. Henry Clay has been pressing for recognition since 1818, but Monroe delayed until after ratification of the US treaty with Spain and the cession of the formerly Spanish region of Florida to the US.

1847 – Commodore David Connor leads successful amphibious assault near Vera Cruz, Mexico.

1854 – US Commodore Matthew C. Perry landed at Yokohama on his 2nd trip to Japan. Within a month, he concluded a treaty with the Japanese.

1861 – St. Augustine, Florida, surrendered to Union armies.

1862 – On the second day of the Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) in Arkansas, Confederate forces, including some Indian troops, under General Earl Van Dorn surprised Union troops, but the Union troops won the battle. Pea Ridge Natl. Military Park, Arkansas, marked the site where Confederate commanders, Gen. Ben McCulloch and Gen. James McIntosh, were killed.

1862 – Ironclad C.S.S. Virginia, Captain Buchanan, destroyed wooden blockading ships U.S.S. Cumberland and U.S.S. Congress in Hampton Roads. Virginia, without trials or under way-training, headed directly for the Union squadron. She opened the engagement when less than a mile distant from Cumberland and the firing became general from blockaders and shore batteries. Virginia rammed Cumberland below the waterline and she sank rapidly, “gallantly fighting her guns,” Buchanan reported in tribute to a brave foe, “as long as they were above water. Buchanan next turned Virginia’s fury on Congress, hard aground, and set her ablaze with hot shot and incen­diary shell. The day was Virginia’s but it was not without loss. Part of her ram was wrenched off and left imbedded in the side of stricken Cumberland, and Buchanan received a wound in the thigh which necessitated his turning over command to Lieutenant Catesby R. Jones.

Secretary of the Navy Mallory wrote to President Davis of the action: “The conduct of the Officers and men of the squadron . . . reflects unfading honor upon themselves and upon the Navy. The report will be read with deep interest, and its details will not fail to rouse the ardor and nerve the arms of our gallant seamen. It will be remembered that the Virginia was a novelty in naval architecture, wholly unlike any ship that ever floated; that her heaviest guns were equal novelties in ordnance; that her motive power and obedience to her helm were untried, and her officers and crew strangers, comparatively, to the ship and to each other; and yet, under all these disadvan­tages, the dashing courage and consummate professional ability of Flag Officer Buchanan and his associates achieved the most remarkable victory which naval annals record.”

U.S.S. Monitor, Lieutenant Worden, arrived in Hampton Roads at night. The stage was set for the dramatic battle with C.S.S. Virginia the following day. ‘ Upon the untried endurances of the new Monitor and her timely arrival,” observed Captain Dahlgren, ”did depend the tide of events. . . ” The C.S.S. Virginia was originally the U.S.S. Merrimack, a forty-gun frigate launched in 1855. The Merrimack served in the Caribbean and was the flagship of the Pacific fleet in the late 1850s. In early 1860, the ship was decommissioned for extensive repairs at the Gosport Navy Yard in Norfolk, Virginia.

It was still there when the war began in April 1861, and Union sailors sank the ship as the yard was evacuated. Six weeks later, a salvage company raised the ship and the Confederates began rebuilding it. The project required $172,000 to build an ironclad upon the Merrimack’s hull. A new gun deck was added and an iron canopy was draped over the entire vessel. The most challenging part of the construction came in finding the iron plating. Richmond’s Tredegar Iron Works finally produced it, but the plant had to alter its operations to roll more than 300 tons of scrap iron for the two-inch thick plating.

March 8th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Nat Gordon, last pirate, was hanged in NYC for stealing 1,000 slaves.

1865 – Battle of Kingston, NC (Wilcox’s ridge, Wise’s Forks).

1874 – Millard Fillmore (b.1800), the 13th president of the United States (1850-1853), died in Buffalo, N.Y.

1880 – President Rutherford B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama.

1913 – Internal Revenue Service began to levy and collect income taxes.

1916 – US invaded Cuba for 3rd time. This time “to end corrupt Menocal regime.”

1917 – Riots, strikes, and mass demonstrations break out in Moscow. People are demonstrating against shortages of food and fuel, and the autocratic style of the government. The police use lethal force against the demonstrators, but the unrest continues over the following days.

1919 – Reports from Paris indicated that 6,000 American men had married French women in the past year.

1930 – William Howard Taft (72), 27th president of the United States (1909-1913), died in Washington. In addition to John F. Kennedy, William Howard Taft is the only other U.S. president buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Born in Cincinnati on September 15, 1857, Taft was the 27th president, serving from 1909 to 1913. He later served as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until illness forced him to resign in 1930.

1933 – Anton J. Cermak (b.1873), Czech-born 35th mayor of Chicago, died following the Feb 15th assassination attempt in Miami by Guiseppe Zangara, who was trying to shoot FDR. Zangara was executed in the electric chair on March 21, 1933. Cermak became the 2nd US mayor to die in a political killing.

1934 – Edwin Hubble photo showed as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars.

1941 – The Lend-Lease Bill is passed by the Senate by 60 votes to 13.

1942 – Coast Guard plane located the lifeboats of SS Arubutan, which had been sunk by a Nazi submarine off the North Carolina coast, and directed CGC Calypso to them.

1943 – A change in the standard encoding machine used by the German U-boat fleet creates problems for Allied anti-submarine warfare. A fourth rotor is added to the Engima to ensure secure communications. Allied cryptographers are able to decipher the German communication, after a brief delay.

1943 – US Ambassador to the USSR, Admiral W.M. Standley, claims that the Soviet leaders are not telling their people about all the aid the US is sending. On March 11, Soviet Ambassador to the US, Maxim Litvinov, thanks the US for its aid.

1944 – USAAF heavy bombers raid Berlin for a second time. About 10 percent of the force of 580 bombers is lost despite the escort of 800 fighters.

March 8th ~ {continued...}

1944 – Japanese forces attack the American beachhead on Bougainville. The US airfields at Piva are shelled by the Japanese and some of the American bombers are withdrawn. Japanese infantry infiltrate the positions of the US 37th Division. The attacking troops are most from the Japanese 6th Division (General Hyakutake).

1944 – On New Britain, the attacks of US 1st Marine Division makes progress as does the American advance along the coast from Cape Gloucester.

1945 – Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She was the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II.

1945 – During the night, German forces from the garrisons in the occupied Channel Islands mount a raid on Granville on the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula. One small US warship and 4 merchant ships are sunk. The raiders also free 67 German prisoners of war.

1945 – American efforts to reinforce the Remagen bridgehead continue. German bombers, including some jets, begin attacks on the bridge but fail to destroy it. To the north, units of the Canadian 2nd Corps (part of Canadian 1st Army) capture Xanten.

1945 – On Iwo Jima, the forces of US 5th Amphibious Corps continue pushing northward with heavy fire support. Japanese forces are now all within one mile of the north end of the island.

1950 – Marshall Voroshilov of USSR announced they had developed atomic bomb.

1954 – The U.S. signed a defense pact with Japan, offering them $100 million in aid within the next three months.

1958 – Battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) is decommissioned, leaving the Navy without an active battleship for the first time since 1895.

1961 – US nuclear submarine Patrick Henry arrived at Scottish naval base of Holy Loch from SC in a record under seas journey of 66 days 22 hrs.

1965 – The USS Henrico, Union, and Vancouver, carrying the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade under Brig. Gen. Frederick J. Karch, take up stations 4,000 yards off Red Beach Two, north of Da Nang. First ashore was the Battalion Landing Team 3/9, which arrived on the beach at 8:15 a.m. Wearing full battle gear and carrying M-16s, the Marines were met by sightseers, South Vietnamese officers, Vietnamese girls with leis, and four American soldiers with a large sign stating: “Welcome, Gallant Marines.”

General William Westmoreland, senior U.S. military commander in Saigon, was reportedly “appalled” at the spectacle because he had hoped that the Marines could land without any fanfare. Within two hours, Battalion Landing Team 1/3 began landing at Da Nang air base. The 3,500 Marines were deployed to secure the U.S. airbase, freeing South Vietnamese troops up for combat. On March 1st, Ambassador Maxwell Taylor had informed South Vietnamese Premier Phan Huy Quat that the United States was preparing to send the Marines to Vietnam. Three days later, a formal request was submitted by the U.S. Embassy, asking the South Vietnamese government to “invite” the United States to send the Marines.

March 8th ~ {continued...}

1977 – The U.S. Army announced that they had conducted 239 open-air tests of germ warfare.

1979 – Philips demonstrates the Compact Disc publicly for the first time.

1982 – The United States government issues a public statement accusing the Soviet Union of using poison gas and chemical weapons in its war against rebel forces in Afghanistan. The accusation was part of the continuing U.S. criticism of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. Since sending troops into Afghanistan in 1979 in an attempt to prop up a pro-Soviet communist government, the Soviet Union had been on the receiving end of an unceasing string of criticism and diplomatic attacks from the United States government. First the Carter administration, and then the Reagan administration, condemned the Soviets for their intervention in a sovereign nation.

Because of the issue, arms control talks had been tabled, the United States had boycotted the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, and diplomatic tension between America and Russia reached alarming proportions. Reports that the Soviets were using poison gas and chemical weapons in Afghanistan only intensified the heightened tensions. The U.S. government’s official statement charged that over 3,000 Afghans had been killed by weapons, including “irritants, incapacitants, nerve agents, phosgene oxime and perhaps mycotoxins, mustard, lewisite and toxic smoke.”

Evidence to support these charges was largely anecdotal and a number of U.S. scientists had serious doubts about the data put forward by the Reagan administration. Some critics charged that the accusations were a smokescreen behind which the United States could go forward with further development and stockpiling of its own chemical weapons arsenal. The U.S. attack must have seemed mildly ironic to the Soviets, who had pilloried America for the use of defoliants and other chemical weapons during its war in Vietnam. By 1982, many Americans were referring to Afghanistan as “Russia’s Vietnam.”

1983 – President Ronald Reagan called the USSR an “Evil Empire.”

1988 – Seventeen soldiers died when two Army helicopters from Fort Campbell, Ky., collided in midair.

1990 – Opening arguments were heard in the Iran-Contra trial of former national security adviser John M. Poindexter.

1991 – Planeload after planeload of US troops arrived home from the Persian Gulf to an emotional welcome from relatives. Iraq handed over 40 foreign journalists and two American soldiers whom it had captured.

March 8th ~ {continued...}

1994 – The Defense Department announced a smoking ban for workplaces ranging from the Pentagon to battle tanks.

1995 – Two United States diplomats were killed, one injured, when their car was ambushed as they were driving to the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan.

1999 – The Clinton administration directed the firing of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee from his job at the Los Alamos National Laboratory because of alleged security violations.

1999 – US warplanes dropped laser-guided bombs on northern and southern Iraq.

2001 – The space shuttle Discovery lifted off with supplies for the int’l. space station in a new Italian module named Leonardo. The 12-day mission also included a fresh crew of 3 for the station.

2001 – In Afghanistan the giant Buddha at Bamiyan was destroyed.

2002 – The Holy Land Foundation filed suit against the US Departments of Justice, Treasury and State for violation of its civil rights and putting it out of business as a suspected conduit for terrorist funds.

2003 – The first Afghan radio station programmed solely for women began broadcasting in Kabul. Daily broadcasts will increase to 2 hours next week and up to 4 hours in several months.

2003 – Iraq resumed the destruction of banned Al Samoud 2 missiles after taking a day off and called on the UN to lift sanctions after arms inspectors gave a positive assessment of Baghdad’s cooperation. Iraq also demanded that the UN strip Israel of weapons of mass destruction, require withdrawal from occupied Palestinian territory and that the UN brand the US and Britain as liars.

2003 – A report by UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to the Security Council says that he suspects Iraq might be trying to produce new missiles. He also says it will take months to disarm Iraq, even with its active cooperation. The Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed El Baradei, says there is no evidence Iraq has a nuclear weapons development program.

2004 – In Haiti US Marines shot and killed the driver of a vehicle speeding up to a military checkpoint.

2004 – Iraq’s Governing Council signed a landmark interim constitution after resolving a political impasse sparked by objections from the country’s most powerful cleric.

2004 – Abu Abbas (56), the Palestinian who planned the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro passenger ship in which a wheelchair-bound American tourist was killed and thrown overboard, died of natural causes in Baghdad while in U.S. custody.

2005 – China unveiled a law authorizing an attack if Taiwan moves toward formal independence, increasing pressure on the self-ruled island while warning other countries not to interfere.

2013 – North Korea ends all peace pacts with South Korea and closes the main Panmunjom border crossing inside the Korean Demilitarized Zone. North Korean generals affirm they are aiming their long range missiles at the U.S. mainland in retaliation for the recently approved U.N. sanctions.

2014 – During an interview with French television channel France 24, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding ISIS.

March 9th ~

1451 – Amerigo Vespucci, Italian navigator, was born.

1728 – During the course of the Anglo-Spanish War, a military force of English settlers from the South Carolina colony conducts an expedition deep into Spanish controlled Florida to destroy a Yamassee Indian village close to the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine.

1781 – The siege of Pensacola Florida begins. The Spaniard, Gov. Gen. Bernardo Galvez y Gallardo, conde de Galvez, had just completed a very successful campaign against the English in New Orleans, Natchez, and Baton Rouge. Indeed, this leader showed his brilliance from the outset of this campaign. As Galvez had his 14 ships ready to attack at Baton Rouge (1779), a great storm struck sinking most of his ships and destroying their provisions. Undaunted, he recovered cannon from the sunken ships, built a shore battery, and attacked the fort. He succeeded where lesser leaders would have confessed failure.

At Pensacola the English general had made a weak attempt to help the troops on the Louisiana coast, but he sent so few of his own troops with such weak instructions they were quickly dispatched. Even as the Spanish fleet massed off Santa Rosa Island the English general did not believe they would attack. He failed to grasp the importance of Pensacola as the key to Naval supremacy in the Gulf of Mexico. Galvezhad a firm grasp of this key fact. When Galvez landed his troops on Santa Rosa Island 1400 troops were landed onto Santa Rosa Island. When Galvez’s ships first massed for the entrance into the harbor, a hurricane struck. Great skill in fleet handling and, pre-planning for such, took the large number of ships out to sea for protection and then quickly back on station still ready to “run the guns” of the Royal Navy Redoubt (fort) at Red Cliffs (about 7 miles SW of Pensacola) with minimal losses.

Galvez personally took command of a small ship (the brig Galveztown) and led the others under the guns by first going through alone. In doing so he had exposed a flaw in the design of the batteries on the Red Cliffs fort. Although some 140 heavy shot had been fired from the fort the fleet suffered little damage. The big guns could not be lowered enough to hit ships very near them. The English General had miscalculated. Galvez’s ship soon fired on the small Fort Half Moon and struck the powder magazine. His men captured several English sloops, 2 small warships and a frigate, the Port Royal (the English burned the frigate Mentor to avoid it’s capture!).

With all these ships in skirmishing actions, some have written of the Naval victory at Pensacola. It was strictly a land victory with the Navy there in large numbers to protect against English reinforcements from the sea. This marks the beginning of the siege of Pensacola that will continue until May 9th.

1788 – Connecticut became the 5th state.

1793 – Jean Pierre Blanchard made the first balloon flight in North America. President George Washington watched aeronaut Jean Pierre Blanchard make the first aerial voyage in the New World.

1798 – Dr. George Balfour became 1st naval surgeon in the US Navy.

1820 – Congress passed the Land Act, paving the way for westward expansion.

1839 – Felix Huston Robertson (d.1928), Brig General (Confederate Army), was born.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1841 – At the end of a historic case, the U.S. Supreme Court rules, with only one dissent, that the African slaves who seized control of the Amistad slave ship had been illegally forced into slavery, and thus are free under American law. In 1807, the U.S. Congress joined with Great Britain in abolishing the African slave trade, although the trading of slaves within the U.S. was not prohibited. Despite the international ban on the importation of African slaves, Cuba continued to transport captive Africans to its sugar plantations until the 1860s, and Brazil to its coffee plantations until the 1850s.

On June 28, 1839, 53 slaves recently captured in Africa left Havana, Cuba, aboard the Amistad schooner for a life of slavery on a sugar plantation at Puerto Prýncipe, Cuba. Three days later, Sengbe Pieh, a Membe African known as Cinque, freed himself and the other slaves and planned a mutiny. Early in the morning of July 2, in the midst of a storm, the Africans rose up against their captors and, using sugar-cane knives found in the hold, killed the captain of the vessel and a crewmember. Two other crewmembers were either thrown overboard or escaped, and Jose Ruiz and Pedro Montes, the two Cubans who had purchased the slaves, were captured. Cinque ordered the Cubans to sail the Amistad east back to Africa.

During the day, Ruiz and Montes complied, but at night they would turn the vessel in a northerly direction, toward U.S. waters. After almost nearly two difficult months at sea, during which time more than a dozen Africans perished, what became known as the “black schooner” was first spotted by American vessels. On August 26, the USS Washington, a U.S. Navy brig, seized the Amistad off the coast of Long Island and escorted it to New London, Connecticut. Ruiz and Montes were freed, and the Africans were imprisoned pending an investigation of the Amistad revolt. The two Cubans demanded the return of their supposedly Cuban-born slaves, while the Spanish government called for the Africans’ extradition to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder. In opposition to both groups, American abolitionists advocated the return of the illegally bought slaves to Africa.

The story of the Amistad mutiny garnered widespread attention, and U.S. abolitionists succeeded in winning a trial in a U.S. court. Before a federal district court in Connecticut, Cinque, who was taught English by his new American friends, testified on his own behalf. On January 13, 1840, Judge Andrew Judson ruled that the Africans were illegally enslaved, that they would not be returned to Cuba to stand trial for piracy and murder, and that they should be granted free passage back to Africa. The Spanish authorities and U.S. President Martin Van Buren appealed the decision, but another federal district court upheld Judson’s findings. President Van Buren, in opposition to the abolitionist faction in Congress, appealed the decision again.

On February 22, 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court began hearing the Amistad case. U.S. Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, who served as the sixth president of the United States from 1825 to 1829, joined the Africans’ defense team. In Congress, Adams had been an eloquent opponent of slavery, and before the nation’s highest court he presented a coherent argument for the release of Cinque and the 34 other survivors of the Amistad.

On March 9, 1841, the Supreme Court ruled that the Africans had been illegally enslaved and had thus exercised a natural right to fight for their freedom. In November, with the financial assistance of their abolitionist allies, the Amistad Africans departed America aboard the Gentleman on a voyage back to West Africa. Some of the Africans helped establish a Christian mission in Sierra Leone, but most, like Cinque, returned to their homelands in the African interior.

One of the survivors, who was a child when taken aboard the Amistad as a slave, eventually returned to the United States. Originally named Margru, she studied at Ohio’s integrated and coeducational Oberlin College in the late 1840s, before returning to Sierra Leone as evangelical missionary Sara Margru Kinson.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1847 – During the Mexican-American War, U.S. forces under General Winfield Scott invade Mexico three miles south of Vera Cruz. Encountering little resistance from the Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the last of Scott’s 10,000 men came ashore without the loss of a single life. It was the largest amphibious landing in U.S. history and not surpassed until World War II. The Mexican-American War began with a dispute over the U.S. government’s 1845 annexation of Texas.

In January 1846, President James K. Polk, a strong advocate of westward expansion, ordered General Zachary Taylor to occupy disputed territory between the Nueces and Rio Grande Rivers. Mexican troops attacked Taylor’s forces, and on May 13, 1846, Congress approved a declaration of war against Mexico. In March 1847, General Scott’s forces landed near Vera Cruz, and by March 29, with very few casualties, the Americans had taken the fortified city and its massive fortress, San Juan de Ulua. In April, Scott began his devastating march to Mexico City, which ended on September 14, when U.S. forces entered the Mexican capital and raised the American flag over the Hall of Montezuma.

In February 1848, representatives from the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, formally ending the Mexican War, recognizing Texas as part of the United States and extending the boundaries of the United States west to the Pacific Ocean.

1861 – First hostile act of the Civil War occurred when Star of the West fires on Sumter, S.C.

1862 – Engagement lasting four hours took Place between U.S.S. Monitor, Lieutenant Worden, and C.S.S. Virginia, Lieutenant Jones, mostly at close range in Hampton Roads. Although neither side could claim clear victory, this historic first combat between ironclads ushered in a new era of war at sea. The blockade continued intact, but Virginia remained as a powerful defender of the Norfolk area and a barrier to the use of the rivers for the movement of Union forces. Severe damage inflicted on wooden-hulled U.S.S. Minnesota by Virginia during an interlude in the fight with Monitor underscored the plight of a wooden ship confronted by an ironclad.

The broad impact of the Monitor-Virginia battle on naval thinking was summarized by Captain Levin M. Powell of U.S.S. Potomac writing later from Vera Cruz: ”The news of the fight between the Monitor and the Merrimack has created the most profound sensation amongst the professional men in the allied fleet here. They recognize the fact, as much by silence as words, that the face of naval warfare looks the other way now and the superb frigates and ships of the line. . . supposed capable a month ago, to destroy anything afloat in half an hour . . . are very much diminished in their proportions, and the confidence once reposed in them fully shaken in the presence of these astounding facts.” And as Captain Dahlgren phrased it: ”Now comes the reign of iron and cased sloops are to take the place of wooden ships.”

1862 – Naval force under Commander Godon, consisting of U.S.S. Mohican, Pocahontas, and Potomska, took possession of St. Simon’s and Jekyl Islands and landed at Brunswick, Georgia. All locations were found to be abandoned in keeping with the general Confederate withdrawal from the sea­coast and coastal islands.

1862 – Landing party from U.S.S. Anacostia and Yankee of the Potomac Flotilla, Lieutenant Wyman, destroyed abandoned Confederate batteries at Cockpit Point and Evansport, Virginia, and found C.S.S. Page blown up.

1863 – U.S. Grant was appointed commander-in-chief of the Union forces.

1864 – President Abraham Lincoln officially commissioned Ulysses S. Grant the first lieutenant general in the U.S. Army since George Washington. After leading Union victories in the West in 1862-63, Lincoln gave Grant supreme command of the Union forces with the revived rank of lieutenant general.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1893 – President Cleveland withdraws the Hawaiian Annexation Treaty pending an investigation of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in January.

1898 – Congress unanimously appropriates $50,000,000 “for national defense and each and every purpose connected therewith.” The Navy is already well prepared, but the Army is scandalously disorganized.

1914 – Test of wind tunnel at Washington Navy Yard.

1916 – In the early morning of March 9, 1917, several hundred Mexican guerrillas under the command of Francisco “Pancho” Villa cross the U.S.-Mexican border and attack the small border town of Columbus, New Mexico. Seventeen Americans were killed in the raid, and the center of town was burned. It was unclear whether Villa personally participated in the attack, but President Woodrow Wilson ordered the U.S. Army into Mexico to capture the rebel leader dead or alive. Before he invaded the United States, Pancho Villa was already known to Americans for his exploits during the Mexican Revolution. He led the famous Division del Norte, with its brilliant cavalry, Los Dorados, and won control of northern Mexico after a series of audacious attacks.

In 1914, following the resignation of Mexican leader Victoriano Huerta, Pancho Villa and his former revolutionary ally Venustiano Carranza battled each other in a struggle for succession. By the end of 1915, Villa had been driven north into the mountains, and the U.S. government recognized General Carranza as the president of Mexico. In January 1916, to protest President Woodrow Wilson’s support for Carranza, Villa executed 16 U.S. citizens at Santa Isabel in northern Mexico. Then, in early March, he ordered the raid on Columbus. Cavalry from the nearby Camp Furlong U.S. Army outpost pursued the Mexicans, killing several dozen rebels on U.S. soil and in Mexico before turning back.

On March 15th, under orders from President Wilson, U.S. Brigadier General John J. Pershing launched a punitive expedition into Mexico to capture Villa and disperse his rebels. The expedition eventually involved some 10,000 U.S. troops and personnel. It was the first U.S. military operation to employ mechanized vehicles, including automobiles and airplanes. For 11 months, Pershing failed to capture the elusive revolutionary, who was aided by his intimate knowledge of the terrain of northern Mexico and his popular support from the people there. Meanwhile, resentment over the U.S. intrusion into Mexican territory led to a diplomatic crisis with the government in Mexico City.

On June 21st, the crisis escalated into violence when Mexican government troops attacked a detachment of the 10th Cavalry at Carrizal, Mexico, leaving 12 Americans dead, 10 wounded, and 24 captured. The Mexicans suffered more than 30 dead. If not for the critical situation in Europe, war might have been declared. In January 1917, having failed in their mission to capture Villa, and under continued pressure from the Mexican government, the Americans were ordered home.

Villa continued his guerrilla activities in northern Mexico until Adolfo de la Huerta took power over the government and drafted a reformist constitution. Villa entered into an amicable agreement with Huerta and agreed to retire from politics. In 1920, the government pardoned Villa, but three years later he was assassinated at his ranch in Parral, Mexico.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1942 – Admiral Ghormley is relieved by Admiral Hard Stark as commander US naval forces in European waters.

1944 – The Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort USS Leopold (DE-319) was torpedoed off Iceland by the U-255. The attack was one of the first times the Germans used their newly developed acoustic torpedo successfully. All 13 officers and 148 (out of 186) enlisted men on board were lost. The 28 survivors were rescued by the USS Joyce (DE-317), another Coast Guard-manned destroyer escort.

1944 – On Bougainville, Japanese counter attacks on the US 37th Division fail to make substantial gains. The American airfields at Piva and Torokina are shelled.

1944 – The first American planes begin operating from Momote airfield in the Admiralty Islands.

1945 – U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping 2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo. Almost 16 square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and 130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded history.

Early on March 9th, Air Force crews met on the Mariana Islands of Tinian and Saipan for a military briefing. They were planning a low-level bombing attack on Tokyo that would begin that evening, but with a twist: Their planes would be stripped of all guns except for the tail turret. The decrease in weight would increase the speed of each Super fortress bomber-and would also increase its bomb load capacity by 65 percent, making each plane able to carry more than seven tons. Speed would be crucial, and the crews were warned that if they were shot down, all haste was to be made for the water, which would increase their chances of being picked up by American rescue crews. Should they land within Japanese territory, they could only expect the very worst treatment by civilians, as the mission that night was going to entail the deaths of tens of thousands of those very same civilians. “You’re going to deliver the biggest firecracker the Japanese have ever seen,” said U.S. Gen. Curtis LeMay.

The cluster bombing of the downtown Tokyo suburb of Shitamachi had been approved only a few hours earlier. Shitamachi was composed of roughly 750,000 people living in cramped quarters in wooden-frame buildings. Setting ablaze this “paper city” was a kind of experiment in the effects of firebombing; it would also destroy the light industries, called “shadow factories,” that produced prefabricated war materials destined for Japanese aircraft factories. The denizens of Shitamachi never had a chance of defending themselves. Their fire brigades were hopelessly undermanned, poorly trained, and poorly equipped.

At 5:34 p.m., Super fortress B-29 bombers took off from Saipan and Tinian, reaching their target at 12:15 a.m. on March 10. Three hundred and thirty-four bombers, flying at a mere 500 feet, dropped their loads, creating a giant bonfire fanned by 30-knot winds that helped raze Shitamachi and spread the flames throughout Tokyo. Masses of panicked and terrified Japanese civilians scrambled to escape the inferno, most unsuccessfully. The human carnage was so great that the blood-red mists and stench of burning flesh that wafted up sickened the bomber pilots, forcing them to grab oxygen masks to keep from vomiting. The raid lasted slightly longer than three hours. “In the black Sumida River, countless bodies were floating, clothed bodies, naked bodies, all black as charcoal. It was unreal,” recorded one doctor at the scene. Only 243 American airmen were lost-considered acceptable losses at that time.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1945 – Bonn and Godesberg are captured by units of US 1st Army while others continue to expand the bridgehead over the Rhine River, at Remagen, where Erpel is captured. Farther south, toward Koblenz, US 3rd Army units reach the Rhine at Andernach.

1945 – Alarmed by growing insurgent activity, the Japanese grant independence to Vietnam under Japanese protection and reinstall Bao Dai as head of state. Bao Dai is never able to gain much support for what is clearly a puppet government. He will abdicate on August 23rd.

1946 – The Coast Guard-manned LST-767 was damaged in a hurricane near Okinawa. She was later declared a total loss and was decommissioned.

1953 – U.S. vs. Reynolds was a landmark ruling that formally established the government’s “state secrets” privilege. Privilege that has enabled federal agencies to conceal certain conduct, withhold documents and block litigation where such actions might reveal the “sources and methods” of US intelligence.

1953 – Responding to press reports that U.S. pilots routinely pursued communist jets across the Manchurian border, Commander in Chief Far East asserted that UN pilots broke off engagements at the Yalu River boundary, enabling many damaged MiGs to escape, although some border violations might have occurred in the heat of combat. Informing the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that air operations in Korea were conducted strictly within limitations established by appropriate authority, he also directed Far East Air Forces to comply with directives concerning violation of the Manchurian border.

1954 – CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow critically reviewed Wisconsin Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy’s anti-Communism campaign on “See It Now.”

1954 – Senate Republicans level criticism at fellow Republican Joseph McCarthy and take action to limit his power. The criticism and actions were indications that McCarthy’s glory days as the most famous investigator of communist activity in the United States were coming to an end.

1962 – US “advisors” in South-Vietnam joined the fight.

1964 – The US Supreme Court, in its New York Times v. Sullivan decision, ruled that public officials who charged libel could not recover damages for defamatory statements related to their official duties unless they proved actual malice on the part of the news organization.

1964 – A group of 5 Lakota (Sioux) Native Americans occupied Alcatraz Island in a peaceful protest. They declared that it should be a Native American cultural center and university.

1966 – CGC Point White, on duty with Coast Guard Squadron One, Division 13, in Vietnam, captured a Vietcong junk after a running firefight. Point White was in Vietnam only a month when she started conducting patrols on a VC-controlled area of the Soi Rap River. Point White used a plan of steaming out of the patrol area and covertly returning.

On March 9th she spotted a junk crossing the river and attempted to stop it. The junk opened fire with small arms, including automatic weapons. Point White returned the fire and rammed the junk, throwing the occupants into the water. The cutter’s commanding officer, LTJG Eugene J. Hickey, rescued a survivor who turned out to be a key VC leader of the Rung Sat Secret Zone. During March, three WPBs of Division 13 killed twenty-seven VC in action, captured seven more, and confiscated considerable contraband.

1967 – Svetlana Alliluyeva (Allilueva), Josef Stalin’s daughter defected to the U.S.

1968 – General William Westmoreland asked for 206,000 more troops in Vietnam.

1970 – The U.S. Marines turn over control of the five northernmost provinces in South Vietnam to the U.S. Army. The Marines had been responsible for this area since they first arrived in South Vietnam in 1965. The change in responsibility for this area was part of President Richard Nixon’s initiative to reduce U.S. troop levels as the South Vietnamese accepted more responsibility for the fighting. After the departure of the 3rd Marine Division from Vietnam in late 1969, the 1st Marine Division was the only marine division left operating in South Vietnam.

March 9th ~ {continued...}

1974 – Last Japanese soldier, a guerrilla operating in Philippines, surrendered, 29 years after World War II ended.

1976 – The 1st female cadets were accepted to West Point Military Academy.

1977 – About a dozen armed Hanafi Muslims invaded three buildings in Washington D.C., killing one person and taking more than 130 hostages. The siege ended two days later. They took 149 hostages and killed a radio journalist. After a 39-hour standoff, the gunmen surrendered and all hostages were released from the District Building (the city hall; now called the John A. Wilson Building), B’nai B’rith headquarters, and the Islamic Center of Washington.

1986 – Navy divers found the crew compartment of the space shuttle Challenger along with the remains of the astronauts.

1996 – The first “all-Coast Guard” Ceremonial Honor Guard carried out a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1998 – An arms embargo was imposed on Yugoslavia by the US, Britain and other powers.

1999 – President Bill Clinton visited Honduras and paid tribute to US military efforts in rebuilding roads, bridges, schools and clinics following Hurricane Mitch.

1999 – Energy Secretary Bill Richardson fired Wen Ho Lee, a Los Alamos weapons designer, who was under suspicion of handing nuclear secrets to China in 1988.

2001 – In Afghanistan the smaller giant Buddha at Bamiyan was destroyed.

2002 – A Marine Corps helicopter from Beaufort, SC, crashed in the Atlantic Ocean during a rescue operation from a downed civilian helicopter. 2 people were killed.

2004 – In Chad 2 days of fighting broke out as the army battled Islamic militants near a remote village on the country’s western border with Niger, killing 43 “terrorists” of a group suspected of links with al-Qaida.

2005 – Colombia extradited to the United States a top member of the South American country’s main rebel group, a woman known by the nom de guerre of Sonia and accused of running the insurgents’ drug trafficking business.

2006 – Astronomers announce that the Cassini-Huygens probe has detected possible geysers of water on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, perhaps the first example of naturally occurring liquid water beyond Earth.

2007 – The United States Coast Guard stages an exercise in Florida in preparation for a possible mass exodus from Cuba in the event of the death of Cuban leader Fidel Castro. During the drill 40 Cuban exiles reach the United States.

2010 – Following several decades of “official denial”, Japan confirms it permitted nuclear-armed United States vessels to pass through its ports using its Cold War “secret treaties”.

2011 – Space Shuttle Discovery makes its final landing after 39 flights and 149 million miles. NASA offered Discovery to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum for public display and preservation, after a month-long decontamination process, as part of the national collection.

Discovery replaced Enterprise in the Smithsonian’s display at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia. Discovery was transported to Washington Dulles International Airport on April 17, 2012, and was transferred to the Udvar-Hazy on April 19 where a welcome ceremony was held. Afterwards, at around 5: 30 pm, Discovery was rolled to its “final wheels stop” in the Udvar Hazy Center.

2013 – NASA’s MRO spacecraft provides images allowing scientists for the first time to create a 3D reconstruction of ancient water channels below the Martian surface.

2015 – U.S. President Barack Obama signs an executive order declaring Venezuela a national security threat to the U.S.

March 10th ~

1656 – In the colony of Virginia, suffrage was extended to all free men regardless of their religion.

1681 – English Quaker William Penn received a charter from Charles II, making him sole proprietor of colonial American territory of Pennsylvania.

1769 – Philadelphia merchants finally agree among themselves to support an intercolonial non-importation movement. Effective April 1st, they ban the import of nearly all British trade goods until the Townshend Acts are repealed.

1775 – The Transylvania Company sends Daniel Boone and 30 woodchoppers to cut the Wilderness Road from Fort Wautauga to the mouth of the Kentucky River.

1776 – “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine was published.

1783 – USS Alliance (CAPT John Barry) defeats HMS Sybil in final naval action of Revolution in West Indies waters. Barry, in defense of a companion ship, the Duc de Lauzun which was carrying gold to fund the US war effort, maneuvered her between Sybil and Duc De Lauzun to demand the full attention of the former so that the latter might slip away to safety. Sybil then turned her fire toward Alliance and managed to send one shot from her bow chaser into the American frigate’s cabin, mortally wounding a junior officer and scattering many splinters. Yet, Barry held Alliance’s fire until she was within a stone’s throw of her opponent. At that point, a broadside from the American warship opened some 40 minutes of close-in fighting which finally forced Sybil to flee.

1783 – An anonymous address is circulated among the officers of Washington’s main camp at Newburgh, New York. Actually written by Major John Armstrong, the first “Newburgh Address” rebukes Congress for the failure to honor its promises to Continental Army soldiers and exhorts the veterans to defy Congress if accounts are not settled equitably. A meeting of officers is called for the next day.

1785 – Thomas Jefferson was appointed minister to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.

1804 – Louisiana Purchase: In St. Louis, Missouri, a formal ceremony is conducted to transfer ownership of the Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.

1848 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is ratified by the United States Senate, ending the Mexican–American War.

1849 – A riot erupts in New York where a British actor named Macready is performing at the Astor Place Opera House. Crowds are angry because of the theater’s snobbish dress requirements and because Macready makes scornful comments on the vulgarity of Americans. Twenty-two people are killed and thirty-six injured when troops are called in.

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1862 – First U.S. paper money was issued in denominations of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 & $1000.

1864 – Ulysses S. Grant became commander of the Union armies in the Civil War.

1865 – Battle of Monroe’s Crossroads, NC.

1865 – Confederate General William Henry Chase Whiting dies in prison from wounds suffered during the fall of Fort Fisher, North Carolina. Born in 1824 in Biloxi, Mississippi, Whiting was educated in Boston and at Georgetown College in Washington, where he graduated first in his class at age 16. He then entered the U.S. Military Academy, where in 1845 he again topped his graduating class. Whiting joined the Corps of Engineers and designed coastal fortifications in the West and South, including the defenses for the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. During this project, he got married and settled in Wilmington, North Carolina. When the war began, Whiting offered his services to the new Confederate States of America. He was at Fort Sumter when the Union garrison surrendered at the start of the war.

He returned to Wilmington in the summer of 1861 to supervise the construction of defenses for the city, and then moved to northern Virginia as chief engineer for the Confederate army forming there. Whiting was responsible for moving troops from the Shenandoah Valley to Manassas in time for the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21. His work was a vital component of the Confederate rout of Union troops there. Whiting was given command of a division, and his leadership during the Seven Days’ battles in June 1862 earned him the praise of the top Confederate leaders.

In November 1862, he was given command of the District of Wilmington, allowing him to return to his North Carolina home. He set about strengthening the city’s defenses and constructing Fort Fisher at the Cape Fear River’s mouth. Partly due to his efforts, Wilmington was one of the most important blockade running ports for the Confederates throughout the war. Whiting spent the rest of the war in Wilmington, with the exception of a few months in 1864 spent shoring up the defenses around Petersburg, Virginia. Whiting’s Fort Fisher was a formidable barrier to the Union capture of Wilmington. General Benjamin Butler led a Yankee force against Fort Fisher in December 1864, but the garrison fended off the attack.

The next month, General Alfred Terry launched another assault; this time, Fort Fisher fell to the Yankees. Whiting was badly wounded and captured during the attack. He was able to write his report of the battle three days later, but his health failed when he was shipped to New York and confined in prison at Governor’s Island. William H. C. Whiting died on March 10 at age 40.

1876 – Alexander Graham Bell made what was, in effect, the first telephone call. He found a way of converting words into electrical current and back again and sent his first message using his new variable-liquid resistance transmitter. Bell’s telephone caused the current to vary smoothly in proportion to the pressure created on a microphone by human speech and got a patent.

His assistant, in an adjoining room in Boston, heard Bell say over the experimental device: “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you.” On a page from his notebook, dated March 10, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell described the first successful experiment with the telephone. Bell wrote: “I then shouted into M (the mouthpiece) the following sentence: ‘Mr. Watson—come here—I want to see you.’ To my delight he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said.”

1880 – The Salvation Army arrived in the United States from England. The organization had been founded in Britain in 1865 by William Booth, a street preacher. It drew on revivalism and attention-getting tactics.

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1917 – On a third day of riots and demonstrations in Moscow, Russia, an estimated 25,000 workers are on strike. Army units are called in to deal with the growing unrest, but they refuse to fire on the demonstrators. These vents become known as the ‘February Revolution’–the Russian (Julian) calendar of the time was 11 days behind the western one.

1919 – In Schenk v United States, the Supreme Court finds that the Espionage Act does not violate the First Amendment. In this case Oliver Wendel Holmes agrees with the majority that in war there exists a “clear and present danger.” In any case, he adds, free speech is always under restraint. Under this ruling Eugene V. Debs is sentenced to ten years for interfering with the draft. He will serve three.

1940 – U.S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, after a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Berlin, visits London to discuss a peacemaking proposal with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to prevent a widening of the European war. Sumner Welles, a diplomat and expert on Latin America, spent his early professional life promoting the United States’ “Good Neighbor” foreign policy as attache to the U.S. embassy in Buenos Aires, chief of Latin American affairs of the State Department, and commissioner to the Dominican Republic.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him assistant secretary of state, sending him to Cuba, where Welles successfully mediated opposing groups attempting to overthrow the government of Gerardo Machado. He was promoted to undersecretary of state in 1937, serving as a delegate to several Pan-American conferences. But in 1940, the stakes were raised for Welles. War had broken out in Europe with the German invasion of Poland, and Welles was sent on a fact-finding tour of Berlin, Rome, Paris, and London, in the hopes of keeping the war contained, at the very least, and ideally brought to an end. After a trip to Rome to chat with Benito Mussolini, Welles met with Hitler on March 1-3. Hitler feared that Welles would try to drive a wedge between himself and Axis partner Italy by convincing Mussolini to keep out of the conflict completely.

As a result, the Fuhrer bombarded Welles with a propagandistic interpretation of recent events, putting the blame for the European conflict on England and France. Welles informed Hitler that he and Mussolini had engaged in a “long, constructive, and helpful” conversation, and that the Duce believed “there was still a possibility of bringing about a firm and lasting peace.” Hitler agreed that there would be peace-after a German victory in Europe. Welles left Berlin and arrived in London on March 10. He briefed British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain on Hitler’s intransigence, arguing that the only hope for a lasting peace was the progressive disarmament of the belligerents, primarily Germany.

Chamberlain’s foreign ministers were less than impressed with the suggestion, believing that even a “disarmed” Germany could still invade a smaller, weaker nation. In short, Welles’ trip accomplished nothing.

1942 – American aircraft launched from the American carriers Lexington and Yorktown attack Japanese vessels near Lae, New Guinea.

1943 – Chennault is promoted and his command in China is to be enlarged and named the 14th Air Force.

1944 – On New Britain, American forces capture Talasea.

1944 – On Bougainville, Japanese forces capture Hill 260 but lose ground to American counterattacks in other areas.

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1945 – Patton’s 3rd Army made contact with Hodge’s 1st Army. They link up near Andernach completing the Allied hold on the west bank of the Rhine everywhere north of Koblenz. Field Marshal Kesselring arrives from Italy to take command of the German armies in the west.

1945 – Germany blew up the Wessel Bridge on the Rhine.

1945 – 300 American bombers drop almost 2,000 tons of incendiaries on Tokyo, Japan, destroying large portions of the Japanese capital and killing 100,000 civilians. In the closing months of the war, the United States had turned to incendiary bombing tactics against Japan, also known as “area bombing,” in an attempt to break Japanese morale and force a surrender. The firebombing of Tokyo was the first major bombing operation of this sort against Japan.

Early in the morning, the B-29s dropped their bombs of napalm and magnesium incendiaries over the packed residential districts along the Sumida River in eastern Tokyo. The conflagration quickly engulfed Tokyo’s wooden residential structures, and the subsequent firestorm replaced oxygen with lethal gases, superheated the atmosphere, and caused hurricane-like winds that blew a wall of fire across the city. The majority of the 100,000 who perished died from carbon monoxide poisoning and the sudden lack of oxygen, but others died horrible deaths within the firestorm, such as those who attempted to find protection in the Sumida River and were boiled alive, or those who were trampled to death in the rush to escape the burning city.

As a result of the attack, 10 square miles of eastern Tokyo were entirely obliterated, and an estimated 250,000 buildings were destroyed. During the next nine days, U.S. bombers flew similar missions against Nagoya, Osaka, and Kobe. In August, U.S. atomic attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki finally forced Japan’s hand.

1945 – Most of the US 41st Infantry Division is landed at the southwest of Mindanao near Zamboanga. General Doe commands the troops and Admiral Barbey the naval support. On Luzon fighting continues south of Laguna de Bay where the US forces are still trying to break through to the east. Organized Japanese resistance on the island of Palawan comes to an end.

1945 – In the Philippines Pfc. Thomas Eugene Atkins (d. 1999 at 78) repulsed a Japanese attack while wounded and killed 14 enemy soldiers in northern Luzon.

1945 – Navy and civilian nurses interned at Los Banos, Philippines flown back to U.S. Navy nurses awarded Bronze Star.

1945 – Roosevelt informs Spanish representatives that no American aid will be forthcoming so long as the Franco dictatorship continues.

1947 – The Big Four met in Moscow to discuss the portioning of Germany.

1948 – First use of jets assigned to operational squadron (VF-5A) on board a carrier (Boxer).

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1948 – The communist-controlled government of Czechoslovakia reports that Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk has committed suicide are greeted with suspicion by the West. The story of the noncommunist Masaryk’s death was greeted with skepticism in the West. Masaryk was born in 1886, the son of Czechoslovakia’s first president. After World War I, he served as foreign minister in the new Czech government. Later he served as the Czech ambassador to Great Britain.

During World War II, he once again took the position of foreign minister, this time with the Czech government-in-exile in London. After the war, Masaryk returned to Czechoslovakia to serve as foreign minister under President Eduard Benes. It was a tense time in Masaryk’s native country. The Soviet Union had occupied the nation during World War II and there were fears that the Soviets would try to install a communist government in Czechoslovakia, as it had in Poland, East Germany, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Masaryk, however, was skillful in dealing with the Soviets, assuring them that a democratic Czechoslovakia posed no security threat to Russia.

In 1947, though, Masaryk made a fatal mistake. When the United States unveiled the Marshall Plan-the multimillion-dollar aid program for postwar Europe-Masaryk indicated Czechoslovakia’s interest in participating. When he informed the Soviets, they absolutely refused to give their approval. This was quickly followed, in February 1948, by a communist coup in Czechoslovakia. President Benes was forced to accept a communist-dominated government. Masaryk was one of the few non-communists left in place.

On March 10, 1948, the Czech government reported that Masaryk had committed suicide by jumping out of a third-story window at the Foreign Ministry. The reaction in the West was characterized by deep suspicion. Secretary of State George Marshall stated that Czechoslovakia was under a “reign of terror,” and that Masaryk’s “suicide” indicated “very plainly what is going on.” Despite suspicions that the communists had murdered Masaryk, nothing has been proven definitively and his death remains one of the great mysteries of the Cold War era.

1949 – Nazi wartime broadcaster Mildred E. Gillars, also known as “Axis Sally,” was convicted in Washington D.C. of treason. She served 12 years in prison.

1951 – The United Nations Command gained one to two miles per day to capture Line Albany; enemy opposition began to fade.

1953 – North Korean gunners at Wonsan fired on the USS Missouri, the ship responds by firing 998 rounds at the enemy position.

1954 – President Eisenhower called Senator Joseph McCarthy a peril to the Republican Party.

1955 – President Eisenhower indicates that in the event of war, the US would use nuclear weapons.

1966 – The North Vietnamese overran and captured a Green Beret camp at Ashau Valley.

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1968 – Battle of Lima Site 85, concluding the 11th with largest single ground combat loss of United States Air Force members (12) during the Vietnam War. Also called Battle of Phou Pha Thi, was fought as part of a military campaign waged during the Vietnam War and Laotian Civil War by the Vietnam People’s Army (VPA) (then known as NVA) and the Pathet Lao, against airmen of the United States Air Force 1st Combat Evaluation Group, elements of the Royal Laos Army, Royal Thai Border Patrol Police, and the Central Intelligence Agency-led Hmong Clandestine Army. The battle was fought on Phou Pha Thi mountain in Houaphanh Province, Laos, on 10 March 1968, and derives its name from the mountaintop where it was fought or from the designation of a 700 feet (210 m) landing strip in the valley below.

1970 – The U.S. Army accuses Capt. Ernest Medina and four other soldiers of committing crimes at My Lai in March 1968. The charges ranged from premeditated murder to rape and the “maiming” of a suspect under interrogation. Medina was the company commander of Lt. William Calley and other soldiers charged with murder and numerous crimes at My Lai 4 in Song My village.

The My Lai massacre became the most publicized war atrocity committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam. Allegedly, a platoon had slaughtered between 200 and 500 unarmed villagers at My Lai 4, a cluster of hamlets in the coastal lowlands of I Corps Tactical Zone. This was a heavily mined region where Viet Cong guerrillas were firmly entrenched and numerous members of the participating platoon had been killed or maimed during the preceding month. The company had been conducting a search-and-destroy mission. In search of the 48th Viet Cong (VC) Local Force Battalion, the unit entered My Lai but found only women, children, and old men.

Frustrated by unanswered losses due to snipers and mines, the soldiers took out their anger on the villagers. During the attack, several old men were bayoneted, some women and children praying outside the local temple were shot in the back of the head, and at least one girl was raped before being killed. Many villagers were systematically rounded up and led to a nearby ditch where they were executed.

Reportedly, the killing was only stopped when Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson, an aero-scout helicopter pilot, landed his helicopter between the Americans and the fleeing South Vietnamese, confronting the soldiers and blocking them from further action against the villagers. The incident was subsequently covered up, but eventually came to light a year later. An Army board of inquiry headed by Lt. Gen. William Peers investigated the massacre and produced a list of 30 people who knew of the atrocity. Only 14, including Calley and Medina, were eventually charged with crimes.

All eventually had their charges dismissed or were acquitted by courts-martial except Calley, who was found guilty of murdering 22 civilians. He was sentenced to life imprisonment, but his sentence was reduced to 20 years by the Court of Military Appeals and further reduced later to 10 years by the Secretary of the Army. Proclaimed by much of the public as a “scapegoat,” Calley was paroled in 1974 after having served about three years.

1975 – The North Vietnamese surround and attack the city of Ban Me Thuot, as heavy fighting erupts in the Central Highlands. This action, initiated in late January 1975, just two years after a cease-fire was established by the Paris Peace Accords, was part of what the North Vietnamese called Campaign 275. The North Vietnamese were successful in both the Central Highlands and further north at Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang. The South Vietnamese soon collapsed as a cogent fighting force and the North Vietnamese continued the attack all the way to Saigon. South Vietnam surrendered unconditionally on April 30th.

1980 – Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, lent his support to the militants holding the American hostages in Tehran. He intervenes to arrange meeting between UN commission members and hostages.

1982 – President Reagan proclaims economic sanctions against Libya and banned Libyan oil imports, because of the continued support of terrorism.

1983 – The Coast Guard retired the last operational HU-16E Albatross, ending the “era of seaplanes” for the service.

March 10th ~ {continued...}

1993 – Authorities announced the arrest of Nidal Ayyad, a second suspect in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City.

1996 – Secretary of State Warren Christopher, accusing China of “reckless” provocations against Taiwan, said on NBC that US warships would move closer to Taiwan.

1997 – The White House and the FBI clashed in a rare public quarrel after President Clinton said he should have been alerted when the bureau told national security officials that the Chinese government might be trying to influence U.S. elections.

1997 – Vietnam agreed to repay the US millions of dollars in debts incurred by the former South Vietnam. The debts were currently worth $140 million.

1998 – U.S. Air Force and Navy personnel in the Persian Gulf received vaccinations against anthrax.

1998 – In South Carolina the FBI received a videotape made by Daniel Rudolph, brother of abortion clinic bombing suspect Eric Robert Rudolph, in which he amputated his left hand with a circular saw.

1999 – In Serbia Pres. Milosevic met with Richard Holbrooke and stood firm against NATO troops in his country.

2002 – Operation Anaconda continues. In Afghanistan, U.S. troops have been working to reduce a pocket of al-Qaeda resistance for the past 24 hours. No senior al Qaeda leaders have been captured at this point.

2003 – Facing almost certain defeat, the United States and Britain delayed a vote in the U.N. Security Council to give Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disarm.

2003 – The US military says US and British warplanes have attacked several communications sites in Iraq after Iraqi forces fired a missile at coalition aircraft.

2004 – U.S. Marines shot and killed at least two Haitians in overnight gun battles.

2005 – Iraq’s main Shiite party and a Kurdish bloc reached a deal that sets the stage for a new government to be formed when the National Assembly convenes next week.

2005 – Pakistan’s information minister acknowledged that Abdul Qadeer Khan, a rogue scientist at the heart of an international nuclear black market investigation, gave centrifuges to Iran, but insisted the government had nothing to do with the transfer.

2006 – The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter arrives at Mars. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is a multipurpose spacecraft designed to conduct reconnaissance and exploration of Mars from orbit. The US$720 million spacecraft was built by Lockheed Martin under the supervision of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The mission is managed by the JPL, at California Institute of Technology, La Cañada Flintridge, California, for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington, D.C. It was launched August 12, 2005, and attained Martian orbit on March 10, 2006.

In November 2006, after five months of aerobraking, it entered its final science orbit and began its primary science phase. As MRO entered orbit it joined five other active spacecraft which were either in orbit or on the planet surface: Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Express, Mars Odyssey, and two Mars Exploration Rovers; at the time a record for the most operational spacecraft in the immediate vicinity of Mars. MRO contains a host of scientific instruments such as cameras, spectrometers, and radar, which are used to analyze the landforms, stratigraphy, minerals, and ice of Mars. It paves the way for future spacecraft by monitoring Mars’ daily weather and surface conditions, studying potential landing sites, and hosting a new telecommunications system. MRO’s telecommunications system will transfer more data back to Earth than all previous interplanetary missions combined, and MRO will serve as a highly capable relay satellite for future missions.

2015 – The Wikimedia Foundation and eight other organisations file a lawsuit in the state of Maryland, US against the National Security Agency and the United States Department of Justice regarding the NSA’s mass surveillance program. The Wikimedia Foundation is the owner and parent company of Wikipedia.

2015 – An Army helicopter crashed during a foggy night training exercise at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle leaving seven Marines and four United States Army soldiers dead.

March 11th ~

1731 – Robert Treat Paine, Declaration of Independence signer, was born. Robert Treat Paine (March 11, 1731 – May 11, 1814) was a Massachusetts lawyer and politician, and a representative of Massachusetts to the Continental Congress. He served as the state’s first attorney general, and served as an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court.

1778 – Marines participated the action when the Continental Navy frigate BOSTON, enroute to France, sighted, engaged, and captured the British merchant ship MARTHA. As the drum of the BOSTON beat to arms, John Adams seized a musket and joined the Marines on deck until the frigate’s captain, Samuel Tucker, sent him below for safety.

1783 – George Washington forbids the unauthorized meeting of officers called for in the anonymous Newburgh Address and suggests a regular meeting of officers to discuss grievances to be held March 15th.

1811 – Ned Ludd led a group of workers in a wild protest against mechanization. Members of the organized bands of craftsmen who rioted against automation in 19th century England were known as Luddites and also “Ludds.” The movement, reputedly named after Ned Ludd, began near Nottingham as craftsman destroyed textile machinery that was eliminating their jobs. By the following year, Luddites were active in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire.

Although the Luddites opposed violence towards people (a position which allowed for a modicum of public support), government crackdowns included mass shootings, hangings and deportation to the colonies. It took 14,000 British soldiers to quell the rebellion. The movement effectively died in 1813 apart from a brief resurgence of Luddite sentiment in 1816 following the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

1813 – President Madison formally accepts the offer of Czar Alexander to mediate between Great Britain and the United States. The British, however, reject the Czar’s offer.

1824 – The U.S. War Department created the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A lifelong friend and trusted aide of Ulysses S. Grant, Ely Parker rose to the top in two worlds, that of his native Seneca Indian tribe and the white man’s world at large. He went on to become the first Indian to lead the Bureau.

1853 – Marines from the USS Cyane landed at San Juan del Norte, Nicaragua to protect American lives and interests during political disturbances. Cornelius Vanderbilt, the North American millionaire, recognizing the potential value of a canal route between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, felt that the best site for such a canal was across Nicaragua. He began transporting people (especially those prospecting for gold in the western U.S.) across Nicaragua using stagecoach and boats in 1851.

1861 – In Montgomery, Alabama, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas adopt the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America. The constitution resembled the Constitution of the United States, even repeating much of its language, but was actually more comparable to the Articles of Confederation–the initial post-Revolutionary War U.S. constitution–in its delegation of extensive powers to the states. The constitution also contained substantial differences from the U.S. Constitution in its protection of slavery, which was “recognized and protected” in slave states and territories.

However, in congruence with U.S. policy since the beginning of the 19th century, the foreign slave trade was prohibited. The constitution provided for six-year terms for the president and vice president, and the president was ineligible for successive terms. Although a presidential item veto was granted, the power of the central Confederate government was sharply limited by its dependence on state consent for the use of any funds and resources. Although Britain and France both briefly considered entering the Civil War on the side of the South, the Confederate States of America, which survived until April 1865, never won foreign recognition as an independent government.

March 11th ~ {continued...}

1862 – Landing party from U.S.S. Wabash, Commander C. R. P. Rodgers, occupied St. Augustine, Florida, which had been evacuated by Confederate troops in the face of the naval threat.

1862 – Two Confederate gunboats under construction at the head of Pensacola Bay were burned by Confederate military authorities to prevent their falling into Northern hands in the event of the anticipated move against Pensacola by Union naval forces.

1862 – President Lincoln issues War Order No. 3, a measure making several changes at the top of the Union command structure. He created three departments, placing Henry Halleck in charge of the west, John C. Fremont in command of troops in the Appalachian region, and George McClellan in the east. The most significant change in the order removed McClellan from his post as General-in-Chief of all Union armies, though McClellan retained command of the Army of the Potomac, the most important Union force. He had assumed leadership of that army after it was defeated at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861. He quickly installed an efficient command structure and began training an effective fighting force.

Three months later, Lincoln elevated McClellan to General-in-Chief. The relationship between Lincoln and his commanding officer, however, was strained at best and contentious at worst. The arrogant McClellan was contemptuous of the president and he often ignored Lincoln’s communications or kept information from him. McClellan was stretched thin as General-in-Chief, and even he recognized this fact. He was bothered by the demotion, but he wrote to Lincoln that he would “work just as cheerfully as ever before, and…no consideration of self will in any manner interfere with the discharge of my public duties.”

For McClellan, this was a rare show of grace and deference towards Lincoln. The move allowed McClellan to spend more time planning his upcoming campaign against the Confederate capital at Richmond. For a time, there was no General-in-Chief, and the three regional commanders reported to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The post did not stay empty for long, though, as Halleck was elevated to General-in-Chief five months later.

1863 – Union troops under General Ulysses S. Grant gave up their preparations to take Vicksburg after failing to pass Fort Pemberton, north of Vicksburg.

1863 – A naval engagement occurred between the CSS Alabama and the USS Hatteras. CSS Alabama was a screw sloop-of-war built for the Confederacy in 1862 by John Laird Sons and Company, Liverpool, England. Launched as Enrica, it was fitted out as a cruiser and commissioned 24 August 1862 as CSS Alabama. Under Captain Raphael Semmes, Alabama spent the next two months capturing and burning ships in the North Atlantic and intercepting American grain ships bound for Europe. Continuing the path of destruction through the West Indies, Alabama sank USS Hatteras along the Texas coast and captured her crew.

1865 – General Sherman and his forces occupied Fayetteville, N.C. The Civil War was in its final weeks when a strong 60,000-man force, under the command of Union General William T. Sherman, marched in through the Carolinas, capturing town after town. They overcame the Confederate soldiers led by General Joseph E. Johnston. The Union Army captured and destroyed the Confederate arsenal, a building where weapons were made and stored, in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

1865 – Lieutenant Commander George W. Young, senior officer present off Wilmington, led a naval force consisting of U.S.S. Eolus and boat crews from U.S.S. Maratanza, Lenapee, and Nyack up the Cape Fear River to Fayetteville. The expedition rendezvoused with General Sherman’s army.

March 11th ~ {continued...}

1867 – Acquiescing to the will of Congress, President Andrew Johnson appoints commanders for the five military districts carved out by the First Reconstruction Act; 20,000 troops, including black militia, are sent South. Under their protection over 70,000 blacks and 6,000 whites are registered to vote. Many of the whites are landless people who have been prevented from voting in previous years. Coalitions of blacks and southern whites, “scalawags” as they are called, elect representatives sensitive to their needs. With the army also come thousands of northerners , some to help and some to help themselves. These become know as “carpetbaggers” since many seem to have all of their possession in large cheap bags, often made of carpet. In spite of corruption that plays a large part in the post-war years, much food, shelter and technical help will be provided.

1916 – USS Nevada (BB-36) is commissioned as the first US Navy “super-dreadnought”. USS Nevada (BB-36), the second United States Navy ship to be named after the 36th state, was the lead ship of the two Nevada-class battleships; her sister ship was Oklahoma. Launched in 1914, the Nevada was a leap forward in dreadnought technology; four of her new features would be included on almost every subsequent US battleship: triple gun turrets, oil in place of coal for fuel, geared steam turbines for greater range, and the “all or nothing” armor principle. These features made Nevada the first US Navy “super-dreadnought”.

Nevada served in both World Wars: during the last few months of World War I, Nevada was based in Bantry Bay, Ireland, to protect the supply convoys that were sailing to and from Great Britain. In World War II, she was one of the battleships trapped when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She was the only battleship to get underway during the attack, making the ship “the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal and depressing morning” for the United States. Still, she was hit by one torpedo and at least six bombs while steaming away from Battleship Row, forcing her to be beached.

Subsequently salvaged and modernized at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Nevada served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic and as a fire-support ship in four amphibious assaults: the Normandy Landings and the invasions of Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. At the end of World War II, the Navy decided that Nevada was too old to be retained, so they assigned her to be a target ship in the atomic experiments that were going to be conducted at Bikini Atoll in July 1946 (Operation Crossroads).

After being hit by the blast from the first atomic bomb, Able, she was still afloat but heavily damaged and radioactive. She was decommissioned on 29 August 1946 and sunk during naval gunfire practice on 31 July 1948.

1918 – The first case of Spanish flu occurs, the start of a devastating worldwide pandemic.

1940 – The government lifts its arms embargo to allow Britain and France to buy some P40 fighter planes.

1941 – The Lend-Lease Bill becomes law when signed by President Roosevelt. Important amendments have been made by Congress. A time limit has been placed on the operation of the act (until June 1943), but a motion originally passed in the House forbidding US warships to give convoy protection to foreign ships has been defeated. Also to be allowed are transfers of ships to other countries solely on the presidential authority without reference to Congress.

Lend-Lease is not an entirely disinterested act. Britain is compelled to go on paying cash for as long as this is possible (meaning British assets in the US must be sold below their true value) and it is forbidden to export anything containing materials supplied under Lend-Lease, nor can items wholly produced in Britain be exported if equivalent items are being supplied under Lend-Lease.

March 11th ~ {continued...}

1941 – Lend-Lease and the Coast Guard: All 10 Lake-class cutters were transferred to the Royal Navy under the program. Two were lost in action against German forces. These 250-foot cutters had been designed by the Coast Guard and featured a slightly raked stem and a cruiser stern. Their innovative turbine-electric drive power plant was developed by Coast Guard Captain Quincy B. Newman. These were the first ships to have alternating current, synchronous motor for propulsion–the whole ship ran off the main turbine. The auxiliary generators were tied into the main generator electrically, after sufficient speed was attained. At that point, no steam was required to drive the turbines on the auxiliary generators. The propulsion plant achieved remarkable efficiency.

1942 – After struggling against great odds to save the Philippines from Japanese conquest, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur abandons the island fortress of Corregidor under orders from President Franklin Roosevelt. Left behind at Corregidor and on the Bataan Peninsula were 90,000 American and Filipino troops, who, lacking food, supplies, and support, would soon succumb to the Japanese offensive. After leaving Corregidor, MacArthur and his family traveled by boat 560 miles to the Philippine island of Mindanao, braving mines, rough seas, and the Japanese Navy. At the end of the hair-raising 35-hour journey, MacArthur told the boat commander, John D. Bulkeley, “You’ve taken me out of the jaws of death, and I won’t forget it.”

On March 17, the general and his family boarded a B-17 Flying Fortress for Northern Australia. He then took another aircraft and a long train ride down to Melbourne. During this journey, he was informed that there were far fewer Allied troops in Australia than he had hoped. Relief of his forces trapped in the Philippines would not be forthcoming. Deeply disappointed, he issued a statement to the press in which he promised his men and the people of the Philippines, “I shall return.” The promise would become his mantra during the next two and a half years, and he would repeat it often in public appearances. For his valiant defense of the Philippines, MacArthur was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and celebrated as “America’s First Soldier.”

Put in command of Allied forces in the Southwestern Pacific, his first duty was conducting the defense of Australia. Meanwhile, in the Philippines, Bataan fell in April, and the 70,000 American and Filipino soldiers captured there were forced to undertake a death march in which at least 7,000 perished. Then, in May, Corregidor surrendered, and 15,000 more Americans and Filipinos were captured. The Philippines–MacArthur’s adopted home–were lost, and the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff had no immediate plans for their liberation. After the U.S. victory at the Battle of Midway in June 1942, most Allied resources in the Pacific went to U.S. Admiral Chester Nimitz, who as commander of the Pacific Fleet planned a more direct route to Japan than via the Philippines.

Unperturbed, MacArthur launched a major offensive in New Guinea, winning a string of victories with his limited forces. By September 1944, he was poised to launch an invasion of the Philippines, but he needed the support of Nimitz’s Pacific Fleet. After a period of indecision about whether to invade the Philippines or Formosa, the Joint Chiefs put their support behind MacArthur’s plan, which logistically could be carried out sooner than a Formosa invasion.

On October 20, 1944, a few hours after his troops landed, MacArthur waded ashore onto the Philippine island of Leyte. That day, he made a radio broadcast in which he declared, “People of the Philippines, I have returned!” In January 1945, his forces invaded the main Philippine island of Luzon. In February, Japanese forces at Bataan were cut off, and Corregidor was captured. Manila, the Philippine capital, fell in March, and in June MacArthur announced his offensive operations on Luzon to be at an end; although scattered Japanese resistance continued until the end of the war in August. Only one-third of the men MacArthur left behind on March 11, 1942, survived to see his return. “I’m a little late,” he told them, “but we finally came.”

1942 – 1st deportation train left Paris for the Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

1942 – American General Stillwell takes command of the Chinese 5th and 6th Armies (actually size of European army divisions). His first action is to concentrate forces around Mandalay and in the Shan States.

1943 – The Americans extend the Lend-Lease agreements by one year. The value of the agreements, up to the end of February 1943, is reported to be $9,632,000,000.