March 20th ~ {continued...}

2003 – (9:34 p.m., 19 March EST) the military invasion of Iraq began. The invasion of Iraq, led by U.S. army General Tommy Franks, began under the codename “Operation Iraqi Liberation”, later renamed “Operation Iraqi Freedom”, the UK codename Operation Telic, and the Australian codename Operation Falconer. Coalition forces also cooperated with Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the north. Approximately forty other governments, the “U.S.-led coalition against Iraq,” participated by providing troops, equipment, services, security, and special forces, with 248,000 soldiers from the United States, 45,000 British soldiers, 2,000 Australian soldiers and 194 Polish soldiers from Special Forces unit GROM sent to Kuwait for the invasion.

The invasion force was also supported by Iraqi Kurdish militia troops, estimated to number upwards of 70,000. According to General Tommy Franks, the objectives of the invasion were, “First, end the regime of Saddam Hussein. Second, to identify, isolate and eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Third, to search for, to capture and to drive out terrorists from that country. Fourth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to terrorist networks. Fifth, to collect such intelligence as we can related to the global network of illicit weapons of mass destruction. Sixth, to end sanctions and to immediately deliver humanitarian support to the displaced and to many needy Iraqi citizens. Seventh, to secure Iraq’s oil fields and resources, which belong to the Iraqi people. And last, to help the Iraqi people create conditions for a transition to a representative self-government.”

2003 – Some 600 US and Romanian ground troops in Afghanistan began Operation Valiant Strike, an intensified search for Taliban, al Qaeda and loyalists to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

2003 – Norwegian police arrested Mullah Krekar, the leader of a Kurdish guerrilla group suspected of links to al-Qaida, on kidnapping charges.

2003 – Turkey’s parliament approved a motion allowing over-flights for US warplanes. Turkey announced plans to send thousands of troops into Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq.

2004 – NATO-led forces surrounded Kosovska Mitrovica in efforts to separate ethnic Albanians and Serbs and prevent a resurgence of attacks that killed 28 people and wounded 600. Ethnic Albanians looted villages and apartments abandoned by Serb civilians. Some 110 homes and at least 16 Serb Orthodox churches were destroyed by arson.

2004 – The Pakistani military commander leading a five-day assault on armed militants holed up in mud fortresses said a “high-value” terror suspect remained inside, possibly wounded, but there was no way to know whether it was al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

2004 – The hunt for terrorists on Pakistan’s frontier appears to be narrowing on an Uzbek terror group that once trained in Afghanistan.

2005 – In Jordan an appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Jordanian found guilty of financing Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi’s insurgent group in Iraq. The Court of Cassation said the Oct. 31 conviction of Bilal Mansur al-Hiyari by the military State Security Court “fell short of adequate justifications and causes.”

2007 – Commercial spaceflight venture SpaceX launches the second Falcon 1 rocket into space, though failing to reach orbit.

2009 – The United States Navy’s USS Hartford and USS New Orleans collide in the Strait of Hormuz.

2014 – United States Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid orders an investigation into the breach by the CIA into the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s computer systems.

March 21st ~

1617 – Pocahontas (Rebecca Rolfe) died of either small pox or pneumonia while in England with her husband, John Rolfe. As Pocahontas and John Rolfe prepared to sail back to Virginia, she died reportedly from the wet English winter. She was buried at the parish church of St. George in Gravesend, England.

1788 – Almost the entire city of New Orleans, Louisiana, was destroyed by fire. 856 buildings were burned.

1791 – Hopley Yeaton of New Hampshire was commissioned as “Master of a Cutter in the Service of the United States for the Protection of the Revenue.” This first commission of a seagoing officer of the United States was signed by George Washington and attested to by Thomas Jefferson. Twelve other commissions of officers of revenue cutters were signed on the same date. Yeaton was subsequently assigned to command the Revenue cutter Scammel, stationed in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

1806 – Lewis and Clark began their trip home after an 8,000 mile trek of the Mississippi basin and the Pacific Coast.

1851 – Yosemite Valley was discovered (by non-natives) in California. The 58 men of the Mariposa Battalion under Major James D. Savage were the first whites to enter Yosemite Valley. Their first view of the valley was from the plateau later named Mount Beatitude. They expelled Chief Tenaya and his band of Ahwahneechee Indians. Dr. Bunnell, a physician in the battalion, named the valley Yosemite to honor the local Indians. He did not realize that the word “yohemeti” meant “some of them are killers” and was an insult against the valley people.

1863 – Union General Edwin Vose Sumner dies while awaiting reassignment to the far West. His death came months after he led his corps at the Battle of Antietam. Born in Boston in 1793, Sumner joined the army in 1819. He had already spent more than a quarter of a century in the military when he fought in the Mexican War, traveling down the Santa Fe Trail with Stephen Watts Kearney to capture New Mexico. Sumner was transferred to Winfield Scott’s command for the remainder of the war, and he earned the nickname “Bullhead” when a bullet ricocheted off his skull at the Battle of Cerro Gordo.

Sumner served in Kansas during the troubles of the 1850s when pro-slave and anti-slave settlers clashed. He provided escort for president-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861, and when the war erupted, Lincoln made Sumner commander of the Department of the Pacific. In March 1862, he was given command of II Corps in the Army of the Potomac. During the Seven Days’ battle in June, Sumner performed somewhat sluggishly but his fighting spirit carried down to his men. At Antietam in September, Sumner’s men attacked General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s corps and nearly broke it before heavy fire drove them back.

Sumner’s command suffered a frightful toll, absorbing nearly half of the Union’s 12,500 casualties from that day. Sumner fought at Fredericksburg in December, and he remained loyal to General Ambrose Burnside in early 1863 when several generals were contemplating a mutiny against their commander. Tired of the infighting and political intrigue among the Army of the Potomac’s staff, and perhaps feeling too old to command in the field, Sumner requested reassignment. He was again appointed to the Department of the Pacific, but he died in Syracuse, New York, before moving to the West.

March 21st ~ {continued...}

1865 – The Battle of Bentonville, N.C. ended, marking the last Confederate attempt to stop Sherman. Union General William Sherman considered Judson Kilpatrick, his cavalry chief, ‘a hell of a damn fool.’ At Monroe’s Cross Roads, N.C., his carelessness and disobedience of orders proved Sherman’s point.

1865 – The heavy guns of Union gunboats supported the landing of troops of General Canby’s command at Dannelly’s Mills on the Fish River, Alabama. This was a diversionary operation intended to prevent the movement of additional Confederate troops to Mobile during the week prior to the opening of the Federal attack against that city.

1866 – The US Congress authorized national soldiers’ homes.

1885 – Raoul Lufbery, French-born American fighter pilot of World War I, was born.

1907 – Following the Roosevelt Corollary, Marines land in Honduras to protect American interests and to help quell revolution there. Nicaragua’s powerful President Zelaya began to support exiled Honduran liberals in their efforts to topple Manuel Bonilla, who had become, in effect, the Honduran dictator. Supported by elements of the Nicaraguan army, the exiles invaded Honduras in February 1907 and established a provisional junta. With the assistance of Salvadoran troops, Manuel Bonilla tried to resist, but in March his forces were decisively beaten in a battle notable for the introduction of machine guns into Central American civil strife.

By 1907 the United States looked with considerable disfavor on the role Zelaya of Nicaragua was playing in regional affairs. When the Nicaraguan army entered Honduras in 1907 to overthrow Bonilla, the United States government, believing that Zelaya wanted to dominate the entire region, landed marines at Puerto Cortés to protect the North American bananas trade. Other United States naval units prevented a Nicaraguan attack on Bonilla’s last position at Amapala in the Golfo de Fonseca. After negotiations conducted by the United States naval commander, Manuel Bonilla sought refuge on the U.S.S. Chicago, and the fighting came to an end.

The United States chargé d’affaires in Tegucigalpa took an active role in arranging a final peace settlement, with which Zelaya was less than happy. The settlement provided for the installation of a compromise regime, headed by General Miguel Dávila, in Tegucigalpa. Dávila was a liberal but was distrusted by Zelaya, who made a secret arrangement with El Salvador to oust him from office. This plan failed to reach fruition.

1917 – Loretta Walsh becomes first woman Navy petty officer when sworn in as Chief Yeoman.

March 21st ~ {continued...}

1918 – General Erich Ludendorff has planned a knock-out blow on the Western Front. He recognizes that, with the imminent arrival of scores of thousands of US troops in France, Germany is likely to lose the war. Ludendorff plans to strike first. He transfers some 70 divisions of troops from the Eastern Front, where the turmoil following the Russian Revolution has effectively ended Russian involvement in the war. In the short term, therefore, Germany has a clear numerical advantage over the British and French. Ludendorff’s plan is to exploit the differences between Britain’s and France’s strategies for facing any major German offensive. He believes the French will give priority to the defense of Paris, while the British are more concerned with defending the ports along the north French coast through which their supplies and troops flow. Ludendorff aims to attack the juncture between the French and British forces in northeast France.

To this end he has three armies, the Seventeenth under General Otto von Below, the Second led by General Georg von der Marwitz, and General Oskar von Huiter’s Eighteenth, prepare for the offensive. These are to advance along a 50-mile front from Arras to St. Quentin and La Fere. This zone is defended byt the British Third Army under General Sir Julian Byng and General Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. Ludendorff had 63 divisions, many led by elite storm trooper units, earmarked for the attack, while the British can muster just 26. the offensive is code-named Operation Michael but it is also known as the Kaiserschlacht (Kaiser’s Battle).

Operation Michael begins with a sudden five-hour bombardment on the British by 6,000 artillery pieces. They fire both gas and high-explosive shells. Under cover of thick fog the Germans attack, with the specially trained storm trooper units leading the way. The surprise and shock of the onslaught overwhelms the thinly spread British. Gough’s Fifth Army collapses in confusion, exposing the right flank of Byng’s Third Army. However, Bying’s forces, which are holding a narrower front than those of Gough, withdraw across the Somme River in good order. The attackers here, drawn from the German Seventeenth and Second Armies, make significantly fewer gains. Operation Michael will end on April 5th with no decisive victory along these lines on the Somme.

1919 – Navy installs and tests Sperry gyrocompass, in first instance of test of aircraft gyrocompass.

1928 – Coolidge gave the Congressional Medal of Honor to Charles Lindbergh. The Medal of Honor was not always awarded for “courage above and beyond” the call of duty.

1943 –The second military conspiracy plan to assassinate Hitler in a week fails to come off. Maj. Gen. Henning von Tresckow, a member of Gen. Fedor von Bock’s Army Group Center, was the leader of one of many conspiracies against Adolf Hitler. Along with his staff officer, Lt. Fabian von Schlabrendorff, and two other conspirators, both of old German families who also believed Hitler was leading Germany to humiliation, Tresckow had planned to arrest the Fuhrer when he visited the Army Group’s headquarters at Borisov, in the Soviet Union. But their naivete in such matters became evident when Hitler showed up-surrounded by SS bodyguards and driven in one of a fleet of cars. They never got near him.

Tresckow would try again on March 13, 1943, in a plot called Operation Flash. This time, Tresckow, Schlabrendorff, et al., were stationed in Smolensk, still in the USSR. Hitler was planning to fly back to Rastenburg, Germany, from Vinnitsa, in the USSR. A stopover was planned at Smolensk, during which the Fuhrer was to be handed a parcel bomb by an unwitting officer thinking it was a gift of liquor for two senior officers at Rastenburg. All went according to plan and Hitler’s plane took off–the bomb was set to go off somewhere over Minsk. At that point, co-conspirators in Berlin were ready to take control of the central government at the mention of the code word “Flash.” Unfortunately, the bomb never went off at all-the detonator was defective.

A week later on March 21, on Heroes’ Memorial Day, (a holiday honoring German World War I dead), Tresckow selected Col. Freiherr von Gersdorff to act as a suicide bomber at the Zeughaus Museum in Berlin, where Hitler was to attend the annual memorial dedication. With a bomb planted in each of his two coat pockets, Gersdorff was to sidle up to Hitler as he reviewed the memorials and ignite the bombs, taking the dictator out-along with himself and everyone in the immediate vicinity. Schlabrendorff supplied Gersdorff with bombs-each with a 10-minute fuse. Once at the exhibition hall, Gersdorff was informed that the Fuhrer was to inspect the exhibits for only eight minutes-not enough time for the fuses to melt down.

March 21st ~ {continued...}

1944 – US forces moving west from Yalau Plantation link up with Australian forces advancing north, from inland, on the Huon Peninsula.

1945 – The US 8th Air Force targets Me262 fighter bases in western Germany.

1945 – Bureau of Aeronautics initiates rocket-powered surface-to-air guided missile development by awarding contract to Fairchild.

1945 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) is replenishing in preparation for operations around Okinawa. The Japanese 5th Air Force deploys the first Ohka piloted rocket bombs, slung under Misubishi bombers, against the American fleet. The flight of 18 aircraft is intercepted by carrier aircraft and all but one are shot down. Admiral Spruance, command the US 5th Fleet, is present for the operations.

1945 – Most of US 3rd Army forces are engaged in clearing German resistance on the west bank of the Rhine River, to the north of Mannheim. Other elements of US 3rd and US 7th Army units are cooperating to take Annweiler, Neunkirchen, Neustadt and Homberg.

1945 – General A. A. Vandergrift, 18th Commandant of the Marine Corps, became the first Marine four-star general on active duty.

1946 – The United Nations set up temporary headquarters at Hunter College in New York City.

1947 – Pres. Truman signed Executive Order 9835 requiring all federal employees to swear allegiance to the United States.

1951 – Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall reports that the U.S. military has doubled to 2.9 million since the start of the Korean War.

1951 – The 1st Cavalry Division recaptured Chunchon. The Chinese 3rd Field Army appeared in combat for the first time in Korea.

1953 – U.S. Air Force Captains Manuel J. Fernandez, Jr., 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, and Harold Fischer, 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, qualified as the fourth and fifth “double aces” of the war. An ace has shot down five enemy aircraft; a double ace, 10 kills.

1953 – North Korean truce negotiators expressed their willingness to observe the provisions of the Geneva Convention and exchange sick and wounded prisoners of war. At the same time they hinted that the exchange might lead to a resolution of other issues hindering an armistice.

1965 – The U.S. launched Ranger 9, last in a series of lunar explorations.

1967 – The North Vietnamese press agency reports that an exchange of notes took place in February between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Ho Chi Minh. The agency said that Ho rejected a proposal made by Johnson for direct talks between the United States and North Vietnam on ending the war. The North Vietnamese demanded that the United States “stop definitely and unconditionally its bombing raids and all other acts of war against North Vietnam.” The U.S. State Department confirmed the exchange of letters and expressed regret that Hanoi had divulged this information, since the secret letters were intended as a serious diplomatic attempt to end the conflict. Nothing of any consequence came from Johnson’s initiative.

Meanwhile, in South Vietnam, Operation Junction City produced what General Westmoreland described as “one of the most successful single actions of the year.” In the effort, U.S. forces killed 606 Viet Cong in Tay Ninh Province and surrounding areas along the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. The purpose of Operation Junction City was to drive the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops away from populated areas and into the open where superior American firepower could be more effectively used against them.

March 21st ~ {continued...}

1972 – In Cambodia, more than 100 civilians are killed and 280 wounded as communist artillery and rockets strike Phnom Penh and outlying areas in the heaviest attack since the beginning of the war in 1970. Following the shelling, a communist force of 500 troops attacked and entered Takh Mau, six miles southeast of Pnom Penh, killing at least 25 civilians.

1975 – As North Vietnamese forces advanced, Hue and other northern towns in South Vietnam were evacuated.

1980 – President Jimmy Carter informs a group of U.S. athletes that, in response to the December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the United States will boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It marked the first and only time that the United States has boycotted the Olympics. After the Soviet Union intervened in Afghanistan in December 1979 to prop up an unstable pro-Soviet government, the United States reacted quickly and sharply. It suspended arms negotiations with the Soviets, condemned the Russian action in the United Nations, and threatened to boycott the Olympics to be held in Moscow in 1980. When the Soviets refused to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan, President Carter finalized his decision to boycott the games.

On March 21, 1980, he met with approximately 150 U.S. athletes and coaches to explain his decision. He told the crowd, “I understand how you feel,” and recognized their intense disappointment. However, Carter defended his action, stating, “What we are doing is preserving the principles and the quality of the Olympics, not destroying it.” Many of the athletes were devastated by the news. As one stated, “As citizens, it is an easy decision to make-support the president. As athletes, it is a difficult decision.” Others declared that the president was politicizing the Olympics. Most of the athletes only reluctantly supported Carter’s decision.

The U.S. decision to boycott the 1980 Olympic games had no impact on Soviet policy in Afghanistan (Russian troops did not withdraw until nearly a decade later), but it did tarnish the prestige of the games in Moscow. It was not the first time that Cold War diplomacy insinuated itself into international sports. The Soviet Union had refused to play Chile in World Cup soccer in 1973 because of the overthrow and death of Chile’s leftist president earlier that year. Even the playing field was not immune from Cold War tensions

1984 – A Soviet submarine crashed into the USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Japan.

1991 – Two US Navy anti-submarine planes collided and 27 were lost at sea.

1991 – A UN Security Council panel decided to lift the food embargo on Iraq.

March 21st ~ {continued...}

1996 – The US decided to proceed with plans to deliver weapons to the Islamabad government in Pakistan. $368 mil has already been paid for a naval Orion aircraft and two types of missiles.

1997 – President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin wrapped up their summit in Helsinki, Finland, still deadlocked over NATO expansion, but able to agree on slashing nuclear weapons arsenals.

1998 – Six members of the San Francisco-based Peaceworkers group were arrested in Kosovo and sentenced to 10 days in jail for not reporting their presence to police. 3 were from the Bay Area. They were released March 23rd.

1999 – It was reported that the Space Laser Energy group, SELENE, proposed to transmit energy to satellites by 2004.

1999 – On the 2nd day of Serb attacks against Kosovo, envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pres. Milosevic with serious threats of NATO air strikes.

2000 – NATO acknowledged that depleted uranium rounds were used during the 1999 Kosovo war whenever American A-10 ground attack aircraft engaged armored vehicles.

2000 – Croatia handed over Mladen Naletilic, a Bosnian Croat indicted in 1998 on 17 counts of war crimes, to the UN tribunal. Naletilic commanded a gang of convicts who terrorized Muslims in southwestern Bosnia between 1993-1994.

2001 – The US State Dept. ordered the expulsion of 5 suspected Russian spies and informed Moscow that as many as 50 intelligence officers using diplomatic cover would have to leave over the next few months.

2001 – Space shuttle Discovery glided to a predawn touchdown, bringing home the first residents of the international space station.

2003 – A CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter crashed in Kuwait and killed 12 British and 4 US soldiers. US Marines captured the strategic port in the southern Iraqi city of Umm Qasr.

2003 – US and British troops have captured the Iraqi border town of Umm Qasr. Marines raise US flag over the port area and aim to use it as an entry point for humanitarian aid into the country.

2003 – American troops have seized two airfields in the Iraqi desert west of Baghdad.

2003 – The Bush administration seizes $US 1.7 billion in Iraqi assets already frozen in the US, saying it will use the money for humanitarian purposes in Iraq.

2004 – Pakistani forces agreed to allow a 25-member tribal council free passage into a battlezone in an effort to negotiate a peace deal with local elders sheltering hundreds of al-Qaida fighters. Up to 6,000 Pakistani forces were engaged with some 500 foreign militants, in the Wana area of South Waziristan. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was suspected to be involved.

March 22nd ~

1621 – The Plymouth Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe lead by Chief Massassoit reach a treaty agreement. They form a defensive alliance. Squanto, who speaks English because he had been captured by the English in 1615 and spent two years in England, brokers the pact.

1622 – The Powhattan Confederacy massacred 347-350 colonists in Virginia, a quarter of the population. On Good Friday over 300 colonists in and around Jamestown, Virginia, were massacred by the Powhatan Indians. The massacre was led by the Powhatan chief Opechancanough and began a costly 22-year war against the English. Opechancanough hoped that killing one quarter of Virginia’s colonists would put an end to the European threat. The result of the massacre was just the opposite, however, as English survivors regrouped and pushed the Powhattans far into the interior. Opechancanough launched his final campaign in 1644, when he was nearly 100 years old and almost totally blind. He was then captured and executed.

1630 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony outlaws the possession of cards, dice, and gaming tables.

1638 – Religious dissident Anne Hutchinson was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony. With encouragement from Providence founder Roger Williams, Hutchinson and many of her supporters established the settlement of Portsmouth in what became the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

1664 – Charles II gave large tracks of land from west of the Connecticut River to the east of Delaware Bay in North America to his brother James, the Duke of York and Albany. The entire Hudson Valley and New Amsterdam was given to James.

1713 – The Tuscarora War comes to an end with the fall of Fort Neoheroka, effectively opening up the interior of North Carolina to European colonization. The Tuscarora War began in North Carolina during the autumn of 1711 between the British, Dutch, and German settlers and the Tuscarora Native Americans. The Europeans enlisted the Yamasee and Cherokee as Indian allies against the Tuscarora, who had amassed several allies themselves. This was considered the bloodiest colonial war in North Carolina. Defeated, the Tuscarora signed a treaty with colonial officials in 1718 and settled on a reserved tract of land in what became Bertie County.

The first successful and permanent settlement of North Carolina by Europeans began in earnest in 1653. The Tuscarora lived in peace with the European settlers who arrived in North Carolina for over 50 years at a time when nearly every other colony in America was actively involved in some form of conflict with Native Americans. However, the settlers increasingly encroached on Tuscarora land, raided villages to take slaves, and introduced epidemic diseases. After their defeat, most of the Tuscarora migrated north to New York where they joined their Iroquoian cousins, the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy. They were accepted as the sixth nation. Their chief said that Tuscarora remaining in the South after 1722 were no longer members of the tribe.

1765 – Hoping to scrounge up funds to maintain a military presence in the colonies, the British government passed the notorious Stamp Act. The legislation levied a direct tax on all materials printed for commercial and legal use in the colonies, including everything from broadsides and insurance policies to playing cards and dice. Though the Stamp Act was a common fundraising vehicle in England, it stirred a storm of protest in the colonies.

The colonists’ anger was partially grounded in fears that the Stamp Act would open the gates to a flood of taxes. They also felt that, as English citizens, their consent, as meted out through representative assemblies, was mandatory for the passage of tax legislation. In response, the colonists rioted, staged demonstrations, and refused to comply with the tax. Under pressure from British business interests, Parliament eventually repealed the legislation. However, the fracas over the Stamp Act had helped plant seeds for a far larger movement against the British government and the struggle for independence.

March 22nd ~ {continued...}

1775 – British statesman Edmund Burke made a speech in the House of Commons, urging the government to adopt a policy of reconciliation with America.

1778 – Captain Cook sighted Cape Flattery in Washington state.

1794 – Congress passed laws prohibiting slave trade with foreign countries, although slavery remained legal in the United States. Congress banned US vessels from supplying slaves to other countries.

1817 – Confederate General Braxton Bragg is born in Warrenton, North Carolina. Bragg commanded the Army of Tennessee for 17 months, leading them to several defeats and losing most of the state of Tennessee to the Yankees. Bragg graduated from West Point in 1837, fifth in a class of 50. He fought in the Seminole War of the 1830s and the Mexican War in 1846 and 1847. In Mexico, he earned three promotions but also survived two assassination attempts by soldiers in his command. Bragg was temperamental and acerbic, a capable soldier but a difficult personality. These character flaws would later badly damage the Confederate war effort.

When the Civil War began, Bragg was appointed commander of the Gulf Coast defenses but was soon promoted to major general and attached to General Albert Sidney Johnston’s Army of Tennessee. Bragg fought bravely at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862, leading attacks while having two horses shot out from under him. When Johnston was killed during the battle, Bragg became second in command to Pierre G. T. Beauregard. Beauregard was forced to relinquish his command for health reasons, and President Jefferson Davis turned to Bragg. Bragg’s record as army commander was dismal. He marched northward in the fall of 1862 to regain Kentucky, but he was turned back at the Battle of Perryville in October. On New Year’s Eve, Bragg clashed with the army of General William Rosecrans at the Battle of Stones River. They fought to a standstill, but Bragg was forced to retreat and leave the Union in control of central Tennessee.

In the summer of 1863, Rosecrans outmaneuvered Bragg, backing the Confederates entirely out of the state. Only at Chickamauga, Georgia, in September did Bragg finally win a battle, but the victory came in spite of Bragg’s leadership rather than because of it. Bragg followed up his victory by pinning the Yankees in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Union forces, now led by General Ulysses S. Grant, broke the siege in November and nearly destroyed Bragg’s army. Bragg was finished, having now alienated most of his generals and lost the confidence of his soldiers. He resigned his command and went to Richmond to be a military advisor to President Davis.

Bragg fled southward with Davis at the end of the war but both men were captured in Georgia. Bragg was soon released, and he worked as an engineer and a railroad executive after the war before his death in 1876. He is remembered as one of the primary reasons for the Confederate defeat.

1820 – U.S. Navy officer Stephen Decatur, hero of the Barbary Wars, is mortally wounded in a duel with disgraced Navy Commodore James Barron at Bladensburg, Maryland. Although once friends, Decatur sat on the court-martial that suspended Barron from the Navy for five years in 1808 and later opposed his reinstatement, leading to a fatal quarrel between the two men.

March 22nd ~ {continued...}

1907 – James Gavin, U.S. Army General, was born. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division on D-Day, Operation Market-Garden and the Battle of the Bulge.

1915 – The term “Naval Aviator” replaces former “Navy Air Pilot” for officers qualified as aviators.

1917 – The U.S. became the first to recognize the Kerensky Government in Russia.

1917 – The first Coast Guard aviators graduated from Pensacola Naval Aviation Training School. Third Lieutenant Elmer Stone became Naval Aviator #38 (and later Coast Guard Aviator #1).

1929 – A US Coast Guard vessel sank a Canadian schooner suspected of carrying liquor.

1929 – Navy ships protect Americans and their property during Mexican revolution.

1933 – During Prohibition, President Roosevelt signed a measure to make wine & beer containing up to 3.2 percent alcohol legal.

1934 – Philippine independence was granted by the US and was guaranteed to begin in 1945.

1944 – Admiral Doenitz orders all U-boats to disperse from groups and work singly. This decision represents the final victory of the Allied escort forces over the German U-boats. The Germans have decided to give up on convoy attacks until new U-boat designs become available.

1944 – The forces of the New Zealand Corps (part of US 5th Army) makes a final attack on German-held Cassino. It fails. General Freyberg, commanding the corps, then calls off the attack. Allied troops are withdrawn from the most advance positions and the remainder consolidate recent gains.

1945 – Representatives from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen meet in Cairo to establish the Arab League, a regional organization of Arab states. Formed to foster economic growth in the region, resolve disputes between its members, and coordinate political aims, members of the Arab League formed a council, with each state receiving one vote. When the State of Israel was created in 1948, the league countries jointly attacked but were repulsed by the Israelis. Two years later, Arab League nations signed a mutual defense treaty. Fifteen more Arab nations eventually joined the organization, which established a common market in 1965.

March 22nd ~ {continued...}

1945 – The US 5th Division (an element of US 3rd Army) establishes a bridgehead over the Rhine River near Nierstein. Other US 3rd Army units are completing the mopping up west of the Rhine and preparing to make crossings of their own.

1945 – The carriers of US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) are attacked by Japanese Kamikaze aircraft that fail to achieve significant success. However, it is noted that many of the attacks are made by manned rocket bombs. Admiral Spruance, commanding the US 5th Fleet, is present for the operations.

1946 – First U.S. built rocket to leave the earth’s atmosphere reached a 50-mile height.

1946 – USS Missouri departs U.S. to return body of deceased Turkish ambassador to the U.S. back to Turkey for burial. Missouri arrived in Istanbul on 5 April.

1947 – In response to public fears and Congressional investigations into communism in the United States, President Harry S. Truman issues an executive decree establishing a sweeping loyalty investigation of federal employees. As the Cold War began to develop after World War II, fears concerning communist activity in the United States, particularly in the federal government, increased. Congress had already launched investigations of communist influence in Hollywood, and laws banning communists from teaching positions were being instituted in several states. Of most concern to the Truman administration, however, were persistent charges that communists were operating in federal offices.

In response to these fears and concerns, Truman issued an executive order on March 21, 1947, which set up a program to check the loyalty of federal employees. In announcing his order, Truman indicated that he expected all federal workers to demonstrate “complete and unswerving loyalty” the United States. Anything less, he declared, “constitutes a threat to our democratic processes.” The basic elements of Truman’s order established the framework for a wide-ranging and powerful government apparatus to perform loyalty checks. Loyalty boards were to be set up in every department and agency of the federal government. Using lists of “totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive” organizations provided by the attorney general, and relying on investigations by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, these boards were to review every employee. If there existed “reasonable grounds” to doubt an employee’s loyalty, he or she would be dismissed.

A Loyalty Review Board was set up under the Civil Service Commission to deal with employees’ appeals. Truman’s loyalty program resulted in the discovery of only a few employees whose loyalty could be “reasonably” doubted. Nevertheless, for a time his order did quiet some of the criticism that his administration was “soft” on communism. Matters changed dramatically in 1949-1950. The Soviets developed an atomic bomb, China fell to the communists, and Senator Joseph McCarthy made the famous speech in which he declared that there were over 200 “known communists” in the Department of State. Once again, charges were leveled that the Truman administration was “coddling” communists, and in response, the Red Scare went into full swing.

1951 – Eighth Army reached the 38th parallel, as it had in fall 1950, after the Inchon invasion.

1952 – Six new Marine battalions and Marine air groups were activated on the West Coast, giving the Corps the full authorized limit of three divisions and three wings.

1953 – Chinese forces, supported by artillery and mortar fire, assaulted Hill Hedy and Bunker Hill. Hand-to-hand combat ensued before the enemy was finally forced to disengage.

March 22nd ~ {continued...}

1965 – The State Department acknowledges that the United States had supplied the South Vietnamese armed forces with a “non-lethal gas which disables temporarily” for use “in tactical situations in which the Viet Cong intermingle with or take refuge among non-combatants, rather than use artillery or aerial bombardment.” This announcement triggered a storm of criticism worldwide.

The North Vietnamese and the Soviets loudly protested the introduction of “poison gas” into the war. Secretary of State Dean Rusk insisted at a news conference on March 24 that the United States was “not embarking upon gas warfare,” but was merely employing “a gas which has been commonly adopted by the police forces of the world as riot-control agents.”

1968 – President Lyndon B. Johnson announces the appointment of Gen. William Westmoreland as Army Chief of Staff; Gen. Creighton Abrams replaced him as commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam. Westmoreland had first assumed command of U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam in June 1964, and in that capacity was in charge of all American military forces in Vietnam. One of the war’s most controversial figures, General Westmoreland was given many honors when the fighting was going well, but when the war turned sour, many Americans blamed him for problems in Vietnam.

Negative feeling about Westmoreland grew particularly strong following the Tet Offensive of 1968. As Westmoreland’s successor, Abrams faced the difficult task of implementing the Vietnamization program instituted by the Nixon administration. This included the gradual reduction of American forces in Vietnam while attempting to increase the combat capabilities of the South Vietnamese armed forces.

1972 – Congress sent the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to the states for ratification. It fell three states short of the 38, two-thirds, needed for approval. The U.S. Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment.

1974 – The Viet Cong proposed a new truce with the United States and South Vietnam, which includes general elections.

1982 – NASA’s Space Shuttle Columbia, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center on its third mission, STS-3. STS-3 was NASA’s third Space Shuttle mission, and was the third mission for the Space Shuttle Columbia. It landed eight days later on 30 March. STS-3 was the first shuttle launch with an unpainted external tank, and the only mission to land at the White Sands Space Harbor near Las Cruces, New Mexico. The shuttle was forced to land at White Sands due to flooding at its originally planned landing site, Edwards Air Force Base.

1989 – Fawn Hall, Oliver North’s former secretary, began two days of testimony at North’s Iran-Contra trial in Washington.

1991 – A US warplane shot down a second Iraqi jet fighter that had violated the cease-fire ending the Persian Gulf War.

1993 – The launch of the space shuttle Columbia was scrubbed with three seconds left in the countdown.

1993 – The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.

1996 – Shannon Lucid, astronaut, went into space on the shuttle Atlantis. She transferred to the Russian Mir space station and broke the US space endurance record of 115 days on 7/15/96.

March 22nd ~ {continued...}

1997 – Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Rashid announces the establishment of a new Iraq/Russian oil company which will work independently of Iraq’s national oil company, and reports that other agreements would be signed with France and China. Russia and France were Iraq’s main arms suppliers before the Gulf War.

1999 – Serb attacks on ethnic Albanians continued after envoy Richard Holbrooke failed to convince Pres. Milosevic to stop.

2001 – President Bush met with Chinese Deputy Premier Qian Qichen and said the US would support Taiwan’s military needs.

2001 – Russia threatened to expel 50 American personnel in response to US expulsions of Russian intelligence agents.

2001 – The Russian Duma was expected to pass a bill to allow the storage of spent nuclear fuel for projected earnings of some $20 billion.

2002 – The US State Dept. ordered all non-essential Embassy and Consulate personnel in Pakistan to return home.

2003 – U.S. forces reported seizing a large weapons cache in Afghanistan.

2003 – In the 4th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom intermittent explosions were heard throughout the day in Baghdad and by late afternoon at least 12 huge columns of smoke could be seen rising from all along the southern horizon of the city. US and British forces reached half way to Baghdad and British forces were left surrounding Basra. Special operations forces have taken control of an airfield in western Iraq and secured several border positions. Major-General Stanley McChrystal of the Joint Chiefs of Staff announces that US ships and warplanes have hit Iraq with 500 cruise missiles and several hundred precision weapons.

2003 – Two British Royal Navy helicopters collided over the Persian Gulf, killing all 7 on board including a US Navy officer.

2003 – Turkey opens its air space to US warplanes for operations against Iraq.

2003 – A US soldier threw grenades into three tents at Camp Pennsylvania, a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait, killing one fellow serviceman and wounding 13.

2003 – Three Iraqi sailors were captured in the northern Persian Gulf, the first Prisoners of War (POWs) taken by Coast Guard forces deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The 24-member crew of the CGC Adak plucked the Iraqi sailors from the sea. The Iraqis had jumped overboard as their patrol boat was destroyed by coalition forces operating in the Gulf. The POWs were taken aboard the Adak and later transferred to an undisclosed location.

2004 – Afghan soldiers deployed to the western city of Herat after some of the fiercest factional fighting since the 2001 fall of the Taliban killed a Cabinet minister and as many as 100 others.

2005 – In Afghanistan US warplanes killed five suspected Taliban or al-Qaida militants near the Pakistani border after guerrillas launched an overnight rocket and gun attack on American and Afghan military positions.

2005 – Iraqi and US forces killed 80 militants in a battle west of Tikrit.

March 23rd ~

1713 – The capture of the Tuscarora tribe’s stronghold of Fort Nohuke by South Carolinian forces ends Tuscarora raids. The tribe moves northward and joins the Iroquois Confederacy as the Sixth Indian Nation.

1775 – During a speech before the second Virginia Convention, Patrick Henry responds to the increasingly oppressive British rule over the American colonies by declaring, “I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Following the signing of the American Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, Patrick Henry was appointed governor of Virginia by the Continental Congress. The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax.

With its enactment on November 1, 1765, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1765. Most colonists quietly accepted British rule until Parliament’s enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, which granted the East India Company a monopoly on the American tea trade. Viewed as another example of taxation without representation, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 10,000 pounds dumped into Boston harbor.

Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in the following year. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops. The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British. With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony.

In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first volleys of the American Revolutionary War were fired.

1780 – British forces under Banastre Tarleton, moving to Charleston, scatter Colonial Militia at Bee’s Plantation, SC.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}

1806 – After passing a wet and tedious winter near the Pacific Coast, Lewis and Clark happily leave behind Fort Clatsop and head east for home. The Corps of Discovery arrived at the Pacific the previous November, having made a difficult crossing over the rugged Rocky Mountains. Their winter stay on the south side of the Columbia River-dubbed Fort Clatsop in honor of the local Indians-had been plagued by rainy weather, thieving Indians, and a scarcity of fresh meat. No one in the Corps of Discovery regretted leaving Fort Clatsop behind.

In the days before their departure, Captains Lewis and Clark prepared for the final stage of their journey. Lewis recognized the possibility that some disaster might still prevent them from making it back east and he prudently left a list of the names of all the expedition’s men with Chief Coboway of the Clatsops. Lewis asked the chief to give the list to the crew of the next trading vessel that arrived so the world would learn that the expedition did reach the Pacific. The previous few days had been stormy, but on March 22, the rain began to ease. The captains agreed to depart the next day, and they made a parting gift of Fort Clatsop and its furniture to Chief Coboway.

At 1 pm on this day in 1806, the Corps of Expedition set off up the Columbia River in canoes. After nearly a year in the wilderness, they had severely depleted the sizeable cache of supplies with which the expedition had begun–they set off on their return trip with only canisters of gunpowder, some tools, a small cache of dried fish and roots, and their rifles. The expedition had expended almost all of its supplies. Ahead loomed the high, rugged slopes of the Rocky Mountains that had proved so difficult to cross in the other direction the previous year. This time, however, Lewis and Clark had the advantage of knowing the route they would take. Still, they knew the passage would be difficult, and they were anxious to find the Nez Perce Indians, whose help they would need to cross the mountains.

The months to come would witness some of the most dangerous moments of the journey, including Lewis’ violent confrontation with Blackfeet Indians near the Marias River of Montana in July. Nonetheless, seven months later to the day, on September 23, 1806, the Corps of Discovery arrived at the docks of St. Louis, where their long journey had begun nearly two and a half years before.

1810 – In France, Napoleon Bonaparte signs the Rambouillet Decree which mandates the seizure, confiscation and sale of any US ship in French ports. The Decree is published 14 May and is to be retroactive to 20 May 1809.

1815 – USS Hornet captures HMS Penguin in battle lasting 22 minutes.

1829 – The Creek Indians receive a message from President Jackson ordering them to either conform to the laws of Alabama or to relocate across the Mississippi River.

1839 – 1st recorded use of “OK” [oll korrect] was in Boston’s Morning Post.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}

1862 – Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson suffers a rare defeat when his attack on Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley fails. Jackson was trying to prevent Union General Nathaniel Banks from sending troops from the Shenandoah to General George McClellan’s army near Washington. McClellan was preparing to send his massive army by water to the James Peninsular southeast of Richmond for a summer campaign against the Confederate capital. When Turner Ashby, Jackson’s cavalry commander, detected that Yankee troops were moving out of the valley, Jackson decided to attack and keep the Union troops divided. Ashby attacked at Kernstown on March 22. He reported to Jackson that only four Union regiments were present–perhaps 3,000 men.

In fact, Union commander James Shields actually had 9,000 men at Kernstown but kept most of them hidden during the skirmishing on March 22. The rest of Jackson’s force arrived the next day, giving the Confederates about 4,000 men. The 23rd was a Sunday, and the religious Jackson tried not to fight on the Sabbath. The Yankees could see his deployment, though, so Jackson chose to attack that afternoon. He struck the Union left flank, but the Federals moved troops into place to stop the Rebel advance. At a critical juncture, Richard Garnett withdrew his Confederate brigade due to a shortage of ammunition, and this exposed another brigade to a Union attack. The northern troops poured in, sending Jackson’s entire force in retreat. Jackson lost 80 killed, 375 wounded, and 263 missing or captured, while the Union lost 118 dead, 450 wounded, and 22 missing.

Despite the defeat, the battle had positive results for the Confederates. Unnerved by the attack, President Lincoln ordered McClellan to leave an entire corps to defend Washington, thus drawing troops from McClellan’s Peninsular campaign. The battle was the opening of Jackson’s famous Shenandoah Valley campaign. Over the following three months, Jackson’s men marched hundreds of miles, won several major battles, and kept three separate Union forces occupied in the Shenandoah.

1865 – General Sherman and Cox’s troops reached Goldsboro, NC.

1867 – Congress passed a 2nd Reconstruction Act over President Johnson’s veto.

1882 – SECNAV Hunt issues General Order No. 292 creating Office of Naval Intelligence.

1889 – President Harrison opened Oklahoma for white colonization.

1901 – A group of U.S. Army soldier led by Brig. Gen. Frederick Funston captured Emilio Aguinaldo, the leader of the Philippine Insurrection of 1899.

1908 – American diplomat Durham Stevens is attacked by Korean assassins Jeon Myeong-un and Jang In-hwan, leading to his death in a hospital two days later.

1912 – Werner von Braun, rocket expert (I Aim at the Stars), was born in Wirsitz, Germany. He led the development of the V-2 rocket during World War II.

1917 – Launching of USS New Mexico, first dreadnought with turboelectric drive.

1919 – In Milan, Italy, Benito Mussolini founds his Fascist political movement.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}

1920 – Britain denounced the U.S. because of their delay in joining the League of Nations.

1921 – Arthur G. Hamilton set a new parachute record, safely jumping 24,400 feet.

1922 – 1st airplane landed at the US Capitol in Washington DC.

1932 – The executive committee of the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) ruled to exclude blacks from appearing at Constitution Hall.

1933 – The German Reichstag adopted the Enabling Act, which effectively granted Adolf Hitler dictatorial legislative powers, i.e. the power to rule by decree. Hitler seized power in early 1933.

1942 – During World War II, the U.S. government began moving Japanese-Americans from their West Coast homes to detention centers.

1943 – Axis forces manage to hold the American advance near El Guettar. The German 10th Panzer Division suffers heavy losses attempting to exploit early successes. Montgomery decides to alter his main attack to the Tebaga Gap. He sends the 1st Armored Division (commanded by General Horrocks) to join the New Zealander Corps. This move is delayed by traffic control problems.

1944 – On Bougainville, Japanese forces attack American positions without making any progress. Heavy Japanese losses are reported.

1944 – US destroyers shell the Japanese seaplane base on Elouae in the St. Matthias Islands.

1945 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conduct air raids on Okinawa. The American force includes 14 carriers organized in three groups. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the American ships.

1945 – US 1st Army and the elements of US 3rd Army are extending their bridgeheads over the Rhine.

1945 – Throughout March there have been small attacks by both US 2nd and 4th Corps of US 5th Army in the area around the Pistoia-Bologna road and to the west.

1945 – On Luzon, San Fernando is taken by US 1st Corps with help from Filipino guerrillas.

1951 – Operation TOMAHAWK, the second airborne operation of the war and the largest in one day, involved 120 C-119s and C-46s, escorted by sixteen F-51s. The 314th TCG and the 437th TCW air transports flew from Taegu to Munsan-ni, an area behind enemy lines some twenty miles northwest of Seoul, and dropped the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team and two Ranger companies-more than 3,400 men and 220 tons of equipment and supplies. Fifth Air Force fighters and light bombers had largely eliminated enemy opposition.

UN forces advanced quickly to the Imjin River, capturing 127 communist prisoners. Some of the prisoners waved safe-conduct leaflets that FEAF aircraft had dropped during the airborne operation. Helicopters evacuated only sixty-eight injured personnel from the drop zone. One C-119, possibly hit by enemy bullets, caught fire and crashed on the way back.

1957 – US army sold its last homing pigeons.

1958 – First launching of simulated Polaris missile from submerged tactical launcher facility off California.

1960 – Explorer 8 failed to reach Earth orbit.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}

1961 – One of the first American casualties in Southeast Asia, an intelligence-gathering plane en route from Laos to Saigon is shot down over the Plain of Jars in central Laos. The mission was flown in an attempt to determine the extent of the Soviet support being provided to the communist Pathet Lao guerrillas in Laos. The guerrillas had been waging a war against the Royal Lao government since 1959. In a television news conference, President John F. Kennedy warned of communist expansion in Laos and said that a cease-fire must precede the start of negotiations to establish a neutral and independent nation.

1965 – America’s first two-person space flight began as Gemini 3 blasted off from Cape Kennedy with astronauts Virgil I. Grissom and John W. Young aboard. Gemini 3 completed 3 orbits in 4 hours., 53 minutes at an altitude of 224 km. Recovery was by helicopters from USS Intrepid (CVS-11).

1970 – US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.

1970 – From Peking, Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia issues a public call for arms to be used against the Lon Nol government in Phnom Penh and requests the establishment of the National United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK) to unite all opposition factions against Lon Nol. North Vietnam, the National Liberation Front (Viet Cong), and the communist Pathet Lao immediately pledged their support to the new organization. Earlier in March, Sihanouk had been overthrown in a bloodless coup led by Cambodian Gen. Lon Nol.

Between 1970 and 1975, Lon Nol and his army, the Forces Armees Nationale Khmer (FANK), with U.S. support and military aid, fought the Khmer Rouge and Sihanouk’s supporters for control of Cambodia. During the five years of bitter fighting, approximately 10 percent of Cambodia’s 7 million people died. When the U.S. forces departed South Vietnam in 1973, both the Cambodians and South Vietnamese found themselves fighting the communists alone. Without U.S. support, Lon Nol’s forces succumbed to the communists in April 1975.

The victorious Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh and began reordering Cambodian society, which resulted in a killing spree and the notorious “killing fields.” Eventually, hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were murdered or died from exhaustion, hunger, and disease.

1972 – The U.S. called a halt to the peace talks on Vietnam being held in Paris.

1973 – US performed a nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. 1978 – US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site.

1983 – In an address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan proposes that the United States embark on a program to develop antimissile technology that would make the country nearly impervious to attack by nuclear missiles. Reagan’s speech marked the beginning of what came to be known as the controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Despite his vigorous anticommunist rhetoric, Reagan made nuclear arms control one of the keynotes of his administration.

By 1983, however, talks with the Soviets were stalled over issues of what kinds of weapons should be controlled, what kind of control would be instituted, and how compliance with the controls would be assured. It was at this point that Reagan became enamored with an idea proposed by some of his military and scientific advisors, including Dr. Edward Teller, the “father of the hydrogen bomb.” What they proposed was a massive program involving the use of antimissile satellites utilizing laser beams or other means to knock Soviet nuclear missiles out of the sky before they had a chance to impact the United States. Reagan therefore called upon the nation’s scientists to “turn their great talents” to this “vision of the future which offers hope.” He admitted that such a highly sophisticated program might “not be accomplished before the end of this century.” Reagan’s speech formed the basis for what came to be known as the Strategic Defense Initiative, though pundits immediately dubbed it the “Star Wars Initiative.” Some scientists indicated that even if the SDI were able to destroy 95 percent of Soviet missiles, the remaining five percent would be enough to destroy the entire planet.

Nevertheless, Congress began funding the program, which ran up a bill of over $30 billion by 1993 (with little to show for the effort). The Soviets were adamantly opposed to SDI, and a 1986 summit meeting between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev ended acrimoniously when Gorbachev demanded that talks on arms control were contingent on the United States dropping the SDI program. By December 1987, Gorbachev-desperately in need of a foreign policy achievement and eager to reduce his nation’s burdensome defense budget-dropped his resistance to the SDI program and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed. The Strategic Defense Initiative never really got off the ground–by the mid-1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union and with costs skyrocketing, it was quietly shelved.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}

1985 – US performed nuclear test at Nevada Test Site. 1987 – US offered military protection to Kuwaiti ships in the Persian Gulf.

1988 – President Reagan announced he would visit the Soviet Union for the first time, from May 29 until June 2, for his fourth summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

1989 – Fawn Hall, former secretary to onetime National Security Council aide Oliver North, completed two days of testimony at North’s Iran-Contra trial.

1991 – Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shuffled his Cabinet, but kept in place his hard-line ministers of interior and defense to direct a crackdown on rebellion against his rule. A popular uprising had been prompted by Pres. Bush and 15 of 18 provinces were liberated, but no American help followed and Hussein’s forces crushed the intifada.

1992 – The president of the U.N. Security Council announced that Libya had offered to surrender two men suspected in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 to the Arab League. Libya reversed itself two days later; however, the suspects surrendered for trial seven years later. One was subsequently convicted, the other found innocent.

1994 – Twenty-three paratroopers were killed when a F-16 fighter jet and C-130 transport collided while landing at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina and the F-16 skidded into another transport on the ground.

1997 – In Belarus American diplomat Serge Alexandrov, first secretary at the US embassy in Minsk, was ordered to leave the country for participating in an anti-government march. The Foreign Ministry accused him of being a CIA agent.

1999 – The US Senate voted 58-41 to support US participation in a NATO bombing of Serbia.

1999 – NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana gave the formal go-ahead for airstrikes against Serbian targets following the failure of Kosovo peace talks.

1999 – Russia’s Prime Minister Primakov turned his plane home and cancelled talks in Washington following the NATO decision to bomb Serbia.

2000 – Vice Admiral Charles Moore, who oversees United States naval operations in the Persian Gulf, briefs the United Nations Sanctions Committee on the increased smuggling of Iraqi oil. Iraq is expected to earn in excess of $500 million from oil smuggling, and possibly up to double that amount, in the absence of strong action by Iran to prevent the use of its territorial waters by smugglers.

2001 – Moscow expelled 4 US diplomats for “activities incompatible with their status.” Russia said it was expelling 50 U.S. diplomats in retaliation for the expulsion of 50 Russians by the U.S.

March 23rd ~ {continued...}


2002 – It was reported a the Air Force Academy had implicated 38 cadets in a drug scandal that began in Dec 2000.

2002 – Girls in Afghanistan celebrated their return to school for the first time in years.

2003 – US and allied Afghan forces clashed with militiamen loyal to a renegade warlord in a battle that left up to 10 rebels dead. A US Air Force helicopter on a mercy mission to help 2 injured Afghan children crashed in southeastern Afghanistan, killing all 6 people on board.

2003 – In the 5th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US-led warplanes and helicopters attacked Republican Guard units defending Baghdad while ground troops advanced to within 50 miles of the Iraqi capital. Pres. Bush put a $75 billion price tag on a down payment for the war. The 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed after it made a wrong turn into Nasiriya; 11 soldiers were killed, seven were captured. US and Iraqi officials say that Iraqi troops have halted an advance by US forces up the Euphrates river, engaging them in battle near the city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad. Iraqi state television says that an official of Iraq’s ruling Baath party has been killed in the fighting.

2003 – President George Bush says that “massive amounts” of humanitarian aid are poised to move into Iraq in the next 36 hours.

2003 – A British Royal Air Force Tornado jet was shot down by a U.S. Patriot missile in the first reported incident of “friendly” fire in Iraq.

2004 – The US Coast Guard said it had seized over 14.5 tons of cocaine from 3 fishing boats off Mexico and Ecuador over the last 2 months.

2005 – The Lake Tharthar Raid, an Iraqi commando raid on a large insurgent training camp at Lake Tharthar, was begun. Lake Tharthar, which is next to the Sunni Anbar and Salahuddin provinces, was the largest guerrilla training camp that had been discovered in the war by then, according to Iraqi officials. The camp was shared by Ba’ath party loyalists and members of Al-Qaeda. Between 75 and 100 Iraqi commandos as well as 9 American Cavalry Scouts from 3/69 Armor Battalion/1BCT/3ID and one local national interpreter were involved in the raid. As they approached the camp and came to only about a 400 meters from the camp the commandos encountered heavy fire from around 100 insurgents.

The Iraqi commandos called in support from the American military, which sent in troop reinforcements and attack helicopters. The battle lasted one hour. The American air support killed 50 insurgents and the commandos killed another 34 during the battle. Many of those killed were reportedly Saudis and Syrians. The insurgents evacuated their positions about two hours into the battle. After entering the camp, Iraqi commandos found non-Iraqi passports, training publications, propaganda documents, weapons and ammunition. According to the papers found some of the insurgents were: Moroccans, Algerians, Sudanese, Saudi, Syrian and there was even one Egyptian. Iraqi forces also seized 30 boats at the camp which were used at the lake.

2006 – In western Baghdad, Iraq, US and British troops found and freed three hostages. The Swords of Righteousness Brigades had claimed responsibility.

2008 – Two Coast Guard helicopters worked with the F/V Alaska Warrior to save 42 of 47 crewmen from the sinking F/V Alaska Ranger in an Easter Sunday blizzard amidst 20-foot waves. There was flooding in aft steerage of Ranger and the doors would not close. The ship’s shell was rusty and flat-bottomed, built for Gulf of Mexico. It was located 120 miles west of Dutch Harbor in the Bering Sea.

CGC Munro’s HH-65 Dolphin pulled five fishermen from the water, three of whom had to be cut free from the netting and ropes. The HH-60 Jayhawk from St. Paul Station in the Pribiloff Islands lifted 15 sailors out of the sea and onto the sister ship, F/V Alaska Warrior. Warrior also saved 22 lives on its own.

The crew of Munro received the Coast Guard Unit Commendation and aviators LT Brian J. McLaughlin, LT Timothy L. Schmitz, LT Steven M. Bonn, LT Greg S. Gedemer, Petty Officer 2nd Class O’Brien Hollow, Petty Officer 2nd Class Robert R. DeBolt and Petty Officer 2nd Class Alfred V. Musgrave received Air Medals.

2010 – Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is shown on its maiden flight from the Mojave Air and Spaceport in Mojave, California, United States.

March 24th ~

1663 – Charles II of England awarded lands known as Carolina in America to eight members of the nobility who assisted in his restoration.

1664 – A charter to colonize Rhode Island was granted to Roger Williams.

1688 – Governor Edmund Andros issues an order placing the militia of the New England colonies under his own direct control.

1755 – Rufus King, framer of the U.S. Constitution, was born.

1765 – Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to 10,000 British soldiers in public and private buildings. It also required colonists to provide food for any British soldiers in the area. Each of the Quartering Acts was an amendment to the Mutiny Act and required annual renewal by Parliament. They were originally intended as a response to issues that arose during the French and Indian War and soon became a source of tension between the inhabitants of the Thirteen Colonies and the government in London, England. These tensions would later fuel the fire that led to the Revolutionary War.

1814 – Although US General James Wilkinson is acquitted by a court of inquiry for his conduct in the Montreal campaign, he is replaced by Major General Jacob Brown who, along with newly promoted Brigadier General Winfield Scott, is to head the military operations in the Niagra region.

1825 – The Mexican state of Tejas-Coahuilla officially declares itself open to US settlers.

1832 – As part of Jackson’s continuing effort to move Native American tribes, the Creeks sign a treaty to cede their territory east of the Mississippi to the US.

1855 – Manhattan, Kansas, was founded as New Boston, Kansas.

1864 – A closely coordinated Army-Navy expedition departed Beaufort, North Carolina, on board side-wheel steamer U.S.S. Britannia. Some 200 soldiers were commanded by Colonel James Jourdan, while about 50 sailors from U.S.S. Keystone State, Florida, and Cambridge were in charge of Commander Benjamin M. Dove. The aim of the expedition was the capture or destruction of two schooners used in blockade running at Swansboro, North Carolina, and the capture of a Confederate army group on the south end of Bogue Island Banks.

Arriving off Bogue Inlet late at night, the expedition encountered high winds and heavy seas which prevented landing on the beach. Early on the morning of the 25th, a second attempt was made under similarly difficult conditions, but a party got through to Bear Creek where one of the schooners was burned. Bad weather persisted throughout the day and the expedition eventually returned to Beaufort on the 26th with its mission only partially completed.

1865 – President Lincoln visited General Grant at City Point, Virginia, arriving at this all important water-supported supply base at 9 p.m. on board the steamer River Queen. Accompanied by Mrs. Lincoln and his son Tad, he was escorted up the James River by U.S.S. Bat, Lieutenant Commander John S. Barnes.

March 24th ~ {continued...}

1865 – U.S.S. Republic, Acting Ensign John W. Bennett, was dispatched up the Cape Fear River from Wilmington to check reports that detachments of General Wheeler’s cavalry were operating in the area. About six miles up the river a cavalry squad was driven away with gunfire. Bennett then landed a reconnoitering party. It was learned that the mounted Confederates had broken into small squads and were plundering the country the reconnaissance party also made contact with a rear guard detachment of General Sherman’s army en route to Fayetteville.

1883 – Long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York.

1903 – George Dewey commissioned Admiral of the Navy with the date of rank, 2 March 1899. He was the only person to hold this rank.

1916 – German U-Boats sink the French vessel Sussex which is steaming through the English Channel. The ship is unarmed and three US citizens loose their lives. On 18 April this incident will lead Secretary of State Lansing to warn Germany that the US will break off diplomatic relations unless these attacks are discontinued.

1920 – The first Coast Guard air station was established at Morehead City, North Carolina. The station was closed on 1 July 1921 due to a lack of funding.

1923 – Edna Jo Hunter, expert on military families and prisoners of war, was born.

1932 – A New York radio station (WABC) broadcast a variety program from a moving train in Maryland.

1934 – President Roosevelt signed the Tydings-McDuffie Act granting future independence to the Philippines as a self-governing commonwealth.

1938 – The U.S. asked that all powers help refugees fleeing from the Nazis.

1942 – American positions on Bataan and Corregidor are attacked by Japanese aircraft and artillery.

1944 – 76 Allied officers escaped Stalag Luft 3. In 1949 Paul Brickall authored “The Great Escape.” The story of Jackson Barrett Mahon (d.1999 at 78), an American fighter pilot, and the Allied POW escape from Stalag Luft III in Germany during WW II. The 1963 film “The Great Escape” starred Steve McQueen, was directed by John Sturges and was based on the true story.

1944 – On Bougainville, significant Japanese resistance ends. American forces do not attempt to clear the Japanese remnants from the island. Over the course of the past few weeks, Japanese casualties are estimated at 8000 while the US forces have suffered about 300 casualties.

1944 – The 22nd Marine Regiment captured Ebon and Namu Atolls in the Marshall Islands.

1945 – The US 9th Army begins to cross the Rhine a little to the south of the British and Canadians forces.

1945 – Gens. Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley discussed advance in Germany.

1945 – US Task Force 58 (Admiral Mitscher) conduct air raids on Okinawa. The island is also bombarded by 5 battleships and 11 destroyers under the command of Admiral Lee. Japanese submarines make unsuccessful attacks on the American ships. Meanwhile, American scout planes sight a Japanese convoy south of Kyushu and subsequent attacks sink all 8 ships.

March 24th ~ {continued...}

1947 – John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated a NYC East River site to the UN.

1951 – MacArthur threatened the Chinese with an extension of the Korean War if the proposed truce was not accepted.

1951 – ROK Army units crossed the 38th parallel.

1953 – The 2nd Infantry Division’s artillery units began to support the embattled 7th Infantry Division on Pork Chop Hill, firing 15,000 rounds in one week.

1958 – Elvis Presley is inducted into the army on this day in 1958. Although he had been drafted the previous December, the army granted him a deferral so he could finish shooting his film, King Creole.

1965 – NASA spacecraft Ranger 9, equipped to convert its signals into a form suitable for showing on domestic television, brings images of the Moon into ordinary homes before crash landing on it 10 miles (16 km) NE of crater Alphonsus.

1966 – Selective Service announced college deferments based on performance.

1967 – Viet Cong ambushed a truck convoy in South Vietnam, damaging 82 of the 121 trucks.

1975 – The North Vietnamese “Ho Chi Minh Campaign” begins. Despite the 1973 Paris Peace Accords cease fire, the fighting had continued between South Vietnamese forces and the North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam. In December 1974, the North Vietnamese launched a major attack against the lightly defended province of Phuoc Long, located north of Saigon along the Cambodian border. They successfully overran the provincial capital at Phuoc Binh on January 6, 1975.

President Richard Nixon had repeatedly promised South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu that the United States would come to the aid of South Vietnam if the North Vietnamese committed a major violation of the Peace Accords. However, by the time the communists had taken Phuoc Long, Nixon had resigned from office and his successor, Gerald Ford, was unable to convince a hostile Congress to make good on Nixon’s promises to Saigon.

The North Vietnamese, emboldened by the situation, launched Campaign 275 in March 1975 to take the provincial capital of Ban Me Thuot in the Central Highlands. The South Vietnamese defenders fought very poorly and were quickly overwhelmed by the North Vietnamese attackers. Once again, the United States did nothing. President Thieu, however, ordered his forces in the Highlands to withdraw to more defensible positions to the south. What started out as a reasonably orderly withdrawal degenerated into a panic that spread throughout the South Vietnamese armed forces. They abandoned Pleiku and Kontum in the Highlands with very little fighting and the North Vietnamese pressed the attack from the west and north.

In quick succession, Quang Tri, Hue, and Da Nang in the north fell to the communist onslaught. The North Vietnamese continued to attack south along the coast, defeating the South Vietnamese forces one at a time. As the North Vietnamese forces closed on the approaches to Saigon, the Politburo in Hanoi issued an order to Gen. Van Tien Dung to launch the “Ho Chi Minh Campaign,” the final assault on Saigon itself. By April 27, the North Vietnamese had completely encircled Saigon and by April 30, the North Vietnamese tanks broke through the gates of the Presidential Palace in Saigon and the Vietnam War came to an end.

March 24th ~ {continued...}

1977 – For the first time since severing diplomatic relations in 1961, Cuba and the United States enter into direct negotiations when the two nations discuss fishing rights. The talks marked a dramatic, but short-lived, change in relations between the two Cold War enemies. Fidel Castro had led Cuba farther away from the U.S. orbit and closer to the Soviet bloc since coming to power in 1959.

Throughout the 1960s, the United States and Cuba maintained hostility toward one another. By the mid-1970s, the deteriorating state of U.S.-Latin America relations suggested that perhaps the time had come to ease tensions with Castro. Though the Cuban dictator was feared by many in Latin America, he was also a hero to many others for his success in remaining independent from the “colossus of the North”-the United States. When Carter took office in 1977, he indicated to Cuba that the United States was prepared to enter into direct diplomatic negotiations on a number of issues, including fishing rights. On March 24, 1977, negotiators from the United States and Cuba met in New York City to discuss the fishing issue. It was the first time since 1961 that U.S. and Cuban officials had talked face to face on any issue.

In the months that followed, other breakthroughs occurred. The two nations agreed to establish “interest sections” in the other’s country that would operate as de facto embassies pending the restoration of full diplomatic relations. Castro freed some political prisoners and Carter eased travel restrictions to Cuba. These were encouraging signs, but many factors worked together to prevent any progress toward normalized relations. The strong and vocal Cuban-American community in the United States pressured congressmen and the president to back away from closer relations with Castro. Officials within Carter’s administration cautioned the president about appearing too “soft” with the communist dictator.

When Carter suffered a series of diplomatic setbacks in 1979, such as the fall of the pro-American leaders of Nicaragua and Iran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, he began to toughen his stance with Cuba. He criticized Cuba for its role in the Angolan civil war, and warned Castro about allowing Soviet troops into Cuba. Castro responded to these new attacks in a novel manner. In early 1980 he encouraged tens of thousand of Cubans, some from jails and asylums, to immigrate to the United States. Over 100,000 Cubans flooded into the United States, causing some serious problems, particularly in south Florida. By the end of 1980, U.S.-Cuban relations were as acrimonious as ever.

1980 – ABC’s nightly Iran Hostage crisis program was renamed “Nightline.”

1982 – The US submarine Jacksonville collided with a Turkish freighter near Virginia.

1988 – Former national security aides Oliver L. North and John M. Poindexter and businessmen Richard V. Secord and Albert Hakim pleaded innocent to Iran-Contra charges. North and Poindexter were convicted, but had their convictions thrown out; Secord and Hakim received probation after each pleaded guilty to a single count under a plea bargain.

1991 – General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the American commander of Operation Desert Storm, told reporters in Saudi Arabia the United States was closer to establishing a permanent military headquarters on Arab soil.

1991 – In liberated Kuwait, banks reopened for the first time since Iraqi troops had shut them down the previous December.

March 24th ~ {continued...}

1992 – The space shuttle Atlantis blasted off with seven astronauts on the first shuttle mission devoted to the environment.

1993 – Mahmoud Abouhalima, a cab driver implicated in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was flown back to the United States from Egypt. Abouhalima was later convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison.

1996 – U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid transfers to the Russian space station Mir from the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis for a planned five-month stay. Lucid was the first female U.S. astronaut to live in a space station. Lucid, a biochemist, shared Mir with Russian cosmonauts Yuri Onufriyenko and Yuri Usachev, conducting scientific experiments during her stay. Beginning in August, her scheduled return to Earth was delayed more than six weeks because of last-minute repairs to the booster rockets of Atlantis and then by a hurricane. Finally, on September 26, 1996, she returned to Earth aboard Atlantis, touching down at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Her 188-day sojourn aboard Mir set a new space endurance record for an American and a world endurance record for a woman.

1998 – The UN announced a pullout from Afghanistan after the governor of Kandahar slapped the face of a UN employee.

1999 – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commences air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Former Yugoslav province of Kosovo. The NATO offensive came in response to a new wave of ethnic cleansing launched by Serbian forces against the Kosovar Albanians on March 20th. On June 10, the NATO bombardment ended when Serbia agreed to a peace agreement calling for the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops. With the exception of two U.S. pilots killed in a training mission in Albania, no NATO personnel lost their lives in the 78-day operation.

1999 – Russia denounced the NATO attack on Serbia.

2000 – The US agreed to double the amount of money Iraq was allowed to spend to repair its oil industry and lifted holds on over $100 million in equipment.

2000 – A US federal judge awarded former hostage Terry Anderson $341 million from Iran, holding Iranian agents responsible for Anderson’s nearly seven years of captivity in Lebanon.