1909 – Explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson became the first men to reach the North Pole along with 4 Eskimos. The claim, disputed by skeptics, was upheld in 1989 by the Navigation Foundation. Robert E. Peary used Ellesmere Island as a base for his expedition to the North Pole. The north coast of Ellesmere lies just 480 miles from the Pole. He was accompanied by Matthew Henson, an African-American, who had spent 18 years in the Arctic with Peary.
1916 – German government OK’d unrestricted submarine warfare.
1917 – Congress declares war on Germany. However the US Army will have to be expanded before it can contribute to the war, The Navy is more prepares. The US does not become a full ally of the British, French, and Russians, preferring to be an “Associate Power.” Wilson sees the war as a moral crusade and does not want to be associated with the motives of the other states arrayed against Germany.
1917 – The Coast Guard, which consisted of 15 cruising cutters, 200 commissioned officers, and 5000 warrant officers and enlisted men, became part of the U. S. Navy by Executive Order. Coast Guard aviators were assigned to naval air stations in this country and abroad. One Coast Guardsman commanded the Naval Air Station at Ille Tudy, France, and won the French Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Another commanded Chatham Naval Air Station and he piloted one of two HS-1 seaplanes that attempted to bomb and machine gun a surfaced U-boat off the coast of New England. The bombs failed to explode, however, and the U-boat escaped.
1924 – Four open-cockpit biplanes took off from Seattle for a round the world flight. Two of the planes made it back. They flew 26,000 miles in 363 hours over a 175 days at an average speed of 77 mph. The US Congress had to approve the financing and the airplanes were built by Douglas Aircraft.
1938 – Roy Plunkett, a DuPont researcher in New Jersey, discovered the polymer, polytetrafluoroethylene, later known as teflon.
1945 – On Okinawa, the US 3rd Amphibious Corps continues to advance in the north, but the US 24th Corps is held by Japanese forces along the first defenses of the Shuri Line. There are numerous Kamikaze attacks on shipping during the day, as part of Operation Kikusui. The aircraft carriers USS Jacinto and HMS Illustrious are hit as well as 25 other ships including 10 small warships.
1945 – During World War II, the Japanese warship Yamato and nine other vessels sailed on a suicide mission to attack the U.S. fleet off Okinawa; the fleet was intercepted the next day.
1949 – A US Coast Guard H03S-1 helicopter completed the longest unescorted helicopter ferry flight on record. The trip from Elizabeth City, NC to Port Angeles, WA via San Diego, a distance of 3,750 miles, took 10 1/2 days to complete and involved a total flight time of 57.6 hours.
1951 – President Harry S. Truman discussed the relief of General Douglas MacArthur with several of his closest advisors. He asked to meet with them the next day to continue the discussion.
1954 – Four weeks after being attacked on the air by Edward R. Murrow, Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy, R-Wis., delivered a filmed response on CBS’ “See It Now” in which he charged that Murrow had, in the past, “engaged in propaganda for Communist causes.”
1963 – The United States and Britain signed an agreement under which the Americans would sell Polaris A-3 missiles to the British.’
1965 – The United States launched the “Early Bird” communications satellite, the first communications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit. Intelsat I (nicknamed Early Bird for the proverb “The early bird catches the worm”) was built by the Space and Communications Group of Hughes Aircraft Company (later Hughes Space and Communications Company, and now Boeing Satellite Systems) for COMSAT, which activated it on June 28. It was based on the satellite that Hughes had built for NASA to demonstrate that communications via synchronous-orbit satellite were feasible. Its booster was a Thrust Augmented Delta (Delta D). It helped provide the first live TV coverage of a spacecraft splashdown, that of Gemini 6 in December 1965. Originally slated to operate for 18 months, Early Bird was in active service for four years, being deactivated in January 1969, although it was briefly activated in June of that year to serve the Apollo 11 flight when the Atlantic Intelsat satellite failed. It was deactivated again in August 1969 and has been inactive since that time (except for a brief reactivation in 1990 to commemorate its 25th launch anniversary), although it remains in orbit. The Early Bird satellite was the first to provide direct and nearly instantaneous contact between Europe and North America, handling television, telephone, and telefacsimile transmissions. It was fairly small, measuring nearly 76 × 61 cm (2.5 × 2.0 feet) and weighing 34.5 kg (76 pounds). Early Bird was one of the satellites used in the then record-breaking broadcast of Our World.
1965 – National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy drafts and signs National Security Action Memorandum 328 on behalf of President Johnson. This document authorizes US forces to take the offensive to secure ‘enclaves’ and to support ARVN operations.
1966 – US Marines destroy a Vietcong hospital and supply area in a sweep near Saigon.
1967 – 2500 combined Vietcong and North Vietnamese troops make four closely coordinated attacks on the city of Quangtri, 15 miles south of the DMZ. The South charges that the Communist raiders had infiltrated through the DMZ.
1968 – Black Panther member Bobby Hutton (17) was killed in a gun battle with police in West Oakland, Ca., and Eldridge Cleaver was arrested.
1968 – USS New Jersey recommissioned for shore bombardment duty in Vietnam.
1968 – The 77 day siege of Khesan is officially relieved when elements of the 1st Cavalry (Airmobile) Division link up with Marines.
1972 – Clear weather for the first time in three days allows US planes and Navy warships to begin the sustained air strikes and naval bombardment ordered by President Nixon for Operation Linebacker. Hundreds of planes flying 225 missions by 9 April hit troop concentrations and missile emplacements above and below the DMZ. Two US planes are lost to SAM-2 missiles, a new element in North Vietnamese troop defenses.
1973 – Launch of Pioneer 11 spacecraft. Pioneer 11 (also known as Pioneer G) is a 259 kilogram (569 lb) robotic space probe launched by NASA to study the asteroid belt, the environment around Jupiter and Saturn, solar wind, cosmic rays, and eventually the far reaches of the solar system and heliosphere. It was the first probe to encounter Saturn and the second to fly through the asteroid belt and by Jupiter. Due to power constraints and the vast distance to the probe, last contact with the spacecraft was on September 30, 1995.
1979 – The U.S. cut off aid to Pakistan, because of that country’s covert construction of a uranium enrichment facility.
1991 – Bosnian Serbs began a war in a quest for their own ethnically pure republic.1991 – Iraq reluctantly agreed to accept United Nations conditions for ending the Persian Gulf War.
1995 – A seminar of international biological weapons experts convened by UNSCOM concludes that Iraq has an undeclared full-scale biological weapons program.
1996 – Fighting and looting began in Monrovia, Liberia, and a six year civil war resumed between rival ethnic groups. Supporters of Roosevelt Johnson faced off against the ruling council of state, which sacked Johnson as rural development minister and ordered his arrest for murder. Johnson accused Charles Taylor of violating the Abuja accord of August, which set up a transitional government.
1997 – NASA officials announced they were cutting short the 16-day mission of space shuttle Columbia by 12 days because of a deteriorating and potentially explosive power generator.
1998 – Pakistan reported a successful test of medium-range missile from its Kahuta nuclear research lab. It was capable of carrying nuclear warheads with a range of 900 miles.
1998 – President Clinton in a new report to Congress on Iraq’s non-compliance with UNSC resolutions says Iraq remains a threat to international peace and security.
1999 – NATO bombed Yugoslav forces in Montenegro.
1999 – In Serbia Pres. Milosevic announced a unilateral Easter cease-fire through to Sunday. NATO rejected the proposal and escalated its aerial bombardment on Serbian forces and supplies.
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