https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/march-4/4 March
1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what is now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean.
1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter. The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America (Massachusetts Bay) in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions of the U.S. states of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. Territory claimed but never administered by the colonial government extended as far west as the Pacific Ocean. The colony was founded by the owners of the Massachusetts Bay Company, which included investors in the failed Dorchester Company, which had in 1623 established a short-lived settlement on Cape Ann. The second attempt, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was successful, with about 20,000 people migrating to New England in the 1630s. The population was strongly Puritan, and its governance was dominated by a small group of leaders who were strongly influenced by Puritan religious leaders. Although its governors were elected, the electorate were limited to freemen, who had been examined for their religious views and formally admitted to their church. As a consequence, the colonial leadership exhibited intolerance to other religious views, including Anglican, Quaker, and Baptist theologies. Although the colonists initially had decent relationships with the local native populations, frictions arose over cultural differences, which were further exacerbated by Dutch colonial expansion. These led first to the Pequot War (1636–1638), and then to King Philip’s War (1675–1678), after which most of the natives in southern New England had been pacified, killed, or driven away. The colony was economically successful, engaging in trade with England and the West Indies. A shortage of hard currency in the colony prompted it to establish a mint in 1652. Political differences with England after the English Restoration led to the revocation of the colonial charter in 1684. King James II established the Dominion of New England in 1686 to bring all of the New England colonies under firmer crown control. The dominion collapsed after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposed James, and the colony reverted to rule under the revoked charter until 1692, when Sir William Phips arrived bearing the charter of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, which combined the Massachusetts Bay territories with those of the Plymouth Colony and proprietary holdings on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. The political and economic dominance of New England by the modern state of Massachusetts was made possible in part by the early dominance in these spheres by the Massachusetts Bay colonists.
1681 – The Quaker leader William Penn signed a peace treaty with Tammany, leader of the Delaware tribe, beginning a long period of friendly relations between the Quakers and the Indians. Additional treaties between Quakers and other tribes followed. Before the Commonwealth was settled by Europeans, the area was home to the Delaware, Susquehannock, Iroquois, Eriez, Shawnee, and other American Indian Nations. On February 28, 1681, Charles II granted a land charter to William Penn to repay a debt of £16,000 (around £2,100,000 in 2008, adjusting for retail inflation) owed to William’s father, Admiral William Penn. This was one of the largest land grants to an individual in history. It was called Pennsylvania. William Penn, who wanted it called New Wales or Sylvania, was embarrassed at the change, fearing that people would think he had named it after himself, but King Charles would not rename the grant. Penn established a government with two innovations that were much copied in the New World: the county commission and freedom of religious conviction. What had been Upland on what became the Pennsylvania side of the Pennsylvania-Delaware Border was renamed as Chester County when Pennsylvania instituted their colonial governments on March 4, 1681. The treaty of William Penn was never violated.
1747 – Casimir Pulaski, American Revolutionary War general, is born. He was born into the middle gentry at Warka, Poland. His family was rich and had enhanced their fortune as clients of the Czartoryski family with whose nationalist policies it was identified. His education was typical of its time, he learned a smattering of languages and manners in the service of the Duke of Courland. It was here that young Pulaski first came into contact with the interference of foreign powers in Polish affairs, that lead to the first great act of his life. Joseph Pulaski, Casimir’s father impatient with the Russian interference precipitated an armed movement called the Confederation of Bar in 1768. Casimir was one of the founding members and on his father’s death in 1769, carried the burden of military command. His greatest success was in the taking and holding of Jasna Gora at Czestochowa, the holist place in Poland. His brilliant defense against the Russians thrilled all of Europe. Unfortunately soon afterward he was implicated in a plot to kill the Polish King and forced into exile. Burdened by debts Pulaski was found in Paris by Benjamin Franklin and enlisted in for American cause. Pulaski joined George Washington’s army just before the battle of Brandywine. Acting under Washington’s orders without commission Pulaski lead the scouting party that discovered the British flanking movement and the American escape route. He then gathered all available cavalry to cover the retreat, leading a dashing charge that surprised the British and allowed the American army to escape. Congress rewarded Pulaski with a commission as brigadier general and command of all American cavalry. He spent the winter of 1777 -8 training and outfitting the cavalry units but in March, he gave way before the intrigues of his jealous officers. He requested and Washington approved the formation of an independent corp of cavalry and light infantry of foreign volunteers. Pulaski’s Legion became the training ground for American cavalry officers including “Light Horse” Harry Lee, the father of Robert E. Lee, and the model for Lee’s and Armand’s legions. Thirteen Polish officers served under Pulaski in the legion. The best assessment of Pulaski’s legion came from a British officer who called them simply “the best damned cavalry the rebels ever had”. In 1779 Pulaski and his legion were sent south to the besieged city of Charleston where he immediately raised morale and assisted in breaking the siege. A joint operation with the French was planed to recapture the city of Savannah. Against Pulaski’s advice the French commander ordered an assault against the strongest point of the British defense, Seeing the allied troops falter Pulaski galloped forward to rally the men, when he was mortally wounded by British cannon shot. He died two days later and was buried at sea. Pulaski was the romantic embodiment of the flashing saber and the trumpets calling to the charge, and that is how history has remembered him. The larger -Than -life aspect of his death has often obscured his steadier, quieter, and more lasting services. It was in the drudgery of forging a disciplined American cavalry that could shadow and report on British movements, in the long distance forage raids to feed and clothe the troops at Valley Forge, and the bitter hit and run rearguard actions that covered retreating American armies that slowed British pursuit, that gave Pulaski the title of “Father of the American cavalry”.
1766 – The British Parliament repeals the Stamp Act, the cause of bitter and violent opposition in the colonies.
1776 – The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston.
1781 – At Clapp’s Mill North Carolina, Lt. Col. Henry Lee’s U.S. forces attempted to ambush Col. Banastre Tarleton’s British forces. Tarleton recoved and Lee was forced to retreat, losing 8 men, while the British lost 20.
1789 – The first session of the U.S. Congress is held in New York City as the U.S. Constitution takes effect. However, of the 22 senators and 59 representatives called to represent the 11 states who had ratified the document, only nine senators and 13 representatives showed up to begin negotiations for its amendment. In 1786, defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce and the inability of Congress to levy taxes, leading Congress to endorse a plan to draft a new constitution. On September 17, 1787, at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, the new U.S. Constitution, creating a strong federal government with an intricate system of checks and balances, was signed by 38 of 41 delegates to the convention. As dictated by Article VII, the document would not become binding until it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. The Constitution was thus sent to the state legislatures, and beginning on December 7, five states–Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and Connecticut–ratified it in quick succession. However, other states, especially Massachusetts, opposed the document for its failure to reserve powers not delegated by the Constitution to the states and its lack of constitutional protection for such basic political rights as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, and the right to bear arms. In February 1788, a compromise was reached in which Massachusetts and other states agreed to ratify the document with the assurance that amendments would immediately be adopted. The Constitution was thus narrowly ratified in Massachusetts, followed by Maryland and South Carolina. On June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the document, making it binding, and government under the U.S. Constitution was scheduled to begin on March 4, 1789. On September 25, 1789, after several months of debate, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them to the states for ratification. This action led to the eventual ratification of the Constitution by the last of the 13 original colonies: North Carolina and Rhode Island.
1791 – President Washington called the US Senate into its 1st special session.
1791 – Vermont was admitted as the 14th state. It was the first addition to the original 13 colonies. Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Vermont is the 6th smallest in area of the 50 United States. It is the only New England state not bordering the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Champlain forms half of Vermont’s western border, which it shares with the state of New York. The Green Mountains are within the state. Vermont is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east across the Connecticut River, New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to the north. Originally inhabited by two major Native American tribes (the Algonquian-speaking Abenaki and the Iroquois), much of the territory that is now Vermont was claimed by France during its early colonial period. France ceded the territory to the Kingdom of Great Britain after being defeated in 1763 in the Seven Years’ War (in the United States, referred to as the French and Indian War). For many years, the nearby colonies, especially New Hampshire and New York, disputed control of the area (then called the New Hampshire Grants).
1793 – George Washington was inaugurated as President for the second time. His 2nd inauguration was the shortest with just 133 words. Since George Washington’s second term, Inauguration Day had been March 4 of the year following the election. That custom meant that defeated presidents and congressmen served four months after the election. In 1933, the so -called Lame Duck Amendment to the U.S. Constitution moved the inauguration of newly elected presidents and congressmen closer to Election Day. The 20th Amendment required the terms of the president and vice -president to begin at noon on January 20, while congressional terms begin on January 3.
1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress. The Eleventh Amendment (Amendment XI) to the United States Constitution, which was ratified by the states on February 7, 1795. The amendment deals with each state’s sovereign immunity and was adopted in order to overrule the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 419 (1793).
1801 – Thomas Jefferson was the first President to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. The Marine Band performed at a Presidential Inauguration for the first time.
1809 – Madison became 1st President inaugurated in American -made clothes.
1814 – Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario. The Battle of Longwoods took place during the War of 1812. A mounted American raiding party defeated an attempt by British regulars, volunteers from the Canadian militia and Native Americans to intercept them near Wardsville, in present-day Southwest Middlesex, Ontario.
1837 – The Illinois state legislature granted a city charter to Chicago. Chicago is near a portage between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed, and experienced rapid growth in the mid-nineteenth century.
1849 – The US had no President. Polk’s term ended on a Sunday and Taylor couldn’t be sworn -in; Senator David Atchison (pres pro tem) term had ended March 3rd.
1861 – Confederate States adopted the “Stars and Bars” flag.
1862 – Union forces covered by Flag Officer Foote’s gunboat flotilla, now driving down the Mississippi, occupied strongly fortified Columbus, Kentucky, which the Confederates had been compelled to evacuate. Foote reported that the reconnaissance by U.S.S. Cincinnati and Louisville two days earlier had hastened the evacuation, the rebels leaving quite a number of guns and carriages, ammunition, and large quantity of shot and shell, a considerable number of anchors, and the remnant of chain lately stretched across the river, with a large number of torpedoes.” The powerful fort, thought by many to be impregnable, had fallen without a struggle. Brigadier General Cullum wrote: “Columbus, the Gibraltar of the West, is ours and Kentucky is free, thanks to the brilliant strategy of the campaign, by which the enemy’s center was pierced at Forts Henry and Donelson, his wings isolated from each other and turned, compelling thus the evacuation of his strongholds at Bowling Green first and now Columbus.”
1863 – Battle of Thompson’s Station, Tennessee.
1865 – Lieutenant Moreau Forrest, in his flagship U.S.S. General Burnside and accompained by U.S.S. General Thomas, Master Gilbert Morton, led a Tennessee River expedition which followed the course of that river across the state of Alabama. At Mussel Shoals the naval force attacked and dispersed the encampment of Confederate General Philip D. Roddey and captured horses, military equipment and cotton. Forrest then proceeded to Lamb’s Ferry where he destroyed Confederate communications and transportation facilities. He also destroyed numerous barges, boats and scows encountered along the course of the river. Finally, Forrest penetrated the Elk River, deep into the state of Tennessee, where he “found a rich and populous country” in which “a great deal of loyal sentiment was displayed”.
1865 – Confederate congress approved the final design of “official flag.”
1876 – US Congress decided to impeach Secretary of War (under Ulysses S. Grant) William Worth Belknap (1829 -1890) of malfeasance in office for accepting over $24,000 in bribes from a post trader seeking immunity from removal. It is not clear whether he was aware of the arrangement or whether his wife had made the bargain and accepted the payoffs. Nevertheless, he was impeached by a unanimous vote of the United States Senate, though at his formal trial the Senate fell short of the number of votes required to convict. By then he had resigned, which doubtless accounted for his acquittal. He died in Washington, D.C. on October 13,1890 and was buried in Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery.
1907 – Congress appropriated $30,000 for installing wireless telegraph on not more than 12 revenue cutters.
1909 – U.S. President William Taft used what became known as a Saxbe fix, a mechanism to avoid the restriction of the U.S. Constitution’s Ineligibility Clause, to appoint Philander C. Knox as U.S. Secretary of State. The procedure was named “Saxbe fix” after Senator William Saxbe, who was confirmed as Attorney General in 1973 after Congress reduced the office’s salary to the level it had been before Saxbe’s term commenced. The Saxbe fix has subsequently become relevant as a successful—though not universally accepted—solution for appointments by presidents of both parties of sitting members of the United States Congress to the United States Cabinet. Members of Congress have been appointed to federal judgeships without any fix being enacted; court challenges to such appointments have failed.
1911 – Appropriation of first funds for experiments in naval aviation.
1915 – Secretary of the Treasury was authorized by Congress to detail cutters to enforce anchorage regulations in all harbors, rivers, bays and other navigable waters of United States.
1918 – The USS Cyclops departs from Barbados and is never seen again, presumably lost with all hands in the Bermuda Triangle. USS Cyclops (AC-4) was one of four Proteus-class colliers built for the United States Navy several years before World War I. Named for the Cyclops, a primordial race of giants from Greek mythology, she was the second U.S. Naval vessel to bear the name. Its loss remains the single largest loss of life in U.S. Naval history not directly involving combat.
1925 – President Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration was broadcast live on 21 radio stations coast -to -coast.
1925 – Swain’s Island (near American Samoa) was annexed by US.
1925 – Congress authorizes restoration of USS Constitution.
1929 – Congress appropriated $144,000 for seaplanes and equipment for Coast Guard.
1942 – US China headquarters is established by General Stillwell at Chunking.
1942 – American Admiral Halsey’s naval force attacks Marcus Island. At Marcus Island, 760 miles west -northwest of Wake, and 990 miles southeast of Yokohama, Admiral Halsey’s forces executed a successful air attack just before dawn on the 4th dropping flares to illuminate objectives. No enemy aircraft or ships were present. Heavy antiaircraft fire was encountered while planes dropped 96 bombs on the small island, resulting in considerable damage to hangars, fuel and ammunition storages, radio installations and aircraft runways. Loss in this engagement was one aircraft.
1943 – The Japanese convoy carrying troops of the 51st Division is again struck by Allied planes from the 5th Air Force. PT -boats join the at attacks. Over the course of the three days, all the Japanese transport, as well as 4 destroyers are sunk and at least 3500 troops are lost. Australian and American air forces have shot down 25 planes for the loss of 5 of their own. This is considered a serious defeat by the Japanese and a setback for their defense of New Guinea.
1944 – US Task Force 74 (Crutchley) shells Japanese batteries on Hauwei and Ndrilo. These guns have hampered American access to Seeadler Bay.
1944 – The U.S. Eighth Air Force launches the first American bombing raid against the German capital. The British Royal Air Force (RAF) had been conducting night raids against Berlin and other German cities since November 1943, suffering losses at increasingly heavy rates. While the British inflicted significant damage against their targets, the German defenses proved quite effective: The RAF flew 35 major raids between November 1943 and March 1944 and lost 1,047 aircraft, with an even greater number damaged. Having already suffered heavy losses during day raids of various German industrial centers, the Americans had been cautious in pursuing night raids. But in March, with the RAF exhausted, the U.S. Eighth Air Force finally pursued night bombing and made Berlin its primary target. Fourteen U.S. bomber wings took off for Germany from England on the evening of March 4; only one plane reached Berlin (the rest dropped their loads elsewhere; few planes were lost to German defenses). In retrospect, the initial American attack was considered “none too successful” (as recorded in the official history of U.S. Army Air Force). Subsequent attacks in March were more effective.
1945 – US 1st and 9th Armies continue their advance to the Rhine River. The US 7th Corps from US 1st Army reaches the Rhine just north of Cologne.
1945 – On Iwo Jima, the first damaged B -29 uses the landing field.
1951 – U.S. Marines advanced to within nine miles of Hongchon.
1952 – North Korea accused the U.N. of using germ warfare.
1952 – An air detachment consisting of three helicopters and necessary personnel, established as the first unit of its type on a test basis at the air station, Brooklyn, New York, began operating in support of port security operations.
1954 – Speaking before the 10th Inter-American Conference, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warns that “international communism” is making inroads in the Western Hemisphere and asks the nations of Latin America to condemn this danger. Dulles’s speech was part of a series of actions designed to put pressure on the leftist government of Guatemala, a nation in which U.S. policymakers feared communism had established a beachhead. Dulles was stern and direct as he declared that there was not “a single country in this hemisphere which has not been penetrated by the apparatus of international communism acting under orders from Moscow.” Communism, he continued, was an “alien despotism,” and he asked the nations of Latin America to “deny it the right to prey upon our hemisphere.” “There is no place here,” he concluded, “for political institutions which serve alien masters.” Though he did not mention it by name, it was clear to most observers that Dulles was targeting Guatemala. The United States had been concerned about political developments in Guatemala since 1944, when a leftist revolution overthrew long -time dictator Jorge Ubico. In the years since, U.S. policymakers were increasingly fearful that communist elements were growing in power in Guatemala and deeply troubled by government policies that seemed to threaten U.S. business interests that nation. By 1954, Dulles and President Dwight D. Eisenhower were convinced that international communism had established a power base in the Western Hemisphere that needed to be eliminated. As evidence, they pointed to Guatemala’s expropriation of foreign -owned lands and industries, its “socialistic” labor legislation, and vague allegations about Guatemala’s assistance to revolutionary movements in other Latin American nations. Dulles’s speech did get some results. The Latin American representatives at the meeting passed a resolution condemning “international communism.” As Dulles was to discover, however, the Latin American governments would go no further. In May, Dulles requested that the Organization of American States (OAS) consider taking direct action against Guatemala. The OAS was established in 1948 by the nations of Latin America and the United States to help in settling hemispheric disputes. Dulles’s request fell on deaf ears, however. Despite their condemnation of “international communism,” the other nations of Latin America were reluctant to sanction direct intervention in another country’s internal affairs. At that point, Eisenhower unleashed the Central Intelligence Agency. Through a combination of propaganda, covert bombings, and the establishment of a mercenary force of “counter -revolutionaries” in neighboring Nicaragua and Honduras, the CIA was able to destabilize the Guatemalan government, which fell from power in June 1954. An anti -communist dictatorship led by Carlos Castillo Armas replaced it.
1955 – 1st radio facsimile transmission (fax) was sent across the continent.
1959 – US Pioneer IV missed the Moon and became a 2nd (US 1st) artificial planet.
1962 – AEC announced 1st atomic power plant in Antarctica in operation.
1968 – Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5 was launched.
1968 – In a draft memorandum to the president, the Ad Hoc Task Force on Vietnam advises that the administration send 22,000 more troops to Vietnam, but make deployment of the additional 185,000 men previously requested by Gen. William Westmoreland (senior U.S. commander in Vietnam) contingent on future developments. The Task Force was a group of senior policy advisors including Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford; Central Intelligence Agency Director Richard Helms; General Maxwell Taylor; Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs William Bundy; and Paul Warnke, head of the Pentagon’s politico -military policy office. President Johnson requested that the Task Force study a request by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Westmoreland for more than 200,000 additional troops to augment U.S. forces in Vietnam and to strengthen U.S. security in other parts of the world. President Johnson asked that the memorandum be sent to General Westmoreland, who, in a reply four days later, welcomed the additional 22,000 troops, but insisted that he still needed the full requested reinforcements by year’s end. Ultimately, President Johnson and his advisers, seeking a way to disengage from the war, refused Westmoreland’s request for more troops.
1971 – “City Command” kidnapped 4 US military men at Ankara, Turkey.
1977 – ENS Janna Lambine, USCG, graduated from naval aviation training at NAS Whiting Field, Milton, Florida. She was the Coast Guard’s first female pilot.
1979 – US Voyager I photo revealed Jupiter’s rings.
1982 – NASA launched Intelsat V.
1987 – President Reagan addressed the nation on the Iran-Contra affair. He took full responsibility for the affair acknowledging his overtures to Iran had “deteriorated” into an arms-for-hostages deal. Michale Ledeen, Pentagon employee, later authored “Perilous Statecraft: An Insider’s Account of the Iran-Contra Affair.”
1990 – US 65th manned space mission STS 36 (Atlantis 6) returned from space.
1991 – 2:05 p.m., The Army’s 37th Engineer Battalion blew up 33 Iraqi bunkers in the Iraqi desert. The Pentagon later acknowledged that one of the bunkers probably contained shells of sarin, a nerve agent, and mustard gas.
1991 – Iraq released ten allied prisoners-of-war. A second group was freed the following day.
1993 – Authorities announced the arrest of Mohammad Salameh, a suspect in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City. Salameh was later convicted of playing a key role.
1994 – In New York, four extremists were convicted of the World Trade Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than a thousand.
1994 – The space shuttle STS -62 (Columbia 16) blasted off on a two -week mission.
1998 – The US House approved a special referendum in Puerto Rico that would allow voters to choose one of 3 options: continued commonwealth status, statehood or independence.
1999 – In North Carolina a military jury acquitted Captain Richard J. Ashby of all charges in the 1998 death of 20 people, who died when his jet cut the cable of their ski gondola in the Italian Alps. Italian authorities were outraged.
1999 – Manuel Noriega’s sentence was reduced from 40 years to 30 by a federal judge in Florida. He would be eligible for parole in 2007.
1999 – In Venezuela the bodies of 3 Americans, who were kidnapped Feb 25 in Colombia, were found shot to death. Ingrid Washinawatok (41), Lahe’ena’e Gay (39) and Terence Freitas (24) were coordinating a campaign for the U’wa Indians when they were abducted. Raul Reyes, senior commander of FARC, later said that local commander Gildardo and 3 rebels seized and executed the 3 Americans without authorization. In Dec. German Briceno, a FARC officer, was indicted in absentia on murder charges along with Gustavo Bogota, a member of the U’wa Indian tribe. In 2000 Nelson Vargas was captured in Saravena and identified as the guerrilla commander responsible for the kidnap -slayings. Police later said Gildardo Gomez was the commander suspected in the killings, but still held Vargas on suspicion of rebel membership.
2001 – President George W. Bush dedicated a $4 billion aircraft carrier in honor of former President Reagan. Nancy Reagan christened the ship. It was commissioned in 2003.
2001 – The US Coast Guard found a record 13 (8) tons of cocaine aboard a 152 -foot fishing vessel, the Svesda Maru, in a Belize -flagged vessel 1,500 miles south of San Diego. The ship’s crew were from Russia and Ukraine.
2002 – The Battle of Takur Ghar was a short but intense military engagement between United States special operations forces and al Qaeda insurgents fought in March 2002, atop Takur Ghar mountain, Afghanistan. For the U.S. side, the battle proved the deadliest entanglement of Operation Anaconda, an effort early in the war in Afghanistan to rout al Qaeda forces from the Shahi-Kot Valley and Arma Mountains. The battle saw three helicopter landings by the U.S. on the mountain top, each greeted by direct assault from al Qaeda forces. Although Takur Ghar was eventually taken, seven U.S. service members were killed and many wounded. In honor of the first casualty of the battle, Navy SEAL Neil C. Roberts, the battle is also known as the Battle of Roberts Ridge.
2003 – The Army’s oldest armored division, “Old Ironsides,” got orders to head for the Persian Gulf as the total of U.S. land, sea and air forces arrayed against Iraq or preparing to go neared 300,000.
2004 – Ukrainian authorities pulled a private station off the air, four days after it began broadcasting U.S. -funded Radio Liberty’s shortwave programming.
2005 – American troops fired on a car, that had failed to respond to checkpoint indications and warnings, which was taking Giuliana Sgrena, a recently released hostage and Italian journalist, to Baghdad’s airport and wounded her. Nicola Calipari, the Italian intelligence officer who negotiated her freedom, was kille by the gunfire. Sgrena returned to Italy the next day.
2007 – At least 12 civilians were killed and 33 were injured by U.S. Marines in Shinwar district in Nangrahar province of Afghanistan as the Americans reacted to a bomb ambush. The event has become known as the Shinwar Massacre. The 120 member Marine unit responsible for the attack was asked to leave the country because the incident damaged the unit’s relations with the local Afghan population.
2007 – U.S. and Iraqi forces entered Sadr City, the primary stronghold of the Mahdi Army.
2010 – The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the United States House of Representatives accepts a resolution describing the Armenian Genocide as “genocide”, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador and threatening Turkey–United States relations.
2011 – NASA’s attempt to launch the Glory satellite aboard a Taurus XL rocket fails. The Glory satellite was a planned NASA satellite mission that would have collected data on the chemical, micro-physical and optical properties—and the spatial and temporal distributions—of sulfate and other aerosols, and would have collected solar irradiance data for the long-term climate record. The science focus areas served by Glory included: atmospheric composition; carbon cycle, ecosystems, and biogeochemistry; climate variability and change; and water and energy cycles.
2015 – Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and his team of researchers find the Musashi, one of Japan’s biggest and most famous battleships which was sunk by American forces in 1944, on the floor of the Sibuyan Sea.
Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken this Day
RYAN, RICHARD
Rank and organization: Ordinary Seaman, U.S. Navy. Born: 1851, Connecticut. Accredited to: Connecticut. G.O. No.: 207, 23 March 1876. Citation: Serving on board the U.S.S. Hartford, Ryan displayed gallant conduct in jumping overboard at Norfolk, Va., and rescuing from drowning one of the crew of that vessel, 4 March 1876.
WALLACE, GEORGE W.
Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, 9th U.S. Infantry. Place and date: At Tinuba, Luzon, Philippine Islands, 4 March 1900. Entered service at: Denver, Colo. Birth: Fort Riley, Kans. Date of issue: 25 June 1900. Citation: With another officer and a native Filipino, was shot at from an ambush, the other officer falling severely wounded. 2d Lt. Wallace fired in the direction of the enemy, put them to rout, removed the wounded officer from the path, returned to the town, a mile distant, and summoned assistance from his command.
*McGlLL, TROY A.
Rank and organization: Sergeant, U.S. Army, Troop G, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. Place and date: Los Negros Islands, Admiralty Group, 4 March 1944. Entered service at: Ada, Okla. Birth: Knoxville, Tenn. G.O. No.: 74, 11 September 1944. Citation: For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action with the enemy at Los Negros Island, Admiralty Group, on 4 March 1944. In the early morning hours Sgt. McGill, with a squad of 8 men, occupied a revetment which bore the brunt of a furious attack by approximately 200 drinkcrazed enemy troops. Although covered by crossfire from machineguns on the right and left flank he could receive no support from the remainder of our troops stationed at his rear. All members of the squad were killed or wounded except Sgt. McGill and another man, whom he ordered to return to the next revetment. Courageously resolved to hold his position at all cost, he fired his weapon until it ceased to function. Then, with the enemy only 5 yards away, he charged from his foxhole in the face of certain death and clubbed the enemy with his rifle in handtohand combat until he was killed. At dawn 105 enemy dead were found around his position. Sgt. McGill’s intrepid stand was an inspiration to his comrades and a decisive factor in the defeat of a fanatical enemy.
GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE
* * * By virtue of an act of Congress approved 4 March 1921, the Medal of Honor, emblem of highest ideals and virtues, is bestowed in the name of the Congress of the United States upon the unknown, unidentified British soldier and French soldier buried, respectively, in Westminster Abbey and Arc de Triomphe.
Whereas: Great Britain and France, two of the Allies of the United States in the World War, have lately done honor to the unknown dead of their armies by placing with fitting ceremony the body of an unknown, unidentified soldier, respectively, in Westminster Abbey and in the Arc de Triomphe; and
Whereas: animated by the same spirit of comradeship in which we of the American forces fought alongside these Allies, we desire to add whatever we can to the imperishable glory won by the deeds of our Allies and commemorated in part by this tribute to their unknown dead: Now, therefore,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States of America be, and he hereby is, authorized to bestow with appropriate ceremonies, military and civil, the Congressional Medal of Honor upon the unknown, unidentified British soldier buried in Westminster Abbey, London, England, and upon the unknown, unidentified French soldier buried in the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France (A.G. 220.523) (War Department General Orders, No. 52, 1 Dec. 1922, Sec. II).
