November 16 : This Day in U.S. Military History

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16 November
1676 – 1st colonial prison was organized at Nantucket Mass.
 1766 – Indians surrendered to British in Indian War of Chief Pontiac. By 1763, the British had control of much of northeastern North America. Most of the Indians were displeased by their treatment from the British. The main concern of the Indians was the continued settlement of people along the western frontier, which in 1763, included Ohio. Chief Pontiac began organizing many Indian tribes together to rebel against the British. Pontiac’s message of united Indian resistance was accepted among many groups, including the Delawares, Hurons, Illinois, Kickapoos, Miamis, Potawatomies, Senecas, Shawnees, Ottawas, and Chippewas. After a final council in 1763, warfare began. Pontiac’s goal was to drive the British back to the eastern side of the Appalachian Mountains. The Indians had success waging war on frontier settlements that were not well protected. The British had many small forts on the frontier that were easily overrun by the Indians. Many British soldiers were killed in the attacks. The Indians attacked Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt but were unsuccessful in capturing the forts. The Indians were counting on French support against the British in order to take these two forts. The French support never came. As winter was getting close, many of the Indians who were fighting were also concerned about their families. Many went home to take care of their families and crops. Without controlling Fort Pitt or Detroit, the Indians had no real chance of driving the British out of the western frontier. Smaller battles continued for several years. In 1766, Pontiac signed a peace treaty at Oswego, New York. As one of the conditions of the treaty, Pontiac was considered not guilty of any wrong and was allowed to return home to his family who were living on the Maumee River. There were farther reaching consequences, however. This war worsened Britain’s financial health and resulted in the Proclamation of 1763, preventing colonial settlement farther to the West. This will be a grievance that leads into the American Independence movement.
 1776 – During the Revolutionary War, Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen and a force of 3,000 Hessian mercenaries lay siege to Fort Washington on Long Island. Throughout the morning, Knyphausen met stiff resistance from the Patriot riflemen inside, but by the afternoon the Americans were overwhelmed, and the garrison commander, Colonel Robert Magaw, surrendered. Three thousand Americans were taken prisoner, and valuable ammunition and supplies were lost to the Hessians. Two weeks earlier, William Demont had deserted from the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion and given British intelligence agents information about the Patriot defense of New York, including information about the location and defense of Fort Washington. Demont was the first traitor to the Patriot cause, and his treason contributed significantly to Knyphausen’s victory.
 1776 – Margaret Corbin and her husband, crews one of two cannons in defense of Fort Washington and 600 other defenders. When her husband falls, Margaret takes his place at his cannon and continues firing until she is seriously wounded. She later becomes first woman in U.S. history to receive a pension from Congress for military service.
 1776 – First salute to an American flag (Grand Union flag) flying from Continental Navy ship Andrew Doria, by Dutch fort at St. Eustatius, West Indies.
 1798 – Kentucky became the 1st state to nullify an act of Congress. The Kentucky Resolution was passed in opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts by the Kentucky legislature,written by Thomas Jefferson. The Virginia legislature would follow suit on December 24, 1798, the measure written by James Madison. The resolutions attacked the Federalist interpretation of the Constitution which extended the powers of the national government over the states. The resolutions declared that the Constitution only established an agreement and that the federal government had no right to exercise powers not specifically delegated to it; should the federal government assume such powers, its acts under them would be void. It was the right of the states to decide as to the constitutionality of such acts. The resolutions were submitted to other states for approval but with no real result. Their importance lies in that they were later considered to be the first statements of the States’ Rights theory, and led to the concept of nullification. They were also useful later to the Confederate side of the American Civil War, which used the ideas presented in these documents as justification for seceding.
 1798 – The British boarded the U.S. frigate Baltimore and impressed a number of crewmen as alleged deserters, a practice which contributed to the War of 1812.
 1813 – The British announced a blockade of Long Island Sound, leaving only the New England coast open to shipping.
 1821 – Missouri Indian trader William Becknell arrives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, sells his goods at an enormous profit, and makes plans to return the next year over the route that will become known as the Santa Fe Trail. Pure luck made Becknell the first businessman to revive the American trade with Santa Fe. Fearing American domination of the region, the Spanish had closed their Southwest holdings to foreigners following the Pike expedition more than a decade earlier. They threw the few traders who violated the policy into prison and confiscated their goods. However, Becknell and other merchants continued to trade with the Indians on the American-controlled eastern slope of the southern Rockies. While on such an expedition in the fall of 1821, Becknell encountered a troop of Mexican soldiers. They informed Becknell that they had recently won their independence in a war with Spain, and the region was again open to American traders. Becknell immediately sped to Santa Fe, where he found a lucrative market for his goods, and his saddlebags were heavy with Mexican silver when he returned to his base in Franklin, Missouri. The next summer Becknell traveled to Santa Fe again, this time with three wagonloads of goods. Instead of following the old route that passed over a dangerous high pass, however, Becknell blazed a shorter and easier cutoff across the Cimarron Desert. Thus, while much of the route he followed had been used by Mexican traders for decades, Becknell’s role in reopening the trail and laying out the short-cut earned him the title of “Father of the Santa Fe Trail.” It became one of the most important and lucrative of the Old West trading routes; merchants and other travelers continued to follow the trail blazed by Becknell until the arrival of trains in the late 1870s.
 1831 – Karl von Clausewitz (51), Prussian strategist (Campaign 1813), died. Carl Phillip Gottlieb von Clausewitz (b. June 1, 1780) was a Prussian military thinker. His Father was a Prussian Officer and he entered the army at the age of 12. He attained the rank of Major-General in the Prussian Military, and is famous for writing the military strategy book Vom Kriege (On War), first published in 1832. Despite his death before quite completing On War, his ideas have been widely influential in military theory. One idea, that actual war includes “friction” which deranges, to a greater or lesser degree, all prior arrangements, has become common currency in other fields as well (i.e. business strategy).
 1846 – General Zachary Taylor took Saltillo, Mexico. General, cried Brig. Gen. John Wool in despair, we are whipped! I know it, replied Maj. Gen. Zachary Taylor, but the volunteers don’t know it. Let them alone; we’ll see what they do.
 1861 – Confederate Secretary of the Navy Mallory advertised for plans and bids for building four seagoing ironclads capable of carrying four heavy guns each.
 1863 – At the Battle of Campbell’s Station, Ten., Confederates under General James Longstreet fail to defeat a Union force under General Ambrose Burnside near Knoxville, Tennessee. After the Battle of Gettysburg in early July, Army of Northern Virginia commander General Robert E. Lee allowed Longstreet to take two divisions to reinforce General Braxton Bragg’s army around Chattanooga. The Confederate leadership realized that they were losing the war in the West, and relief was needed. Longstreet arrived just in time to execute a crucial attack in the Confederate victory at Chickamauga in northern Georgia. He stayed to help Bragg in the siege of Chattanooga, but the two men quarreled frequently. In late October, Union troops drove Longstreet’s force away from Brown’s Ferry, allowing the beleaguered Union troops in Chattanooga to resume shipping supplies via the Tennessee River. This led to a permanent split between the Confederate generals, and Bragg allowed Longstreet to head for eastern Tennessee in an attempt to secure that area for the Confederates. Campbell Station was the first engagement of his attempt to capture Knoxville, an area of intense anti-Confederate sentiment. Burnside had only about 5,000 men in his command, but he hoped to keep Longstreet moving away from Chattanooga, where Union forces were pinned inside of a Confederate semicircle. Burnside allowed the Rebels to cross the Tennessee River but then realized that Longstreet could trap him along the river. He began a mad race to the strategic crossroads at Campbell Station, even abandoning many of his supply wagons in order to move more quickly. The Yankees reached the intersection first, and Burnside planned to fight a delaying action. Longstreet caught up with him by the late afternoon, and a short battle ensued. A poorly coordinated attack by the Confederates failed to turn Burnside’s flank, and the Union repulsed them with ease. The fighting ended at nightfall, and Burnside escaped into the defenses around Knoxville. The Union lost 318 men killed and wounded; the Confederates lost 174
 1863 – The effect of the Union’s western successes was severely felt by the Confederate effort in the east. Commander John K. Mitchell wrote Secretary Mallory that there was a critical shortage of fuels for manufacturing purposes and naval use. “The occupation of Chattanooga by the enemy in August has effectually cut off the supply from the mines in that region, upon which the public works in Georgia and South Carolina and the naval vessels in the waters of those States were dependent. Meager supplies have been sent to Charleston from this place [Richmond] and from the Egypt mines in North Carolina. . . .” He reported that there was a sufficient amount of coal in the Richmond area to supply the Confederate ships operating in Virginia waters and rivers, and he felt that wood was being successfully substituted for coal at Charleston and Savannah. Mitchell paid tribute to the thoroughness of the Union blockade when he wrote of the economic plight of the Confederate States: “The prices of almost all articles of prime necessity have advanced from five to ten times above those ruling at the breaking out of the war, and, for many articles, a much greater advance has been reached, so that now the pay of the higher grades of officers, even those with small families, is insufficient for the pay of their board only; how much greater, then, must be the difficulty of living in the case of the lower grades of officers, and, the families of enlisted persons. This difficulty, when the private sources of credit and the limited means of most of the officers become exhausted, must soon, unless relief be extended to them by the Government, reach the point of destitution, or of charitable dependence, a point, in fact, already reached in many instances.”
 1863 – U.S.S. Monongahela, Commander Strong, escorted Army transports and covered the landing of more than a thousand troops on Mustang Island, Aransas Pass, Texas. Monongahela’s sailors manned a battery of two howitzers ashore, and the ship shelled Confederate works until the out-numbered defenders surrendered. General Banks wrote in high praise of the “great assistance” rendered by Monongahela during this successful operation.
 1856 – Barrier Forts reduction began at Canton China. On 22 October 1856, the sloop Portsmouth, under the command of Andrew H. Foote, was lying off Whampoa (in the Canton area) when it received a message from the American consul at Canton that American interests were in imminent danger. Commander Foote responded to the message and sent a landing force, including Lieutenant William W. Kirkland with 18 Marines, to assist the consul. On 27 October, Marines and sailors from the Levant were sent to reinforce the Portsmouth’s landing force. Later, on 12 November, Commodore James Armstrong arrived in the area on board his flagship, the San Jacinto, and sent additional reinforcements to the detachment in Canton, under the command of Captain John D. Simms. Shortly after Simms arrived at his destination and assumed command of the entire Marine force, Armstrong withdrew his flagship and left Foote in command at Canton. With warlike acts on the part of the Chinese increasing and negotiations deteriorating, Foote was given authority to proceed with operations against the hostile forces. During the engagement, which began in the early morning, a force of approximately 287 officers, sailors, and Marines met more than 4,000 Chinese troops and defeated them in every action. After three days of hard fighting, the Marines and sailors under Foote’s command had captured four strongly defended forts, killed an estimated 500 Chinese, and routed an army of thousands. American losses were recorded at seven killed and 32 wounded or injured. As a result of this engagement against a numerically superior Chinese force, the Secretary of the Navy in his Annual Report for 1857, gave praise to all of those who had fought the “Battle of the Barrier Forts.”
 1902 – A cartoon appeared in the Washington Star, prompting the Teddy Bear Craze, after President Teddy Roosevelt refused to kill a captive bear tied up for him to shoot during a hunting trip to Mississippi.
 1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory collectively enter the United States as Oklahoma, the 46th state. Oklahoma, with a name derived from the Choctaw Indian words okla, meaning “people,” and humma, meaning “red,” has a history of human occupation dating back 15,000 years. The first Europeans to visit the region were Spanish explorers in the 16th century, and in the 18th century the Spanish and French struggled for control of the territory. The United States acquired Oklahoma from France in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. After the War of 1812, the U.S. government decided to remove Indian tribes from the settled eastern lands of the United States and move them west to the unsettled lands of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. In 1828, Congress reserved Oklahoma for Indians and in 1834 formally ceded it to five southeastern tribes as Indian Territory. Many Cherokees refused to abandon their homes east of the Mississippi, and so the U.S. Army moved them west in a forced march known as the “Trail of Tears.” The uprooted tribes joined Plains Indians that had long occupied the area, and Indian nations with fixed boundaries and separate governments were established in the region. During the American Civil War, most tribes in Indian Territory supported the South. With the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, the territory was placed under U.S. military rule. White cattlemen and settlers began to covet the virgin ranges of Oklahoma, and after the arrival of the railroad in the 1870s, illegal white incursion into Indian Territory flourished. Most of these “Boomers” were expelled, but pressure continued until the federal government agreed in 1889 to open two million acres in central Oklahoma for white settlement. At noon on April 22, 1889, a pistol shot signaled the opening of the new land, and tens of thousands of people rushed to stake claims. Those who had already made illegal entry to beat the starting gun were called “Sooners,” hence Oklahoma’s state nickname. The following year, the region was divided into Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory. In 1907, Congress decided to admit Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory into the Union as a single state, with all Indians in the state becoming U.S. citizens. Representatives of the two territories drafted a constitution, and on September 17, 1907, it was approved by voters of the two territories. On November 16, Oklahoma was welcomed into the United States by President Theodore Roosevelt. Oklahoma initially prospered as an agricultural state, but the drought years of the 1930s made the state part of the Dust Bowl. During the Depression, poor tenant farmers known as “Okies” were forced to travel west seeking better opportunities. In the 1940s, prosperity returned to Oklahoma, and oil production brought a major economic boom in the 1970s.
 1914 – The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.
 1933 – The United States and the Soviet Union established diplomatic relations. President Roosevelt sent a telegram to Soviet leader Maxim Litvinov, expressing hope that U.S.-Soviet relations would “forever remain normal and friendly.”
 1940 – New York City’s “Mad Bomber” George Metesky places his first bomb at a Manhattan office building used by Consolidated Edison.
 1942 – Navy’s first Night Fighter squadron (VMF(N)-531) established at Cherry Point, NC.
 1943 – American bombers strike a hydro-electric power facility and heavy water factory in German-controlled Vemork, Norway.
 1944 – Allied air strikes support offensives of US 9th and 1st Armies; about 10,000 tons of bombs are dropped by some 1200 US 8th Air Force planes and 1100 RAF bombers with the goal of obliterating the fortified towns of Duren, Julich and Heinsberg as well as the German defensive position west of Duren. The US 9th Army advances toward Geilenkirchen and Eschweiler with the objective of reaching the Roer River. To the right, the US 1st Army attacks toward Duren, east of Aachen.
 1945 – Eighty-eight German scientists, holding Nazi secrets, arrived in the U.S. In a move that stirs up some controversy, the United States ships 88 German scientists to America to assist the nation in its production of rocket technology. Most of these men had served under the Nazi regime and critics in the United States questioned the morality of placing them in the service of America. Nevertheless, the U.S. government, desperate to acquire the scientific know-how that had produced the terrifying and destructive V-1 and V-2 rockets for Germany during WWII, and fearful that the Russians were also utilizing captured German scientists for the same end, welcomed the men with open arms. Realizing that the importation of scientists who had so recently worked for the Nazi regime so hated by Americans was a delicate public relations situation, the U.S. military cloaked the operation in secrecy. In announcing the plan, a military spokesman merely indicated that some German scientists who had worked on rocket development had “volunteered” to come to the United States and work for a “very moderate salary.” The voluntary nature of the scheme was somewhat undercut by the admission that the scientists were in “protective custody.” Upon their arrival in the United States on November 16, newsmen and photographers were not allowed to interview or photograph the newcomers. A few days later, a source in Sweden claimed that the scientists were members of the Nazi team at Peenemeunde where the V-weapons had been produced. The U.S. government continued to remain somewhat vague about the situation, stating only that “certain outstanding German scientists and technicians” were being imported in order to “take full advantage of these significant developments, which are deemed vital to our national security.” The situation pointed out one of the many ironies connected with the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union, once allies against Germany and the Nazi regime during World War II, were now in a fierce contest to acquire the best and brightest scientists who had helped arm the German forces in order to construct weapons systems to threaten each other.
 1948 – President Harry S. Truman rejected four-power talks on Berlin until the blockade was removed. Truman relied heavily on Dean Acheson for his most significant foreign policy achievements.
 1950 – US Pres. Truman proclaimed an emergency crisis caused by communist threat. President Truman reassured China and other nations that he had never had any intention of carrying the hostilities into China. There was a lull in the fighting.
 1950 – A dedication of the monument erected in Arlington National Cemetery on the gravesite of those who lost their lives on the night of 29 January 1945, when USS Serpens was destroyed off Lunga Beach, Guadalcanal. This was the largest single disaster suffered by the US Coast Guard in World War II.
 1955 – Big Four talks, taking place in Geneva on German reunification, ended in failure.
 1961 – President John F. Kennedy decides to increase military aid to South Vietnam without committing U.S. combat troops. Kennedy was concerned at the advances being made by the communist Viet Cong, but did not want to become involved in a land war in Vietnam. He hoped that the military aid would be sufficient to strengthen the Saigon government and its armed forces against the Viet Cong. Ultimately it was not, and Kennedy ended up sending additional support in the form of U.S. military advisors and American helicopter units. By the time of his assassination in 1963, there were 16,000 U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam.
 1963 – President John F. Kennedy on USS Observation Island witnesses launch of Polaris A-2 missile by USS Andrew Jackson (SSBN-619).
 1965 – In the last day of the fighting at Landing Zone X-Ray, regiments of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division repulsed NVA forces in the Ia Drang Valley. Joe Galloway served at LZ X-ray. He later received the Bronze Star for his actions during the epic battle. Based on that and his subsequent actions in Vietnam, Galloway came to be regarded by the military leadership and the GIs alike as a journalist who was fair, objective, and who could be trusted to get the story right. He co-authored with Lt. Gen. Hal More “We Were Soldiers Once…Any Young.”
 1967 – Haiphong shipyard in North Vietnam was hit by U.S. planes for the first time.
 1968 – Operation Tran Hung Dao began in Mekong Delta. The SVN operation under the direction of the Joint General Staff employed six RVN Marine Corps, four Ranger, and five Airborne battalions to defend the Saigon area during the Tet offensive. It claimed 953 known enemy casualties.
 1970 – South Vietnamese Vice President Nguyen Cao Ky, speaking at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, says Cambodia would be overrun by communist forces “within 24 hours” if South Vietnamese troops currently operating there are withdrawn. Ky described the Cambodian operation of the previous spring (the so-called “Cambodian Incursion,” in which President Nixon had sent U.S. and South Vietnamese soldiers into Cambodia to destroy North Vietnamese base camps) as the “turning point” of the war. He said that as a result of that operation, the enemy had been forced to revert to low-level guerrilla warfare. Ky also reported that his government was concerned that the Nixon administration might be yielding to the “pressure of the antiwar groups” and pulling out the remaining U.S. troops too quickly.
 1971 – As the fighting gets closer to Phnom Penh, the United States steps up its air activities in support of the Cambodian government. U.S. helicopter gunships struck at North Vietnamese emplacements at Tuol Leap, 10 miles north of Phnom Penh.
 1973 – President Nixon signed the Alaska Pipeline measure into law. Oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay in 1968. A pipeline was considered the only viable system for transporting the oil to the nearest ice-free port, over 800 miles (1,280 km) away at Valdez. The oil companies with exploitation rights grouped together as the Alyeska consortium to create a company to design, build and then operate the pipeline. US President Richard Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act into law on November 16, 1973, which authorized the construction of the pipeline. Although the pipeline is actually about 799 miles long, it is usually referred to as 800 miles long. The 799 mile route presented special challenges. As well as the harsh environment, the need to cross three mountain groups and many rivers and streams, the permafrost of Alaska meant that almost half of the pipeline’s length had to be elevated rather than buried as normal to prevent the ground melting and shifting. There were five years of surveying and geological sampling before construction began. The single 48 inch (1.22 m) diameter pipeline was built between March 27, 1975 and May 31, 1977 at a cost of around $8 billion. The pipe was constructed in six sections by five different contractors employing 21,000 people at the peak of work, 31 were killed in accidents during construction. There are twelve pump stations, each with four pumps. Usually only around seven stations are active at one time. Some parts of the pipeline have radiators that disperse heat from the oil. It emerges from the ground at up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit (80 degrees Celsius). Without the radiators, the heat could melt the permafrost, causing the pipeline to sink and possibly sustain damage. Oil began flowing on June 20, 1977. Since then over 13 billion barrels (2 km³) have been pumped, peaking at 2.1 million barrels (330,000 m³) per day in 1988. Around 16,000 tankers have been loaded at the Marine Terminal at Valdez. The terminal has berths for four tankers and cost almost $1.4 billion to build. The first tanker to leave the terminal was the ARCO Juneau on August 1, 1977.
 1973 – Launch of Skylab 4 under command of LTC Gerald P. Carr, USMC. The missions lasted 84 days and included 1,214 Earth orbits. Recovery by USS New Orleans (LPH-11). Last of the Skylab missions. The crew had problems during activation of the workshop that earlier crews had not faced. One of its first tasks was to unload and stow within Skylab thousands of items needed for their lengthy mission. The schedule for the activation sequence dictated lengthy work periods with a large variety of tasks to be performed. The crew soon found themselves tired and behind schedule. As the activation progressed, the astronauts complained of being pushed too hard. Ground crews disagreed; they felt that the flight crew was not working long enough or hard enough. By the end of their mission, the third crew had completed even more work than had been planned before launch. Thanksgiving Day, Gibson and Pogue accomplished a 6 1/2 hour spacewalk. The first part of their spacewalk was spent replacing film in the solar observatory. The remainder of the time was used to repair a malfunctioning antenna. The crew reported that the food was good, but slightly bland. The crew would have preferred to use more condiments to enhance the taste of the food. The amount of salt they could use was restricted for medical purposes. The quantity and type of food consumed was rigidly controlled because of their strict diet. Seven days into their mission, a problem developed in the Skylab attitude control gyroscope system, which threatened to bring an early end to the mission. Skylab depended upon three large gyroscopes, sized so that any two of them could provide sufficient control and maneuver Skylab as desired. The third acted as a backup in the event of failure of one of the others. The gyroscope failure was attributed to insufficient lubrication. Later in the mission, a second gyroscope showed similar problems, but special temperature control and load reduction procedures kept the second one operating, and no further problems occurred. The crew spent many hours looking at the Earth. Carr and Pogue alternately manned controls, operating the sensing devices which measured and photographed selected features on the Earth’s surface. When not otherwise occupied, they watched through the workshop window as the Earth rolled steadily beneath them. Solar observations were made, with about 75 000 new telescopic images of the Sun recorded. Images were taken in the X-ray, ultraviolet, and visible portions of the spectrum. As the end of their mission drew closer, Gibson continued his watch of the solar surface. On January 21, 1974, an active region on the Sun’s surface formed a bright spot which intensified and grew. Gibson quickly began filming the sequence, as the bright spot erupted, he had filmed the birth of a solar flare from space, the first recording in history. On December 13, the crew sighted Comet Kohoutek and trained the solar observatory and hand-held cameras on it. They continued to photograph it as it approached the Sun. On December 30, as it swept out from behind the Sun, Carr and Gibson spotted it as they were performing a spacewalk. Skylab 4 completed 1,214 Earth orbits and four EVAs totalling 22 hours, 13 minutes. They traveled 34.5 million miles (55,500,000 km) in 84 days, 1 hour and 16 minutes in space.
 1982 – The Space Shuttle Columbia completed its first operational flight. STS-5, the first operational mission, also carried the largest crew up to that time — four astronauts — and the first two commercial communications satellites to be flown. The fifth launch of the orbiter Columbia took place at 7:19 a.m. EST, Nov. 11, 1982. It was the second on-schedule launch. The crew included Vance Brand, commander; Robert F. Overmyer, pilot; and the first mission specialists to fly the Shuttle — Joseph P. Allen and William B. Lenoir. The two communications satellites were deployed successfully and subsequently propelled into their operational geosynchronous orbits by booster rockets. Both were Hughes-built HS-376 series satellites — SBS-3 owned by Satellite Business Systems, and Anik owned by Telesat of Canada. In addition to the first commercial satellite cargo, the flight carried a West German-sponsored microgravity GAS experiment canister in the payload bay. The crew also conducted three student experiments during the flight. A planned spacewalk by the two mission specialists had to be cancelled — it would have been the first for the Shuttle program — when the two space suits that were to be used developed problems.
 1992 – United Nations Security Council voted to authorize a naval blockade on the Danube River and the Adriatic coast to tighten economic sanctions on Yugoslavia.
 1995 – Bosnian Serbs Radovan Karadzic and Gen’l. Ratko Mladic were again indicted for genocide by the UN War Crimes Tribunal for ordering the slaughter of Muslims after the takeover of Srebrenica.
 1997 – In Iraq Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz said Baghdad would allow US arms inspectors if Security Council permanent members had equal representation on the UN teams. The proposal was rejected.
 2000 – A US Air Force F-16 collided with a small plane near Sarasota, Fla. The pilot of the Cessna was killed, the fighter pilot ejected safely.
 2000 – In Colombia police and US Secret Service cracked a billion dollar counterfeiting operation. One man was arrested. The operation was believed to be master-minded by Ramiro Sepulveda.
 2001 – An anthrax laced letter was found in quarantined congressional mail addressed to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). It was found to contain billions of spores, enough to kill 100,000 people.
 2001 – A University of Georgia football fan rushing to catch his flight ran past guards and through a passenger exit at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, forcing officials to halt flights; the man, Michael Lasseter, was later sentenced to five weekends or 10 days in jail and 500 hours of community service.
 2001 – The Taliban’s last stronghold in northern Afghanistan was under siege. Nearly 10,000 Taliban fighters, led by foreign fighters, continued to resist. By then, the Taliban had been forced back to their heartland in southeastern Afghanistan around Kandahar.
 2001 – The U.S. began bombing the mountain redoubt of Tora Bora. Around the same time, CIA and Special Forces operatives were at work in the area, enlisting local warlords and planning an attack.
 2002 – In an open letter to the Iraqi Parliament, Pres. Saddam Hussein said he had no choice but to accept a tough new UN weapons inspection resolution because the US and Israel had shown their “claws and teeth” and declared unilateral war on the Iraqi people.
 2007 – Marne Courageous was launched, targeting key AQI supply depots in the Yusufiyah area of the Euphrates River Valley, south east of Baghdad. It began with a major air assault conducted by 450 soldiers of the 3BCT/101st Airborne Division, 150 Iraqi soldiers and 70 Concerned Local Citizens near the villages of Owesat and al-Betra.
 2009 – NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 at 1928 UTC (2:28pm EST), bringing supplies and the first two ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the International Space Station.
 2011 – Two bullets are found to have been fired at the White House in Washington, DC., one into a window that was stopped by bullet-proof glass.
 2014 – ISIL claims to have executed American hostage Peter Kassig.
 Congressional Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Dayhttps://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/11/16/november-16/