1900 – President McKinley appointed W.H. Taft commissioner to report on the Philippines.
1908 – Bids for the Army’s first airplane considered by the Board of Ordnance and Fortification. Of 24 presented two were approved on Feb 8th by the Secretary of War. Army aviation will be born as a part of the Signal Corps.
1911 – Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois. Reagan went on to become a film actor, governor of California (1967-1975) and the 40th president of the United States (1981-1989) and was credited with ending the Cold War.
1916 – Germany admitted full liability for Lusitania incident and recognized the United State’s right to claim indemnity.
1919 – The 1st day of 5-day Seattle general strike, the first general strike in America, took effect. During this period Washington was a center for the Industrial Workers of the World, also known as the “Wobblies.” Their agitation led to the Centralia massacre and the Everett massacre.
1922 – The Nine-Power Treaty is signed at the Washington Conference, endorsing the Open Door Policy with China, and forbidding fortification of the Aleutian Islands for 14 years. The US, UK, France, Italy & Japan signed the Washington naval arms limitation.
1929 – Germany accepted Kellogg-Briand pact.
1933 – The 20th Amendment to the Constitution was declared in effect. The Lame-Duck Amendment changed the inauguration date of congressmen from March 4 to January 3. Moving back the inauguration date for newly-elected congressmen reduced the time that defeated members, or “lame ducks,” remain in office.
1942 – Japanese reinforcements land on Luzon. In the Bataan peninsula there is a lessening of the fighting.
1942 – The first meeting of the Combined Chiefs of Staff, as defined by the Arcadia Conference, takes place. (Note: In military usage, the term “joint” refers to operations by multiple services of one nation and “combined” refers to operations by multiple nations.)
1943 – The American command in Europe and North Africa is restructured. General Andrews is appointed to the new European Theater Command and General Eisenhower remains in command in North Africa.
1944 – Forces of US 5th Army continue fighting in the hills north of Cassino.
1944 – Kwajalein Island in the Central Pacific fell to U.S. Army troops.
1945 – Units of US 4th Corps from US 5th Army take Gallicano in a brief offensive designed to improve the Allied positions on either side of the Serchio Valley.
1945 – American USAAF B-24 and B-29 bombers raid Iwo Jima in preparation for the landings later in the month. They drop a daily average of 450 tons of bombs over the course of 15 days (6800 tons).
1952 – The carrier USS Philippine Sea returned to Korean waters for its second tour of duty.
1959 – The United States successfully test-fired for the first time a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile from Cape Canaveral.
1959 – Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments files the first patent for an integrated circuit.
1963 – The United States reported that all Soviet offensive arms are out of Cuba.
1964 – Cuba blocked the water supply to Guantanamo Naval Base in rebuke of the United State’s seizure of four Cuban fishing boats and fines on Cuban fishermen near Florida. The US imposed water rationing and built desalination plants in response.
1966 – Accompanied by his leading political and military advisers, U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with South Vietnamese Premier Nguyen Cao Ky in Honolulu. The talks concluded with issuance of a joint declaration in which the United States promised to help South Vietnam “prevent aggression,” develop its economy, and establish “the principles of self-determination of peoples and government by the consent of the governed.” Johnson declared: “We are determined to win not only military victory but victory over hunger, disease, and despair.” He announced renewed emphasis on “The Other War”–the effort to provide the South Vietnamese rural population with local security, and economic and social programs to win over their active support. In his final statement on the discussions, Johnson warned the South Vietnamese that he would be monitoring their efforts to build democracy, improve education and health care, resettle refugees, and reconstruct South Vietnam’s economy.
1968 – Two reduced Marine battalions, the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines with two companies, and 2d Battalion, 5th Marines with three, recaptured Hue’s hospital, jail, and provincial headquarters. It would take three more weeks of intense house to house fighting, and nearly a thousand Marines killed and wounded, before the imperial city was secured.
1973 – In accordance with the agreement at the Paris Peace Talks, Navy Task Force 78 begins Operation End Sweep, the mine clearance of North Vietnamese waters of mines laid in 1972.
1973 – Supervisors from the International Commission of Control and Supervision (ICCS), delegated to oversee the cease-fire, start to take up their positions. The cease-fire had gone into effect as a provision of the Paris Peace Accords. The ICCS included representatives from Canada, Poland, Hungary, and Indonesia, and was supposed to supervise the cease-fire. However, the ICCS had no enforcement powers and had extreme difficulty in settling the many quarrels that quickly arose. In the end, the ICCS proved incapable of enforcing the provisions of the Accords and was largely ineffectual. Consequently, renewed fighting between the South and North Vietnamese broke out after only a brief lull and continued for the next two years, until the North Vietnamese successfully launched their final offensive in 1975 and South Vietnam surrendered.
1974 – US House of Reps began determining grounds for the impeachment of Pres. Nixon.
1975 – President Gerald Ford asked Congress for $497 million in aid to Cambodia.
1985 – In his State of the Union address, President Ronald Reagan defines some of the key concepts of his foreign policy, establishing what comes to be known as the “Reagan Doctrine.” The doctrine served as the foundation for the Reagan administration’s support of “freedom fighters” around the globe. Reagan began his foreign policy comments with the dramatic pronouncement that, “Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God’s children.” America’s “mission” was to “nourish and defend freedom and democracy.” More specifically, Reagan declared that, “We must stand by our democratic allies. And we must not break faith with those who are risking their lives-on every continent, from Afghanistan to Nicaragua-to defy Soviet-supported aggression and secure rights which have been ours from birth.” He concluded, “Support for freedom fighters is self-defense.” With these words, the Reagan administration laid the foundation for its program of military assistance to “freedom fighters.” In action, this policy translated into covertly supporting the Contras in their attacks on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua; the Afghan rebels in their fight against the Soviet occupiers; and anticommunist Angolan forces embroiled in that nation’s civil war. President Reagan continued to defend his actions throughout his two terms in office. During his farewell address in 1989, he claimed success in weakening the Sandinista government, forcing the Soviets to withdraw from Afghanistan, and bringing an end to the conflict in Angola. Domestic critics, however, decried his actions, claiming that the support of so-called “freedom fighters” resulted only in prolonging and escalating bloody conflicts and in U.S. support of repressive and undemocratic elements in each of the respective nations.
1994 – A day after a mortar shell killed 68 people in a Sarajevo marketplace, President Clinton called for a United Nations probe. NATO threatened air strikes if Serbs failed to pull weapons back from around the city. They moved their weapons and brought a temporary respite.
1995 – The space shuttle Discovery flew to within 37 feet of the Russian space station Mir in the first rendezvous of its kind in two decades.
1997 – Miami strip club owner of “Porky’s,” Ludwig “Tarzan” Fainberg, was charged with trying to broker the sale of a Russian nuclear submarine to Columbian drug barons. He had already purchased 6 Russian helicopters for drug traffickers.
1998 – President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair redoubled their pledge to use military force against Iraq if necessary; during a joint news conference in which the subject of Monica Lewinsky came up, Clinton said he would never resign.
1998 – President Clinton signed a bill changing the name of Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
1998 – Two US warplanes collided in the Persian Gulf and one of the pilots was killed.
1998 – Iraq rejects key parts of United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposal to increase the amount of oil Iraq is permitted to sell under the U.N.’s oil-for-food program from $2.14 billion to $5.2 billion. In a letter to Annan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf objects to additional funds to pay for U.N. monitoring, proposals to repair electric power stations in northern Iraq, and plans for U.N. agencies to target aid to specific groups such as the poor and children. Al-Sahhaf writes that the Iraqi government should deliver the aid and determine which power stations are repaired, not the U.N.
1999 – The Stardust spacecraft lifted off aboard a Delta II rocket for its 7-year journey to gather particles from the Wild-2 comet.
1999 – Talks began in Rambouillet, France in an attempt to find a Kosovo peace settlement. In January 1999, NATO warned Slobodan Milosevic that it would respond if he failed to come into compliance with the October agreements, if the repression continued, and if he frustrated the peace process. Mr Milosevic failed to meet any of those requirements. On 30 January all parties were informed that they were to agree on a political settlement for Kosovo by 20 February 1999. This deadline was subsequently extended until 23 February.
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