1903 -An Act of Congress (31 Stat. L., 826, 827) that created the Department of Commerce and Labor provided for the transfer of the Lighthouse Service from the Treasury Department. This allowed the Secretary of Commerce and Labor to succeed to the authority vested in the Secretary of the Treasury under the existing legislation.
1912 – Arizona became the 48th state of the Union. Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union. It was previously part of the territory of Alta California in New Spain before being passed down to independent Mexico and later ceded to the United States after the Mexican–American War. The southernmost portion of the state was acquired in 1853 through the Gadsden Purchase.
1912 – The 1st US submarine, the USS E-1, with diesel engines were commissioned at Groton, Ct. USS E-1 (SS-24) was an E-class submarine of the United States Navy. Originally named Skipjack, the boat was launched on 27 May 1911 by the Fore River Shipyard, Quincy, Massachusetts; sponsored by Mrs. D. R. Battles; renamed E-1 on 17 November 1911, Lieutenant Chester W. Nimitz in command.
1939 – The Reich launched the battleship Bismarck.
1940 – The British government announces that all British merchant ships in the North Sea will be armed. In addition, it will allow British citizens to volunteer for the Finnish Foreign Legion.
1942 – This Is War, a 13-week anti-fascist radio series, debuted in the midst of World War II. The only radio series to air on all four networks-ABC, NBC, CBS, and Mutual- the show featured such Hollywood stars as James Stewart, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Tyrone Power in shows that promoted the Army, Navy, and Air Force.
1943 – German General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps launch an offensive against an Allied defensive line in Tunisia, North Africa. The Kasserine Pass was the site of the United States’ first major battle defeat of the war. General Erwin Rommel was dispatched to North Africa in February 1942, along with the new Afrika Korps, to prevent his Italian Axis partner from losing its territorial gains in the region to the British. Despite his skill, until this point Rommel had been unable to do much more than manage his own forces’ retreats, but the Battle of Kasserine Pass would finally display the “Desert Fox’s” strategic genius. In the Battle of El Alamein in August 1942, British General Bernard Montgomery pushed Rommel out of Egypt and into Tunisia, behind the Mareth Line, a defensive fortification built by Vichy French forces. After taking several months to regroup, Rommel decided on a bold move. Rommel set his sites on Tunis, Tunisia’s capital and a key strategic goal for both Allied and Axis forces. Rommel determined that the weakest point in the Allied defensive line was at the Kasserine Pass, a 2-mile-wide gap in Tunisia’s Dorsal Mountains, which was defended by American troops. His first strike was repulsed, but with tank reinforcements, Rommel broke through on February 20, inflicting devastating casualties on the U.S. forces. The Americans withdrew from their position, leaving behind most of their equipment. More than 1,000 American soldiers were killed by Rommel’s offensive, and hundreds were taken prisoner.
1944 – American and New Zealand forces land on the Green Islands.
1945 – 521 American heavy bombers flew daylight raids over Dresden, Germany following the British assault. The firestorm killed an estimated 135,000 people. At least 35,000 died and some people place the toll closer to 70,000. The novel “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut was set in Dresden during the firebombing where he was being held as a prisoner of war. US B-17 bombers dropped 771 more tons on Dresden while P-51 Mustang fighters strafed roads packed with soldiers and civilians fleeing the burning city.
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).
1945 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt meets with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia aboard the USS Quincy, officially beginning U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations.
1949 – The United States charged the USSR with interning up to 14 million in labor camps.
1951 – Operation ROUNDUP officially concluded and the 30-day battle of Wonju began as the 2nd Infantry Division repelled repeated attacks from seven Chinese divisions.
1953 – U.S. Air Force Colonel Royal N. “The King” Baker, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, downed his tenth enemy aircraft and became the third double ace of the war. (An ace has five enemy kills.) His F-86 Sabre was called “Angel Face & the Babes.”
1962 – President John F. Kennedy authorizes U.S. military advisors in Vietnam to return fire if fired upon. At a news conference, he said, “The training missions we have [in South Vietnam] have been instructed that if they are fired upon, they are of course to fire back, but we have not sent combat troops in [the] generally understood sense of the word.” In effect, Kennedy was acknowledging that U.S. forces were involved in the fighting, but he wished to downplay any appearance of increased American involvement in the war. The next day former Vice President Nixon expressed hopes that President Kennedy would “step up the build-up and under no circumstances curtail it because of possible criticism.”
1971 – Richard Nixon installed a secret taping system in White House.
1973 – U.S. and Hanoi set up a group to channel reconstruction aid directly to Hanoi. In 1972 the U.S. had begun to “de-Americanize” the Vietnam war. It was a policy of gradual withdrawal.
1978 – The 1st “micro on a chip” was patented by Texas Instruments.
1979 – Adolph Dubs, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was kidnapped in Kabul by Muslim extremists and killed in a shootout between his abductors and police.
1979 – Armed guerrillas attacked the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
1989 – At a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agrees to free a number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a year; in return, Honduras promises to close bases being used by anti-Sandinista rebels. Within a year, elections in Nicaragua resulted in the defeat of the Sandinistas, removing what officials during the administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) referred to as a “beachhead of communism” in the Western Hemisphere. Nicaragua had been a Cold War battlefield ever since the Sandinista regime came to power in 1979, following the overthrow of long-time dictator Anastacio Somoza. Almost immediately, U.S. officials criticized the new government, claiming that it was leftist-possibly Marxist-in its orientation. As relations between the United States and Nicaragua worsened, and Nicaragua moved toward a closer relationship with the communist bloc, the Reagan administration took action to bring down the Sandinista government. The foundation of this effort was economic and military aid totaling nearly one billion dollars by 1988 to the so-called Contras-anti-Sandinista rebels operating from Honduras and Costa Rica. By the late 1980s, concerns about regional stability and the widening Contra war effort spurred other Central American governments to work toward a solution to the Nicaraguan conflict. The February 1989 agreement was the culmination of that work, with Nicaragua promising free elections within a year in exchange for Honduran promises to close the Contra bases within its borders. Contra leaders were quick to criticize the agreement, but it was obvious that their days were numbered. The Sandinista government declared that the agreement symbolized the failure of the U.S. effort to bring it down through force. Officials of the new administration of President George Bush in the United States adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards events in the region. Ronald Reagan and other officials who served during his tenure, however, were quick to take credit for the outcome of the meeting-despite the fact that they had not participated in it. They claimed that the U.S. pressure during the previous eight years, particularly support of the Contras, had forced the Sandinistas to agree to elections. When the Sandinistas-who were heavily favored to win the election–went down to a shocking electoral defeat in February 1990, Reaganites claimed total victory.
1990 – Space probe Voyager 1 took photographs of entire solar system.
1991 – The Iraqi weapons depot at Ukhaydir was bombed. Iraqi authorities revealed to US authorities in 1996 that the site stored hundreds of rockets filled with mustard gas and nerve gas.
1998 – Authorities officially declared Eric Rudolph a suspect in the bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic and offered a $100,000 reward.
1999 – John D. Ehrlichman, President Nixon’s domestic affairs adviser imprisoned for his role in the Watergate cover-up that ultimately led to Nixon’s resignation, died in Atlanta at age 73. He wrote at least 4 novels and the memoir “Witness to Power: The Nixon Years.”
1999 – Iraq threatened Kuwait and Saudi Arabia with missile attacks for permitting US warplanes to fly from their countries.
1999 – In Rambouillet, France, Madeline Albright brought together the Serb and Albanian sides in the Kosovo peace talks and the talks were extended one week. The plan for a 3-year interim settlement included a NATO force of some 25,000 troops, who would collect the weapons of the Albanian rebels. In the plan the KLA was given 120 days to surrender its arms.
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