1917 – Navy takes control of all wireless radio stations in the U.S. With the US declaration of war on Germany came Executive Order 2585, which cited the presidential powers enumerated in the Radio Act of 1912 by calling for the complete government take over of all necessary radio stations, while calling for the closing of unnecessary ones. Amateur stations along with any commercial station for which there was no foreseeable use by the Navy were to be completely shut down, or in the case of home made sets, dismantled. Commercial and private radio was henceforth, completely shut down for the duration of the war,and for the only time in American history, made a full government monopoly.
1922 – U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Naval Reserve #3, “Teapot Dome,” in Wyoming to Harry F. Sinclair.
1927 – Philo Farnsworth (21) demonstrated a working prototype of a TV. AT&T Bell Labs scientists invented long-distance TV transmission. An audience in New York saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover in the first successful long-distance demonstration of television. His first tele-electronic image was transmitted on a glass slide in his SF lab at 202 Green St.
1933 – “Near beer” (3.2 beer) became legal after FDR signed an amendment to the Volstead Act, which had made drinking alcohol a federal crime. Prohibition ended when Utah became the 38th state to ratify 21st Amendment.
1941 – US naval and air bases open in Bermuda. The carrier Ranger and other ships are to be based there as the Central Atlantic Neutrality Patrol. These forces will be considerably increased by three battleships and two carriers later in April and during May and June.
1942 – The Navy Department today announced that Negro volunteers will be accepted for enlistment for general service in the reserve components of the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Coast Guard. All ratings in those three branches of the Naval Service will be opened to them, and recruiting is to be begun as soon as a suitable training station is established. A public announcement will be made when actual recruiting gets under way. In making this announcement officials stated that the same physical and mental entrance standards required of all Navy personnel is to be required of Negroes. It was added when Negro sailors are to be utilized for duty in District craft of various kind, in maritime activities around shore establishments, in Navy Yards, and in the Navy’s new construction crews and companies which will be employed in developing bases outside the United States’ continental limits. Recruiting of Negroes for service in the Messman Branch is to continue without change or interruption.
1942 – US President Roosevelt authorizes the American commanders in the Philippines to take any necessary steps. On the Bataan peninsula, the situation for the allies continues to worsen as the Japanese continue to advance, with the greatest gains on the east side of the peninsula. The American and Filipino allies are now withdrawn to a line running inland from Limao. General Wainwright in response to the President’s order withdraws as many of his men as possible to the island of Corregidor in Manilla Bay.
1943 – British and American armies link up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa, forming a solid line against the German army. Axis forces are rapidly retreating from the Wadi Akarit Line.
1943 – In an effort to disrupt the American buildup in the Solomons, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto mounts an air offensive known as Operation I. The Japanese 11th Air Fleet, based on Rabaul, Kavieng and Buin is reinforced by pilots and aircraft of the carriers Zuikaku, Shokaku, Junyo and Hiyo. This leaves the Imperial Navy with almost no trained pilots. The attacks begin with a raid against Guadalcanal and Tulagi by 180 planes in which a destroyer and two other vessels are sunk.
1945 – In the East China Sea, the Japanese battleship Yamato is sighted by planes from the American carrier groups which attack the battleship in two waves, involving 380 aircraft. The Yamato suffers 10 torpedo hits and 5 bomb hits before sinking. Some 2498 Japanese are killed on board the battleship. The planes, from US Task Force 58, also sink the Japanese cruiser Yahagi and 4 destroyers accompanying the battleship. A total of 10 planes are lost.
1945 – American P-51 Mustang fighters, based on Iwo Jima, escort B-29 Superfortress bombers on a raid to Tokyo.
1945 – Japanese Kamikaze attacks damage the carrier USS Hancock and the battleship Maryland as well as other ships
1945 – First two Navy flight nurses land on an active battlefield (Iwo Jima): ENS Jane Kendeigh, USNR, and LTJG Ann Purvis, USN.
1945 – Most of US 1st and 9th Armies are heavily engaged around the Ruhr pocket. Among the gains in the Allied advance to the east is Gottingen. Free French paratroops are dropped north of Zuider Zee in Holland.
1947 – Arab students, influenced by national socialist movements in Europe, founded the Baath Party. Satia al-Husri, father of Ba’athism, was a disciple of German philosopher Johann Fichte. This became a holiday in Iraq until abolished in 2003.
1954 – At a news conference while describing the importance of defending Dienbienphu in Vietnam, President Eisenhower articulates the “Domino Theory” of confronting Communist aggression. “You have a row of dominoes set up and you knock over the first one and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you have the beginning of a disintegration that will have the most profound influences.
1965 – President Johnson, in a policy speech at Johns Hopkins University, says that the United States is prepare to engage in unconditional discussions to end the war. He then lays out a number of conditions. He also calls for $1 billion in aid for Southeast Asia. North Vietnam, China and the Soviet Union will reject these proposals.
1966 – The United States recovered a hydrogen bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.
1967 – Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara announces plans to build a fortified barrier just south of the DMZ to curb the infiltration of troops and arms into South Vietnam.
1969 – The Internet’s symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1 entitled “Host Software”, was written by Steve Crocker of the University of California, Los Angeles.
1971 – President Nixon pledged a withdrawal of 100,000 more men from Vietnam by December.
1971 – Pres. Nixon ordered Lt. Calley, imprisoned for the Mi Lai massacre, free.
1972 – The North Vietnamese offensive in Quangtri Province slows. Good weaher allows South Vietnamese pilots to bomb Communist troop concentrations. Communist troops take Locninh, a district capital in Binhlong Province. 15,000 ARVN troops are surrounded by NVA while retreating form Locninh to Anloc.
1978 – Development of the neutron bomb is canceled by President Jimmy Carter.
1979 – Launching of first Trident submarine, USS Ohio (SSBN-726) at Groton, CT. USS Ohio (SSBN-726/SSGN-726), the lead boat of her class of nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarines, was the fourth vessel of the United States Navy to be named for the 17th state. She was commissioned with the hull designation of SSBN-726, and with her conversion to a guided missile submarine she was re-designated SSGN-726.
1980 – U.S. broke relations with Iran during the hostage crises. Pres. Carter ordered all Iranian diplomats expelled from the US and prohibited any further exports to the nation.
1983 – Specialist Story Musgrave and Don Peterson took the first US space walk in almost a decade as they worked in the open cargo bay of Challenger for nearly four hours.
1988 – Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Afghan leader Najibullah met in the Soviet Central Asian city of Tashkent. They later issued a joint statement, announcing an to end the civil war in Afghanistan and withdraw Soviet troops.
1990 – Former national security adviser John M. Poindexter was convicted of five counts at his Iran-Contra trial. However, a federal appeals court later reversed the convictions.
1991 – US military planes began airdropping supplies to Kurdish refugees who were facing starvation and exposure in the snow-covered mountains of northern Iraq. The United States warned Iraq not to interfere with the relief effort.
1993 – European warplanes began arriving in Italy, prepared to enforce a no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
1999 – The US State Dept. made public a list of Serb commanders whose names were to be sent to the Yugoslav was crimes tribunal in The Hague.
1999 – Spyros Kyprianou, the acting president of Cyprus, planned to fly to Belgrade to negotiate the release of the 3 American soldiers held by Serbia.
1999 – Heavy NATO bombing in Pristina, Kosovo. The Provincial Executive Council Building, which housed the offices of Zoran Andjelkovic, Kosovo’s top Serbian official, were was hit by bombs.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/04/07/april-7/
