1915 – The luxury liner Lusitania left New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe. There were warnings by the German government in NYC newspapers that it regarded the refurbished liner a battle target. She was sunk by a German U-boat six days later.
1915 – A German submarine. U-30, torpedoed the U.S. ship Gulflight I. The American 5,189 ton tanker Gulflight, was built by the New York Shipbuilding Co. of Camden, New Jersey for the Gulf Refining Company (a predecessor of Gulf Oil). It was launched on 8 August 1914. The ship became famous when it was torpedoed early in World War I and became the center of a diplomatic incident which moved the United States closer to war with Germany. The ship survived the attack but was eventually sunk in 1942 by torpedo attack in World War II. Of the 38 crew, there were three fatalities. The captain had suffered a heart attack and two crew members were reported lost when they jumped overboard after the torpedo hit. She was the first American ship to be torpedoed during World War I, although another ship, the Cushing, had been bombed shortly before, again by mistake because no American markings could be seen from what was then a somewhat novel air attack. The German government apologized for attacking Gulflight, but refused to change its strategy of unrestricted submarine warfare. A report by the British admiralty into the attack concluded that the German commander had behaved properly according to “Cruiser rules” defined in international law. A merchant ship under escort by military vessels forfeited any right to be warned before being attacked, so the patrol ships had made Gulflight a legitimate target by taking her under escort. As an American ship, the submarine would not have attacked had he seen her nationality, but apart from an ordinary flag Gulflight was not carrying any additional markings painted on the hull to make clear her nationality, which other ships were then doing. The report also suggested that the tanker being stopped and then slowed down by the accompanying patrol had made her an accessible target. The Admiralty report was not published at the time and official comment did not explain the circumstances.
1916 – Glenn Ford, actor, was born in Quebec, Canada. He starred in the film “The Blackboard Jungle.”
1921 – The first radio fog signals in the United States were placed in commission on Ambrose Lightship, Fire Island Lightship, and Sea Girt Light Station, NJ.
1925 – Malcolm Scott Carpenter, astronaut (Mercury 7-Aurora 7), was born in Boulder, Colo.
1927 – Adolf Hitler held the first Nazi meeting in Berlin.
1934 – The Philippine legislature accepted a U.S. proposal for independence.
1937 – President Franklin Roosevelt signed an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.
1943 – LT Akers demonstrates blind landing system for Carrier aviation at College Park, MD in OJ-2 aircraft.
1943 – US forces complete the occupation of Hill 609 in “Mousetrap Valley.” The Axis defenses in Tunisia hold American attempts to advance further.
1943 – Food rationing began in US.
1944 – An American force of 7 battleships and 11 destroyers, commanded by Admiral Lee, bombards Ponape. The carriers of Task Group 58.1 (Admiral Clark) provide cover for the operation.
1944 – The Messerschmitt Me 262 Sturmvogel, the 1st jet bomber, made its first flight.
1945 – Hamburg radio announces that Hitler is dead and that Donitz is the second Fuhrer of the Reich. A German newsreader officially announces that Adolf Hitler has “fallen at his command post in the Reich Chancellery fighting to the last breath against Bolshevism and for Germany”. The Soviet flag is raised over the Reich Chancellery, by order of Stalin. Donitz himself broadcasts, announcing that “it is my duty to save the German people from destruction by Bolshevists.” Meanwhile, in Berlin, Goebbels and his wife commit suicide after poisoning their six children.
1945 – US VADM Barbey lands Australian troops on Tarakan Island, Borneo, supported by naval gunfire.
1945 – The US 1st and 9th Armies are firmly established along the line of the Elbe and Mulde rivers. They have been forbidden to advance farther into the zone designated for Soviet occupation. To the the south, the US 7th Army presses on into Austria.
1947 – Radar for commercial and private planes was 1st demonstrated.
1948 – The People’s Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was proclaimed. The border between North and South Korea was sealed when Kim Il Sung established his communist regime.
1950 – Guam is organized as a United States commonwealth.
1951 – USS Princeton aircraft attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War. They knocked out two floodgates.
1951 – The first phase of the Chinese offensive was halted north of Seoul.
1952 – Marines took part in an atomic explosion training in Nevada.
1960 – An American U-2 spy plane is shot down while conducting espionage over the Soviet Union. The incident derailed an important summit meeting between President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev that was scheduled for later that month. The U-2 spy plane was the brainchild of the Central Intelligence Agency, and it was a sophisticated technological marvel. Traveling at altitudes of up to 70,000 feet, the aircraft was equipped with state-of-the-art photography equipment that could, the CIA boasted, take high-resolution pictures of headlines in Russian newspapers as it flew overhead. Flights over the Soviet Union began in mid-1956. The CIA assured President Eisenhower that the Soviets did not possess anti-aircraft weapons sophisticated enough to shoot down the high-altitude planes. On May 1, 1960, a U-2 flight piloted by Francis Gary Powers disappeared while on a flight over Russia. The CIA reassured the president that, even if the plane had been shot down, it was equipped with self-destruct mechanisms that would render any wreckage unrecognizable and the pilot was instructed to kill himself in such a situation. Based on this information, the U.S. government issued a cover statement indicating that a weather plane had veered off course and supposedly crashed somewhere in the Soviet Union. With no small degree of pleasure, Khrushchev pulled off one of the most dramatic moments of the Cold War by producing not only the mostly-intact wreckage of the U-2, but also the captured pilot-very much alive. A chagrined Eisenhower had to publicly admit that it was indeed a U.S. spy plane. On May 16, a major summit between the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and France began in Paris. Issues to be discussed included the status of Berlin and nuclear arms control. As the meeting opened, Khrushchev launched into a tirade against the United States and Eisenhower and then stormed out of the summit. The meeting collapsed immediately and the summit was called off. Eisenhower considered the “stupid U-2 mess” one of the worst debacles of his presidency. The pilot, Francis Gary Powers, was released in 1962 in exchange for a captured Soviet spy.
1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.
1964 – The 1st BASIC program ran on a computer at Dartmouth.
1967 – Secretary of State Dean Rusk charges that the North Vietnamese have rejected 28 peace proposals presented by the US and other nations. Rusk asserts that the US acceptance of these proposals and their rejection by Hanoi ‘throw a light…upon the question of who is interested in peace and who is trying to absorb a neighbor by force.’
1968 – In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continued their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
1969 – The 9th US Marine Regiment begins a two and a half month operation called Virginia Ridge in northern Quangtri Province along the DMZ.
1970 – Protests erupt in Seattle, following the announcement by U.S. President Richard Nixon that U.S. Forces in Vietnam would pursue enemy troops into Cambodia, a neutral country.
1971 – Amtrak (the National Railroad Passenger Corporation) takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service. Congress passed, and President Richard Nixon signed into law, the Rail Passenger Service Act. Proponents of the bill, led by the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), sought government funding to assure the continuation of passenger trains. They conceived the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (NRPC), a hybrid public-private entity that would receive taxpayer funding and assume operation of intercity passenger trains. The original working brand name for NRPC was Railpax, but shortly before the company started operating it was changed to Amtrak. Any railroad operating intercity passenger service could contract with the NRPC, thereby joining the national system. Participating railroads bought into the NRPC using a formula based on their recent intercity passenger losses. The purchase price could be satisfied either by cash or rolling stock; in exchange, the railroads received NRPC common stock. Any participating railroad was freed of the obligation to operate intercity passenger service after May 1, 1971, except for those services chosen by the Department of Transportation (DOT) as part of a “basic system” of service and paid for by NRPC using its federal funds. Railroads that chose not to join the NRPC system were required to continue operating their existing passenger service until 1975 and thenceforth had to pursue the customary ICC approval process for any discontinuance or alteration to the service. Nearly everyone involved expected the experiment to be short-lived. The Nixon administration and many Washington insiders viewed the NRPC as a politically expedient way for the President and Congress to give passenger trains a “last hurrah” as demanded by the public. They expected Amtrak to quietly disappear as public interest waned. Proponents also hoped that government intervention would be brief, but their view was that Amtrak would soon support itself. Neither view has proved correct. Government subsidy has allowed Amtrak to continue in operation longer than critics imagined. Financial results have made a return to private operation infeasible.
1972 – North Vietnamese troops capture Quang Tri City, the first provincial capital taken during their ongoing offensive. The fall of the city effectively gave the communists control of the entire province of Quang Tri. As the North Vietnamese prepared to continue their attack to the south, 80 percent of Hue’s population–already swollen by 300,000 refugees–fled to Da Nang to get out of the way. Farther south along the coast, three districts oof Binh Dinh Province also fell, leaving about one-third of the province under communist control. These attacks were part of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive (later called the “Easter Offensive”), a massive invasion by North Vietnamese forces designed to strike the blow that would win them the war. The attacking force included 14 infantry divisions and 26 separate regiments, with more than 120,000 troops and approximately 1,200 tanks and other armored vehicles. The main North Vietnamese objectives, in addition to Quang Tri in the north, were Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc farther to the south. Initially, the South Vietnamese defenders were almost overwhelmed, particularly in the northernmost provinces, where they abandoned their positions in Quang Tri. At Kontum and An Loc, the South Vietnamese were more successful in defending against the attacks, but only after weeks of bitter fighting. Although the defenders suffered heavy casualties, they managed to hold their own with the aid of U.S. advisers and American airpower. Fighting continued all over South Vietnam into the summer months, but eventually the South Vietnamese forces prevailed against the invaders, retaking Quang Tri in September. With the communist invasion blunted, President Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese victory proved the viability of his Vietnamization program, which he had instituted in 1969 to increase the combat capability of the South Vietnamese armed forces so U.S. troops could be withdrawn.
1975 – The coalition government in Laos formed a year ago is close to collapse. The North Vietnam supported Pathet Lao continues to fight rightist factions. Demonstrations by students and others are increasingly aimed at US buildings and operations.
1980 – As the Mariel Boatlift continued, 11 Navy ships begin operations assisting Coast Guard in rescuing Cuban refugees fleeing Cuba in overcrowded boats.
1981 – Senator Harrison A. Williams Junior (Democrat, New Jersey) was convicted in New York of charges related to the FBI’s “ABSCAM” probe.
1985 – US president Reagan ended embargo against Nicaragua.
1991 – The government of Angola and US-backed guerrillas initialed agreements ending their civil war.
1992 – On the third day of the Los Angeles riots, beaten motorist Rodney King appeared in public to appeal for calm, asking, “Can we all get along?” President Bush delivered a nationally broadcast address in which he vowed to “use whatever force is necessary” to restore order.
1995 – A seminar of international chemical weapons experts convened by UNSCOM concludes that Iraq has not adequately disclosed its past chemical weapons programs.
1997 – In its regular 60-day review, the United Nations Security Council votes again to maintain sanctions on Iraq. This is the37th review since sanctions were first imposed in 1990. This vote, however, does not affect the humanitarian oil sales.
1999 – The Liberty Bell 7 Mercury capsule flown by Gus Grissom, which sank in 1961, was found 300 miles offshore from Cape Canaveral in 3 waters 3 miles deep.
1999 – Pres. Milosevic ordered the release of 3 captive Americans following the appeal of Rev. Jesse Jackson.
1999 – A NATO strike on a bridge in Kosovo, 12 miles north of Pristina, hit a civilian bus and killed between 34 and 60 people including 15 children.
https://thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com/2014/05/01/may-1/
