** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

May 9th ~

1754 – The first American newspaper political cartoon was published. The illustration in Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette showed a snake cut into sections, each part representing an American colony; the caption read, “Join or die.”

1763 – The Siege of Fort Detroit begins during Pontiac’s War against British forces. The siege was an ultimately unsuccessful attempt by North American Indians to capture Fort Detroit during Pontiac’s Rebellion. The siege was led primarily by Pontiac, an Odawa chief and military leader. On April 27, 1763, Pontiac had spoken at a council on the shores of the Ecorse River, at what is now known as Council Point Park in Lincoln Park, Michigan, about 10 miles (15 km) southwest of Detroit.
Using the teachings of Neolin to inspire his listeners, Pontiac convinced a number of Ottawas, Ojibwas, Potawatomis, and Hurons to join him in an attempt to seize Fort Detroit and drive out the British. On May 7, Pontiac entered the fort with about 300 men, armed with weapons hidden under blankets, determined to take the fort by surprise.

However, the British commander Henry Gladwin had apparently been informed of Pontiac’s plan, and the garrison of about 120 men was armed and ready. Pontiac withdrew and, two days later, laid siege to the fort. A number of British soldiers and civilians in the area outside the fort were captured or killed; one of the soldiers was ritually cannibalized, as was the custom in some Great Lakes Indian cultures.

The violence was directed only at the British: French colonists were left alone. Eventually more than 900 Indian warriors from a half-dozen tribes joined the siege. Late in July, 260 British reinforcements under the command of Captain James Dalyell arrived at Fort Detroit.

On July 31, 1763, about 250 men attempted to make a surprise attack on Pontiac’s encampment. Pontiac was ready and waiting with over 400 warriors, and defeated the British at the Battle of Bloody Run. However, the situation at the fort remained a stalemate, and Pontiac’s influence among his followers began to wane. Groups of Indians began to abandon the siege, some of them making peace with the British before departing.

On October 31, 1763, finally convinced that the French in Illinois would not come to his aid, Pontiac lifted the siege and traveled south to the Maumee River, where he continued his efforts to rally resistance against the British.

1813 – U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison rescued Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.

1846 – US forced Mexico back to Rio Grande in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.

1846 – General Mariano Arista crossed the Rio Grande and killed a number of US soldiers in a surprise attack. Mexico believed that France and Britain would support it in a war against the US.

1862 – Battle of Ft. Pickens, FL (Pensacola), evacuated by CSA.

1862 – Battle of Farmington, Missouri.

1862 – U.S.S. Constitution Lieutenant G. W. Rodgers, and U.S. steamer Baltic Lieutenant C.R.P. Rodgers, arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, with officers and midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy. The Naval Academy remained there for the duration of the war.

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1862 – USRC Miami landed President Abraham Lincoln on Confederate-held soil the day before the fall of Norfolk. President Lincoln himself, after talking to pilots and studying charts, reconnoitered to the east-ward of Sewell’s Point and found a suitably unfortified landing site near Willoughby Point. The troops embarked in transports that night. The next morning they landed near the site selected by the President. The latter, still afloat, from his “command ship” Miami ordered U.S.S. Monitor to reconnoiter Sewell’s Point to learn if the batteries were still manned. When he found the works abandoned, President Lincoln ordered Major General Wool’s troops to march on Norfolk, where they arrived late on the afternoon of the 10th.

1863 – Captain Case, commanding U.S.S. Iroquois, reported that the Confederates were mounting guns on the northern faces of Fort Fisher at Wilmington. ”They appear, he wrote Rear Admiral S. P. Lee, ”to be large caliber.” This defensive strengthening of the Southern position was in keeping with the view voiced by Lieutenant John Taylor Wood, CSN, in a 14 February 1863, letter to President Davis concerning the defenses of Wilmington: ”The batteries covering the water approaches, as far as I am able to judge, are well placed and admirably constructed. But the great want, the absolute necessity of the place if it is to be held against naval attack, is heavy guns, larger caliber.” So well did the Confederates do their job that Fort Fisher successfully dominated Cape Fear until the massive amphibious operation in January 1865.

1864 – Union General John Sedgwick was shot and killed by a confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania, Va. His last words before getting hit were “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”

1864 – Union troops secure a crucial pass during the Atlanta campaign. In the spring and summer of 1864, Union General William T. Sherman and Confederate General Joseph Johnston conducted a slow and methodical campaign to seize control of Atlanta. Pushing southeast from Chattanooga toward Atlanta, Sherman continually tried to flank Johnston, but Johnston countered each move.

On May 3, 1864, two of Sherman’s corps moved against Confederate defenses at Dalton, while another Yankee force under James McPherson swung wide to the south and west of Dalton in an attempt to approach Johnston from the rear. It was along this path that McPherson captured Snake Creek Gap, a crucial opening in a long elevation called Rocky Face Ridge. On one hand, seizure of the strategic pass was a brilliant Union victory. Rocky Face Ridge was a key geographic feature for Johnston and his army. It was a barrier against Sherman’s army that could neutralize the superior numbers of Federal troops.

When the Yankees captured the gap, Johnston had to pull his men much further south where the terrain did not offer such advantages. But securing Snake Creek Gap was also a missed opportunity for the Union. McPherson had a chance to cut directly into the Confederate rear but encountered what he judged to be strong Rebel defenses at Resaca. Union troops reached the Western and Atlantic Railroad, Johnston’s supply line, but they did not have adequate numbers to hold the railroad, and did not have enough time to cut the line.

McPherson halted his advance on Resaca and fell back to the mouth of Snake Creek Gap, causing Sherman to complain for years later that McPherson was timid and had lost the chance to route the Confederates. The campaign would eventually be successful, but the failure to secure or destroy the Confederate supply line prolonged the campaign, possibly by months.

1864 – Battle of Cloyd’s Mt. and Swift Creek, VA (Drewry’s Bluff, Ft. Darling).

1913 – The 17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the election of US senators by popular vote rather than selection by state legislatures, was ratified.

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1916 – President Woodrow Wilson mobilizes the National Guard of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to patrol their borders with Mexico as Brigadier General John J. Pershing led an Army expedition into northern Mexico to try to capture or kill the bandit leader Pancho Villa and his group. In March, Villa and his men raided the town of Columbus, NM, killing a number of soldiers and civilians before slipping back across the border.

Soon these Guardsmen would be joined by Guard units coming from all the states to a total 158,000 men. While their main mission was to secure the border the Army used this partial mobilization to train the Guard in large unit formations almost impossible to conduct in normal peacetime exercises for just a few days. This training paid great dividends when America committed its Guardsmen to combat in France after our entry in World War I.

1926 – Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. Two teams of aviators competed to be the first to fly over the North Pole. American Navy Lt. Cmdr. Richard E. Byrd and pilot Floyd Bennett claimed victory when they circled the North Pole. On May 11, in spite of his disappointment, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen launched the dirigible Norge on its planned flight, not merely over the pole, but all the way across the Arctic to Alaska.

As depicted in a painting by aviation artist Don Connolly, Byrd and Bennett in Josephine Ford briefly accompanied Norge in a gesture of goodwill. Amundsen reached Alaska on May 14, but even today experts suspect that faulty navigation caused Byrd to miss the North Pole. Later archivists determined that Byrd was probably 150 miles short of the pole. His tri-motor Fokker monoplane named Josephine Ford probably came within 2.25 degrees of the pole.

1941 – The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by the Royal Navy, revealing considerable Enigma material. Enigma was the German machine used to encrypt messages during World War II.

1942 – USS Icarus, CG, sank the U-352 off Charleston and took 33 prisoners, the first German prisoners taken in combat by any US force in World War II.

1942 – 64 Spitfires are successfully delivered to Malta by naval forces including the USS Wasp and the HMS Eagle. This time, the planes are quickly refueled and rearmed and there is no destruction on the ground as with the previous delivery. The USS Wasp returns to service in the United States after this operation.

1944 – Japanese forces skirmish with American forces on the beachheads around Hollandia.

1944 – Allied air forces begin large scale raids on airbases in France as part of the preparation for the D-Day invasion.

1945 – U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1945 – Herman Goering, commander in chief of the Luftwaffe, president of the Reichstag, head of the Gestapo, prime minister of Prussia, and Hitler’s designated successor is taken prisoner by the U.S. Seventh Army in Bavaria. Goering was an early member of the Nazi Party and was wounded in the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. That wound would have long-term effects; Goering became increasingly addicted to painkillers. Not long after Hitler’s accession to power, Goering was instrumental in creating concentration camps for political enemies.

Ostentatious and self-indulgent, he changed his uniform five times a day and was notorious for flaunting his decorations, jewelry, and stolen artwork. It was Goering who ordered the purging of German Jews from the economy following the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, initiating an “Aryanization” policy that confiscated Jewish property and businesses. Goering’s failure to win the Battle of Britain and prevent the Allied bombing of Germany led to his loss of stature within the Party, aggravated by the low esteem with which he was always held by fellow officers because of his egocentrism and position as Hitler’s right-hand man.

As the war progressed, he dropped into depressions and battled drug addiction. When Goering fell into U.S. hands after Germany’s surrender, he had in his possession a rich stash of pills. He was tried at Nuremberg and charged with various crimes against humanity. Despite a vigorous attempt at self acquittal, he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged, but before he could be executed, he committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide tablet he had hidden from his guards.

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1945 – On Luzon, forces of the US 145th Infantry Regiment, an element of US 11th Corps, captures Mount Binicayan and patrols into the Guagua area. On Mindanao, the US 24th Division continues to defend its bridgehead over the Talomo river against Japanese counterattacks but fails to build a bridge. The US 31st Division breaks off its attacks in the Colgan woods to allow air and artillery strikes on the Japanese positions.

1945 – On Okinawa, the US 1st Marine Division captures Height 60 after eliminating Japanese positions on Nan Hill. The US 77th Division continues attacks on Japanese strong points north of Shuri. The Kochi Crest area has been secured by American forces.

1951 – Three hundred and twelve Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy planes hit Sinuiju Airfield in one of the largest air raids of the war.

1955 – Ten years after the Nazis were defeated in World War II, West Germany formally joins the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense group aimed at containing Soviet expansion in Europe. This action marked the final step of West Germany’s integration into the Western European defense system. Germany had been a divided nation since 1945. The Americans, British, and French held zones of occupation in Western Germany and West Berlin; the Soviets controlled Eastern Germany and East Berlin.

Although publicly both the Americans and the Soviets proclaimed their desire for a reunited and independent Germany, it quickly became apparent that each of these Cold War opponents would only accept a reunified Germany that served their own nation’s specific interests. In 1949, the Americans, British, and French combined their zones of occupation in West Germany to establish a new nation, the Federal Republic of Germany. The Soviets responded by setting up the German Democratic Republic in East Germany.

On May 5, 1955, the American, French, and British forces formally ended their military occupation of West Germany, which became an independent country. Four days later, West Germany was made a member of NATO. For U.S. policymakers, this was an essential step in the defense of Western Europe. Despite the reluctance of some European nations, such as France, to see a rearmed Germany–even as an ally–the United States believed that remilitarizing West Germany was absolutely vital in terms of setting up a defensive perimeter to contain any possible Soviet attempts at expansion. The Soviet response was immediate.

On May 14, 1955, the Soviet Union established the Warsaw Pact, a military alliance between Russia and its Eastern European satellites-including East Germany. The entrance of West Germany into NATO was the final step in integrating that nation into the defense system of Western Europe. It was also the final nail in the coffin as far as any possibility of a reunited Germany in the near future. For the next 35 years, East and West Germany came to symbolize the animosities of the Cold War. In 1990, Germany was finally reunified; the new German state remained a member of NATO.

1962 – A laser beam was successfully bounced off Moon for the first time.

1964 – An insurgent is captured trying to place an explosive charge under a Saigon bridge over which Secretary McNamara’s car is to pass on 12 May.

1968 – President Thieu declares that even if the US should negotiate an end to the war, his government will never recognize the National Liberation Front.

1968 – The US Army announces that the 101st Airborne Division will be converted into an airmobile division, and that each of the five other divisions in Vietnam will be reinforced by separate reconnaissance squadrons.

1969 – William Beecher, military correspondent for the new York Times, publishes a one-page dispatch from Washington, ‘Raids in Cambodia by US Unprotested,’ which accurately describes the first of recent B-52 raids in Cambodia. Within hours, Henry Kissinger, presidential assistant for national security affairs, contacts J. Edgar hoover, the director of the FBI, asking him to find the government sources of Beecher’s article. During the next two years, Alexander Haig, a key Kissinger assistant, will transmit the names of national Security Council staff members and reporters who are to have their telephones wiretapped by the FBI.

1970 – Thirty US gunboats join a flotilla of 110 South Vietnamese craft in a thrust up the Mekong River in an attempt to neutralize enemy sanctuaries along a 45 mile stretch of river between the South Vietnamese border and Phnompenh. The US vessels will move no further then Neak Long, in compliance with the US policy of limiting US penetration of Cambodia to 21.7 miles.

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1972 – US Senate Democrats, reacting to the President’s May 8 address, pass a resolution “disapproving of the escalation of the war in Vietnam” and includes a cutoff of war funds.

1974 – The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee opens impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon, voting to impeach him on three counts on July 30. The impeachment was the result of the scandal involving the bungled burglary of the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate apartment complex in Washington, D.C., on June 23, 1972. Eventually, it was learned that there was a criminal cover-up that went all the way to the White House. Nixon, facing the impeachment proceedings, resigned the presidency on August 8, 1974. His resignation had a major impact on the situation in Vietnam.

1991 – President Bush met at the White House with UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, who relayed Iraq’s rejection of a US-backed proposal for a UN civilian force in northern Iraq.

1993 – The White House said President Clinton had directed Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher to contact U.S. allies to discuss how they could ensure Serbia’s promise to cut supplies to the Bosnian Serbs.

1996 – In dramatic video testimony to a hushed courtroom in Little Rock, Ark., President Clinton insisted he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan at the heart of the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.

1997 – Twenty-two years and 10 days after the fall of Saigon, former Florida Representative Douglas “Pete” Peterson becomes the first ambassador to Vietnam since Graham Martin was airlifted out of the country by helicopter in late April 1975.

Peterson himself served as a U.S. Air Force captain during the Vietnam War and was held as a prisoner of war for six and a half years after his bomber was shot down near Hanoi in 1966. Thirty-one years later, Peterson returned to Hanoi on a different mission, presenting his credentials to Communist authorities in the Vietnamese capital on May 9, 1997.

Normalization with America’s old enemy began in early 1994, when U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the lifting of the 19-year-old trade embargo against Vietnam, citing the cooperation of Vietnam’s Communist government in helping the United States locate the 2,238 Americans still listed as missing in action during the Vietnam War.

1999 – China announced that it was breaking off diplomatic contacts with Washington on human rights and arms control along with contacts on weapons proliferation and int’l. security due to the bombing of its embassy in Belgrade.

2001 – China sought U.S. understanding for its refusal to allow a damaged U.S. Navy spy plane to fly home, saying public sentiment would be outraged if the aircraft flew again over Chinese territory.

2003 – The US and its allies asked the UN Security Council to legitimize their occupation of Iraq and sought permission to use revenue from the world’s second-largest oil reserves to rebuild the war-battered country.

2003 – In northern Iraq 3 U.S. soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed into the Tigris River.

2004 – In Chad 2 days of fighting broke out as the army battled Islamic militants near a remote village on the country’s western border with Niger, killing 43 “terrorists” of a group suspected of links with al-Qaida.

2004 – U.S. and British troops clashed with forces of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr for a second day. 4 Iraqis were killed in an explosion in a Baghdad market. Militants loyal to al-Sadr took over Sadr City.

2005 – Iran admits to having converted thirty-seven tons of raw uranium into a gas, a key step in uranium enrichment.

2014 – The scheduling scandal widens as a Cheyenne, Wyoming, VA employee is placed on administrative leave after an email surfaces in which the employee discusses “gaming the system a bit” to manipulate waiting times. The suspension comes a day after a scheduling clerk in San Antonio admitted to “cooking the books” to shorten apparent waiting times. Three days later, two employees in Durham, North Carolina, are placed on leave over similar allegations.

May 10th ~

1497 – Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci left for his 1st voyage to New World.

1730 – George Ross, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was born.

1773 – George III gives royal assent to the Tea Act of 773, taxing all tea in the colonies. The principal, overt, objective of the act was to reduce the massive surplus of tea held by the financially troubled British East India Company in its London warehouses and to help the struggling company survive. A related objective was to undercut the price of illegal tea, smuggled into Britain’s North American colonies. This was supposed to convince the colonists to purchase Company tea on which the Townshend duties were paid, thus implicitly agreeing to accept Parliament’s right of taxation.

The Act granted the Company the right to directly ship its tea to North America and the right to the duty-free export of tea from Britain, although the tax imposed by the Townshend Acts and collected in the colonies remained in force. Colonists in the Thirteen Colonies recognized the implications of the Act’s provisions, and a coalition of merchants, smugglers, and artisans similar to that which had opposed the Stamp Act 1765 mobilized opposition to delivery and distribution of the tea. The company’s authorized consignees were harassed, and in many colonies successful efforts were made to prevent the tea from being landed.

In Boston, this resistance culminated in the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773, when colonists (some disguised as Native Americans) boarded tea ships anchored in the harbor and dumped their tea cargo overboard. Parliamentary reaction to this event included passage of the Coercive Acts, designed to punish Massachusetts for its resistance, and the appointment of General Thomas Gage as royal governor of Massachusetts.

These actions further raised tensions that broke out into the American War of Independence in April 1775. Parliament passed the Taxation of Colonies Act 1778, which repealed a number of taxes (including the tea tax that underlay this act) as one of a number of conciliatory proposals presented to the Second Continental Congress by the Carlisle Peace Commission. The commission’s proposals were rejected. The Act effectively became a “dead letter”, but was not formally removed from the books until passage of the Statute Law Revision Act 1861.

1775 – The Second Continental Congress convened in Pennsylvania and at the suggestion of John Adams, named George Washington as supreme commander. The Congress was a convention of delegates from the Thirteen Colonies that started meeting in the summer of 1775, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, soon after warfare in the American Revolutionary War had begun. It succeeded the First Continental Congress, which met between September 5, 1774 and October 26, 1774, also in Philadelphia.

The second Congress managed the colonial war effort, and moved incrementally towards independence, adopting the United States Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. By raising armies, directing strategy, appointing diplomats, and making formal treaties, the Congress acted as the de facto national government of what became the United States. When it came together it was, in effect, a reconvening of the First Continental Congress. Many of the same 56 delegates who attended the first meeting were in attendance at the second, and the delegates appointed the same president (Peyton Randolph) and secretary (Charles Thomson).

Notable new arrivals included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and John Hancock of Massachusetts. Within two weeks, Randolph was summoned back to Virginia to preside over the House of Burgesses; he was replaced in the Virginia delegation by Thomas Jefferson, who arrived several weeks later. Henry Middleton was elected as president to replace Randolph, but he declined. Hancock was elected president on May 24th. Delegates from twelve of the Thirteen Colonies were present when the Second Continental Congress convened. Georgia had not participated in the First Continental Congress and did not initially send delegates to the Second Continental Congress.

1775 – The men defending the garrison of Ticonderoga were surprised in their beds. Fort Ticonderoga lay on the shores of Lake Champlain. Called Fort Carillon by the French, it was renamed Ticonderoga by the British after it was captured in 1759. The fort was positioned to cut the colonies in half, and two Americans, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, were determined to capture the fort. Allen was approached by Connecticut citizens to lead his men known as the Green Mountain men to take the fort.

Meanwhile Benedict Arnold had himself been appointed to the same task by the Massachusetts committee of safety. The two men argued over command, but this did not deter them from attacking the fort. On May 11th, all the men who could fit were loaded in boats and set off for the fort. On arriving, Allen called out to Lieutenant Joceyln Feltham, “Come out of there you dammed old rat!” When Feltham asked on whose authority, Allen stated,”in the name of Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” The fort, with its heavy artillery, fell without a shot being fired.

The small British garrison had not heard of the outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord on April 19th. The joint colonial militia force commanded by Allen and Benedict Arnold of Connecticut found more than 40 pieces of artillery inside the fort. These will be moved in a winter convoy to the American siege lines around Boston, compelling the British to evacuate the city.

1797 – The 1st American Navy ship, the “United States,” was launched.

1800 – USS Constitution captures Letter of Marque Sandwich.

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1801 – The North African state of Tripoli declared war on the United States in a dispute over safe passage of merchant vessels through the Mediterranean. Tripoli declared war on the U.S. for refusing to pay tribute. On Jefferson’s inauguration as president in 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli, had demanded $225,000 from the new administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice, Jefferson refused the demand.

1823 – The 1st steamboat to navigate the Mississippi River arrived at Ft. Snelling (between St. Paul and Minneapolis).

1845 – During a celebrated round-the-world tour in 1844-46, the Constitution dropped anchor in the bay outside of Tourane, Cochin China (Da Nang, Vietnam). While there, an imprisoned French missionary requested the assistance of the ship’s captain, “Mad Jack” Percival. The Americans attempted to negotiate with the Cochin Chinese, to no avail. Frustrated, they set sail from Cochin and continued on their course on May 26 without further word about or from the missionary, who was eventually retrieved by his own countrymen.

1861 – The border state of Missouri was an integral part of the violent tug-of-war over the secession issue. The thriving port city of St. Louis, although divided on the issue of secession, had a large population of German immigrants who were opposed to slavery and to secession. In spite of the state’s official decision for neutrality, strong secessionist sentiments still existed. Governor Claiborne Jackson, a vehement supporter of secession, personally corresponded with Confederate President Jefferson Davis, and both awaited a turn of events in Missouri that would prove more favorable to the Confederacy.

In May 1861, Postmaster Montgomery Blair learned of a secessionist plot to seize the Union depot at the St. Louis Armory, where large numbers of weapons and ammunition were allegedly stored. On May 10, 3,000 Union soldiers under the command of Capt. Nathaniel Lyon marched to the armory at the state militia barracks at Camp Jackson. Included were a large number of German immigrants serving in a unit known as the Home Guards. Missouri pro-secessionist militiamen, led by Gen. D.M. Frost, peacefully surrendered to Lyon, but trouble began when they refused to take a loyalty oath.

To humiliate the Missouri militiamen, Lyon paraded them through the streets between two columns of Home Guards. Bystanders, hostile toward the Germans, cursed and spat at them. Soon rocks were thrown, and someone in the crowd opened fire on the Home Guards. The soldiers were ordered to fire back into the crowd. The mob retaliated by tearing up paving blocks and throwing them at the troops. Gunfire from both sides was so heavy that by nightfall 90 civilians had been hit, 28 of whom were dead or dying. Lyon dismissed the guardsmen in an effort to stop the fighting, but mobs roamed throughout the night, burning buildings. The next day, seven more citizens were killed by the Home Guards, who had been called out again to restore order. The idea of Missouri remaining neutral was now out of the question.

1862 – Confederate River Defense Fleet C.S.S. General Bragg, General Sumter, General Sterling Price, General Earl Van Dorn, General M. Jeff Thompson, General Lovell, General Beauregard, and Little Rebel–made a spirited attack on Union gunboats and mortar flotilla at Plum Point Bend, Tennessee. The Confederate fleet, Captain James E. Montgomery, attacked Mortar Boat No. 16, stationed just above Fort Pillow and engaged in bombarding the works.

U.S.S. Cincinnati, Commander Stembel, coming to the mortar boat’s defense, was rammed by Bragg and sank on a bar in eleven feet of water. Van Dorn rammed U.S.S. Mound City, Commander Kilty, forcing her to run aground to avoid sinking. The draft of the Confederate vessels would not permit them to press the attack into the shoal water in which the Union squadron steamed, and, having sustained various but minor injuries, Montgomery withdrew under the guns of Fort Pillow. Cincinnati and Mound City were quickly repaired and returned to service.

1862 – Norfolk Navy Yard set afire before being evacuated by Confederate forces in a general withdrawal up the peninsula to defend Richmond. Union troops under Major General Wool crossed Hampton Roads from Fort Monroe, landed at Ocean View, and captured Norfolk.

1862 – Pensacola reoccupied by Union Army and Navy forces. Military installations in the area, includ-ing the Navy Yard, Forts Barrancas and McRee, C.S.S. Fulton, and an ironclad building on the Escambia River, were destroyed by the Confederates the preceding day before withdrawing.

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1863 – The South loses one of its boldest and most colorful generals on this day. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson died of pneumonia a week after losing his arm when his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville. In the first two years of the war, Jackson terrorized Union commanders and led his army corps on bold and daring marches. He was the perfect complement to Robert E. Lee.

A native Virginian, Jackson grew up in poverty in Clarksburg, in the mountains of what is now West Virginia. Orphaned at an early age, Jackson was raised by relatives and became a shy, lonely young man. He had only a rudimentary education but secured an appointment to West Point after another young man from the same congressional district turned his appointment down. Despite poor preparation, Jackson worked hard and graduated 17th in a class of 59 cadets.

Upon graduating, Jackson served as an artillery officer during the Mexican War, seeing action at Vera Cruz and Chapultepec. He earned three brevets for bravery in just six months and then left the service in 1850 to teach at Virginia Military Institute. He was known as a difficult and eccentric classroom instructor, prone to strange and impromptu gestures in class. He was also a devout Presbyterian who refused to even talk of secular matters on the Sabbath. In 1859, he led a group of VMI cadets to serve as gallows guards for the hanging of John Brown.

When war broke out in 1861, Jackson became a brigadier general in command of five regiments raised in the Shenandoah Valley. At the Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, Jackson earned distinction by leading the attack that secured an advantage for the Confederates. Confederate General Bernard Bee, trying to inspire his troops, exclaimed “there stands Jackson like a stone wall,” and provided one of the most enduring monikers in history.

By 1862, Jackson was recognized as one of the most effective commanders in the Confederate army. Leading his force on one of the most brilliant campaigns in military history during the summer of 1862, Jackson marched around the Shenandoah Valley and held off three Union armies while providing relief for Confederates pinned down on the James Peninsula by George McClellan’s army. He later rejoined the Army of Northern Virginia for the Seven Days battles, and his leadership was brilliant at Second Bull Run in August 1862. He soon became Lee’s most trusted corps commander.

The Battle of Chancellorsville was Lee’s and Jackson’s shining moment. Despite the fact that they faced an army twice the size of theirs, Lee daringly split his force and sent Jackson around the Union flank—a move that resulted in perhaps the Army of the Potomac’s most stunning defeat of the war. When nightfall halted the attack, Jackson rode forward to reconnoiter the territory for another assault.

But as he and his aides rode back to the lines, a group of Rebels opened fire. Jackson was hit three times, and a Southern bullet shattered his left arm. His arm had to be amputated the next day. Soon, pneumonia set in, and Jackson quickly began to fade. He died, as he had wished, on the Sabbath, May 10, 1863, with these last words: “Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.”

1864 – Colonel Emory Upton leads a 10-regiment “Attack-in-depth” assault against the Confederate works at The Battle of Spotsylvania, which, though ultimately unsuccessful, would provide the idea for the massive assault against the Bloody Angle on May 12. Upton is slightly wounded but is immediately promoted to Brigadier general.

The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania (or the 19th century spelling Spottsylvania), was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s 1864 Overland Campaign of the American Civil War. Following the bloody but inconclusive Battle of the Wilderness, Grant’s army disengaged from Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s army and moved to the southeast, attempting to lure Lee into battle under more favorable conditions.

Elements of Lee’s army beat the Union army to the critical crossroads of Spotsylvania Court House and began entrenching. Fighting occurred on and off from May 8 through May 21, 1864, as Grant tried various schemes to break the Confederate line. In the end, the battle was tactically inconclusive, but with almost 32,000 casualties on both sides, it was the costliest battle of the campaign.

On May 8th, Union Maj. Gens. Gouverneur K. Warren and John Sedgwick had unsuccessfully attempted to dislodge the Confederates under Maj. Gen. Richard H. Anderson from Laurel Hill, a position that was blocking them from Spotsylvania Court House. On May 10th, Grant ordered Upton’s attacks across the Confederate line of earthworks, which by now extended over 4 miles (6.5 km), including a prominent salient known as the Mule Shoe.

Although the Union troops failed again at Laurel Hill, an innovative assault attempt by Col. Upton against the Mule Shoe showed promise. Grant used Upton’s assault technique on a much larger scale on May 12th when he ordered the 15,000 men of Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock’s corps to assault the Mule Shoe. Hancock was initially successful, but the Confederate leadership rallied and repulsed his incursion. Attacks by Maj. Gen. Horatio G. Wright on the western edge of the Mule Shoe, which became known as the “Bloody Angle”, involved almost 24 hours of desperate hand-to-hand fighting, some of the most intense of the Civil War.

Supporting attacks by Warren and by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside were unsuccessful. Grant repositioned his lines in another attempt to engage Lee under more favorable conditions and launched a final attack by Hancock on May 18th, which made no progress. A reconnaissance in force by Confederate Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell at Harris farm on May 19th was a costly and pointless failure. On May 21, Grant disengaged from the Confederate Army and started southeast on another maneuver to turn Lee’s right flank, as the Overland Campaign continued toward the Battle of North Anna.

1864 – U.S.S. Mound City, Acting Lieutenant Amos R. Langthorne, and U.S.S. Carondelet, Lieutenant Commander John G. Mitchell, grounded near where work was proceeding on the wing dams across the Red River rapids above Alexandria. Next day, as the Red River slowly continued to rise behind the two wing dams, ironclads Mound City, Carondelet, and U.S.S. Pittsburg, Acting Lieutenant William R. Hoel, were finally hauled across the upper falls above the obstructions by throngs of straining soldiers.

As the troops looked on in tense anticipation, the gunboats, all hatches battened down, successfully lurched through the gap between the dams to safety. Rear Admiral Porter later reported to Secretary Welles: “The passage of these vessels was a beautiful sight, only to be realized when seen.” U.S.S. Ozark, Louisville, and Chillicothe, ironclads which had crossed the upper falls, were preparing to follow the next day.

May 10th ~ {continued...}

1865 – Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of Union General James H. Wilson’s cavalry. On April 2, 1865, with the Confederate defeat at Petersburg, Virginia imminent, General Robert E. Lee informed President Davis that he could no longer protect Richmond and advised the Confederate government to evacuate its capital.

Davis and his cabinet fled to Danville, Virginia, and with Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9th, deep into the South. Lee’s surrender of his massive Army of Northern Virginia effectively ended the Civil War, and during the next few weeks the remaining Confederate armies surrendered one by one. Davis was devastated by the fall of the Confederacy. Refusing to admit defeat, he hoped to flee to a sympathetic foreign nation such as Britain or France, and was weighing the merits of forming a government in exile when he was arrested by a detachment of the 4th Michigan Cavalry.

A certain amount of controversy surrounds his capture, as Davis was wearing his wife’s black shawl when the Union troops cornered him. The Northern press ridiculed him as a coward, alleging that he had disguised himself as a woman in an ill-fated attempt to escape. However, Davis, and especially his wife, Varina, maintained that he was ill and that Varina had lent him her shawl to keep his health up during their difficult journey.

Imprisoned for two years at Fort Monroe, Virginia, Davis was indicted for treason, but was never tried–the federal government feared that Davis would be able prove to a jury that the Southern secession of 1860 to 1861 was legal. Varina worked determinedly to secure his freedom, and in May 1867 Jefferson Davis was released on bail, with several wealthy Northerners helping him pay for his freedom.

After a number of unsuccessful business ventures, he retired to Beauvoir, his home near Biloxi, Mississippi, and began writing his two-volume memoir The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881). He died in 1889 and was buried at New Orleans; four years later, his body was moved to its permanent resting spot in Richmond, Virginia.

1865 – In Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate raider William Quantrill, who lingers until his death on June 6th.

1869 – In a remote corner of Utah, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads meet and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that connects their railroads and makes transcontinental railroad service possible for the first time in U.S. history. Although travelers would have to take a roundabout journey to cross the country on this railroad system, the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah, forever closed a chapter of U.S. history. No longer would western-bound travelers need to take the long and dangerous journey by wagon train, and the west would surely lose some its wild charm with the new connection to the civilized east.

As early as 1852, Congress considered the construction of a transcontinental railroad, but the question became enmeshed in the regional politics of the time. In 1866, starting in Omaha and Sacramento, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads began working toward each other across a northern route, with land grants offered by the government as an incentive for their work. In their eagerness for land, the two lines built right past each other, and the final meeting place had to be renegotiated. On May 10, 1869, the two lines finally met at Promontory Point, Utah.

1922 – The United States annexes the Kingman Reef. The lagoon was used in 1937 and 1938 as a halfway station between Hawai’i and American Samoa by Pan American Airways flying boats (Sikorsky S-42B).

May 10th ~ {continued...}

1922 – The 1,000th Rickenbacker car was produced. Named after the company co-founder, American World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker, the Rickenbacker Car Company took off in 1922. Rickenbacker, a national darling for his dogfighting exploits, passed on offers from the aviation industry in Washington and from the movie studios in Hollywood in order to start his own car company.

In January of 1922, the Rickenbacker car debuted at the New York Auto Show. Priced at $1,500 and equipped with a powerful V-6 and a flywheel at both ends of the crankshaft to reduce the teeth-chattering vibration to which consumers had become accustomed, the Rickenbacker sold 1,500 units on its first day. In two years the company climbed from 83rd in the industry to 19th. “The Car Worthy of the Name,” as it was called, was also the first model to introduce four-wheel braking into the economy car class. The 1925 Rickenbacker came with a V-8 and the snappy “hat in the ring” emblem that Rickenbacker’s squadron had painted on their planes.

In 1926, Rickenbacker marketed the Super Sport as “America’s Fastest and Most Beautiful Stock Car.” But Rickenbacker resigned in September of that year, and four months later his company was dead. The rapid demise of Rickenbacker owes partly to the public’s mistrust of the company’s early introduction of front-wheel breaking, but more to the fragile ego of its war-hero founder.

During a period of cutthroat price wars, Rickenbacker came under heavy personal criticism at the hands of automobile dealers, who taunted him, “You’re a hero today and a bum tomorrow.” Rickenbacker could not separate his company’s policies from his person and, injured, he resigned. The company was grounded without its captain’s name.

1933 – The Nazis staged massive public book burnings at Opernplatz in Berlin, Germany. Some 40,000 people watched or took part. In the great Nazi book-burning frenzy Freud’s work went up in flames, with the declaration: “Down with the soul-devouring exaggeration of instinctive life, up with the nobility of the human soul!” Also burned were books by “unGerman” writers such as: Marx, Brecht, Bloch, Hemingway, Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.

1940 – The Germans launch Fall Gelb (Case Yellow), the offensive in the west. Army Group C (Leeb) holds the German frontier opposite the French Maginot Line while Army Group A (Rundstedt) makes the main attack through the Ardennes and Army Group B (Bock) makes a secondary advance through Belgium and Holland to draw the main British and French forces north. During the day, Army Group A strikes, with three armored corps in the lead, heading for Sedan, Montherme and Dinant. The advance is rapid and the little opposition, mostly French cavalry, is thrown aside.

To the north, Army Group B carries out parachute landings deep inside Holland which do much to paralyze Dutch resistance, while German units cross the Maas River near Arnhem and the Belgian fort at Eben Emael is put out of action by a German airborne force which lands its gliders literally on top of it. The fort is meant to cover the crossings of the Albert Canal nearby and this is not achieved. The Luftwaffe gives powerful support.

At the end of the day the German advance has gone almost exactly according to plan. Meanwhile, the Allied Plan D provides for the French 1st Army Group ( General Billotte), consisting of the British Expeditionary Force ( General Lord Gort) and the French 7th Army (General Giraud) to advance to the line of the Dyle River and the Meuse River above Namur, to be joined there by the Belgian forces and on the left to link with the Dutch.

General Gamelin is the Allied Supreme Commander and General Georges commands the armies on the French Northeast Front. The Allies react quickly to the German attacks as soon as they hear of them from the Belgians. By the evening much of the Dyle line has been occupied but the troops find that there are no fortifications to compare with the positions they have prepared along the Franco-Belgian frontier during the Phony War period. Some of the reserve is therefore committed to strengthen the line. Some of the advance forces of French 7th Army make contact with the Germans in southern Holland and are roughly handled.

1941 – The Vietminh or Vietnam Independence League (Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh) is formed as a united front organization after the Eighth Plenum of the Communist party at Pac Bo, chaired by Nguyen Ai Quoc, adopts a policy of collaboration with all nationalists. by far the most effective nationalist organization of any kind working form within or without Vietnam, under the direction of Vo Nguyen Giap, the Vietminh organizes guerrilla and intelligence networks to operate against the Japanese and the French.

May 10th ~ {continued...}

1942 – In the Philippines, American General Sharp commanding the few remaining resisting American forces issues orders of surrender. Some American troops continue with guerilla actions for the next several weeks.

1943 – The last organized Axis resistance in Tunisia is eliminated. Large scale surrenders, of Axis troops, begin.

1945 – Allies captured Rangoon from the Japanese.

1945 – On Luzon, the advance of US 43rd Division, part of US 11th Corps, loses momentum. On Mindanao, part of the US 40th Division lands on the coast of Macalajar Bay, in the north of the island. The naval support group is commanded by Rear-Admiral Struble. The landing is successful.

Filipino guerrillas provide additional support and the beachhead is rapidly consolidated and extended. Some elements advance some 5 miles to the southeast and link up with units of the US 31st Division. There is heavy fighting between the American and Japanese forces already present on the island. Units of the US 19th Division begin to eliminate a number of Japanese pockets of resistance around Davao.

1945 – The 22d Marines, 6th Marine Division, executed a pre-dawn attack south across the Asa River Estuary and seized a bridgehead from which to continue the attack toward Naha, the capital of Okinawa. The bridgehead is about 1 mile wide and 400 yards deep. During the night a Bailey bridge is built to allow tanks and artillery to cross the river. The US 1st Marine Division makes slight progress towards Shuri, facing heavy Japanese opposition. At sea, Japanese Kamikaze strikes hit 1 American destroyer and 1 mine layer.

1945 – The forces of the Soviet 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Ukrainian Fronts join up as they reach Klagenfurt and Linz in Austria. They establish contact with American forces.

1945 – The government announces plans to withdraw 3.1 million American troops from Europe.

1946 – First successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground.

1949 – First shipboard launching of LARK, guided missile by USS Norton Sound.

1951 – The Battle of Bunker Hill began with action by the 38th Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Infantry Division.

1960 – USS Triton (SSRN-586) completes, Operation Sandblast, the first submerged circumnavigation of world, in 84 days following many of the routes taken by Magellan and cruising 46,000 miles.

1966 – CGC Point Grey was on patrol near the Ca Mau peninsula when she sighted a 110-foot trawler heading on various courses and speeds. Suspicions aroused, Point Grey commenced shadowing the trawler. After observing what appeared to be signal fires on the beach, she hailed the vessel, but received no response. The trawler ran aground and Point Grey personnel attempted to board it.

Heavy automatic weapons fire from the beach prevented the boarding and two crew and one Army passenger were wounded aboard Point Grey. CGC Point Cypress, and U.S. Navy units came to assist. During the encounter the trawler exploded. U.S. Navy salvage teams recovered a substantial amount of war material from the sunken vessel. This incident was the largest, single known infiltration attempt since the Vung Ro Bay incident of February 1965 and was the first “suspicious trawler interdicted by a Market Time unit.”

1969 – The U.S. 9th Marine Regiment and the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, along with South Vietnamese forces, commence Operation Apache Snow in the A Shau Valley in western Thua Thien Province. The purpose of the operation was to cut off the North Vietnamese and prevent them from mounting an attack on the coastal provinces. The operation began with a heliborne assault along the Laotian border and then a sweep back to the east.

First contact with the enemy was made by a rifle company from the 101st Airborne on the slopes of Hill 937, known to the Vietnamese as Ap Bia Mountain. Entrenched in prepared fighting positions, the North Vietnamese 29th Regiment repulsed the initial American assault and on May 14 beat back another attempt by the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry. An intense battle raged for the next 10 days and the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults.

Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain received widespread unfavorable publicity in the United States and American media dubbed it “Hamburger Hill,” a name evidently derived from the fact that the battle turned into a “meat grinder.”

May 10th ~ {continued...}

1972 – President Richard Nixon’s decision to mine North Vietnamese harbors is condemned by the Soviet Union, China, and their Eastern European allies, and receives only lukewarm support from Western Europe. The mining was meant to halt the massive North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam that had begun on March 30. In the continuing air war over North Vietnam, the United States lost at least three planes and the North Vietnamese 10, as 150 to 175 American planes struck targets over Hanoi, Haiphong, and along rail lines leading from China.

1972 – An F-4J of VF-96 flying from the USS Constellation by Lieutenant Randy Cunningham and Lieutenant (jg) Willie Driscoll, shoots down three MiGs in one combat mission. Added to two previous victories, this makes them the first American aces of the Vietnam War and the only US Navy aces.

1972 – Air Force Capt. Charles B. DeBellevue of the 555th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying with Capt. Richard S. Ritchie in a McDonnell Douglas F-4D, records his first aerial kill. Later, DeBellevue recorded four additional victories with pilot Ritchie–both men achieved the designation of ace (traditionally awarded for five enemy aircraft confirmed shot down in aerial combatt). In August, DeBellevue, flying with Captain John A. Madden, Jr., shot down two more MiGs, becoming the leading American ace of the Vietnam War.

1972 – First flight of the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (a.k.a. “Warthog”). The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is an American twin-engine, straight wing jet aircraft developed by Fairchild-Republic in the early 1970s. It is the only United States Air Force production aircraft designed solely for close air support, including attacking tanks, armored vehicles, and other ground targets with limited air defenses. The A-10 was designed around the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger rotary cannon that is its primary armament.

The A-10’s airframe was designed for durability, with measures such as 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of titanium aircraft armor to protect the cockpit and aircraft systems, enabling it to absorb a significant amount of damage and continue flying. The A-10A single-seat variant was the only version built, though one A-10A was converted to an A-10B twin-seat version.

In 2005, a program was begun to upgrade remaining A-10A aircraft to the A-10C configuration. The A-10’s official name comes from the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt of World War II, a fighter that was particularly effective at close air support. The A-10 is more commonly known by its nicknames “Warthog” or “Hog”.

Its secondary mission is to provide airborne forward air control, directing other aircraft in attacks on ground targets. Aircraft used primarily in this role are designated OA-10. With a variety of upgrades and wing replacements, the A-10’s service life may be extended to 2028, though there are proposals to retire it sooner.

1977 – Patti Hearst was sentenced to 5 years’ probation for her role in the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) crime spree May 16-17, 1974. She still faced a 7-year sentence for armed robbery.

1984 – The International Court of Justice said the U.S. should halt any actions to blockade Nicaragua’s ports. The U.S. had already said it would not recognize World Court jurisdiction on this issue.

1989 – In Panama, the government of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega announced it had nullified the country’s elections, which independent observers said the opposition had won by a 3-1 margin.

1990 – The government of the People’s Republic of China announces that it is releasing 211 people arrested during the massive protests held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the prisoner release as an attempt by the communist government of China to dispel much of the terrible publicity it received for its brutal suppression of the 1989 protests. In early 1989, peaceful protests (largely composed of students) were held in a number of Chinese cities, calling for greater democracy and less governmental control of the economy.

In April, thousands of students marched through Beijing. By May, the number of protesters had grown to nearly 1 million. On June 3, the government responded with troops sent in to crush the protests. In the ensuing violence, thousands of protesters were killed and an unknown number were arrested. The brutal Chinese government crackdown shocked the world. In the United States, calls went up for economic sanctions against China to punish the dramatic human rights violations. The U.S. government responded by temporarily suspending arms sales to China.

Nearly one year later, on May 10, 1990, the Chinese government announced that it was releasing 211 people arrested during the Tiananmen Square crackdown. A brief government statement simply indicated, “Lawbreakers involved in the turmoil and counterrevolutionary rebellion last year have been given lenient treatment and released upon completion of investigations.” The statement also declared that over 400 other “law-breakers” were still being investigated while being held in custody.

Western observers greeted the news with cautious optimism. In the United States, where the administration of President George Bush was considering the extension of most-favored-nation status to China, the release of the prisoners was hailed as a step in the right direction.

May 10th ~ {continued...}

1992 – Astronaut Pierre Thuot tried but failed to snag a wayward satellite during a spacewalk outside the shuttle Endeavour. A trio of astronauts succeeded in capturing the Intelsat-Six three days later.

1993 – Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee visited the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia for a hearing on the issue of homosexuals in the military; most of the sailors said they favored keeping the ban on gays.

1995 – Terry Nichols was charged in the Oklahoma City bombing.

1996 – Two US Marine helicopters collided and killed 14 servicemen in a piney swamp at Camp LeJeune, N.C. during a U.S.-British training exercise. An AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter collided with a CH-46 Sea Knight troop copter.

1999 – A military jury at Camp Lejeuneh, North Carolina, sentenced Captain Richard Ashby, a Marine pilot whose jet had clipped an Italian gondola cable, sending 20 people plunging to their deaths, to six months in prison and dismissed him from the corps for helping hide a videotape shot during the flight. Ashby was acquitted earlier of manslaughter.

1999 – The US approved the export of 2 Motorola Iridium satellites to China.

1999 – In China President Jiang Zemin said that NATO must stop bombing Yugoslavia before the UN Security Council considers any peace plan to end the Kosovo conflict. China broke off talks on arms control with the United States, and allowed demonstrators to hurl stones at the US Embassy in Beijing for a third day to protest NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

1999 – NATO announced that it would begin launching strikes from Turkey and Hungary in addition to current launch sites in Western Europe, the US and carriers in the Adriatic.

2002 – F.B.I. agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

2004 – A U.S. aircraft destroyed a Baghdad office of Muqtada al-Sadr. His followers said two people were killed and six injured. US military said as many as 35 Al-Sadr supporters were killed. Gunmen fired on a vehicle in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, killing two foreign construction workers and their Iraqi driver.

2005 – A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutinian lands about 65 feet (20 meters) from U.S. President George W. Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate.

2007 – 144 Iraqi Parliamentary lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal.

2013 – One World Trade Center becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

May 11th ~

1502 – Columbus embarked on his 4th voyage with 150 men in 4 caravels. He reached the coast of Honduras after 8 months and passed south to Panama (1503). He returned to Spain Nov 7, 1504, after suffering a shipwreck at Jamaica.

1647 – Peter Stuyvesant (37) arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor. The one-legged professional soldier was sent from the Netherlands to head the Dutch trading colony at the southern end of Manhattan Island. Stuyvesant lost a leg in a minor skirmish in the Caribbean in 1644.

1690 – In the first major engagement of King William’s War, British troops from Massachusetts seized Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French, their objective was to take Quebec. William Phipps of Massachusetts directed a force of eight ships and more than 700 men against a much smaller French contingent at Port Royal.

The fort fell to the English, who contented themselves with administering a loyalty oath to the area’s inhabitants before returning home. Port Royal changed hands a total of five times in the years before 1710, at which time the British took final control. Port Royal was renamed Annapolis Royal in honor of Queen Anne. It served as the capital of Nova Scotia until the development of Halifax more than 30 years later. Port Royal (later Annapolis Royal) is located in western Nova Scotia and is the oldest permanent European settlement in Canada. It was founded in 1605 by the sieur de Monts and Samuel de Champlain.

1792 – Captain Robert Gray becomes the first documented white person to sail into the Columbia River.

1846 – Congress declares war against Mexico at request of the President James Polk. At the time the entire United States Army numbers only about 6,000 officers and men, eventually expanded to nearly 10,000 by war’s end. The bulk of the force needed to prosecute the war will come from the uniformed volunteer militia (forerunners of today’s National Guard) of the various states.

Under the 1792 Militia Act, the militia could not be mobilized for a foreign war. So the president called for regiments of volunteers to serve in Mexico. Nearly 78,000 men served in volunteer units drawn from 24 states and District of Columbia. The war was unpopular in New England and only Massachusetts furnished any troops from that region. Of the approximately 13,000 men who died during the war, only about 2,000 were killed in combat. Almost all others died of diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, and dysentery.

Several famous men who had Guard backgrounds served in this war; from Major General Winfield Scott, the overall American military commander, who started his career as a junior officer in the Virginia cavalry; to Colonel Jefferson Davis, commanding the Mississippi Rifles, who later served as Secretary of War and in 1861 became the President of the Confederate States. Other men who served as officers in this conflict enter Guard service after the war and become famous in the Civil War including Ulysses S. Grant and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. In fact, many of the early Civil War generals and colonels had Mexican War experience in various Guard units.

1858 – Minnesota enters the Union as the 32nd state. Known as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” Minnesota is the northern terminus of the Mississippi River’s traffic and the westernmost point of the inland waterway that extends through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Ojibwe and the Dakota were among the Native people who first made this land their home, and white settlement of the area began in 1820 with the establishment of Fort Snelling. In 1849, Minnesota became a U.S. territory. The building of railroads and canals brought a land boom during the 1850s, and Minnesota’s population swelled from only 6,000 in 1850 to more than 150,000 by 1857.

Chiefly a land of small farmers, Minnesota supported the Union in the Civil War and supplied large quantities of wheat to the Northern armies. Originally settled by migrants of British, German, and Irish extraction, Minnesota saw a major influx of Scandinavian immigrants during the 19th century. Minnesota’s “Twin Cities”–Minneapolis and St. Paul–grew out of Fort Snelling, the center of early U.S. settlement.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1862 – C.S.S. Virginia blown up by her crew off Craney Island to avoid capture. The fall of Norfolk to Union forces denied Virginia her base, and when it was discovered that she drew too much water to be brought up the James River, Flag Officer Tattnall ordered the celebrated ironclad’s destruction. “Thus perished the Virginia,” Tattnall wrote, “and with her many highflown hopes of naval supremacy and success.” For the Union, the end of Virginia not only removed the formidable threat to the large base at Fort Monroe, but gave Flag Officer Goldsborough’s fleet free passage up the James River as far as Drewry’s Bluff, a factor which was to save the Peninsular Campaign from probable disaster.

1864 – A dismounted Union trooper fatally wounds J.E.B. Stuart, one of the most colorful generals of the South, at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, just six miles north of Richmond. Stuart died the next day. During the 1864 spring campaign in Virginia, General Ulysses S. Grant applied constant pressure on Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. In early May, the two armies clashed in the Wilderness and again at Spotsylvania Court House as they lurched southward toward Richmond.

Meanwhile, Grant sent General Phil Sheridan and his cavalry on a raid deep behind Confederate lines. The plan was to cut Lee’s supply line and force him out of the trenches in retreat. Sheridan’s troops wreaked havoc on the Rebel rear as they tore up railroad tracks, destroyed supply depots, and held off the Confederate cavalry in several engagements, including the Battle of Yellow Tavern. Although Sheridan’s Federal troops held the field at the end of the day, his forces were stretched thin. Richmond could be taken, Sheridan wrote later, but it could not be held. He began to withdraw back to the north.

The death of Stuart was a serious blow to Lee. He was a great cavalry leader, and his leadership was part of the reason the Confederates had a superior cavalry force in Virginia during most of the war. Yet Stuart was not without his faults: He had been surprised by a Union attack at the Battle of Brandy Station in 1863, and failed to provide Lee with crucial information at Gettysburg. Stuart’s death, like Stonewall Jackson’s the year before, seriously affected Lee’s operations.

1866 – Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War.

1889 – Major Joseph Wham and group of soldiers, carrying a military payroll of $29,000, were attacked by a dozen outlaws near Fort Thomas, Arizona Territory. After wounding more then half the soldiers and driving off the rest, the outlaws simply walked away with the entire payroll. A posse of lawmen rounded up various suspects who were later charged with the sensational robbery. Most of these suspects were Mormons with political connections and the accused men were defended by the famed lawyer Marcus Aurelius Smith. Major Wham and his men were unable to identify any of the dozen defendants in court and they were all acquitted. It was widely claimed that political pressure from the acting governor allowed the thieves to go free.

In 1889, black infantrymen of the 24th and cavalrymen of the 10th serving with a detachment escorting Major Joseph W. Wham, paymaster, U.S. Army, in an encounter with a band of robbers, by whom the party was attacked between Forts Grant and Thomas, Arizona. In reporting the robbery to the Secretary of War, Major Wham described how his “party was ambushed and fired into by a number of armed brigands, since estimated by U.S. Marshal [W.K.] Meade at from twelve to fifteen, but to myself and entire escort, two non-commissioned officers and nine privates, at fifteen to twenty.”

The major stated that a large boulder weighing several tons had been rolled onto the road by the robbers to block the progress of his small convoy and that as his escort was making ready to remove it “a signal shot was fired from the ledge of rocks about fifty feet above to the right, which was instantly followed by a volley, believed by myself and the entire party to be fifteen or twenty shots.” The officer reported that a sharp, short fight of more than 30 minutes followed, during which time 10 members of his escort, “eight of whom were wounded, two being shot twice, behaved in the most courageous and heroic manner.”

Although Wham, his clerk, and the soldiers were ultimately forced to withdraw and the robbers succeeded in obtaining the payroll amounting to $28,345.10 Marshal Meade swore, after conducting an extensive investigation, that “I am satisfied a braver or better defense could not have been made under like circumstances, and to remained longer would have proven a useless sacrifice of life without a vestige of hope to succeed.”

The Committee on Military Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives, after examining the evidence, stated that “the fact that the President … has seen fit to award certificates of merit and medals of honor to the members of Major Wham’s escort . . . is the highest evidence of the fact that they displayed unusual courage and skill in defense of the Government’s property.” Moreover, the committee concluded, “all the evidence . . . shows conclusively that all was done by Major Wham and his brave little escort that men could do to project the Government’s property, and continued to fight until the heaviest casualty list ever here fore authentically reported sustained.” Two soldiers of the 10th Cavalry and five soldiers of the 24th Infantry were awarded with the Certificates of Merit.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1894 – During the Depression of 1893, the company handed out a hefty round of wage cuts; though the cuts ate up 25 percent to 40 percent of workers’ take-home pay, the company refused to lower its rents. In May of 1894, a group of workers implored company chief George Pullman to redress the situation. Pullman promptly fired three of the workers. Looking to strike back at the man they viewed as an “ulcer on the body politic,” the rail workers enlisted the aid of labor leader Eugene Debs and his then-mighty American Railway Union (ARU). With considerable organizational support from the ARU, the Pullman workers called a nationwide strike that began on this day in 1894.

Though Debs was a fierce and well-organized leader–he successfully marshaled a parallel boycott of Pullman’s rail cars–Pullman, with considerable aid from his fellow rail managers, proved to be a formidable foe. The rail managers won the support of Federal and state troops, which led to a long and violent skirmish in early July.

The “war” between the strikers and troops left thirty-four men dead. Desperately seeking reinforcements, Debs turned to the American Federation of Labor (AFL). But, Samuel Gompers and the other AFL leaders offered scant support, which ultimately spelled doom for the strikers. Pullman and the rail managers soon prevailed over the strikers, many of whom were subsequently barred from working in the rail industry.

1898 – Revenue Cutter Hudson towed the crippled USS Winslow from certain destruction under the Spanish forts at Cardenas, Cuba during the Spanish-American War. Congress later conferred a Gold Medal of Honor on her commanding officer, Revenue First Lieutenant F. H. Newcomb. His officers and crew were awarded Silver and Bronze Medals.

1898 – Sailors and Marines from USS Marblehead and USS Nashville cut trans-oceanic cable near Cienfuegos, Cuba, isolating Cuba from Spain. The operation was performed close to shore, directly under the guns of the enemy soldiers garrisoned at Cienfuegos. At 5:00 A.M. the parties launched from both warships. Ensign Magruder of the Nashville commanded a steam launch to drop the smaller sailing boats inside the harbor, then pulled his launch back to a position 150-200 yards off shore to give covering fire if needed.

Overall command of the operation was under the leadership of Lieutenant Camberon Winslow and his second in command, Lieutenant Anderson. The Marine sharpshooters and guards were under the leadership of Sergeant Philip Gaughan of the Nashville, and each of the cable cutting boats carried a blacksmith, Durney from the Nashville and Joseph Carter from the Marblehead.

It was these two men who would carry primary responsibility for finding a way to hack or cut through the communications cables. The waters of the harbor were rough as the small boats began moving towards the shoreline. Near the lighthouse, large rocks could be seen protruding dangerously close to the area where the boats would have to work.

To add to the dangerous task, the men could see mines floating in the water beneath them, mines that could be detonated by the enemy on shore from a small switch house. As the cable cutting crews moved closer to the shoreline, the big guns of the Marblehead and Nashville began pounding the enemy positions. At first the Spanish soldiers held their fire, assuming according to Austin Durney’s later reports, that the Americans were bent on landing on the beach. Then the men of the Spanish garrison noticed the sailors in the cable cutting boats dropping grappling hooks to dredge up the cables, and realized what was happening.

From the heights of the cliffs overlooking the harbor, the enemy began to fire with great ferocity. For more than an hour the small boats with their crews of brave young sailors and Marines endured the dangerous waters, the ever present mines, the crash of large rounds, and small arms fire, to continue their task. On the U.S.S. Nashville, sailors who had not been selected for the mission continued to man the ship’s big guns to cover their comrades.

Finally, one of the cables was cut through. The shore end was dropped in place and one of the boats from the Marblehead towed the other end out to sea where it was dropped after another large section of cable was removed to make it harder to repair. Finally, the second cable was cut. A remaining smaller cable on the shore would have to be ignored. The badly battered sailors and Marines, in small boats barely able to remain afloat, turned to return to their warships.

As they fought the seas, the enemy began finding their range. Large shells dropped closer and closer to the small sailing ships. For a few minutes, it looked as if all of the volunteers would be lost. In the distance Lieutenant Dillingham turned the Nashville towards the shore, steaming ahead and then turning again to place his warship between the enemy on the shore and the retreating smaller boats of the cable cutting crews and their Marine guards.

It was a bold act, exposing his ship to intense enemy fire, but for the badly battered volunteers, it meant the difference between life and death. The wounded were quickly taken aboard the warships for medical care. Many of the men had suffered wounds, several of them repeated wounds, and at least three were critical or fatal.

All 52 men, 26 from each of the Marblehead and the Nashville, were subsequently awarded Medals of Honor.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1916 – Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity was presented.

1920 – The 16th Marine Regiment organized at Philadelphia for duty in Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

1942 – The Air Medal was authorized by President Roosevelt by Executive Order 9158 and established the award for “any person who, while serving in any capacity in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard of the United States subsequent to September 8, 1939, distinguishes, or has distinguished, himself by meritorious achievement while participating in an aerial flight.” Executive Order 9242-A, dated 11 September 1942 amended the previous Executive Order to read “in any capacity in or with the Army”.

The Air Medal is awarded to any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the Armed Forces of the United States, shall have distinguished himself/herself by meritorious achievement while participating in aerial flight. Awards may be made to recognize single acts of merit or heroism, or for meritorious service. Award of the Air Medal is primarily intended to recognize those personnel who are on current crew member or non-crew member flying status which requires them to participate in aerial flight on a regular and frequent basis in the performance of their primary duties.

However, it may also be awarded to certain other individuals whose combat duties require regular and frequent flying in other than a passenger status, or individuals who perform a particularly noteworthy act while performing the function of a crew member but who are not on flying status. These individuals must make a discernible contribution to the operational land combat mission or to the mission of the aircraft in flight. Examples of personnel whose combat duties require them to fly include those in the attack elements of units involved in air-land assaults against an armed enemy and those directly involved in airborne command and control of combat operations.

Involvement in such activities, normally at the brigade/group level and below, serves only to establish eligibility for award of the Air Medal; the degree of heroism, meritorious achievement or exemplary service determines who should receive the award. Awards will not be made to individuals who use air transportation solely for the purpose of moving from point to point in a combat zone.

1943 – The US 7th Division (commanded by General Brown) lands on Japanese occupied Attu Island. Admiral Kinkaid’s Task Force 16 supports the operation. The supporting naval forces include 3 battleships, 1 escort carrier and numerous cruisers and destroyers. Once ashore, the American troops encounter difficulties advancing inland due to Japanese resistance and difficult terrain.

1943 – The Hermann Goering division in Tunisia surrendered.

1944 – The US 5th Army launches new attacks against the German-held Gustav Line. The preparatory bombardment begins just before midnight. It is followed up by infantry advances. The US 2nd Corps, the Polish 2nd Corps, the British 13th Corps and the French Expeditionary Corps are engaged. Attacking Allied forces amount to 12 divisions plus reserves. The German defenders have 6 divisions, including reserves. The commanders of the German 10th Army (Vietinghoff) and the 76th Panzer Corps (Senger) are both absent from their headquarters at the start of the offensive.

Meanwhile, Allied warships bombard German heavy artillery batteries around Gaeta. The Gustav Line represented a stubborn German defense, built by Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, that had to be broken before the Italian capital could be taken; the attack on the line was also part of a larger plan to force the Germans to commit as many troops to Italy as possible in order to make way for an Allied cross-Channel assault-what would become D-Day.

With the Eighth Army’s 1,000 guns, the Fifth Army’s 600, and more than 3,000 aircraft, the Allied forces opened fire in a barrage of artillery from Cassino to the Mediterranean Sea. It took seven days before the Gustav Line could be broken, with the Polish Corps occupying the famed Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino. The Germans withdrew, to the Hitler Line, but that too was penetrated. The Allies would be in Rome by June 4th.

1944 – The US 9th Air Force begins a series of raids on airfields around Caen.

1944 – The Japanese begin to assemble most of their remaining heavy warships at Tawitawi. Admiral Ozawa commands the forces. The build up is in anticipation of the American offensive against the Mariana Islands to the northeast.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1945 – On Okinawa, American forces conduct a coordinated attack on the Japanese held Shuri Line. The forces deployed include the US 3rd Amphibious Corps on the right of the line and the US 24th Corps on the left. Only minor gains are achieved. At sea, Kiyoshi Ogawa, Japanese pilot, crashed his plane into the US carrier Bunker Hill near Okinawa. 496 Americans died with him and the ship was knocked out of the war. Two destroyers are also damaged by kamikaze attacks.

1945 – Four days after Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally to the Allies, the Coast Guard-manned destroyer escorts USS Vance and USS Durant, underway off the Azores escorting their last convoy to the Mediterranean, sighted a light ahead of the convoy. They closed to investigate.

The Durant illuminated the target, which was the surfaced German submarine U-873, which had been at sea for 50 days. Vance, while screened by Durant, hailed the “erstwhile enemy” over her public address system, established her identity, and then ordered her to heave to. On board were seven officers and 52 enlisted men. Vance placed a 21-man prize crew on board the captured U-boat and delivered their prize at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 16 May 1945.

1945 – On Luzon, elements of US 1st Corps make contact on Kapintalan Ridge. The US 25th Division advances on Santa Fe. On Mindanao, elements of US 40th Division advance to hills overlooking Del Monte airfield. Units of Filipino guerrillas liberate Cagayan. The US 24th Division mops up the area northeast of the Talomo river, near Mintal. On Samar, a small American contingent is landed to spot Japanese artillery sites firing on Davao on Mindanao. Fighting continues in the western mountains on Negros.

1945 – Units of the Soviet 1st and 2nd Ukrainian Fronts eliminate most of the German resistance in Czechoslovakia and make contact with American forces at Pilsen.

1947 – The B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announced the development of a tubeless tire.

1951 – Communist forces conducted a massive shift eastward, completing the move and commencing a new attack on May 16th.

1957 – President Diem and President Eisenhower issue a joint communique which declares that both countries will work toward a ‘peaceful unification’ of Vietnam and reaffirms the United States’ continuing assistance to South Vietnam in its stand against Communism.

1961 – President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100 other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the CIA and U.S. Special Forces troops. Kennedy’s orders also called for South Vietnamese forces to infiltrate Laos to locate and disrupt communist bases and supply lines there.

1962 – US sent troops to Thailand.

1962 – Secretary of Defense McNamara makes the first of many trips to Vietnam and meets with Diem. After 48 hours in the country he concludes, ‘every quantitative measurement…shows that we are winning the war.’

1963 – Racists detonate bombs in Birmingham, Alabama to disrupt nonviolent protests in the Birmingham civil rights campaign and precipitate a crisis involving federal troops.

1965 – U.S. destroyers deliver first shore bombardment of Vietnam War.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1965 – General Westmoreland and Deputy Premier Nguyen Van Thieu make a parachute jump together.

1965 – The 1st marine Aircraft Wing flies in to establish its advance headquarters at Danang.

1967 – In Vietnam the siege of Khe Sanh ended, with the base still in American hands.

1967 – Civilian-operated pacification programs in South Vietnam are handed over to the US military command. The projects are aimed at re-establishing South Vietnamese government control over rural villages and hamlets.

1968 – US and North Vietnamese negotiators complete procedural arrangements for the formal talks. They agree that, for the time being, participation will be limited to representatives of the United States and North Vietnam.

1969 – U.S. and South Vietnamese forces battle North Vietnamese troops for Ap Bia Mountain (Hill 937), one mile east of the Laotian border. The battle was part of Operation Apache Snow, a 2,800-man Allied sweep of the A Shau Valley. The purpose of the operation was to cut off North Vietnamese infiltration from Laos and enemy threats to Hue and Da Nang. U.S. paratroopers pushing northeast found the communist forces entrenched on Ap Bia Mountain. In fierce fighting directed by Maj. Gen. Melvin Zais, the mountain came under heavy Allied air strikes, artillery barrages, and 10 infantry assaults.

The communist stronghold was captured on May 20th in the 11th attack, when 1,000 troops of the 101st Airborne Division and 400 South Vietnamese soldiers fought their way to the summit of the mountain. During the intense fighting, 597 North Vietnamese were reported killed and U.S. casualties were 56 killed and 420 wounded. Due to the bitter fighting and the high loss of life, the battle for Ap Bia Mountain was dubbed “Hamburger Hill” by the U.S. media.

1973 – Charges against Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers case were dismissed by Judge William M. Byrne, who cited government misconduct.

1975 – The Cambodian government seized an American merchant ship, the Mayaguez.

1987 – Former National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane began testifying at the Iran-Contra hearings.

1989 – President Bush ordered nearly 2,000 troops to invade Panama.

1991 – President Bush dispatched an amphibious task force with thousands of Marines and dozens of helicopters to help cyclone-ravaged Bangladesh with disaster relief efforts.

1995 – A United Nations conference indefinitely extended the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was originally set to expire after 25 years.

1996 – A ValuJet DC-9 with 109 [110] passengers caught fire shortly after takeoff 1999 – In Beijing, protests outside the US Embassy over NATO’s bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade eased after state-run television aired US and NATO apologies for the attack.

May 11th ~ {continued...}

1999 – NATO bombings continued in Serbia with strikes against radio and TV towers, oil storage tanks, bridges and army barracks.

1999 – US and British warplanes bombed air defense targets in northern and southern Iraq after they were targeted by radar.

2004 – The Bush administration ordered economic sanctions against Syria for supporting terrorism. Food and medicine were excepted.

2004 – A video, posted on an al-Qaida-linked Web site, showed the beheading of Nick Berg, an American civilian in Iraq. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, aka Ahmad Fadhil al Khalayeh, was later identified as the beheader. Nick Berg (26) was from West Chester, Pa.

2005 – Riots over a Newsweek story (later retracted) lead to dozens of injuries and at least three deaths in Jalalabad, Eastern Afghanistan. Afghan police use live ammunition to stop the Anti-American rioting organized in protest of the alleged desecration of a copy of the Qur’an.

2006 – The United States National Security Agency is reported to operate “the largest database ever assembled in the world”, containing a record of all calls (domestic and international) placed through AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth. Qwest Communications refused to provide customer records, citing the need for a warrant.

2010 – United States Coast Guard commander, Admiral Thad Allen, is appointed by President Obama to lead the federal response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

2011– The trial of United States citizens Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer in Tehran, Iran, on espionage charges is again delayed.

2011– A judge grants John Hinckley, Jr., the man who tried to assassinate then-President of the United States Ronald Reagan in 1981, additional visits to his family from the Washington, DC psychiatric hospital where he is confined.

2012 – The United States Armed Forces are embroiled in controversy over a defunct officer training course called Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism, which allegedly taught that Islam is America’s irreconcilable enemy.