TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY
4 April
◆1776 The first Columbus, a 24-gun armed ship, was built at Philadelphia in 1774 as Sally; purchased for the Continental Navy in November 1775, Captain Abraham Whipple in command.★
◆1788 Last of the Federalist essays was published. The series of 85 letters were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay urging ratification of the US Constitution. Defects in the Articles of Confederation became apparent, such as the lack of central authority over foreign and domestic commerce and the inability of Congress to levy taxes, leading Congress to endorse a plan to draft a new constitution.
◆1812 The territory of Orleans became the 18th state and later became known as Louisiana.
◆1818 Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red and white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.★
◆1841 Only 31 days after assuming office, William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at the White House.
◆1854 Chinese Imperial Troops under the command of General Keih were stationed near the western edge of the International Settlement of Shanghai.★
◆1859 At Mechaincs Hall in New York, Daniel Emmett introduced “I Wish I was in Dixie’s Land.”
◆1912 President Taft recommended abolishing Revenue Cutter Service. His actions led to the creation of the Coast Guard by merging the Revenue Cutter Service and the Life-Saving Service on 28 January 1915.
◆1917 U.S. Senate voted 90-6 to enter World War I on Allied side.
◆1921 The US Navy Department completes the first helium production plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
◆1933 Navy airship USS Akron crashed off the Barnegat Lightship. The search employed over 20 Coast Guard vessels under Navy supervision.
◆1941 Roosevelt agrees to allow Royal Navy warships to be repaired in the US. Among the first ships to benefit from this order are the battleships Malaya and Resolution. RN warships are also to be allowed to refuel in the US when on combat missions.
◆1944 The Bucharest marshalling yards are bombed by heavily escorted bombers of the US 15th Air Force. A total of 20 aircraft are lost.
◆1945 US 9th Army units have reached the river Weser opposite Hameln. Troops from US 3rd Army capture Kassel while other units take Gotha and advance near Erfurt. French units take Karlsruhe. The Nazi gold reserves are captured in the salt mine at Merkers.
◆1945 On Okinawa, the forces of US 10th Army begin to meet the first real Japanese resistance on the ground.Troops of US 24th Corps are brought to a halt on a line just south of Kuba while the forces of 3rd Amphibious Corps have reached the Ishikawa Isthmus. A storm damages many landing craft and hampers further reinforcement.
◆1949 The United States and 11 other nations establish the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact aimed at containing possible Soviet aggression against Western Europe.★
◆1951 Far East Air Forces aircraft racked up 1,000 sorties hitting enemy frontline positions and supply areas.
◆1951 Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE) is established with General Dwight D. Eisenhower in command.
◆1967 “CHINOOK II” ended in Vietnam (17 Feb – 4 Apr).
◆1967 The U.S. lost its 500th plane over Vietnam.
◆1971 Veterans stadium in Philadelphia, PA, was dedicated.
◆1975 The first group of boat people from Vietnam began arriving in Malaysia. More than 1 million people fled from the close of the war to the early 1980s.
◆1983 The space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage and the first US female into space was Sally Ride.
◆1997 Space shuttle Columbia blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., on what was supposed to have been a 16-day mission. However, a defective power generator forced the shuttle’s return four days later.
◆1999 NATO dropped more bombs on downtown Belgrade and said that it would send some 8,000 troops into Albania to help Kosovo refugees.★
◆2000 In Iraq US and British warplanes bombed military sites in the south.
◆2001 US diplomats met with 24 US crew members held by the Chinese military on Hainan island. Colin Powell issued a statement of regret over the loss of the Chinese pilot involved in the incident. Powell also sent a letter to China’s chief foreign policy official outlining ways of settlement.
◆2001 The US Pentagon reportedly destroyed its last canister of napalm, a jellied gasoline used extensively during the Vietnam war. It was developed in 1942 by Harvard and Army chemists who combined naphthene and palmitate. It was made by Dow Chemical from 1965-1969.★
◆2002 Afghan officials reported that poppy farmers would be offered $500 per acre to destroy their crops. Refusal would still result in crop destruction.
◆2003 In the 17th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom thousands of Iraqis fled Baghdad as US forces seized the international airport to the west and armored convoys pressed in from the south.