** TODAY IN MILITARY HISTORY **

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1864 – A Confederate plot to burn NYC failed. The leader of the “fire brigade” was a Confederate by the name of Robert Kennedy. Kennedy and the rest of his group met at the St. Dennis Hotel like planned. At that time final coordinates were made. Over the next few days his men were to each register for a weeks stay in several assigned hotels each — using assumed names and towns of course. This was to gain them access to rooms in the hotels. Arrangements had been previously made with a chemist residing in New York, but a Southern Sympathizer, to pick up a load of “Greek fire.” This was a special chemical combination that looked like water but, when exposed to air, after a delay, would ignite in flames. When Kennedy picked up the valise, he found it contained dozens of small bottles of the liquid and each bottle was sealed with plaster of Paris. Instructions were to use the bed in each room, pile it with clothing, rugs, drapes, newspapers, and anything else that would burn, Next, they were to empty two bottles of the “Greek fire” on top of the pile. In about five minutes, flames would ignite the pile. This delay gave them plenty of time to escape unnoticed before the fire started. After starting one fire, the man would then proceed to the next location and do the same. Each man would thus be capable of setting off several fires blocks from each other.

Still making final arrangements on November 2 to finish the deed, a disturbing telegram was sent by Secretary of State William Seward to the Mayor of New York. It read: This Department has received information from British Provinces to the effect that there is a conspiracy on foot to set fire to the principle cities in the Northern States on the day of – the Presidential election. It is my duty to communicate this information to you.” Later that afternoon the telegram was made public. (The same telegram was also sent to the mayors of other major Northern cities like Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland.) At this time most of the Order members decided to abandon the plan and get out of the city in an attempt to save their own lives — all that is except for Kennedy and five of the seven members of his band. After several meetings, it was decided by Kennedy and the rest of his gang to go ahead with the plan and set New York City on fire. They wouldn’t be in a position to capture New York after all but at least they could retaliate for Sherman’s March to the Sea. On the evening of November 25, 1864 the fires began.

Before the night was over almost every hotel in New York City had been set ablaze. These hotels included the St. Nicholas, St. James, Fifth Avenue, La Farge, Metropolitan, Tammany, Hudson River Park, Astor House, Howard, United States, Lovejoy’s, New England, and the Belmont. There were also fires on the Hudson River docks and a lumber yard. As a last minute thought, Kennedy decided to go into Barnum’s museum and up to the fifth floor where he could obtain a good view of Broadway and several of the fires. After watching for several minutes, Kennedy started going down the stairs. The remaining bottle of “Greek fire” dropped from his coat pocket and broke in the stairwell. Wasting no time, Kennedy ran from the museum, out the front door and on down Broadway. Meeting his band of men the next morning at the Exchange Hotel, one of the few that they hadn’t set fire to, Kennedy and his men read the morning papers. While there were some reports of the fires, the news didn’t fill the front page like they hoped it would. Both the Times and the Herald however headed the news of the fires as a “Rebel Plot.”

Kennedy and his men managed to get out of New York City on November 28. Soon a $25,000 reward was offered. This, combined with Kennedy’s boasting of his role in setting the fires, led to his capture three months later. After a short trial, Kennedy was found guilty on all counts. At this time, Kennedy signed a confession but refused to name anyone else involved in the plot. On March 25, 1865, — just three weeks prior the Lincoln’s assassination — Kennedy was hung.

1864 – Confederate Cavalry under “Fighting Joe” Wheeler retreated at Sandersville, Georgia.

1867 – Alfred Nobel patented dynamite. In 1863, Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel invented the Nobel patent detonator (later used with dynamite) which detonated nitroglycerin (invented by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero in 1846) using a strong shock rather than heat combustion. In 1865, the Nobel Company built the first factory for producing nitroglycerin and later dynamite. Nitroglycerin in its natural liquid state is very volatile. Albert Nobel recognized this, and in 1866 he discovered that mixing nitroglycerine with silica would turn the liquid into a malleable paste (dynamite), which could be cylinder shaped for insertion into the drilling holes used for mining. In 1867, Albert Nobel patented this material under the name of dynamite – U.S. patent 78,317. To be able to detonate the dynamite rods he also invented a detonator or blasting cap that was ignited by lighting a fuse.

1940 – First flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder. The Martin B-26 Marauder was a World War II twin-engined medium bomber built by the Glenn L. Martin Company. First used in the Pacific Theater in early 1942, it was also used in the Mediterranean Theater and in Western Europe. After entering service with the U.S. Army, the aircraft received the reputation of a “Widowmaker” due to the early models’ high rate of accidents during takeoff and landings. The Marauder had to be flown at exact airspeeds, particularly on final runway approach and when one engine was out. The 150 mph (241 km/h) speed on short final runway approach was intimidating to pilots who were used to much slower speeds, and whenever they slowed down below what the manual stated, the aircraft would stall and crash.

The B-26 became a safer aircraft once crews were re-trained, and after aerodynamics modifications (an increase of wingspan and wing angle-of-incidence to give better takeoff performance, and a larger vertical stabilizer and rudder). After aerodynamic and design changes, the aircraft distinguished itself as “the chief bombardment weapon on the Western Front” according to a United States Army Air Forces dispatch from 1946. The Marauder ended World War II with the lowest loss rate of any USAAF bomber. A total of 5,288 were produced between February 1941 and March 1945; 522 of these were flown by the Royal Air Force and the South African Air Force. By the time the United States Air Force was created as an independent service separate from the Army in 1947, all Martin B-26s had been retired from US service. The Douglas A-26 Invader then assumed the B-26 designation — before officially returning to the earlier “A for Attack” designation in May 1966.

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1941 – Adm. Harold R. Stark, U.S. chief of naval operations, tells Adm. Husband E. Kimmel, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, that both President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull think a Japanese surprise attack is a distinct possibility. “We are likely to be attacked next Monday, for the Japs are notorious for attacking without warning,” Roosevelt had informed his Cabinet. “We must all prepare for trouble, possibly soon,” he telegraphed British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Kimmel’s command was specifically at the mid-Pacific base at Oahu, which comprised, in part, Pearl Harbor.

At the time he received the “warning” from Stark, he was negotiating with Army Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, commander of all U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor, about sending U.S. warships out from Pearl Harbor in order to reinforce Wake and Midway Islands, which, along with the Philippines, were possible Japanese targets. But the Army had no antiaircraft artillery to spare. War worries had struck because of an intercepted Japanese diplomatic message, which gave November 25 as a deadline of sorts.

If Japanese diplomacy had failed to convince the Americans to revoke the economic sanctions against Japan, “things will automatically begin to happen,” the message related. Those “things” were becoming obvious, in the form of Japanese troop movements off Formosa (Taiwan) apparently toward Malaya. In fact, they were headed for Pearl Harbor, as was the Japanese First Air Fleet. Despite the fact that so many in positions of command anticipated a Japanese attack, especially given the failure of diplomacy (Japan refused U.S. demands to withdraw from both the Axis pact and occupied territories in China and Indochina), no one expected Hawaii as the target.

1941 – The US Navy begins to establish compulsory convoying for merchant ships in the Pacific.

1943 – In Battle of Cape St. George, 5 destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 23 (Captain Arleigh Burke) intercept 5 Japanese destroyers and sink 3 and damage one without suffering any damage.

1943 – Bombers of the US 14th Air Force, based in China, raid the Japanes held island of Formosa for the first time. An estimated 42 Japanese aircraft are destroyed on the ground at Shinchiku airfield.

1944 – Bombers of the US 8th Air Force raid the oil plant at Leuna and the Bingen railroad marshalling yards.

1946 – Supreme Court granted Oregon Indians land payment rights from the U.S. government.

1947 – Meeting in what a newspaper report called “an atmosphere of utter gloom,” representatives from the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union come together to discuss the fate of postwar Europe.

1950 – The Chinese released 57 U.S. prisoners in a propaganda move.

1950 – The Chinese Communist Forces launched their second-phase offensive.

1951 – A truce line between U.N. troops and North Korea was mapped out at the peace talks in Panmunjom, Korea.

1952 – After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ends as American and South Korean units abandon their attempt to capture the “Iron Triangle”. The Battle of Triangle Hill, also known as Operation Showdown or the Shangganling Campaign was a protracted military engagement during the Korean War. The main combatants were two United Nations infantry divisions, with additional support from the United States Air Force, against elements of the 15th and 12th Corps of the People’s Republic of China.

1956 – Fidel Castro and his 81 rebel exiles departed Mexico to liberate Cuba from the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista. Che Guevara had recently joined Fidel and his band of Cuban rebel exiles as their doctor.

1957 – President Eisenhower suffered a slight stroke.

1961 – Commissioning of USS Enterprise (CVA(N)-65), the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, at Newport News, VA.

November 25th ~ { continued... }

1963 – Three days after his assassination in Dallas, Texas, John F. Kennedy is laid to rest with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, was shot to death while riding in an open-car motorcade with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally through the streets of downtown Dallas. Ex-Marine and communist sympathizer Lee Harvey Oswald was the alleged assassin. Kennedy was rushed to Dallas’ Parkland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later. He was 46.

Vice President Lyndon Johnson, who was three cars behind President Kennedy in the motorcade, was sworn in as the 36th president of the United States less than two hours later. He took the presidential oath of office aboard Air Force One as it sat on the runway at Dallas Love Field airport. The swearing in was witnessed by some 30 people, including Jacqueline Kennedy, who was still wearing clothes stained with her husband’s blood. Seven minutes later, the presidential jet took off for Washington.

The next day, November 23, President Johnson issued his first proclamation, declaring November 25 to be a day of national mourning for the slain president. On that day, hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets of Washington to watch a horse-drawn caisson bear Kennedy’s body from the Capitol Rotunda to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral for a requiem Mass. The solemn procession then continued on to Arlington National Cemetery, where leaders of 99 nations gathered for the state funeral. Kennedy was buried with full military honors on a slope below Arlington House, where an eternal flame was lit by his widow to forever mark the grave.

1973 – In response to the 1973 oil crisis, President Richard M. Nixon called for a Sunday ban on the sale of gasoline to consumers. The proposal was part of a larger plan announced by Nixon earlier in the month to achieve energy self-sufficiency in the United States by 1980. The 1973 oil crisis began in mid-October, when 11 Arab oil producers increased oil prices and cut back production in response to the support of the United States and other nations for Israel in the Yom Kippur War.

Almost overnight, gasoline prices quadrupled, and the U.S. economy, especially its automakers, suffered greatly as a result. The Sunday gasoline ban lasted until the crisis was resolved in March of the next year, but other government legislation, such as the imposing of a national speed limit of 55mph, was extended indefinitely. Experts maintained that the reduction of speed on America’s highways would prevent an estimated 9,000 traffic fatalities per year. Although many motorists resented the new legislation, one long-lasting benefit for impatient travelers was the ability to make right turns at a red light, a change that the authorities estimated would conserve a significant amount of gasoline. In 1995, the national 55mph speed limit was repealed, and legislation relating to highway speeds now rests in state hands.

1997 – In Russia Richard Bliss (29), an employee of Qualcomm Comm., was arrested for spying while performing land surveys using satellite receivers in Rostov-on-Don. Qualcomm was under contract to install a cellular phone system. Bliss was later released for a Christmas holiday with some assurance that he would return for trial.

2001 – US marines landed near Kandahar marking the 1st major use of US ground troops in Afghanistan.

2001 – Taliban fighters in the vicinity of Tora Bora surrendered to Northern Alliance forces. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived to evacuate intelligence and military personnel who had been aiding the Taliban’s fight against the Northern Alliance. The airlift is alleged to have evacuated up to five thousand people, including Taliban and al-Qaeda troops.

2002 – President Bush signed into law the Department of Homeland Security and named Tom Ridge as head of the Cabinet-level office.

2002 – Space shuttle Endeavour arrived at the international space station, delivering one American and two Russians, and another girder for the orbiting outpost.

2003 – In Yemen security forces arrested Saudi-born Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal (32), the alleged mastermind of the attacks on the USS Cole, at a hide-out west of the capital, San’a.

November 26th ~

1774 – A congress of colonial leaders criticized British influence in the colonies and affirmed their right to “Life, liberty and property.”

1778 – Captain Cook discovered Maui in the Sandwich Islands, later named Hawaii.

1783 – The city of Annapolis, Maryland, was the first peacetime U.S. capital. The U.S. Congress met at Annapolis November 26, 1783-June 3, 1784, following the signing of the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783, formally ending hostilities between Great Britain and her former colony. New York was the capital from 1785 until 1790, followed by Philadelphia until 1800 and then Washington, D.C.

1789 – George Washington proclaimed this a National Thanksgiving Day in honor of the new Constitution. He made it clear that the day should be one of prayer and giving thanks to God, to be celebrated by all the religious denominations. This date was later used to set the date for Thanksgiving.

1847 – Navy LT William Lynch in Supply sails from New York to Haifa for an expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea. His group charted the Jordan River from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea and compiled reports of the flora and fauna of the area.

1861 – West Virginia was created as a result of dispute over slavery with Virginia.

1863 – The first of our modern annual Thanksgivings was held following the Oct 3 proclamation of Pres. Lincoln to assign the last Thursday in Nov for this purpose.

1863 – Union General George Meade moves against General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia after months of inaction following the Battle of Gettysburg. Meade’s troops found no weaknesses in Lee’s lines, and the offensive was abandoned after only five days. Meade was under pressure from the Lincoln administration to act before the end of 1863. For months after Gettysburg, the two battered armies nursed their wounds and gazed warily at one another across the Rappahannock River. In October 1863, Lee attempted to move his army between the Union force and Washington, D.C., but his offensive failed at Bristoe Station. Now, Meade hoped to attack part of Lee’s army.

On November 26, Meade sent three corps against Lee’s right flank around a small valley called Mine Run. Unfortunately for the Union, William French’s Third Corps took the wrong road and did not cross the Rapidan River (just south of the Rappahannock) on time. Lee moved part of his army east to meet the threat. While French’s corps wandered in the Virginia wilderness, Confederate General Edward Johnson moved to block their advance. French’s men fought Johnson’s at Payne’s Farm; French suffered 950 men killed and wounded to Johnson’s 545. The blunder cost the Union heavily. Lee’s men took up strong positions along Mine Run, and Meade realized that to attack head on would be foolish. By December 1, Meade began pulling his men back across the Rappahannock River and into winter quarters. There would be no further activity between the two great armies until spring.

1864 – Colonel Kit Carson led the attack in the First Battle of Adobe Walls. Col. Christopher (Kit) Carson, commanding the First Cavalry, New Mexico Volunteers, was ordered to lead an expedition against the winter campgrounds of the Comanches and Kiowas, believed to be somewhere on the south side of the Canadian. On November 10 he arrived at Fort Bascom with fourteen officers, 321 enlisted men, and seventy-five Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts and fighters he had recruited from Lucien Maxwell’s ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. Two days later the column, supplied with two mountain howitzers under the command of Lt. George H. Pettis, twenty-seven wagons, an ambulance, and forty-five days’ rations, marched down the Canadian into the Panhandle of Texas. Carson’s destination was Adobe Walls, where he had been employed by Bent nearly twenty years earlier.

After a delay caused by snowstorms the column set up camp for the night of November 25 at Mule Springs, in what is now Moore County, thirty miles west of Adobe Walls. Two of Carson’s scouts reported the presence of a large group of Indians, who had recently moved into and around Adobe Walls with many horses and cattle. Carson immediately ordered all cavalry units and the two howitzers to move forward, leaving the infantry under Lt. Col. Francisco P. Abreau to follow later with the supply train. After covering fifteen miles Carson halted to await the dawn. No loud talking or fires were permitted, and a late-night frost added to the men’s discomfort. At about 8:30 A.M. Carson’s cavalry attacked Dohäsan’s Kiowa village of 150 lodges, routing the old chief and most of the other inhabitants, who spread the alarm to several Comanche groups. Pushing on to Adobe Walls, Carson forted up about 10 A.M., using one corner of the ruins for a hospital. One of the several Indian encampments in the vicinity, a Comanche village of 500 lodges, was within a mile of Adobe Walls. The Indians numbered between 3,000 and 7,000, far greater opposition than Carson had anticipated. Sporadic attacks and counterattacks continued during the day, but the Indians were disconcerted by the howitzers, which had been strategically positioned atop a small rise. Dohäsan led many charges, ably assisted by Stumbling Bear and Satanta; indeed, Satanta was said to have sounded bugle calls back to Carson’s bugler.

With supplies and ammunition running low by late afternoon, Carson ordered his troops to withdraw to protect his rear and keep the way open to his supply train. Seeing this, the Indians tried to block his retreat by torching the tall bottomland grass near the river, but Carson set his own fires and withdrew to higher ground, where the battery continued to hold off the attacking warriors. At dusk Carson ordered a force to burn the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache lodges, which the soldiers had attacked that morning. The Kiowa-Apache chief, Iron Shirt, was killed when he refused to leave his tepee. Concerned with protecting the supply wagons and Abreau’s infantry column moving up from Mule Springs, Carson decided to retreat.

The reunited forces encamped for the night, and on the morning of November 27 Carson ordered a general withdrawal from the area. In all, Carson’s troops and Indian scouts lost three killed and twenty-five wounded, three of whom later died. Indian casualties were estimated at 100 to 150. In addition 176 lodges, along with numerous buffalo robes and winter provisions, as well as Dohäsan’s army ambulance wagon, had been destroyed. One Comanche scalp was reported taken by a young Mexican volunteer in Carson’s expedition, which disbanded after returning to Fort Bascom without further incident.

General Carleton lauded Carson’s retreat in the face of overwhelming odds as an outstanding military accomplishment; though the former mountain man was unable to strike a killing blow, he is generally credited with a decisive victory. Carson afterward contended that if Adobe Walls was to be reoccupied, at least 1,000 fully equipped troops would be required. The first eyewitness account of the battle other than Carson’s military correspondence was published in 1877 by George Pettis, who had served as the expedition’s artillery officer.

November 26th ~ { continued... }

1917 – Bolsheviks offered armistice between Russian and the Central Powers.

1933 – Fifteen thousand people in San Jose, California, storm the jail where Thomas Thurmond and John Holmes are being held as suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart, the 22-year-old son of a local storeowner. The mob of angry citizens proceeded to lynch the accused men and then pose them for pictures. On November 9, Brooke Hart was abducted by men in a Studebaker. His family received a $40,000 ransom demand and, soon after, Hart’s wallet was found on a tanker ship in a nearby bay. The investigative trail led to Holmes and Thurmond, who implicated each other in separate confessions. Both acknowledged, though, that Hart had been pistol-whipped and then thrown off the San Mateo Bridge.

After Hart’s body washed ashore on November 25, a vigilante mob began to form. Newspapers reported the possibility of a lynching and local radio stations broadcast the plan. Not only did Governor James Rolph reject the National Guard’s offer to send assistance, he reportedly said he would pardon those involved in the lynching. On November 26, the angry mob converged at the jail and beat the guards, using a battering ram to break into the cells. Thurmond and Holmes were dragged out and hanged from large trees in a nearby park. The public seemed to welcome the gruesome act of vigilante violence. After the incident, pieces of the lynching ropes were sold to the public.

Though the San Jose News declined to publish pictures of the lynching, it condoned the act in an editorial. Eighteen-year-old Anthony Cataldi bragged that he had been the leader of the mob but he was not held accountable for his participation. At Stanford University, a professor asked his students to stand and applaud the lynching. Perhaps most disturbing, Governor Rolph publicly praised the mob. “The best lesson ever given the country,” said Governor Rolph. “I would like to parole all kidnappers in San Quentin to the fine, patriotic citizens of San Jose.”

1940 – Sixth and last group of ships involved in Destroyers-for-Bases Agreement transferred to British at Nova Scotia.

1941 – President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull decide to present a 10 point note to the Japanese Government requiring their withdrawal from Indochina and China, and their recognition of the Chinese Nationalist Government. The tone of the note is uncompromising on these points, but promises to negotiate new trade and raw material agreements.

1941 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a bill officially establishing the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving Day.

1941 – Admiral Chuichi Nagumo leads the Japanese First Air Fleet, an aircraft carrier strike force, toward Pearl Harbor, with the understanding that should “negotiations with the United States reach a successful conclusion, the task force will immediately put about and return to the homeland.” Negotiations had been ongoing for months. Japan wanted an end to U.S. economic sanctions. The Americans wanted Japan out of China and Southeast Asia-and to repudiate the Tripartite “Axis” Pact with Germany and Italy as conditions to be met before those sanctions could be lifted. Neither side was budging. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull were anticipating a Japanese strike as retaliation-they just didn’t know where. The Philippines, Wake Island, Midway-all were possibilities. American intelligence reports had sighted the Japanese fleet movement out from Formosa (Taiwan), apparently headed for Indochina.

As a result of this “bad faith” action, President Roosevelt ordered that a conciliatory gesture of resuming monthly oil supplies for Japanese civilian needs canceled. Hull also rejected Tokyo’s “Plan B,” a temporary relaxation of the crisis, and of sanctions, but without any concessions on Japan’s part. Prime Minister Tojo considered this an ultimatum, and more or less gave up on diplomatic channels as the means of resolving the impasse. Nagumo had no experience with naval aviation, having never commanded a fleet of aircraft carriers in his life. This role was a reward for a lifetime of faithful service.

Nagumo, while a man of action, did not like taking unnecessary risks-which he considered an attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor to be. But Chief of Staff Rear Adm. Isoruku Yamamoto thought differently; while also opposing war with the United States, he believed the only hope for a Japanese victory was a swift surprise attack, via carrier warfare, against the U.S. fleet. And as far as the Roosevelt War Department was concerned, if war was inevitable, it desired “that Japan commit the first overt act.”

1942 – President Roosevelt ordered nationwide gasoline rationing, beginning December 1st.

1942 – The German held airfield at Djedeida, Tunisia is raided by a US tank battalion.

1942 – Despite the lose of a destroyer to air attack, the Japanese provide reinforcement of their troops at Buna, New Guinea.

1943 – During World War II, the HMT Rohna, a British transport ship carrying American soldiers, was hit by a German missile off Algeria; 1,138 men were killed, including 1,015 American troops.

1943 – Edward H “Butch” O’Hare, US pilot,(Chicago Airport named for him), died in battle.

1944 – Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of Auschwitz and Birkenau crematoriums.

1944 – The US 8th Air Force attacks Hanover (nominally the Misburg oil plant), Hamm (nominally the marshalling yards) and Bielefeld (nominally the railway viaduct). The Americans claim to have destroyed 138 German fighters for the loss of 36 bombers and 7 fighters.

November 26th ~ { continued... }

1968 – While returning to base from another mission, Air Force 1st Lt. James P. Fleming and four other Bell UH-1F helicopter pilots get an urgent message from an Army Special Forces team pinned down by enemy fire. Although several of the other helicopters had to leave the area because of low fuel, Lieutenant Fleming and another pilot pressed on with the rescue effort. The first attempt failed because of intense ground fire, but refusing to abandon the Army green berets, Fleming managed to land and pick up the team. When he safely arrived at his base near Duc Co, it was discovered that his aircraft was nearly out of fuel. Lieutenant Fleming was later awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions.

1969 – Lottery for Selective Service draftees bill was signed by President Nixon.

1973 – President Nixon’s personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, told a federal court that she’d accidentally caused part of the 18 1/2-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

1975 – A federal jury in Sacramento, Calif., found Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson, guilty of trying to assassinate President Ford.

1985 – Movie-star-turned-conservative-hero President Ronald Reagan added the title of record-setting author to his resume, as Random House handed the president an unprecedented $3 million for the rights to publish his autobiography.

1986 – President Reagan appointed a commission headed by former Sen. John Tower to investigate his National Security Council staff in the wake of the Iran-Contra affair.

1987 – Cuban detainees concerned about the possibility of being sent back to Cuba continued to hold hostages at a prison in Atlanta and a detention center in Oakdale, La.

1990 – The Delta II rocket makes its maiden flight. Delta II is an American space launch system, originally designed and built by McDonnell Douglas. Delta II is part of the Delta rocket family and entered service in 1989. Delta II vehicles included the Delta 6000, and two Delta 7000 variants (“Light” and “Heavy”).

1991 – The Stars and Stripes were lowered for the last time at Clark Air Base in Angeles City, Philippines, as the United States abandoned one of its oldest and largest overseas installations, which was damaged by a volcano.

1993 – A U.S. diplomat was kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen. Government officials negotiate for his release in the first known kidnapping of a diplomat in faction-ridden Yemen.

1997 – In a small but symbolic step, the United States and North Korea held high-level discussions at the State Department for the first time.

1997 – In Iraq Sadam Hussein invited foreign diplomats but not weapons inspectors to examine his presidential palaces. Under heavy international pressure Saddam Hussein said he would allow visits to presidential palaces where U.N. weapons experts suspected he might be hiding chemical and biological weapons.

2001 – After nine days of heavy fighting and American aerial bombardment, Taliban fighters surrendered to Northern Alliance forces. Shortly before the surrender, Pakistani aircraft arrived ostensibly to evacuate a few hundred intelligence and military personnel who had been in Afghanistan previous to the U.S. invasion for the purpose of aiding the Taliban’s ongoing fight against the Northern Alliance.

2002 – President George W. Bush signed into law a bill that created the Department of Homeland Security, the largest reorganization of the federal government in fifty years. The Coast Guard was one of a number of agencies that transferred to the new Department; the transfer is scheduled to go into effect on 1 March 2003.

2003 – The UN nuclear watchdog agency, IAEA, condemned Iran over an 18-year cover-up of its nuclear energy program and said future violations of non-proliferation obligations would not be tolerated.

2005 – In Baghdad, Iraq, assailants kidnapped four humanitarian aid workers (one US national, one UK national, and two Canadian nationals). On 7 March 2006, a video of the hostages was shown by al-Jazeera TV, dated 28 February 2006, showing only the UK and Canadian hostages.

2005 – At about 11:00 AM, in Baghdad, Iraq, assailants detonated a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) as a US military patrol passed, killing four civilians, wounding four others and one US contractor, and damaging two civilian vehicles and several nearby homes, but leaving the patrol unharmed. No group claimed responsibility.

2011 – NASA launches the robotic Mars Science Laboratory, the largest rover yet sent to Mars, with the aim of finding evidence for past or present life on Mars.

November 27th ~

1826 – Jedediah Smith’s expedition reached San Diego, becoming the first Americans to cross the south-western part of the continent. He crossed the Mohave Desert and the San Bernadino Mountains from Utah. In 1826 at the Cache Valley summer rendezvous, in what is now northern Utah, but at that time a part of Mexico, General William H. Ashley sold out his interests in the fur trade to Jedediah Smith, David Jackson, and William Sublette. Following the purchase, Smith and seventeen fellow trappers began the famous South West Expedition, which proved to be instumental in combating the pretensions of Mexico, Great Britain, France, and even Russia, to a vast domain, which would become (in large part) the western United States. Those eighteen men became the first Anglo-Americans to traverse the harsh Mojave Desert, before reaching California in November 1826. They had also been the first of their race to cross the high Sierra Nevada range of the Rockies and the Great Basin, the latter encompassing most of Nevada, along with parts of Utah, California, Oregon, and Idaho. In the process the expedition disproved the existence of a river, which it had been thought could be found, with an unobstructed flow from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean near San Francisco.

1863 – Battle of Payne’s Farm, Va. Payne’s Farm and New Hope Church were the first and heaviest clashes of the Mine Run Campaign. In late November 1863, Meade attempted to steal a march through the Wilderness and strike the right flank of the Confederate army south of the Rapidan River. Maj. Gen. Jubal A. Early in command of Ewell’s Corps marched east on the Orange Turnpike to meet the advance of William French’s III Corps near Payne’s Farm. Carr’s division (US) attacked twice. Johnson’s division (CS) counterattacked but was scattered by heavy fire and broken terrain. After dark, Lee withdrew to prepared field fortifications along Mine Run. The next day the Union army closed on the Confederate position. Skirmishing was heavy, but a major attack did not materialize. Meade concluded that the Confederate line was too strong to attack and retired during the night of December 1-2, ending the winter campaign.

1863 – Confederate cavalry raider John Hunt Morgan and several of his men break out of the Ohio state prison and escape safely to the South. Morgan was raised in Kentucky and served in the Mexican War under General Zachary Taylor. He was a successful hemp manufacturer before the war, but he moved to Alabama when Kentucky did not secede with the rest of the South. Morgan became a hero in the South when he made four daring raids on northern-held territory in 1862 and 1863. Though these raids were of limited strategic value, they boosted Southern morale and kept thousands of Federal troops occupied trying to hunt down Morgan. On his last raid, however, his reach exceeded his grasp. He took a large band and headed into Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio. After riding past Cincinnati, Morgan and his men tried to cross the Ohio River back into Kentucky, but they were surprised and routed by a larger Federal force at Buffington Island, Ohio.

With his escape blocked, Morgan turned into northeastern Ohio but was finally surrounded by pursuing Yankee cavalry at Salineville on July 26, 1863. Morgan and several of his top officers were incarcerated in the newly constructed Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus while the rest of his men were sent to various Northern prisoner of war camps. Morgan and his men burrowed out of the prison by cutting a hole in the cell of one of the inmates. Below the cell was a crawl space for ventilation and they tunneled to the outside and journeyed safely to Confederate territory. Morgan returned to his cavalry activities in Tennessee after his escape. At Greeneville, Tennessee, in 1864, Morgan fell victim to the same kind of raid that he so often conducted and Yankee cavalry killed him.

1864 – An explosion and fire destroyed General Butler’s headquarters steamer Greyhound, on the James River, Virginia, and narrowly missed killing Butler, Major General Schenck, and Rear Admiral Porter, on board for a conference on the forthcoming Fort Fisher expedition. Because of the nature of the explosion, it is likely that one of the deadly Confederate coal torpedoes had been planted in Greyhound’s boiler. “The furnace door blew open,” recalled Butler, “and scattered coals throughout the room.” The so-called “coal torpedo” was a finely turned piece of cast iron containing ten pounds of powder and made to resemble closely a lump of coal, and was capable of being used with devastating effect.

1864 – Ram U.S.S. Vindicator, Acting Lieutenant Gorringe, and small stern-wheeler U.S.S. Prairie Bird, Acting Master Burns, transported and covered a successful Union cavalry attack on Confederate communications in western Mississippi. Thirty miles of track and the important railroad bridge over the Big Black River, east of Vicksburg, were destroyed. Major General Dana praised the part of the gunboats in the expedition: ”The assistance of the vessels of the Sixth Division Mississippi Squadron rendered the expedition a complete success.

1868 – Without bothering to identify the village or do any reconnaissance, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads an early morning attack on a band of peaceful Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle. Convicted of desertion and mistreatment of soldiers earlier that year in a military court, the government had suspended Custer from rank and command for one year. Ten months into his punishment, in September 1868, General Philip Sheridan reinstated Custer to lead a campaign against Cheyenne Indians who had been making raids in Kansas and Oklahoma that summer. Sheridan was frustrated by the inability of his other officers to find and engage the enemy, and despite his poor record and unpopularity with the men of the 7th Cavalry, Custer was a good fighter. Sheridan determined that a campaign in winter might prove more effective, since the Indians could be caught off guard while in their permanent camps.

On November 26, Custer located a large village of Cheyenne encamped near the Washita River, just outside of present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma. Custer did not attempt to identify which group of Cheyenne was in the village, or to make even a cursory reconnaissance of the situation. Had he done so, Custer would have discovered that they were peaceful people and the village was on reservation soil, where the commander of Fort Cobb had guaranteed them safety. There was even a white flag flying from one of the main dwellings, indicating that the tribe was actively avoiding conflict. Having surrounded the village the night before, at dawn Custer called for the regimental band to play “Garry Owen,” which signaled for four columns of soldiers to charge into the sleeping village. Outnumbered and caught unaware, scores of Cheyenne were killed in the first 15 minutes of the “battle,” though a small number of the warriors managed to escape to the trees and return fire. Within a few hours, the village was destroyed–the soldiers had killed 103 Cheyenne, including the peaceful Black Kettle and many women and children.

Hailed as the first substantial American victory in the Indian wars, the Battle of the Washita helped to restore Custer’s reputation and succeeded in persuading many Cheyenne to move to the reservation. However, Custer’s habit of boldly charging Indian encampments of unknown strength would eventually lead him to his death at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

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1901 – The Army War College was established in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Army War College was established by General Order 155. Our founding father was Secretary of War Elihu Root, one of the great visionaries of the era. As he laid the cornerstone for the War College building at Washington Barracks (now Fort McNair) on 21 February 1903, Secretary Root made the following statement about why the College was founded: “Not to promote war, but to preserve peace by intelligent and adequate preparation to repel aggression….” It endures today as the U.S. Army War College motto. At the same time, he charged the College: “To study and confer on the great problems of national defense, or military science, and of responsible command.”

1942 – During World War II, the French navy at Toulon scuttled its ships and submarines to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis.

1942 – Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is born in Seattle. Hendrix grew up playing guitar, imitating blues greats like Muddy Waters as well as early rockers. He joined the army in 1959 and became a paratrooper but was honorably discharged in 1961 after an injury that exempted him from duty in Vietnam. Hendrix died in London in September 1970, following a drug overdose. He was 28 years old.

1944 – The second B-29 Superfortress bombing raid on Tokyo nominally targets the Musashi aircraft engine plant.

1950 – East of the Chosin River, Chinese forces annihilated an American task force. Col. Barber and 220 soldiers in Fox Company withstood a 5-day assault to protect an escape pass.

1951 – 1st rocket to intercept an airplane was fired at White Sands, NM.

1951 – Cease-fire and demarcation zone accord was signed in Panmunjom, Korea.

1954 – After 44 months in prison, former government official Alger Hiss is released and proclaims once again that he is innocent of the charges that led to his incarceration. One of the most famous figures of the Cold War period, Hiss was convicted in 1950 of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury. Specifically, Hiss was judged to have lied about his complicity in passing secret government documents to Whittaker Chambers, who thereupon passed the papers along to agents of the Soviet Union.

1961 – Navy reports first use of its cyclotron at Harvard University to treat a human brain tumor. After three treatments, the tumor of the 2-year old patient shrank by eighty percent.

1965 – The Pentagon informs President Johnson that if General Westmoreland is to conduct the major sweep operations necessary to destroy enemy forces during the coming year, U.S. troop strength should be increased from 120,000 to 400,000 men.

1965 – The Viet Cong release two U.S. special forces soldiers captured two years earlier during a battle of Hiep Hoa, 40 miles southwest of Saigon. At a news conference in Phnom Penh three days later, the two Americans, Sgt. George Smith and Specialist 5th Class Claude McClure, declared that they opposed U.S. actions in Vietnam and would campaign for the withdrawal of American troops. Although Smith later denied making the statement, U.S. authorities announced that the two men would face trial for cooperating with the enemy.

1973 – The Senate voted 92-3 to confirm Gerald R. Ford as vice president, succeeding Spiro T. Agnew, who had resigned due to corruption charges.

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1996 – Evan C. Hunziker, an American jailed by North Korea on spy charges, was set free, ending a three-month ordeal.

1996 – In Bosnia Gen’l. Ratko Mladic agreed to resign. He passed authority to his deputy Gen’l. Manojlo Milovanovich. Mladic is still at large and wanted for war crimes.

1997 – A day after saying it would open its presidential palaces to international observers, Iraq declared that U.N. weapons monitors were not included in the invitation.

2002 – President Bush selected Henry Kissinger to lead an investigation into intelligence lapses before the Sept. 11 attacks. Report deadline was mid-2004. The following month Kissinger stepped down, citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his business clients.

2002 – International arms monitors searched a military missile-testing range and a state factory outside Baghdad, starting a new round of inspections that could determine the future of peace in the Middle East.

2003 – President Bush flew to Iraq under extraordinary secrecy and security to spend Thanksgiving with US troops.

2009 – Space Shuttle Atlantis returns to Earth following the completion of its STS-129 mission. STS-129 (ISS assembly flight ULF3) was a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Atlantis was launched on November 16, 2009 at 14:28 EST, and landed at 09:44 EST on November 27, 2009 on runway 33 at the Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility. STS-129 focused on staging spare components outside the station.

The 11-day flight included three spacewalks. The payload bay carried two large ExPRESS Logistics Carriers holding two spare gyroscopes, two nitrogen tank assemblies, two pump modules, an ammonia tank assembly, a spare latching end effector for the station’s robotic arm, a spare trailing umbilical system for the Mobile Transporter, and a high-pressure gas tank. STS-129 was the first flight of an ExPRESS Logistics Carrier. The completion of this mission left six space shuttle flights remaining until the end of the Space Shuttle program, after STS-135 was approved in February 2011.

November 28th ~

1729 – Natchez Indians massacred most of the 300 French settlers and soldiers at Fort Rosalie, Louisiana.

1745 – French troops attacked Indians at Saratoga, NY. The Saratoga of 1745 was on the site of the present Schuylerville, NY, on the west bank of the Hudson River about eleven miles east of the present Saratoga Springs NY, and only about thirty miles north of Albany. The raiders were four hundred French troops and two hundred and twenty Indians of the Abnaki and Caughnawaga tribes. The Caughnawagas were a breakaway group from the Mohawk tribe. The Mohawks – eastern most among the six nations of the Iroquois League – were constrained by their proximity if nothing else to prefer the English, but at the time the official Iroquois position was one of neutrality. The Caughnawagas were a group of Mohawks who preferrred the French and had moved north and adopted the Caughnawaga name, but the Mohawks still considered them as wayward brothers. Thus it was unthinkable that the Mohawks would stop these raiders as they came through Mohawk territory on this raid.

There was no serious opposition to the attack on Saratoga, which came at dawn. The town was burned so completely that the only structure left standing was a sawmill somewhat apart from the main part of town. The raiders killed or captured one hundred and one individuals, incluging the salves of the residents. The terrified citizens had helped the raiders by burning their own fort and fleeing down the Hudson. The Iroquois, no fools, had given a promise of alliance to the English, when the massive English Army they had been told was coming to crush the French appeared – of course there was never a plan to send any such English Army to NY. The debacle of Saratoga was further proof to the Iroquois that the English were not committed to fighting the French but were instead trying to get the Iroquois to do it for them.

1775 – The 2nd Continental Congress adopts first rules for regulation of the “Navy of the United Colonies.”

1785 – The first Treaty of Hopewell is signed. The Treaty of Hopewell is the title of any of three different treaties signed at Hopewell Plantation. The plantation was owned by Andrew Pickens, and was located on the Seneca River in northwestern South Carolina. The first treaty was signed between the Confederation Congress of the United States of America and the Cherokee people. The historic site of the ‘Treaty Oak’, where the signings took place, is on Old Cherry Road in Pickens County, South Carolina.

1795 – US paid $800,000 and a frigate as tribute to Algiers and Tunis.

1861 – The Confederate Congress admitted Missouri to the Confederacy, although Missouri had not yet seceded from the Union.

1862 – Union troops under General John Blunt drive Confederates under General John Marmaduke back into the Boston Mountains in northwestern Arkansas. The Battle of Cane Hill was part of a Confederate attempt to drive the Yankees back into Missouri and recapture ground lost during the Pea Ridge campaign of early 1862, when Union forces secured parts of northern Arkansas. Marmaduke was not prepared to meet Blunt, who was 35 miles further south than expected.

Marmaduke’s troops were surprised and outnumbered when Blunt suddenly attacked on November 28. Marmaduke began a hasty retreat and ordered General Joseph Shelby to fight a delaying action while the rest of the Confederates headed for the mountains. Blunt pursued Marmaduke’s forces for 12 miles before the Confederates reached the safety of the hills. Though the conflict lasted for nine hours, casualties were light. The Yankees suffered 41 men killed or wounded, while the Confederates lost 45. This small engagement was a prelude to a much larger clash at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, nine days later. Blunt’s advance left him dangerously isolated from Union forces in Springfield, Missouri, but when Hindman attacked again on December 7, he still failed to expel Blunt from northwestern Arkansas.

1871 – Ku Klux Klan trials began in Federal District Court in SC.

1872 – The Modoc War of 1872-73 began in Siskiyou County, northern California when fighting broke out between Modoc Chief Captain Jack and a cavalry detail led by Captain James Jackson. Brutally harsh conduct characterized white-Indian struggles in the Northwest, such as the 1,000-mile saga of the 1877 Nez Percé War and the Modoc War.

In 1870 Chief Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack, directed some of his band to California. When the group subsequently refused to return to the reservation, attempts were made to force the Modocs’ return, which precipitated the war of 1872-1873. U.S. soldiers pursued the Indians to Tule Lake. There, lava beds and caves furnished nearly perfect fortifications for the quarry. The small band of about 150 poorly armed Indians held out for six months. Repeatedly repulsed, the soldiers enlarged their ranks to 1,000 by March 1873. In the course of peace talks, negotiators General E. R. S. Canby and Eleazer Thomas were killed. The soldiers grimly stepped up their struggle to overpower the Modoc. In 1873 Captain Jack and his whittled-down band of approximately 30 surrendered; he and three others were hanged. A number of the rebellious group were returned to Klamath Reservation, and the rest were sent to Quapaw Reservation in Oklahoma. The Klamath Reservation was disbanded in 1963, and the Native Americans on the Quapaw Reservation merged with other tribes.

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1914 – Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.

1929 – Commander Richard E. Byrd completed the first South Pole flight.

1941 – The aircraft carrier USS Enterprise departed Pearl Harbor to deliver F4F Wildcat fighters to Wake Island. This mission saved the carrier from destruction when the Japanese attacked.

1942 – Coffee rationing went into effect in the U.S., lasting through World War II.

1942 – The first production Ford bomber, the B-24 Liberator, rolled off the assembly line at Ford’s massive Willow Run plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Two years before, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt had urged an isolationist America to prepare for its inevitable involvement in the war, declaring that U.S. industry must become “the great arsenal of democracy.” Roosevelt established the Office of Production Management (OPM) to organize the war effort, and named a former automotive executive co-director of the OPM. Most Detroit automobile executives opposed the OAW during its first year, and were dubious of the advantages of devoting their entire production to war material.

However, on December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and American citizens mobilized behind the U.S. declaration of war against the Axis powers. Since profit ruled Detroit, the government made Ford and America’s other automakers an economic offer they could not refuse. For their participation in the war effort, automakers would be guaranteed profits regardless of production costs, and $11 billion would be allocated to the building of war plants–factories that would be sold to private industry at a substantial discount after the war.

In February of 1942, the last Ford automobile rolled off the assembly line for the duration of the war, and soon afterward the Willow Run plant was completed in Michigan. Built specifically for Ford’s war production, Willow Run was the largest factory in the world. Using the type of assembly line production that had made Ford an industrial giant, Ford hoped to produce 500 B-24 Liberator bombers a month. After a gradual start, that figure was reached in time for the Allied invasion of Western Europe, and by July of 1944, the Willow Plant was producing one B-24 every hour. By the end of the war, the 43,000 men and women who had worked at Ford’s Willow Run plant had produced over 8,500 bombers, which unquestionably had a significant impact on the course of the war.

1943 – The Teheran Conference begins. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin and their staffs meet for the first time. The Americans appear to be attempting to distance themselves from the British during the discussions.

1944 – The first Allied convoy reaches Antwerp which is now operational after extensive repairs and mine clearing. Distribution of supplies to the Allied armies in the field remains a difficulty.

1954 – Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, the first man to create and control a nuclear chain reaction, and one of the Manhattan Project scientists, dies in Chicago at the age of 53. After studying in Germany under physicist Max Born, famous for his work on quantum mechanics, which would prove vital to Fermi’s later work, he returned to Italy to teach mathematics at the University of Florence.

Fermi and others saw the possible military applications of such an explosive power, and quickly composed a letter warning President Roosevelt of the perils of a German atomic bomb. The letter was signed and delivered to the president by Albert Einstein on October 11, 1939. The Manhattan Project, the American program to create its own atomic bomb, was the result. It fell to Fermi to produce the first nuclear chain reaction, without which such a bomb was impossible. He created a jury-rigged laboratory, complete with his own “atomic pile,” in a squash court in the basement of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. It was there that Fermi, with other physicists looking on, produced the first controlled chain reaction on December 2, 1942. The nuclear age was born.

1958 – The US reported the first full-range firing of an ICBM.

1963 – Just six days after the assassination of President Kennedy, President Johnson announced that the Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, would be renamed “The John F. Kennedy Space Center.” Residents voted in 1973 to change the name back to Cape Canaveral.

1964 – The US Mariner IV space probe was launched from Cape Kennedy on a course to Mars. It later flew by Mars in Jul 1965 and saw craters but no canals.

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1964 – President Lyndon Johnson’s top advisers–Maxwell Taylor, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, and other members of the National Security Council–agree to recommend that the president adopt a plan for a two-stage escalation of the bombing of North Vietnam.

1965 – President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines states that he will send troops to South Vietnam, in response to President Lyndon Johnson’s call for “more flags” in Vietnam.

1983 – The space shuttle Columbia blasted into orbit, carrying six astronauts who conducted experiments using the $1 billion Spacelab in the shuttle’s cargo bay.

1985 – Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner of irradiated turkey and freeze-dried vegetables, and launched a satellite from the cargo bay.

1986 – The United States under the Reagan administration violated ceilings in the unratified SALT II nuclear arms treaty for the first time as another Air Force B-52 bomber capable of carrying atomic-tipped cruise missiles became operational.

1995 – President Clinton continued to press his case for sending 20,000 US ground troops to Bosnia. President Clinton signed a $6 billion road bill that ended the federal 55 mile-an-hour speed limit.

1996 – A stuck hatch on the space shuttle Columbia prevented two astronauts from going on a spacewalk. A second planned spacewalk also had to be canceled; engineers later discovered a loose screw had jammed the hatch mechanism.

2001 – Officials recovered the body of CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann from a prison compound in Mazar-e-Sharif after northern alliance rebels backed by U.S. airstrikes and special forces quelled an uprising by Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners.

2001 – Ahmed Abdel-Rahman , a top al Qaeda operative and son of the blind sheik linked to the 1993 WTC bombing, was captured by anti-Taliban forces. The Taliban said some 600 people including 450 prisoners were killed in the uprising at Qala Jangi. US bombing continued with intermittent strikes.

2013 – The US offers to destroy Syria chemical weapons at sea using the US Navy auxiliary vessel MV Cape Ray (T-AKR-9679).

November 29th ~

1760 – Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers took possession of Detroit on behalf of Britain. French commandant Belotre surrendered Detroit. General James Amherst selected Rogers for the honor of receiving the surrender of the western French posts——Detroit, Michilimackinac, Ouiatenon, and others. This was the first British expedition into the French held Great Lakes region in almost a hundred years. It would have been a challenge at any time, but winter was drawing near, adding the dimension of a race to an already difficult task. Although not all of the posts were reached before the winter of 1760-61 set in, the mission is still regarded as a success.

1775 – Captain John Manley in schooner Lee captures British ordnance ship Nancy with large quantity of munitions.

1776 – The Battle of Fort Cumberland, Nova Scotia, comes to an end with the arrival of British reinforcements. The Battle of Fort Cumberland (also known as the Eddy Rebellion) was an attempt by a small number of militia commanded by Jonathan Eddy to bring the American Revolutionary War to Nova Scotia in late 1776. With minimal logistical support from Massachusetts and four to five hundred volunteer militia and Natives, Eddy attempted to besiege and storm Fort Cumberland in central Nova Scotia (near the present-day border between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in November 1776. The fort’s defenders, the Royal Fencible American Regiment led by Joseph Goreham, a veteran of the French and Indian War, successfully repelled several attempts by Eddy’s militia to storm the fort, and the siege was ultimately relieved when the RFA plus Royal Marine reinforcements drove off the besiegers on November 29.

In retaliation for the role of locals who supported the siege, numerous homes and farms were destroyed, and Patriot sympathizers were driven out of the area. The successful defense of Fort Cumberland preserved the territorial integrity of the British Maritime possessions, and Nova Scotia remained loyal throughout the war.

1777 – San Jose, California, is founded as Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. It is the first civilian settlement, or pueblo, in Alta California.

1804 – Lt Presley O’Bannon and seven Marines landed in Alexandria, Egypt. The group will gather 500 mercenaries and in January 1805 begin an overland march to Tripoli.

1808 – Secretary of Treasury Gallatin requested 12 new cutters at a cost of $120,000 to enforce “laws which prohibit exportation and restrain importations” to support the embargo ordered by President Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson had ordered an embargo against most European imports and exports to protest the harassment of U.S. sailors by warring European powers. The embargo did not work. War began with England in 1812 but the ships were purchased.

1863 – The Battle of Fort Sanders, Knoxville, Tenn., ended in Confederate withdrawal. In attempting to take Knoxville, the Confederates decided that Fort Sanders was the only vulnerable place where they could penetrate Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s fortifications, which enclosed the city, and successfully conclude the siege, already a week long.

1864 – Double-turret monitor U.S.S. Onondaga, Commander William A Parker, and single-turret monitor U.S.S. Mahopac, Lieutenant Commander Edward E. Potter, engaged Howlett’s Battery, on the James River, Virginia, for three hours. This was part of the continuing action below Richmond.

1864 – Peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians are massacred by a band of Colonel John Chivington’s Colorado volunteers at Sand Creek, Colorado. The causes of Sand Creek massacre were rooted in the decades-long conflict for control of the Great Plains of eastern Colorado. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 guaranteed ownership of the area north of the Arkansas River to the Nebraska border to the Cheyenne and Arapahoe. By the end of the decade, however, waves of Euro-American miners flooded across the region in search of gold in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. That placed extreme pressure on the resources of the arid plains, and by 1861 tensions between new settlers and Native Americans were rising.

1890 – The first Army-Navy football game was played, at West Point, New York. Navy defeated Army by a score of 24-0.

1916 – US declared martial law in Dominican Republic. Most Dominican laws and institutions remained intact under military rule, although the shortage of Dominicans willing to serve in the cabinet forced the military governor, Rear Admiral Harry S. Knapp, to fill a number of portfolios with United States naval officers. The press and radio were censored for most of the occupation, and public speech was limited. The surface effects of the occupation were largely positive.

The Marines restored order throughout most of the republic (with the exception of the eastern region); the country’s budget was balanced, its debt was diminished, and economic growth resumed; infrastructure projects produced new roads that linked all the country’s regions for the first time in its history; a professional military organization, the Dominican Constabulary Guard, replaced the partisan forces that had waged a seemingly endless struggle for power.

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1927– In California troops battled 1,200 inmates after Folsom prisoners revolted. On Thanksgiving Day there was a prison break at Folsom. One prisoner was shot in the ensuing uprising and five others were later hung. Units of the 184th Infantry and 143rd Field Artillery under the direction of Colonel Wallace Mason, Commanding the 184th Infantry played a large part in bringing to an end the riot at Folsom Penitentiary. When, shortly before eleven o’clock Thursday morning, November 29th, Governor Young was notified by telephone message from Warden Court Smith of the outbreak of 1,400 rioting convicts, he gave orders that the National Guard units of the nearby cities be called by telephone, “mobilized at their respective armories and with or without uniforms be transported to Folsom as rapidly as possible”. Ten companies comprising 450 men were mobilized from five cities.

In addition, two airplanes of the 40th Division Air Service came from Los Angeles to “stand by” for any emergency. General R. E. Mittelstaedt, The Adjutant General, who was at the San Francisco Armory at the time, arrived by airplane from Crissy Field, San Francisco. Two tanks from the 40th Tank Company at Salinas, were sent to the Prison. The planes from Los Angeles as well as that carrying General Mittelstaedt, were equipped with machine guns.

1929 – American explorer Richard Byrd and three companions make the first flight over the South Pole, flying from their base on the Ross Ice Shelf to the pole and back in 18 hours and 41 minutes. Richard Evelyn Byrd learned how to fly in the U.S. Navy and served as a pilot in World War I. An excellent navigator, he was deployed by the navy to Greenland in 1924 to help explore the Arctic region by air. Enamored with the experience of flying over glaciers and sea ice, he decided to attempt the first flight over the North Pole.

1939 – The German freighter Idarwild is sunk by the British warship Diomede off the coast of the United States. The USS Broome had been following the Idarwild until the British warship arrived. The Broome does not intervene in the destruction of the freighter. American behavior in this incident goes unchallenged by Berlin.

1939 – Fritz Kuhn, the leader of the German-American Bund, is found guilty of grand larceny and forgery. As head of the Bund he claimed to be the “American Führer”. In 1939, seeking to cripple the Bund, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia had the city investigate the Bund’s taxes. It found that Kuhn had embezzled over $14,000 from the Bund, spending part of that money on a mistress. Although the Bund did not seek prosecution, District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey pressed charges and won a conviction. This seriously crippled the Bund. During World War II, Kuhn was held by the federal government at an internment camp in Texas. In 1946 he was released and deported to Germany.

1941 – The passenger ship Lurline sent a radio signal of sighting Japanese war fleet steaming east across the northern Pacific.

1941 – The Japanese government liaison conference decides that the final terms from the United States are unacceptable and that Japan must go to war.

1943 – US aircraft carrier Hornet was commissioned. Hornet conducted shakedown training off Bermuda before departing Norfolk 14 February 1944 to join the Fast Carrier Task Force 20 March at Majuro Atoll in the Marshalls.

1943 – Four American destroyers bombard Japanese positions on the south coast of New Britain Island, near Gasmata.

1944 – USS Archerfish (SS-311) sinks Japanese carrier Shinano, world’s largest warship sunk by any submarine during World War II .

1944 – Japanese attacks on Kilay Ridge, on Leyte, continue. American forces successfully counterattack. At sea, the battleship USS Maryland and 2 destroyers are seriously damaged by Kamikaze attacks.

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1947 – Despite strong Arab opposition, the United Nations votes for the partition of Palestine and the creation of an independent Jewish state. The modern conflict between Jews and Arabs in Palestine dates back to the 1910s, when both groups laid claim to the British-controlled territory. The Jews were Zionists, recent emigrants from Europe and Russia who came to the ancient homeland of the Jews to establish a Jewish national state. The native Palestinian Arabs sought to stem Jewish immigration and set up a secular Palestinian state.

Beginning in 1929, Arabs and Jews openly fought in Palestine, and Britain attempted to limit Jewish immigration as a means of appeasing the Arabs. As a result of the Holocaust in Europe, many Jews illegally entered Palestine during World War II. Radical Jewish groups employed terrorism against British forces in Palestine, which they thought had betrayed the Zionist cause.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the United States took up the Zionist cause. Britain, unable to find a practical solution, referred the problem to the United Nations, which on November 29, 1947, voted to partition Palestine. The Jews were to possess more than half of Palestine, though they made up less than half of Palestine’s population. The Palestinian Arabs, aided by volunteers from other countries, fought the Zionist forces, but the Jews secured full control of their U.N.-allocated share of Palestine and also some Arab territory.

On May 14, 1948, Britain withdrew with the expiration of its mandate, and the State of Israel was proclaimed by Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion. The next day, forces from Egypt, Transjordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq invaded. The Israelis, though less well equipped, managed to fight off the Arabs and then seize key territories, such as Galilee, the Palestinian coast, and a strip of territory connecting the coastal region to the western section of Jerusalem.
In 1949, U.N.-brokered cease-fires left the State of Israel in permanent control of those conquered areas. The departure of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs from Israel during the war left the country with a substantial Jewish majority.

1949 – U.S. announced it would conduct atomic tests at Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific.

1949 – Nationalist regime of China left for Formosa (Taiwan).

1950 – Three weeks after U.S. General Douglas MacArthur first reported Chinese communist troops in action in North Korea, U.S.-led U.N. troops begin a desperate retreat out of North Korea under heavy fire from the Chinese.

1952 – John T. Downey and Richard G. Fecteau , CIA spies, were shot down over Jilin province and captured by the Chinese. The 2 men spent 20 years in a Chinese prison. Another 2 pilots, Robert Snoddy and Norman Schwartz, died and in 2002 plans were made to find their remains.

1961 – NASA launched Enos the chimp from Cape Canaveral aboard the Mercury-Atlas 5 spacecraft, which orbited earth twice before returning.

1961 – Mercury-Atlas 5 Mission – Enos, a chimpanzee, is launched into space. The spacecraft orbits the Earth twice and splashes down off the coast of Puerto Rico.

1963 – One week after President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas, President Lyndon Johnson establishes a special commission, headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to investigate the assassination. After 10 months of gathering evidence and questioning witnesses in public hearings, the Warren Commission report was released, concluding that there was no conspiracy, either domestic or international, in the assassination and that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, acted alone. The presidential commission also found that Jack Ruby, the nightclub owner who murdered Oswald on live national television, had no prior contact with Oswald.

According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally were fired by Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth-floor window in the Texas School Book Depository. Oswald’s life, including his visit to the Soviet Union, was described in detail, but the report made no attempt to analyze his motives.

Despite its seemingly firm conclusions, the report failed to silence conspiracy theories surrounding the event, and in 1978 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was “probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy” that may have involved multiple shooters and organized crime. The committee’s findings, as with the findings of the Warren Commission, continue to be widely disputed.

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1968 – The Viet Cong High Command orders an all-out attempt to smash the Phoenix program. Hanoi Radio broadcasted a National Liberation Front directive calling for a new offensive to “utterly destroy” Allied forces. The broadcast added that the new operation was particularly concerned with eliminating the “Phoenix Organization.” The Phoenix program (or “Phuong Hoang” as it was called in Vietnamese) was a hamlet security initiative run by the Central Intelligence Agency that relied on centralized, computerized intelligence gathering aimed at identifying and eliminating the Viet Cong infrastructure–the upper echelon of the National Liberation Front political cadres and party members.

The program became one of the most controversial operations undertaken by U.S. personnel in South Vietnam. Critics charged that American-led South Vietnamese “hit teams” indiscriminately arrested and murdered many communist suspects on flimsy pretexts. Despite the criticism and media attention, the program was acknowledged by top-level U.S. government officials, as well as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese leaders after the war, to have been very effective in reducing the power of the local communist cadres in the South Vietnamese countryside.

1971 – The U.S. 23rd Division ceases combat operations and begins its withdrawal from South Vietnam.

1983 – Navy SEAL’s kill a Somali gunman in Mogadishu. In another incident, 2 Somali gunmen are killed.

1987 – Cuban detainees released 26 hostages that they’d been holding for more than a week at the Federal Detention Center in Oakdale, La.

1990 – The UN Security Council (Resolution 678), led by the United States, voted 12-to-two to authorize military action if Iraq did not withdraw its troops from Kuwait and release all foreign hostages by January 15th, 1991.

1996 – A U.N. court sentenced Bosnian Serb army soldier Drazen Erdemovic to 10 years in prison for his role in the massacre of 1,200 Muslims — the first international war crimes sentence since World War II.

2001 – American warplanes continued to bomb Taliban positions around Kandahar.

2010 – A US court sentenced a Somali man, Jama Idle Ibrahim, to 30 years in jail for attacking a US warship off the coast of Somalia. A pirate gang, lead by Ibrahim, had chased the USS Ashland in a skiff in the Gulf of Aden on 10 April, opening fire on it. US Navy personnel returned fire, killing one Somali and wrecking the skiff.

2012 – New data from the NASA space probe MESSENGER indicate that Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, almost surely has water ice buried beneath the surface at its north pole.

November 30th ~

Feast Day of St. Andrew the Apostle, Patron Saint of the United States Army Rangers.

1707 – The second Siege of Pensacola comes to end with the failure of the British to capture Pensacola, Florida. The Siege of Pensacola was two separate attempts in 1707 by English-supported Creek Indians to capture the town and fortress of Pensacola, then one of two major settlements (the other was St. Augustine) in Spanish Florida. The attacks, part of Queen Anne’s War (the North American theater of the War of the Spanish Succession), resulted in the burning of the town, and caused most of its Indian population to flee, although the fort withstood repeated attacks. The first siege, in August 1707, resulted in the destruction of the town, but Fort San Carlos de Austria successfully resisted the onslaught. In late November 1707 a second expedition arrived, and made unsuccessful attacks on three consecutive nights before withdrawing. Pensacola Governor Don Sebastián de Moscoso, whose garrison was depleted by disease, recruited convicted criminals to assist in the fort’s defense.

1782 – The United States and Britain signed preliminary peace articles in Paris, recognizing American independence and ending the Revolutionary War.

1803 – In New Orleans, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1810 – Oliver Fisher Winchester, rifle maker, was born. Winchester began his career as a clothing manufacturer. He opened a store in Baltimore making and selling shirts (1837), before moving to New York (1847) where he took on a partner. Winchester patented a new method or manufacturing men’s shirts, and opened a factory in nearby New Haven, Connetticut in 1850. He invested his profits from the factory into Volcanic Repeating Arms Company, becoming principal shareholder and president by 1856.

Under his leadership, the company acquired rights to manufacture pistols and rifles patented by Tyler Henry and others. The repeating rifle was in full production by 1860, and was in heavy demand during the Civil War, during which Winchester continued to improve the rifle’s design by acquiring other patents. He renamed the company the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1866. A political and philanthropic figure, he was lieutenant governor of Connecticut (1866–67) and made large donations to Yale.

1861 – The British Parliament sent to Queen Elizabeth an ultimatum for the United States, demanding the release of two Confederate diplomats who were seized on the British ship Trent.

1864 – The once proud Confederate Army of Tennessee suffers a devastating defeat when its commander, General John Bell Hood, orders a frontal assault on strong Union positions around Franklin, Tennessee. The loss cost Hood six of his finest generals and nearly a third of his force.

Hood assumed command in late July 1864 while the Confederates were pinned inside Atlanta by the armies of Union General William T. Sherman. Hood made a series of desperate attacks against Sherman but finally relinquished the city in early September. No longer able to wage an offensive against the massive Yankee force, Hood retreated into Alabama to regroup. In early November, he moved north into Tennessee to draw Sherman out of the Deep South. By now, Sherman had enough troops to split his army. He dispatched General George Thomas to the Nashville area to deal with Hood’s threat while he took the rest of the force on his infamous March to the Sea, during which his men destroyed most of central Georgia. Hood approached Franklin, just south of Nashville, on November 29th. Thomas waited in Nashville, while another Union force under John Schofield was moving from the south to join Thomas. Schofield was aware of Hood’s position and was attempting to move past the Confederates on his way to rejoining the rest of the Federal army. Hood tried to flank Schofield, but Schofield marched right past Hood’s army and planted his Yankees in existing defenses at Franklin. Furious, Hood blamed his subordinates for failing to block Schofield’s route, and then prepared for a frontal assault on the formidable Union trenches. Hood was handicapped by the fact that one of his three divisions was still marching toward Franklin and much of his artillery had not yet arrived. Under these circumstances, Hood’s decision to attack may seem foolish, but he was probably motivated by an attempt to discipline his army and rebuild his men’s lost confidence.

On the afternoon of November 30, the Confederates charged into the Union defenses. The Rebel lines moved forward in nearly perfect unison, the last great charge of the war. Parts of the Union’s outer trenches fell to Hood’s men, but a Yankee counterattack spelled disaster for the Confederates. They did not penetrate any further and suffered frightful casualties. The fighting continued until after dark before Schofield resumed his march northward. Of 15,000 Union troops engaged, 200 were killed and slightly more than 2,000 were wounded. The Confederates had 23,000 men at Franklin; 1,750 died and 5,500 were wounded or captured. The losses among the Confederate leadership were horrifying. Six generals were killed, including Patrick Cleburne, one of the Confederate army’s finest division commanders. Another five were wounded, one more captured, and 60 of Hood’s 100 regimental commanders were killed or wounded.

Despite the defeat, Hood continued to move against Thomas. Just two weeks later, Hood hurled the remnants of his army against the Yankees at Nashville with equally disastrous results.

November 30th ~ { continued... }

1917 – The US 42nd “Rainbow” Division, so named because it contains men from every state in the nation, arrives in France. The division’s chief-of-staff, and later commander, is General Douglas MacArthur.

1920 – The Navy minesweeper USS Swan ran aground on Duxbury Beach, MA. Coast Guardsmen from three nearby stations rescued the minesweeper’s crew with a breeches buoy. The CGC Androscoggin assisted in the rescue.

1931 – A retired United States Navy submarine, the O-12, renamed Nautilus was sunk near Bergen, Norway. Hubert Wilkins, Australian explorer, had used the ship in a failed attempt to sail beneath the North Pole.

1939 – The Red Army crosses the Soviet-Finnish border with 465,000 men and 1,000 aircraft. Helsinki was bombed, and 61 Finns were killed in an air raid that steeled the Finns for resistance, not capitulation. The overwhelming forces arrayed against Finland convinced most Western nations, as well as the Soviets themselves, that the invasion of Finland would be a cakewalk. The Soviet soldiers even wore summer uniforms, despite the onset of the Scandinavian winter; it was simply assumed that no outdoor activity, such as fighting, would be taking place. But the Helsinki raid had produced many casualties-and many photographs, including those of mothers holding dead babies, and preteen girls crippled by the bombing. Those photos were hung up everywhere to spur on Finn resistance. Although that resistance consisted of only small numbers of trained soldiers-on skis and bicycles–fighting it out in the forests, and partisans throwing Molotov cocktails into the turrets of Soviet tanks, the refusal to submit made headlines around the world.

President Roosevelt quickly extended $10 million in credit to Finland, while also noting that the Finns were the only people to pay back their World War I war debt to the United States in full. But by the time the Soviets had a chance to regroup, and send in massive reinforcements, the Finnish resistance was spent. By March 1940, negotiations with the Soviets began, and Finland soon lost the Karelian Isthmus, the land bridge that gave access to Leningrad, which the Soviets wanted to control.

1941 – Japanese Emperor Hirohito consulted with admirals Shimada and Nagano. Hirohito was deeply concerned by the decision to place “war preparations first and diplomatic negotiations second” and announced his intention to break with centuries-old protocol and, at the Imperial Conference on the following day, directly question the chiefs of the Army and Navy general staffs — a quite unprecedented action. Konoe quickly persuaded Hirohito to summon them for a private conference instead, at which the Emperor made it plain that a peaceful settlement was to be pursued “up to the last”.

Chief of Naval General Staff Admiral Osami Nagano, a former Navy Minister and vastly experienced, later told a trusted colleague “I have never seen the Emperor reprimand us in such a manner, his face turning red and raising his voice.” The war preparations continued without the slightest change.

1942 – The Battle of Tassafaronga. American attempts to stop the regular night supply run of the “Tokyo Express” under Admiral Tanaka again develops into a major battle. Tanaka has 8 destroyers and Admiral Wright has 5 heavy cruisers and 7 destroyers. Wright uses radar to find the Japanese force and fire the first salvo. However, the American attack is ineffective with only one hit on a Japanese destroyer which sinks later. The Japanese sink one cruiser and damage 3 very seriously. Despite this success, Admiral Tanaka is reprimanded for failing to deliver the supplies needed by the starving Japanese forces on the island.

1942 – The American forces attacking Japanese positions at Buna, New Guinea make their first real headway.

1943 – The Teheran Conference continues. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin and their staffs meet for the first time.

1944 – To the north and south of Aachen, the US 9th and 1st Armies continue attacks. Southern elements of US 3rd Army reach the Saar River.

1948 – Communists completed the division of Berlin, installing the government in the Soviet sector.

November 30th ~ { continued... }

1950 – President Harry Truman publicly referred to the possible use of the atomic bomb in Korea.

1951 – U.S. Air Force Major George A. Davis shot down three Tupolev TU-2s and a MiG jet fighter to become the fifth ace of the war.

1952 – U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Winton W. Marshall destroyed one TU-2 and a LA-9 and was officially credited as the sixth ace of the war.

1956 – U.S. offered emergency oil to Europe to counter the Arab ban.

1956 – Britain and France bowed to UN pressure and agreed to leave the Suez Canal. Russia and the US forced a combined British, French and Israeli operation against Nasser in the Suez to abort.

1961 – Soviets vetoed a UN seat for Kuwait, pleasing Iraq.

1961 – US Special Forces medical specialists are deployed to provide assistance to the Montagnard tribes around Pleiku. Out of this will develop the Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG), a program of organized paramilitary forces among the ethnic and religious minorities of South Vietnam and the chief work of the US Special Forces during the war.

1972 – White House Press Secretary Ron Zeigler announces to the press that the administration will make no more public statements concerning U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam since the level of U.S. presence had fallen to 27,000 men. Defense Department sources said that there would not be a full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam until a final truce agreement was signed, and that such an agreement would not affect the 54,000 U.S. servicemen in Thailand or the 60,000 aboard 7th Fleet ships off the Vietnamese coast. All U.S. forces were withdrawn from South Vietnam in March 1973 as part of the terms of the Paris Peace Accords, which were signed in January of that year.

1974 – Pioneer 11 sent photos back to NASA as it neared Jupiter. Pioneer 11 was launched on 5 April 1973, like Pioneer 10, on top of an Atlas/Centaur/TE364-4 launch vehicle. After safe passage through the Asteroid belt on 19 April 1974, the Pioneer 11 thrusters were fired to add another 63.7 m/sec (210 ft/sec) to the spacecraft’s velocity. This adjusted the aiming point at Jupiter to 43,000 km (26,725 miles) above the cloud tops. The close approach also allowed the spacecraft to be accelerated by Jupiter to a velocity 55 times that of the muzzle velocity of a high speed rifle bullet – 173,000 km/hr (108,000 mph) – so that it would be carried across the Solar System some 2.4 billion kilometers (1.5 billion miles) to Saturn. It will make its closest approach to Jupiter on 2 December.

1981 – Representatives from the United States and the Soviet Union open talks to reduce their intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF) in Europe. The talks lasted until December 17, but ended inconclusively. SALT I (1972) and SALT II (1979) reduced the number of strategic nuclear weapons held by the two superpowers, but left unresolved the issue of the growing number of non-strategic weapons-the so-called intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe. By 1976, the Soviets began to update their INF systems with better SS-20 missiles. America’s NATO allies called for a U.S. response, and the United States threatened to deploy cruise and Pershing II missiles by 1983 if no agreement could be reached with the Soviets concerning INF's.

However, by 1981, the situation changed. No-nuke forces were gaining strength in western Europe and there was a growing fear that President Ronald Reagan’s heated Cold War rhetoric would lead to a nuclear showdown with Europe as the battlefield. The United States and U.S.S.R. agreed to open talks on INFs in November 1981. Prior to the talks, President Reagan announced the so-called “zero option” as the basis for the U.S. position at the negotiations.

In this plan, the United States would cancel deployment of its new missiles in western Europe if the Soviets dismantled their INFs in eastern Europe. The proposal was greeted with some skepticism, even by some U.S. allies, who believed that it was a public relations ploy that would be completely unacceptable to the Soviets. The Soviets responded with a detailed proposal that essentially eliminated all of the INFs from Europe, including French and British missiles that had not been covered in Reagan’s zero option plan. Of course, such a plan would also leave west Europe subject to the Soviets’ superior conventional forces. Neither proposal seemed particularly realistic, and despite efforts by some of the U.S. and Soviet negotiators, no compromise could be reached.

An INF treaty would not be signed until December 1987, when President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev finally hammered out a plan acceptable to both sides.

November 30th ~ { continued... }

1982 – US submarine Thomas Edison collided with a US Navy destroyer in the South China Sea.

1988 – UN General Assembly (151-2) censured US for refusing PLO’s Arafat a visa.

1989 – President Bush left Washington for his first summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that took place aboard ships off the Mediterranean island of Malta.

1990 – President Bush announced that Secretary of State James Baker the Third would go to Iraq in a last-ditch diplomatic peace effort.

1994 – Two passengers died and nearly 1,000 others and crew members fled the cruise ship “Achille Lauro” after it caught fire off the coast of Somalia; the ship sank two days later. The Achille Lauro had gained notoriety in 1985 when it was hijacked by Palestinian extremists.

1995 – Official end of Operation Desert Storm.

1997 – In Haiti the UN mandate for peace-keeping forces ended and 1,170 soldiers and civilian police officers prepared to leave.

1998 – President Clinton pledged an extra $400 million to aid the Palestinians over the next 5 years. This was in addition to the current $100 million per year for the next 5 years. A total of $3 billion in aid was pledged.

2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour took off to the Int’l. Space Station with a crew of 5 to install new solar panels. STS-97 will build and enhance the capabilities of the International Space Station.It will deliver the first set of U.S.-provided solar arrays and batteries as well as radiators to provide cooling.
The Shuttle will spend 5 days docked to the station, which at that time will be staffed by the first station crew. Two spacewalks will be conducted to complete assembly operations while the arrays are attached and unfurled. A communications system for voice and telemetry also will be installed.

2001 – US warplanes continued airstrikes around Kandahar. US Marine and Navy increased to around 1,200.

2002 – International weapons hunters in Iraq paid an unannounced visit to a military post previously declared “sensitive” and restricted by Baghdad.

2003 – US forces used tanks and cannons to fight their way out of simultaneous ambushes in the northern city of Samarra while delivering new Iraqi currency to banks.

2005 – A new campaign against Iraqi insurgents begins with joint U.S.-Iraqi troops conducting Operation Iron Hammer in western Iraq. Operation Iron Hammer, also called Operation Matraqa Hadidia, was a military undertaking by the United States Armed Forces, and the New Iraqi Army, which was conducted east of Hīt, Iraq, until 3 January 2006, during the Iraq War, against the Iraqi insurgency.

It was reported that both the New Iraqi Army, and the United States Armed Forces, sustained no losses during the operation. No civilian casualties were reported either. The operation is believed to have benefited villages on the eastern side of the Euphrates River with an increase in security and stability.

2014 – Coalition forces launch over 30 airstrikes on Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIL.