April 27th ~ {continued...} 1865 – The steamboat Sultana explodes on the Mississippi River near Memphis, killing 1,700 passengers including many discharged Union soldiers. The Sultana was launched from Cincinnati in 1863. The boat was 260 feet long and had an authorized capacity of 376 passengers and crew. It was soon employed to carry troops and supplies along the lower Mississippi River. The Sultana left New Orleans on April 21st with 100 passengers. It stopped at Vicksburg, Mississippi, for repair of a leaky boiler. R. G. Taylor, the boilermaker on the ship, advised Captain J. Cass Mason that two sheets on the boiler had to be replaced, but Mason order Taylor to simply patch the plates until the ship reached St. Louis. Mason was part owner of the riverboat, and he and the other owners were anxious to pick up discharged Union prisoners at Vicksburg. The federal government promised to pay $5 for each enlisted man and $10 for each officer delivered to the North. Such a contract could pay huge dividends, and Mason convinced local military authorities to pick up the entire contingent despite the presence of two other steamboats at Vicksburg. When the Sultana left Vicksburg, it carried 2,100 troops and 200 civilians, more than six times its capacity. On the evening of April 26th, the ship stopped at Memphis before cruising across the river to pick up coal in Arkansas. As it steamed up the river above Memphis, a thunderous explosion tore through the boat. Metal and steam from the boilers killed hundreds, and hundreds more were thrown from the boat into the chilly waters of the river. The Mississippi was already at flood stage, and the “Sultana” had only one lifeboat and a few life preservers. Only 600 people survived the explosion. A board of inquiry later determined the cause to be insufficient water in the boiler–overcrowding was not listed as a cause. The Sultana accident is still the largest maritime disaster in U.S. history. 1877 – President Hayes removed Federal troops from LA. Reconstruction ended. 1897 – Grant’s Tomb was dedicated. 1940 – Himmler orders the construction of Auschwitz concentration camp. 1942 – The 1st convoys of Japanese detainees arrived at the Tanforan detention center south of San Francisco. The assembly center remained in operation for 169 days after which detainees were transferred to relocation camps. Most of the Tanforan detainees were transferred to Abraham, Utah. 1944 – During the night (April 27-28), 3 American LST landing craft, conducting an invasion exercise (Exercise “Tiger”), are torpedoed by German E-boats in Lyme Bay. A total of 638 troops are killed. This incident is kept secret for fear of damaging Anglo-American relations. 1944 – US troops occupy the main airstrip at Hollandia, New Guinea. 1945 – Forces of US 5th Army liberate Genoa, which is already substantially controlled by Italian partisan forces. 1945 – Italian partisans captured Mussolini. 1945 – US forces capture Baguio, on Luzon. Fighting continues in the Bicol Peninsula. 1945 – A squadron of 3 cruisers and 6 destroyers, commanded by Admiral Berkey, make a preparatory bombardment of targets in the Tarakan area in the northeast of the island of Borneo. 1946 – 1st radar installation aboard a commercial ship was installed.
April 27th ~ {continued...} 1951 – Munsan fell to communist forces as the CCF (Chinese Communist Forces) Spring Offensive continued. 1953 – Operation Moolah is initiated by U.S. General Mark W. Clark against Communist pilots in the Korean War. Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force (USAF) effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. Communist forces introduced the MiG-15 to Korea on November 1, 1950. USAF pilots reported that the performance of the MiG-15 was superior to all United Nations (U.N.) aircraft, including the USAF’s newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a MiG for a financial reward. The success of the operation is disputable since no Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. However, on September 21, 1953, North Korean pilot Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, unaware of Operation Moolah. 1955 – After a meeting with General J. Lawton Collins in Washington, Secretary Dulles reluctantly agrees to replace Diem and cables the embassy in Saigon to find an alternative. CIA Colonel Lansdale, who has already helped foil General Hinh’s coup against Diem by organizing an effective palace guard, rallies to Diem’s side. he presses the embassy to support Diem and takes ‘all measures possible under narrow limits permitted by US policy.’ 1959 – US State Dept. announced small arms stored in Canal Zone will be provided to Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders. 1960 – The 1st atomic powered electric-drive submarine was launched at Tullibee. 1965 – President Johnson renews his offer of ‘unconditional discussions…with any governments concerned,’ and defends US bombing raids. “Our restraint was viewed as weakness. We could no longer stand by while attacks mounted.” 1966 – After a US Air Force B-57 became reported overdue, the US Coast Guard Eastern Area Commander commenced an intensive air search. The 2-day, large-scale, over water search for the missing aircraft, all of which was coordinated by the U.S. Coast Guard, unfortunately, yielded negative results. 1968 – Vice-President Hubert Humphrey announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. In an interview he supports the current US policy of sending troops ‘where required by our own national security.’ 1972 – Official Vietnam peace talks, suspended on 23 March, resume in Paris. 1972 – Apollo 16 returned to Earth. 1972 – North Vietnamese troops shatter defenses north of Quang Tri and move to within 2.5 miles of the city. Using Russian-built tanks, they took Dong Ha, 7 miles north of Quang Tri, the next day and continued to tighten their ring around Quang Tri, shelling it heavily. South Vietnamese troops suffered their highest casualties for any week in the war in the bitter fighting. This was the northern-most front of the North Vietnamese Nguyen Hue Offensive, launched on March 30 when more than 120,000 North Vietnamese troops invaded South Vietnam. 1975 – Saigon was encircled by North Vietnamese troops. 1978 – Afghanistan President Sardar Mohammed Daoud is overthrown and murdered in a coup led by procommunist rebels. The brutal action marked the beginning of political upheaval in Afghanistan that resulted in intervention by Soviet troops less than two years later. 1978 – Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes. 1981 – Xerox PARC introduces the computer mouse. 1989 – In China more than 150,000 students and workers calling for democracy marched, cheered and sang as they took over Tiananmen Square in central Beijing.
April 27th ~ {continued...} 1989 – President George Bush dedicated the Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence Center East, otherwise known as C3I, in south Florida. The facility, manned by Coast Guard and Customs personnel, was designed to give law enforcement agencies instant access to air and marine smuggling information. 1990 – The aperture door of the Hubble Space Telescope was opened by ground controllers as the space shuttle Discovery, which had carried the Hubble into orbit, prepared to return home. 1991 – A group of 250 Kurds became the first refugees to move into a new US-built camp in northern Iraq. 1997 – A Texas militia group, called Republic of Texas, took 2 hostages at the Davis Mountain Resort community in a standoff with 300 police officers. They advocated independence for the state. The hostages were released later the next day in exchange for a jailed comrade, but the standoff continued. Richard McLaren and Robert Otto were later captured, convicted and sentenced to 99 and 50 years in prison. 1998 – A Pentagon panel said remains of the Vietnam veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery should be exhumed to determine whether they belonged to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, as his family believed. The remains were later positively identified as Blassie’s. 1998 – The UN extended security sanctions against Iraq but agreed to reviews every 60 days. It was earlier reported that Iraq recently had executed 1,500 political prisoners. 1999 – The US Pentagon announced a call for 33,102 reservists for active duty in Kosovo. 2001 – In Puerto Rico the US Navy resumed bombing exercises on Vieques Island where 14 protesters were arrested. 2002 – South African entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth arrived at the international space station for an eight-day, seven-night cruise that cost him $20 million. 2002 – The last successful telemetry received from the NASA space probe Pioneer 10. 33 minutes of clean data received from a distance of 80.22 AU. 2003 – Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin al-Yasin (6 of clubs), chief Iraqi liaison with UN weapons inspectors, surrendered to US forces. 2003 – The U.S. military arrested the self-anointed mayor of Baghdad, Mohammed Mohsen al-Zubaidi, reflecting U.S. determination to brook no interlopers in its effort to build a consensus for administering Iraq. 2004 – U.S. troops fought gunbattles with militiamen overnight near the city of Najaf, killing 64 gunmen and destroying an anti-aircraft system belonging to the insurgents. 2005 – In Vietnam, six people are arrested for trying to sell human remains as remains of MIA US soldiers. 2006 – Construction begins on the Freedom Tower in New York City breaking a deadlock between the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site, and private developer Larry Silverstein. The 1,776-foot tower is the centerpiece of the rebuilding effort for the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the September 11, 2001, attacks. 2007 – CIA arrested a senior al-Qaeda operative, Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, and transferred him to the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Hadi was a key paramilitary commander in Afghanistan during the late 1990s, before taking charge of cross-border attacks against US and coalition troops from 2002 to 2004. He was accused of commanding attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, and of involvement in plots to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. 2009 – A low-flying Boeing VC-25, Air Force One, causes momentary panic in New York City, New York, United States. It was intended as a photo opportunity, a showcase of Air Force One alongside the sweep of New York City skyline. Director of the White House Military Office, Louis Caldera, ultimately takes responsibility for approving the mission and failing to notify authorities in New York City. Caldera resigned as a result, on 22nd May 2009.
April 28th ~ 1635 – Virginia Governor John Harvey was accused of treason and removed from office. 1758 – James Monroe (d.1831), later secretary of state and the fifth president of the United States (1817-1825), was born in Westmoreland County, Va. He created the Monroe Doctrine, warning Europe not to interfere in the Western Hemisphere. 1760 – French forces besieging Quebec defeated the British in the second battle on the Plains of Abraham. 1788 – Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the constitution. 1810 – Union General Daniel Ullmann is born in Wilmington, Delaware. Ullmann was best known as an advocate for black troops. Ullman was educated at Yale University and practiced law in New York City. He was an active Whig before the party’s collapse around 1850, and he ran for governor of New York on the American, or “Know-Nothing,” ticket in 1854. Ullmann became a colonel in command of the 78th New York regiment when the war began. He was sent to Virginia and served in the Shenandoah Valley, where he was given command of a brigade. He was captured at the Battle of Cedar Mountain and incarcerated at Richmond’s Libby Prison for a month before he was exchanged in October 1862. Promoted to brigadier general in January 1863, Ullmann was sent to New Orleans to recruit black troops. His efforts were met by much resistance among his fellow officers. Ullmann often complained that his men were given work details and not seriously considered for military duty. He finally got his wish, and his brigade was sent to assist in the siege of Port Hudson, Louisiana, in May 1863. After Ullmann’s men bravely made several unsuccessful attacks on Port Hudson, one Union officer warned, “We must not discipline them, for if we do, we will have to fight them some day ourselves.” Ullmann spent most of the war at Port Hudson after the Confederates surrendered it in July 1863. After the war, he traveled extensively, and studied literature and science. He died in Nyack, New York, in 1892. 1815 – Andrew Jackson Smith (d.1897), Major General (Union volunteers), was born. 1818 – President Monroe proclaimed naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain. 1856 – Yokut Indians repelled an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in California. 1862 – Forts Jackson and St. Philip, isolated since being passed by Flag Officer Farragut’s fleet and the fall of New Orleans, surrendered to the Navy; the terms of capitulation were signed on board U.S.S. Harriet Lane, Commander D. D. Porter’s flagship. C.S.S. Louisiana, Defiance, and McRae were destroyed to prevent their capture.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1864 – Rear Admiral Porter, stranded above the rapids at Alexandria, advised Secretary Welles of the precarious position in which his gunboats found themselves due to the falling water level of the Red River and the withdrawal forced upon Major General Banks: “. . . I find myself blockaded by a fall of 3 feet of water, 3 feet 4 inches being the amount now on the falls; 7 feet being required to get over; no amount of lightening will accomplish the object. . . . In the meantime, the enemy are splitting up into parties of 2,000 and bringing in the artillery . . to blockade points below here. . . . Porter faced the distinct possibility of having to destroy his squadron to prevent its falling into Confederate hands. “. . you may judge of my feelings,” he wrote Welles,” at having to perform so painful a duty.” Only by the most ingenious planning and the strenuous efforts of thousands of soldiers and sailors was such a disaster avoided. The Admiral summed up the results of “this fatal campaign” which “has upset everything” to date: “It has delayed 10,000 troops of General Sherman, on which he depended to open the State of Missis-sippi; it has drawn General Steele from Arkansas and already given the rebels a foothold in that country; it has forced me to withdraw many light-clad vessels from points on the Mississippi to protect this army. 1897 – The Chickasaw and Choctaw, two of the Five Civilized Tribes, become the first to agree to abolish tribal government and communal ownership of land. The other tribes soon followed, finally throwing open all of Indian Territory to white settlement. Representatives of the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribes had been negotiating the future of their people with the Dawes Commission since 1893. President Grover Cleveland created the Dawes Commission to realize the goals of the 1887 Dawes Severalty Act. Backers of the Dawes Severalty Act believed Indians would be better able to integrate into mainstream society if they abandoned tribal governments and ownership of land. Instead, every male Indian received a plot of land to own privately. Any tribal land that remained-which in most cases was a substantial amount-would be open to settlement by Anglo-Americans. Most Native American tribes were forced to abide by the Dawes Severalty Act regardless of their wishes. However, a treaty from 1830 promised the Five Civilized Tribes living in Oklahoma Indian Territory their land for “as long as the grass grows and water runs,” and the Dawes Act did not apply to them. Instead, the Dawes Commission was formed to convince them to adopt its principles voluntarily. At the same time, Congress also threatened to make it harder for the Five Civilized Tribes to maintain their traditional ways of life. The Curtis Act, for example, invalidated the authority of all tribal courts. Recognizing that they had little hope of maintaining their old ways, in 1897, the Choctaws and Chickasaws became the first to agree voluntarily to abandon tribal government and land ownership. By 1902, the other three tribes-the Cherokees, Seminoles, and Creeks-had followed suit. Despite the sincere humanitarian goals of the Dawes Act and Commission, the ultimate effect was to deprive Indians of most of their landholdings. Fraud was rampant, and some Indians either did not know they needed to apply for their private acreage or refused to do so in protest. From 1887 to 1934, Indian landholdings declined from 138 million to 47 million acres. Since the Dawes Act was rescinded in 1934, however, tribal ownership and government have again become legal. 1898 – U.S. warships engage Spanish gunboats and shore batteries at Cienfuegos, Cuba.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1918 – CGC Seneca saves 81 survivors from the torpedoed British naval sloop Cowslip while on convoy route to Gibraltar. Cowslip was attacked by three German U-boats. 1919 – The first jump with an Army Air Corps (rip-cord type) parachute was made by Les Irvin. 1932 – A vaccine for yellow fever is announced for use on humans. In 1927, scientists had isolated the yellow fever virus in West Africa. Following this, vaccines were developed in the 1930s. The vaccine 17D was developed by the South African microbiologist Max Theiler at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City. This vaccine was widely used by the U.S. Army during World War II. 1937 – Saddam Hussein, future president of Iraq, was born in the village of al-Oja near the desert town of Tikrit. His invasion of Kuwait prompted the Persian Gulf War. This became a state holiday under Hussein’s rule and was abolished in 2003. 1943 – The German 8th Panzer Regiment counterattacks the British forces that have occupied Djebel Bou Aoukaz. American forces make some gains in “Mousetrap Valley.” 1944 – Fast carrier task force (12 carriers) commence 2 day bombing of Truk. 1944 – American and Japanese forces, moving west from Wewak, engage near Aitape in New Guinea. 1944 – Nine German E-boats attacked US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 946. 1945 – “Il Duce,” Benito Mussolini, and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland. The 61-year-old deposed former dictator of Italy was established by his German allies as the figurehead of a puppet government in northern Italy during the German occupation toward the close of the war. As the Allies fought their way up the Italian peninsula, defeat of the Axis powers all but certain, Mussolini considered his options. Not wanting to fall into the hands of either the British or the Americans, and knowing that the communist partisans, who had been fighting the remnants of roving Italian fascist soldiers and thugs in the north, would try him as a war criminal, he settled on escape to a neutral country. He and his mistress made it to the Swiss border, only to discover that the guards had crossed over to the partisan side. Knowing they would not let him pass, he disguised himself in a Luftwaffe coat and helmet, hoping to slip into Austria with some German soldiers. His subterfuge proved incompetent, and he and Petacci were discovered by partisans and shot, their bodies then transported by truck to Milan, where they were hung upside down and displayed publicly for revilement by the masses. 1945 – The US 7th Army captures Augsburg in its advance south toward Austria. Other Allied units are crossing the Elbe River in the north and others are advancing on Munich in the south. 1945 – On Okinawa, fighting along the Shuri Line continues. American forces employ tanks, flame-throwers and artillery in an effort to destroy Japanese defensive positions. 1946 – Allies indicted Hideki Tojo, former premier and war minister of Japan, with 55 counts of war crimes. The International Military Tribunal for the Far East meted out justice to Japanese war criminals at locations throughout Asia. 1952 – The United States occupation of Japan ends as the Treaty of San Francisco, ratified September 8, 1951, comes into force.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1952 – At his own request, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, one of the most highly regarded American generals of World War II, was relieved of his post as supreme commander of the combined land and air forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). In 1942, General Eisenhower commanded American forces in Great Britain, in 1943, led the invasions of North Africa and Italy, and in 1944, was appointed supreme commander of the Allied invasion of Western Europe. After the war, he briefly served as president of Columbia University, before returning to military service in 1951 as supreme commander of NATO–a permanent military alliance established in 1949 by the democracies of Western Europe and North America as a safeguard against the threat of Soviet aggression. However, pressure on Eisenhower to run for the U.S. presidency was great, and in April of 1952, he relinquished his NATO command to campaign on the Republican ticket. In November 1952, “Ike” won a resounding victory in the presidential elections, and in 1956, he was reelected by a landslide. 1955 – The US Embassy is told to burn Dulles’ order of the preceding day. Diem has succeeded in fighting in Saigon, but most of the more than 2000 Binh Xuyen, Cao Dai, and Hoa Hao fighters who withdrew into the Mekong Delta will remerge to continue opposition to Diem as Vietcong. 1956 – Last French combat troops left Vietnam. 1965 – In an effort to forestall what he claims will be a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends more than 22,000 U.S. troops to restore order on the island nation. Johnson’s action provoked loud protests in Latin America and skepticism among many in the United States. Troubles in the Dominican Republic began in 1961, when long-time dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated. Trujillo had been a brutal leader, but his strong anticommunist stance helped him retain the support of the United States. His death led to the rise of a reformist government headed by Juan Bosch, who was elected president in 1962. The Dominican military, however, despised Bosch and his liberal policies. Bosch was overthrown in 1963. Political chaos gripped the Dominican Republic as various groups, including the increasingly splintered military, struggled for power. By 1965, forces demanding the reinstatement of Bosch began attacks against the military-controlled government. In the United States government, fear spread that “another Cuba” was in the making in the Dominican Republic; in fact, many officials strongly suspected that Cuban leader Fidel Castro was behind the violence. On April 28th, more than 22,000 U.S. troops, supported by forces provided by some of the member states of the Organization of American States (a United Nations-like institution for the Western Hemisphere, dominated by the United States) landed in the Dominican Republic. Over the next few weeks they brought an end to the fighting and helped install a conservative, non-military government. President Johnson declared that he had taken action to forestall the establishment of a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic. As evidence, he provided American reporters with lists of suspected communists in that nation. Even cursory reviews of the list revealed that the evidence was extremely flimsy–some of the people on the list were dead and others could not be considered communists by any stretch of the imagination. Many Latin American governments and private individuals and organizations condemned the U.S. invasion of the Dominican Republic as a return to the “gunboat diplomacy” of the early-20th century, when U.S. Marines invaded and occupied a number of Latin American nations on the slightest pretexts. In the United States, politicians and citizens who were already skeptical of Johnson’s policy in Vietnam heaped scorn on Johnson’s statements about the “communist danger” in the Dominican Republic. Such criticism would become more and more familiar to the Johnson administration as the U.S. became more deeply involved in the war in Vietnam. 1965 – CIA director John A. McCone sends a personal memo to President Johnson stating his view that unless the United States is willing to further intensify bombing, there is no use in committing more US ground troops.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1967 – Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the Army and was stripped of his boxing title. 1967 – General Westmoreland addresses a joint session of Congress and receives a standing ovation, declaring, “Backed at home by resolve, confidence, patience, determination, and continued support, we will prevail in Vietnam over the Communist aggressor.” 1970 – President Richard Nixon gives his formal authorization to commit U.S. combat troops, in cooperation with South Vietnamese units, against communist troop sanctuaries in Cambodia. Secretary of State William Rogers and Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, who had continually argued for a downsizing of the U.S. effort in Vietnam, were excluded from the decision to use U.S. troops in Cambodia. Gen. Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cabled Gen. Creighton Abrams, senior U.S. commander in Saigon, informing him of the decision that a “higher authority has authorized certain military actions to protect U.S. forces operating in South Vietnam.” Nixon believed that the operation was necessary as a pre-emptive strike to forestall North Vietnamese attacks from Cambodia into South Vietnam as the U.S. forces withdrew and the South Vietnamese assumed more responsibility for the fighting. Nevertheless, three National Security Council staff members and key aides to presidential assistant Henry Kissinger resigned in protest over what amounted to an invasion of Cambodia. When Nixon publicly announced the Cambodian incursion on April 30, it set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations. A protest at Kent State University resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops. Another student rally at Jackson State College in Mississippi resulted in the death of two students and 12 wounded when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory. The incursion angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president. 1972 – The North Vietnamese offensive continues as Fire Base Bastogne, 20 miles west of Hue, falls to the communists. Fire Base Birmingham, 4 miles to the east, was also under heavy attack. As fighting intensified all across the northern province of South Vietnam, much of Hue’s civilian population tried to escape south to Da Nang. Farther south in the Central Highlands, 20,000 North Vietnamese troops converged on Kontum, encircling it and cutting it off. Only 65 miles north of Saigon, An Loc lay under siege and continued to take a pummeling from North Vietnamese artillery, rockets, and ground attacks. To the American command in Saigon, it appeared that South Vietnam was on the verge of total defeat by the North Vietnamese, but the South Vietnamese were able to hold out. 1975 – Operation Frequent Wind evacuation from Vietnam begins.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1977 – In Stuttgart, West Germany, the lengthy trial of the leaders of the terrorist Baader-Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, ends with Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe being found guilty of four counts of murder and more than 30 counts of attempted murder. Each defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment, Germany’s most severe punishment. The Red Army Faction was founded by ultra-left revolutionaries Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in 1968. Advocating communist revolution in West Germany, the group employed terrorist tactics against government, military, and corporate leaders in an effort to topple capitalism in their homeland. Baader was imprisoned in 1970 but escaped, and Meinhof was captured in 1972. In 1976, Baader was recaptured, and Meinhof hanged herself in her cell. During the trial of Baader and his associates, the few Red Army Faction members still at large continued their program of violence and assassination. In 1976, two Baader-Meinhof guerrillas took part in the Palestinian hijacking of an Air France jetliner that ended with the Israeli raid on the Entebbe airport in Uganda. Both Germans were killed. In April 1977, Baader and the others were sentence to life. Six months later, Palestinian terrorists hijacked a Lufthansa airliner to Somalia and demanded the release of imprisoned Red Army Faction members. On October 17, West German commandos stormed the plane in Mogadishu, releasing the captives and killing the hijackers. The next day, Baader and three others were found shot in their jail cells, presumably suicides. Red Army Faction violence continued until 1992, when the group officially called off its terrorist campaign. It was later discovered that the East German secret police had provided training, supplies, and protection to the Red Army Faction during the 1970s. 1980 – President Carter accepted the resignation of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (1917-2002), who had opposed the failed rescue mission aimed at freeing American hostages in Iran. The decision to proceed had been spearheaded by Zbigniew Brzeninski. 1986 – The United States Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea. 1987 – Contra rebels in Nicaragua killed Benjamin Ernest Linder, an American engineer working on a hydroelectric project for the Sandinista government. 1989 – President Bush announced the U.S. and Japan had concluded a deal on joint development of a new Japanese jet fighter, the FSX, despite concerns that U.S. technology secrets would be given away. 1993 – Coast Guard PACAREA LEDETs (Pacific Area Law Enforcement Detachments), operating from the USS Valley Forge and USS Cleveland, boarded the St. Vincent-flagged 225-foot freighter Sea Chariot about 300 miles southwest of Panama. The boarding team discovered bales of cocaine in some of the containers aboard and then seized the vessel. The vessel was escorted through the Panama Canal to Station Miami Beach where a search of the vessel’s containers turned up 11,233 pounds of cocaine. 1993 – The last A-6E Intruder departed from Marine Corps service. Marine All Weather Attack Squadron 332 transferred the last Marine A-6E to St. Augustine, Florida. They then prepared for the squadron’s transition to the F/A-18D and eventual movement from Cherry Point to Beaufort, South Carolina. 1993 – Secretary of Defense Les Aspin issues a directive allowing women to fly fighter aircraft in combat. It only takes the Air Guard three days to bring its first female fighter pilot on board when Major Jackie Parker transfers from the Regular Air Force to New York’s 138th Fighter Squadron on May 1st. Other women will follow her example so that by January 2005 there are ten female fighter pilots flying Air Guard combat aircraft.
April 28th ~ {continued...} 1994 – Former CIA official Aldrich Ames, who had betrayed U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and then Russia, pleaded guilty to espionage and tax evasion, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. His wife Rosario also pleaded guilty. 1998 – Despite direct appeals for relief from Iraq’s foreign minister and oil minister, the United Nations Security Council decides to continue economic sanctions on Iraq, imposed in 1990 following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. The Security Council also announces that it will once again begin reviewing the sanctions every 60 days. The Council suspended60-day reviews in October 1997 after Iraq expelled American members of U.N. weapons inspection teams. 1999 – The US House voted 249-180 that congressional approval would be required to send troops to Yugoslavia. A Democratic resolution supporting NATO air strikes tied 213-213. 1999 – The US announced that it would allow US firms to sell food and medicine to Iran, Sudan and Libya. 2000 – In a sharp repudiation of President Clinton’s policies, the House rejected, on a tie vote of 213-to-213, a measure expressing support for NATO’s five-week-old air campaign against Yugoslavia; the House also voted 249-to-180 to limit the president’s authority to use ground forces in Yugoslavia. 2001 – A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off for the Int’l. Space Station with two cosmonauts and California businessman Dennis Tito (60), who paid some $20 million, for the experience. Tito was the founder of the Wilshire Associates investment firm. 2001 – A LEDET assigned to the USS Rodney M. Davis, with later assistance from the USCGC Active made the largest cocaine seizure in maritime history when they boarded and seized the Belizean F/V Svesda Maru 1,500 miles south of San Diego. The fishing vessel was carrying 26,931 pounds of cocaine. 2003 – US soldiers opened fire on Iraqis at a nighttime demonstration against the American presence there after people shot at them with automatic rifles. The director of the local hospital said 13 people were killed and 75 injured. Amer Mohammed Rashid (6 of spades), known to UN weapons inspectors as the “Missile Man” and ranked 47th on the US most-wanted list of 55 members of Saddam’s inner circle, surrendered. 2003 – The US moved an air operation center from Saudi Arabia to Qatar. 2003 – The United States pledged $4 million to help keep peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast in addition to the $5 million it has already given to ECOWAS. 2003 – On Saddam Hussein’s 66th birthday, some 300 prominent Iraqis met in Baghdad under US direction to convene a national conference to create an interim government. 2003 – The Soyuz space capsule carrying a U.S.-Russian space crew docked with the international space station. 2004 – CBS broadcast photos on “60 Minutes” showing US abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. 2004 – In Iraq a series of explosions and gunfire rocked Fallujah in new fighting the day after a heavy battle in which U.S. warplanes and artillery pounded the city in a show of force against Sunni insurgents. Elsewhere 1 US and 2 Ukrainian soldiers were killed. 2004 – The six nations involved in resolving the North Korea nuclear arsenal dispute — the United States, China, the two Koreas, Russia and Japan —scheduled to begin working level talks May 12 in Beijing, China. 2004 – The UN Security Council unanimously approved a resolution requiring all 191 UN states to pass laws to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists. 2006 – U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan becomes the highest-ranking officer to have charges brought against him in connection with the Abu Ghraib abuse. 2011 – U.S. president Barack Obama nominates General David Petraeus, current head of the war on Afghanistan, as his new CIA chief, and names outgoing CIA chief Leon Panetta as head of The Pentagon. 2014 – President Barack Obama calls for an investigation into the situation at the Phoenix VA hospital.
April 29th ~ 1781 – British and French ships clash in the Battle of Fort Royal off the coast of Martinique. The Battle of Fort Royal was a naval battle fought off Fort Royal, Martinique in the West Indies during the American War of Independence between fleets of the British Royal Navy and the French Navy. After an engagement lasting four hours, the British squadron under Sir Samuel Hood broke off and retreated. De Grasse offered a desultory chase before seeing the French convoys safely to port. 1814 – USS Peacock captures HMS Epervier. 1856 – During the Tule River War Yokut Indians repelled a second attack by the ‘Petticoat Rangers,’ a band of civilian Indian fighters-some wearing body armor-at Four Creeks, California. The Yokuts lived along the shores of Tulare Lake in the Central Valley, which disappeared by 1900 due to water diversion and farming. 1861 – The Maryland House of Delegates voted against seceding from the Union. 1861 – U.S.S. United States ordered commissioned as the first ship in the Virginia navy by Major General Robert E. Lee, Commander in Chief Military Forces of Virginia. 1862 – 100,000 federal troops prepared to march into Corinth, Miss. 1862 – Expedition under Lieutenant Alexander C. Rhind in U.S.S. E. B. Hale landed and destroyed Confederate battery at Grimball’s, Dawho River, South Carolina, and exchanged fire with field pieces near Slann’s Bluff. 1862 – Union troops officially take possession of New Orleans, completing the occupation that had begun four days earlier. The capture of this vital southern city was a huge blow to the Confederacy. Southern military strategists planned for a Union attack down the Mississippi, not from the Gulf of Mexico. In early 1862, the Confederates concentrated their forces in northern Mississippi and western Tennessee to stave off the Yankee invasion. Many of these troops fought at Shiloh on April 6 and 7. Eight Rebel gunboats were dispatched up the great river to stop a Union flotilla above Memphis, leaving only 3,000 militia, two uncompleted ironclads, and a few steamboats to defend New Orleans. The most imposing obstacles for the Union were two forts, Jackson and St. Phillip. In the middle of the night of April 24, Admiral David Farragut led a fleet of 24 gunboats, 19 mortar boats, and 15,000 soldiers large fleet of ships in a daring run past the forts. Now, the River was open to New Orleans except for the rag-tag Confederate fleet. The mighty Union armada plowed right through, sinking eight ships. At New Orleans, Confederate General Mansfield Lovell surveyed his tiny force and realized that resistance was futile. If he resisted, Lovell told Mayor John Monroe, Farragut would bombard the city and inflict severe damage and casualties. Lovell pulled his troops out of New Orleans and the Yankees began arriving on April 25. The troops could not land until Forts Jackson and St. Phillip were secured. They surrendered on April 29th, and now New Orleans had no protection. Crowds cursed the Yankees as all Confederate flags in the city were lowered and stars and stripes were raised in their place. The Confederacy lost a major city, and the lower Mississippi soon became a Union highway for 400 miles to Vicksburg, Mississippi.
April 29th ~ {continued...} 1863 – May Union Army and Navy expedition feigned an attack on Confederate batteries at Haynes’ Bluff on the Yazoo River. The force consisted of U.S.S. Tyler, Choctaw, DeKalb, Signal, Romeo, Linden, Petrel, Black Hawk, and 3 mortar boats under Lieutenant Commander Breese and 10 large transports carrying troops under command of Major General W. T. Sherman. The feint was made to prevent Confederates from reinforcing Grand Gulf. On the 29th the expedition proceeded as far as Chickasaw Bayou. As the force departed on the morning of the 30th, Petrel, remained at Old River on station; the remaining vessels moved up the Yazoo with Choctaw and DeKalb opening fire on the main works at Drumgould’s Bluff and Tyler and Black Hawk opening on the fieldworks and batteries. Though instructed not to conduct an actual assault, the feint was so vigorously prosecuted that Choctaw, Lieutenant Commander Ramsay, was struck 53 times by Confederate guns. The soldiers were landed and “marched up toward Haynes’ Bluff on the only roadway, the levee, making quite a display, and threatening one also.” Naval gunfire supported the soldiers throughout the demonstration, which lasted through 1 May. The evening of the 1st, the expedition returned to the mouth of the Yazoo. Porter reported to Secretary Welles: ”The plan succeeded admirably, though the vessels were more exposed than the occasion called for; still as they met with no casualties, with the exception of the hulls, it mattered but little.” 1864 – Major General Taylor, CSA, seeking to take full advantage of the vulnerable position of Rear Admiral Porter’s gunboats above the Alexandria rapids sought “to convert one of the captured transports into a fire ship to burn the fleet now crowded above the upper falls.” This date, however, Union Army and Navy commanders accepted a daring plan proposed by Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Bailey to raise the water level of the Red River and enable the vessels to pass the treacherous rapids. Bailey’s proposal was to construct a large dam of logs and debris across the river to back up water level to a minimum depth of seven feet. The dams would be broken and the ships would ride the crest of the rushing waters to safety. Work on the dam commenced early the next day. Porter later wrote: “This proposition looked like madness, and the best engineers ridiculed it, but Colonel Bailey was so sanguine of success that I requested General Banks to have it done . . . two or three regiments of Maine men were set to work felling trees. . . . every man seemed to be working with a vigor seldom seen equalled. . . . These falls are about a mile in length, filled with rugged rocks, over which at the present stage of water it seemed to be impossible to make a channel.” 1864 – An expedition up the Rappahannock River including boats from U.S.S. Yankee, Acting Lieutenant Edward Hooker, and U.S.S. Fuchsia, assisted by U.S.S. Freeborn and Tulip, engaged Confederate cavalry and destroyed a camp under construction at Carter’s Creek, Virginia. 1865 – Acting Master W. C. Coulson, commanding U.S.S. Moose on the Cumberland River, led a surprise attack on a Confederate raiding party, numbering about 200 troops from Brigadier General Abraham Buford’s command. The raiders under the command of a Major Hopkins, were crossing the Cumberland River to sack and burn Eddyville, Kentucky. Coulson sank two troop laden boats with battery gunfire and then put a landing party ashore which engaged the remaining Con-federates. The landing force dispersed the detachment after killing or wounding 20 men, taking 6 captives, and capturing 22 horses.
April 29th ~ {continued...} 1898 – U.S. warships engage Spanish gunboats and shore batteries at Cienfuegos, Cuba. 1918 – America’s WWI Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, scored his first victory with the help of Captain James Norman Hall. He eventually racked up 26 victories before the end of the war. 1942 – Despite a desperate defense, the Japanese take Lashio, terminus of the Burma Road. All supplies to China must now go by air as China has been cut off by land. General Alexander decides to remove his troops to new position in the Chinwin and Irrawaddy Valley. 1942 – On Mindanao, Filipino resistance continues but they are pushed back from their positions when the invading Japanese receive reinforcements and greater air support. The Japanese continue to bomb the remaining American troops who have retreated to Corregidor. 1944 – Fast carrier task force (12 carriers) commence 2 day bombing of Truk. 1945 – U.S. Seventh Army’s 45th Infantry Division liberates Dachau, the first concentration camp established by Germany’s Nazi regime. A major Dachau subcamp was liberated the same day by the 42nd Rainbow Division. Established five weeks after Adolf Hitler took power as German chancellor in 1933, Dachau was situated on the outskirts of the town of Dachau, about 10 miles northwest of Munich. During its first year, the camp held about 5,000 political prisoners, consisting primarily of German communists, Social Democrats, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime. During the next few years, the number of prisoners grew dramatically, and other groups were interned at Dachau, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies, homosexuals, and repeat criminals. Beginning in 1938, Jews began to comprise a major portion of camp internees. Prisoners at Dachau were used as forced laborers, initially in the construction and expansion of the camp and later for German armaments production. The camp served as the training center for SS concentration camp guards and was a model for other Nazi concentration camps. Dachau was also the first Nazi camp to use prisoners as human guinea pigs in medical experiments. At Dachau, Nazi scientists tested the effects of freezing and changes to atmospheric pressure on inmates, infected them with malaria and tuberculosis and treated them with experimental drugs, and forced them to test methods of making seawater potable and of halting excessive bleeding. Hundreds of prisoners died or were crippled as a result of these experiments. Thousands of inmates died or were executed at Dachau, and thousands more were transferred to a Nazi extermination center near Linz, Austria, when they became too sick or weak to work. In 1944, to increase war production, the main camp was supplemented by dozens of satellite camps established near armaments factories in southern Germany and Austria. These camps were administered by the main camp and collectively called Dachau. With the advance of Allied forces against Germany in April 1945, the Germans transferred prisoners from concentration camps near the front to Dachau, leading to a general deterioration of conditions and typhus epidemics. On April 27th, 1945, approximately 7,000 prisoners, mostly Jews, were forced to begin a death march from Dachau to Tegernsee, far to the south. The next day, many of the SS guards abandoned the camp. On April 29th, the Dachau main camp was liberated by units of the 45th Infantry after a brief battle with the camp’s remaining guards. As they neared the camp, the Americans found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies in various states of decomposition. Inside the camp there were more bodies and 30,000 survivors, most severely emaciated. Some of the American troops who liberated Dachau were so appalled by conditions at the camp that they machine-gunned at least two groups of captured German guards. It is officially reported that 30 SS guards were killed in this fashion, but conspiracy theorists have alleged that more than 10 times that number were executed by the American liberators. The German citizens of the town of Dachau were later forced to bury the 9,000 dead inmates found at the camp. In the course of Dachau’s history, at least 160,000 prisoners passed through the main camp, and 90,000 through the sub camps. Incomplete records indicate that at least 32,000 of the inmates perished at Dachau and its subcamps, but countless more were shipped to extermination camps elsewhere.
April 29th ~ {continued...} 1945 – The unofficial surrender of German forces in Italy is signed at Caserta. The German representatives are present here because of a secret negotiation between the head of the OSS mission in Switzerland, Allan Dulles, and SS General Wolff. These talks have been going on since much earlier in the year, but because of their clandestine nature, the German representatives at Caserta cannot guarantee that the surrender will be ratified by Vietinghoff, commanding German forces in Italy. 1945 – Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the following day. Eva Braun met Hitler while employed as an assistant to Hitler’s official photographer. Of a middle-class Catholic background, Braun spent her time with Hitler out of public view, entertaining herself by skiing and swimming. She had no discernible influence on Hitler’s political career but provided a certain domesticity to the life of the dictator. Loyal to the end, she refused to leave the Berlin bunker buried beneath the chancellery as the Russians closed in. The couple was married only hours before they both committed suicide. 1945 – The US 185th Regiment (General Brush) lands near Padan Point with naval support by a destroyer force commanded by Admiral Struble. There is little Japanese resistance. 1945 – The last convoy battle of the Second World War begins as 14 German U-boats attack convoy RA-66 which consists of 24 ships with an escort including 2 escort carriers, 1 cruiser, 9 destroyers and 13 other ships. 1946 – Also on this day in 1946, Tojo Hideki, wartime premier of Japan, is indicted by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East of war crimes. In September 1945, he tried to commit suicide by shooting himself but was saved by an American physician who gave him a transfusion of American blood. He was eventually hanged by the Americans in 1948 after having been found guilty of war crimes. 1948 – Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Air Force authorized a medal pendant to be established for the Commendation Ribbon. The design was approved by both Secretaries on 8 July 1948 and on 20 March 1950, the Secretary of the Navy approved the Navy Commendation Ribbon, and authorized use of the same pendant with a different ribbon on 6 April 1950. DA General Order No. 10 renamed the Commendation Ribbon with Medal Pendant to the Army Commendation Medal. President Kennedy, in a memorandum to the Secretary of Defense authorized the award of the Army Commendation Medal to members of the Armed Forces of friendly foreign nations who, after 1 June 1962, distinguished themselves by an act of heroic, extraordinary achievement, or meritorious service. 1950 – In response to Senator Joseph McCarthy’s charge that former State Department consultant and university professor Owen Lattimore was a top Soviet spy in the United States, Secretary of State Dean Acheson and three former secretaries of state deny that Lattimore had any influence on U.S. foreign policy. The Lattimore case was one of the most famous episodes of the “red scare” in the United States. 1953 – Marine Corps Colonel Katherine A. Towle, Director of Women Marines, became the first woman line officer to retire from U.S. military service upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 55. 1954 – At a press conference, President Eisenhower denies US plans for massive air strikes or other intervention in Vietnam. “You certainly cannot hope…for a completely satisfactory answer with the Communists. The most you can work out is a practical way of getting along.” 1957 – The 1st military nuclear power plant was dedicated at Fort Belvoir, Va.
April 29th ~ {continued...} 1966 – An article in the Soviet newspaper Pravda assets that the television program Batman is brainwashing American children into becoming ‘murderers’ in Vietnam. 1967 – After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before (citing religious reasons), Muhammad Ali is stripped of his boxing title. 1970 – U.S. and South Vietnamese forces launch a limited “incursion” into Cambodia. The campaign included 13 major ground operations to clear North Vietnamese sanctuaries 20 miles inside the Cambodian border. Some 50,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and 30,000 U.S. troops were involved, making it the largest operation of the war since Operation Junction City in 1967. The operation began with South Vietnamese forces attacking into the “Parrot’s Beak” area of Cambodia that projects into South Vietnam above the Mekong Delta. During the first two days, an 8,000-man South Vietnamese task force, including two infantry divisions, four ranger battalions, and four armored cavalry squadrons, killed 84 communist soldiers while suffering 16 dead and 157 wounded. The second stage of the campaign began on May 2 with a series of joint U.S.-South Vietnamese operations. These operations were aimed at clearing communist sanctuaries located in the densely vegetated “Fishhook” area of Cambodia (across the border from South Vietnam, immediately north of Tay Ninh Province and west of Binh Long Province, 70 miles from Saigon). The U.S. 1st Cavalry Division and 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with the South Vietnamese 3rd Airborne Brigade, killed 3,190 communists in the action and captured massive amounts of war booty, including 2,000 individual and crew-served weapons, 300 trucks, and 40 tons of foodstuffs. By the time all U.S. ground forces had departed Cambodia on June 30, the Allied forces had discovered and captured or destroyed 10 times more enemy supplies and equipment than they had captured inside South Vietnam during the entire previous year. Many intelligence analysts at the time believed that the Cambodian incursion dealt a stunning blow to the communists, driving main force units away from the border and damaging their morale, and in the process buying as much as a year for South Vietnam’s survival. However, the incursion gave the antiwar movement in the United States a new rallying point. News of the incursion set off a wave of antiwar demonstrations, including one at Kent State University that resulted in the killing of four students by Army National Guard troops and another at Jackson State in Mississippi that resulted in the shooting of two students when police opened fire on a women’s dormitory. The incursion also angered many in Congress, who felt that Nixon was illegally widening the scope of the war; this resulted in a series of congressional resolutions and legislative initiatives that would severely limit the executive power of the president. 1974 – President Nixon announced he was releasing edited transcripts of some secretly made White House tape recordings related to Watergate. 1975 – Operation Frequent Wind, the largest helicopter evacuation on record, begins removing the last Americans from Saigon. The North Vietnamese had launched their final offensive in March 1975 and the South Vietnamese forces had fallen back before their rapid advance, losing Quang Tri, Hue, Da Nang, Qui Nhon, Tuy Hoa, Nha Trang, and Xuan Loc in quick succession. With the North Vietnamese attacking the outskirts of Saigon, U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin ordered the commencement of Frequent Wind. In 19 hours, 81 helicopters carried more than 1,000 Americans and almost 6,000 Vietnamese to aircraft carriers offshore. Cpl. Charles McMahon, Jr. and Lance Cpl. Darwin Judge, USMC, were the last U.S. military personnel killed in action in Vietnam, when shrapnel from a North Vietnamese rocket struck them as they were guarding Tan Son Nhut Airbase during the evacuation. At 7:53 a.m. on April 30, the last helicopter lifted off the rook of the embassy and headed out to sea. Later that morning, North Vietnamese tanks crashed through the gates of the Presidential Palace. North Vietnamese Col. Bui Tin accepted the surrender from Gen. Duong Van Minh, who had taken over from Tran Van Huong (who only spent one day in power after President Nguyen Van Thieu fled). The Vietnam War was over.
April 29th ~ {continued...} 1990 – The space shuttle Discovery landed safely at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a mission which included deploying the Hubble Space Telescope. 1990 – Wrecking cranes began tearing down Berlin Wall at Brandenburg Gate. 1991 – US troops continued airlifting Iraqi refugees from a camp in southern Iraq to Saudi Arabia. 1992 – Deadly rioting erupted in Los Angeles after a jury in Simi Valley acquitted four Los Angeles police officers of almost all state charges in the videotaped beating of Rodney King. White truck driver Reginald Denny was beaten by a mob in south Central LA angered by the acquittal of 4 police officers caught on video tape in the beating of black motorist Rodney King. Three days of violence ensued with 55 people killed, 2,300 injured and an estimated $1 billion [$717 million] in property damages. Rioters tore through the city following the not guilty verdicts on state charges for Los Angeles Police Department Sergeant Stacey C. Koon and officer Laurence M. Powell for beating Rodney King. 1093 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Of these, 764 retail stores were owned by Koreans. The US Congress later authorized $1 billion to revitalize south central Los Angeles. 1992 – The CGC Storis’ 3-inch/.50 caliber main battery was removed from the cutter. It was the last 3-inch/.50 caliber gun in service aboard any U.S. warship. The 3-inch/.50 was a dual-purpose weapon (surface and anti-aircraft) that had been in U.S. service since the 1930s. It was shipped to Curtis Bay where is was made inoperable and was then donated as a lawn ornament to a VFW club. 1997 – Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk. 1997 – The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories. 1998 – The US and European powers decided to impose new sanctions and agreed to freeze the assets of Yugoslavia. 1999 – The US decided to sell an early-warning radar system to Taiwan. 1999 – US planes bombed sites in the no-fly zone of northern Iraq after being attacked by missiles and anti-aircraft fire. Iraq said 20 civilians were injured in Mosul and 4 in separate attacks in the south. 1999 – NATO jets struck Yugoslav army headquarters in Belgrade and the federal interior ministry. A telecommunications tower was hit and knocked Serbian TV off the air. 1999 – In Bulgaria an errant NATO HARM missile hit a home in Gorna Banya on the outskirts of Sofia. There were no casualties. 2000 – Iraq’s oil ministry states that it expects to export more than $8.5 billion of oil in the current six-month phase of the United Nations “oil-for-food” program. 2001 – NASA scientists reported that they had contacted the Pioneer 10 spacecraft, launched in 1972, after 8 months of no communication. 2001 – China offered to allow US officials to inspect the US Navy spy plane on Hainan Island. 2002 – US forces in Afghanistan engaged al Qaeda fighters near the Pakistan border and killed 4. 2002 – The 1st 20 of some 2000 US soldiers landed in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 2002 – Britain decided to treat al Qaeda and Taliban fighters as prisoners of war and turn them over to the interim Afghan government. 2003 – The US said it would withdraw all combat forces from Saudi Arabia. 2003 – Pakistani police arrested six men linked to al-Qaeda, including a Yemeni man, Tawfiq Attash Khallad (Waleed bin Attash), wanted in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks and the bombing of the USS Cole. 2004 – A national monument to the 16 million U.S. men and women who served during World War II opened to the public in Washington DC. Official dedication was set for May 29th. 2004 – U.S. Marines announced an agreement to end a bloody, nearly month long siege of Fallujah, saying American forces will pull back and allow an all-Iraqi force commanded by one of Saddam Hussein’s generals to take over security. 2006 – United States-Iran relations continue to deteriorate after US officials called Iran one of the world’s most active sponsors of terrorism, as IAEA reveals that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium and is racing ahead with its nuclear program. Iran says it does not “give a damn” about the verdict from the IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei and what it might lead to. 2008 – Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) started their operations with an attack on the Taliban-held town of Garmsir. The operation was in conjunction with British troops of the 16 Air Assault Brigade.[5] They met almost no resistance, because the Taliban had already observed in the previous days the movements of the Marines before the operation and expected an assault so withdrew to take up positions a few kilometers outside the town.[6] For the next few days there was no contact between the US Marines and the Taliban. 2010 – The United States Coast Guard begins a controlled burn to remove oil spilled in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
April 30th ~ 1492 – Spain gives Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. 1494 – Christopher Columbus arrived in Guantanamo Bay on his 2nd voyage to the Americas. 1629 – John Endecott became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 1789 – In New York City, George Washington, the great military leader of the American Revolution, is inaugurated as the first president of the United States. In February 1789, all 69 presidential electors unanimously chose Washington to be the first U.S. president. In March, the new U.S. constitution officially took effect, and in April Congress formally sent word to Washington that he had won the presidency. He borrowed money to pay off his debts in Virginia and traveled to New York. On April 30th, he came across the Hudson River in a specially built and decorated barge. The inaugural ceremony was performed on the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street, and a large crowd cheered after he took the oath of office. The president then retired indoors to read Congress his inaugural address, a quiet speech in which he spoke of “the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.” The evening celebration was opened and closed by 13 skyrockets and 13 cannons. As president, Washington sought to unite the nation and protect the interests of the new republic at home and abroad. Of his presidency, he said, “I walk on untrodden ground. There is scarcely any part of my conduct which may not hereafter be drawn in precedent.” He successfully implemented executive authority, made good use of brilliant politicians such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in his cabinet, and quieted fears of presidential tyranny. In 1792, he was unanimously re-elected but four years later refused a third term. In 1797, he finally began a long-awaited retirement at his estate in Virginia. He died two years later. His friend Henry Lee provided a famous eulogy for the father of the United States: “First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” 1798 – Congress established the Department of the Navy on this date in 1798, however, the United States Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which the Continental Congress established on 13 October 1775 by authorizing the procurement, fitting out, manning, and dispatch of two armed vessels to cruise in search of munitions ships supplying the British Army in America. In 1972 Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt authorized recognition of the 13 October 1775 date as the Navy’s “official” birthday.
April 30th ~ {continued...} 1803 – During the early moments of the nineteenth century, the United States government wheeled and dealt its way into what is generally regarded as the “greatest land bargain” in the nation’s history, the Louisiana Purchase. The deal, which was dated April 30th, 1803, though it was in fact signed on May 2nd, had been in the works since the spring of 1802. It was then that President Thomas Jefferson had learned of Spain’s decision to quietly transfer Spanish Louisiana to the French; fearful of the strategic and commercial implications of the Spanish swap, Jefferson ordered Robert Livingston, the U.S. minister in Paris, to broker a deal with the French either for a slice of land on the lower Mississippi or a “guarantee” of unmolested transport for U.S. ships. Negotiations dragged on for months, but took a crucial turn when Spanish and U.S. trade relations collapsed in the fall of 1802. With Spain now barring American merchant ships from transferring goods at the port in New Orleans, Jefferson set his sights on purchasing a far larger chunk of land. In early 1803, James Monroe headed to Paris to broker Jefferson’s deal. With France teetering on the brink of war with Great Britain, and mindful not only of the fiscal repercussions of such a conflict, but of the possibility of a renewed U.S.-English alliance, Napoleon’s negotiators acceded to a deal to sell the whole of Louisiana. All told, the Louisiana Purchase cost the U.S. $15 million: $11.25 million was earmarked for the land deal, while the remaining $3.75 million covered France’s outstanding debts to America. Thus, for the prime price of 3 cents an acre, the United States bought 828,000-square miles of land, which effectively doubled the size of the young nation. 1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana. Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its capital is Baton Rouge. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties. Much of the state’s lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp. The two “Deltas” are located in Monroe, the parish seat of Ouachita Parish, Shreveport, the parish seat of Caddo Parish, and Alexandria, the parish seat of Rapides Parish, for the small Delta, and Monroe, Lake Charles, and New Orleans for the large Delta. They are referred to as Deltas because they form a perfect triangle shape when the points are lined up. These contain a rich southern biota; typical examples include birds such as ibis and egrets. There are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a natural process in the landscape, and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas. These support an exceptionally large number of plant species, including many species of orchids and carnivorous plants. Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural, multilingual heritage, being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th-century French, Spanish, Native American, and African cultures that they are considered to be exceptional in the US. Before the American purchase of the territory in 1803, the current Louisiana State had been both a French colony and a Spanish one. In addition, colonists imported numerous African slaves as laborers in the 18th century. Many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture. In the post-Civil War environment, Anglo-Americans increased the pressure for Anglicization, and in 1915, English was made the only official language of the state. Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other southern state, including four that are federally recognized, ten that are state recognized, and four that have not yet received recognition. 1818 – Congress authorized use of “land and naval forces of the United States to compel any foreign ship to depart United States in all cases in which, by the laws of nations or the treaties of the United States, they ought not to remain within the United States.” This was the basis of neutrality enforcement. 1832 – All commissions of naval officers in Revenue Cutter Service revoked. Vacancies filled by promotion for first time. 1860 – Navajo Indians attacked Fort Defiance (Canby). 1861 – President Lincoln ordered Federal Troops to evacuate Indian Territory.
April 30th ~ {continued...} 1863 – Major General Grant ferried his troops across the Mississippi River at Bruinsburg to commence the work of isolating Vicksburg from reinforcements. 1864 – Work began on the Dams along the Red River which would allow Union General Nathaniel Banks’ troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana. 1864 – Union troops under General Frederick Steele fight off a Confederate army under General Edmund Kirby Smith as the Yankees retreat towards Little Rock, Arkansas. Jenkin’s Ferry came at the end of a major Union offensive in Arkansas. While a Federal force under General Nathaniel Banks moved up the Red River in Louisiana towards Shreveport, Steele led his troops from Little Rock into southwestern Arkansas. The combined effort promised to secure northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas for the Union before the armies moved west to invade Texas. In April, however, the plans ran afoul when Banks was defeated at Mansfield, Louisiana, and Steele found himself dangerously low on supplies. Steele occupied Camden, Arkansas, on April 15. Over the next ten days, Steele lost more than 400 supply wagons and 2,500 troops at the Battles of Poison Springs and Mark’s Mills. Now, Steele was surrounded by hostile armies and running low on food. He headed back to Little Rock with Smith in hot pursuit. A heavy rain began to fall, lasting for nearly a day and bringing Steele’s retreat to a grinding halt. At Jenkin’s Ferry on April 30th, Smith attacked Steele as the Yankees were trying to cross the flooded Saline River. General Samuel Rice directed the Union defense, and his men held off a series of Rebel attacks before Rice was mortally wounded. Fighting in knee-deep water, the Confederates could not penetrate the Union lines. Steele was able to remove his force across the Saline River. He destroyed the pontoon bridge and left Smith on the other side of the river before escaping to Little Rock. The Union suffered 700 men killed, wounded, and missing out of 4,000, while the Confederates lost about 1,000 out of 8,000. Some of the Rebel dead included wounded troops who were killed by members of the 2nd Kansas Colored regiment, exacting a measure of revenge for dozens of comrades from the 1st Kansas Colored murdered on the battlefield at Poison Springs. When it was over, Smith and the Confederates controlled the field but they had failed to destroy Steele’s army. 1865 – General Sherman’s “Haines’s Bluff” at Snyder’s Mill, Virginia. 1865 – The eight suspects in the Lincoln assassination plot who had been imprisoned on monitors U.S.S. Montauk and Saugus were transferred to the Arsenal Penitentiary, located in the compound of what is today Fort McNair. This was also the site of their trial by a military tribunal which returned its verdict on 30 June 1865. Three of the eight, along with Mrs. Mary E. Surratt, were hanged in the prison yard of the penitentiary on 7 July-Lewis Paine who made the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Secretary of State Seward; George A. Atzerodt who had been designated by Booth to murder Vice President Johnson; and David E. Herold who had accompanied Booth in his escape from the city. Michael O’Laughlin and Samuel B. Arnold, boyhood friends of Booth and conspirators in the actor’s earlier plans to abduct President Lincoln and in his later plans to assassinate the government’s top officials, were sentenced to life in prison. Another accomplice, Edward Spangler, stagehand at the Ford Theater was sentenced to six years in prison. The remaining two of the eight who had been incarcerated on the monitors-Ernest Hartman Richter, a cousin of Atzerodt, and Joao Celestino, a Portuguese sea captain were released without being brought to trial.
April 30th ~ {continued...} 1871 – Apaches in Arizona surrendered to white and Mexican adventurers; 144 died. The Camp Grant massacre was an attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches who surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona, along the San Pedro River. The massacre led to a series of battles and campaigns fought between the Americans, the Apache, and their Yavapai allies, which continued into 1875, the most notable being General George Crook’s Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872 and 1873. On the afternoon of April 28th, six Americans, 48 Mexicans, and 92 O’odham gathered along Rillito Creek and set off on a march to Aravaipa Canyon; one of the Americans was William S. Oury, the brother of Granville Henderson Oury. At dawn on Sunday, April 30, they surrounded the Apache camp. The O’odham were the main fighters, while the Americans and Mexicans picked off Apaches who tried to escape. Most of the Apache men were off hunting in the mountains. All but eight of the corpses were women and children. Twenty-nine children had been captured and were sold into slavery in Mexico by the Tohono O’odham and the Mexicans themselves. A total of 144 Aravaipas and Pinals had been killed and mutilated, nearly all of them scalped. Lieutenant Whitman searched for the wounded, found only one woman, buried the bodies, and dispatched interpreters into the mountains to find the Apache men and assure them his soldiers had not participated in the “vile transaction”. The following evening, the surviving Aravaipas began trickling back to Camp Grant. Within a week of the slaughter, a local businessman, William Hopkins Tonge, wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs stating, “The Indians at the time of the massacre being so taken by surprise and considering themselves perfectly safe with scarcely any arms, those that could get away ran for the mountains.” He was the first person to refer to what had taken place as a massacre. The military and the Eastern press called it a massacre, so President Grant informed Governor A.P.K. Safford that if the perpetrators were not brought to trial, he would place Arizona under martial law. In October 1871, a Tucson grand jury indicted 100 of the assailants with 108 counts of murder. The trial, two months later, focused solely on Apache depredations; it took the jury just 19 minutes to pronounce a verdict of not guilty. Western Apache groups soon left their farms and gathering places near Tucson in fear of subsequent attacks. As pioneer families arrived and settled in the area, Apaches were never able to regain hold of much of their ancestral lands in the San Pedro River Valley. Many groups of Apaches joined up with the Yavapais in Tonto Basin, and from there, a guerilla war began which lasted until 1875. 1875 – The first Gold Life Saving Medal ever awarded was presented to Captain Lucien M. Clemens of the U.S. Life-Saving Service in Marblehead, Ohio, who was captain of one of the first life saving stations on the Great Lakes. Medals were also given to his brothers, Al and Hubbard. They rescued six crew and a female cook from the sinking schooner Consuelo in an open rowboat. 1889 – Washington’s inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday. 1894 – Coxey’s Army reaches Washington, D.C. to protest the unemployment caused by the Panic of 1893. Coxey’s Army was a protest march by unemployed workers from the United States, led by Ohio businessman Jacob Coxey. They marched on Washington D.C. in 1894, the second year of a four-year economic depression that was the worst in United States history to that time. Officially named the Army of the Commonwealth in Christ, its nickname came from its leader and was more enduring. It was the first significant popular protest march on Washington and the expression “Enough food to feed Coxey’s Army” originates from this march.
