11 AUGUST 1835 THE SEMINOLE WARS Florida’s aboriginal natives fell victim to European diseases and enslavement during two centuries of Spanish rule from the 1500s. Their demise left a vacuum into which displaced northern tribes, runaway slaves, and American squatters filed. Read More
5 AUGUST 1864 CAPTURE OF CSS TENNESSEE By August 1864, the last remaining Confederate seaport not in Union hands was Mobile, Alabama. At 0530 this morning, VADM David G. Farragut’s Union squadron “damned the torpedoes” and forced their way past Fort Read More
29 JULY 1967 “FOREST” FIRE There were three major fires aboard US Navy aircraft carriers during the course of the Vietnam conflict. The first occurred on 26 October 1966, killing 44 sailors aboard ORISKANY (CVA-34) after a phosphorous parachute flare accidently Read More
21 JULY 1861 DARK DAY AT BULL RUN (cont.) Exploding Union shrapnel ripped through the Henry house striking udith Henry in the neck and flank and nearly amputating her foot. Her daughter, Ellen, had taken refuge within the fireplace and was Read More
21 JULY 1861 DARK DAY AT BULL RUN North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Virginia had all seceded from the United States and established their capital in Richmond. US Army installations in the disputed Read More
16 JULY 1847 THE MARINES IN MEXICO The period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War could be called the “doldrums” of US Marine Corps history, suffering as they did from insufficient manning and even scantier funding. The end Read More
11 JULY 1944 NAZI POWs IN AMERICA On this day, German POWs Wolfgang Kurzer and Karl Tomola quietly slipped away from the camp at Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, and headed north. They crossed the Canadian border where they found employment washing dishes Read More
6 JULY 1960 PROJECT VIGILANT On 16 May 1960, in response to the Soviet shoot-down of Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spyplane, Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on a United Nations lectern vowing, “We will bury you!” The USSR was now Read More
29 JUNE 1776 BATTLE OF TURTLE GUT INLET The six-gun civilian brig Nancy headed north from St. Thomas and St. Croix. Her Master, Hugh Montgomery, had shipped a cargo that would bring a handsome profit in his homeport of Philadelphia. Nancy Read More
26 JUNE 1993 BAGHDAD MISSILE ATTACK The decade following Operation “Desert Storm” was marked by Iraqi frustration over continuing United Nations sanctions and Coalition policing. Then seemingly to rub salt in Iraq’s wounds, on 14 April 1993 a specially chartered Kuwait Read More