10 OCTOBER 1845 BIRTH OF THE NAVAL ACADEMY In spite of calls from such notables as John Paul Jones, our early Navy resisted establishing a shoreside teaching academy in favor of hands-on midshipman training under actual operating conditions at sea. In 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
15 JUNE 1959 NAS SIGONELLA After World War II, Americans found it impossible to return to the isolation from European events we had enjoyed since our Revolution. The vast Atlantic and Pacific Oceans no longer presented obstacles to an attacker, and Read More
SPRING 1898 FORT JEFFERSON–GIBRALTAR OF THE GULF Sixty-eight miles west of Key West, Florida, lies a cluster of small islands named for the turtles early sailors harvested there. The Dry Tortugas were notable in the 19th century because they lay athwart Read More
14 JUNE 1898 BATTLE OF CUZCO WELL On this morning, LCOL Robert W. Huntington dispatched CPT George Fielding Elliott with two rifle companies and 50 Cuban scouts on a 6-mile circuitous march along the shore to the Cuzco Well. They were Read More
10 JUNE 1898 CAPTURE OF GUANTANAMO BAY Much of the Spanish-American War was fought in Cuba, where American intervention hoped to end oppression of local Cubans by their Spanish overlords. Spain answered with a squadron of four cruisers and three destroyers Read More