1.15.05
IT HAPPENED THIS DAY...JAN 15th - JAN 21st
Jan. 15-
1865 - Capture of Fort Fisher, NC by joint amphibious force.
Jan, 16-
2001 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the US, was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for valor during his epic charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba in 1898 while leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish American war. The presentation took place in the Roosevelt room in the White House.
1991 - Operation Desert Storm to drive the Iraqi forces out and liberate of Kuwait begins. Because of the time difference, it was early January 17 in the Persian Gulf when the attack began.
1991 - USS Missouri (BB-63) is called into action in the Persian Gulf, firing her guns in anger for the first time since the Korean War. Between January 16 and March 3, Missouri fired twenty-eight Tomahawk missiles and 759 16-inch projectiles.
Jan. 17-
1950 – USS Missouri's overhaul completed. Missouri, the only US Navy battleship in commission was putting to sea on a training mission, when at 08:25, she ran aground 1.6 miles from Thimble Shoals Light, Virginia. Missouri traversed shoal water 2,500 feet from the channel, was lifted seven feet above the water-line, and was stuck hard and fast. Missouri's stranding aroused a great public interest. Letters poured in from worried Americans, to Admiral Smith and Admiral Wallin, suggesting numerous ways to float Missouri free. There were others that made a mockery of Mighty Mo's position, but were to see the Navy come to it's own rescue, in extensive and diversified salvage work. For a time it was thought the Mighty Mo had ended her career and she'd be scrapped or made into a national shrine, right on the spot! While the world joked about Missouri, her crew and officers, and the Navy's embarrassment, Big Mo was freed. She was refloated through the efforts and use of teamwork and facilities which were almost exclusively of the US Navy. Those who were so proud of the Navy and Mighty Mo, sighed in relief. The Missouri's physical damage was slight and the salvage cost was a modest $225,000.
1955 - USS Nautilus: "Underway on nuclear power."
Jan. 18-
1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook reached the Hawaiian Islands which he dubbed the "Sandwich Islands."
1911 - First aircraft landing aboard a ship, USS Pennsylvania, by Eugene Ely.
1991 - Round the clock bombing of Iraqi targets continued in Operation Desert Storm.
Jan. 19-
1840 - Lt. Charles Wilkes, USN is first American to discover Antarctic coast.
Jan. 20-
1783 - US and Britain end hostilities.
1887 - The US Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
1991 - During the Gulf War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by US Patriot rockets as they approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Iraqi television showed interviews with seven downed allied pilots, three of them American.
Jan. 21-
1954 - The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn.
1961 - First patrol of fleet ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington.
1968 - Siege of Khe-Sanh begins.
1977 - President Jimmy Carter pardoned almost all Vietnam War draft evaders.
