This date in history

[Jimbuna]

1789 First US electoral college chooses George Washington as President and John Adams as Vice-President.

1938 Adolf Hitler seizes control of German army & puts Nazis in key posts.

1945 Roosevelt, Churchill & Stalin meet at Yalta in the Crimea to discuss the final phase of the war.

2004 Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook from his Harvard dormitory room.

[Jimbuna]

1918 First US pilot to down an enemy airplane, Stephen W Thompson.

1945 US troops under General Douglas MacArthur enter Manilla.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

1918 First US pilot to down an enemy airplane, Stephen W Thompson.

^ that was the good news! This being a submarine naval forum: 1918: SS Tuscania was a luxury liner of the Cunard Line. She was torpedoed in 1918 by the German U-boatUB-77 while transporting American troops to Europe and sank, sending 210 people to their deaths. With 384 crew members and 2,013 United States Army personnel aboard. On the morning of 5 February 1918, she turned south for the North Channel en route Liverpool. The German submarine UB-77 sighted Tuscania′s convoy during the day and stalked it until early evening. Under the cover of darkness at about 6:40 p.m., the submarine′s commander, Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Meyer, ordered two eels fired at Tuscania. The second of these struck home, sending her to the bottom of the Irish Sea within about four hours. < survivors and the dead washed up on the Isle of Islay where there are burials and a memorial. http://www.islayinfo.com/loss-troopship-tuscania-islay.html

[Jimbuna]

1943 First Spitfire in action above Darwin, Australia, Mu Ki-46 shot down.

1952 Queen Elizabeth II succeeds King George VI to the British throne and proclaimed Queen of the United Kingdom and the other Commonwealth realms including Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

[Aktungbby]

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

[Jimbuna]

1863 HMS Orpheus sinks off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand, killing 189.

1945 General Douglas MacArthur returns to Manila.

1964 Cassius Clay converts to Islam, and is renamed Muhammad Ali.

1991 The IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting.

1992 Maastricht Treaty signed by 12 countries from the European Community (EC) to create the European Union (EU).

[Jimbuna]

1807 Battle of Eylau ends inconclusively between Napoleon's forces and Russian Empire - first battle Napoleon isn't victorious.

1906 Without warning, Japanese torpedo boats make a night attack on Russian ships near naval base at Port Arthur, Manchuria; confusion because no deceleration of war given.

1912 British Emissary journeys to Berlin to suggest that Britain might support German colonial aspirations in Africa if Germany agrees to hold her current naval strength.

1916 French cruiser "Admiral Charner" torpedoed off Syrian coast, kills 374.

1944 U-762 sunk off Ireland.

1960 Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom issued an Order-in-Council, stating that she and her family would be known as the House of Windsor, and that her descendants will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor".

[Jimbuna]

1916 Britain's military service act enforced (conscription).

1943 Japanese troops evacuate Guadalcanal, ends epic WWII battle on the Solomon Islands in the Pacific.

1944 U-734/U-238 sunk off Ireland.

1945 HMS Venturer sinks U-Boat 864 off the coast of Norway.

1964 First appearance of Beatles on "Ed Sullivan Show" (73.7 million viewers).

[Aktungbby]

1964 First appearance of Beatles on "Ed Sullivan Show" (73.7 million viewers).

I actually tuned (age 13) in to see what the fuss was about; the only time I ever watched Ed Sullivan...MEH.... until Sgt Pepper was released; that did it for me! I still have the vinyl album!

[Jimbuna]

1906 British battleship HMS Dreadnought launches after only 100 days, renders all other capital ships obsolete with its revolutionary design.

1915 US President Woodrow Wilson warns Germany that the US will hold it 'to a strict accountability' for 'property endangered or lives lost'.

1915 US President Woodrow Wilson protests to Britain on the use of US flags on British merchant ships to deceive the Germans.

1944 U-666/U-545/U-283 sink off Ireland.

1962 USSR swaps spy Francis Gary Power to US for Rudolph Abel.

1964 Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager sinks after colliding with aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, killing 82.

[Jimbuna]

1943 US General Eisenhower selected to command the allied armies in Europe; British General Montgomery not best pleased.

1944 U-424 sunk off Ireland.

1946 Operation Deadlight ends after scuttling 116 of 156 captured U-boats.

1956 British diplomats Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean deny working as spies for Soviet Russia after reappearing in the Soviet Union after going missing 5 years earlier.

[Jimbuna]

1554 Queen of England for nine days, Lady Jane Grey is executed for treason.

1915 Adolf Hitler receives the relatively common Iron Cross second class for bravery in World War I.

1935 First secret demonstration of radio signals detecting aircraft by Robert Watson-Watt at Daventry, England.

1938 The first 'Kindertransport' carrying Jewish refugee children from Nazi Germany arrives in Britain.

1942 German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen escape from Brest to Germany in a dash up the English Channel.

[Jimbuna]

1942 Hitler's Operation Sealion, the invasion of England, is cancelled.

1945 Allied planes begin bombing Dresden, Germany; a firestorm results and over 22,000 die.

[Jimbuna]

1797 The Battle of Cape St Vincent: British fleet under Admiral Sir John Jervis defeats larger Spanish fleet under Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos near Cape St. Vincent, Portugal. Captain Horatio Nelson distinguishes himself.

1876 Alexander G. Bell & Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor.

1912 1st US submarines with diesel engines commissioned, Groton, Connecticut.

1929 St Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed, allegedly on Al Capone's orders.

1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed.

1989 The first of 24 satellites of the Global Positioning System are placed into orbit.

[Catfish]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

^[...]
1940 British merchant vessel fleet is armed. [...]

Such a small, harmless sentence