To all Active Duty, Reserve, National Guard, and Veterans of the Armed Forces of this great country! We are proud of the work and sacrifice you are doing and have done to keep the country safe! As I stood on the black sand beaches of Iwo Jima two months ago, the exact landing beaches where some 90,000 Marines 65 years ago landed and fought their way off the beaches and across the heavily fortified island, and then climbed to the top of Mt Suribachi [...]
Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day or VE Day) was on May 8, 1945, the date when the World War II Allies formally accepted the unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Nazi Germany and the end of Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. On 30 April Hitler committed suicide during the Battle of Berlin, and so the surrender of Germany was authorized by his replacement, President of Germany Karl Dönitz. The administration headed up by Dönitz was known as the [...]
RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. She was torpedoed by the SM U-20, a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 and sank in eighteen minutes, eight miles (15 km) off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard. The sinking turned public opinion in many countries against Germany, and was instrumental in bringing the United States into World War [...]
Following the Pearl Harbor attack in December 1941, the Japanese invaded the Philippine Islands. The American-Filipino military force under the command of General Douglas MacArthur was forced onto the Bataan peninsula, where they carried out a delaying action. The Japanese knew that with enough force, they could take American- and Filipino-occupied Corregidor, a small rock-strewn island south of Bataan. Corregidor was strategically located at the entrance of Manila Bay, one of Asia’s finest natural harbors. Like the stopper of a [...]
The Battle of Puebla took place on May 5, 1862 near the city of Puebla during the French intervention in Mexico. The battle ended in a victory for the Mexican Army against the occupying French forces. The victory is celebrated today during the festivities of Cinco de Mayo (5th of May). In late 1861 Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, under the Treaty of London (1861) sent troops to Mexico, alongside Spanish and English forces, to collect debts owed by [...]
