Today in 1797, the launch of the USS Constitution, the oldest active duty ship in the US Navy’s fleet. And for the last half century or so, a part of keeping “Old Ironsides” in operation is a special US Navy forest.
This year has not been a record one for US/Canadian ties, but at least it's not like 1921, when a Canadian military official worked up a secret plan to invade a bunch of northern US cities. (And, for that matter, the US had a northern invasion plan too.)
Today in 1944, D-Day, the largest invasion force ever. There were hundreds of thousands of troops, tens of thousands of vehicles, over 100,000 tons of equipment, and at least one guy playing bagpipes.
Today in 1920, the Royal Australian Navy added a woman to its ranks for the very first time. Her name was Nancy Bentley, she was six years old, and the Navy “enlisted” her in an effort to save her life.
Today in 1935, a military mission you sure don’t see every day: at the direction of then-Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton, American planes carried out a series of bombing runs in Hawaii to stop a volcano.
At the airport in Las Vegas, there's a terminal you can't use to fly in and catch a Golden Knights game or drop by a casino. It's used only by one of the most out-of-sight airlines in the world, a secret airline known as "Janet."
The U.S. and North Korea aren't exactly chummy, and yet once, in 2007, the U.S. Navy came to the aid of a North Korean ship that had been taken over by pirates in Somalia - and Pyongyang publicly thanked the Americans for their help!
Today in 1948, an unusually sweet moment in the history of the Cold War: American servicemember Gail Halvorsen came up with a plan that would eventually earn him the nickname "the Berlin Candy Bomber."
