On December 7th, 1941, the Empire of Japan conducted a surprise attack on the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean.  The total number of deaths came to 2403 and 1,143 were wounded.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the attack was “a date which will live in infamy” and declared war on Japan December 8th, 1941. Italy’s leader Benito Mussolin, and Germany’s leader Adolf Hitler, declared war on the United States December 11th, 1941.

Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain.  Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned or put to death.  By 1941, killing centers, concentration camps at Dachau in Germany and Auschwitz in Poland and other Nazi extermination camps replaced firing squads as the primary method of mass killing.  The total number of Jews murdered during the war is estimated at five and a half to six million, including over a million children.  Twelve million were put into forced labor.

Japan lost the Battle of Midway in 1942 and Germany was defeated in North Africa and Stalingrad by the Soviet Union.  In 1943, with multiple German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Italy and Sicily, Italy surrender.  During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major losses in Asia, South Central China and Burma, and the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key Western Pacific islands.

Aerial bombings of Germany escalated in 1944.  The Normandy Invasion (D-Day) June 6th, 1944, was the largest seaborne invasion in history.  The Battle of Hürtgen Forest, September 19th, to December 16th, 1944 was the longest single battle fought by the U.S. Army.  The Battle of the Bulge, December 16th, 1944 to January 25th, 1945, was the largest and bloodiest battle of the war.  The Battle of Remagen, March 7th, to March 25th, 1945, resulted in the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine.  The Soviet Union and other Allied powers conquered Germany during the Battle of Berlin April 16th, to May 2nd, 1945.  Adolf Hitler and girlfriend Eva Braun committed suicide April 30th.  German Chancellor Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day, after murdering their six children.  From May 4th to 8th, 1945, most of the remaining German forces surrendered.  The German Instrument of Surrender was signed May 7th.  Many of the surviving Nazi leadership were put on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials.

The Potsdam Declaration for the Japanese Surrender called for the unconditional surrender of all Japanese armed forces during World War II.  On July 26th, 1945, and following the refusal of Japan to surrender under its terms, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6th and August 9th respectively. With an invasion imminent and the possibility of additional atomic bombings, Japan surrendered on August 15th, 1945 and documents were signed aboard the deck of the American battleship USS Missouri on September 2nd, 1945, ending the war.

The Tuskegee Airmen were the first African-American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces and were intricate to the success of the European campaign.  Their training began in June 1941 with the 99th Pursuit Squadron at Tuskegee University consisting of 47 officers and 429 enlisted men.  After training at Moton Field, they were moved to the nearby Tuskegee Army Air Field, Tuskegee, AL.

On 15 May 1942, the 99th Pursuit Squadron was renamed the 99th Fighter Squadron and joined the 33rd Fighter Group in North Africa in April 1943.  Their first combat mission was to attack the small strategic volcanic island of Pantelleria in the Mediterranean Sea to clear the sea lanes for the Allied invasion of Sicily slated for July, 1943.  The 99^th was then moved to Sicily and received a Distinguished Unit Citation for its performance in combat.  The 99th was then sent to mainland Italy and on 1 May 1944, were assigned to the 332nd Fighter Group where they conducted heavy strategic bombing raids into Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland and Germany. The Allies called these airmen “Red Tails” or “Red-Tail Angels,” because of the distinctive crimson unit identification marking predominantly applied on the tail section of the unit’s aircraft.

The 99th Fighter Squadron, previously known as the 99th Pursuit Squadron, earned three Distinguished Unit Citations (DUC) during World War II. The DUCs were for operations over Sicily from 30 May–11 June 1943 and for successfully fighting off German jet aircraft on 24 March 1945.  The mission was the longest bomber escort mission of the Fifteenth Air Force throughout the war. The 332nd Fighter Group flew missions in Sicily, Anzio, Normandy, the Rhineland, the Po Valley and Rome-Arno and others. Pilots of the 99th once set a record for destroying five enemy aircraft in under four minutes.

The Tuskegee Airmen shot down three German jets in a single day. On 24 March 1945, led by Colonel Benjamin O. Davis escorted B-17 bombers over 1,600 miles into Germany and back. The bombers’ target, a massive Daimler-Benz tank factory in Berlin, was heavily defended by Luftwaffe aircraft.  Pilots Charles Brantley, Earl Lane and Roscoe Brown all shot down German jets over Berlin that day. For the mission, the 332nd Fighter Group earned a Distinguished Unit Citation and pilots earned 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses.

On 29 March 2007, the Tuskegee Airmen were collectively awarded a Congressional Gold Medal at a ceremony in the U.S. Capitol rotunda.  The medal is currently on display at the Smithsonian Institution.  The airfield where the airmen trained is now the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site.

Three Tuskegee airmen went on to become generals.  Daniel “Chappie” James, Jr. was appointed a Brigadier General by President Nixon.  Benjamin O. Davis Jr., was the original commander of the 332nd Fighter Group and the first black general in the U.S. Air Force.  Tuskegee aviator, Lucius Theus, retired a major general after dedicating most of his 36-year career in the Air Force to improving the military’s bureaucracy, helping to implement a direct deposit system for service members.

The Tuskegee Airmen Memorial was erected at Walterboro Army Airfield, South Carolina, in honor of the Tuskegee Airmen, their instructors, and ground support personnel who trained at the Walterboro Army Airfield during World War II.

World War II produced two highly decorated hero’s, Mitchell Paige of the U.S. Marine Corps and Audie Murphy of the U.S. Army.

Colonel Mitchell Paige of the United States Marine was a recipient of the Medal of Honor from World War II. He received this, the highest military honor awarded by the United States of America, for his actions at the Battle of Guadalcanal, October 26, 1942, where, after all of the other Marines in his platoon were killed or wounded, he operated four (4) machine guns, single-handedly stopping an entire Japanese regiment. Paige died Nov. 15^th, 2008 at the age of 85 and is buried in Riverside National Cemetery in Ca.

Audie Leon Murphy was the most decorated American combat soldiers of WWII.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor he tried to enlist but the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps all turned him down for being underweight and underage. After his sister provided an affidavit falsifying his birth date by a year, he was accepted by the U.S. Army on June 30th, 1942, 10 days after his 17th birthday.  Murphy ultimately received every U.S. military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, as well as French and Belgian awards for heroism. He received the Medal of Honor for valor demonstrated at the age of 19 for single-handedly holding off an entire company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in France in January 1945, then leading a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition.  France recognized his service with the French Legion of Honor – Grade of Chevalier, the French Croix de guerre with Silver Star, the French Croix de guerre with Palm, the French Liberation Medal and the French Fourragère in Colors of the Croix de guerre.  Belgium awarded Murphy the Belgian Croix de guerre with 1940 Palm.  Murphy began an acting career in 1948 and portrayed himself in a 1955 autobiographical movie titled “To Hell and Back”.  Murphy died in a plane crash May 28^th, 1971 at the age of 46 and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Code talking was pioneered by Cherokee and Choctaw Indians during World War I, however, the name “code talkers”  is strongly associated with bilingual Navajo speakers specially recruited during World War II by the Marines to serve in their standard communications units in the Pacific Theater.  Soldiers of Basque ancestry (north-central Spain and south-western France) were also deployed by the U.S. Marines and the Army deployed the Lakota, Meskwaki and Comanche soldiers as code talkers.

Philip Johnston, a civil engineer, proposed the use of Navajo to the United States Marine Corps at the beginning of World War II.  Johnston, a World War I veteran, was raised on the Navajo reservation as the son of a missionary to the Navajo. He was one of the few non-Navajo who spoke the language fluently.  Still an unwritten language, Johnston thought Navajo could satisfy the military requirement for an undecipherable code. Navajo was spoken only on the Navajo lands of the American Southwest.  One estimate indicates that at the outbreak of World War II, fewer than 30 non-Navajo’s could understand the language.

The Navajo Code Talkers were mainly Marines. Determined that spelling out military terms during combat was too time-consuming, some terms, concepts, tactics and instruments of modern warfare were given uniquely formal descriptive Navajo names.  The word for “shark” referred to a destroyer, and a “silver oak leaf” the rank of lieutenant colonel.  Several of these terms, such as gofasters referring to running shoes or ink sticks for pens, entered Marine Corps vocabulary and are commonly used today.

The code talkers memorized all these variations and practiced their rapid use under stressful conditions during training. Untrained Navajo speakers would have no idea what the code talkers’ messages meant; they would hear only disjointed strings of individual, unrelated nouns, and verbs.

The Navajo Code Talkers were commended for their skill, speed, and accuracy throughout the war. At the Battle of Iwo Jima, Major Howard Conner the 5th Marine Division’s Signal Officer had six Navajo code talkers working around the clock during the first two days of the battle. These six sent and received over 800 messages, all without error. Connor later stated, “Were it not for the Navajos, the Marines would never have taken Iwo Jima.”

As the war progressed representative code talkers of each of the U.S. Marine divisions met in Hawaii to discuss shortcomings in the code, incorporate new terms, and update their codebooks. These representatives trained other code talkers who could not attend the meeting.  The last of the original 29 Navajo code talkers who developed the code, Chester Nez, died on June 4, 2014.

The deployment of the Navajo code talkers continued through the Korean War and after, until it was ended early in the Vietnam War. The Navajo code is the only spoken military code never to have been deciphered.

World War II also brought forth the development of the WAVES, the WACS, and the WASPS.

The Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES) was the women’s branch of the United States Naval Reserve, established on July 21st, 1942 by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the president on July 30th, 1942.

The Women’s Army Corps (WAC), the women’s branch of the United States Army, was created as an auxiliary unit, Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC) on May 15th, 1942 by Public Law 554, and converted to full status as the WAC on July 1st, 1943.

The Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), called “Women’s Army Service Pilots” and their predecessors, the Women’s Flying Training Detachment (WFTD) and the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS) organized separately in September 1942. They were the pioneering organizations of civilian female pilots. The WFTD and WAFS were merged on August 5, 1943, to create the paramilitary WASP organization. They flew over 60 million miles in every type of military aircraft. The WASP was granted Veteran status in 1977, and given the Congressional Gold Medal in 2009.

The sinking by a German U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania in May 1915 killing 128 Americans helped turn the tide of American public opinion steadfastly against Germany, and in February 1917 Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war. After the sinking of seven US merchant ships by submarines President Woodrow Wilson called for war on Germany.  On April 2nd, 1917, he appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany. US Congress declared war on April 6th, 1917.

With Germany, able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States could arrive.  The Western Front contained more than 1,000 kilometers of front-line and reserve trenches. Soldiers in the trenches endured conditions ranging from barely tolerable to utterly horrific. They dealt with ‘trench foot’: a gangrene of the feet and toes, ticks, lice, rats, flies, and mosquito’s.  Cholera, typhus, and dysentery thrived because of vermin, poor sewage and waste disposal, stagnant water, spoiled food and bodies. The territory between its opposing front lines was strewn with mines, craters, mud, live ordinance, barbed wire, discarded rubbish, bodies and body parts in all stages of decomposition.

On July 15th, 1918, Germany launched the last offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne. This battle turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who gradually regained much of France and Belgium.  By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli & later defeats by invading forces, the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918. Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4th.   Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the home front and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice.  At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.  The First World War left nine million soldiers dead and 21 million wounded, with Germany, Russia, Austria-Hungary, France, and Great Britain each losing nearly a million or more lives.

WWI produced two highly decorated hero’s, Edward “Eddie” Vernon Rickenbaker of the U.S. Army Air Service and Alvin Cullum York of the U.S. Army.  Rickenbacker downed seventeen enemy fighters, four reconnaissance aircraft, and five balloons for a total of 26 aerial victories. He received an unprecedented eight Distinguished Service Cross’, the French Croix de Guerre and Legion of Honor. The Distinguished Service Cross he earned for attacking seven, downing two, German aircraft, on September 25th, 1918 was elevated to the Medal of Honor by President Herbert Hoover on November 6th, 1930.  He was also considered to have won the most awards for valor by an American during the war.

Alvin Cullum York, also known as Sergeant York, was one of the most decorated United States Army soldiers of World War I.  He received the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine gun nest, taking 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy soldiers, and capturing 132. York’s Medal of Honor action occurred during the United States-led portion of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in France, which was intended to breach the Hindenburg line and force the Germans to surrender.

World War I was the first time aircraft were used on a large scale.  They were normally unarmed and used for reconnaissance until the machine gun was affixed to the aircraft to create the “fighter” airplane.  Many aircraft types emerged from the fighting – scouts, night bombers, night fighters and ground attack.  These served to pave the way for the new, post-war aircraft that followed.  It was also the first time for the use of submersible submarines, flame throwers, depth charges, anti-aircraft guns, tanks, and chemical warfare.

The Mexican–American War, was an armed conflict between the United States of America and Mexico from spring 1846 to fall 1847, resulting in the defeat of Mexico and the loss of approximately half of its national territory in the north.

After its independence in 1821 and brief experiment with monarchy, Mexico became a republic in 1824. It was characterized by considerable instability, leaving it ill-prepared for conflict when war broke out in 1846.  Native American raids in Mexico’s sparsely settled north in the decades preceding the war prompted the Mexican government to sponsor migration from the U.S. to the Mexican province of Texas to create a buffer. However, Texans from both countries revolted against the Mexican government in the 1836 Texas Revolution, creating a republic not recognized by Mexico.  In spite of its de facto secession in the revolution, Mexico still claimed it as part of its national territory.  In 1845, Texas agreed to an offer of annexation by the U.S. Congress, and became the 28th state on December 29th.

In 1845, James K. Polk, the newly-elected U.S. president, made a proposition to the Mexican government to purchase the disputed lands between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. When that offer was rejected, American forces commanded by Major General Zachary Taylor were moved into the disputed territory. They were then attacked by Mexican forces, who killed 12 U.S. soldiers and took 52 as prisoners. These same Mexican troops later laid siege to an American fort along the Rio Grande.  This led to the war and the eventual loss of much of Mexico’s northern territory.

U.S. forces quickly occupied Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California Territory, and then invaded parts of Central Mexico which modern-day Northeastern Mexico and Northwest Mexico.  The Pacific Squadron conducted a blockade and took control of several garrisons on the Pacific coast farther south in the Baja California Territory. The U.S. Army, under the command of Major General Winfield Scott, captured the capital, Mexico City, marching from the port of Veracruz.

The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war and specified its major consequence: the Mexican Cession of the territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States. The U.S. agreed to pay $15 million compensation for the physical damage of the war. In addition, the United States assumed $3.25 million of debt owed by the Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico acknowledged the loss of Texas, the Pecos River as their border and thereafter cited the Rio Grande as its national border with the United States.

In Mexico, the war came in the middle of political turmoil which turned into chaos during the conflict.  The military defeat and loss of territory was a disastrous blow, causing Mexico to enter “a period of self-examination” as its leaders sought to identify and address the reasons that had led to such turmoil and loss.”  A prominent Mexican wrote the war had resulted in “the state of degradation and ruin” in Mexico.

The American Civil War, widely known as simply the Civil War, was fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the survival of the United States of America or the independence of the Confederate States of America. Among the 34 states in January 1861, seven Southern states declared their secession from the U.S. and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, or the South, grew to include eleven states.  It claimed two more border states (Kentucky and Missouri), the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the Union’s western territories of Arizona and New Mexico, which was organized and incorporated into the Confederacy as Confederate Arizona. The Confederacy was never diplomatically recognized by the United States government, nor was it recognized by any foreign country. They produced their “Articles of Secession” declaring their break from the Union.  Four states went further.  Texas, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina all issued additional documents, usually referred to as the “Declarations of Causes” which explained their decision to leave the Union. All states strongly defended their states’ rights.  Other grievances included taxation, economic exploitation such as tariffs, the role of the military and slavery.  The states that remained loyal, including the Border States, were known as the Union or the North.

The North and South quickly raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought mostly in the South over four years. During this time, many innovations in warfare occurred, including the development, and use of iron-clad ships, ultimately changing naval strategy around the world.

Hostilities began on April 12th, 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter.  The First Battle of Bull Run also known as Battle of First Manassas was fought on July 21st, 1861 in Prince William County, Virginia, just north of the city of Manassas and about 25 miles west-southwest of Washington, D.C. It was the first major battle of the Civil War and a Confederate victory as the Union‘s forces were slow in positioning themselves which allowed Confederate reinforcements time to arrive by rail.  While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan 1st, 1863, which made ending slavery a war goal.

By summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies and seized New Orleans. The 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River.  In 1863, Robert E. Lee‘s Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg.  Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant‘s command of all Union armies in 1864.  Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta and the end of  William T. Sherman‘s march to the sea.  The last significant engagement was the Battle of Appomattox and ended with General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses Grant at the McLean House, in the village of Appomattox Court House, on April 9th, 1865.

After four years of intense combat that left more than 750,000 Americans, Union and Confederate, (including civilians) dead and destroyed much of the South’s infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, grievances were addressed and slavery was abolished in the entire country.  Then began the Reconstruction Era (1863–1877) and the process of restoring national unity, strengthening the national government, and guaranteeing civil rights to the freed slaves.  The political reintegration of the nation during the Reconstruction Era would take another 12 years.

The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, the result of U.S. intervention in the Cuban War of Independence.

President William McKinley sent the USS Maine to Havana to ensure the safety of American citizens and interests, and to underscore the urgent need for reform. Naval forces were moved in position to attack simultaneously on several fronts if the war was not avoided. As the Maine left Florida, a large part of the North Atlantic Squadron was moved to Key West and the Gulf of Mexico. Others were also moved just off the shore of Lisbon, and still others were moved to Hong Kong.

At 9:40 on the evening of February 15th, 1898, USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor after suffering a massive explosion that caused the deaths of approximately 260 sailors. While McKinley urged patience, and did not declare that Spain had caused the explosion, the deaths of 250 out of 355 sailors on board focused American attention. was mysteriously sunk in Havana harbor; political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war that he had wished to avoid.  Spain promised time and time again that it would reform, but never delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding that it surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid declared war, and Washington then followed suit. The sinking of the battleship Maine precipitated the Spanish-American War and popularized the phrase “Remember the Maine!”

Although the main issue was Cuban independence, the ten-week war was fought in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. US naval power proved decisive, allowing expeditionary forces to disembark in Cuba against a Spanish garrison already brought to its knees by nationwide Cuban insurgent attacks and yellow fever. Numerically superior Cuban, Philippine, and US forces obtained the surrender of Santiago de Cuba and Manila.

The Battle of San Juan Hill on July 1st, 1898, was a decisive battle of the Spanish–American War.  It was also the location of the greatest victory for the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, known as the “Rough Riders”, as claimed by the press and its new commander, the future vice-president and later president, Theodore Roosevelt, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor on Jan 16th, 2001 for his action in Cuba.

The U.S. Navy’s investigation, made public on March 28th, 1898, concluded that the ship’s powder magazines were ignited when an external explosion was set off under the ship’s hull. This report poured fuel on popular indignation in the U.S., making the war inevitable.  Spain’s investigation came to the opposite conclusion: the explosion originated within the ship. Other investigations in later years came to various contradictory conclusions, but had no bearing on the coming of the war. In 1974, Admiral Hyman George Rickover had his staff look at the documents and decided there was an internal explosion. A study commissioned by National Geographic magazine in 1999, using AME computer modelling, stated that the explosion could have been caused by a mine, but no definitive evidence was found.

The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought by the United States of America against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, its North American colonies, and its North American Indian allies. By the war’s end in early 1815 the key issues had been resolved and peace came with no boundary changes.

On June 1st, 1812, President James Madison sent a message to Congress recounting American grievances against Great Britain.  After Madison’s message, the House of Representatives deliberated for four days behind closed doors before voting 79 to 49 (61%) in favor of the first declaration of war.  The Senate concurred in the declaration by a 19 to 13 (59%) vote in favor.  President James Madison’s request to Congress for the first declaration of war ever declared on another nation was granted on June 12th, 1812^.  This Congressional vote would prove to be the closest vote to formally declare war in American history. The United States declared war on June 18th, 1812, for several reasons, including trade restrictions brought about by the British war with France, the impressment of as many as 10,000 American merchant sailors into the Royal Navy, and British support for Native American tribes fighting American settlers on the frontier.

The war was fought in three theaters.  First; land and naval battles were fought on the U.S.–Canadian frontier, second; large-scale battles were fought in the Southern United States and Gulf Coast and third; at sea, where warships and privateers attacked the other’s merchant ships, while the British blockaded the Atlantic coast of the United States.

The U.S. was able to inflict serious defeats on Britain’s Native American allies, ending the prospect of an Indian confederacy and an independent Native American state in the Midwest under British sponsorship. U.S. forces were also able to make several gains and score victories on the Canadian frontier; taking control of Lake Erie in 1813, seizing western parts of Upper Canada.

Andrew Jackson is the only president who served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.  After winning a major battle in this war, Jackson was promoted to major general in the U.S. Army with command of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana.

In the late summer of 1814, Major General Andrew Jackson of the U.S. Army moved his men south and attacked the British in Mobile, Alabama.  In November, he beat the British at the Spanish post of Pensacola, Florida and the British sailed on to New Orleans.  In December, Jackson followed, leading a small advance party of his troops to New Orleans.  For several days, Jackson’s men held their ground.  On January 8th, 1815, the British rushed the Americans and were cut down in great numbers by rifle and cannon fire while the Americans suffered only a handful of deaths.  Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans and transformed into a nation icon and hero, which would later help him win the presidency.

In September, 1814, the British won the Battle of Hampden, allowing them to occupy eastern Maine, and the British victory at the Battle of Bladensburg in August, 1814 allowed them to capture and burn Washington, D.C. They were repulsed, however, in an attempt to take Baltimore’s Fort McHenry.  On September 12th, 1814, Baltimore’s Fort McHenry withstood 25 hours of bombardment by the British Navy. The following morning, the fort’s soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, a sight that inspired Francis Scott Key to write a poem he titled “The Star-Spangled Banner

The flag that ultimately inspired our National Anthem was donated to the Smithsonian in 1912 by the family of Major Armistead, the fort commander.

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence and the Revolutionary War in the United States, was the armed conflict between Great Britain and thirteen of its North American colonies, which had declared themselves the independent United States of America.  Early fighting took place primarily on the North American continent. France, eager for revenge after its defeat in the Seven Years’ War, signed an alliance with the new nation in 1778 that proved decisive in the ultimate victory.

The American Revolutionary War had its origins in the resistance of many Americans to taxes, which they claimed were unconstitutional, imposed by the British parliament. Patriot protests escalated into boycotts, and on December 16th, 1773, the destruction of a shipment of tea at the Boston Tea Party. The British government retaliated by closing the port of Boston and taking away self-government. The Patriots responded by setting up a shadow government that took control of the province outside of Boston. Twelve other colonies who supported Massachusetts, formed a Continental Congress, to coordinate their resistance, and set up committees and conventions that effectively seized power.  The Continental Congress consisted of fifty-six delegates from twelve of the thirteen colonies that were to become the United States of America.  In April 1775 fighting broke out between Massachusetts militia units and British regulars.  They fought the battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19th, 1775, in Middlesex County, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen of its colonies on the mainland of British America. The Continental Congress appointed General George Washington to take charge of militia units besieging British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776. Congress supervised the war, giving Washington command of the new Continental Army; he also coordinated state militia units.

On July 2nd, 1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, and issued its Declaration of Independence on July 4th, each swearing;

“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor”

Of the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, 24 were lawyers and judges, 11 were merchants, 9 were farmers and plantation owners and 12 were comprised of doctors, ministers and politicians.

Washington managed to drive the British out of most of New Jersey. In 1777 Sir William Howe launched a campaign against the national capital at Philadelphia, and failing to aid John Burgoyne’s invasion from Canada, Burgoyne’s army was trapped, and surrendered after the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777.

France entered the war in 1778 and during that year the British, having failed in the northern states, shifted their strategy toward the south.  They brought Georgia and South Carolina under their control in 1779 and 1780, however, the resulting surge of Loyalist support was far weaker than expected.  In 1781, British forces moved through Virginia and settled at Yorktown but their escape was blocked by a French naval victory in September. Led by Count Rochambeau and Washington a combined Franco-American army launched a siege at Yorktown and captured more than 8,000 British troops in October.

The defeat at Yorktown finally turned the British Parliament against the war, and in early 1782 they voted to end offensive operations in North America. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bordered roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

The Constitution of the United States, was written Sept. 17th, 1787, and ratified on June 21st, 1788.  The “Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments of the Constitution, was written Sept. 25th, 1789 and ratified on December 15th, 1791.

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