1862Member story · 1776 Club
Union line collapses at Richmond; Kirby Smith's men take 4,300 prisoners
Nelson's routed troops make a last stand in a cemetery outside town before that too gives way.
1945
Four generals form a council to rule Germany; the German Army ceases to exist
Zhukov, Eisenhower, Montgomery and de Lattre de Tassigny sign in as Berlin's new governing body and outlaw the old uniform on the same day.
1945
MacArthur steps onto the tarmac at Atsugi, alone but for a corncob pipe
The newly named Supreme Commander arrives on an airfield American troops had held for only two days.
1963Member story · 1776 Club
The Moscow-Washington hotline goes live; the first line is about a fox and a dog
A Cold War teleprinter link opens with a typing-test sentence, not a treaty term.
1967Member story · 1776 Club
Senate confirms Marshall, 69-11; becomes first Black justice on the Supreme Court
Eleven weeks after Johnson named him in the Rose Garden, the vote clears the Senate floor.
1983
Challenger lights up the pre-dawn sky on the shuttle program's first night launch
Guion Bluford rides along, becoming the first African American to fly in space.
1984Member story · 1776 Club
A third shuttle joins the fleet: Discovery lifts off from Kennedy Space Center
Six astronauts and a payload specialist from McDonnell Douglas ride the newest orbiter into a 97-orbit shakeout flight.
2021Member story · 1776 Club
The last American plane lifts off from Kabul; the twenty-year war is over
Roughly a thousand American citizens and Afghan visa holders remain behind as the final C-17 climbs into the night.