History
16/1991 - USS Missouri (BB-63) is called into action in the Persian Gulf, firing her guns in anger for the first time since the Korean War. Between January 16 and March 3, Missouri fired twenty-eight Tomahawk missiles and 759 16-inch projectiles.
16/2001 - Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the US, was finally awarded the Medal of Honor for valor during his epic charge up San Juan Hill in Cuba in 1898 while leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish American war. The presentation took place in the Roosevelt room in the White House.
17/1893 - Hawaii's monarchy was overthrown as a group of white businessmen and sugar planters forced Queen Liliukalani to abdicate.
17/1950 - Missouri's overhaul completed. Missouri, the only US Navy battleship in commission was putting to sea on a training mission, when at 08:25, she ran aground 1.6 miles from Thimble Shoals Light, Virginia. Missouri traversed shoal water 2,500 feet from the channel, was lifted seven feet above the water-line, and was stuck hard and fast. Missouri's stranding aroused a great public interest. Letters poured in from worried Americans, to Admiral Smith and Admiral Wallin, suggesting numerous ways to float Missouri free. There were others that made a mockery of Mighty Mo's position, but were to see the Navy come to it's own rescue, in extensive and diversified salvage work. For a time it was thought the Mighty Mo had ended her career and she'd be scrapped or made into a national shrine, right on the spot! While the world joked about Missouri, her crew and officers, and the Navy's embarrassment, Big Mo was freed. She was refloated through the efforts and use of teamwork and facilities which were almost exclusively of the US Navy. Those who were so proud of the Navy and Mighty Mo, sighed in relief. The Missouri's physical damage was slight and the salvage cost was a modest $225,000.
17/1950 - Dear Herb: I read the history for January 17th 1950. I was 18. We had returned from our Middie Cruise to Cherbourg and were enroute to Gitmo. When we returned to Portsmouth we had a Forty Foot Gash in our hull, they thought we were sitting atop an unmarked wreck. Ribs were taking? The radio Announcer taunted us daily and said that he was going to send Captain Brown a Bottle of Hadecol, the local laxative, with the suggestion that we try it, saying that if that did not work, nothing would. We got our first liberty shortly before the 17th and were enroute to New York on a 72. we were caught speeding home and the policeman let us off (fiive of us) with the warning to be careful and that he thought (good heartedly) that we didnt know what we were doing anyway. One of my memories of my cruise. Fred Lund SN Yeoman EX Diivision .49-50
17/1955 - USS Nautilus: "Underway on nuclear power."
18/1778 - English navigator Captain James Cook reached the Hawaiian Islands which he dubbed the "Sandwich Islands."
18/1911 - First aircraft landing aboard a ship, USS Pennsylvania, by Eugene Ely.
18/1912 - Explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it. Scott and his party perished on the return trip.
18/1943 - A wartime ban on the sale of pre-sliced bread in the United States - aimed at reducing demand for metal replacement parts at bakeries - went into effect.
18/1991 - Round the clock bombing of Iraqi targets continued in Operation Desert Storm.
19/1840 - Lt. Charles Wilkes, USN is first American to discover Antarctic coast.
20/1783 - US and Britain end hostilities.
20/1887 - The US Senate approved an agreement to lease Pearl Harbor in Hawaii as a naval base.
20/1946 - Missouri under way for Norfolk, Virginia.
20/1991 - During the Gulf War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by US Patriot rockets as they approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia; Iraqi television showed interviews with seven downed allied pilots, three of them American.
21/1946 - Missouri arrives at Norfolk, Virginia with much fog.
21/1954 - The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton, Conn.
21/1961 - First patrol of fleet ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington.
21/1968 - Siege of Khe-Sanh begins.