1718: The Royal Navy locates Edward Teach, the notorious pirate known as “Blackbeard”, off the coast of North Carolina. After two devastating broadsides from Blackbeard’s ship Adventure, a boarding party led by Lt. Robert Maynard of HMS Ranger boards the pirate sloop and kills Blackbeard.
1942: After crushing the Romanians, the Soviet 4th Mechanized Corps and 4th Tank Corps meet at Kalach-na-Donu, surrounding the 250,000 men of Gen. Friedrich Paulus’ 6th Army. The trapped Germans eventually surrender in what becomes perhaps the bloodiest battle in the history of warfare, with some two million casualties over the five-month engagement.
(L) Gen. Friedrich Paulus
1963: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated by former Marine radar operator Lee Harvey Oswald while the presidential motorcade travels through Dallas, Texas. Oswald also seriously wounds Texas Governor John Connally in the attack. Both Kennedy and Connally served in the Navy during World War II – Kennedy as a PT boat skipper and Connally as a fighter plane director aboard aircraft carriers.
1972: Although North Vietnam claimed that they had already shot down 19 B-52 bombers, this date marks the first time a “Stratofortress” actually falls victim to enemy surface-to-air missiles. Following their raid on Vinh, the crew bails out of the stricken bird over Thailand. 30 more B-52s will be destroyed by hostile fire during the remainder of the war.
1988: Northrop’s B-2 “Spirit” stealth bomber is unveiled to an audience of government officials and press at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, Calif.. The B-2 will not make its first flight until the following year and doesn’t see combat until Kosovo in 1999.
