The U.S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter.
After suffering significant loss of goods and personnel at the hands of the Barbary pirates from Algiers, the U.S. Congress passed the Naval Act of 1794 for the construction of six heavy frigates, the first ships of the U.S. Navy.
Naval battle between the USS Constitution and the HMS Guerriere on August 19, 1812.
Geronimo “the one who yawns” (June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909)
On September 4, 1886, Apache leader Geronimo (above) surrendered to U.S.
government troops. For 30 years, the Native American warrior had battled
to protect his tribe’s homeland; however, by 1886 the Apaches were
exhausted and hopelessly outnumbered. General Nelson Miles accepted
Geronimo’s surrender, making him the last Native American warrior to
formally give in to U.S. forces and signaling the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest.
Nelson Appleton Miles (August 8, 1839 – May 15, 1925)
Geronimo and his warriors in the Sierra Madres of Mexico.
The American flag was flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary
Warskirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware. Patriot General William Maxwell
ordered the stars and strips banner raised as a detachment of his infantry
and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels
were defeated and forced to retreat to General GeorgeWashington’s main
force near Brandywine Creek in Pennsylvania.
Three months before, on June 14, the Continental Congress adopted a
resolution stating that “the flag of the United States be thirteen alternate
stripes red and white” and that “the Union be thirteen stars, white in a blue
field, representing a new Constellation.” The national flag, which became
known as the “Stars and Stripes,” was based on the “Grand Union” flag,
a banner carried by the Continental Army in 1776 that also consisted of
13 red and white stripes. According to legend, Philadelphia seamstress Betsy Ross designed the new canton for the Stars and Stripes, which
consisted of a circle of 13 stars and a blue background, at the request
of General George Washington. Historians have been unable to
conclusively prove or disprove this legend.
With the entrance of new states into the United States after independence,
new stripes and stars were added to represent new additions to the Union.
In 1818, however, Congress enacted a law stipulating that the 13 original stripes be restored and that only stars be added to represent new states.
In this Sept. 2, 1945 file photo, U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, left, watches as the foreign minister of Japan, Mamoru Shigemitsu,
signs the surrender document aboard the USS Missouri on Tokyo
Bay. Lt. General Richard K. Sutherland, center, witnesses the
ceremony marking the end of World War II, with other American
and British officers in the background. (Source: AP Photo)
Aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, Japan formally surrendered to the
Allies (above) bringing an end to World War II.
By the summer of 1945, the defeat of Japan was a foregone conclusion. The Japanese navy and air force were destroyed. The Allied naval blockade of
Japan and intensive bombing of Japanese cities had left the country and
its economy devastated. At the end of June, the Americans captured
Okinawa, a Japanese island from which the Allies could launch an invasion
of the main Japanese home islands. U.S. General Douglas MacArthur was
put in charge of the invasion, which was code-named “Operation Olympic”
and set for November 1945.
On August 24, 1814, during the War of 1812 between the United States and
England, British troops entered Washington, D.C. and burned the White
House in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario,
Canada, in June 1813.
When the British arrived at the White House, they found that President James Madison and his first lady Dolley had already fled to safety in Maryland. Soldiers reportedly sat down to eat a meal made of leftover
food from the White House scullery using White House dishes and silver
before ransacking the presidential mansion and setting it ablaze.
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