On May 8, 1945, both Great Britain and the United States celebrated Victory in Europe Day. Cities in both nations, as well as formerly occupied cities in Western Europe, put out flags and banners,
rejoicing in the defeat of the Nazi war machine during World War II.

Victory at Sea is a documentary television series about warfare
in general during World War II, and naval warfare in particular,
as well as the use of industry in warfare. It was originally aired
by NBC in 1952–1953. It was condensed into a film released in
1954. Excerpts from the music soundtrack, by Richard Rodgers a
nd Robert Russell Bennett, were re-recorded for record albums.

The original TV broadcasts comprised 26 half-hour segments—
Sunday afternoons at 3pm (EST) in most markets—starting on
October 26, 1952 and ending on May 3, 1953. The series, which
won an Emmy award in 1954 as "best public affairs program",
played an important part in establishing historic "compilation" documentaries as a viable television genre.  

Cinco de Mayo (Spanish for "Fifth of May") a yearly celebration
held on May 5, which commemorates the anniversary of Mexico’s
victory over the French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 led
by General Ignacio Zaragoza (below).

(March 24, 1829 – September 8, 1862)

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — A warehouse along the Savannah River
is holding historical treasures that evidence suggests remained
lost for more than 240 years — a cache of 19 cannons that
researchers suspect came from British ships scuttled to the river
bottom during the American Revolution.

The mud- and rust-encrusted guns were discovered by accident
when a dredge scooping sediment from the riverbed last year as
part of a $973 million deepening of Savannah’s busy shipping
channel surfaced with one of the cannons clasped in its metal
jaws. The crew soon dug up two more.

Archaeologists guessed they were possibly leftover relics from
a sunken Confederate gunship excavated a few years earlier in
the same area, according to Andrea Farmer, an archaeologist
for the Army Corps of Engineers. But experts for the U.S. Navy
found they didn’t match any known cannons used in the Civil
War. Further research indicates they’re likely almost a century
older and sank during the  buildup to the Revolutionary War’s
bloody siege of Savannah in 1779.

Fort Jackson just outside Savannah, Ga.

Painting of The Siege of Savannah.

Ulysses S. Grant (April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885)

Ulysses S. Grant, Civil War leader and 18th president of the United 
States, was born on April 27, 1822.

The son of a tanner, Grant showed little enthusiasm for joining his 
father’s business, so the elder Grant enrolled his son at West Point
in 1839. Though Grant later admitted in his memoirs the he had no interest in the military apart from honing his equestrian skills, he
graduated in 1843 and went on to serve in the Mexican-American
War, though he opposed it on moral grounds. He then left his 
beloved wife and children again to fulfill a tour of duty in California
and Oregon.