On June 7, 1942, the Battle of Midway—one of the most decisive
U.S. victories in its war against Japan—came to an end. In the
four-day sea and air battle, the outnumbered U.S. Pacific Fleet
succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers with the
loss of only one of its own, the Yorktown, thus reversing the tide
against the previously invincible Japanese navy.
James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) Polk
was the 11th president of the United States, serving from
1845 to 1849.
On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly voted in favor
of President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in
a dispute over Texas.
Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from
annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico
in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted negotiations
with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Annexation Treaty.
The treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it
would upset the slave state/free state balance between North and
South and risked war with Mexico, which had broken off relations
with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and with
the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the
Union on December 29.
(February 22–23, 1847)
SANDY KOZEL
On May 3, 1942, during World War II, the first modern naval
engagement in history, the Battle of the Coral Sea, began. A
Japanese invasion force succeeds in occupying Tulagi of
the Solomon Islands in an expansion of Japan’s defensive
perimeter.
The United States, having broken Japan’s secret war code
and forewarned of an impending invasion of Tulagi and Port
Moresby, attempted to intercept the Japanese armada. Four
days of battles between Japanese and American aircraft
carriers resulted in 70 Japanese and 66 American warplanes
destroyed.
USS Lexington on fire and sinking.
Muhammad Ali, the reigning world heavyweight boxing champion, entered the combative ring of politics and culture by refusing to
serve in the United States military at the height of the Vietnam
War on this day in 1967.
"I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong," Ali famously said the
year before, the exact quote the source of some dispute, in a
battle that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
He later wrote, "I refuse to be inducted into the Armed Forces
of the United States because I claim to be exempt as a minister
of the religion of Islam."
