1861Member story · 1776 Club
Wires meet at Salt Lake City; California wires Lincoln its loyalty
Crews building east and west close the final gap, and Chief Justice Stephen Field sends the first coast-to-coast message of the war.
1900
Washington says it will buy the Danish West Indies for $7 million
The second American attempt in three decades to take the islands, this time with the Caribbean suddenly a strategic priority.
1944
Musashi rolls over and sinks after waves of American carrier strikes
Nineteen torpedoes and seventeen bombs were enough to capsize the heaviest battleship ever built.
1945Member story · 1776 Club
The UN Charter becomes international law; the Security Council's five powers have all signed on
A majority of the other 46 signatories ratified too, making the United Nations official five months after San Francisco.
1946
A camera rides a captured Nazi rocket 65 miles up and photographs the curve of the Earth
The rocket smashed into the New Mexico desert, but the film survived.
1957Member story · 1776 Club
Three Weeks After Sputnik, the Air Force Merges Three Studies Into One Space Plane Program
Three rival hypersonic studies are folded into Weapon System 464L, a winged spacecraft meant to succeed the X-15.