Wednesday · November 11, 2026
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17981776 Club

Congress re-establishes a Marine Corps; the new force answers to the Navy

Fifteen years after the Continental Marines disbanded, an undeclared naval fight with France puts troops back on warships under the Act for Establishing and Organizing a Marine Corps.

Fifteen years after the Continental Marines disbanded at the end of the Revolutionary War, the United States found itself in an undeclared naval fight with France. On July 11, 1798, in preparation for the Quasi-War with France, Congress created the United States Marine Corps under the Act for Establishing and Organizing a Marine Corps, placing it under the Department of the Navy. The next day, William Ward Burrows took command as Major Commandant and began assigning Marines to warships fitting out in Philadelphia. This time the Corps did not disband when the fighting ended…

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More from July 11
1803

Burr fires at Weehawken; Hamilton is rowed back across the Hudson, shot through the liver

The sitting Vice President walks away unhurt. Hamilton's bullet clipped a branch above Burr's head; Burr's found its mark in Hamilton's abdomen.
1962

NASA picks lunar orbit rendezvous as its path to the Moon

A command ship will hold orbit while a separate lander descends to the surface, and one Saturn V rocket can carry the whole mission.
1914

USS Nevada slides into the Fore River; the Navy calls her armor scheme unlike anything built before

Eleanor Anne Seibert christens the oil-fueled battleship at Quincy, whose "all or nothing" plating packs 41 percent of the ship's weight over only the spaces that matter.
19211776 Club
Eight years out of the White House, the former president fills the seat Edward Douglass White left vacant when he died in May.
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More from Revolution & Founding
1781

Washington surrounds Cornwallis at Yorktown; the armies sleep in the open

French troops take the left, Americans the right, as work parties bridge the marsh by torchlight.
1787

Congress votes to send the new Constitution to the states for approval

The document Washington's convention finished eleven days earlier now goes to thirteen legislatures for judgment.
1789

Congress puts a standing army under the new War Department, several hundred strong

The force is tiny by European standards, but for the first time it answers to a civilian cabinet officer, not a general.
1780

André hangs at Tappan; he placed the noose himself

Washington denied a British officer's last request to die by firing squad as a soldier.
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