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18141776 Club

British storm Fort Erie in the dark; a powder magazine answers for the Americans

Three columns crossed the Niagara frontier after midnight; one bastion never made it to dawn.

Three weeks after retreating from Lundy's Lane, Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond decided the Americans holed up at Fort Erie could still be broken by force. After dark on August 15, 1814, he sent three British columns forward: 1,300 men under Victor Fischer toward Snake Hill, 700 under Hercules Scott against the Douglass Battery, and 360 under William Drummond straight at the fort itself. Pickets had already spotted the British columns moving, and the garrison stood ready when they came. William Drummond's men briefly seized the Northeast Bastion before a powder magazine beneath them detonated, killing as many as 250 men and breaking the attack for good…

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More from August 15
1824

The last French general of the Revolution steps ashore in New York Harbor

Invited by President Monroe to mark fifty years of independence, Lafayette begins a journey that will cover all 24 states.
1962

GI dodges court martial by walking across a minefield into North Korea

Three hours before he was due to answer for forged paperwork, Dresnok chose the DMZ instead.
1945

Emperor's voice reaches the Japanese people for the first time: Japan surrenders

A phonograph record, smuggled past mutinous officers overnight, carries Hirohito's words into homes across the country at noon.
19441776 Club
French and American forces hit three beaches near Saint-Tropez while a German army thinned out by Normandy barely holds the shore.
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More from Revolution & Founding
1812

Madison sends Congress a list of British wrongs; he stops short of asking for war

Years of seized ships and impressed sailors fill the message, and the House and Senate will now debate behind closed doors.
1776

Lee rises in Congress and calls the colonies free and independent states; Adams seconds the motion

Five delegations lack instructions to vote, so a decision is delayed three weeks and a drafting committee is named in the meantime.
1789

Madison rises in the House with a list of amendments; rivals are still calling for a second convention

Drawing on more than two hundred proposals from state ratifying conventions, he moves to revise the Constitution before its opponents can dismantle it.
1777

Congress sets the flag: thirteen stripes, thirteen stars, "a new constellation"

The Flag Resolution names no designer, specifies no arrangement, and says nothing about which stripe color comes first.
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