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18671776 Club

Lackawanna's captain plants the flag on an empty Pacific atoll

No one lived there to object; Reynolds and his boat crews had the beach to themselves.

By the summer of 1867, the U.S. Navy was scouting the Pacific for coaling stations to refuel steamships far from home. On August 28, Captain William Reynolds brought USS Lackawanna to a remote, uninhabited atoll, landed with his officers, and raised the flag under a 21-gun salute to formally claim it for the United States. The atoll, already known to sailors as Brooks' Island or Midway, had no residents to greet him and no garrison to leave behind. It became the first Pacific island the United States annexed outright…

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More from August 28
1963

Two hundred fifty thousand hear King say he has a dream, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial

Mahalia Jackson calls out from behind him, and King leaves his prepared text behind.
1861

Union guns open on Hatteras Inlet; the forts guarding it cannot answer

Two days of naval bombardment give the Union its first foothold on Confederate soil.
1898

New Bern druggist drops "Brad's Drink" for a new name: Pepsi-Cola

Bradham lands on a name built from pepsin and kola, five years after his soda fountain first served it.
19571776 Club
He had taken steam baths for days to dehydrate himself for the speech ahead.
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More from Civil War & Reconstruction
1863

Hill's men march on Gettysburg for supplies; Buford's cavalry is waiting on the ridges

Trading ridge for ridge all morning, Union troopers hold long enough for infantry to arrive; Hancock picks Cemetery Hill as the ground to stand on.
1863

Out of ammunition, Chamberlain orders the bayonet; the 20th Maine sweeps Little Round Top

The Union left had no plan to hold the hill; Oates's 15th Alabama breaks when the Maine men charge downhill, and a portion of the regiment is taken.
1863

Lee turns south; 12,500 men sent across an open mile are thrown back, and the Army of Northern Virginia retreats

The assault on Cemetery Ridge collapsed under Union artillery and rifle fire before it reached the line; survivors streamed back across the same field.
1863

Gardner surrenders Port Hudson; the Union holds the Mississippi from source to sea

After 48 days on the bluff, half his men sick and the food gone, the Confederate general yields the last rebel stronghold on the river.
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