The only two six masted schooners in the world, the George W. Wells and the Eleanor Percy, collided off the coast of Cape Cod in fair weather. Both would need to be repaired.
Anticipating what would occur in Congress the Virginia Convention adopted the first constitution of the independent Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginia had no constitution at all prior to that.
The Continental Congress had Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence for one day at this point.
The Continental Navy won the Battle of Turtle Gut Inlet in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey.
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BBC Television, which had been off the air since September 1, 1939, resumed broadcasting. The resumption was for only an hour on June 7, but it signaled its first return. The programming featured speakers welcoming the audience back, a performance by ballerina Margo Fonteyn, a talk segment, and a rebroadcast of Disney's Mickey's Gala, the latter being the last thing broadcast in 1939.
There were over 18,000 television sets in the US when service was suspended.
The players of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which had threatened to walk out if they were not allowed to join the American Baseball Guild, didn't.
First flight of the Short Sturgeon.
The signatories to the Boxer Protocol gave China an ultimatum for the commanders of the Taku Forts, who had just fired on the Japanese, to remove all mines placed at the mouth of the Pei River and to end their blockade of Tianjin by noon on Friday, March 19.
At least 12 ships from the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, France and Italy were blocked from traveling into the Pei River to Tianjin. They were authorized to end the blockade by force if necessary.
A manhunt came to an end:
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The Icelandic Coast Guard vessel ICGV Týr rammed the Royal Navy frigate HMS Andromeda which was escorting two British fishing trawlers in what Iceland claimed as its territorial waters in the first confrontation of the Third Cod War.
The Týr is still in service. The HMS Andromeda went on to serve in the Falklands War and was decommissioned in 1983.
Argentine guerilla commander Roberto Quieto was captured by soldiers in Martinez, Argentina during a raid on a warehouse. He'd betray his confederates under torture.
Quieto was a lawyer by training and would disappear while in Argentine captivity in 1976.
Both Chile and Argentina went through a period like this, called the Dirty War in Argentina.
Down 14-10 with 32 seconds remaining on the clock, Dallas Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach threw a long pass to win the game. Interviewed later, he'd say:
It's a play you hit one in a hundred times if you're lucky. It's a Hail Mary pass. You throw it up and pray he catches it.
Staubach thereby coined, unintentionally the phrase that's irreverently used to refer to such desperate passes in football today. I dislike the phrase so much I thought about not posting it here, but it's so frequently used, I relented.
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As Emperor, he had participated in an anti French rebellion while only 16 years old, an event which lead to the French removing him from his throne. He thereafter went into exile on Réunion Island, where he retained pro independence views. During World War Two he held anti Vichy views and entered the Free French Navy, and then Army, when the island was liberated from Vichy. DeGaulle, realizing how desperate the situation in French Indochina was, was having him returned to Vietnam where he would have been re-installed as Emperor, which would have amounted to deposing Boa Dai, who had sided with Vichy. His untimely death left the Communist dominated Viet Minh as the only real functioning anti colonial force in the region.
Still highly regarded in Vietnam, most Vietnamese cities have streets named after him. His remains were reinterred in Vietnam in 1987.
The Red Chinese won the Gaoyou–Shaobo Campaign in which the Nationalist troops were principally made up of units that had formerly collaborated with the Japanese.
Admiral of the Fleet Roger John Brownlow Keyes, 1st Baron Keyes, who in spite of his age saw some service in World War Two, died at age 73.
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A Walk In The Sun was released. I'm personally not a great fan of the movie, but many regard it as one of the greatest World War Two, and indeed war, films ever.
3 December 1945: The first landing and takeoff aboard an aircraft carrier by a jet-powered aircraft were made by Lieutenant-Commander Eric Melrose Brown, M.B.E., D.S.C., R.N.V.R., Chief Naval Test Pilot at RAE Farnborough, while flying a de Havilland DH.100 Sea Vampire Mk.10, LZ551/G. The ship was the Royal Navy Colossus-class light aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean (R68), under the command of Captain Casper John, R.N.
The Arab League voted to boycott all goods from Jewish Palestine.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided International Shoe Co. v. Washington holding that held that a party may be subject to the jurisdiction of a state court if it has "minimum contacts" with that state.
This ad appeared in Sheridan's newspaper:
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The British submarine HMS M1 was hit by the SS Vidar and sank in the English Channel with the loss of all 69 hands.
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America and British troops landed in the Tokyo region. The US 11th Airborne Division flew into Atsugi airfield. The 4th and 6th Marine Regiments landed in the naval base at Yokosuka. General MacArthur flew from Manila to organize the US occupation and set up his temporary headquarters at Yokohama.
The USS San Juan started to evacuate Allied prisoners of war detained in the Japanese home islands.
The Royal Navy reoccupied Hong Kong.
Japanese surrenders in Burma continued..
The Allied Control Council took formal control of Germany.
A B-29 Superfortress on a supply flight crashed in bad weather in the neighbourhood of Mount Oyaji (親父岳, Oyaji-take) on Mount Sobo (祖母山). All twelve crewmen were killed.
Hồ Chí Minh invited several people to contribute their ideas toward his Declaration of Independence, including a number of American OSS officers. While there were notable exceptions, like John Burch, the OSS was heavily left leaning and indeed included a number of Communists within its ranks, something that was not really very much frowned on at the time.
Mexico recognized the Spanish Republican government in exile as the government of Spain. The Spanish Republican government in exile was located in Mexico City, having relocated there after the fall of France in World War Two. It'd return to Paris in 1946. The body would recognize the restored Spanish constitutional monarch as the legitimate government in 1977.
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The Japanese government announced that a message had been sent to the Allies accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration provided that it "does not comprise any demand that prejudices the prerogatives of the Emperor as sovereign ruler."
The US press correctly and immediately interpreted this as an offer to surrender, albeit with a condition.
A Japanese protest against the use of the Atomic Bomb, delivered through neutral Switzerland, was delivered to the United States.
The US and Royal Navy bombarded Kamaishi from the sea.
The U.S. Air Force hit targets on Honshu.
The Red Army had already advanced 120 miles into Manchuria.
The Chinese Civil War resumed with the beginning of the Opening Campaign by the Nationalist Chinese.
The resumption of the civil war was inevitable. The outcome, however, wouldn't have been predicated the way it came out at all. The Red Chinese had never done particularly well in combat against the Nationalist, and oddly enough their material support from the Soviet Union had been thin. The Nationalist were now well equipped due to US support during World War Two.
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Truman ordered the bomb dropped on Japan. The news was conveyed to the military to accomplish the act.
The Potsdam Conference took a recess so that the British delegation could return to the UK to hear the election results.
Marshall Pétain spoke at his trial for the first time, stating he was deaf and had not heard a thing that had been said in court up to that time.
American cruisers Pasadena, Springfield, Wilkes-Barre and Astoria bombarded Japanese air bases in southern Honshu.
US aircraft attacked Kure naval base and the airfields at Nagoya, Osaka and Miho for a second day, sinking the battleships Hyuga, Ise, and Haruna, the escort carrier Kaiyo and the heavy cruisers Aoba and Iwate are all sunk. The Japanese put up no resistance.
The US declared that Mindanao was free of organized Japanese resistance.
The Japanese pulled out of Taunggyi in the Shan states, Burma.
British naval and air units continued attacks on Japanese positions and transportation targets on the west coast of Malaya.
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The Potsdam Conference between Josef Stalin, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman commenced.
The immediate topic was the governance of postwar Germany.
The British participated in a carrier raid on Tokyo.
German Field Marshal Busch, the former commander of Army Group Center on the Eastern Front, died at the military hospital in Notts at age 60 due to a heart attack.
The King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth visited Ulster.
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Constitutionalist Gen. Pablo Gonzáles Garza entered Mexico City
Sheriff's Deputy Constable Pablo Falcon and Deputy Sheriff Encarnacion Cuellar were shot and killed when they were ambushed by six men at a dance hall three miles from Brownsville, Texas. They are asserted to be the first victims of the Plan of San Diego, with it being ironic in that they were both Hispanic. Other causes for the ambush have been theorized.
The Germans scuttled the cruiser SMS Königsberg in the Rufiji River, German East Africa following the vessel being heavily damaged in action against the Royal Navy.
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The USS Drexler was sunk in a kamikaze attack. 100 Japanese aircraft were shot down on the same day, bringing to an end the Japanese air offensive.
William Joyce, "Lord Haw Haw", was arrested by the British in Flensburg.
Queen Wilhelmina returned to the Netherlands.
The Royal Navy stopped the convoy system in the Atlantic, Arctic and Indian Oceans.
Admiral Halsey, commanding US 3rd Fleet, took command of American naval forces operating against targets in Japan.
French forces and Syrians engaged in combat against each other.
John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival was born.
It was Memorial Day.
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Franklin Roosevelt on April 11, 1945.
