2003: One for the age: Aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln off the California coast, President George W. Bush declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended,” and crows “Mission accomplished.”
Also today in history, in the U.S. and elsewhere:
1863: The opening rounds of the Battle of Chancellorsville took place while the Battle of Port Gibson raged in Mississippi and the Confederate Congress passed a resolution to kill any black soldiers seen wearing Yankee blue.
1864: While Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman got his Atlanta campaign under way, the Battle of Alexandria took place in Louisiana.
1944: The Messerschmitt Me 262A-2a Sturmvogel, the “Blitz Bomber” version of the jet fighter that Adolf Hitler insisted upon, made its debut flight.
