Lee Surrenders at Appomattox
1865

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LaSalle Reaches Mississippi
1682

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Nazis Invade Denmark, Norway
1940

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Bataan Surrenders
1942

Bataan Day remembers the defeat of American forces on the Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, in April, 1942, as the Japanese charged through the Pacific in the opening days of World War II. The last Americans under General Jonathan Wainwright had retreated to the island fortress of Corregidor, to continue the hopeless fight, and from there issued the following message on this day:

"Bataan has fallen, but the spirit that made it stand, a beacon to all liberty-loving people of the world, cannot fall."

A short while later Corregidor, too, fell to the Japanese, and the ill-famed "Bataan Death March" began as the Japs led the captured Americans to inland prison camps. Many were brutalized and died along the way.

Commanding General Douglas MacArthur had been ordered by President Roosevelt to quit Bataan before its fall and proceed, by PT boat and submarine, to Australia. Upon reaching the Commonwealth, he made his famous "I shall return!" promise. That promise was fulfilled with the massive Philippine invasion of October, 1944.

Wainwright, weak and fragile from years in Jap prison camps, was subsequently honored by MacArthur during the Japanese surrender ceremony in September, 1945.

Mercury Seven Astronauts Selected
1959

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Churchill Made Honorary American
1963

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