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Home > Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson > Joe's Daily U.S. History Leson -- April 18
Podcast: Joe's Daily U.S. History Lesson
Episode:

Joe's Daily U.S. History Leson -- April 18
Category: Education
Duration: 00:05:27
Publish Date: 2018-04-19 05:47:51
Description:

APRIL 18 1942-The Tokyo Raid. Lt. Col. James Doolittle did a lot on this day. This is an example of what can happen if you bomb Pearl Harbor. Doolittle was born in Fremont, CA but spent part of his youth in Alaska. When he was 14 he went to school in Los Angeles, later on UC Berkeley.

But that’s the boring part. On April 18th, Doolittle commanded 16 American B-25 bombers, launched from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet 650 miles east of Japan and attacked the Japanese mainland. The plan was to keep heading to China after the raid, and most of them did except for one plane that landed in Russia. Fourteen crews, except for one crewman, returned either to the US or to American forces. The result was the first attack on Japan, which led to US propaganda victory, US morale improved, and Japanese morale weakened.

Beyond that, there was no significant military effect, although it did lead to the Japanese decision to attack Midway Island in the Central Pacific, which led to a decisive strategic defeat of the Imperial Japanese Navy vs the US in the Battle of Midway. Like a boss!

There was a 1944 movie called 30 Seconds Over Tokyo starring Spencer Tracy.

1906- The Great San Francisco earthquake. It only lasted a minute but its immediate impact was disastrous. The earthquake caused several fires around the city that burned for three days and destroyed almost 500 city blocks. It’s estimated that 3000 people were killed and half of the city’s 400,000 residents were left homeless. It’s considered one of the worst natural disasters in US history. Congress handled this a couple ways. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees enacted emergency appropriations for the city to pay for food, water, tents, blankets, and medical sup plies and worked to reconstruct the buildings that were damaged or destroyed. But it really got out of hand when law enforcement destroyed the city’s booze.

That’s right! The saloons and liquor stores were emptied out in order to minimize the spread of fire and threat of mob violence. An estimated $30,000 worth of liquor was destroyed.

1775-The Midnight Riders gallop into Lexington and Concord …to warn the colonists about the British. Massachusetts governor Thomas Gage, a British general received instructions from Great Britain to seize all stores of weapons and gunpowder accessible to the American insurgents and take out Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock.

Dawes and Revere went separate directions in case one of them got caught. Dawes left about an hour before Revere was dispatched. Revere screamed The British are coming throughout the neighborhoods.

Dawes let everyone sleep.

Dawes arrived in Lexington at 12:30a.m. about half an hour after Revere, who had travelled a shorter distance on a faster horse. They grabbed Dr. Samuel Prescott and rode to Concord, but were stopped by British forces before entering the city. Prescott escaped and made it to concord to warn everyone, Revere was captured, and Dawes lost his horse. About 5a.m. on April 19…well, we’ll get into the story of the shot being heard round the world tomorrow.
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