Today in History May 16
1770 Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France.
1863 At the Battle of Champion's Hill, Union General Ulysess S. Grant repulses the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.
1868 President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during Senate impeachment, by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross.
1879 The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England sets up the Afghan state.
1920 Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.
1928 The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood.
1943 A specially trained and equipped Royal Air Force squadron destroys two river dams in Germany.
1951 Chinese Communist Forces launch second phase of the Chinese Spring Offensive in the Korean War and gain up to 20 miles of territory.
1960 A Big Four summit in Paris collapses because of the American U-2 spy plane affair.
1963 After 22 Earth orbits, Gordon Cooper returns to Earth, ending the last mission of Project Mercury.
Born on May 16
1801 William Henry Seward, U.S. Secretary of State (1861-1869).
1804 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, founder of the first U.S. kindergarten.
1824 Edmund Kirby-Smith, Confederate general during the American Civil War.
1850 Johannes von Mikulicz-Radecki, Polish surgical pioneer.
1886 Douglas Southall Freeman, journalist, historian, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
1905 Henry Fonda, American actor (Grapes of Wrath, On Golden Pond).
1912 Studs Terkel, author and historian.
1913 Woody Herman, jazz bandleader.
1929 Betty Carter, jazz singer.
1929 Adrienne Rich, poet (Diving into the Wreck).
1955 Olga Korbut, Olympic gymnast.
On this day in the year of Our Lord 1980.............. my youngest son was born into this world....
I knew right away he was going to be a hellion .. [emoji106]
Vietnam War
1968
Navy Corpsman receives Medal of Honor for action
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Donald E. Ballard, Corpsman U.S. Navy, is awarded the Medal of Honor for action this date in Quang Tri Province. Ballard, from Kansas City, Missouri, was a corpsman with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. He had just finished evacuating two Marines with heatstroke when his unit was surprised by a Viet Cong ambush. Immediately racing to the aid of a casualty, Ballard applied a field dressing and was directing four Marines in the removal of the wounded man when an enemy soldier tossed a grenade into the group. With a warning shout of, “Grenade!” Ballard vaulted over the stretcher and pulled the grenade under his body. The grenade did not go off. Nevertheless, he received the Medal of Honor for his selfless act of courage. Ballard was only the second man whose valor was rewarded despite the fact that the deadly missile did not actually explode.
Donald Everett Ballard is a retired American colonel in the Kansas National Guard and former member of the United States Navy, in which he was a hospital corpsman in the Vietnam War and received the CM of H
Born: December 5, 1945 (age 72 years), Kansas City, MO
Years of service: 1965 - 1970 (Navy); 1970 - 2000 (Army National Guard)
Battles and wars: Vietnam War
Other name: "Doc"
Service/branch: Kansas Army National Guard
Awards: Medal of Honor, Combat Action Ribbon, Purple Heart (3)
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.