August 13, 1906
The Brownsville Raid, an alleged rampage by soldiers from the all-black Twenty-fifth United States Infantry, resulted in the largest summary dismissals in the history of the United States Army. The battalion arrived at Brownsville, then a community of 6,000, from recent duty in the Philippines and Fort Niobrara, Nebraska. A reported attack on a white woman during the night of August 12 incensed many townspeople and an early curfew was imposed. Around midnight, a bartender and policeman were shot. Although the officers swore that the curfew was not violated and all of the soldiers denied the shootings, civilian and military investigations presumed the guilt of the soldiers without identifying individual culprits. On November 5 President Theodore Roosevelt summarily discharged “without honor” all 167 enlisted men. This action of Roosevelt shocked his black constituency and moved the controversy to the national stage. In 1972, President Richard Nixon pardoned the men and granted them honorable discharges, most of whom had since died.
August 13, 1961
The city of Berlin was divided as East Germany sealed off the border between the city’s eastern (Soviet Union-controlled) and western (American-, British- and French-controlled) sectors in order to halt the flight of economic and political refugees to the West. Two days later, work began on the Berlin Wall.
