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The United States Military Academy at West Point, which has educated generations of American leaders to serve from the battlefield to the White House, was established on this day in historical past, March 16, 1802.
Its graduates pioneered America’s manner west and humanity’s path into the heavens.
The academy’s creation was a part of the Military Peace Establishment Act, launched by Massachusetts Congressman Joseph Varnum, and signed into legislation by President Thomas Jefferson.
“Congress established a separate Corps of Engineers to be located at West Point, New York, and constituted it as a military academy with the Chief Engineer serving as superintendent,” writes the web site of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“This action, taken at a time when the overall size of the Army was reduced, placed the Corps on permanent footing and capped a quarter-century of efforts to provide professional training for officers.”
View of West Point. George Washington chosen Thaddeus Kosciuszko, one of many heroes of Saratoga, to design the fortifications for West Point in 1778. President Thomas Jefferson established the United States Military Academy in 1802. Engraving by Milbert. Panorama Universal. History of the United States of America, from 1st version of Jean B.G. Roux de Rochelle’s Etats-Unis d’Amerique in 1837. (PHAS/Universal Images Group through Getty Images)
The United States Military Academy opened for instruction on July 4. Massachusetts native Joseph Gardner Swift was its first graduate.
West Point, as its generally recognized, stands as we speak because the world’s premier institute of navy coaching and in addition one among its prime engineering colleges.
The academy attracts the very best and brightest patriotic younger Americans from coast to coast.
“West Point grads designed almost all early American railways, roads and bridges as it was the only engineering college in the country until 1824.” — American Battlefield Trust
“West Point grads designed almost all early American railways, roads, and bridges as it was the only engineering college in the country until 1824,” writes the American Battlefield Trust.
West Point grads in the twentieth century proved important to the NASA area program. Two of the three astronauts on Apollo 11, the primary mission to place males on the lunar floor, have been West Point graduates: command module pilot Michael Collins (Class of 1952) and moon walker Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (1951).
Crew members of NASA’s Apollo 11 lunar touchdown mission pose for a gaggle portrait a couple of weeks earlier than the launch, May 1969. From left to proper, Commander Neil Armstrong, and West Point graduates Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. (Space Frontiers/Getty Images)
West Point occupies a strategic location on a dramatic west-bank bluff overlooking a bend in the Hudson River, about 60 miles north of New York City.
The river is navigable all the way in which to Albany, about 100 miles additional north, which added to the waterway’s strategic significance throughout the battle for independence.
The British noticed management of the Hudson as a technique to drive a wedge between New England and the remainder of the colonies. West Point stood in the way in which of their ambitions.
“West Point had a major role in our nation’s history during the American Revolution,” the United States Military Academy writes in its on-line historical past.
Engraving depicts American military officer Benedict Arnold (1741-1801), seated at a desk, as he arms papers to British officer John Andre (1750-1780) throughout the American Revolutionary War, mid-to-late 18th century. Arnold formally switched sides and joined the British. (Stock Montage)
“American Continental Line soldiers constructed forts, gun batteries, redoubts and installed a 65-ton iron chain across the Hudson to block British invasions along the river.”
West Point is “first in magnitude and importance … and in all probability the real [object] of the enemy’s designs,” Gen. George Washington wrote because the British made probing assaults up the river.
“West Point had a major role in our nation’s history during the American Revolution.” – United States Military Academy
The garrison was the middle of maybe essentially the most notorious act of treason in American historical past.
Major General Benedict Arnold, a hero of the early years of the American Revolution, provided to commerce West Point to the Redcoats in 1780 in alternate for £20,000 British kilos.
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, SEPT. 21, 1780, BENEDICT ARNOLD BETRAYS CAUSE OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
His betrayal was uncovered, West Point was saved and British conspirator Major John Andre was captured and executed.
U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York, circa 1915, classic {photograph}. (Education Images/Universal Images Group through Getty Images)
Arnold escaped to England, his identify eternally tarnished in America.
The ignominious act merely bolstered the significance positioned on West Point by navy commanders on either side of the battle.
Coupled with its location on a significant avenue of transportation, and its proximity to New York – quickly turning into the nation’s largest metropolis – West Point was an apparent selection for the location of the United States Military Academy.
West Point has produced an extended checklist of the nation’s most celebrated navy officers. Among them: “Buffalo Soldier” Henry O. Flipper (class of 1877), the academy’s first black graduate; World War I American Expeditionary Force chief Gen. John J. Pershing (1886); and World War II hero George S. Patton (1909).
Confederate generals Robert E. Lee (1829) and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson (1846), two of essentially the most expert battlefield commanders in American historical past, have been additionally West Point graduates. Lee was superintendent of the United States Military Academy from 1852 to 1855.
Future normal and president, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), on the soccer discipline throughout his time as a navy cadet at West Point Academy, New York, 1912. Eisenhower (class of 1915) performed soccer at West Point with classmate and fellow future World War II normal Omar Bradley. (FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)
West Point has produced 83 Medal of Honor recipients, greater than every other establishment of upper studying, and two U.S. presidents.
Ulysses S. Grant (1843) led the Union military to victory in the Civil War and served as president from 1869 to 1877.
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Dwight D. Eisenhower (1915) was the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe in World War II and served as president from 1953 to 1961.
West Point as we speak is the oldest repeatedly occupied common military publish in the United States.
It boasts about 4,400 college students and produces roughly 900 lieutenants annually, about 20 % of the brand new officers required yearly by the Army.
United States Military Academy graduating cadets rejoice at the tip of their graduation ceremonies, June 13, 2020, in West Point, New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, Pool)
“From the day of its founding on March 16, 1802, West Point has grown in its size and stature, but it remains committed to the task of producing commissioned leaders of character for America’s Army,” the United States Military Academy proclaims on-line.
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“Guided by its timeless motto, ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’ the Academy is poised confidently to provide the Army and the nation with its third century of service.”
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