This Day in History: 05/13/1846 - President Polk declares war on Mexico

Out of the rubble of the World Trade Center rose a symbol of hope for many in the days after 9/11. Part of the Emmy Award winning web series, Remembering 9/11.

On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981, mandating the desegregation of the U.S. Armed Forces and ending 170 years of officially sanctioned racial discrimination in the military. Although African Americans had served since the Revolutionary War, they were typically segregated from white troops and often assigned to menial roles. A landmark achievement of both the postwar civil rights movement and Truman’s presidency, the order marked one of the first times a U.S. president used executive authority to advance civil rights. It also helped pave the way for broader desegregation efforts across American society.

On October 29, 1969, Stanford programmer Bill Duvall sent a single-word message—"login"—to UCLA student programmer Charley Kline, 350 miles away. Transmitted between two computers that each filled an entire room, this message marked the first communication between networked computers and is widely regarded as the birth of the internet.

The War Department considered coffee an essential element of the troops' diet. In 1942, coffee became so critical to the war efforts that Americans back home rationed coffee to preserve stocks for the soldiers.