From February 10th, 2026 through February 16th, 2026, the calendar of United States military history reaches across centuries of combat, diplomacy, and high-stakes leadership decisions. In this “This Week in U.S. Military History” edition from Dispatch: U.S. Military History Magazine, we revisit early naval daring in the Mediterranean, a wartime president’s birth on the American frontier, and a Civil War victory that opened the door to the Deep South. We watch a battleship vanish in a harbor and see Allied leaders carve out the shape of a world to come. We also look skyward, where bombers over Germany and paratroopers over Corregidor helped close one world war while setting the stage for the next era of strategy. Finally, we end in the nuclear age, with an amendment that quietly reshaped how national command would be handed from one leader to the next. Together these episodes show how much history can be packed into just seven days on the calendar.
Decatur’s Raid in Tripoli Harbor
In the dark waters off Tripoli on February 16th, 1804, a young United States Navy officer, Stephen Decatur, led a small boarding party into one of the most celebrated raids in early naval history. The frigate USS Philadelphia had run aground and been captured months earlier, and Tripolitan forces now held her as a valuable prize in the First Barbary War. Rather than allow an enemy corsair fleet to make use of the ship, Decatur brought his men into the harbor disguised in a small vessel and slipped alongside the captured frigate. Once aboard, they overpowered the surprised guards and set the Philadelphia ablaze, destroying the ship under the guns of enemy shore batteries. The party then fought its way back out of the harbor in the glare of the burning frigate. The raid denied the enemy a major warship and sent a powerful signal that the young United States Navy was willing to take calculated risks far from home waters.
Open the Wiki entryBirth of Abraham Lincoln
On February 12th, 1809, Abraham Lincoln was born in a Kentucky log cabin, long before he would become the wartime president who guided the Union through the Civil War. For military history, Lincoln’s significance lies in the way he grew into the role of commander in chief of an enormous citizen army. During four years of brutal fighting, he wrestled with strategy, replaced generals, and learned to balance political pressures with the realities of the battlefield. His decisions to defend Washington, embrace a broad war against Confederate infrastructure, and ultimately support commanders like Ulysses S. Grant made a direct difference in the Union’s ability to sustain the fight. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation also transformed millions of enslaved people into a source of manpower and moral strength for the Union cause. When we mark his birthday during this week on the calendar, we remember not only a national leader but a civilian commander who had to grow into the demands of modern war in real time.
Open the Wiki entrySurrender at Fort Donelson
On February 16th, 1862, Confederate forces at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River surrendered to Union troops under Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant, marking one of the first major Union victories in the Western Theater of the Civil War. The campaign had begun with the capture of nearby Fort Henry earlier that month, opening the Tennessee River and rattling Confederate defenses in the region. At Donelson, hard fighting and winter weather tested both sides, but the Confederate attempt to break out failed, leaving their army trapped. When Confederate commanders asked for terms, Grant’s reply that he would accept nothing but “unconditional surrender” became famous across the North. The fall of Fort Donelson forced the Confederacy to abandon much of Tennessee, opened key river routes deep into the South, and boosted Union morale. It also catapulted Grant into national prominence as the kind of relentless commander Lincoln believed the war required.
Open the Wiki entryUSS Maine Explodes in Havana Harbor
On the night of February 15th, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank while riding at anchor in Havana Harbor, killing more than two hundred American sailors. The ship had been sent to Cuba during a period of unrest as a visible symbol of United States interest in the island’s struggle against Spanish rule. When the Maine erupted and settled into the harbor mud, the immediate cause was unclear, and controversy over that cause continues in various forms even today. But in the moment, many in the United States saw the explosion as an act of Spanish treachery, and the phrase “Remember the Maine!” quickly became a rallying cry. The tragedy inflamed public opinion, hardened political positions, and made war between the United States and Spain far more likely. Within months, the Spanish-American War would begin, signaling the arrival of the United States as a global naval and colonial power.
Open the Wiki entryYalta Conference Concludes
On February 11th, 1945, the wartime conference at Yalta in Crimea wrapped up after days of meetings between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin, the leaders of the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. With German forces pushed back into their own territory and the end of the war in Europe in sight, the Allied leaders faced difficult questions about how to finish the fight and what kind of peace would follow. At Yalta they discussed the timing of a final offensive against Germany, Soviet entry into the war against Japan, and the creation of a new international organization to replace the failed League of Nations. They also hammered out arrangements for occupation zones in Germany and handled sensitive issues about political futures in Eastern Europe, especially Poland. Many of these decisions shaped the endgame in Europe and the contours of the early Cold War that followed. For United States military history, Yalta stands as a reminder that strategic decisions made at the conference table can echo on battlefields and alliances for decades.
Open the Wiki entryAllied Bombing of Dresden Begins
On February 13th, 1945, Allied bombers began a series of attacks on the German city of Dresden that would continue into the following days and become one of the most debated episodes of the air war in Europe. Dresden had been a cultural center with limited heavy industry compared to some other German cities, but by early 1945 it also served as a transportation hub feeding the German Eastern Front. British and American planners targeted rail lines, industrial facilities, and communications networks, but the resulting firestorms devastated large swathes of the city and killed tens of thousands of civilians. United States Army Air Forces bombers participated alongside Royal Air Force crews, reflecting the combined nature of the Allied strategic air campaign. In military terms, the attacks sought to disrupt German movements as Soviet forces advanced from the east. In human and moral terms, the destruction of Dresden raised enduring questions about proportionality, necessity, and the limits of air power. The city’s fate shows both the reach and the cost of strategic bombing at the end of the Second World War.
Open the Wiki entryAssault to Retake Corregidor
On February 16th, 1945, United States forces launched a daring combined airborne and amphibious assault to retake Corregidor, the rocky island guarding the entrance to Manila Bay in the Philippines. Corregidor had become a symbol of resistance when United States and Filipino defenders held out there in 1942 before surrendering to Japanese forces. Three years later, with the liberation of the Philippines well underway, recapturing the “Rock” carried both strategic and symbolic weight. Paratroopers from the 503rd Parachute Regimental Combat Team dropped onto the island’s small plateau while amphibious forces came ashore along the coastline under heavy fire and difficult terrain. Fierce fighting followed in tunnels, gun positions, and ravines as Japanese defenders resisted to the end. Securing Corregidor restored United States control of the main approach to Manila and underscored the fulfillment of General Douglas MacArthur’s promise to return. It also demonstrated how airborne and amphibious forces could work together in one of the war’s most challenging pieces of terrain.
Open the Wiki entryTwenty-fifth Amendment Ratified
On February 10th, 1967, the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, quietly reshaping how the nation would manage presidential disability and succession in an era of nuclear weapons and global commitments. The amendment clarified what would happen if a president died, resigned, became incapacitated, or needed to temporarily transfer power, and it formalized the process for filling a vacancy in the vice presidency. For the armed forces, this legal framework mattered because it affected the continuity of national command authority, especially over nuclear forces and major deployments. The crises of the Cold War had already shown how illness, assassination, or sudden shocks could leave dangerous uncertainty at the top. By providing written procedures for transferring power and confirming a new vice president, the Twenty-fifth Amendment reduced the chance of a leadership vacuum at moments when military decisions might have to be made quickly. Its anniversary reminds us that some of the most important safeguards for the military do not involve weapons at all, but the constitutional rules that govern who can lawfully give orders.
Open the Wiki entryAcross the Week
In this single week on the calendar, we see United States military history moving from the age of wooden sailing ships into the complex demands of global war and nuclear-era leadership. A nighttime raid in Tripoli Harbor, a river fortress on the Cumberland, and a rocky island in Manila Bay each show how geography and daring combine to shape campaigns. The loss of a battleship in Havana and the burning of Dresden’s streets reveal the tragic human cost of crisis and strategic bombing. Yalta and the Twenty-fifth Amendment, in their different ways, highlight how decisions made in conference rooms and legislatures can influence how armies fight and how commanders exercise authority. Lincoln’s birthday reminds us that behind every strategy and order stands a human being struggling with imperfect information and enormous responsibility. Taken together, the stories from February 10th through February 16th invite us to consider not only what happened, but how choices in war and peace echo far beyond a single moment in time.