21 April 2021
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On this date in . . .
from: http://www.scopesys.com
    
1948 1st Polaroid camera is sold in US

AND IN MILITARY HISTORY
from: thisdayinusmilhist.wordpress.com

1898 – The United States Navy begins a blockade of Cuban ports. When the U.S. Congress issued a declaration of war on April 25, it declared that a state of war had existed from this date. The U.S. North Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, was ordered to begin the blockade of Cuba on April 21, 1898. The fleet with the armored cruiser New York steamed out of Key West, Fla., at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. The fleet had hardly left port when it pursued and captured a Spanish merchant vessel, Buenaventura. The Spanish-American War had begun.
1914 – U.S. marines occupied Vera Cruz, Mexico. They stayed for six months.
1914 – A German arms shipment to Mexico is intercepted by the U.S. Navy near Veracruz, Veracruz. The Ypiranga Incident occurred on April 21, 1914, at the port of Veracruz in Mexico. The SS Ypiranga was a German steamer that was commissioned to transport arms and munitions to the Mexican federal government under Victoriano Huerta. The United States had placed Mexico under an arms embargo to stifle the flow of weaponry to the war-torn state, then in the throes of civil war, forcing the Mexican government to look to Europe for aid. The Ypiranga tried to enter the harbor at Veracruz to unload on the first day of the US occupation but was detained by US troops who were ordered by President of the United States Woodrow Wilson to enforce the arms embargo he had placed on Mexico. There was neither a declaration of war on Mexico by the United States nor a formal blockade on its ports, thus the detention of the Ypiranga was not legal and it was released. It proceeded to a port where the US military was absent, Puerto México (modern-day Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz), and was able to offload its cargo to Huerta’s officials. The arms on the Ypiranga required “three trains of ten cars each” to unload.
1924 – Navy vessels authorized transferred to Coast Guard for law enforcement purposes. The Coast Guard was authorized to commission temporary officers.