Lifestyle
Meet the American who is the ‘true father of baseball,’ New York City physician Daniel ‘Doc’ Adams
Daniel “Doc” Adams nurtured baseball in its formative years of the mid-1800s as if it were his only child.
He laid down the laws of baseball in its infancy, guiding the sport the rest of its days.
He taught important life skills to the game, from playing shortstop to umpiring — all essential to its growth.
He provided for baseball when it was needy, making the earliest bats and balls so that others could enjoy the game he loved as his own.
“Doc Adams is the true father of baseball,” John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, told Fox News Digital.
Thorn first made that claim in a 1992 article for Elysian Fields Quarterly, a journal of baseball scholarship. He has repeated the statement many times since.
Daniel “Doc” Adams, a native of New Hampshire and a Harvard-trained physician, played a critical role in the development of baseball in the 1840s and 1850s. His incredible contributions were either lost to history or credited to others. Baseball historians and enthusiasts are working to recognize Adams and get him enshrined in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. (Public Domain)
Adams was dubbed the “father of baseball” in the press as early as 1895. Yet when he died in 1899, his legacy as the essential figure in the foundation of the National Pastime died with him.
The vacuum in public perception of baseball lore was filled by other figures — less consequential figures, according to the experts today.
“Doc Adams is the true father of baseball.” — John Thorn, official historian of Major League Baseball
The popular origin story of baseball is that it was invented by Abner Doubleday, later a Civil War hero, in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839; and that Alexander Cartwright, Adams’ teammate with the Knickerbockers Base Ball Club of Manhattan, codified the game while playing baseball at Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.
But a roar of protest has risen from the grandstand of Baseball America in recent years.
Historians and enthusiasts hope to set the record straight in a sport that cherishes tradition more than any other but has had its own origin story wrong for many years.
The New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club, an important pioneer in the early days of baseball. Doc Adams, the “true father of baseball,” is in the front row, second from left. (Public Domain)
They want Doc Adams given his due by baseball officials and the American public as the most formative figure in the early days of baseball.
And they want him given a long overdue place of honor in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“Abner Doubleday, Santa Claus and Dracula are equally mythic figures,” Thorn has said in the past, confirming his faith in the clever barb for Fox News Digital.
Doubleday Field at Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, is dubbed “The Home of Baseball.”
Cartwright, meanwhile, is called “The Father of Modern Base Ball” on his Hall of Fame plaque. It credits Cartwright with the standards of the game we know today: bases 90 feet apart, nine innings per game and nine men per team.
Major General Abner Doubleday poses for a portrait in the Brady Photo Studios in Washington, D.C., in 1862. For years Doubleday has been given credit as the inventor of baseball. John Thorn, the official historian of Major League Baseball, calls Doubleday’s role in baseball a myth. (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
“Everything credited to Cartwright on his Hall of Fame plaque should instead by credited to Doc Adams,” baseball historian Roger Ratzenberger, publisher of DocAdamsBaseball.org, told Fox News Digital.
‘Exercise and good fellowship’
Daniel Lucius “Doc” Adams was born on Nov. 1, 1814 in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, to Daniel and Nancy (Mulliken) Adams.
The elder Adams was a renowned physician, first in Massachusetts, then New Hampshire. He was a local politician, author and textbook writer whose works were used in classrooms for decades.
Doc Adams was born in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire, on Nov. 1, 1814. The town only in recent years erected a sign acknowledging that its hometown son played a crucial role in the creation of baseball. (Roger Ratzenberger/DocAdamsBaseball.org)
Doc Adams attended college at Amherst and Yale, then medical school at Harvard. He looked to make his name in Gotham, arriving in New York City in 1839 or 1840.
Baseball clubs by the early 1840s had played various forms of the game informally among themselves for several years.
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“Its primary objectives were exercise and good fellowship,” baseball authority Eric Miklich writes on 19Cbaseball.com, his detailed compendium of the early days of the game.
Different clubs might play by different rules, while different cities had various versions of the game. “Town ball” in Philadelphia differed from “base ball” in New York, for example.
Doc Adams joined the New York Knickerbockers Base Ball Club.
Marjorie Adams is the great-granddaughter of Daniel “Doc” Adams, dubbed by some “true father of baseball.” She was critical in raising awareness of his role in shaping American sports history after his influence was lost over time. (Roger Ratzenberger/DocAdamsBaseball.org)
“The players included merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks, insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon,” Adams told The Sporting News in an 1896 interview at age 81.
“They went into it just for exercise and enjoyment, and I think they used to get a good deal more solid fun out of it than the players in the big games do nowadays.”
“Players included merchants, lawyers, Union Bank clerks, insurance clerks and others who were at liberty after 3 o’clock in the afternoon.” — Doc Adams
He soon became one of its leading figures on the field and in the office.
He created a new position called shortstop in 1849 or 1850 — the position first devised to aid relay throws from the outfield; and soon became president of the Knickerbockers.
“The early Knickerbocker ball was so light that it could not be thrown even 200 feet,” Thorn wrote for the Society of American Baseball Research, “thus the need for a short fielder to send the ball in to the pitcher’s point.”
The Red Stocking Baseball Club of Cincinnati Ohio poses for a team photo in a studio in 1869, which was issued as a trade card. The Red Stocking, the first professional baseball team, and the first college football game, both emerged in 1869. They were part of a post-Civil war obsession in America with sports as entertainment. (Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty Images)
Adams took it upon himself to make better baseballs by hand. And he oversaw the birth of the baseball bat industry.
“We had a great deal of trouble in getting balls made, and for six or seven years I made all the balls myself, not only for our club but also for other clubs when they were organized,” Adams told The Sporting News.
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“Finally I found a Scotch saddler who was able to show me a good way to cover the balls with horsehide, such as was used for whip lashes. I used to make the stuffing out of three or four ounces of rubber cuttings, wound with yarn and then covered with the leather. It was not until some time after 1858 that a shoemaker was found who was willing to make them for us. This was the beginning of base ball manufacturing.”
He added, “It was equally difficult to get good bats made, for no one knew any more about making bats than balls. The bats had to be turned under my personal supervision.”
The $3.26 million ‘Magna Carta of Baseball’
The foundation of modern baseball was laid in January and February 1857, in a national convention of baseball players at Smith’s Hotel, 462 Broome Street, in what’s now the SoHo section of Manhattan.
Doc Adams presided over the convention.
Under his leadership, the conference emerged with uniform new rules as the recreational game grew into a larger and increasingly competitive sport.
“The Magna Carta of Baseball” is shown here. The modern rules of baseball were set down at a convention in New York City in 1857, presided over by Daniel “Doc” Adams. His handwritten copy of the “Laws of Base Ball” netted $3.26 million at auction in 2016. (Hayden J. Trubitt)
The 1857 convention gave us the major framework we recognize as baseball today: These include nine innings per game, nine players per side and 90 feet between base paths.
These “Laws of Base Ball,” handwritten by Doc Adams, emerged in recent years and hit the auction block in 2016.
They were purchased by Hayden Trubitt, an attorney with Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth in Newport Beach, California, for a cool $3.26 million.
He mortgaged his house to help fund the purchase of what Thorn called the “Magna Carta of Baseball.”
Adams holds a special place in the American sports pantheon.
Trubitt knew little about Doc Adams at the time. He knew only that the documents were important, and that they fulfilled his passions for baseball, law and history.
He’s since come to realize that Adams holds a special place in the American sports pantheon — by following the arc of the rules conventions through the handwriting of its president.
The meeting “was like the U.S. Constitutional Convention,” Trubitt told Fox News Digital.
“It was a beautiful expression of American government sensibilities.”
Hayden J. Trubitt, an attorney with Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth in Newport Beach, California, purchased Doc Adams’ handwritten 1857 “Laws of Base Ball” for $3.26 million in 2016. The documents were dubbed “The Magna Carta of Baseball” by Major League Baseball historian John Thorn. (Steven Trubitt)
“The ‘Laws of Base Ball’ is a document of unparalleled importance in the history of America’s National Pastime,” SCP Auctions’ Vice President Dan Imler said in a statement after its sale.
“This [$3.26 million] figure represents not only the highest price ever paid for a baseball document, but the third-highest price ever for any piece of sports memorabilia.”
“This [$3.26 million] figure represents the highest price ever paid for a baseball document.” — SCP Auctions
“With the rules better defined and with the success of the 1857 convention, the game became increasingly popular. Subsequent conventions attracted more teams,” writes Miklich.
“The Civil War caused membership to decrease but helped introduce the game to southern parts of the United States. The membership of the National Association of Base Ball Players increased to more than 300 members in 1867.”
The Cincinnati Red Stockings, the first professional baseball team, formed in 1869.
The National Convention of Base Ball Clubs was held at Smith’s Hotel, 462 Broome Street, in what’s now the SoHo section of Manhattan in the early weeks of 1857. The convention, presided over by Daniel “Doc” Adams, set down the “Laws of Base Ball” still known today, including nine innings per game, nine men per side and 90 feet between bases. The current building on the site was built in 1900. There is nothing to mark the address as the location of a momentous event in American sports history. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
The National League — the same “senior circuit” that still competes today — was founded in 1876. The American League was formed in 1901.
The first World Series between the competing leagues ensued in 1903. Baseball was off and running, played by the rules Adams set down, played with equipment he pioneered, with his hands touching every aspect of the sport.
He was the first umpire to call balls and strikes in competitive baseball.
Adams authored another baseball first in 1858, the year after the rules convention. Now well into his 40s, he officiated the first all-star game series in Queens, New York, where he was the first umpire to call balls and strikes in competitive baseball.
‘We played until it was too dark to see’
Dr. Daniel Lucius Adams died on January 3, 1899, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was 84 years old.
He’s buried today in Evergreen Cemetery in New Haven, beneath a stone in which the letters have grown worn and muddled, as if his name is being lost to history.
The Knickerbocker Base Ball Club was formed in 1842 by members of the earlier (founded 1837) Gotham Club and wrote down the first rules of the game in 1845. Front row, from left, Duncan Curry, Daniel “Doc” Adams — considered by many the true “father of baseball” — and Henry Tiebout. Back row, from left, Alfred Cartwright, Alexander Cartwright, remembered in baseball lore for recording baseball’s first rules, and William Wheaton. (Public Domain, courtesy Eric Miklich)
Perhaps the neglected memorial soon will get the same renewed attention as the man himself.
His star began to shine again through the research uncovered by Thorn, and by the dogged work by Doc Adams’ great-granddaughter, Marjorie Adams, now deceased, to revive his contribution to the game.
“Free from all restraint, and throwing off our coats we played until it was too dark to see any longer.” — Doc Adams
The nation’s longest-running vintage baseball tournament was renamed the Doc Adams Old Time Baseball Tournament in 2015. It’s held each summer in Bethpage, New York.
Adams enthusiasts now hope he’ll get his long-overdue plaque at the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
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The Early Baseball Era Committee of the Hall of Fame meets every three years.
Adams was on their 2016 ballot right before his Laws of Base Ball were discovered early that year. He missed induction by two votes.
His next opportunity to be inducted into the Hall of Fame comes in December 2024, when the committee votes on its 2025 inductees.
The Canton Cornshuckers pose for a photo during the 25th Annual Doc Adams Old Time Base Ball Festival at Old Bethpage Village Restoration on August 7, 2022, in Old Bethpage, New York. The event is named for important but largely forgotten baseball pioneer Daniel “Doc” Adams. (Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Hall of Fame or not, Adam’s greatest contribution may be instilling a nation with a love for the sport he fathered and is now cherished as the National Pastime.
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“Our playground was the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, a beautiful spot at that time, overlooking the Hudson, and reached by a pleasant path along the cliff,” Adams told The Sporting News in 1896.
“Once there we were free from all restraint, and throwing off our coats we played until it was too dark to see any longer.”
To read more stories in this unique “Meet the American Who…” series from Fox News Digital, click here.
Lifestyle
Black conservative father and faith leader homeschools 6 kids to ‘get God in’: ‘What could be more important?’
The Bible says the fear of the Lord, meaning a reverence for and an awe of God, is the beginning of knowledge and understanding.
So Abraham Hamilton III of the American Family Association, headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi, says that begs a vital question about the public school system.
He asks, “What kind of system of instruction can you have, calling it education, but intentionally and systematically denies the knowledge of God?”
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Hamilton is general counsel and public policy analyst for the American Family Association. He’s an African-American conservative — which makes him a huge target for liberals.
He’s a husband and father of six, all of whom he homeschools, because in researching the history and intent of the public school system, he discovered what should scare any parent who’s trying to mold and shape their child spiritually and intellectually.
Abraham Hamilton of the American Family Association shared his story of how and why he and his wife have chosen to homeschool their six children. It’s not just the indoctrination today that worries Hamilton. (AFA)
Says Hamilton, “The thing that led us to start homeschooling was first my wife and I began delving into a more solidified biblical worldview — and we began to learn a bit about the history of the modern public education system.”
It was a history that looked at the intent of such lauded educators as Horace Mann and John Dewey, who crusaded for a public school system to bring education to the masses to strengthen the nation.
This has been a centuries-long effort to transform the United States of America, said Hamilton.
But Hamilton said there was a more fundamental intention lurking behind the “good of the nation.”
On a recent episode of “Lighthouse Faith” podcast, Hamilton talked about how education by its very nature is a form of discipleship. And that the public school system was designed to disciple young minds into the faith of secular humanism. It’s a man-centered religion.
Secular humanism refers to a philosophy that “replaces a worship of the transcendent or supernatural deity with the deification of man and humankind,” according to an article in the Loyola Law Journal.
So secular humanism is the very definition of what the Bible calls sin — man putting himself in the place of God, believing that humanity is the measure of all things rather than God.
Hamilton said this has been a centuries-long effort to transform the United States.
Students are shown arriving at a public high school in Apr. 19, 2021. It’s no sudden occurrence, writes Lauren Green, that parents today are seeing their kids subject to indoctrination of liberal group think on gender ideology, the environment and critical race theory. (Carlos Delgado/AP Images for Portland Public Schools)
“We did not just arrive where we are accidentally,” he said. “It has been the product of an intentional plan using the school system, by and large as a primary mechanism to accomplish it.”
The book by Fox News’ Pete Hegseth, “Battle for the American Mind,” wholeheartedly affirms Hamilton’s accusations.
The book is an exegesis of how secular, Enlightenment-based and Marxist forces took hold of and promoted the idea of public schools for the purpose of controlling the country.
Writes Hegseth, “American progressives knew that social control was far more powerful than economic control. As such, they set out to gain direct national control of the ‘commanding heights’ of American schools. A project set in motion more than 100 ago is today leveraged through 16,000 hours of government instruction.”
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So it’s no sudden occurrence that parents are seeing their kids subject to indoctrination of liberal group think on gender ideology, the environment and critical race theory.
The COVID-19 shutdown that forced millions of children to receive class instruction via Zoom also let parents see and hear what their children were being taught. The backlash resulted in parents showing up at school board meetings in protest.
Public school students are denied the knowledge that “the reason why Isaac Newton experimented was because of what he read in the Bible.”
But it’s not just indoctrination that worries Hamilton. If the Bible is true, that knowing God is the beginning of all knowledge, then millions of children sitting in public school classrooms for six to eight hours a day, five days a week, are not getting the full breadth of education.
For example, regarding the great scientist Isaac Newton, the 17th century physicist, astronomer and mathematician whose laws of universal gravitation transformed the scientific landscape and our understanding of the motion of the planets, Hamilton says, “What most children don’t realize is that Isaac Newton was a passionate Christian. He could be rightly described as a theologian who dabbled in science.”
He says that what public school students are denied is the knowledge that “the reason why Isaac Newton experimented was because of what he read in the Bible.”
A woman and her daughter pray together over a Bible. While Abraham of the American Family Association says that we do have “godly teachers, wonderful teachers, wonderful administrators, wonderful principals — the system itself has been calcified in opposition to God” to the point where you have to figure out a way to get God in. (iStock)
So they are denied the ability to connect the dots of what makes this world the way it is.
Newton and other scientists of his ilk like Copernicus were inspired by Scriptures such as Psalm 19, which says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”
Says Hamilton, “Mathematics is an opportunity to peer into the mind of God. The discipline of mathematics only exists because we have a creator who is immutable. He doesn’t change, and he has established a fixed universe that creates an environment for us to be able to have the disciplines of science, the discipline of mathematics.”
But why not try to fix the public school system, like those parents showing up for board meetings and running for the school board themselves?
Hamilton applauds their efforts.
But while he says we do have “godly teachers, wonderful teachers, wonderful administrators, wonderful principals, the system itself has been calcified in opposition to God” to the point where you have to figure out a way to get God in.
Lauren Green of Fox News Channel, the network’s chief religion correspondent, recently spoke with Abraham Hamilton of the American Family Association in Mississippi, who says he cannot entrust the intellectual development of his six children to America’s public school system. (Fox News)
In other words, the system is geared to exclude God.
The recent court battles are evidence.
A high school coach is fired for praying on the football field and a substitute teacher is fired for opposing a same-sex themed book; a school board in Maine rejects a church’s application to hold worship services at a high school because of the church’s beliefs on abortion and gay marriage; and a Utah School district removes the King James Bible from its elementary and middle school shelves because a parent complained it contained “vulgarity and violence.”
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For Hamilton, the bottom line is that he cannot entrust the intellectual development of his children to a system whose aim is to disconnect God from knowledge.
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Says Hamilton, “We are endeavoring to disciple our children in a holistic sense and doing so from our home as a basis for it for that endeavor. What could be more important than that when it comes to our children?”
Lifestyle
Ohio firefighters find 118-year-old time capsule buried in fire station: Here’s what was inside
A team of firefighters has uncovered treasure hidden in their fire department that’s nearly 12 decades old.
Captain Ryan Redmon and a group of six firefighters from the City of Marion Ohio Fire Department were on a mission to retrieve an old department cornerstone from a retired fire station that was about to be demolished, but they ended up finding something truly unexpected.
The Marion Fire Department (MFD) has recently been researching the history of their department, going back to 1848, by digging up some information — both figuratively and literally, Captain Redmon told Fox News Digital.
On May 25, Redmon and the firefighters went down to the old Marion Fire Department Station No. 2, which was built in 1905, to excavate their department’s cornerstone for preservation purposes before the building was scheduled to be torn down.
Captain Ryan Redmon and a team of six firefighters from the Marion Fire Department in Marion, Ohio, discovered a hidden time capsule dating back to 1905. Firefighter Andrew Niles is pictured above removing a brick. (City of Marion Ohio Fire Department)
After spending nearly 30 minutes on the excavation, Redmon and his men quickly realized the cornerstone was deeper into the building than anticipated, so they called in professionals to complete the removal.
As Redmon and his team were about to leave, they pulled out one last brick and saw a copper box fall out of the sandstone, Redmon shared.
Redmon and the other firefighters on the scene took it back to the station excited to show everyone their new discovery.
“Obviously, everybody wanted us to open it right away, and we wanted to, trust me. It was killing us to see what was in there,” Redmon commented.
The 118-year-old time capsule was hidden near the cornerstone of the retired fire station building that was set to be demolished. (City of Marion Ohio Fire Department)
The MFD has been working on the written history of their department, but nothing in their prior research led them to believe there would be a time capsule hidden in the 1905 fire station.
“We’ve done so much history work around the station and I feel like we’ve got a pretty good grasp on our past and where we’ve been, and [to] discover something like [this], there’s no written record of it,” Redmon stated.
“We scoured newspapers, we scoured old records [and] there was never any mention of a time capsule in there, so it was very exciting,” he added.
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The time capsule was placed near the cornerstone of the old MFD station on July 20, 1905, according to a letter found in the capsule written by the fire chief at the time, Redmon added.
Chief Chuck Deem (left) looks on as Captain Redmon (center) and Andrew Niles (far right) pry open the time capsule during a public ceremony on May 31. (City of Marion Ohio Fire Department)
“Firemen aren’t exactly known for being gentle, delicate creatures with things,” Redmon joked. “So we took it to the historical society in town.”
The copper box had been soldered shut on the edge and wasn’t easy to pry open, according to Redmon.
On May 31, the MFD invited the residents of Marion to be a part of a public opening of the time capsule.
Inside the 118-year-old copper box were dozens of well-preserved memorabilia referencing the department including: nine MFD badges from the “turn of the century,” an invitation to the 1878 “Northwestern Ohio Volunteer Fireman’s Association Fireman’s Games” (which is still held today), four newspapers from July 1905 and so much more, according to the City of Marion Ohio Fire Department Facebook page.
Redmon took note of the differences between the “turn of the century era” badges that had been found in the time capsule, detailing the difference in style and size.
“There has been talk about trying to back to that style now that we know that’s our history and that’s kind of where we came from. In the future, maybe we can go back to that,” Redmon commented.
One of Redmon’s favorite discoveries in the box was the letter from Chief McFarland, the department’s fire chief for almost 40 years, he added.
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“He has kind of got his touch on everything. To have an actual letter from him was very [exciting].”
Redmon is looking forward to making a new time capsule for the new fire station which will include an item from the newly found 1905 capsule. (City of Marion Ohio Fire Department)
Redmon gave a lot of credit to Andrew Niles, a firefighter on his team, who has been heading up the department’s historical research and was the one to open the time capsule.
One of the biggest takeaways for Redmon is knowing that he now has a tangible place in the history of the MFD.
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“I was becoming a part of history because I was involved in this opening and this finding,” he shared.
The MFD is planning on taking an item from the 1905 time capsule, most likely one of the badges, and placing it in a new time capsule that will be buried in the construction of the new fire station, Redmon added.
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The hope is that another 118 years will pass by before the new capsule is opened and someone will be able to discover a 236-year-old badge, paying homage to the history and legacy of the Marion Fire Department, Redmon said.
Lifestyle
On this day in history, June 7, 1942, Battle of Midway ends in decisive US victory
On this day in history, June 7, 1942, the Battle of Midway — regarded as one of the most decisive U.S. victories in its war against Japan — came to an end.
The Battle of Midway was an Allied naval victory and a major turning point in World War II.
The battle was fought between Japanese and American carrier forces near the Midway Atoll, a territory of the United States in the central Pacific, from June 4-7, 1942.
On June 4, 1942, the Battle of Midway began.
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Midway Island is a fairly isolated atoll, so named because it is midway between North America and Asia in the North Pacific Ocean, according to National Geographic.
Midway’s importance grew for commercial and military planners, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
In this June 4, 1942, file photo provided by the U.S. Navy, the USS Astoria (CA-34) steams by USS Yorktown (CV-5), shortly after the carrier had been hit by three Japanese bombs in the Battle of Midway. (William G. Roy/U.S. Navy via AP, File)
In the 1930s, Midway became a stopover for Pan American Airways’ “flying clippers” — seaplanes crossing the ocean on their five-day transpacific passage, the same source indicates.
Midway was an incredibly strategic location, multiple sources say.
“The Imperial Japanese Navy planned to use it to secure their sphere of influence in the Pacific theater of the war,” according to National Geographic.
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“The Japanese had not lost a naval battle in more than 50 years, and had nearly destroyed the American fleet just six months earlier in a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.”
The American success at Midway was a major victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy.
Pearl Harbor is about 1,300 miles east of Midway, says the same source.
In preparation, American military and intelligence forces worked together to defeat the Japanese.
The Battle of Midway Island, which resulted in a major victory for the U.S. fleet. The USS aircraft carrier ‘Yorktown’ received a direct hit from a Japanese plane, which got through despite the heavy barrage put up by American destroyers. (Keystone/Getty Images)
Code breakers were able to decipher Japanese naval code, allowing American leaders to anticipate Japanese maneuvers, notes National Geographic.
Because of this, the U.S. Navy was then able to launch a surprise attack on the larger Japanese fleet in the area and the Battle of Midway turned the tide of the war, says the same source.
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The American success at Midway was a major victory over the Imperial Japanese Navy as all four Japanese carriers — Akagi, Hiryu, Kaga and Soryu — had participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, says the National WWII Museum.
The Battle of Midway is often referred to as the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
“Sinking those Japanese carriers represented a resounding defeat over the enemy fleet which had wrought such destruction only six months before,” the same source says.
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The Imperial Japanese Navy would not be capable of overcoming the loss of four carriers and over 100 trained pilots — and with the loss at Midway, the Japanese offensive in the Pacific was overturned and the United States began offensive action in the Pacific, says the National WWII Museum.
The Battle of Midway is widely considered the most decisive U.S. victory of that period.
It is often referred to as the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
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Midway Atoll has since been designated as a National Memorial to the Battle of Midway, says the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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