The final Civil War re-enactment

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Apr 4, 2002

In 1818, Congress decided the flag of the United States would consist of 13 red-and-white stripes and 20 stars, with a new star to be added for every new state of the Union.

In 1841, President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia one month after his inaugural, becoming the first U.S. chief executive to die in office.

In 1850, the city of Los Angeles was incorporated.

In 1887, Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of an American community -- Argonia, Kan.

In 1902, 100 years ago, British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships for Americans at Oxford University.

In 1945, during World War II, U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.

In 1949, 12 nations, including the United States, signed the North Atlantic Treaty.

In 1968, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., 39, was shot to death in Memphis, Tenn.

In 1981, Henry Cisneros became the first Mexican-American elected mayor of a major U.S. city -- San Antonio.

In 1983, the space shuttle Challenger roared into orbit on its maiden voyage.

Ten years ago: His campaign acknowledged that Bill Clinton had received an induction notice in April 1969 while attending college in Oxford, England; Clinton said the notice arrived after he was due to report, and that his local draft board had told him he could complete the school term.

The desert Coast Guard

SEARCHLIGHT, Nev. (AP) -- Coast Guard Petty Officer Jim Pulse has hunted Russian submarines in the Bering Strait, rescued stranded boats in the Atlantic Ocean and helped catch drug smugglers off the coast of Florida. Two years ago the 18-year veteran was assigned about as far away from the ocean as an active guardsmen can get -- Searchlight.

"I never thought I'd be stationed out in the desert," Pulse said. "The only water I see is when it flash floods, or when I take my boat out on the lake."

Despite being hundreds of miles away from the Pacific Ocean, the Coast Guard station is crucial in providing safe passage for mariners and aviators across the globe. The seven Guard members at the Nevada desert outpost use a mix of ingenuity and vintage machinery to ensure that a long-range radio navigational system, known as Loran, constantly transmits to ships and aircraft that use the system to pinpoint their location.

"When people come out here, they always wonder why we're not closer to Lake Mead," Pulse said. "People joke about why we put the station in the middle of nowhere, but it's actually right where it needs to be."

The placement of Loran stations in places like Searchlight, Boise City, Okla., and Gillette, Wyo., is designed to push the signal as far as possible, Pulse said. "The signal bounces off land masses, and studies have been done to determine where the best spots are for radio frequency propagation," Pulse said, from the station perched on the side of a mountain 10 miles south of Searchlight. "This location allows the signal to travel farther than other spots."

Navigators use the signals from three different stations -- there are 24 in the United States and more in Russia, Canada and Japan -- to determine longitude and latitude. The Searchlight signal reaches as far as Hawaii and the Caribbean.