On Jan. 17, 1961, in his farewell address to the nation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people to keep a careful eye on what he called the “military-industrial complex” that has developed in the post-World War II years. Eisenhower asked Americans to guard against the “danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite,” which could weaken or destroy the very institutions and principles it was designed to protect.
On Jan. 17, 1781, Brigadier General Daniel Morgan and a mixed Patriot force of militiamen and Continental riflemen rout British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton and a group of Redcoats and Loyalists at the Battle of Cowpens. The strategy of the battle was recreated in the movie “The Patriot.”