King Jr., a 17-year-old junior at Morehouse College, began a lifelong crusade against racial prejudice, with the publication of a letter in the Atlanta Constitution, in response to an editorial. His father later remarked that the letter was the first "indication that Martin was headed for greatness". A pair of unmanned B-17 bombers landed in California after having been flown a distance of 2,174 miles from Hawaii, piloted entirely by radio control, as the United States Army carried out "Operation Remote". Press releases declared that the experiment proved "that guided missiles of the air forces can be launched by radio control and successfully hit a target more than 2,000 miles distant". Died: Tony Lazzeri, 42, American MLB 2nd baseman and Hall of Famer August 7, 1946 (Wednesday) The Dardanelles crisis began when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin sent a demand to Turkey to permit "joint defense" of the Dardanelles Strait, with the implication that Soviet troops would enter Turkish territory. At the same time, editorials appeared in the Soviet press supporting the retrocession of the Kars Province, Ardahan and Artvin, which had been ceded from Russia to Turkey after World War One. Concluding that a takeover of Turkey would allow the Soviets to control the Middle East, U.S. President Truman sent the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt and two destroyers to the area. Mariano Ospina Pérez was inaugurated as the 23rd President of Colombia. August 8, 1946 (Thursday) The B-36 Peacemaker bomber was flown by the United States Air Force for the first time. Designed to carry the atomic bomb, and having a range of 6,000 miles, the B-36 was the first intercontinental carrier of nuclear weapons. More than twenty years after his court-martial and resignation from the United States Army, and ten years after his death, Billy Mitchell was awarded the Medal of Honor by the U.S. Congress "for outstanding pioneer service in the field of American military aviation", and posthumously promoted to the rank of Major General. August 9, 1946 (Friday) The body of African-American veteran John Cecil Jones, victim of a lynching, was found in a bayou near Minden, Louisiana. As a result of an investigation by the NAACP, the crime was reported nationwide and led to the first FBI investigation of a lynching in Louisiana, followed by the creation of a Committee on Civil Rights by President Truman. One author described the response to the Jones murder as