History for the day: 1942: Battle of Midway begins

History.com has this for 4 June:

On 4 June 1942, the Battle of Midway, one of the most decisive American victories against Japan during World War Two, began. During the four-day sea-and-air battle, the outnumbered American Pacific Fleet succeeded in destroying four Japanese aircraft carriers while losing only one of its own, the Yorktown, to the previously invincible Japanese Navy.
In six months of offensives prior to Midway, the Japanese had triumphed throughout the Pacific, including in Malaysia, Singapore, the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, and numerous island groups. The United States, however, was a growing threat, and Japanese Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto sought to destroy the Pacific Fleet before it was large enough to outmatch his own.
A thousand miles northwest of Honolulu, Hawai'i, the strategic island of Midway became the focus of Yamamoto’s scheme to smash American resistance to Japan’s war designs. His plan consisted of a feint toward Alaska, followed by an invasion of Midway by a Japanese strike force. When the Pacific Fleet arrived at Midway to respond to the invasion, it would be destroyed by the superior Japanese fleet waiting, unseen, to the west. If successful, the plan would eliminate the Pacific Fleet and provide a forward outpost from which the Japanese could eliminate any future American threat in the Central Pacific. But American intelligence broke the Japanese naval code, thus anticipating the surprise attack.
In the meantime, two hundred miles to the northeast, two American attack fleets caught the Japanese force entirely by surprise, destroying three heavy Japanese carriers and one heavy cruiser. The only Japanese carrier that initially escaped destruction, the Hiryu, launched all its aircraft against the American task force and managed to seriously damage the American carrier Yorktown, forcing its abandonment. At about 1700, dive-bombers from the American carrier Enterprise returned the favor, mortally damaging the Hiryu. It was scuttled the next morning.
When the Battle of Midway ended, Japan had lost four carriers, a cruiser and three hundred aircraft, and suffered an estimated twenty-five hundred casualties. The Americans lost the Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft, and suffered approximately 300 casualties.
Japan’s losses hobbled its naval might, bringing Japanese and American sea power to approximate parity, and marked the turning point in the Pacific theater. In August of 1942, the great American counteroffensive began at Guadalcanal, and did not cease until Japan’s surrender three years later.

Rico says it's yet another war he's glad he missed...