1812- The United States declared war against Great Britain. 1838- The steamboat Pulaski, a passenger vessel traveling between Baltimore and Charleston, suffered a boiler explosion while at sea, killing over 100 passengers and crew. This was one of three fatal steamboat boiler explosions within as many months that forced the Federal Government to begin regulating merchant steam vessels. 1878- On 18 June 1878 Congress established the U.S. Life-Saving Service as a separate agency under the control of the Treasury Department (20 Stat. L., 163). 1878- The 45th Congress enacted a rider on an Army appropriations bill that became known as the Posse Comitatus Act [Chapter 263, Section 15, U.S. Statutes, Vol.