USMC at 251: the Marine Corps Marks Its Birthday Today, a Date That Traces to Two Battalions Raised on November 10, 1775
The Commandant's birthday message says 40,000 Marines are forward deployed at this hour. Houston's large Marine veteran community marks the day the way Marines everywhere do - with Lejeune's 1921 message, a ball and a cake cut by the oldest Marine for the youngest.
The United States Marine Corps turns 251 today. In his official birthday message dated November 10, 2026, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. Eric M. Smith, called the Corps 'our Nation's premier expeditionary force in readiness' and noted that, at this very hour, 40,000 Marines are forward deployed and stationed around the world. The message, issued with Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos A. Ruiz, closes with the traditional greeting: 'Happy 251st Birthday, Marines!'
The date traces to a single resolution. On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, resolved to raise two battalions of Marines to serve with the young Continental Navy, according to the Corps' history as recounted by Military.com. The first Marines' story runs from the first amphibious landing at Nassau, in the Bahamas, through the volcanic sands of Iwo Jima and the landing at Inchon to the mountains of Afghanistan - the arc the Commandant's message itself recites.
For most of the Corps' life, November 10 was not the birthday at all. The Continental Marines disbanded after the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Congress re-created the Corps on July 11, 1798, and from 1799 until 1921 the birthday was reckoned as July 11. That changed when Maj. Gen. John A. Lejeune, the Commandant, issued Marine Corps Order No. 47 on November 1, 1921, restoring the 1775 date and directing that his message be read to every command each November 10 - a reading that remains part of the ceremony more than a century later. The first event called a Birthday Ball was probably held in 1925 in Philadelphia, and the cake ceremony - in which the oldest Marine present hands a slice to the youngest - was formalized in the 1950s.
Search interest told the same story this morning: 'usmc' stood at No. 6 on the United States trending-search board this desk read at its morning pull. Houston is home to one of Texas' largest veteran communities, and local Marine Corps League detachments and veteran posts mark the birthday each year with the Lejeune reading and the cake cutting. In the Commandant's framing, the observance is forward-looking as much as historical - the Corps, he wrote, is preparing every day for the fights ahead.
