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Events

 * Following completion of the USS Enterprise's first five-year mission, Robert April addressed the UFP Grand Assembly on the continued success of the Starship Program, and the need to continue the program to further science and exploration. April also announced that he was stepping down as captain of the Enterprise and that Captain Christopher Pike (then currently commanding the USS Yorktown (NCC-1704)) was to assume command for the ship's second five-year mission. (TOS novel: Final Frontier)
 * While on leave on Earth, Christopher Pike met Janeese Carlisle and fell in love. Forced to leave her as she was entering Starfleet Academy, they maintained subspace contact over the next two and a half years. When the Enterprise returned to Earth in 2254, he learned she was in love with another man and was nearly driven to bitterness and disappointment. (TOS novel: Vulcan's Glory)
 * Early in the year, James T. Kirk impressed his lecturers at the Starfleet Academy Lunar Station when he became the only student to pass the "bug-spot" event on his lunar carriage. (TOS novel: The Galactic Whirlpool)
 * Also early in the year, Captain Garth of Izar won a major victory against the Klingon Empire at the Battle of Axanar. (TOS: "Whom Gods Destroy", novel: My Brother's Keeper, #1: Republic)
 * Kirk began a friendship with instructor Lieutenant Ben Finney that continued into their service together aboard the USS Republic. While on a training mission aboard the Republic, Kirk prevented a near-fatal explosion when the baffle plate was left open to the atomic matter piles. Kirk knew that Finney was responsible, and reported him to Captain Rollin Bannock. This action did not earn him any friends among his fellow cadets, and he earned a reputation of being a by-the-book snitch. (TOS novel: My Brother's Keeper, #1: Republic)
 * James T. Kirk spent several months aboard the USS Republic as a trainee navigator, during the Vulcanian Expedition, in which the Republic was one of several vessels that orbited Vulcan (planet) to showcase Starfleet to Vulcan nationals. (TOS novel: Strangers from the Sky)
 * Kirk also participated in the Axanar Peace Mission with Captain Bannock and the USS Republic, where they persuaded the Axanarri to sign a peace treaty with the Federation and change the shape of the Federation-Klingon border. As a result of his participation, Kirk was awarded the Palm Leaf of Axanar. He was also granted a lieutenancy in recognition of his achievement. (TOS novels: My Brother's Keeper, #1: Republic; From the Depths)
 * In his second year at Starfleet Academy, James T. Kirk had earned so much respect from his tutors that he was assigned to teach a Federation History class to first year cadets. One of the students in his class was Gary Mitchell, and despite there initially being some animosity between the two, they became great friends. Mitchell would later serve under Kirk as navigator aboard the USS Enterprise. (TOS: “Court Martial”, “Where No Man Has Gone Before”)
 * Later in the year, Kirk and Mitchell were assigned to a training mission aboard the Republic for a two-week patrol of the Klingon Neutral Zone. When the cadets were ordered to their quarters by the captain so that the senior staff could complete a secret mission, Mitchell persuaded Kirk to try and access the sensor logs to determine what happened. This drew the attention of Captain Bannock who reprimanded the two cadets. (TOS novel: My Brother's Keeper, #1: Republic)
 * A subsequent survey mission to Alpha Varangis was called off so that the Republic could attend the peace talks on the planet Heir'tzan. The efforts of Mitchell, Kirk, and Phelana Yudrin (an Andorian with whom Kirk was having a romance) foiled an assassination attempt to disrupt the talks, and they were all commended by Bannock. (TOS novel: My Brother's Keeper, #1: Republic)
 * Leonard McCoy led a massive inoculation program on planet Dramia II, where he saved a Dramian colonist, named Kol-tai, from a strain of the Saurian virus. Shortly after McCoy departed, Dramia II was struck by a plague which killed nearly all of the colonists. (TAS: “Albatross”)

Vessel Assignments

 * Captain Christopher Pike took command of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701). Number One and Cusack transferred from the USS Yorktown (NCC-1704) with him. (TOS novels: Final Frontier, Vulcan's Glory)