Today In
History - Tuesday - May 24, 2011
1689 - The English Parliament passed Act of
Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics
were specifically excluded from exemption.
1738 - The Methodist Church was established.
1764 - Bostonian lawyer James Otis denounced
"taxation without representation" and called for the
colonies to unite in demonstrating their opposition
to Britain’s new tax measures.
1798 - Believing that a French invasion of Ireland
was imminent, Irish nationalists rose up against the
British occupation.
1830 - The first passenger railroad service in the
U.S. began service.
1844 - Samuel F.B. Morse formally opened America's
first telegraph line. The first message was sent
from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, MD. The message
was "What hath God wrought?"
1863 - Bushwackers led by Captain William Marchbanks
attacked a U.S. Federal militia party in Nevada,
Missouri.
1878 - The first American bicycle race was held in
Boston.
1883 - After 14 years of construction the Brooklyn
Bridge was opened to traffic.
1913 - The U.S. Department of Labor entered into its
first strike mediation. The dispute was between the
Railroad Clerks of the New York, New Haven and
Hartford Railroad.
1931 - B&O Railroad began service with the first
passenger train to have air conditioning throughout.
1954 - The first moving sidewalk in a railroad
station was opened in Jersey City, NJ.
1958 - United Press International was formed through
a merger of the United Press and the International
News Service.
1961 - The Freedom Riders were arrested in Jackson,
Mississippi.
1967 - California Governor Ronald Reagan greeted
Charles M. Schulz at the state capitol in observance
of the legislature-proclaimed "Charles Schulz Day."
1974 - The last "Dean Martin Show" was seen on NBC.
The show had been aired for 9 years.
1976 - Britain and France opened trans-Atlantic
Concorde service to Washington.
1980 - The International Court of Justice issued a
final decision calling for the release of the
hostages taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on
November 4, 1979.
1983 - The Brooklyn Bridge's 100th birthday was
celebrated.
1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal
government had the right to deny tax breaks to
schools that racially discriminate.
1993 - The Ethiopian province of Eritrea declared
itself an independent nation.
1994 - The four men convicted of bombing the New
York's World Trade Center were each sentenced to 240
years in prison.
1999 - 39 miners were killed in an underground gas
explosion in the Ukraine.
2000 - The U.S. House of Representatives approved
permanent normal trade relations with China. China
was not happy about some of the human rights
conditions that had been attached by the U.S.
lawmakers.
2000 - A Democratic Party event for Al Gore in
Washington brought in $26.5 million. The amount set
a new record, which had just been set the previous
month by Republicans for Texas Gov. George W. Bush.
2001 - Temba Tsheri, 15, became the youngest person
to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
Today In
History - Wednesday - May 25, 2011
1787 - The Constitutional convention opened in
Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.
1810 - Argentina declared independence from
Napoleonic Spain.
1844 - The gasoline engine was patented by Stuart
Perry.
1844 - The first telegraphed news dispatch, sent
from Washington, DC, to Baltimore, MD, appeared in
the Baltimore "Patriot."
1895 - Oscar Wilde, a playwright, poet and novelist,
was convicted of a morals charge and sentenced to
prison in London.
1895 - James P. Lee first published "Gold in America
-- A Practical Manual."
1925 - John Scopes was indicted for teaching the
Darwinian theory in school.
1927 - Ford Motor Company announced that the Model A
would replace the Model T.
1946 - Jordan gained independence from Britain.
1953 - In Nevada, the first atomic cannon was fired.
1961 - America was asked by U.S. President Kennedy
to work toward putting a man on the moon before the
end of the decade.
1968 - The Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson
National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, MO, was
dedicated.
1970 - Boeing Computer Services was founded.
1977 - An opinion piece by Vietnam veteran Jan
Scruggs appeared in "The Washington Post." The
article called for a national memorial to "remind an
ungrateful nation of what it has done to its sons"
that had served in the Vietnam War.
1979 - An American Airlines DC-10 crashed during
takeoff at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
275 people were killed.
1981 - Daredevil Daniel Goodwin scaled Chicago's
Sears Tower, while wearing a "Spiderman" costume, in
7 1/2 hours.
1985 - Bangladesh was hit with a hurricane and tidal
wave that killed more than 11,000 people.
1986 - Approximately 7 million Americans
participated in "Hands Across America."
1992 - Jay Leno debuted as the new permanent host of
NBC's "Tonight Show."
1996 - In Nimes, France, Christina Sanchez became
the first woman to achieve the rank of matadore in
Europe.
1997 - In Sierra Leone a military coup overthrew the
popularly elected President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. He
was replaced with Major Johnny Paul Koromah.
1997 - U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond became the
longest-serving senator in U.S. history (41 years
and 10 months).
1997 - Poland adopted a constitution that removed
all traces of communism.
1999 - A report by the U.S. House of Representatives
Select Committee on U.S. National Security and
Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's
Republic of China concluded that China had "stolen
design information on the U.S. most-advanced
thermonuclear weapons" and that China's penetration
of U.S. weapons laboratories "spans at least the
past several decades and almost certainly continues
today."
2001 - Erik Weihenmeyer, 32, of Golder, CO, became
the first blind climber to reach the summit of Mount
Everest.
2001 - Sherman Bull, 64, of New Canaan, CT, became
the oldest climber to reach the summit of Mount
Everest.
2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander landed in the
arctic plains of Mars.
2009 - North Korea announced that it had conducted a
second successful nuclear test in the province of
North Hamgyong. The UN Security Council condemned
the reported test.
Today In
History - Thursday - May 26, 2011
1736 - The British and Chickasaw Indians defeated
the French at the Battle of Ackia.
1791 - The French Assembly forced King Louis XVI to
hand over the crown and state assets.
1805 - Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned King of Italy
in Milan Cathedral.
1835 - A resolution was passed in the U.S. Congress
stating that Congress has no authority over state
slavery laws.
1836 - The U.S. House of Representatives adopted
what has been called the Gag Rule.
1864 - The Territory of Montana was organized.
1865 - Arrangements were made in New Orleans for the
surrender of Confederate forces west of the
Mississippi.
1868 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson was acquitted,
by one vote, of all charges in his impeachment
trial.
1896 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average appeared for
the first time in the "Wall Street Journal."
1908 - In Persia, the first oil strike was made in
the Middle East.
1940 - The evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk,
France, began during World War II.
1946 - A patent was filed in the United States for
an H-bomb.
1946 - British Prime Minister Winston Churchill
signed a military pact with Russian leader Joseph
Stalin. Stalin promised a "close collaboration after
the war."
1948 - The U.S. Congress passed Public Law 557 which
permanently established the Civil Air Patrol as the
Auxiliary of the new U.S. Air Force.
1958 - Union Square, San Francisco became a state
historical landmark.
1959 - The word "Frisbee" became a registered
trademark of Wham-O.
1961 - Civil rights activist group Freedom Ride
Coordinating Committee was established in Atlanta,
GA.
1961 - A U.S. Air Force bomber flew across the
Atlantic in a record time of just over three hours.
1969 - The Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth
after a successful eight-day dress rehearsal for the
first manned moon landing.
1972 - The Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I)
was signed by the U.S. and USSR. The short-term
agreement put a freeze on the testing and deployment
of intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic
missiles for a 5-year period.
1975 - American stuntman Evel Knievel suffered
severe spinal injuries in Britain when he crashed
while attempting to jump 13 buses in his car.
1978 - The first legal casino in the Eastern U.S.
opened in Atlantic City, NJ.
1987 - Sri Lanka launched Operation Liberation. It
was an offensive against the Tamil rebellion in
Jaffra.
1994 - U.S. President Clinton renewed trade
privileges for China, and announced that his
administration would no longer link China's trade
status with its human rights record.
1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Ellis
Island was mainly in New Jersey, not New York.
1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police
officers in high-speed chases are liable for
bystander injuries only if their "actions shock the
conscience."
1998 - The Grand Princess cruise ship made its
inaugural cruise. The ship measured 109,000 tons and
cost approximately $450 million, making it the
largest and most expensive cruise ship ever built.
Today In
History - Friday - May 27, 2011
1813 - Americans captured Fort George, Canada.
1901 - The Edison Storage Battery Company was
organized.
1907 - The Bubonic Plague broke out in San
Francisco.
1919 - A U.S. Navy seaplane completed the first
transatlantic flight.
1926 - Bronze figures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer
were erected in Hannibal, MO.
1931 - Piccard and Knipfer made the first flight
into the stratosphere, by balloon.
1933 - Walt Disney's "Three Little Pigs" was first
released.
1933 - In the U.S., the Federal Securities Act was
signed. The act required the registration of
securities with the Federal Trade Commission.
1935 - The U.S. Supreme Court declared that
President Franklin Roosevelt's National Industrial
Recovery Act was unconstitutional.
1937 - In California, the Golden Gate Bridge was
opened to pedestrian traffic. The bridge connected
San Francisco and Marin County.
1941 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed
an "unlimited national emergency" amid rising world
tensions.
1941 - The German battleship Bismarck was sunk by
British naval and air forces. 2,300 people were
killed.
1944 - U.S. General MacArthur landed on Biak Island
in New Guinea.
1960 - A military coup overthrew the democratic
government of Turkey.
1964 - Indian Prime Minister Jawaharla Nehru died.
1968 - After 48 years as coach of the Chicago Bears,
George Halas retired.
1969 - Construction of Walt Disney World began in
Florida.
1988 - The U.S. Senate ratified the INF treaty. The
INF pact was the first arms-control agreement since
the 1972 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I)
to receive Senate approval.
1994 - Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander
Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia. He had been in
exile for two decades.
1995 - In Charlottesville, VA, Christopher Reeve was
paralyzed after being thrown from his horse during a
jumping event.
1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the sexual
harassment suit filed by Paula Jones could continue
while President Clinton was in office.
1998 - Michael Fortier was sentenced to 12 years in
prison for not warning anyone about the plot to bomb
an Oklahoma City federal building.
1999 - In The Hague, Netherlands, a war crimes
tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic and four others
for atrocities in Kosovo. It was the first time that
a sitting head of state had been charged with such a
crime.
Today In
History - Monday - May 30, 2011 - Memorial Day
1783 - The first daily newspaper was published in
the U.S. by Benjamin Towner called "The Pennsylvania
Evening Post"
1814 - The First Treaty of Paris was declared, which
returned France to its 1792 borders.
1848 - W.G. Young patented the ice cream freezer.
1854 - The U.S. territories of Nebraska and Kansas
were established.
1868 - Memorial Day was observed widely for the
first time in the U.S.
1879 - William Vanderbilt renamed New York City's
Gilmore’s Garden to Madison Square Garden.
1896 - The first automobile accident occurred in New
York City.
1903 - In Riverdale, NY, the first American
motorcycle hill climb was held.
1912 - The U.S. Marines were sent to Nicaragua to
protect American interests.
1913 - The First Balkan War ended.
1921 - The U.S. Navy transferred the Teapot Dome oil
reserves to the Department of the Interior.
1922 - The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in
Washington, DC.
1943 - American forces secured the Aleutian island
of Attu from the Japanese during World War II.
1958 - Unidentified soldiers killed in World War II
and the Korean conflicts were buried at Arlington
National Cemetery.
1967 - Daredevil Evel Knievel jumped 16 automobiles
in a row in a motorcycle stunt at Ascot Speedway in
Gardena, CA.
1981 - In Chittagong, Bangladesh, President Ziaur
Rahman was assassinated.
1982 - Spain became the 16th NATO member. Spain was
the first country to enter the Western alliance
since West Germany in 1955.
1983 - Peru's President Fernando Belaunde Terry
declared a state of emergency and suspended civil
rights after bombings by leftist rebels.
1996 - Britain's Prince Andrew and the former Sarah
Ferguson were granted an uncontested decree ending
their 10-year marriage.
1997 - Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in
Trenton, NJ, of raping and strangling a 7-year-old
neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired
"Megan's Law," requiring that communities be
notified when sex offenders move in.
1998 - A powerful earthquake hit northern
Afghanistan killing up to 5,000.
2003 - Peter Jennings was sworn in as a U.S.
citizen.
Today In
History - Tuesday - May 31, 2011
1854 - The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed by the U.S.
Congress.
1859 - The Philadelphia Athletics were formally
organized to play the game of Town Ball.
1859 - In London, Big Ben went into operation. The
name Big Ben initially referred to the bell inside
the tower but later came to the refer to the tower.
1870 - E.J. DeSemdt patented asphalt.
1879 - New York's Madison Square Garden opened.
1880 - The first U.S. national bicycle society was
formed in Newport, RI. It was known as the League of
American Wheelman.
1884 - Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented "flaked
cereal."
1889 - In Johnstown, PA, more than 2,200 people died
after the South Fork Dam collapsed.
1900 - U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put
down the Boxer Rebellion.
1902 - The Boer War ended between the Boers of South
Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of
Vereeniging.
1907 - The first taxis arrived in New York City.
They were the first in the United States.
1910 - The Union of South Africa was founded.
1913 - The 17th Amendment went into effect. It
provided for popular election of U.S. senators.
1915 - A German zeppelin made an air raid on London.
1941 - The first issue of the still popular "Parade:
The Weekly Picture Newspaper" went on sale.
1947 - Communists seized control of Hungary.
1955 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that all
states must end racial segregation "with all
deliberate speed."
1961 - South Africa became an independent republic.
1962 - Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel. Eichmann
was a Gestapo official and was executed for his
actions in the Nazi Holocaust.
1970 - An earthquake in Peru killed tens of
thousands of people.
1977 - The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was finished
after 3 years of construction.
1979 - Zimbabwe proclaimed its independence.
1994 - The U.S. announced it was no longer aiming
long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former
Soviet Union.
1995 - Bob Dole singled out Time Warner for "the
marketing of evil" in movies and music. Dole later
admitted that he had not seen or heard much of what
he had been criticizing.
2003 - In North Carolina, Eric Robert Rudolph was
captured. He had been on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted
list for five years for several bombings including
the 1996 Olympic bombing.
Today In
History - Tuesday - June 1 2011
1774 - The British government ordered the Port of
Boston closed.
1789 - The first U.S. congressional act on
administering oaths became law.
1792 - Kentucky became the 15th state of the U.S.
1796 - Tennessee became the 16th state of the U.S.
1861 - The first skirmish of the U.S. Civil War took
place at the Fairfax Court House, Virginia.
1869 - Thomas Edison received a patent for his
electric voting machine.
1877 - U.S. troops were authorized to pursue bandits
into Mexico.
1915 - Germany conducted the first zeppelin air raid
over England.
1916 - The National Defense Act increased the
strength of the U.S. National Guard by 450,000 men.
1938 - Superman, the world's first super hero,
appeared in the first issue of Action Comics.
1939 - The Douglas DC-4 made its first passenger
flight from Chicago to New York.
1941 - The German Army completed the capture of
Crete as the Allied evacuation ended.
1942 - The U.S. began sending Lend-Lease materials
to the Soviet Union.
1943 - During World War II, Germans shot down a
civilian flight from Lisbon to London.
1944 - The French resistance was warned by a coded
message from the British that the D-Day invasion was
imminent.
1944 - Siesta was abolished by the government of
Mexico.
1958 - Charles de Gaulle became the premier of
France.
1961 - Radio listeners in New York, California, and
Illinois were introduced to FM multiplex stereo
broadcasting. A year later the FCC made this a
standard.
1963 - Governor George Wallace vowed to defy an
injunction that ordered the integration of the
University of Alabama.
1968 - Helen Keller died. She had been deaf and
blind since the age of 18 months. During her life
she learned to speak, ride horses, and the waltz.
She also graduated from Radcliffe cum laude.
1978 - The U.S. reported the finding of wiretaps in
the American embassy in Moscow.
1980 - Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut as
the first all-news station.
1995 - At Disneyland Paris, the attraction "Space
Mountain: From The Earth to the Moon" opened.
199 - In the U.S., the FDA approved a urine-only
test for the AIDS virus.
1998 - A $124 million suit was brought against
Goodyear Tire & Rubber that alleged discrimination
towards black workers.
2008 - The Phoenix Mars Lander became the first NASA
spacecraft to scoop Martian soil.
2009 - The first event, a George Strait concert, was
held at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, TX.
Today in Texas History 2009 - General Motors filed
for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. The filing made GM the
largest U.S. industrial company to enter bankruptcy
protection.
Today In
History - Wednesday - June 2, 2011
1774 - The Quartering Act, which required American
colonists to allow British soldiers into their
houses, was reenacted.
1851 - Maine became the first U.S. state to enact a
law prohibiting alcohol.
1883 - The first baseball game under electric lights
was played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1886 - Grover Cleveland became the second U.S.
president to get married while in office. He was the
first to have a wedding in the White House.
1910 - Charles Stewart Roll became the first person
to fly across the English Channel.
1924 - All American Indians were granted U.S.
citizenship by the U.S. Congress.
1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted
the first swimming pool to be built inside the White
House.
1935 - George Herman "Babe" Ruth announced that he
was retiring from baseball.
1941 - Lou Gehrig died in New York of the
degenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
1953 - Elizabeth was crowned queen of England at
Westminster Abbey.
1954 - U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy charged that
there were communists working in the CIA and atomic
weapons plants.
1957 - Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was
interviewed by CBS-TV.
1966 - Surveyor 1, the U.S. space probe, landed on
the moon and started sending photographs back to
Earth of the Moon's surface. It was the first soft
landing on the Moon.
1969 - The National Arts Center in Canada opened its
doors to the public.
1969 - Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne sliced
the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half off the
shore of South Vietnam.
1979 - Pope John Paul II arrived in his native
Poland on the first visit by a pope to a Communist
country.
1985 - The R.J. Reynolds Company proposed a major
merger with Nabisco that would create a $4.9 billion
conglomerate.
1995 - Captain Scott F. O'Grady's U.S. Air Force
F-16C was shot down by Bosnian Serbs. He was rescued
six days later.
1997 - Timothy McVeigh was found guilty of the
bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in
which 168 people were killed.
1998 - Royal Caribbean Cruises agreed to pay $9
million to settle charges of dumping waste at sea.
1998 - Voters in California passed Proposition 227.
The act abolished the state's 30-year-old bilingual
education program by requiring that all children be
taught in English.
1999 - In South Africa, the African National
Congress (ANC) won a major victory. ANC leader Thabo
Mbeki was to succeed Nelson Mandela as the nation's
president.
2003 - In Seville, Spain, a chest containing the
supposed remains of Christopher Columbus were
exhumed for DNA tests to determine whether the bones
were really those of the explorer. The tests were
aimed at determining if Columbus was currently
buried in Spain's Seville Cathedral or in Santo
Domingo in the Dominican Republic.
2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that companies
could not be sued under a trademark law for using
information in the public domain without giving
credit to the originator. The case had originated
with 20th Century Fox against suing Dastar Corp.
over their use of World War II footage.
2003 - William Baily was reunited with two paintings
he had left on a subway platform. One of the works
was an original Picasso rendering of two male
figures and a recreation of Picasso's "Guernica" by
Sophie Matisse. Sophie Matisse was the
great-granddaughter of Henri Matisse.
Today In
History - Thursday - June 3, 2011
1784 - The U.S. Congress formally created the United
States Army to replace the disbanded Continental
Army. On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental
Congress had created the Continental Army for
purposes of common defense and this event is
considered to be the birth of the United States
Army.
1800 - John Adams moved to Washington, DC. He was
the first President to live in what later became the
capital of the United States.
1805 - A peace treaty between the U.S. and Tripoli
was completed in the captain's cabin on board the
USS Constitution.
1864 - About 7,000 Union troops were killed within
30 minutes during the Battle of Cold Harbor in
Virginia during the U.S. Civil War.
1871 - Jesse James, then 24, and his gang robbed the
Obocock bank in Corydon, Iowa. They stole $15,000.
1923 - In Italy, Benito Mussolini granted women the
right to vote.
1928 - Manchurian warlord Chian Tso-Lin died as a
result of a bomb blast set off by the Japanese.
1940 - German bombed Paris, killing 254 people. Most
of the people killed were civilians and school
children.
1952 - A rebellion by North Korean prisoners in the
Koje prison camp in South Korea was put down by
American troops.
1959 - The first class graduated from the Air Force
Academy in Colorado Springs, CO.
1965 - Edward White became the first American
astronaut to do a "space walk" when he left the
Gemini 4 capsule.
1968 - Andy Warhol was shot and critically wounded
in his New York film studio by Valerie Solanas.
1974 - Charles Colson, an aide to U.S. President
Richard Nixon, pled guilty to obstruction of
justice.
1989 - Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died.
1989 - Chinese army troops positioned themselves to
began a sweep of Beijing to crush student-led
pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
1991 - Mount Unzen in southern Japan erupted killing
40 people.
1998 - In Germany, a train veered off its tracks and
hit a road bridge. 101 people were killed and 80
were injured.
1999 - Slobodan Milosevic's government accepted an
international peace plan concerning Kosovo. NATO
announced that air strikes would continue until
40,000 Serb forces were withdrawn from Kosovo.
2003 - Toys "R" Us, Inc. announced that it had
signed a multi-year agreement with Albertson to
become the exclusive toy provider for all of all of
Albertson's food and drug stores.
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