Today in history

[JFL Live]

Today in History May 15

1618 Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.



Figure 1: Illustration of Kepler's three laws with two planetary orbits.
(1) The orbits are ellipses, with focal points F1 and F2 for the first planet and F1 and F3 for the second planet. The Sun is placed in focal point F1.

(2) The two shaded sectors A1 and A2 have the same surface area and the time for planet 1 to cover segment A1 is equal to the time to cover segment A2.

(3) The total orbit times for planet 1 and planet 2 have a ratio (a1/a2)3/2.



1930 Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.

[KAJUN]

I would like to do those illustrations also Jason.....but time restraints prohibit it.....Thanks for taking the time to share that with us [emoji106]

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 16
1770 Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France.
1863 At the Battle of Champion's Hill, Union General Ulysess S. Grant repulses the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.
1868 President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during Senate impeachment, by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross.
1879 The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England sets up the Afghan state.
1920 Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.
1928 The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood.
1943 A specially trained and equipped Royal Air Force squadron destroys two river dams in Germany.
1951 Chinese Communist Forces launch second phase of the Chinese Spring Offensive in the Korean War and gain up to 20 miles of territory.
1960 A Big Four summit in Paris collapses because of the American U-2 spy plane affair.
1963 After 22 Earth orbits, Gordon Cooper returns to Earth, ending the last mission of Project Mercury.


Born on May 16
1801 William Henry Seward, U.S. Secretary of State (1861-1869).
1804 Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, founder of the first U.S. kindergarten.
1824 Edmund Kirby-Smith, Confederate general during the American Civil War.
1850 Johannes von Mikulicz-Radecki, Polish surgical pioneer.
1886 Douglas Southall Freeman, journalist, historian, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer.
1905 Henry Fonda, American actor (Grapes of Wrath, On Golden Pond).
1912 Studs Terkel, author and historian.
1913 Woody Herman, jazz bandleader.
1929 Betty Carter, jazz singer.
1929 Adrienne Rich, poet (Diving into the Wreck).
1955 Olga Korbut, Olympic gymnast.



On this day in the year of Our Lord 1980.............. my youngest son was born into this world....
I knew right away he was going to be a hellion .. [emoji106]











Vietnam War
1968
Navy Corpsman receives Medal of Honor for action
\
Donald E. Ballard, Corpsman U.S. Navy, is awarded the Medal of Honor for action this date in Quang Tri Province. Ballard, from Kansas City, Missouri, was a corpsman with Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. He had just finished evacuating two Marines with heatstroke when his unit was surprised by a Viet Cong ambush. Immediately racing to the aid of a casualty, Ballard applied a field dressing and was directing four Marines in the removal of the wounded man when an enemy soldier tossed a grenade into the group. With a warning shout of, “Grenade!” Ballard vaulted over the stretcher and pulled the grenade under his body. The grenade did not go off. Nevertheless, he received the Medal of Honor for his selfless act of courage. Ballard was only the second man whose valor was rewarded despite the fact that the deadly missile did not actually explode.




Donald Everett Ballard is a retired American colonel in the Kansas National Guard and former member of the United States Navy, in which he was a hospital corpsman in the Vietnam War and received the CM of H

Born: December 5, 1945 (age 72 years), Kansas City, MO

Years of service: 1965 - 1970 (Navy); 1970 - 2000 (Army National Guard)
Battles and wars: Vietnam War

Other name: "Doc"

Service/branch: Kansas Army National Guard

Awards: Medal of Honor, Combat Action Ribbon, Purple Heart (3)

[JFL Live]

I would like to do those illustrations also Jason.....but time restraints prohibit it.....Thanks for taking the time to share that with us [emoji106]

Those two kind of got my attention... [emoji106]

[BlacktopTravelr]

The sinkings of merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel’s course. The captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7 the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship’s boilers, and the ship sunk in 20 minutes.

So if the captain had done as suggested the ship "may not" have been sunk. Since he didn't do as suggested we will never know if it would have been sunk anyway. Personally when two countries decide to go to war I thing the leaders of both countries should step into the ring without gloves and have at it in a fight to the death and then see how many countries really want to go to war. And that is my thoughts on this day Wed. May 16, 2018.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 17
1540 Afghan chief Sher Khan defeats Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.
1630 Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi sees the belts on Jupiter's surface.
1681 Louis XIV sends an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1756 Britain declares war on France.
1792 Merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street.
1814 Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden.
1863 Union General Ulysses Grant continues his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge.
1875 The first Kentucky Derby is run in Louisville.
1881 Frederick Douglass is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.
1940 Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium and begins the invasion of France.
1954 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education.
1973 The Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings.
1987 In the Persian Gulf the American guided missile frigate USS Stark is struck by 2 Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi aircraft; only one detonates, but 37 sailors are killed and 21 are wounded. Whether the launch was deliberate or a mistake is still debated.

USS Stark incident
Part of the Iran–Iraq War, Tanker War

Casualties and losses
37 killed
21 wounded
1 frigate damaged None
[show] v t e
Iran–Iraq War
The USS Stark incident occurred during the Iran–Iraq War on 17 May 1987, when an Iraqi jet aircraft fired missiles at the American frigate USS Stark. Thirty-seven United States Navy personnel were killed and twenty-one were injured.

Born on May 17
1444 Sandro Botticelli, painter (The Birth of Venus).
1749 Edward Jenner, physician.
1836 Joseph Norman Lockyer, British astronomer and discoverer of helium.
1866 Erik Alfred Leslie Satie, French composer.
1900 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian religious leader.
1903 James "Cool Papa" Bell, baseball player.
1912 Archibald Cox, special prosecutor in the Watergate hearings, fired by President Richard Nixon.





Lead Story
1954
Brown v. Board of Ed is decided

In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with Linda Brown, a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin.

In 1896, the Supreme Court ruled in Plessy v. Ferguson that “separate but equal” accommodations in railroad cars conformed to the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection. That ruling was used to justify segregating all public facilities, including elementary schools. However, in the case of Linda Brown, the white school she attempted to attend was far superior to her black alternative and miles closer to her home. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) took up Linda’s cause, and in 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka reached the Supreme Court. African American lawyer (and future Supreme Court justice) Thurgood Marshall led Brown’s legal team, and on May 17, 1954, the high court handed down its decision.

In an opinion written by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the nation’s highest court ruled that not only was the “separate but equal” doctrine unconstitutional in Linda’s case, it was unconstitutional in all cases because educational segregation stamped an inherent badge of inferiority on African American students. A year later, after hearing arguments on the implementation of their ruling, the Supreme Court published guidelines requiring public school systems to integrate “with all deliberate speed.”

The Brown v. Board of Education decision served to greatly motivate the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and ultimately led to the abolishment of racial segregation in all public facilities and accommodations.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 18
526 St. John I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1643 Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, is granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king's will.
1652 A law is passed in Rhode Island banning slavery in the colonies but it causes little stir and seems unlikely to be enforced.
1792 Russian troops invade Poland.
1802 Britain declares war on France.
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte becomes the Emperor of France.
1828 The Battle of Las Piedras, between Uruguay and Brazil, ends.
1860 Abraham Lincoln is nominated for president.
1864 The fighting at Spotsylvania in Virginia, reaches its peak at the Bloody Angle.
1896 The Supreme Court's decision on Plessy v. Ferguson upholds the "separate but equal" policy in the United States.
1904 Brigand Raisuli kidnaps American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.
1917 The U.S. Congress passes the Selective Service act, calling up soldiers to fight World War I.
1931 Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashes his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He is picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.
1942 New York ends night baseball games for the rest of World War II.
1944 The Allies finally capture Monte Cassino in Italy.
1951 The United Nations moves its headquarters to New York city.
1969 Two battalions of the 101st Airborne Division assault Hill 937 but cannot reach the top because of muddy conditions.
1974 India becomes the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.
1980 After rumbling for two months, Mount Saint Helens, in Washington, erupts 3 times in 24 hours.


Born on May 18
1836 Wilhelm Steinitz, chess champion.
1868 Nicholas II, the last Russian czar.
1872 Bertrand Russell, English mathematician, philosopher and social reformer.
1897 Frank Capra, film director (It's A Wonderful Life).
1902 Meredith Willson, composer and lyricist (The Music Man).
1911 Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner, blues singer.
1918 John Paul II [Karol Jozef Wojtyla], Roman Catholic pope.
1919 Margot Fonteyn, English ballet dancer.



Disaster
1980
Mount St. Helens erupts

Mount St. Helens in Washington erupts, causing a massive avalanche and killing 57 people on this day in 1980. Ash from the volcanic eruption fell as far away as Minnesota.

Seismic activity at Mount St. Helens, which is 96 miles south of Seattle, began on March 16. A 4.2-magnitude tremor was recorded four days later and then, on March 23-24, there were 174 different recorded tremors. The first eruption occurred on March 27, when a 250-foot wide vent opened up on top of the mountain. Ash was blasted 10,000 feet in the air, some of which came down nearly 300 miles away in Spokane. The ash caused static electricity and lightning bolts.

Authorities issued a hazard watch for a 50-mile radius around the mountain. The National Guard set up road blocks to prevent access to the area, but these were easily avoided by using the region’s unguarded logging roads. Many residents of the area evacuated, but a substantial number refused. Harry Truman, 84—no relation to the former president—was one resident who refused to move and, after receiving a great deal of positive media coverage for his decision, became a national icon as well as, later, the subject of a local memorial.

Throughout April, scientists watched a bulge on the north side of Mount St. Helens grow larger and larger. Finally, on May 18 at 8:32 a.m., a sudden 5.1-magnitude earthquake and eruption rocked the mountain. The north side of the peak rippled and blasted out ash at 650 miles per hour. A cloud of ash, rocks, gas and glacial ice roared down the side of the mountain at 100 mph. Fourteen miles of the Toutle River were buried up to 150 feet deep in the debris. Magma, at 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit, flowed for miles.

The 24-megaton blast demolished a 230-square-mile area around the mountain. Geologist Dave Johnson was the closest to the eruption when it blew. He was on his radio that morning and was only able to say, Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it! before his truck was pushed over a ridge and he was killed.

Millions of trees were scorched and burned by the hot air alone. When the glacier atop the mountain melted, a massive mudslide wiped out homes and dammed up rivers throughout the area. The plume of ash belched out for nine hours; easterly winds carried it across the state and as far away as Minneapolis, Minnesota. The falling ash clogged carburetors and thousands of motorists were stranded. Fifty-seven people died overall from suffocation, burns and other assorted injuries. Twenty-seven bodies, including that of the stubborn Harry Truman, were never found. Mount St. Helens went from 9,600 feet high to only 8,300 feet high in a matter of seconds.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 19
715 St. Gregory II begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1535 French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail for North America.
1536 Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's second wife, is beheaded on Tower Green.
1568 Defeated by the Protestants, Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England where Queen Elizabeth imprisons her.
1588 The Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal.
1608 The Protestant states form the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists.
1635 Cardinal Richelieu of France intervenes in the great conflict in Europe by declaring war on the Hapsburgs in Spain.
1643 The French army defeats a Spanish army at Rocroi, France.
1780 Near total darkness descends on New England at noon. No explanation is found.
1856 Senator Charles Sumner speaks out against slavery.
1858 A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hamilton executes unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.
1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's first attack on Vicksburg is repulsed.
1864 The Union and Confederate armies launch their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania, Virginia.
1921 Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system.
1935 The National Football League adopts an annual college draft to begin in 1936.
1964 U.S. diplomats find at least 40 microphones planted in the American embassy in Moscow.
1967 U.S. planes bomb Hanoi for the first time.


Born on May 19
1762 Johann Gottlieb Fichte, German philosopher.
1879 Lady Nancy Astor (Nancy Witcher Langhorne), the first woman to sit in the British House of Commons.
1890 Ho Chi Minh (Nguyen That Thanh), Vietnamese nationalist and political leader.
1895 Johns Hopkins, merchant and philanthropist.
1925 Malcolm X (Malcolm Little), African-American activist.
1934 James Lehrer, broadcast journalist.
1941 Jane Brody, food and health writer.
1941 Nora Ephron, screenwriter and director.


Lead Story
1935
Lawrence of Arabia dies

T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, dies as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident six days before.

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born in Tremadoc, Wales, in 1888. In 1896, his family moved to Oxford. Lawrence studied architecture and archaeology, for which he made a trip to Ottoman (Turkish)-controlled Syria and Palestine in 1909. In 1911, he won a fellowship to join an expedition excavating an ancient Hittite settlement on the Euphrates River. He worked there for three years and in his free time traveled and learned Arabic. In 1914, he explored the Sinai, near the frontier of Ottoman-controlled Arabia and British-controlled Egypt. The maps Lawrence and his associates made had immediate strategic value upon the outbreak of war between Britain and the Ottoman Empire in October 1914.

Lawrence enlisted in the war and because of his expertise in Arab affairs was assigned to Cairo as an intelligence officer. He spent more than a year in Egypt, processing intelligence information and in 1916 accompanied a British diplomat to Arabia, where Hussein ibn Ali, the emir of Mecca, had proclaimed a revolt against Turkish rule. Lawrence convinced his superiors to aid Hussein’s rebellion, and he was sent to join the Arabian army of Hussein’s son Faisal as a liaison officer.

Under Lawrence’s guidance, the Arabians launched an effective guerrilla war against the Turkish lines. He proved a gifted military strategist and was greatly admired by the Bedouin people of Arabia. In July 1917, Arabian forces captured Aqaba near the Sinai and joined the British march on Jerusalem. Lawrence was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In November, he was captured by the Turks while reconnoitering behind enemy lines in Arab dress and was tortured and sexually abused before escaping. He rejoined his army, which slowly worked its way north to Damascus, which fell in October 1918.

Arabia was liberated, but Lawrence’s hope that the peninsula would be united as a single nation was dashed when Arabian factionalism came to the fore after Damascus. Lawrence, exhausted and disillusioned, left for England. Feeling that Britain had exacerbated the rivalries between the Arabian groups, he appeared before King George V and politely refused the medals offered to him.

After the war, he lobbied hard for independence for Arab countries and appeared at the Paris peace conference in Arab robes. He became something of a legendary figure in his own lifetime, and in 1922 he gave up higher-paying appointments to enlist in the Royal Air Force (RAF) under an assumed name, John Hume Ross. He had just completed writing his monumental war memoir, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and he hoped to escape his fame and acquire material for a new book. Found out by the press, he was discharged, but in 1923 he managed to enlist as a private in the Royal Tanks Corps under another assumed name, T.E. Shaw, a reference to his friend, Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. In 1925, Lawrence rejoined the RAF and two years later legally changed his last name to Shaw.

In 1927, an abridged version of his memoir was published and generated tremendous publicity, but the press was unable to locate Lawrence (he was posted to a base in India). In 1929, he returned to England and spent the next six years writing and working as an RAF mechanic. In 1932, his English translation of Homer’s Odyssey was published under the name of T.E. Shaw. The Mint, a fictionalized account of Royal Air Force recruit training, was not published until 1955 because of its explicitness.

In February 1935, Lawrence was discharged from the RAF and returned to his simple cottage at Clouds Hill, Dorset. On May 13, he was critically injured while driving his motorcycle through the Dorset countryside. He had swerved to avoid two boys on bicycles. On May 19, he died at the hospital of his former RAF camp. All of Britain mourned his passing.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 20
325 The Ecumenical council is inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea.
1303 A peace treaty is signed between England and France.
1347 Cola di Rienzo takes the title of tribune in Rome.
1520 Hernando Cortes defeats Spanish troops sent against him in Mexico.
1690 England passes the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.
1674 John Sobieski becomes Poland's first king.
1774 Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.
1775 North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.
1784 The Peace of Versailles ends a war between France, England, and Holland.
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d'Acre in Egypt.
1859 A force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.
1861 North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.
1862 President Abraham Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1874 Levi Strauss begins marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.
1902 The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends.
1927 Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.
1930 The first airplane is catapulted from a dirigible.
1932 Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman fly solo across the Atlantic.
1939 Pan American Airways starts the first regular passenger service across the Atlantic.
1941 Germany invades Crete by air.
1942 Japan completes the conquest of Burma.
1951 During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first jet air ace in history.
1961 A white mob attacks civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama.
1969 In South Vietnam, troops of the 101st Airborne Division reach the top of Hill 937 after nine days of fighting entrenched North Vietnamese forces.
1970 100,000 people march in New York, supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.


Born on May 20
1663 William Bradford, printer.
1750 Stephen Girard, American financier and philanthropist.
1768 Dolley Madison, first lady of President James Madison.
1799 Honore de Balzac, French novelist (The Human Comedy, Lost Illusions).
1806 John Stuart Mill, British philosopher and economist.
1818 William George Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Co.
1882 Sigrid Undset, Norwegian novelist (Kristin Lavransdatter).
1908 Jimmy Stewart, actor (It's a Wonderful Life, Mr Smith Goes to Washington).




Lead Story
1873
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patent for blue jeans

On this day in 1873, San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nevada, tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, marking the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: blue jeans.

In San Francisco, Strauss established a wholesale dry goods business under his own name and worked as the West Coast representative of his family’s firm. His new business imported clothing, fabric and other dry goods to sell in the small stores opening all over California and other Western states to supply the rapidly expanding communities of gold miners and other settlers. By 1866, Strauss had moved his company to expanded headquarters and was a well-known businessman and supporter of the Jewish community in San Francisco.

Jacob Davis, a tailor in Reno, Nevada, was one of Levi Strauss’ regular customers. In 1872, he wrote a letter to Strauss about his method of making work pants with metal rivets on the stress points–at the corners of the pockets and the base of the button fly–to make them stronger. As Davis didn’t have the money for the necessary paperwork, he suggested that Strauss provide the funds and that the two men get the patent together. Strauss agreed enthusiastically, and the patent for “Improvement in Fastening Pocket-Openings”–the innovation that would produce blue jeans as we know them–was granted to both men on May 20, 1873.

Strauss brought Davis to San Francisco to oversee the first manufacturing facility for “waist overalls,” as the original jeans were known. At first they employed seamstresses working out of their homes, but by the 1880s, Strauss had opened his own factory. The famous 501brand jean–known until 1890 as “XX”–was soon a bestseller, and the company grew quickly. By the 1920s, Levi’s denim waist overalls were the top-selling men’s work pant in the United States. As decades passed, the craze only grew, and now blue jeans are worn by men and women, young and old, around the world.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 21
996 Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.
1471 King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.
1506 Christopher Columbus dies.
1536 The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.
1620 Present-day Martha's Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
1790 Paris is divided into 48 zones.
1832 The Democratic party holds its first national convention.
1856 Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
1863 The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins.
1881 The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
1927 Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
1940 British forces attack German General Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France.
1941 The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat.
1951 The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.
1961 Governor John Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
1970 The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
1991 In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.


Born on May 21
427 BC Plato, Greek philosopher.
1527 Philip II, king of Spain and Portugal.
1844 Henri Rousseau, French painter.
1856 Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist, helped organize the YWCA.
1860 Willem Einthoven, physiologist, inventor of the electrocardiogram.
1867 Frances Densmore, ethnomusicologist.
1878 Glenn Hammond Curtiss, aviation pioneer.
1898 Armand Hammer, American entrepreneur and industrialist.
1902 Marcel Breuer, Hungarian-born architect.
1909 Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel, artist.
1917 Raymond Burr, actor (Perry Mason).
1921 Andrei Sakharov, Russian physicist.
1926 Robert Creeley, poet.
1944 Mary Bourke Robinson, first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997).


General Interest
1927
Lindbergh lands in Paris

American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before.
Charles Augustus Lindbergh, born in Detroit in 1902, took up flying at the age of 20. In 1923, he bought a surplus World War I Curtiss “Jenny” biplane and toured the country as a barnstorming stunt flyer. In 1924, he enrolled in the Army Air Service flying school in Texas and graduated at the top of his class as a first lieutenant. He became an airmail pilot in 1926 and pioneered the route between St. Louis and Chicago. Among U.S. aviators, he was highly regarded.
In May 1919, the first transatlantic flight was made by a U.S. hydroplane that flew from New York to Plymouth, England, via Newfoundland, the Azores Islands, and Lisbon. Later that month, Frenchman Raymond Orteig, an owner of hotels in New York, put up a purse of $25,000 to the first aviator or aviators to fly nonstop from Paris to New York or New York to Paris. In June 1919, the British fliers John W. Alcock and Arthur W. Brown made the first nonstop transatlantic flight, flying 1,960 miles from Newfoundland to Ireland. The flight from New York to Paris would be nearly twice that distance.
Orteig said his challenge would be good for five years. In 1926, with no one having attempted the flight, Orteig made the offer again. By this time, aircraft technology had advanced to a point where a few thought such a flight might be possible. Several of the world’s top aviators–including American polar explorer Richard Byrd, French flying ace Rene Fonck–decided to accept the challenge, and so did Charles Lindbergh.
Lindbergh convinced the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce to sponsor the flight, and a budget of $15,000 was set. The Ryan Airlines Corporation of San Diego volunteered to build a single-engine aircraft to his specifications. Extra fuel tanks were added, and the wing span was increased to 46 feet to accommodate the additional weight. The main fuel tank was placed in front of the cockpit because it would be safest there in the event of a crash. This meant Lindbergh would have no forward vision, so a periscope was added. To reduce weight, everything that was not utterly essential was left out. There would be no radio, gas gauge, night-flying lights, navigation equipment, or parachute. Lindbergh would sit in a light seat made of wicker. Unlike other aviators attempting the flight, Lindbergh would be alone, with no navigator or co-pilot.
The aircraft was christened The Spirit of St. Louis, and on May 12, 1927, Lindbergh flew it from San Diego to New York, setting a new record for the fastest transcontinental flight. Bad weather delayed Lindbergh’s transatlantic attempt for a week. On the night of May 19, nerves and a newspaperman’s noisy poker game kept him up all night. Early the next morning, though he hadn’t slept, the skies were clear and he rushed to Roosevelt Field on Long Island. Six men had died attempting the long and dangerous flight he was about to take.
At 7:52 a.m. EST on May 20, The Spirit of St. Louis lifted off from Roosevelt Field, so loaded with fuel that it barely cleared the telephone wires at the end of the runway. Lindbergh traveled northeast up the coast. After only four hours, he felt tired and flew within 10 feet of the water to keep his mind clear. As night fell, the aircraft left the coast of Newfoundland and set off across the Atlantic. At about 2 a.m. on May 21, Lindbergh passed the halfway mark, and an hour later dawn came. Soon after, The Spirit of St. Louis entered a fog, and Lindbergh struggled to stay awake, holding his eyelids open with his fingers and hallucinating that ghosts were passing through the cockpit.
After 24 hours in the air, he felt a little more awake and spotted fishing boats in the water. At about 11 a.m. (3 p.m. local time), he saw the coast of Ireland. Despite using only rudimentary navigation, he was two hours ahead of schedule and only three miles off course. He flew past England and by 3 p.m. EST was flying over France. It was 8 p.m. in France, and night was falling.
At the Le Bourget Aerodrome in Paris, tens of thousands of Saturday night revelers had gathered to await Lindbergh’s arrival. At 10:24 a.m. local time, his gray and white monoplane slipped out of the darkness and made a perfect landing in the air field. The crowd surged on The Spirit of St. Louis, and Lindbergh, weary from his 33 1/2-hour, 3,600-mile journey, was cheered and lifted above their heads. He hadn’t slept for 55 hours. Two French aviators saved Lindbergh from the boisterous crowd, whisking him away in an automobile. He was an immediate international celebrity.
President Calvin Coolidge dispatched a warship to take the hero home, and “Lucky Lindy” was given a ticker-tape parade in New York and presented with the Congressional Medal of Honor. His place in history, however, was not complete.
In 1932, he was the subject of international headlines again when his infant son, Charles Jr., was kidnapped, unsuccessfully ransomed, and then found murdered in the woods near the Lindbergh home. German-born Bruno Richard Hauptmann was convicted of the crime in a controversial trial and then executed. Then, in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Lindbergh became a spokesperson for the U.S. isolationism movement and was sharply criticized for his apparent Nazi sympathies and anti-Semitic views. After the outbreak of World War II, the fallen hero traveled to the Pacific as a military observer and eventually flew more than two dozen combat missions, including one in which he downed a Japanese aircraft. Lindbergh’s war-time service largely restored public faith in him, and for many years later he worked with the U.S. government on aviation issues. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him brigadier general in the Air Force Reserve. He died in Hawaii in 1974.

Lindbergh’s autobiographical works include “We” (1927), The Spirit of St. Louis (1953) and The Wartime Journals of Charles A. Lindbergh (1970).

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 22
1246 Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France.
1455 King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses.
1804 The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.
1856 U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner's earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks' cousin, Senator Andrew Butler.
1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins.
1868 The "Great Train Robbery" takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train's safe in Indiana.
1872 The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners.
1882 The United States formally recognizes Korea.
1908 The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent.
1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a "Pact of Steel" forming the Axis powers.
1947 The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece.
1967 The children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood premiers.
1972 Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified.
1985 Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108.
1990 In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state.
1992 Johnny Carson's final appearance on The Tonight Show on NBC, after 30 years as the program's host.
2004 An EF4 tornado with a record-setting width of 2.5 miles wipes out Hallam, Nebraska, killing 1 person.
2004 Fahrenheit 9-11, directed by Michael Moore, becomes the first documentary ever to win the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
2010 Following a 200-year search for the tomb of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus his remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral
2011 An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950.
2015 The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly Catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.


Born on May 22
1813 Richard Wagner, German composer.
1828 Albrecht von Graefe, German eye surgeon, founder of modern opthamology.
1844 Mary Cassatt, impressionist painter.
1859 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author, creator of the Sherlock Holmes series.
1907 Sir Laurence Olivier, actor.
1920 Thomas Gold, astronomer.
1927 Peter Matthiessen, writer.
1928 T Boone Pickens, oil magnate and financier who developed a reputation as a corporate raider in the 1980s.
1930 Harvey Milk, one of the first openly gay politicians to win public office in the United States, a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977.
1942 Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, infamous as Unabomber terrorist.
1943 Betty Williams, Northern Irish political activist who won of the Nobel Peace Prize.





Lead Story
1843
Great Emigration departs for Oregon

A massive wagon train, made up of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle, sets off down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. Known as the “Great Emigration,” the expedition came two years after the first modest party of settlers made the long, overland journey to Oregon.

After leaving Independence, the giant wagon train followed the Sante Fe Trail for some 40 miles and then turned northwest to the Platte River, which it followed along its northern route to Fort Laramie, Wyoming. From there, it traveled on to the Rocky Mountains, which it passed through by way of the broad, level South Pass that led to the basin of the Colorado River. The travelers then went southwest to Fort Bridger, northwest across a divide to Fort Hall on the Snake River, and on to Fort Boise, where they gained supplies for the difficult journey over the Blue Mountains and into Oregon. The Great Emigration finally arrived in October, completing the 2,000-mile journey from Independence in five months.

In the next year, four more wagon trains made the journey, and in 1845 the number of emigrants who used the Oregon Trail exceeded 3,000. Travel along the trail gradually declined with the advent of the railroads, and the route was finally abandoned in the 1870s.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 23
1430 Burgundians capture Joan of Arc and sell her to the English.
1533 Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1618 The Thirty Years War begins.
1701 Captain William Kidd, the Scottish pirate, is hanged on the banks of the Thames.
1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.
1788 South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
1861 Pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces clash in western Virginia.
1862 Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson takes Front Royal, Virginia.
1864 Union General Ulysses Grant attempts to outflank Confederate Robert E. Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia.
1900 Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1934 Gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed by Texas Rangers.
1945 Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide after being captured by Allied forces.
1949 The Federal Republic of West Germany is proclaimed.
1960 Israel announces the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.


Born on May 23
1707 Carl Linnaeus [Carl von Linné], Swedish botanist.
1734 Friedrich Anton Mesmer, physician and hypnotist.
1810 Margaret Fuller, writer and critic.
1820 James Buchanan Eads, engineer of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis
1875 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., president and chairman of the board for General Motors.
1891 Par Lagerkvist, Swedish writer (The Dwarf, Barabbas).
1908 John Bardeen, physicist, co-inventor of the transistor.
1910 Artie Shaw, bandleader and clarinetist.
1920 Helen O'Connell, big band vocalist.
1928 Rosemary Clooney, singer.
1934 Robert A. Moog, electrical engineer, creator of the Moog synthesizer.
1947 Jane Kenyon, poet (Let Evening Come, Otherwise).

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 24
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publishes proof of a sun-centered solar system. He dies just after publication.
1607 Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers found the colony of Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the coast of Virginia.
1610 Sir Thomas Gates institutes "laws divine moral and marshal, " a harsh civil code for Jamestown.
1624 After years of unprofitable operation, Virginia's charter is revoked and it becomes a royal colony.
1689 The English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are specifically excluded from exemption.
1738 The Methodist Church is established.
1764 Boston lawyer James Otis denounces "taxation without representation," calling for the colonies to unite in opposition to Britain's new tax measures.
1798 Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation.
1844 Samuel Morse taps out the first telegraph message.
1846 General Zachary Taylor captures Monterey.
1861 General Benjamin Butler declares slaves to be the contraband of war.
1863 Bushwackers led by Captain William Marchbanks attack a Federal militia party in Nevada, Missouri.
1878 The first American bicycle race is held in Boston.
1930 Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
1941 The British battleship Hood is sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. There are only three survivors.
1951 Willie Mays begins playing for the New York Giants.
1961 Civil rights activists are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.


Born on May 24
1544 William Gilbert, English physician and scientist.
1743 Jean-Paul Marat, French revolutionary.
1819 Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom (1836-1901).
1878 Lillian Moller Gilbreth, pioneer in time-motion studies.
1895 Samuel I. Newhouse, American publisher.
1903 Arthur Vineberg, Canadian heart surgeon.
1905 Mikhail Sholokhov, Russian novelist (And Quiet Flows the Don).
1928 William Trevor, Irish short story writer and novelist (The Old Boys, The Boarding House).
1941 Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman), singer and songwriter.


Lead Story
1883
Brooklyn Bridge opens

After 14 years and 27 deaths while being constructed, the Brooklyn Bridge over the East River is opened, connecting the great cities of New York and Brooklyn for the first time in history. Thousands of residents of Brooklyn and Manhattan Island turned out to witness the dedication ceremony, which was presided over by President Chester A. Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. Designed by the late John A. Roebling, the Brooklyn Bridge was the largest suspension bridge ever built to that date.
John Roebling, born in Germany in 1806, was a great pioneer in the design of steel suspension bridges. He studied industrial engineering in Berlin and at the age of 25 immigrated to western Pennsylvania, where he attempted, unsuccessfully, to make his living as a farmer. He later moved to the state capital in Harrisburg, where he found work as a civil engineer. He promoted the use of wire cable and established a successful wire-cable factory.
Meanwhile, he earned a reputation as a designer of suspension bridges, which at the time were widely used but known to fail under strong winds or heavy loads. Roebling is credited with a major breakthrough in suspension-bridge technology: a web truss added to either side of the bridge roadway that greatly stabilized the structure. Using this model, Roebling successfully bridged the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls, New York, and the Ohio River at Cincinnati, Ohio. On the basis of these achievements, New York State accepted Roebling’s design for a bridge connecting Brooklyn and Manhattan–with a span of 1,595 feet–and appointed him chief engineer. It was to be the world’s first steel suspension bridge.
Just before construction began in 1869, Roebling was fatally injured while taking a few final compass readings across the East River. A boat smashed the toes on one of his feet, and three weeks later he died of tetanus. He was the first of more than two dozen people who would die building his bridge. His 32-year-old son, Washington A. Roebling, took over as chief engineer. Roebling had worked with his father on several bridges and had helped design the Brooklyn Bridge.
The two granite foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge were built in timber caissons, or watertight chambers, sunk to depths of 44 feet on the Brooklyn side and 78 feet on the New York side. Compressed air pressurized the caissons, allowing underwater construction. At that time, little was known of the risks of working under such conditions, and more than a hundred workers suffered from cases of compression sickness. Compression sickness, or the “bends,” is caused by the appearance of nitrogen bubbles in the bloodstream that result from rapid decompression. Several died, and Washington Roebling himself became bedridden from the condition in 1872. Other workers died as a result of more conventional construction accidents, such as collapses and a fire.
Roebling continued to direct construction operations from his home, and his wife, Emily, carried his instructions to the workers. In 1877, Washington and Emily moved into a home with a view of the bridge. Roebling’s health gradually improved, but he remained partially paralyzed for the rest of his life. On May 24, 1883, Emily Roebling was given the first ride over the completed bridge, with a rooster, a symbol of victory, in her lap. Within 24 hours, an estimated 250,000 people walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, using a broad promenade above the roadway that John Roebling designed solely for the enjoyment of pedestrians.

The Brooklyn Bridge, with its unprecedented length and two stately towers, was dubbed the “eighth wonder of the world.” The connection it provided between the massive population centers of Brooklyn and Manhattan changed the course of New York City forever. In 1898, the city of Brooklyn formally merged with New York City, Staten Island, and a few farm towns, forming Greater New York.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 25
585 BC Thales of Greece makes the first known prediction of a solar eclipse.
1085 Alfonso VI takes Toledo, Spain from the Muslims.
1787 The Constitutional convention opens at Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.
1810 Argentina declares independence from Napoleonic Spain.
1851 Jose Justo de Urquiza of Argentina leads a rebellion against Juan Manuel de Rosas, his former ally.
1911 Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico, resigns his office.
1914 The British House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule.
1925 John Scopes is indicted for teaching Darwinian theory in school.
1935 Jesse Owens sets six world records in less than an hour in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1946 Jordan gains independence from Britain.
1953 The first atomic cannon is fired in Nevada.


Born on May 25
1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and philosopher.
1878 Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, tap dancer.
1886 Philip Murray, American labor leader, founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).
1889 Igor Sikorsky, American aviation engineer who developed the first successful helicopter.
1898 Bennett Cerf, publisher, founder of Random House.
1898 Gene Tunney, heavyweight boxing champion.
1908 Theodore Roethke, poet.
1926 Miles Davis, American jazz trumpeter.
1929 Beverly Sills, opera singer.
1932 John Gregory Dunne, novelist and journalist.
1938 Raymond Carver, American writer.
1949 Jamaica Kincaid, author (Annie John, Lucy).


American Revolution
1787
Constitutional Convention convenes in Philadelphia

With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Article of Confederation.

The process began with the proposal of James Madison’s Virginia Plan. Madison had dedicated the winter of 1787 to the study of confederacies throughout history and arrived in Philadelphia with a wealth of knowledge and an idea for a new American government. Virginia’s governor, Edmund Randolph, presented Madison’s plan to the convention. It featured a bicameral legislature, with representation in both houses apportioned to states based upon population; this was seen immediately as giving more power to large states, like Virginia. The two houses would in turn elect the executive and the judiciary and would possess veto power over the state legislatures. Madison’s conception strongly resembled Britain’s parliament. It omitted any discussion of taxation or regulation of trade, however; these items had been set aside in favor of outlining a new form of government altogether.

William Patterson soon countered with a plan more attractive to the new nation’s smaller states. It too bore the imprint of America’s British experience. Under the New Jersey Plan, as it became known, each state would have a single vote in Congress as it had been under the Articles of Confederation, to even out power between large and small states. But, the plan also gave Congress new powers: the collection of import duties and a stamp tax, the regulation of trade and the enforcement of requisitions upon the states with military force.

Alexander Hamilton then put forward to the delegates a third plan, a perfect copy of the British Constitution including an upper house and legislature that would serve on good behavior.

Confronted by three counter-revolutionary options, the representatives of Connecticut finally came up with a workable compromise: a government with an upper house made up of equal numbers of delegates from each state and a lower house with proportional representation based upon population. This idea formed the basis of the new U.S. Constitution, which became the law of the land in 1789.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 26
17 Germanicus of Rome celebrates his victory over the Germans.
1328 William of Ockham is forced to flee from Avignon by Pope John XXII.
1647 A new law bans Catholic priests from the colony of Massachusetts. The penalty is banishment or death for a second offense.
1670 Charles II and Louis XIV sign a secret treaty in Dover, England, ending hostilities between England and France.
1691 Jacob Leisler, leader of the popular uprising in support of William and Mary's succession to the throne, is executed for treason.
1736 British and Chickasaw forces defeat the French at the Battle of Ackia.
1831 The Russians defeat the Poles at the Battle of Ostroleka.
1835 A resolution is passed in the U.S. Congress stating that Congress has no authority over state slavery laws.
1864 The territory of Montana is organized.
1865 The last Confederate army surrenders in Shreveport, Louisiana.
1868 President Andrew Johnson is acquitted of all charges of impeachment.
1896 The last czar of Russia, Nicholas II, is crowned.
1938 The House Committee on Un-American Activities begins its work of searching for subversives in the United States.
1940 The evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk begins.
1946 A patent is filed in the United States for the H-bomb.
1958 Union Square, San Francisco, becomes a state historical landmark.
1961 The civil rights activist group, Freedom Ride Coordinating Committee, is established in Atlanta.
1961 A U.S. Air Force bomber flies across the Atlantic in a record of just over three hours.
1969 Apollo 10 returns to Earth.
1977 The movie Star Wars debuts.


Born on May 26
1667 Abraham De Moivre, mathematician.
1835 Edward Porter Alexander, artillery general during the American Civil War.
1883 Mamie Smith, blues singer.
1886 Al Jolson, jazz singer and film actor.
1895 Dorothea Lange, documentary photographer.
1903 Estes Kefauver, Tennessee senator.
1907 John Wayne [Marion Michael Morrison], American actor and film icon.
1919 Jay Silverheels, actor (The Lone Ranger).
1920 Peggy Lee, jazz singer.
1923 James Arness, actor (Gunsmoke).
1951 Sally Ride, astronaut, the first American woman in space.



Automotive
1927
Last day of Model T production at Ford

On this day in 1927, Henry Ford and his son Edsel drive the 15 millionth Model T Ford out of their factory, marking the famous automobile’s official last day of production.

More than any other vehicle, the relatively affordable and efficient Model T was responsible for accelerating the automobile’s introduction into American society during the first quarter of the 20th century. Introduced in October 1908, the Model T—also known as the “Tin Lizzie”—weighed some 1,200 pounds, with a 20-horsepower, four-cylinder engine. It got about 13 to 21 miles per gallon of gasoline and could travel up to 45 mph. Initially selling for around $850 (around $20,000 in today’s dollars), the Model T would later sell for as little as $260 (around $6,000 today) for the basic no-extras model.

Largely due to the Model T’s incredible popularity, the U.S. government made construction of new roads one of its top priorities by 1920. By 1926, however, the Lizzie had become outdated in a rapidly expanding market for cheaper cars. While Henry Ford had hoped to keep up production of the Model T while retooling his factories for its replacement, the Model A, lack of demand forced his hand. On May 25, 1927, he made headlines around the world with the announcement that he was discontinuing the Model T. As recorded by Douglas Brinkley in “Wheels for the World,” his biography of Ford, the legendary carmaker delivered a eulogy for his most memorable creation: “It had stamina and power. It was the car that ran before there were good roads to run on. It broke down the barriers of distance in rural sections, brought people of these sections closer together and placed education within the reach of everyone.”

After production officially ended the following day, Ford factories shut down in early June, and some 60,000 workers were laid off. The company sold fewer than 500,000 cars in 1927, less than half of Chevrolet’s sales. The Model A’s release beginning in select cities that December was greeted by throngs of thousands, a tribute to Ford’s characteristic ability to make a splash. No car in history, however, had the impact—both actual and mythological—of the Model T: Authors like Ernest Hemingway, E.B. White and John Steinbeck featured the Tin Lizzie in their prose, while the great filmmaker Charlie Chaplin immortalized it in satire in his 1928 film “The Circus.”

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 27
1564 John Calvin, one of the dominant figures of the Protestant Reformation, dies in Geneva.
1647 Achsah Young becomes the first woman known to be executed as a witch in Massachusetts.
1668 Three colonists are expelled from Massachusetts for being Baptists.
1813 Americans capture Fort George, Canada.
1907 The Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco.
1919 A U.S. Navy seaplane completes the first transatlantic flight.
1929 Colonel Charles Lindbergh marries Anne Spencer Morrow.
1935 The Supreme Court declares President Franklin Roosevelt's National Recovery Act unconstitutional.
1937 San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge opens.
1941 The German battleship Bismarck is sunk by British naval and air forces.
1942 German General Erwin Rommel begins a major offensive in Libya with his Afrika Korps.
1944 American General Douglas MacArthur lands on Biak Island in New Guinea.
1960 A military coup overthrows the democratic government of Turkey.
1969 Construction begins on Walt Disney World in Florida.
1972 President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev sign an arms reduction agreement.
1999 The international war crimes tribunal indicts Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for war atrocities.


Born on May 27
1794 Cornelius Vanderbilt, American industrialist and philanthropist.
1819 Julia Ward Howe, writer of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
1837 Wild Bill [James Butler] Hickok, American frontiersman and lawman.
1878 Isadora Duncan, dancer and choreographer.
1894 (Samuel) Dashiell Hammett, detective writer (The Maltese Falcon).
1907 Rachel Carson, biologist and writer (Silent Spring, The Sea Around Us).
1911 Hubert Humphrey, U.S. politician.
1911 Vincent Price, actor and horror film icon.
1912 John Cheever, writer (The Wapshot Chronicles).
1915 Herman Wouk, author (The Winds of War, The Caine Mutiny).
1923 Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon.
1925 Tony Hillerman, mystery novelist (The Blessing Way, Sacred Clowns).





Lead Story
1941
Bismarck sunk by Royal Navy

On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France. The German death toll was more than 2,000.

On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler hoped that the state-of-the-art battleship would herald the rebirth of the German surface battle fleet. However, after the outbreak of war, Britain closely guarded ocean routes from Germany to the Atlantic Ocean, and only U-boats moved freely through the war zone.

In May 1941, the order was given for the Bismarck to break out into the Atlantic. Once in the safety of the open ocean, the battleship would be almost impossible to track down, all the while wreaking havoc on Allied convoys to Britain. Learning of its movement, Britain sent almost the entire British Home Fleet in pursuit. On May 24, the British battle cruiser Hood and battleship Prince of Wales intercepted it near Iceland. In a ferocious battle, the Hood exploded and sank, and all but three of the 1,421 crewmen were killed. The Bismarck escaped, but because it was leaking fuel it fled for occupied France. On May 26, it was sighted and crippled by British aircraft, and on May 27 three British warships descended on the Bismarck and finished it off.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 28
585 BC A solar eclipse interrupts a battle outside Sardis in western Turkey between Medes and Lydians. The battle ends in a draw.
1805 Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned in Milan, Italy.
1830 Congress authorizes Indian removal from all states to the western Prairie.
1863 The 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African-American recruits, leaves Boston, headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina.
1859 The French army launches a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.
1871 The Paris commune is suppressed by troops from Versailles.
1900 Britain annexes the Orange Free State in South Africa.
1940 Belgium surrenders to Germany.
1953 Melody, the first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor, premiers.
1961 Amnesty International, a human rights organization, is founded.


Born on May 28
1759 William Pitt the Younger, prime minister of England (1783-1801).
1738 Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, French inventor of the execution device which bears his name.
1779 Thomas Moore, Irish poet.
1807 Jean Agassiz, naturalist and educator.
1818 P. G. T. Beauregard, Confederate general during the American Civil War.
1888 Jim Thorpe, American athlete.
1908 Ian Fleming, British novelist, created the character James Bond.
1910 T-Bone Walker, blues guitarist and singer.
1912 Patrick White, Australian writer (The Tree of Man, The Eye of the Storm).
1916 Walker Percy, writer (The Moviegoer, Love in the Ruins).
1918 Herb Shriner, radio humorist.
1919 May Swenson, poet.
1932 Stephen Birmingham, novelist and biographer.
1936 Fred Chappell, poet and novelist.
1940 Maeve Binchy, Irish writer (Circle of Friends, The Copper Beach).



American Revolution
1754
Lieutenant Colonel George Washington begins the Seven Years’ War

On this day in 1754, a 22-year-old lieutenant colonel of the Virginia militia named George Washington successfully defeats a party of French and Indian scouts in southwest Pennsylvania as Virginia attempts to lay claim to the territory for its own settlers. The action snowballed into a world war and began the military career of the first American commander in chief.

The Ohio Valley had long been a contested territory among French Canadians, various Indian groups and the British colonies of Pennsylvania and Virginia. When the French began to establish fortifications along the river and refused Virginia’s written demand that they depart, Virginia’s governor, Robert Dinwiddie, dispatched Washington to complete and defend a Virginian fort at the forks of the Ohio.

Upon their arrival, Washington discovered that a scouting party led by the French ensign, Joseph Coulon de Jumonville was nearby. Fearing that Jumonville was planning an attack, Washington struck first, successfully ambushing the small party. In one of history’s murkier moments, Jumonville was murdered by Washington’s Indian ally, Tanaghrisson, while the monolingual Washington struggled to interrogate the French-speaking Canadian.

Jumonville’s murder in captivity incited a strong French response, and Washington was unable to defend his makeshift “Fort Necessity” from French forces led by Jumonville’s half-brother. Washington surrendered on July 4 and signed a French confession to Jumonville’s assassination, which he could not read.

Benjamin Franklin had drafted his Albany Plan for Union earlier that month, in the hope that united colonies could better orchestrate their own defense and governance. Colonists voted down the proposal everywhere it was presented. After Washington displayed his incompetence on the Ohio, the British decided it was time to save their colonies from themselves and dispatched two regiments of Redcoats under General Edward Braddock to America. Braddock too suffered a humiliating defeat at the forks of the Ohio; it took the British and their colonists seven years of world war to redeem themselves. The Seven Years’ War would go on to strip the French of their American empire and test the bonds of the British empire in America.

[KAJUN]

Today in History May 29
1453 Constantinople falls to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire.
1660 Charles II is restored to the English throne, succeeding the short-lived Commonwealth.
1721 South Carolina is formally incorporated as a royal colony of England.
1790 Rhode Island becomes the last of the original thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution.
1848 Wisconsin becomes the thirtieth state.
1849 A patent for lifting vessels is granted to Abraham Lincoln.
1862 Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard retreats to Tupelo, Mississippi.
1911 The Indianapolis 500 is run for the first time.
1913 The premier of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) in Paris causes rioting in the theater.
1916 U.S. forces invade the Dominican Republic.
1922 Ecuador becomes independent.
1922 The U.S. Supreme Court rules organized baseball is a sport not subject to antitrust laws.
1942 The German Army completes its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet Union.
1951 C. F. Blair becomes the first man to fly over the North Pole in single-engine plane.
1953 Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.
1974 President Richard Nixon agrees to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.
1990 Boris Yeltsin is elected the president of Russia.


Born on May 29
1630 Charles II, king of England (1660-1685).
1736 Patrick Henry, American revolutionary and governor of Virginia.
1874 G.K. Chesterton, English writer.
1880 Oswald Spengler, German philosopher of history and author of The Decline of the West.
1894 Bea Lillie, comic actress.
1894 Josef von Sternberg, film director (Blue Angel).
1903 Bob Hope, comedian and actor.
1906 T.H. White, British writer (The Sword in the Stone).
1917 John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (1961-1963).
1955 John Hinckley Jr., attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan.



Lead Story
1953
Hillary and Tenzing reach Everest summit

At 11:30 a.m. on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa of Nepal, become the first explorers to reach the summit of Mount Everest, which at 29,035 feet above sea level is the highest point on earth. The two, part of a British expedition, made their final assault on the summit after spending a fitful night at 27,900 feet. News of their achievement broke around the world on June 2, the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, and Britons hailed it as a good omen for their country’s future.
Mount Everest sits on the crest of the Great Himalayas in Asia, lying on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Called Chomo-Lungma, or “Mother Goddess of the Land,” by the Tibetans, the English named the mountain after Sir George Everest, a 19th-century British surveyor of South Asia. The summit of Everest reaches two-thirds of the way through the air of the earth’s atmosphere–at about the cruising altitude of jet airliners–and oxygen levels there are very low, temperatures are extremely cold, and weather is unpredictable and dangerous.
The first recorded attempt to climb Everest was made in 1921 by a British expedition that trekked 400 difficult miles across the Tibetan plateau to the foot of the great mountain. A raging storm forced them to abort their ascent, but the mountaineers, among them George Leigh Mallory, had seen what appeared to be a feasible route up the peak. It was Mallory who quipped when later asked by a journalist why he wanted to climb Everest, “Because it’s there.”
A second British expedition, featuring Mallory, returned in 1922, and climbers George Finch and Geoffrey Bruce reached an impressive height of more than 27,000 feet. In another attempt made by Mallory that year, seven Sherpa porters were killed in an avalanche. (The Sherpas, native to the Khumbu region, have long played an essential support role in Himalayan climbs and treks because of their strength and ability to endure the high altitudes.) In 1924, a third Everest expedition was launched by the British, and climber Edward Norton reached an elevation of 28,128 feet, 900 vertical feet short of the summit, without using artificial oxygen. Four days later, Mallory and Andrew Irvine launched a summit assault and were never seen alive again. In 1999, Mallory’s largely preserved body was found high on Everest–he had suffered numerous broken bones in a fall. Whether or not he or Irvine reached the summit remains a mystery.

Several more unsuccessful summit attempts were made via Tibet’s Northeast Ridge route, and after World War II Tibet was closed to foreigners. In 1949, Nepal opened its door to the outside world, and in 1950 and 1951 British expeditions made exploratory climbs up the Southeast Ridge route. In 1952, a Swiss expedition navigated the treacherous Khumbu Icefall in the first real summit attempt. Two climbers, Raymond Lambert and Tenzing Norgay, reached 28,210 feet, just below the South Summit, but had to turn back for want of supplies.
Shocked by the near-success of the Swiss expedition, a large British expedition was organized for 1953 under the command of Colonel John Hunt. In addition to the best British climbers and such highly experienced Sherpas as Tenzing Norgay, the expedition enlisted talent from the British Commonwealth, such as New Zealanders George Lowe and Edmund Hillary, the latter of whom worked as a beekeeper when not climbing mountains. Members of the expedition were equipped with specially insulated boots and clothing, portable radio equipment, and open- and closed-circuit oxygen systems.
Setting up a series of camps, the expedition pushed its way up the mountain in April and May 1953. A new passage was forged through the Khumbu Icefall, and the climbers made their way up the Western Cwm, across the Lhotse Face, and to the South Col, at about 26,000 feet. On May 26, Charles Evans and Tom Bourdillon launched the first assault on the summit and came within 300 feet of the top of Everest before having to turn back because one of their oxygen sets was malfunctioning.

On May 28, Tenzing and Hillary set out, setting up high camp at 27,900 feet. After a freezing, sleepless night, the pair plodded on, reaching the South Summit by 9 a.m. and a steep rocky step, some 40 feet high, about an hour later. Wedging himself in a crack in the face, Hillary inched himself up what was thereafter known as the Hillary Step. Hillary threw down a rope, and Norgay followed. At about 11:30 a.m., the climbers arrived at the top of the world.
News of the success was rushed by runner from the expedition’s base camp to the radio post at Namche Bazar, and then sent by coded message to London, where Queen Elizabeth II learned of the achievement on June 1, the eve of her coronation. The next day, the news broke around the world. Later that year, Hillary and Hunt were knighted by the queen. Norgay, because he was not a citizen of a Commonwealth nation, received the lesser British Empire Medal.
Since Hillary and Norgay’s historic climb, numerous expeditions have made their way up to Everest’s summit. In 1960, a Chinese expedition was the first to conquer the mountain from the Tibetan side, and in 1963 James Whittaker became the first American to top Everest. In 1975, Tabei Junko of Japan became the first woman to reach the summit. Three years later, Reinhold Messner of Italy and Peter Habeler of Austria achieved what had been previously thought impossible: climbing to the Everest summit without oxygen. Nearly two hundred climbers have died attempting to summit the mountain. A major tragedy occurred in 1996 when eight climbers from various nations died after being caught in a blizzard high on the slopes.

[Suzuki Johnny]

Today in History May 30
1416 Jerome of Prague is burned as a heretic by the Church.
1431 Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by the English.
1527 The University of Marburg is founded in Germany.
1539 Hernando de Soto lands in Florida with 600 soldiers in search of gold.
1783 The first American daily newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, begins publishing in Philadelphia.
1814 The First Treaty of Paris is declared, returning France to its 1792 borders.
1848 William Young patents the ice cream freezer.
1854 The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise.
1859 The Piedmontese army crosses the Sesia River and defeats the Austrians at Palestro.
1862 Union General Henry Halleck enters Corinth, Mississippi.
1868 Memorial Day begins when two women place flowers on both Confederate and Union graves.
1889 The brassiere is invented.
1912 U.S. Marines are sent to Nicaragua to protect American interests.
1913 The First Balkan War ends.
1921 The U.S. Navy transfers the Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of the Interior.
1942 The Royal Air Force launches the first 1,000 plane raid over Germany.
1971 NASA launches Mariner 9, the first satellite to orbit Mars.


Born on May 30
1672 Peter I (the Great) czar of Russia.
1867 Arthur Vining Davis, American industrialist.
1903 Countee Cullen, American poet.
1908 Hannes Alfvén, Swedish, Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist.
1908 Mel Blanc, American entertainer, vocal artist.
1909 Benny Goodman, musician, big band leader.
1916 Joseph W. Kennedy, scientist, co-discoverer of plutonium.


Automotive
1911
First Indianapolis 500 held
On this day in 1911, Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world’s most famous motor racing competitions.

The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to address car manufacturers’ inability to test potential top speeds of new cars due to the poorly developed state of the public roadways. The result was the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, built on 328 acres of farmland five miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis. The idea was that occasional races at the track would pit cars from different manufacturers against each other in order to showcase their full power and entice spectators to check out the new models themselves. In 1911, Fisher and his partners decided to focus on one long race per year, as opposed to numerous shorter events, in order to attract more publicity. The purse for the grueling 500-mile race would be the richest in racing.

On May 30, 1911, 40 cars lined up at the starting line for the first Indy 500. A multi-car accident occurred 13 laps into the race, and the ensuing chaos temporarily disrupted scoring, throwing the finish into dispute when the eventual runner-up, Ralph Mulford, argued that he was the rightful winner. It was Ray Harroun, however, who took home the $14,250 purse, clocking an average speed of 74.59 mph and a total time of 6 hours and 42 minutes. The Wasp was the first car with a rear-view mirror, which Harroun had installed in order to compensate for not having a mechanic in the seat next to him to warn of other cars passing.

Impressive as it was, Harroun’s 1911 speed would have finished him 10th in the 1922 Indy 500. Barely a decade later, nearly all the cars that started in the race were smaller, lighter, more efficient and far more expensive than consumer cars. Their aerodynamic bodies featured narrow grills and teardrop-shaped tails; knock-off wire wheels made for quick, efficient tire changes; and the new straight-sided tires lasted much longer than their early pneumatic counterparts. The best cars were equipped with four-wheel hydraulic brakes and inline 3.0-liter V-8 engines made of aluminum. By the mid-1920s, the Indy 500 had become what it is today–a high-paying event for the world’s most expensive cars.

[Suzuki Johnny]

Today in History May 31
1433 Sigismund is crowned emperor of Rome.
1678 The Godiva procession, commemorating Lady Godiva's legendary ride while naked, becomes part of the Coventry Fair.
1862 At the Battle of Fair Oaks, Union General George B. McClellan defeats Confederates outside of Richmond.
1879 New York's Madison Square Garden opens its doors for the first time.
1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood.
1900 U.S. troops arrive in Peking to help put down the Boxer Rebellion.
1902 The Boer War ends with the Treaty of Vereeniging.
1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) holds its first conference.
1913 The 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for direct election of senators, is ratified.
1915 A German zeppelin makes an air raid on London.
1916 British and German fleets fight in the Battle of Jutland.
1928 The first flight over the Pacific takes off from Oakland.
1941 An armistice is arranged between the British and the Iraqis.
1955 The Supreme Court orders that states must end racial segregation "with all deliberate speed."
1962 Adolf Eichmann, the former SS commander, is hanged near Tel Aviv, Israel.
1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace a Chance."
1974 Israel and Syria sign an agreement on the Golan Heights.
1979 Zimbabwe proclaims its independence.
1988 President Ronald Reagan arrives in Moscow, the first American president to do so in 14 years.


Born on May 31
1469 Manuel I, King of Portugal (1495-1521).
1819 Walt Whitman, American poet.
1894 Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan], American comedian.
1898 Norman Vincent Peale, American religious leader.
1925 Julian Beck, theater manager.
1930 Clint Eastwood, American film actor and director.

Lead Story
1859
Big Ben goes into operation in London
The famous tower clock known as Big Ben, located at the top of the 320-foot-high St. Stephen’s Tower, rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, for the first time on this day in 1859.

After a fire destroyed much of the Palace of Westminster–the headquarters of the British Parliament–in October 1834, a standout feature of the design for the new palace was a large clock atop a tower. The royal astronomer, Sir George Airy, wanted the clock to have pinpoint accuracy, including twice-a-day checks with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. While many clockmakers dismissed this goal as impossible, Airy counted on the help of Edmund Beckett Denison, a formidable barrister known for his expertise in horology, or the science of measuring time.

The name “Big Ben” originally just applied to the bell but later came to refer to the clock itself. Two main stories exist about how Big Ben got its name. Many claim it was named after the famously long-winded Sir Benjamin Hall, the London commissioner of works at the time it was built. Another famous story argues that the bell was named for the popular heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt, because it was the largest of its kind.

Even after an incendiary bomb destroyed the chamber of the House of Commons during the Second World War, St. Stephen’s Tower survived, and Big Ben continued to function. Its famously accurate timekeeping is regulated by a stack of coins placed on the clock’s huge pendulum, ensuring a steady movement of the clock hands at all times. At night, all four of the clock’s faces, each one 23 feet across, are illuminated. A light above Big Ben is also lit to let the public know when Parliament is in session.