May 24
1883:
Opening of the Brooklyn Bridge.
A brilliant feat of 19th-century engineering, the Brooklyn Bridge—spanning the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan Island in New York City—opened this day in 1883, designed by civil engineer John Augustus Roebling.
1951:
In the U.S. nuclear program, the fourth test of Operation Greenhouse was conducted, resulting in the first proof-of-principle test of a booster design in nuclear fission.
1928:
Irish author William Trevor was born in County Cork.
1856:
A group of abolitionists led by John Brown launched a nighttime raid on a proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas Territory during which five men were murdered.
1830:
The first line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad opened with the maiden voyage of Peter Cooper's locomotive Tom Thumb.
1822:
Part of the Latin American wars of independence from Spanish rule, the Battle of Pichincha took place on the lower slopes of Cerro Pichincha and ended in victory for South American rebels.
1689:
The Toleration Act was passed by the British Parliament, granting freedom of worship to Nonconformists and allowing them their own places of worship and their own teachers and preachers.
May 25
1787:
U.S. Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia.
On this day in 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia, where 55 state delegates, initially charged with amending the Articles of Confederation, later drafted the Constitution of the United States.
1946:
Abdullāh I, ruler of Transjordan, proclaimed himself king.
1935:
American track-and-field standout Jesse Owens set three world records and equaled one other at a meet in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
1889:
Aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky, who successfully developed the helicopter, was born in Kiev, Ukraine, Russian Empire.
1878:
American entertainer Bill (“Bojangles”) Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia.
1810:
Having severed ties with Spain and the viceregal government, the municipal council of Buenos Aires, Argentina, established an autonomous government.
May 26
1521:
Martin Luther declared a heretic by the Edict of Worms.
Passed this day in 1521, the Edict of Worms banned the writings of Martin Luther—a German cleric whose efforts to change the church led to the Reformation—and declared him an outlaw and a heretic who was to be captured.
1966:
Formerly a colony of the Dutch and later the British, Guyana gained its independence.
1940:
During World War II the British began to evacuate their troops from Dunkirk, France.
1926:
Jazz musician Miles Davis, a trumpeter who was one of the major influences on jazz from the late 1940s, was born in Alton, Illinois.
1913:
Actors' Equity Association, the trade union for American performing artists, was founded.
1907:
Motion-picture actor John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa.
1886:
Al Jolson, a popular American singer and blackface comedian of the musical stage and motion pictures, was born Asa Yoelson in Srednike, Russia (now Seredžius, Lithuania).
1876:
The Challenger Expedition, a groundbreaking oceanographic exploration cruise carried out by the British Admiralty and the Royal Society, concluded successfully.
1703:
English diarist and naval administrator Samuel Pepys, celebrated for his Diary, died in London.
1583:
Susanna, the elder daughter of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, was baptized.
May 27
1703:
Founding of St. Petersburg.
Founded this day in 1703 by Peter the Great, St. Petersburg has played a vital role in Russian history and is especially known as the scene of the 1917 revolutions and as a fiercely defended city during World War II.
1994:
Exiled from the Soviet Union since February 13, 1974, for writing The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returned to his homeland.
1993:
A terrorist bomb went off in Florence, damaging a wing of the famous Uffizi Gallery.
1964:
Former Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, a leader of the Indian independence movement of the 1930s and '40s, died in New Delhi.
1941:
In World War II the British navy sank the German battleship Bismarck.
1905:
The final conflict of the Russo-Japanese War, the Battle of Tsushima, commenced.
1889:
The American petrochemical corporation South Penn Oil Co., later Pennzoil Company, was founded in Pennsylvania.
1660:
The Treaty of Copenhagen between Sweden and Denmark-Norway was signed, concluding a generation of warfare between the two powers as well as helping to establish the modern boundaries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
May 28
1961:
Amnesty International founded.
Dedicated to informing public opinion about human rights and to securing the release of political prisoners, Amnesty International was founded in London on this day in 1961 and won the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize.
1937:
Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Great Britain.
1934:
The Dionne quintuplets, the first set of documented quintuplets to survive, were born near Callander, Ontario, Canada, to Oliva and Elzire Dionne.
1830:
The Indian Removal Act was passed, allowing U.S. President Andrew Jackson to grant American Indian tribes unsettled western prairie land in exchange for their settlements within the borders of extant U.S. states, thereby clearing the way for further white settlement.
1804:
Napoleon proclaimed the establishment of the French Empire.
1788:
The Federalist papers—a series of 85 essays on the proposed new U.S. Constitution and on the nature of republican government, written in 1787–88 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—were published in book form.
1660:
George I, the elector of Hanover (1698–1727) and the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain (1714–27), was born in Osnabrück, Germany.
1291:Crusader rule in the Holy Land came to an end as the Mamlūks took the city of Acre, the last stronghold of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
May 29
1953:
Mount Everest summit reached by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay .
After no fewer than 10 attempts, Mount Everest was finally surmounted in 1953, as the result of efforts by an expedition sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society and the Joint Himalayan Committee of the Alpine Club. Open- and closed-circuit oxygen systems, specially insulated boots and clothing, and portable radio equipment were used by the climbers. Eight camps were established on the route that was taken up the Khumbu Icefall and Glacier, the Western Cwm, and the face of Lhotse to the South Col, a rocky ridge at about 8,000 metres (26,200 feet). From there, on this day, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay of Tibet ascended the Southeast Ridge, past South Summit, to the top.
1905:
The Russian navy was defeated in the Battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War.
1860:
Composer and virtuoso pianist Isaac Albéniz was born in Camprodón, Spain.
1848:
Wisconsin became the 30th state of the Union; Madison became the state capital the same year.
1736:
Orator and major American Revolution figure Patrick Henry was born in Studley, Virginia.
1658:
The Battle of Samugarh was fought in a contest for the throne between the sons of the Mughal emperor Shāh Jahān following the emperor's serious illness in September 1657.
1453:
Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottoman Turks.
May 30
1431:
Joan of Arc burned at the stake.
On this day St. Joan of Arc was burned as a heretic by English and French collaborators. Several years earlier Joan had become a heroine in France, when she led an army against the English in order to crown the dauphin Charles at Reims. At this time, during the Hundred Years' War, the crown of France was contested by Charles and the Lancastrian king, Henry VI. Henry's armies were allied with those of Philip the Good, the duke of Burgundy, who later captured Joan. She was brought before a church court and executed on a pyre at the Place du Vieux-Marché in Rouen, maintaining her innocence to the last.
1942:
During World War II the British Royal Air Force dispatched more than 1,000 bombers against Cologne, Germany.
1925:
The May Thirtieth Incident on this day was a nationwide series of strikes and demonstrations in Shanghai, precipitated by the killing of 13 labour demonstrators by British police.
1922:
The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
1911:
The first Indianapolis 500 automobile race was run in Indianapolis, Indiana.
1854:
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, providing for the territorial organization of Kansas and Nebraska under the principle of popular sovereignty.
1814:
The first of the Treaties of Paris was signed, ending the Napoleonic Wars.
May 31
1902:
Boer War ended.
The South African War, or Boer War, came to a close with the signing of the Peace of Vereeniging on this day. The treaty, signed by representatives of the British and ex-republican Boer governments, ended the independence of the South African Republic (Transvaal) and the Orange Free State, which came under British military administration. The war had begun on October 11, 1899, caused by the refusal of the South African Republic, under President Paul Kruger, to grant political rights to the Uitlander (non-Dutch and primarily English) population of the mining areas of the Witwatersrand, as well as by the aggressive responses of Alfred Milner, 1st Viscount Milner, the British high commissioner, and of Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain.
1962:
German war criminal Adolf Eichmann was hanged by the state of Israel for his part in the Nazi extermination of Jews during World War II.
1943:
American professional football player Joe Namath was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania.
1916:
The Battle of Jutland, an encounter between British and German naval fleets in World War I, began.
1910:
Louis Botha formed the first Union government of South Africa.
1889:
Considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history, a flood ravaged Johnstown, Pennsylvania, causing more than 2,200 deaths.
1819:
American poet, essayist, and journalist Walt Whitman was born on Long Island, New York.
1790:
The United States established copyright law.
June 01
1980:
Debut of CNN.
Ted Turner's Cable News Network, headquartered in Atlanta, began 24-hour live news broadcasts this day in 1980, the network gaining worldwide attention in 1991 for its around-the-clock coverage of the First Persian Gulf War.
1968:
Blind and deaf American author Helen Keller died in Westport, Connecticut.
1958:
Following the outbreak of an insurrection in Algiers, Charles de Gaulle came before the French National Assembly as prime minister designate.
1945:
In a speech, Indonesian nationalist leader Sukarno articulated the Pancasila—the Five Principles—that became the founding philosophy of the independent Indonesian state.
1926:
American motion-picture star Marilyn Monroe was born in Los Angeles.
1907:
English aviation engineer and pilot Frank Whittle, who invented the jet engine, was born.
1794:
The first great naval engagement of the French revolutionary wars, the Battle of the First of June, was fought between England and France in the Atlantic Ocean.
June 02
1953:
Elizabeth II crowned queen.
On this day in 1953, 27-year-old Elizabeth II, the elder daughter of King George VI, was crowned queen of the United Kingdom at Westminster Abbey, having taken the throne upon her father's death in February 1952.
1997:
A jury in Denver, Colorado, found Timothy McVeigh of the militia movement guilty of murder and conspiracy in the deaths of 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and he was executed in June 2001.
1946:
In the aftermath of World War II, the people of Italy passed a referendum to replace the governing monarchy with a republic.
1940:
Constantine II, king of Greece from 1964 to 1974, was born in Psikhikó, near Athens.
1886:
Frances Folsom, age 21, married U.S. President Grover Cleveland in the White House and became the youngest first lady in American history.
1865:
Confederate soldiers yielded to Federal troops in Galveston, Texas, marking one of the final land operations of the American Civil War.
1840:
English novelist and poet Thomas Hardy, who set much of his work in Wessex, an imaginary county in southwestern England, was born.
1740:
The Marquis de Sade, the French nobleman known for his erotic and perverse writings, was born in Paris.
June 3
1989:
Prodemocracy protest in Tiananmen Square crushed by Chinese military.
On this day in 1989, the Chinese government called in the military to put down a prodemocracy demonstration staged by more than 100,000 people in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
1932:
American baseball great Lou Gehrig hit four consecutive home runs in one game.
1926:
American poet Allen Ginsberg, a central figure in the Beat movement, was born in Newark, New Jersey.
1904:
American physician and surgeon Charles Richard Drew, a pioneer in the preservation of blood plasma and a lifelong critic of official decisions to separate the blood of whites and blacks in blood banks, was born in Washington, D.C.
1864:
Considered one of the worst Northern defeats of the American Civil War, the second Battle of Cold Harbor (Virginia), which would result in the loss of about 7,000 Union soldiers under General Ulysses S. Grant, began.
1808:
Jefferson Davis, who became the president of the Confederate States of America, was born in Christian county, Kentucky.
June 04
2003:
Martha Stewart indicted.
On this day in 2003, American entrepreneur and domestic lifestyle innovator Martha Stewart was indicted on criminal charges in relation to a stock sale, and in 2004 she was convicted and sentenced to five months in prison.
1970:
The Kingdom of Tonga achieved independence within the British Commonwealth.
1942: Japan was repulsed by the United States at the Battle of Midway in World War II.
1940: During World War II the evacuation of Dunkirk, France, came to an end, having saved 198,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian troops.
1920:
The Treaty of Trianon was signed by representatives of Hungary on one side and the Allied powers on the other, concluding World War I.
1833:
British Field Marshal Garnet Joseph Wolseley, 1st Viscount Wolseley, whose most brilliant campaign involved seizing the Suez Canal and, after a night march, surprising and defeating ʿUrābī Pasha at Al-Tall al-Kabīr (September 13, 1882), was born.
1796:
Napoleon Bonaparte commanded the Siege of Mantua, which resulted in the exclusion of Austrians from northern Italy.
1783:
Joseph-Michel and Jacques-蓆ienne Montgolfier launched an unmanned hot-air balloon, the first public demonstration of the discovery that hot air in a large lightweight bag rises.
1070:
The method for creating Roquefort cheese was discovered in Roquefort, France.
June 05
1965:
First American space walk.
On this day in 1965, Edward H. White II emerged from the orbital spacecraft Gemini 4 during its third orbit and floated in space for about 20 minutes, thus becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space.
1967:
The Six-Day War, the third of the Arab-Israeli wars, began.
1947:
In an address at Harvard University, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall advanced the idea of the Marshall Plan, a European self-help program to be financed by the United States.
1944:
In World War II, Allied forces entered Rome.
1939:
Canadian politician Joe Clark, who in 1979 became the country's youngest prime minister, was born.
1883:
English economist, journalist, and financier John Maynard Keynes, best known for his revolutionary economic theories (Keynesian economics) on the causes of prolonged unemployment, was born.
1849:
The absolute monarchy in Denmark was abolished and replaced by a new constitution that established a constitutional monarchy with a parliament, as well as freedom of the press, religious freedom, and the right to hold meetings and form associations.
1723:
Social philosopher and political economist Adam Smith was baptized in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland.
June 06
1944:
Normandy Invasion begun.
Led by U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, an Allied armada of ships, planes, and landing craft and some 156,000 troops began the invasion of northern France from England this day in 1944—the famous “D-Day” of World War II.
1982:
Israel invaded Lebanon and subsequently defeated the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Syrian armed forces, and assorted leftist Lebanese groups.
1968: U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy died of a bullet wound from assassin Sirhan Sirhan.
1934:
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)—a U.S. regulatory agency—was established.
1925:
The automobile manufacturer Chrysler Corporation was incorporated.
1844:
George Williams originated the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London.
1622:
Pope Gregory XV created the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith for the organization and direction of the missions of the Roman Catholic Church to the non-Christian world.
June 07
1929:
Lateran Treaty ratified.
Through the Lateran Treaty—signed February 11, 1929, by Benito Mussolini for Italy and by Pietro Gasparri, cardinal secretary of state, for the papacy and ratified this day in 1929—Vatican City became a sovereign state.
1970:
British novelist, essayist, and social and literary critic E.M. Forster died in Coventry, Warwickshire, England.
1917:
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks, whose work depicted the everyday life of urban African Americans and who was the first African American poet to win the Pulitzer Prize (1949), was born.
1832:
Authored by Prime Minister Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, the Reform Act of 1832 came into effect—the first of the British parliamentary bills that expanded the electorate for the House of Commons and rationalized the representation of that body.
1576:
English navigator Martin Frobisher, seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean, departed England, and weeks later he reached Labrador and Baffin Island and discovered the bay that now bears his name.
1520:
Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France and their entourages gathered at the Field of the Cloth of Gold near Calais, France.
1494:
The Treaty of Tordesillas—an agreement between Spain and Portugal aimed at settling conflicts over lands newly discovered or explored by Christopher Columbus and other late 15th-century voyagers—was signed.
June 08
1504:
Michelangelo's David installed in Florence.
Believed to have been installed this day in 1504 in the cathedral of Florence was Michelangelo's statue of David, commissioned in 1501 and considered the prime statement of the Renaissance ideal of perfect humanity.
2002:
Serena Williams defeated her sister Venus Williams to win the French Open tennis title.
1966:
The National Football League and the American Football League announced a merger, which became effective in 1970.
1916: Biophysicist Francis Crick, who along with James Dewey Watson and Maurice Wilkins received the 1962 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for their determination of the molecular structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), was born in Northampton, England.
1867:
Francis Joseph was crowned king of Hungary.
1191:
At the time of the Third Crusade, Richard I joined the Crusaders in Acre, having conquered Cyprus on his way there.
632:
Muhammad, the founder of the religion of Islam and of the Muslim community, died in Medina.
June 09
1983:
Landslide reelection victory for Margaret Thatcher.
British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, buoyed by victory in the Falkland Islands War and by deep divisions within the opposition Labour Party, was easily reelected to a second term in office this day in 1983.
1967:
Israeli forces attacked the Golan Heights in southwestern Syria.
1942:
On this day the residents of the village of Lidice (now in the Czech Republic) were rounded up, most to be massacred the next day in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, deputy leader of the Nazi paramilitary group SS, by Czech underground fighters.
1940:
German tank forces under Major General Erwin Rommel crossed the Seine River in a push to the Atlantic coast of France during World War II.
1891:
American composer and lyricist Cole Porter was born in Peru, Indiana.
1870:
English writer Charles Dickens, generally considered the greatest Victorian novelist, died at Gad's Hill near Chatham, Kent.
1815:
The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, comprising several agreements separately negotiated among various participants for the reorganization of Europe in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, was signed by representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, Portugal, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden.
1781:
English engineer George Stephenson, the principal inventor of the railroad locomotive, was born.
1358:
The Jacquerie, a revolt of French peasants against abuses inflicted upon them by the nobility of northeastern France, suffered a critical defeat at Meaux.
June 10
1865:
Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde premiered.
Tristan und Isolde, the earliest example of what Richard Wagner called “music drama,” was first performed this day in 1865 in Munich, Germany, and became the greatest German opera of the late 19th century.
1940:
Italy declared war against France and Great Britain, entering World War II.
1868:
Serbian Prince Michael III was assassinated, derailing the Balkan League's plans for a coordinated rebellion against the Ottomans and destroying the league.
1847:
The Chicago Tribune, one of the leading daily American newspapers and long the dominant, sometimes strident, voice of the Midwest, began publication.
1819:
Gustave Courbet, French painter and leader of the Realist movement, was born in Ornans.
1772:
Rhode Islanders in the American colonies boarded and sank the British revenue cutter Gaspee in Narragansett Bay.
1190: Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa) drowned while trying to cross the Saleph River on the Third Crusade to the Holy Land.
June 11
2001:
Oklahoma City bomber executed.
Timothy McVeigh—convicted of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people in what was then the worst terrorist attack in the U.S.—was executed this day in 2001.
1950:
Capping a dramatic recovery from a near-fatal automobile accident, American golfer Ben Hogan won the U.S. Open.
1927:
American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by U.S. President Calvin Coolidge.
1898:
The Guangxu emperor of China issued his first reform decree initiating the Hundred Days of Reform, an imperial attempt at renovating the Chinese state and social system.
1742:
The empress Maria Theresa of Austria decided to make peace with Prussian King Frederick II, ceding almost all of Silesia to him in the Treaty of Breslau, which marked the end of the First Silesian War.
June 12
1991:
Election of Boris Yeltsin.
On this day in 1991, Boris Yeltsin was easily elected president of Russia (then part of the Soviet Union) in the republic's first direct, popular elections, and he was president of independent Russia until the eve of 2000.
1991:
A series of major explosions began inside Mount Pinatubo, a volcano in western Luzon, Philippines—its first eruption in 600 years.
1941:
American jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader Chick Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
1924:
George Bush, vice president of the United States (1981–89) and 41st president of the United States (1989–93), was born.
1898: The Philippines, under revolutionary leader Emilio Aguinaldo, declared its independence from Spain.
1776:
The constitutional convention of the colony of Virginia adopted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, a model for the Bill of Rights later added to the U.S. Constitution.
1707:
Bahādur Shāh I won the Mughal throne of India by defeating his brother ʿAẓam Shāh at the Battle of Jajau.
1701:
The Act of Settlement, the law that continues to regulate the succession to the throne of the United Kingdom, was passed by Parliament.