This Day In History （请勿跟贴，谢谢！）

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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May 23


1951:
Tibet was liberated as an autonomous region on this day in 1951.

1934:
Bonnie and Clyde, notorious American outlaws, were killed in a police shoot-out near Gibsland, Louisiana.

1915:
Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary, entering World War I on the side of the Allies.

1707:
Swedish botanist and explorer Carolus Linnaeus, the first to frame principles for defining genera and species of organisms and to create a uniform system for naming them, was born in R錽hult.

1706:
The French suffered a major loss at the Battle of Ramillies, a turning point in the War of the Spanish Succession.

1618:
The Defenestration of Prague occurred in response to religious persecution, helping set the stage for the Thirty Years' War.

1430:
Joan of Arc was captured by Burgundians near Compiègne, France.

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May 22


337:
Roman Emperor Constantine I baptized.
On this day in 337, Constantine the Great, who had practiced Christianity since his youth and sparked its growth into a world religion, became on his deathbed the first Roman emperor to be baptized in the Christian church.

1972:
Richard M. Nixon arrived in Moscow, the first visit by a U.S. president to the Soviet Union.
1960: One of the largest earthquakes on record struck the southern coast of Chile, killing about 5,700 people and creating seismic sea waves that caused death and destruction in Japan and Hawaii and on the Pacific coast of the United States.

1942:
Mexico entered World War II by declaring war on Germany, Italy, and Japan.

1939:
Adolf Hitler of Germany and Benito Mussolini of Italy signed the Pact of Steel, a full military and political alliance between their countries.

1885:
French poet, novelist, and dramatist Victor Hugo died in Paris.

1844:
American painter Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania.

1813:
German dramatic composer Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig.

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May 21


1927:
First transatlantic flight made by Charles Lindbergh.
American aviator Charles A. Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1927, traveling from New York to Paris in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis in about 33.5 hours.

1972:
Michelangelo's Pietà, a sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary supporting the body of the dead Christ, was attacked and badly damaged in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

1932:
American aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1871:
The Commune of Paris revolted against the French national government under Adolphe Thiers, beginning a period of violence known as “Bloody Week.”

1856:
During the small civil war known as Bleeding Kansas—a dispute over control of the new U.S. territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty—the town of Lawrence was sacked by a proslavery mob intent on destroying the “hotbed of abolitionism.”

1844:
French painter Henri Rousseau—the archetype of the modern naive artist, known for his richly coloured and meticulously detailed pictures of lush jungles, wild beasts, and exotic figures—was born in Laval.

1542:
Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto, the first European to discover the Mississippi River, died and was buried in the river in Louisiana.

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May 20


1862:
U.S. Homestead Act signed.
On this day U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided 160 acres (about two-thirds of a square km) of public land virtually free of charge to those who had lived on and cultivated the land for at least five years. One of the early supporters of the Homestead movement was Senator (later President) Andrew Johnson of Tennessee. By the turn of the century, more than 80 million acres (300,000 square km) had been claimed by a total of 600,000 homestead farmers.

1939:
Pan American Airways' Yankee Clipper inaugurated transatlantic airmail service, flying from Port Washington, New York, to Lisbon.

1908:
American actor and motion-picture star Jimmy Stewart was born in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

1875:
The International Bureau of Weights and Measures, an organization founded to bring about the unification of systems of measurement, was established in Paris.

1897:
During the Greco-Turkish wars, the Greeks—fighting for the annexation of Crete—yielded to pressures from European powers to withdraw their troops from Crete and accept armistice on the mainland.

1882:
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy secretly formed the Triple Alliance, a treaty organization that provided for mutual protection against attacks by other European powers until Italy entered World War I.

1806:
English economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill was born in London.

1784:
The Netherlands yielded to Great Britain some of its holdings in India and Indonesia in a treaty signed at the Peace of Paris, a collection of treaties that concluded the American Revolution.

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May 19

1884:
Ringling Brothers circus formed.
On this day Charles, Albert, Otto, Alfred, and John Ringling, the sons of August Rüngeling, a German-born harness maker, organized a small circus and opened it in their hometown, Baraboo, Wisconsin, from which they toured the American Midwest. After the opening of the circus in 1884, their progress was slow until the Ringlings acquired their first elephant in 1888, after which the circus expanded rapidly. They acquired the Forepaugh-Sells Circus in 1906 and the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1907, thus becoming the leading circus in the country.

1930:
American playwright Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago.

1890:
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnamese founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and its successor, the Viet Minh (1941), and president (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam), was born in Hoang Tru, Vietnam, French Indochina.

1802:
Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul of France, created the Legion of Honour, the premier order of the French republic.

1643:
During the Thirty Years' War, the French army defeated the Spanish army in the Battle of Rocroi, ending Spain's military ascendancy in Europe.

1571:
Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi established the city of Manila in the Philippines.

1536:
Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England and mother of Queen Elizabeth I, found guilty on charges of adultery, was beheaded.

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May 18

1980:
Eruption of Mount St. Helens.
This day in 1980, an earthquake with a 5.1 Richter magnitude triggered a gigantic landslide on the north face of Mount St. Helens in southwestern Washington. The north slope fell away in an avalanche that was followed by a lateral air blast, which carried a high-velocity cloud of superheated ash and stone outward more than 20 km (12 miles) from Mount St. Helens's summit. The avalanche and lateral blast were followed by mudflows, pyroclastic flows, and floods that buried the river valleys to the east. Meanwhile, simultaneous with the avalanche, a vertical eruption of gas and ash formed a column more than 20 km high that produced ash falls as far east as central Montana. Sixty people and thousands of animals were killed, and 10 million trees were blown down.

1974:
Entering the nuclear arms race, India detonated a nuclear weapon in the Rajasthan desert.

1956:
Swiss climbers Fritz Luchsinger and Ernest Reiss made the first ascent of the Lhotse I mountain in the Himalayan range.

1953:
American aviator Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier, which is Mach 1.

1940:
Brussels, Belgium, fell to the invading German army in World War II and was subjected to harsh terms of occupation.

1933:
The U.S. government established the Tennessee Valley Authority to control floods and produce electrical power along the Tennessee River and its tributaries.

1899:
The first of a series of international conferences that produced the Hague Convention began at The Hague in The Netherlands.

1860:
Abraham Lincoln became the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency on the third ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

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May 17


1954:
School segregation outlawed by U.S. Supreme Court.
On this day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in the leading school-desegregation case, Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka. The landmark decision overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which permitted “separate but equal” public facilities. Argued from 1938 to 1950, the case was successfully won by Thurgood Marshall—the attorney for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)—who argued against the school board's decision. Chief Justice Earl Warren spoke on behalf of the court, declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The ruling stipulated that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which says that no state may deny equal protection of the laws to any person within its jurisdiction. The decision was limited to the public schools, but it was believed to imply that segregation was not permissible in other public facilities.

1918:
Swedish operatic soprano Birgit Nilsson was born in West Karup, Sweden.

1875:
The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky; the winning horse was Aristides.

1866:
French composer Erik Satie was born in Honfleur, Calvados, France.

1792:
Meeting on what is now Wall Street in New York City, 24 businessmen took the initial steps to the formation of the New York Stock Exchange.

1510:
Italian painter Sandro Botticelli of the Florentine Renaissance died.

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May 16


1868:
U.S. President Andrew Johnson acquitted.
On this day the first of two key votes in the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, was held. It eventually fell one short of the necessary two-thirds needed for conviction, as seven Republicans voted with Johnson's supporters. Johnson was exonerated of the charges that, contrary to statute, he attempted to remove from office Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton—ally of the Radical Republicans within his cabinet. Lesser charges included inducing an army general to violate an act of Congress, as well as contempt of Congress.

1975:
Tabei Junko of Japan, accompanied by Ang Tsering of Nepal, became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1961:
The military seized power in South Korea, overthrowing the Second Republic, as General Park Chung Hee took over the government machinery—dissolving the National Assembly and imposing a strict ban on political activity.

1943:
After four weeks, Nazi soldiers quelled the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of Jews during the Holocaust in World War II.

1920:
Joan of Arc, national heroine of France, was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV.

1763:
In London, Samuel Johnson met James Boswell, who later wrote his famous biography, Life of Johnson, in 1791.

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May 15


1991:
Edith Cresson appointed French premier.
On this day in 1991, Edith Cresson of the Socialist Party became the first female premier of France, but she lost the office less than a year later because of rising unemployment and declining support from within her party.

1918:
The first regular airmail route in the United States opened between New York City and Washington, D.C.

1914:
Mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who, with Sir Edmund Hillary, was the first person to stand atop the summit of Mount Everest, was born in Tshechu, Tibet.

1886:
American poet Emily Dickinson died in Amherst, Massachusetts.

1885:
Louis Riel surrendered after leading two rebellions against the Canadian government in response to its efforts to assume the territorial rights of the Hudson's Bay Company in northwestern Canada.

1859:
Physical chemist Pierre Curie, cowinner (with his wife, Marie Curie) of the 1903 Nobel Prize for Physics, was born in Paris.

495:
On the Aventine Hill in Rome, the temple of the Roman god Mercury was dedicated.

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May 14

1948:
Declaration of Israel's independence.
Israel declared its independence this day in 1948 and was quickly recognized by the United States, the Soviet Union, and numerous other countries, fulfilling the Zionist dream of an internationally approved Jewish state.

1973:
Skylab, the first U.S. space station, was launched.
1804:
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark embarked from the American Midwest on their famous expedition to the Pacific coast of North America.

1796:
Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination against smallpox.

1771:
Robert Owen, a manufacturer-turned-reformer who was one of the most influential utopian socialists of the early 19th century, was born in Newtown, Wales.

1643:
Four-year-old Louis XIV ascended the throne of France.

1607:
The first permanent British settlement in North America was founded at Jamestown, Virginia.

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May 13

1846:
U.S. declaration of war on Mexico approved.
Tensions between Mexico and the United States—stemming from the U.S. annexation of Texas (1845)—led the U.S. Congress on this day in 1846 to approve overwhelmingly a declaration of war against its southern neighbour.

1993:
A methane gas explosion in a coal mine in Secunda, South Africa, claimed the lives of 50 miners.

1981:
Pope John Paul II survived an assassination attempt in Vatican City, in which he was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish national.

1960:
A Swiss expedition led by Max Eiselin reached the summit of Dhaulagiri in the Himalayas.

1950:
American musician Stevie Wonder, a child prodigy who developed into one of the most creative musical figures of the late 20th century, was born in Saginaw, Michigan.

1943:
The Somali Youth Club—a precursor to the Somali Youth League, which in 1960 helped to form Somalia's first independent government—was formed in Mogadishu.

1917:
Three children—Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto—reported seeing the Virgin Mary near Fátima, Portugal.

1871:
With the Law of Guarantees, the Italian government attempted to settle the question of its relationship with the pope, who had been deprived of his lands in the process of Italian national unification.