Category: Today

May 14

1097 – The Byzantine Siege of Nicaea, under control of moslem Turks since 1081, begins during the First Crusade.

1607 – James Fort, later Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony, the earliest permanent English settlement in the Americas.

1787 –Delegates to the Convention of the States begin to assemble in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation on James Phipps, the 8 year old son of his gardener.

1800 – The 6th United States Congress recesses, and the process of moving the U.S. Government from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., begins.

1804 – William Clark and 42 men depart from Camp Dubois in modern Illinois, to join Meriwether Lewis and form the “Corps of Discovery” at St. Charles, in modern Missouri, to begin an exploration up the Missouri River region of the Louisiana Purchase.

1836 – The Treaties of Velasco are signed in Velasco, Texas by Interim President David G. Burnet for Texas and Santa Anna for Mexico, concluding  hostilities between the two armies and beginning the first steps toward the official recognition of Texas’ independence from Mexico.

1878 – The last witchcraft trial in the United States begins in Salem, Massachusetts, with Lucretia Brown, an adherent of Christian Science, accusing Daniel Spofford of attempting to harm her through his mental powers.

1913 – Governor William Sulzer of New York  approves the charter for the Rockefeller Foundation, which begins operations with a $100 million donation from John D. Rockefeller.

1948 –  The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel which establishes a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, is declared by David Ben-Gurion in Tel-Aviv, to come into effect on termination of the League of Nations British Mandate for Palestine at midnight. Immediately after the declaration, Israel is attacked by the neighboring Arab states, triggering the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

1955 – 8 Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, sign a mutual defense treaty called the Warsaw Pact.

1973 – The Skylab space station is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

1988 – A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, hits a converted school bus carrying a church & youth group from 1st Assembly of God church in Radcliff, Kentucky, killing 27 of the 67 people aboard, becoming the impetus for MADD – Mothers Against Drunk Drivers – to be formed by the mothers of several of the victims.

2004 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4815, an Embraer EMB 120, crashes into the Amazon rainforest during approach to Eduardo Gomes International Airport in Manaus, Brazil, killing all 33 passengers and crew aboard.

2010 – Space Shuttle Atlantis launches on the STS-132 mission to deliver the first shuttle launched Russian ISS component –  Rassvet. 

2022 –  At a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, 10 people are killed and 3 wounded when shot by a teenage racist.

May 13

1501 – Amerigo Vespucci, this time under the Portuguese flag, sets sail on his second voyage to the west.

1780 – The Cumberland Compact, a foundation document of the Tennessee State Constitution, is signed by 256 of the settlers of the Cumberland River area, at Fort Nashborough, later Nashville, providing for democratic government and a formal system of justice.

1805 – Forces under Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli, attack U.S. Marines that had been holding the city of Derne for the past year, but are driven off, suffering heavy casualties.

1830 – Ecuador gains its independence from Gran Colombia.

1846 – Congress declares war on the Federal Republic of Mexico following the request from President Polk on the 11th.

1861 – Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a “proclamation of neutrality” which recognizes the Confederacy as having belligerent rights.

1888 – The Empire of Brazil abolishes slavery, passing the Lei Áurea, the ‘Golden Law’.

1940 –  Germany troops cross the Meuse river, beginning the conquest of France during World War II.

1948 – The day prior to the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the Kfar Etzion kibbutz in the ‘West Bank’ of Israel, is attacked and overran by forces of the Arab Legion who kill over 120 Haganah fighters and kibbutz residents.

1958 – During a visit to Caracas, Venezuela, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is attacked by anti-American demonstrators.

1980 – An F3 force tornado hits Kalamazoo County, Michigan, killing 5 people, injuring 79 more and causing $50,000,000 in damage.

1985 – Police bomb the MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia, killing 6 adults, 5 children, and destroying the homes of 250 city residents in the resulting fire.

1995 – Alison Hargreaves, 33, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of Sherpas.

2013 – Physician Kermit Gosnell is found guilty by a jury in Pennsylvania of murdering 3 infants born alive during attempted abortions, involuntary manslaughter of a woman during an abortion procedure, and 200 other counts including infanticide and racketeering. Waiving his right to appeal in exchange for an agreement by prosecutors not to seek the death penalty, he is sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

 

May 12

1551 – The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in the Americas, is founded in Lima, Peru.

1780 – In the largest defeat of the Continental Army, Charleston, South Carolina is taken by British forces.

1846 – The Donner Party of pioneers departs Independence, Missouri for California.

1865 – More than a month after General Robert E Lee surrendered his Confederate forces at Appomattox Court House, the last battle of the civil war begins at Palmito Ranch, east of Brownsville, Texas along the banks of the Rio Grande river, even though the commanders of both sides had been informed of the surrender.

1926 – On a flight from from Ny-Ålesund at Svalbard Norway, to Teller, Alaska, the Italian built dirigible Norge, piloted by Roald Amundsen, Lincoln Ellsworth and Umberto Nobile becomes the first aircraft to fly over the North Pole.

1932 – Ten weeks after his abduction, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of Charles Lindbergh, is found dead near Hopewell, New Jersey, just a few miles from the family home.

1933 – The Agricultural Adjustment Act, which restricted agricultural production through government purchase of livestock for slaughter and paying subsidies to farmers when they remove land from planting, is signed into law by President Roosevelt.

1942 – During World War II, the U.S. tanker SS Virginia is torpedoed in the mouth of the Mississippi River by the German submarine U-507.

1949 – Thwarted by the western nation’s continuous airlift of supplies to the city from the previous June, the Soviet Union lifts its failed blockade of Berlin.

1989 – A runaway Southern Pacific freight train derailment on Duffy Street in San Bernardino, California kills 4 people.

2002 – Former President Carter arrives in Cuba for a 5 day visit with Fidel Castro, becoming the first President, in or out of office, to visit the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

2003 – al Qaeda terrorists attack a foreign worker’s compound in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killing 26 people including 9 U.S. citizens.

2008 – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conduct the largest ever raid of a workplace in Postville, Iowa, arresting  398 illegal aliens.

2015 – An  Amtrak Northeast Regional train derailment in Philadelphia kills 8 people and injures more than 200.

May 11

1792 – After completing the first circumnavigation by an American, merchant sea captain Robert Gray commands the first expedition to sail up the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest

1846 – Following years of dispute over the annexation of the Republic of Texas and nearby territorial claims, President James K. Polk asks Congress for a Declaration of War against Mexico.

1865 – Confederate Brigadier General Meriwether Jeff Thompson surrenders at Jacksonport, Arkansas.

1858 – Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd state of the United States.

1889 – Carrying an Army payroll of over $28,000 in gold and silver from Fort Grant to Fort Thomas, Arizona, Major Joseph Wham and an escort of 11 soldiers of the 10th Cavalry Regiment are attacked by bandits who make off with the money after wounding most of the detail during a lengthy gun fight. Even so, 2 of the defending soldiers, Sergeant Benjamin Brown and Corporal Isaiah Mays are awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions under fire.

1900 – Fighting on Coney Island, James J. ‘The Boilermaker’ Jeffries KOs James J. ‘Gentleman Jim’ Corbett in 23 rounds to take the heavyweight boxing championship.

1910 – Glacier National Park in Montana is established by act of Congress.

1943 – During World War II, U.S. troops invade Attu Island in the Aleutian Islands in an attempt to expel occupying Japanese forces.

1945 – During World War II, while supporting invasion forces off the coast of Okinawa, despite massive screening anti-aircraft fire from the cruiser CL-64 USS Vincennes, the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill is hit by two Mitsubishi Zero fighters in a kamikaze attack, killing 393 sailors and airmen and wounding 264 more.

1949 – United Nations General Assembly Resolution 273 is adopted to admit the State of Israel to membership in the United Nations.

1953 – An F5 force tornado hits Waco Texas, killing 114 people and causing $39 million in damage, while an F4 force tornado hits San Angelo Texas, killing 13 people and causing $3.4 million in damage.

1960 – SS Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann is captured by the Mossad in Argentina and returned to Israel to stand trial on charges of committing war crimes for devising the Holocaust during World War II.

1970 – An F5 force tornado hits central Lubbock, Texas, killing 26 people and causing $250 million in damage.

1973 – Citing government misconduct, District Judge Judge William Matthew Byrne Jr, dismisses Daniel Ellsberg’s espionage charges for his involvement in releasing the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times.

1987 –SD Hauptsturmführer Klaus Barbie goes on trial in Lyon, France for World War II war crimes for deporting people in France to Death Camps in Poland and personally torturing prisoners.

1996 – ValuJet flight 592, a Douglas DC-9,  crashes in the Florida Everglades 10 minutes after departure from Miami, due to a fire started by improperly handled chemical oxygen generators in the cargo hold, killing all 110 passengers and crew on board.

1997 – Playing in New York City, the IBM Deep Blue chess playing supercomputer defeats Garry Kasparov in the last game of a rematch, becoming the first computer to beat a world champion level chess player in a classic match format.

2009 – Taken back to his unit after an argument is broken up at a counseling center in Camp Liberty, Baghdad, U.S. Army Sergeant John Russell returns and opens fire on fellow soldiers, killing 5 and wounding 3 before being subdued and later sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.

May 10th.

1497 – Amerigo Vespucci leaves Cádiz, Spain for his first voyage to the New World.

1503 – Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there.

1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company from bankruptcy, by reducing taxes on its tea and granting it the sole right to sell tea directly to North America. 7 months later, a group of colonists in Boston put on a Tea Party in the harbor in objection.

1775 – While the Second Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia,  Ethan Allen, his Green Mountain Boys, and other militia forces under the command of Benedict Arnold (yes, that Benedict Arnold) take Fort Ticonderoga, New York away from the British in early morning action.

1801 – After President Jefferson refuses to pay the tribute demanded by them, the Barbary pirates of the Ottoman province of Tripolitania declare war on the U.S.

1837 – New York City banks suspend the payment of specie (precious metal coin money), triggering a national banking crisis and an economic depression not surpassed until the Great Depression of the 1930s.

1849 –  A riot breaks out at the Astor Opera House in Manhattan, New York City over a dispute between actors Edwin Forrest and William Charles Macready, killing 22 people and injuring over 120 more.

1865 – In Spencer County, Kentucky, Union soldiers ambush and mortally wound Confederate partisan raider Captain William Quantrill, age 27, who lingers until dying on June 6, in Louisville.

1869 – The First Transcontinental Railroad, linking the eastern and western United States, is completed at Promontory Summit, Utah.

1876 – The Centennial Exposition is opened in Philadelphia.

1908 – Mother’s Day is observed for the first time in the U.S., in Grafton, West Virginia.

1920 – John Dean “Jeff” Cooper is born in Los Angeles, California

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed first Director of the Bureau of Investigation, remaining in office until his death in 1972.

1933 – In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

1940 – On the day that Germany invades France, Belgium and Luxembourg, Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after  Neville Chamberlain resigns.

1946 – Using the technical assistance of captured German scientists, the U.S. Army makes its first successful launch of an American V-2 rocket at White Sands Proving Ground.

1967 – Piloted by Bruce Peterson, the Northrop M2-F2 Lifting Body aircraft crashes on landing, becoming the inspiration for the Martin Caidin novel Cyborg and TV series, The Six Million Dollar Man.

1969 –The Battle of Dong Ap Bia during the Vietnam War begins with an assault on Hill 937 by troops of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill, becoming the inspiration for the movie of the same name.

1975 – Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder.

2002 – FBI agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Russia over a period of 22 years.

2005 – A hand grenade thrown by Vladimir Arutyunian lands about 60 feet from President Bush while he is giving a speech to a crowd in Tbilisi, Georgia, but it malfunctions and does not detonate.

2013 – One World Trade Center, the replacement for the destroyed World Trade Center complex in New York, is completed with its spire installed, to become the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

Today, May  9

1540 – Hernando de Alarcón sets sail from Acapulco with 2 ships, the San Pedro, and the Santa Catalina, later joined by the San Gabriel at St. Jago de Buena Esperanza, in Colima, to travel up the Gulf of California, explore the Baja California Peninsula and contact and resupply the overland expedition by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado.

1865 – Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest surrenders his forces at Gainesville, Alabama.

1926 – Admiral Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett fly over the North Pole.

1941 – The German submarine U-110 is captured by the Royal Navy. On board is the latest Enigma machine which Allied cryptographers later use to break coded German messages.

1955 – 4 Days after having its sovereignty returned and recognized by France, Britain and the United States, West Germany joins the NATO alliance.

1960 – The Food and Drug Administration announces it will approve birth control as an additional indication for Searle’s Enovid, making Enovid the world’s first approved oral contraceptive.

1974 – The House Committee on the Judiciary opens formal and public impeachment hearings against President Richard Nixon.

1979 – Iranian Jewish businessman Habib Elghanian is executed by firing squad in Tehran by the shiite moslem theocratic government, prompting the mass exodus of the Jewish community in Iran.

1980 – The Liberian freighter MV Summit Venture collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, causing a 1,400 foot long section of the southbound span collapse. 6 cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water killing 35 people in the vehicles.
In Norco, California, 5 masked gunmen hold up a Security Pacific bank, leading to a violent shoot out and one of the largest pursuits in California history. 2 of the gunmen and 1 police officer are killed and 33 police and civilian vehicles are destroyed in the chase.

2002 – A 38 day long stand off in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem comes to an end when the Palestinians inside agree to have 13 suspected terrorists among them deported to several different countries.

2020 – The COVID-19 recession causes the U.S. unemployment rate to hit 14.9 percent, its worst rate since the Great Depression.

2022 – President Joe Biden signs the 2022 Lend-Lease Act into law, a rebooted World War II era policy expediting American equipment to Ukraine and other Eastern European countries.

8 May

589 – Reccared I King of Hispania and Septimania, opens the 3rd Council of Toledo, marking the entry of Visigothic Spain into the Church.

1429 – Joan of Arc lifts the Siege of Orléans by the English, turning the tide of the Hundred Years’ War for the French.

1541 – On his travel of exploration, Conquistador Hernando de Soto stops near present day Walls, Mississippi before making the first documented crossing of the Mississippi River by a European.

1639 – William Coddington, a magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, leaves Boston due to a religious controversy, and founds Newport, Rhode Island.

1846 –  American forces led by Zachary Taylor defeat a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the Mexican–American War.

1877 – At Gilmore’s Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.

1886 – Pharmacist John Pemberton introduces a carbonated beverage named “Coca-Cola” as a patent medicine “…to ease ailments such as dyspepsia, headache, impotence, and morphine addiction.”

1912 – Famous Players Film Company  (later Paramount Pictures)  is founded by Adolph Zukor, Daniel Frohman and Charles Frohman in New York City.

1927 – Attempting to make the first non stop transatlantic flight from Paris to New York, French war heroes Charles Nungesser and François Coli disappear after taking off piloting a Levasseur PL.8-01 biplane L’Oiseau Blanc from Le Bourget Field in Paris.

1942 – The Battle of the Coral Sea during World War II comes to an end with Japanese Navy carrier aircraft attacking and sinking the U.S. Navy carrier USS Lexington.

1945 – VE – Victory in Europe DAY. Under terms of the surrender by Germany, the order for “all German military, naval and air authorities and to all forces under German control to cease active operations” takes effect.

1973 – A 71 day standoff between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota ends with the surrender of the militants.

1978 – Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler make the first ascent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.

1980 – After the last naturally occurring case of smallpox was diagnosed in 1977, the World Health Organization announces the eradication of the disease.

1988 – A fire at Illinois Bell’s Hinsdale Central Office triggers an extended 1AESS switch network outage, knocking out service to over 40,000 customers for 2 weeks.

 

May 7

558 – In Constantinople, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapses, 20 years after its construction. Roman Emperor Justinian I immediately orders that the dome be rebuilt.

1487 – King Ferdinand of Aragon besieges the Emirate of Granada’s port of Málaga with an army of 20,000 horsemen, 50,000 laborers, and 8,000 support troops during the Spanish Reconquista.

1664 – Louis XIV of France begins construction of the Palace of Versailles.

1718 – The city of New Orleans is founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville.

1763 – Pontiac’s War begins with Chief Pontiac’s attempt to seize Fort Detroit from the British.

1840 – The Great Natchez Tornado strikes Natchez, Mississippi killing 317 people.

1846 – Although now owned by the Gannett conglomerate, The Cambridge Chronicle, America’s oldest surviving weekly newspaper, is published for the first time in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1915 – Off the coast of southern Ireland, German submarine U-20 sinks the RMS Lusitania, killing 1,198 people, including 128 Americans.

1942 – During the Battle of the Coral Sea , U.S. Navy aircraft from carriers  Lexington and Yorktown attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shōhō; marking the first time in naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.

1945 – German Wehrmacht Generaloberst Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at 02:41 hours Central European Time at SHAEF Headquarters at Reims, France, ending Germany’s participation in world War II, taking effect the next day at 23:01 hours.

1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (now Sony) is founded.

1954 – The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat by the Viet Minh

1960 – Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers who had been shot down over Russia

1992 – Michigan votes to ratify the 27th Amendment, originally sent to the states in 1789, in the Bill of Rights as the original 2nd Article of Amendment, barring Congress from giving itself a mid-term pay raise.

1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for $40 billion and forms DaimlerChrysler in the largest industrial merger in history.

1999 – During the Kosovo War, 3 Chinese citizens are killed and 20 wounded when a NATO aircraft apparently inadvertently bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.

2004 – American businessman Nick Berg is beheaded by moslem terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq.

May 6

1536 – Incan forces under the command of Sapa Inca Manco Yupanqui, begin a near year long and ultimately failure of a siege in the attempt to retake the city of Cuzco from the Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernando Pizarro

1541 – King Henry VIII orders English language Bibles be placed in every church.

1835 – James Gordon Bennett, Sr. publishes the first issue of the New York Herald.

1861 – Arkansas secedes from the Union.

1863 – The Battle of Chancellorsville during the Civil War ends with the defeat of the Army of the Potomac by the Army of Northern Virginia.

1877 – Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota surrenders to U.S troops at the Red Cloud Indian Agency at Fort Robinson Nebraska near the modern town of Crawford.

1882 – President Chester Arthur signs the Chinese Exclusion Act into law, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1915 – Boston Red Sox Pitcher, George ‘Babe’ Ruth,  hits his first major league home run off New York Yankee Pitcher, Jack Warhop at the Polo Grounds field in New York City.

1935 – Under the authority of the newly enacted Federal Emergency Relief Administration, President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 7034 to create the Works Progress Administration.

1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg catches fire and is destroyed within 1 minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst, New Jersey killing 36 people.

1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel The Grapes of Wrath.

1941 – Lowry P. Brabham pilots the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt on its maiden flight at Farmingdale, New York.

1942 – Under siege since December of the previous year, U.S. forces finally surrender Corregidor island to the Japanese.

1945 – Axis Sally – American Mildred Elizabeth Gillars – delivers her last propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.

1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run the mile in under four minutes at Oxford University’s Iffley Road Track.

1998 – Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. unveils the first iMac computer.

2010 – Using a computer controlled trading program, British financial trader Navinder Singh Sarao causes the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index to crash nearly 1000 points, in less than 36 minutes, before recovering by the end of the day.

2013 – 1 of 3 women, kidnapped by Ariel Castro between 2002 and 2004, manages to escape with her daughter (born in captivity) and leads Police back to rescue the other 2 women held captive in a house in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

May 5

553 – Concerned with the rise of Nestorianism in the Church, the Second Council of Constantinople, called by Emperor Justinian I, convenes.

1215 – Rebel barons renounce their allegiance to King John of England  beginning a chain of events leading to the signing of Magna Carta.

1260 – Kublai Khan becomes the 5th Khagan emperor of Mongolia, and then decrees a stately pleasure dome be built in Xanadu.

1494 – On his 2nd voyage to New World, Christopher Columbus sights Jamaica, landing at Discovery Bay

1809 – Mary Kies becomes the first woman awarded a U.S. patent, for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread.

1821 – Napoleon dies in exile on the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean.

1862 – Mexican troops led by Ignacio Zaragoza halt a French invasion in the Battle of Puebla.

1865 – The government of The Confederate States of America is declared dissolved at Washington, Georgia.

1866 – Memorial Day is first celebrated at Waterloo, New York.

1877 – Sitting Bull leads his band of Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux into North- Western Territory  -now Saskatchewan- Canada to evade surrender to U.S. forces.

1893 – The financial Panic of 1893 causes a large crash on the New York Stock Exchange

1891 – The Music Hall in New York City (later Carnegie Hall) has its grand opening and first public performance with Pyotr Tchaikovsky as guest conductor.

1904 – Pitching against the Philadelphia Athletics at the Huntington Avenue Grounds in Boston, Cy Young of the Boston Americans throws the first perfect game – basically 9 innings with no batter from the opposing team reaching any base-  in the modern era of baseball.

1908 – Arthur Pickens riding aboard Stone Street wins the Kentucky Derby in 2 minutes, 15 1/5 seconds, setting a new, and to date unbeaten, record for the slowest winning time

1945 – A Fu-Go balloon bomb launched by the Japanese Army during World War II kills 6 people near Bly, Oregon.
Admiral Karl Dönitz, leader of Germany after Hitler’s death, orders all U-boats to cease offensive operations and return to their bases.

1946 – The International Military Tribunal for the Far East begins in Tokyo with 28 Japanese military and government officials accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

1955 – Under terms of The General Treaty, France, Britain and the United States return and recognize the sovereignty of West Germany.

1961 – Aboard Mercury Freedom 7, on a sub-orbital flight, Alan Shepard becomes the first American to travel into outer space.

1973 – Ron Turcotte aboard Secretariat wins the Kentucky Derby in 1 minute, 59 2/5th seconds, setting a new, and to date unbeaten, record for the fastest winning time

1987 – The Congressional  hearings on the Iran–Contra affair begin being televised.

1994 – American teenager Michael P. Fay is caned in Singapore for theft and vandalism.

2013– 5 members of a bridal party are killed after their limousine catches fire on the San Mateo-Hayward bridge in Hayward, California

2018 – The first death from a vaping product occurs when an electric cigarette explodes, penetrating his head and killing Tallmadge D’Elia, age 38, in his apartment in St. Petersburg, Florida,

May 4

1415 – Religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus are condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance in present day Germany.

1493 – Pope Alexander VI divides the New World between Spain and Portugal along the Line of Demarcation,  a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa, that will be later defined in the Treaty of Tordesillas

1626 – Dutch explorer Peter Minuit arrives in New Netherland, present day Manhattan Island, aboard the See Meeuw.

1776 – Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.

1871 – The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana with the Fort Wayne Kekiongas winning over the Cleveland Forest Citys, 2-0.

1886 – A bomb is thrown at policemen trying to break up a labor rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago, killing 12 people, 7 of which are police officers, and wounding 60 more.

1904 – The United States begins construction of the Panama Canal.

1927 – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated in Beverly Hills, California.

1932 – At United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, mobster Alphonse Capone begins serving an 11 year prison sentence for tax evasion.

1942 – During World War II, the Battle of the Coral Sea begins with an attack by aircraft from the carrier USS Yorktown on Japanese naval forces which had occupied Tulagi in the Solomon Islands the previous day.

1945 – During World War II, at Lüneburg Heath in northern Germany, Commander in Chief of the German navy Admiral Hans-Georg von Friedeburg and Colonel Fritz Poleck representing the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, sign surrender documents for all Wehrmacht units in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany.

1946 – At Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, San Francisco Bay, U.S. Marines stop a 2 day riot with 5 people killed.

1953 – Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.

1961 – U.S. Navy Commander Malcolm Ross and Lt. Commander Victor Prather attain a new altitude record for manned balloon flight, ascending in the Strato-Lab V open gondola to 113,740 feet over the Gulf of Mexico, while also testing a prototype pressure suit later used by Project Mercury astronauts. Commander Prather unfortunately drowns during helicopter recovery operations.

1970 – At Kent State University, Ohio, National Guard troops open fire on demonstrators protesting the Vietnam War, killing 4 students and wounding 9 others.

1972 – The “Don’t Make A Wave Committee”, an environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to the  “Greenpeace Foundation”.

1973 – The 108 story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet becoming the world’s tallest building at the time.

1982 – During the Falklands War, 20 Royal Navy sailors are killed when the British destroyer HMS Sheffield is hit by an Exocet missile fired from an Argentinian Super Étendard fighter aircraft.

1988 – Near Henderson, Nevada, several tons of Space Shuttle solid fuel detonate during a fire at the PEPCON chemical plant, killing 2 people, injuring over 370 more and causing over $100 million in damages.

1989 – As part of the Iran–Contra affair, former White House aide Lt. Colonel Oliver North USMC is convicted on 3 charges and acquitted of 9 others with the convictions later overturned on appeal.

1998 – A federal judge in Sacramento, California, sentences “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski to 4 life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty.

2003 – A supercell thunderstorm beginning in Oklahoma, spawning 86 tornados, enters southwest Missouri, with 1 tornado plastering the center of the town of Pierce City, traveling north of the town of Aurora and ending after going through and nearly destroying the center of the town of Battlefield along with several residential subdivisions, killing 5 people and another tornado hitting the town of Carl Junction before dissipating, killing 2 more people.

2007 – An EF5 tornado hits Greensburg, Kansas, destroying most of the town and killing 11 people.

May 3

1802 – Washington, D.C. is incorporated as a city after Congress abolishes the Board of Commissioners, the District’s founding government. The “City of Washington” is given a mayor-council form of government.

1855 – American adventurer William Walker mounts a private military expedition,  departing from San Francisco with 60 men to conquer Nicaragua.

1901 – The ‘Great Fire of 1901’ in Jacksonville, Florida begins when sparks from the chimney of a nearby building start a fire at the Cleaveland Fibre Factory, eventually burning down 146 city blocks and killing 7 people.

1921 – West Virginia becomes the first state to legislate a sales tax.

1942 – During World War II, Japanese naval troops invade Tulagi in the Solomon Islands during the first part of Operation Mo. 

1948 – In  the case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.

1951 – The Senate Committee on Armed Services and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations begin closed door hearings into the relief of General of The Army Douglas MacArthur by President Truman.

1952 – USAF Lieutenant Colonel Joseph O. Fletcher and William P. Benedict make the first landing of a U.S. plane at the North Pole..

1957 – Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers, agrees to move the team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

1968 – Braniff International Airways Flight 352, a Lockheed L-188 Electra, breaks up in midair after flying through a thunderstorm and crashes near Dawson, Texas, killing all 85 passengers and crew aboard.

1978 – The first unsolicited bulk commercial email , now known as “spam” is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.

1979 – Margaret Thatcher wins the United Kingdom general election becoming the first female British Prime Minister.

1999 – A tornado of the 1999 Oklahoma tornado outbreak, measured at the highest wind speed ever recorded of 301 mph, hits the southwestern portion of Oklahoma City, killing 45 people, injuring 665 more, and causing $1 billion in damage.

2000 – The sport of geocaching begins, with the first cache placed and the  GPS coordinates posted on Usenet.

2015 – Both gunmen who launch an attack on the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas,  barely make it out of their vehicle before being ignominiously gunned down in the street by an off duty Garland police officer, hired as a security guard.

May 2

1519 – Leonardo da Vinci, Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, dies, age 67, at the summer home of King Charles VIII, Château du Clos Lucé, Amboise, France.

1559 – John Knox returns from exile to Scotland to become the leader of the  Scottish Reformation.

1611 – The King James Version of the Bible is published for the first time in London, by printer Robert Barker.

1670 – King Charles II of England grants a permanent charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.

1863 – General Thomas ‘Stonewall’ Jackson is wounded by friendly fire while returning to camp after reconnoitering during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

1918 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.

1945 – The U.S. Army’s 8th and 82nd Airborne Divisions liberate Wöbbelin concentration camp, near Ludwigslust, Germany. finding around 1000 dead prisoners out of 4000 imprisoned there.
In southern Bavaria, a column of several hundred prisoners, en route from from Dachau to the Austrian border is halted by the U.S. Army’s  522nd Field Artillery Battalion.
The Soviet Union announces the fall of Berlin.

1964 – Viet Cong commandos from the 65th Special Operations Group mine and sink the American aircraft carrier USNS Card while it is docked at Saigon.

1982 – During the Falklands War, the British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror sinks the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano.

2000 – President Clinton announces that accurate GPS access would no longer be restricted to the U.S. military.

2011 – Special Warfare Operators of U.S. Navy Seal Team-6 assault a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks is suspected to be hiding, and kill him and several other Al Qaeda terrorist leaders

May 1

305 – Diocletian forces Maximian to abdicate, then abdicates himself, leaving Constantius, father of Constantine, and Galerius as the remaining Co-Emperors of both the eastern and western Roman Empire.

880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the architectural model for all later ‘cross in square’ Orthodox churches.

1328 – Under terms of the Treaty of Edinburgh–Northampton, ending the wars of Scottish independence,  England recognizes Scotland as an independent state.

1486 – Christopher Columbus presents his plans for discovering a western route to the Indies to the Spanish Queen Isabella I of Castile.

1707 – The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect, lasting until 1801, when Ireland was added to form the United Kingdom.

1865 – The Empire of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay sign the Treaty of the Triple Alliance.

1866 – The Memphis Race Riots begin. In 3 days, 46 blacks and 2 whites were killed. Reports of the riots influenced passage of the 14th amendment to the Constitution.

1885 – The original Chicago Board of Trade Building opens for business.

1886 – Rallies are held throughout the U.S. demanding the 8 hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which, May 1 is celebrated as International Workers’ Day in many countries.

1898 – In Manila Bay, Philippines, the Asiatic Squadron of the U.S. Navy completely destroys the Pacific Squadron of the Spanish Navy in 7 hours, with no American vessel losses or combat deaths.

1900 – An explosion at the Winter Quarters coal mine in Scofield, Utah kills over 200 men  in what is the 5th worst mining accident in United States history.

1915 – The RMS Lusitania departs from New York City on her 202nd crossing of the North Atlantic.

1919 – German Weimar Republic Army and Freikorps troops enter Munich to end the breakaway Bavarian Soviet Republic.

1930 – In the Lowell Observatory Observation Circular, astronomer Vesto Slipher officially proposes that a newly discovered dwarf planet be named “Pluto”.

1931 – The Empire State Building is dedicated in New York City.

1955 – The polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.

1960 – Flying a U-2  spy plane over the Sverdlovsk Oblast in west central Russia, pilot Francis Gary Powers is shot down and taken prisoner.

1961 – The Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, proclaims Cuba a socialist nation and abolishes elections.

1971 –  The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as “Amtrak” takes over operation of U.S. passenger rail service.

1978 – Naomi Uemura of Japan, travelling by dog sled, becomes the first person to reach the North Pole on a solo expedition.

1999 – Conrad Anker, of the Mallory and Irvine Research Expedition to Mount Everest, finds the body of British climber George Mallory, 75 years after he and his climbing partner, Andrew “Sandy” Irvine, disappeared in 1924. Nothing found yet could confirm if he and Irvine reached the summit.

2003 – On board USS Abraham Lincoln, off the coast of California, President George W. Bush declares that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended”.

April 30

311 – Under the Edict of Toleration by Emperor Galerius, the persecution of Christians under an edict of Emperor Diocletian is ended in the Eastern Roman Empire.

1492 – 13 days after acceding to his demands and granting him his titles, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella formally present Viceroy, Governor General and Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Don Christopher Columbus, his commission of exploration.

1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first President of the United States under the Constitution. In November 1781, John Hanson became the first President of the United States in Congress Assembled, under the Articles of Confederation.

1803 – The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million.

1812 – The Territory of Orleans becomes the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.

1885 – Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York’s first state park; Niagara Falls.

1900 – Hawaii becomes a territory of the United States.

1927 – The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opens in Alderson, West Virginia, the first women’s federal prison in the U.S.

1939 – NBC begins regular scheduled television broadcasting in New York City, televising President Roosevelt’s N.Y. World’s Fair opening day ceremonial address.

1943 – Completing Operation Mincemeat during World War II, British Royal Navy submarine HMS Seraph surfaces near Huelva, Spain to cast adrift a dead man dressed as a Royal Marine courier and carrying false invasion plans for Greece and Sardinia, as a ruse for the invasion of Sicily.

1945 – In the Führerbunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler takes cyanide and then blows his brains out with a pistol, while Eva Braun simply takes cyanide to commit suicide.

1947 – In Nevada, Boulder Dam is renamed Hoover Dam.

1948 – In Bogotá, Colombia, the Organization of American States is established.

1956 – Former Vice President, under President Truman, and Democratic Senator Alben Barkley collapses dies during a speech at the Washington and Lee university in Lexington,Virginia.

1973 – President Nixon announces that White House Counsel John Dean has been fired and that other top aides, H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, have resigned due to the Watergate Burglary scandal.

1975 – The U.S. completes a hasty evacuation of Saigon while Communist forces gain control of the city. The Vietnam War ends with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Dương Văn Minh.

1993 – CERN announces World Wide Web protocols will be free.

2012 – The unfinished One World Trade Center overtakes the Empire State building to become the tallest building in New York.

Today, April 29

1429 – Joan of Arc arrives to relieve the Siege of Orléans by the English.

1770 – Captain James Cook arrives in Australia at Botany Bay, which he names.

1861 – Maryland’s House of Delegates votes not to secede from the Union.

1945 – In the Führerbunker,  Adolf Hitler marries his longtime partner Eva Braun and designates Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor.
Near Munich, Dachau concentration camp is liberated by troops of the U.S. Army’s 42nd Infantry Division.

1946 – The International Military Tribunal for the Far East convenes and indicts former Prime Minister of Japan Hideki Tojo, and 28 former Japanese leaders for war crimes.

1953 – The first U.S. experimental 3D television broadcast shows an episode of Space Patrol on Los Angeles ABC affiliate KECA-TV.

1968 – The musical opera Hair opens at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway.

1975 – Beginning Operation Frequent Wind, the U.S. begins to evacuate U.S. citizens from Saigon before an expected North Vietnamese takeover.

1986 – The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Enterprise becomes the first nuclear powered aircraft carrier to transit the Suez Canal, navigating from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea to relieve the USS Coral Sea.

1992 – Following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King, riots break out over the city. Over the next 3 days, 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed. Armed South Korean merchants guarding their business premises from looters spawn the term “Roof Koreans”.

1997 – The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories. Several U.S. government chemical weapons depots from Colorado to Kentucky begin planning on how to safely dispose of their inventory which still continues to date.

2004 – The final Oldsmobile is built in Lansing, Michigan, ending 107 years of vehicle production.

2013 – National Airlines Flight 102, a Boeing 747-400 freighter aircraft, crashes during takeoff from Bagram Airfield in Parwan Province, Afghanistan, killing all 7 U.S. crew aboard.

2015 – A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all time and never to be beaten, low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests over an alleged incident of police brutality.

 

April 28

1788 – Maryland becomes the 7th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

1789 – Fletcher Christian leads a mutiny on HMAV Bounty, setting Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 sailors adrift and then returning briefly to Tahiti before sailing for Pitcairn Island.

1869 – Chinese and Irish laborers for the Central Pacific Railroad working on the First Transcontinental Railroad lay 10 miles of track in one day, a feat which has never been matched.

1881 – Billy the Kid escapes from the Lincoln County jail in Mesilla, New Mexico, killing Deputies J.W. Bell and Bob Olinger.

1930 – The minor league Independence Producers host the Muskogee Chiefs in the first night game in the history of professional organized baseball at Shulthis Stadium, in Independence, Kansas.

1944 –  Off the Slapton Sands coast in Devon, England, 9 German E-boats attack US and UK units during Exercise Tiger, the rehearsal for the Normandy landings, killing 746 service members and wounding 200 more.

1945 – An Italian Partisan firing squad summarily executes Benito Mussolini and his captured retinue in the village of Giulino di Mezzegra.

1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and crew set out from Callao, Peru on the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki to demonstrate that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

1952 – On the day General Of The Army Dwight D. Eisenhower resigns as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in order to campaign in the 1952 United States presidential election, the Treaty of San Francisco comes into effect, restoring Japanese sovereignty and ending its state of war with most of the Allies of World War II, while the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty (Treaty of Taipei) is signed in Taipei, Taiwan between Japan and the Republic of China to officially end the Second Sino-Japanese War.

1965 –  During the Dominican Civil War, U.S. diplomats request increased security forces to protect an evacuation. A battalion of U.S. Marines land at Haina and move to a hotel where 684 civilians are airlifted to the carrier USS Boxer.

1967 – Cassius ‘Muhammad Ali’ Clay refuses his induction into the U.S. Army and is subsequently stripped of his championship and boxing license.

1970 – President Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to operate in Cambodia during the Vietnam war.

1975 – General Cao Văn Viên, chief of the South Vietnamese military, departs for the US as the North Vietnamese Army closes in on Saigon.

1978 – The President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1986 – High levels of radiation resulting from the Chernobyl disaster are detected at a nuclear power plant in Sweden, forcing Soviet authorities to publicly announce the accident.

1988 – Near Maui, Hawaii, flight attendant Clarabelle “C.B.” Lansing is blown out of Aloha Airlines Flight 243, a Boeing 737, and falls to her death when part of the plane’s fuselage rips open in mid-flight, the only fatality of the incident.

1994 – Former CIA counterintelligence officer and analyst, Aldrich Ames pleads guilty to giving U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and later Russia and is sentences to life imprisonment without parole.

2004 – CBS News releases evidence of the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib military prison in Iraq.

April 27

711 – Moslem troops led by Tariq ibn Ziyad land at Gibraltar to begin their invasion of the Iberian Peninsula.

1521 – In the Philippines, Ferdinand Magellan is killed by natives on Mactan island.

1539 – Nikolaus Federmann and Sebastián de Belalcázar found the city of Bogotá, New Granada (now Colombia)

1667 – John Milton sells Paradise Lost to a printer for £10, so that it could be entered into the Stationers’ Register.

1813 – During the War of 1812, American troops capture York (now Toronto, Ontario) the capital of the colony of Upper Canada.

1861 – Claiming powers given by Article I, Section 9, Clause 2 of the Constitution, President Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus which is overruled a month later by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ex parte Merryman.

1945 – Benito Mussolini is arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting escape disguised as a German soldier.

1953 – The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff authorize Operation Moolah, which offers $50,000 to any pilot who defects with a fully mission capable MiG-15  to South Korea. The first pilot to defect would receive an additional $50,000. North Korean pilot Senior Lieutenant No Kum Sok, NKA (now Kenneth Rowe) later defects with his jet fighter on September 21st, after the armistice was signed, having not even heard of the reward offer.

1976 – American Airlines Flight 625, a Boeing 727 overruns the end of Runway 9 when landing at Harry S. Truman (now Cyril E. King) Airport in Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, killing 37 of the 88 passengers and crew aboard

1978 – In the deadliest construction accident in United States history, 51 construction workers are killed when a cooling tower under construction collapses at the Pleasants Power Station in Willow Island, West Virginia.

1981 – Xerox’ Palo Alto Research Center introduces the computer mouse.

2005 – The ‘superjumbo’ Airbus A380 aircraft is taken on its maiden test flight.

2006 – In New York City, construction begins on the Freedom Tower, later renamed One World Trade Center, to replace the 2 main towers that were destroyed on 9/11.

2007 – Israeli archaeologists discover the tomb of Herod the Great, south of Jerusalem.

2011 – A ‘Super Tornado Outbreak’ devastates parts the southeastern U.S., especially Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee with 360 tornadoes killing 348 people and injuring 3100 more.

2018 – The Panmunjom Declaration is signed between North and South Korea, officially declaring their intentions to end the Korean conflict.

April 26

1607 – The colonists of the Virginia Company, chartered by King James 1st of England, makes landfall at Cape Henry at the northeast end of modern day Virginia Beach, Virginia.

1777 – Sybil Ludington, aged 16, daughter of Westchester County, New York Colonel of Militia, Henry Ludington, makes an all night horseback ride over 40 miles to alert militia in the towns of Putnam County, New York, and Danbury, Connecticut, of the approach of British forces.

1805 – During the First Barbary War, a squad of 8 U.S. Marines under the command of First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, supported by 500 Arab mercenaries, capture Derna, Cyrenaica in modern day Libya.

1865 – Union cavalry troopers corner and shoot dead, John Wilkes Booth, in the barn of the farm of Richard H. Garrett, about 2 miles south of Port Royal, Virginia.

1933 – On the day the Gestapo, Geheime Staatspolizei, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established by Hermann Göring, Nazi Germany also issues the Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities limiting the number of Jewish students able to attend public schools and universities.

1945 –Filipino troops of the 66th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Commonwealth Army and troops of USA Forces In the Philippines-Northern Luzon and of the 33rd and 37th Infantry Divisions, U.S Army, are liberated from a prison camp at Baguio, Luzon and return to the fight against the Japanese forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.

1954 – The first clinical trials of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine begin in Fairfax County, Virginia.

1956– SS Ideal X, the world’s first successful container ship, leaves Port Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas.

1962 – NASA’s Ranger 4 photographic spacecraft suffers an onboard computer malfunction and crashes into the Moon.

1964 – Tanganyika and the island of Zanzibar merge to form Tanzania.

1981 – Dr. Michael R. Harrison of the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, performs the world’s first human open surgery on a fetus.

1986 – In the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, the No. 4 reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant explodes during a reactor test, rupturing the reactor core, causing an open air reactor core fire and releasing airborne radioactive contamination onto part of the Soviet Union and western Europe.

1991 – 55 tornadoes break out across Oklahoma and Kansas killing 21 people, with 17 of those in Andover, Kansas, by the only F5 tornado in the outbreak.

2012 – Indonesia suspends imports of American beef after a confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy  -“mad cow” disease – was discovered the day before in a dairy cow at the Baker Commodities rendering facility in Hanford, California

2018 – Identified through forensic genetic genealogy comparison on the personal genomics website GEDmatch, the arrest on 24 April of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. , a former police officer,  as the serial killer “Golden State Killer”, responsible for 12 murders and 50 rapes in California, is announced to the public.

April 25

1507 – German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller is first to use the name America on his world map “Universalis Cosmographia”

1792 – Highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier becomes the first person executed by guillotine.

1846 – Open conflict begins over the disputed border of Texas, triggering the Mexican–American War.

1859 – British and French engineers break ground for the Suez Canal.

1898 – Congress officially declares war on Spain effective from the 21st of the month.

1901 – New York becomes the first state to require automobile license plates.

1928 – Buddy, a German Shepherd, becomes the first guide dog for the blind for his master, Morris Frank, in New York, City

1938 – In the case of Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins, the Supreme Court rules that federal district courts in civil cases must apply the laws of the states in which they sit, not federal law, unless they conflict with federal law.

1945 – U.S. and Soviet troops meet in Torgau, Germany along the River Elbe, cutting through the middle of the Wehrmacht forces of Nazi Germany

1953 – In the April edition of the scientific journal Nature; English Biologist Francis Crick and American Biologist James Watson publish the article “Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid” describing the double helix structure of DNA.

1954 – The first practical solar photovoltaic power cell is publicly demonstrated at Bell Telephone Laboratories, in New Jersey.

1959 – The Saint Lawrence Seaway, linking the North American Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean, officially opens to shipping.

1960 – The U.S Navy submarine USS Triton completes the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

1961 – Fairchild Semiconductor founder Robert Noyce is granted a patent for an integrated circuit.

1982 – Israel completes its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula per the Camp David Accords.

1983 – American schoolgirl Samantha Smith is invited to visit the Soviet Union by its leader Yuri Andropov after he read her letter in which she expressed fears about nuclear war.

2001 – President George W. Bush pledges U.S. military support in the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

2011– 324 people are killed in the largest and deadliest tornado outbreak in the U.S. and Canada since the 1974 Super Outbreak.