This day in history.....

4-30-08


1789: George Washington is inaugurated as the first president of the United States in New York City.


1803: The United States more than doubles its size with the Louisiana Purchase, a vast territory bought from France for $15 million.


1812: The Territory of Orleans enters the Union as the 18th state, the state of Louisiana.


1939: Franklin D. Roosevelt is the first U.S. president to appear on television when NBC begins regular broadcasting with live coverage of the opening of the New York World's Fair.


1945: Refusing to surrender after Germany is defeated by Allied forces at the end of World War II, German dictator Adolf Hitler commits suicide in his Berlin bunker.


1975: The Vietnam War ends when Duong Van Minh, president of South Vietnam, surrenders unconditionally to North Vietnamese communist forces.
 
5-2-08


1519: Leonardo da Vinci, the great Italian scientist, sculptor, and painter of masterpieces such as the Mona Lisa, dies in France.


1670: England's King Charles II grants a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company, giving it a trading monopoly and control over the region around Hudson Bay in North America.


1863: During the American Civil War, Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson is accidentally shot by his own men at Chancellorsville, Virginia; he dies shortly after.


1945: Berlin surrenders to Russian Allied forces after they stormed the German capital during World War II; less than a week later, the war in Europe ends.


1994: South African President F. W. de Klerk concedes defeat and Nelson Mandela claims victory in the country's first multi-racial presidential election.
 
5-4-08


1865: President Abraham Lincoln is buried in Springfield, Illinois almost three weeks after he was assassinated in Washington, D.C.


1927: The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is founded in Hollywood.


1932: Notorious gangster Al Capone enters a federal penitentiary in Georgia to begin serving a sentence for tax evasion


1970: Four students are killed at Kent State University in Ohio when the National Guard opens fire during protests against America's involvement in the Vietnam War.


1979: Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher is sworn in as Britain's first female prime minister.


1989: Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North is convicted of obstruction of justice and destruction of documents in investigations into the Iran-Contra affair; the convictions are later overturned.
 
5-5-08


1821: Former French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.


1921: Chanel No. 5 perfume, created by perfumer Ernst Beaux for Coco Chanel, is launched. :nudge:


1925: Biology teacher John Scopes is arrested for teaching the theory of evolution, which is outlawed in Tennessee public schools; he is later convicted in the so-called "Monkey Trial."


1961: Astronaut Alan Shepard makes a 15-minute suborbital flight, becoming the first American to travel in space.

1981: Bobby Sands is the first of 10 Irish Republican Army hunger strikers to die in a Belfast prison; they were protesting their treatment as criminals rather than political prisoners.
 
5-6-08


1626: Dutch settler Peter Minuit allegedly purchases what is now New York's Manhattan Island from Native Americans for goods worth $24.


1915: In New York City, a left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox named Babe Ruth hits his first home run in major league baseball; he later becomes an outfielder.


1937: The German dirigible Hindenburg, the largest airship ever built, bursts into flames upon landing in New Jersey; 36 passengers and crew are killed.


1954: British athlete Roger Bannister is the first person to run a mile in under four minutes.


1994: The Channel Tunnel linking England to France officially opens; it is hailed as one of the century's greatest feats of civil engineering.
 
5-07-08


1847: The American Medical Association, a federation of state and territorial medical associations, is founded in Philadelphia.


1915: The British ship Lusitania is torpedoed by a German submarine off the Ireland coast; 1,198 people are killed, increasing sentiment in the United States to join World War I.


1945: German Nazi forces surrender unconditionally to U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower's army in Reims, France; the European phase of World War II officially ends the next day.


1960: Leonid Brezhnev becomes president of the Soviet Union.


1994: The masterpiece The Scream, by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch, is recovered undamaged nearly three months after it was stolen.
 
5-8-08


1429: During the Hundred Years' War, the siege of Orléans ends when French troops led by 17-year-old Joan of Arc drive the English from the city.


1794: Antoine Lavoisier, French scientist who is considered the founder of modern chemistry, is guillotined by the revolutionary authorities in Paris, France.

1886: Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invents a beverage he names Coca-Cola.

1945: V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day) officially goes into effect on the day after Germany surrendered unconditionally to Allied forces.


1967: World heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing to be inducted into the U.S. Army for religious reasons.


1973: Ending a 71-day siege, armed supporters of the American Indian Movement surrender to federal officials at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
 
5-11-08


1858: Minnesota becomes the 32nd state in the Union.


1949: Siam, in southeast Asia, changes its name to Thailand.


1981: Jamaican born reggae singer Bob Marley dies of cancer.


1997: IBM computer Deep Blue beats chess champion Garry Kasparov in a six-game series; it is the first time a computer beats an international grand master in a multigame match.

330: Constantinople becomes the new capital of the Roman Empire.
 
5-13-08

Dad gone 1 year.............:crying3:


1607: Jamestown, Virginia is founded; it is the first permanent English settlement in America.


1846: U.S. President James Polk signs a declaration of war on Mexico two months after fighting begins.


1918: The first U.S. airmail stamps, with a picture of an airplane and costing 24 cents, are introduced.


1940: In his first speech before the British House of Commons, new Prime Minister Winston Churchill rallies the country to war saying, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat."


1981: Pope John Paul II is shot in the Vatican's Saint Peter's Square; he recovers after weeks in the hospital.
 
5-17-08


1792: A group of brokers meeting at a coffee house in New York City organize the New York Stock Exchange. The first transactions are made under a tree on Wall Street.


1875: The first Kentucky Derby is held at Churchill Downs, Kentucky; racehorse Aristides is the winner. :horse:


1954: The U.S. Supreme Court reverses an 1896 ruling that education should be "separate but equal," ruling that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional.


1973: The U.S. Senate committee investigating Watergate begins its televised proceedings; allegations of wrongdoing in the affair lead to President Richard Nixon's resignation.:retard:
 
5-18-08


1804: Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed emperor of France by the Senate and Tribunate.


1860: Abraham Lincoln, a former Illinois state legislator, receives the Republican presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.


1896: In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that racial segregation is legal as long as "separate but equal" facilities are provided for whites and blacks.

1910: Halley's Comet is seen from earth as it passes in front of the sun; it appears every 76 years.


1980: Mount Saint Helens volcano in Washington state erupts, causing an outbreak of fires, mudslides, and floods; 57 people die in the largest eruption in U.S. history.
 
5-19-08


1536: Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, is beheaded in the Tower of London after she was convicted of adultery. :behead:


1643: Representatives from four New England colonies meet in Boston to form a military alliance.


1900: The Tonga Islands are made a British protectorate; they become an independent nation in 1970.


1935: T. E. Lawrence, the British soldier and adventurer known as Lawrence of Arabia, dies in England from a motorcycle accident.


1967: The Soviet Union, Great Britain, and the United States ratify a treaty banning nuclear weapons in space.
 
5-20-08


1506: Christopher Columbus dies in poverty in Spain.


1861: North Carolina votes to secede from the Union and join the Confederate States of America.


1927: U.S. aviator Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York in his single-engine aircraft Spirit of St. Louis heading to Paris, France; it is the first nonstop solo transatlantic flight.


1969: U.S. and South Vietnamese troops capture Hamburger Hill after one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.


1980: In a referendum, the largely French-speaking province of Québec votes to remain part of Canada.
 
5-25-08


1787: The Constitutional Convention, presided over by George Washington, opens in Philadelphia to establish a new U.S. Constitution.


1793: In Baltimore, Maryland Father Stephen Theodore Badin is the first Roman Catholic priest ordained in the United States.


1935: American track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens breaks or ties six world records in less than an hour at the Big Ten Championship in Ann Arbor, Michigan.


1963: The Organization of African Unity is founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the goal of promoting continental peace and cooperation.


1977: The science fiction film Star Wars, directed by George Lucas, is released.
 
5-27-08


1647: The first recorded execution of a witch in America takes place in Massachusetts. :evileek:


1937: The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, opens; at the time of its completion, it is the longest suspension bridge in existence.


1994: Nobel Prize-winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn returns to live in his native Russia after 20 years in exile.


1996: Russian President Boris Yeltsin signs a truce with Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, leader of the breakaway state of Chechnya, although fighting continues on both sides.
 
5-30-08


1431: After being captured by Burgundian troops and then handed over to English troops, French military leader Joan of Arc is burned as a heretic in Rouen, France.


1783: The Pennsylvania Evening Post and Daily Advertiser is the first daily newspaper to be published in the United States.


1911: Ray Harroun wins the first Indianapolis 500 automobile race.


1971: The U.S. space probe Mariner 9 was launched on its mission to Mars; it becomes the first artificial satellite of another planet when it orbits Mars the following November.:aheadbng:
 
5-31-08


1790: President George Washington signs the first U.S. copyright act into law.


1889: Over 2000 people die when the South Fork Dam breaks, flooding the city of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.


1961: South Africa becomes an independent republic and withdraws from the Commonwealth of Nations.


1962: Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann is hanged by the State of Israel for his role in the extermination of millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

1994: The United States announces that it is no longer aiming long range nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union.
 
6-1-08


1792: Kentucky becomes the 15th state in the Union.


1796: Tennessee enters the U.S. as the 16th state.


1813: In the War of 1812, naval commander James Lawrence, fatally wounded, tells his men "to fire faster and not to give up the ship," the source of the motto "Don't give up the ship."


1831: British Arctic explorer John Ross and his nephew James Clark Ross become the first Europeans to reach the magnetic north pole, on the Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada.


1925: Baseball player Lou Gehrig pinch hits for Pee Wee Wanninger, beginning his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.


1938: Action Comics #1 is released, the first comic book featuring the Superman character created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel.
 
6-3-08


1937: American divorcee Wallis Simpson weds the Duke of Windsor, formerly Edward VIII, who had abdicated the British throne to marry her.

1948: The Hale telescope, the largest telescope in the world at the time, is dedicated at Mount Palomar Observatory in California.

1959: Singapore gains its independence from Britain, becoming a self-governing state in the Commonwealth of Nations.


1968: Valerie Solanas, an actor and author of the SCUM Manifesto, a pamphlet denouncing men, shoots and wounds artist Andy Warhol at his New York studio.


1989: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic revolution, dies, sending millions of Iranians into the streets in mourning.


1999: Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic agrees with NATO leaders on a peace plan that calls for the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo.
 
6-6-08


1703: Work begins on the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, meant by Tsar Peter I (the Great) to be a “window on Europe.”


1884: The group of Republican Party dissidents known as the Mugwumps leaves the party convention, refusing to support its nominee for president, James G. Blaine.

1925: Under Walter P. Chrysler, a former General Motors executive, the Maxwell Motor Corporation becomes the Chrysler Corporation.

1944: In the largest seaborne invasion in history, known as D-Day, over 120,000 Allied troops land on the beaches of Normandy in German-occupied northern France.


1978: California voters overwhelmingly approve Proposition 13, which cuts local property taxes by more than two-thirds, sending many local governments into financial crisis.


1984: The Indian army attacks the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, killing hundreds of Sikh separatists headquartered there. Four months later, outraged Sikhs assassinate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
 
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