Monday, May 18, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 18

Today in History
May 18

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




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

Friday, May 15, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 15

Today in History
May 15

756 Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.
1213 King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.
1602 English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.
1614 An aristocratic uprising in France ends with treaty of St. Menehould.
1618 Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.
1702 The War of Spanish Succession begins.
1730 Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.
1768 By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.
1795 Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.
1820 The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.
1849 Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.
1862 The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
1864 At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.
1886 Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.
1916 U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.
1918 Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France's highest military medal.
1930 Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.
1942 The United States begins rationing gasoline.
1958 Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.
1963 The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.
1968 U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.
1972 George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.
1975 The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.
1988 Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.




Born on May 15
1773 Prince Clemens Von Metternich, Chancellor of Austria.
1856 Lyman Frank Baum, author (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz).
1858 Emily Folger, Shakespeare scholar.
1859 Pierre Curie, physicist.
1860 Ellen Louise Axson Wilson, first wife of President Woodrow Wilson.
1890 Katherine Anne Porter, novelist (Ship of Fools).
1891 Mikhail Bulgakov, Russian novelist (Notes of a Dead ManHeart of a Dog).
1902 Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago through the 1960s and early 1970's.
1923 Richard Avedon, photographer.
1926 Anthony Shaffer, English playwright (Sleuth), twin brother of Peter Shaffer.
1926 Peter Shaffer, English playwright (EquusAmadeus), twin brother of Anthony Shaffer.
1930 Jasper Johns, Jr., painter, leader of the Pop Art movement.

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Thursday, May 14, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 14

Today in History
May 14

1264 King Henry III is captured by his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, at the Battle of Lewes.
1509 At the Battle of Agnadello, the French defeat the Venitians in Northern Italy.
1610 French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) is assassinated by François Ravillac, a fanatical monk.
1796 English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful smallpox vaccination.
1804 Explorer William Clark sets off from St. Louis, Missouri.
1853 Gail Borden applies for a patent for condensed milk.
1863 Union General Nathanial Banks heads towards Port Hudson along the Mississippi River.
1897 Guglielmo Marconi sends first communication by wireless telegraph.
1897 "Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Phillip Sousa is performed for the first time in Philadelphia.
1935 A plebiscite in the Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.
1940 Holland surrenders to Germany.
1942 The British Army, in retreat from Burma, reach India.
1948 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion establishes the State of Israel.
1961 A bus carrying black and white civil rights activists is bombed and burned in Alabama.
1969 Three companies of the 101st Airborne Division fail to push North Vietnamese forces off Hill 937 in South Vietnam.
1973 The U.S. space station Skylab is launched.
1991 In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a fourth.



Born on May 14
1533 Margaret of Valois, queen consort of Navarre.
1686 Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit, German physicist, instrument maker, inventor of the thermometer.
1727 Thomas Gainsborough, painter ("Blue Boy").
1771 Thomas Wedgwood, English physicist, photography pioneer.
1897 Sidney Bechet, jazz clarinetist and soprano saxaphone player.
1933 Richard P. Brickner, novelist (The Broken Year).
1944 George Lucas, film director and producer (Star Wars).
1946 Robert Jarvik, American physician

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 13

Today in History
May 13

1607 English colonists land near the James River in Virginia.
1648 Margaret Jones of Plymouth is found guilty of witchcraft and is sentenced to be hanged.
1779 The War of Bavarian Succession ends.
1846 The United States declares war on Mexico after fighting has already begun.
1861 Britain declares its neutrality in the American Civil War.
1864 The Battle of Resaca commences as Union General Sherman fights towards Atlanta.
1888 Slavery is abolished in Brazil.
1912 The Royal Flying Corps is established in England.
1913 Igor Sikorsky flies the first four-engine aircraft.
1944 Allied forces in Italy break through the German Gustav Line into the Liri Valley.
1958 French troops take control of Algiers.
1968 Peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam begin in Paris.
1981 Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt.



Born on May 13
1729 Henry William Stiegel, early American glassmaker.
1842 Sir Arthur Sullivan, composer, collaborator with W.S. Gilbert.
1857 Ronald Ross, bacteriologist.
1907 Daphne du Maurier, author (Rebecca).
1912 Gil Evans, jazz pianist and composer.
1914 Joe Louis, world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949.
1940 Bruce Chatwin, travel writer (Patagonia).


1958 BRENDA AURORA VERNA YSAGUIRRE, poet, author, blogger, educator, co-founder of SUPERMAMA, a Non Profit Organization

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 12

Today in History
May 12
254 St. Stephen I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1588 King Henry III flees Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly enters the city.
1641 The chief advisor to Charles I, Thomas Wentworth, is beheaded in the Tower of London
1780 Charleston, South Carolina falls to British forces.
1851 The Tule River War ends.
1863 With a victory at the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant closes in on Vicksburg.
1864 Union General Benjamin Butler attacks Drewry's Bluff on the James River.
1865 The last land battle of the Civil war occurs at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory.
1881 Tunisia, in North Africa become a French protectorate.
1885 In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebel against the Canadian government.
1926 The Airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
1932 The body of Charles Lindbergh's baby is found.
1935 Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio by "Bill W.," a stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.," a heart surgeon.
1940 The Nazi conquest of France begins with the crossing Muese River.
1942 The Soviet Army launches its first major offensive of the war, taking Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine.
1943 Axis forces in North Africa surrender.
1949 The Berlin Blockade ends.
1969 Viet Cong sappers try unsuccessfully to overrun Landing Zone Snoopy in Vietnam.
1975 The U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez is seized by Cambodian forces.




Born on May 12
1812 Edward Lear, poet, painter and the youngest of 21 children.
1816 Edmund Beckett Grimthorpe, lawyer and architect.
1820 Florence Nightingale, English nurse and hospital reformer.
1828 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, English poet and painter.
1907 Katherine Hepburn, actress (The Philadelphia StoryThe African Queen).
1915 Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
1921 Farley Mowat, Canadian nature writer (Never Cry Wolf).
1925 Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), baseball player and coach.
1933 Andrey Andreyevich Voznesensky, Russian poet.
1936 Tom Snyder, newscaster and television host.
1936 Frank Stella, painter.

Monday, May 11, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 11

Today in History
May 11

1573 Henry of Anjou becomes the first elected king of Poland.
1689 French and English navies battle at Bantry Bay.
1690 In the first major engagement of King William's War, British troops from Massachusetts seize Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.
1745 French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.
1792 The Columbia River is discovered by Captain Robert Gray.
1812 British prime Minster Spencer Perceval is shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.
1857 Indian mutineers seize Delhi.
1858 Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi lands at Marsala, Sicily.
1862 Confederates scuttle the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.
1864 Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern.
1960 Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.
1967 The siege of Khe Sanh ends, the base is still in American hands.



Born on May 11
1885 "King" Joseph Oliver, jazz cornetist and bandleader.
1888 Irving Berlin, composer, writer of over 1,500 songs.
1894 Mari Sandoz, writer and biographer (Crazy Horse).
1895 William Grant Still, American composer and conductor.
1904 Salvador Dali, surrealist painter.
1912 Phil Silvers, comedian and actor.
1918 Richard Feynman, theoretical physicist.
1930 Stanley Elkin, author (George Mills).
1933 Louis Farrakhan, American religious leader.

Sunday, May 10, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 10

Today in History
May 10
1285 Philip III of Spain is succeeded by Philip IV ("the Fair").
1503 Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands.
1676 Bacon's Rebellion begins in the New World.
1773 To keep the troubled East India Company afloat, Parliament passes the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the American colonies.
1774 Louis XVI succeeds his father Louis XV as King of France.
1775 American troops capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
1794 Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, is beheaded.
1796 Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
1840 Mormon leader Joseph Smith moves his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.
1857 The Bengal Army in India revolts against the British.
1863 General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson succumbs to illness and wounds received during the Battle of Chancellorsville.
1865 Union cavalry troops capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irvinville, Georgia.
1869 The Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah.
1859 French emperor Napoleon III leaves Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for U.S. president.
1917 Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic.
1924 J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1928 WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming.
1933 Nazis begin burning books by "unGerman" writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.
1940 German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line.
1940 Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.
1941 England's House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs.
1960 The USS Nautilus completes first circumnavigation of globe underwater.
1994 Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa's first black president.



Born on May 10
1730 George Ross, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1813 Montgomery Blair, lawyer.
1838 John Wilkes Booth, actor, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln.
1886 Karl Barth, Swiss theologian.
1899 Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer and actor.
1902 David O. Selznick, film producer (Gone with the WindRebecca).
1908 Carl Albert, U.S. politician.
1920 Richard Adams, English novelist (Watership Down).
1937 Arthur Kopit, American playwright.
1944 Judith Jamison, American ballerina

Saturday, May 9, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 9


Today in History
May 9
1502Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to the New World.
1754The first newspaper cartoon in America appears.
1813U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison take Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.
1864Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist–"
1859Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreats across the River Sesia in Italy.
1915German and French forces fight the Battle of Artois.
1926Explorer Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole.
1936Fascist Italy captures the city of Addis Abba, Ethiopia and annexes the country.
1941The German submarine U-110 is captured at sea along with its Enigma machine by the Royal Navy.
1946King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicates his throne and is replaced by Umberto.
1962A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.
1974The House Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment.



Born on May 9
1800John Brown, abolitionist.
1844Belle Boyd, Confederate spy.
1860James Mathew Barrie, writer (Peter PanThe Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up).
1873Howard Carter, British archaeologist.
1882Henry J. Kaiser, shipbuilder.
1906Eleanor Estes, children's author.
1921Mona van Duyn, American poet laureate.
1934Alan Bennett, British playwright and screenwriter (The Madness of King George III).
1936Albert Finney, British actor (Murder on the Orient ExpressTom Jones).
1936 Brenda Angela Ysaguirre, loving aunt, Arts and Craft Aficionado

Friday, May 8, 2015

What Happened This Day In History May 8

Today in History
May 8
1450Jack Cade's Rebellion–Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1541Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo.
1559An act of supremacy defines Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.
1794The United States Post Office is established.
1846The first major battle of the Mexican War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas.
1862General 'Stonewall' Jackson repulses the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the Shenendoah Valley.
1864Union troops arrive at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Confederates waiting for them.
1886Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.
1895China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki.
1904U.S. Marines land in Tangier, North Africa, to protect the Belgian legation.
1919The first transatlantic flight by a navy seaplane takes-off.
1933Hahatma Gandhi begins a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1940German commandos in Dutch uniforms cross the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.
1942The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends.
1945The final surrender of German forces is celebrated as VE (Victory Europe) day.
1952Allied fighter-bombers stage the largest raid of the war on North Korea.
1958President Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.
1967Boxer Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.
1984The Soviet Union announces it will not participate in Summer Olympics planned for Los Angeles.
1995Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.


Born on May 8
1668Alain Rene Lesage, French writer (The Adventures of Gil BlasTurcaret).
1753Miguel Hidalgo, Mexican nationalist.
1828Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss philanthropist, founder of the Red Cross and YMCA, first recipient (jointly) of the Nobel Peace Prize.
1829Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist.
1884Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953).
1895Edmund Wilson, American critic and essayist.
1906Roberto Rossellini, Italian film director.
1910Mary Lou Williams, jazz pianist and composer.
1920Sloan Wilson, American author (The man in the Gray Flannel SuitA Summer Place).
1928Theodore Sorenson, advisor to John F. Kennedy.
1930Gary Snyder, beat poet.
1937Thomas Pynchon, novelist (Gravity's Rainbow).
1940Peter Benchley, novelist (JawsThe Deep).
1952Beth Henley, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Crimes of the Heart).

Thursday, May 7, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 7

Today in History
May 7
558 The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapses. Its immediate rebuilding is ordered by Justinian.
1274 The Second Council of Lyons opens in France to regulate the election of the pope.
1429 Joan of Arc breaks the English siege of Orleans.
1525 The German peasants' revolt is crushed by the ruling class and church.
1763 Indian chief Pontiac begins his attack on a British fort in present-day Detroit, Michigan.
1800 Congress divides the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part will becomes the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remains the Northwest Territory.
1824 Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" premiers in Vienna.
1847 The American Medical Association is formed in Philadelphia.
1862 Confederate troops strike Union troops at the Battle of Eltham's Landing in Virginia.
1864 The Battle of Wilderness ends with heavy losses to both sides.
1877 Indian chief Sitting Bull enters Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn.
1915 The German submarine U-20 torpedoes the passenger ship Lusitiania, sinking her in 21 minutes with 1,978 people on board.
1937 The German Condor Legion arrives in Spain to assist Fransico Franco's forces.
1942 In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attack each other with carrier-launched warplanes. It is the first time in the history of naval warfare where two fleets fought without seeing each other.Two crucial battles in 1942 marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
1943 The last major German strongholds in North Africa–Tunis and Bizerte–fall to Allied forces.
1945 Germany signs an unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II in Europe.
1952 In Korea, Communist POWs at Koje-do riot against their American captors.
1954 French troops surrender to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu.
1958 Howard Johnson sets an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
1960 Leonid Brezhnev becomes president of the Soviet Union.


Born on May 7
1812 Robert Browning, English poet.
1833 Johannes Brahms, German composer.
1840 Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer.
1870 Marcus Loew, film executive, consolidated studios to create MGM.
1892 Josip Broz [Tito], leader of Yugoslavia during after World War II.
1892 Archibald MacLeish, American poet and statesman.
1901 Gary Cooper, film actor (High NoonFriendly Persuasion).
1909 Edwin Herbert Land, inventor of the Poloroid Land Camera.
1919 Eva (Evita) Perón, first lady of Argentina.
1932 Jenny Joseph, English poet and novelist (The Thinking HeartThe Inland Sea).
1943 Peter Carey, Australian writer (IllywhackerOscar and Lucinda).

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 6

Today in History
May 6
1527 German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed.
1529 Babur defeats the Afgan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.
1682 King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France.
1856 U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.
1861 Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union.
1862 Henry David Thoreau dies of tuberculosis at age 44.
1864 In the second day of the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.
1877 Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska.Crazy Horse brought General Custer to his end.
1937 The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
1941 Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California's March Field.
1942 General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor to the Japanese.
1944 The Red Army besieges and captures Sevastopol in the Crimea.
1945 Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
1954 British runner Roger Banister breaks the four minute mile.
1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1962 The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine.
1994 The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.
Born on May 6
973 Henry II, Holy Roman emperor.
1740 John Penn, signer of the Declaration of Independence.
1758 Maximilien Robespierre, French revolutionary.
1840 Frederick William Stowe, son of the Harriet Beecher Stowe.
1856 Robert Edward Peary, arctic explorer and the first man to reach the North Pole.
1856 Sigmund Freud, Austrian neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis.
1868 Gaston Leroux, French novelist (The Phantom of the Opera).
1888 Russell Stover, candy manufacturer.
1895 Rudolph Valentino, actor, film icon.
1902 Max Ophuls, film director (La RondeLola Montes).
1915 Orson Welles, actor, director, and writer (Citizen Kane).
1931 Willie Mays, baseball player.
1942 Ariel Dorfman, Chilean writer (Death and the Maiden).

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 5

Today in History
May 5
1494 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.
1814 British attack the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.
1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.
1834 The first mainland railway line opens in Belgium.
1862 Union and Confederate forces clash at the Battle of Williamsburg, part of the Peninsula Campaign.Eyewitness to War
1862 Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.
1865 The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.
1886 A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers' strike in Chicago.
1912 Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing.
1916 U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
1917 Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earns a flying certificate with the French Air Service.
1920 Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Visetti are arrested for murder.
1935 American Jesse Owens sets the long jump record.
1942 General Joseph Stilwell learns that the Japanese have cut his railway out of China and is forced to lead his troops into India.
1945 Holland and Denmark are liberated from Nazi control.
1961 Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.
1968 U.S. Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam in support of attacking infantrymen.
Born on May 5
1813 Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher.
1818 Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist ManifestoDas Kapital).
1830 John B. Stetson, American hat maker.
1861 Peter Cooper Hewitt, electrical engineer, inventor of the mercury-vapor lamp.
1883 Charles Albert "Chief" Bender, baseball player.
1890 Christopher Morley, writer (Kitty Foyle).
1899 Freeman F. Gosden, radio comedy writer and performer (Amos 'n' Andy).
1909 Carlos Baker, biographer.
1943 Michael Palin, actor and screenwriter (Monty Python's Flying Circus).

Monday, May 4, 2015

What Happened This Day In History - May 4

Today in History
May 4
1471 In England, the Yorkists defeat the Landcastians at the battle of Tewkesbury.
1626 Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
1715 A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
1776 Rhode Island declares independence from England.
1795 Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
1814 Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee's Confederate army.
1927 A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
1930 Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
1942 The United States begins food rationing.
1961 13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
1970 Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.
Born on May 4
1796 Horace Mann, educator and author.
1820 Joseph Whitaker, bookseller and publisher (Whitaker's Almanac)
1825 Thomas Henry Huxley, British biologist.
1827 John Hanning Speke, English explorer.
1874 Frank Conrad, electrical engineer and broadcasting pioneer.
1884 Agnes Fay Morgan, American nutritionist and biochemist.
1928 Thomas Kinsella, Irish poet.
1929 Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Rusten), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.
1939 Amos Oz, Israeli novelist (The Black BoxTheThird State).
1949 Graham Swift, British novelist (The Sweet Shop OwnerOut of this World).

Sunday, May 3, 2015

WHAT HAPPENED TODAY IN HISTORY - MAY 3RD

Today in History
May 3
495 Pope Gelasius asserts that his authority is superior to Emperor Enanstasius.
1568 French forces in Florida slaughter hundreds of Spanish.
1855 Macon B. Allen becomes the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
1859 France declares war on Austria.
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville rages for a second day.
1865 President Lincoln's funeral train arrives in Springfield, Illinois.
1926 U.S. Marines land in Nicaragua.
1952 The first airplane lands at the geographic North Pole.
1968 After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retake Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese have evacuated the area.
1971 James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, is caught in a jail break attempt.
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman prime minister of Great Britain.
1982 A British submarine sinks Argentina's only cruiser during the Falkland Islands War.
Born on May 3
1469 Niccol Machiavelli, political advisor and writer (The Prince).
1849 Jacob Riis, American reformer (How the Other Half Lives).
1898 Golda Mier, Fourth Prime Minister of Israel (1969-1974).
1903 Bing [Harry Lillis] Crosby, singer and actor. Various dates given for his birth date.
1912 May Sarton, poet and writer.
1913 William Inge, American playwright (PicnicBus Stop).
1919 Betty Compden, lyricist.
1919 Pete Seeger, folksinger and songwriter.
1920 John Lewis, jazz pianist.
1920 Walker Smith, Jr. (Sugar Ray Robinson), champion middleweight boxer.
1933 James Brown, American singer and songwriter.