On This Day In History
May 17th
1527 Pánfilo de Narváez departs Spain to explore Florida with 600 men – by 1536 only 4 survive
1792 24 merchants form New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street
1803 John Hawkins & Richard French patent the Reaping Machine
1973 Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings
2004 Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage
2014 The center-right Hindu Nationalist Party, the BJP, wins landslide election victory in India
Did You Know?
World Health Organization takes homosexuality out of its list of mental illnesses
Today in History in 1990
Would You Believe?
Fidel Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers
Today in History in 1961
May 18th
1291 After 100 years of Crusader control, Acre is the last Crusader stronghold reconquered and destroyed by the Mamluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate
1896 Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field, Moscow, during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II, results in the deaths of 1,389 people
1974 India becomes the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb
2009 Sri Lankan Civil War: The LTTE are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.
Did You Know?
US, USSR and other nations sign the Environmental Modification Convention which prohibits weather warfare having widespread, long-lasting or severe effects
Today in History in 1977
Would You Believe?
Roman Emperor Constantine the Great institutes free daily bread rations in Constantinople
Today in History in 332