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
May 19th
1536 Anne Boleyn, second wife of English King Henry VIII, is beheaded at the Tower of London on charges of adultery, incest and treason
1643 Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Harbor form the United Colonies of New England
1649 England is declared a Commonwealth by an act of the Rump Parliament making England a republic for the next 11 years
1885 German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck takes possession of Cameroon and Togoland
1898 US Congress passes the Private Mailing Card Act, allowing private publishers and printers to produce postcards, had to be labelled “Private Mailing Cards” until 1901, known as “souvenir cards”
1919 Mustafa Kemal Atatürk lands at Samsun on the Black Sea coast, beginning the Turkish War of Independence
Did You Know?
About midday, near-total darkness descends on New England, now known to be caused by forest fires in Canada
Today in History in 1780
Would You Believe?
World’s youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, 17, graduates Mount Sinai
Today in History in 1995
May 20th
1498 Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at Calicut, India becoming the first European to reach India by sea
1609 Shakespeare‘s Sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by publisher Thomas Thorpe
1862 US President Abraham Lincoln signs into law the Homestead Act to provide cheap land for the settlement of the American West (80 million acres by 1900)
1864 Spotsylvania campaign in US Civil War ends after 10,920 killed or injured
1927 At 7:40 AM, Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris, aboard Spirit of St Louis in the 1st solo nonstop transatlantic flight
1927 Treaty of Jeddah is signed between the United Kingdom and Ibn Saud recognizing the independence of the Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd
1990 Hubble Space Telescope sends its 1st photographs from space
Did You Know?
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis patent the first blue jeans with copper rivets
Today in History in 1873
Would You Believe?
The six ton chandelier of the Palais Garnier opera house in Paris falls on the crowd resulting in the death of one and the injury of many others
Today in History in 1896
May 21st
1792 Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption
1832 1st US Democratic National Convention held in Baltimore
1871 -July 28] French regular troops attack Commune of Paris; 17,000 die
1927 Aviator Charles Lindbergh, in the Spirit of St Louis, lands in Paris after the first solo air crossing of Atlantic
1932 After flying for 17 hours from Newfoundland, Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, becoming the 1st transatlantic solo flight by a woman
Did You Know?
All My Children star Susan Lucci finally wins a Daytime Emmy after being nominated 19 times, the longest period of unsuccessful nominations in television history
Today in History in 1999
Would You Believe?
Stanislav Petrov awarded World Citizen Award for averting a potential nuclear war in 1983 after correctly guessing Russian early warning system at fault
Today in History in 2004
May 22nd
334 BC The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus
1570 1st atlas ‘Theatrum Orbis Terrarum’ (Theatre of the World), published by Abraham Ortelius in Antwerp with 70 maps
1843 1st wagon train with 700 – 1000 migrants, departs Independence, Missouri for Oregon
1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign “Pact of Steel” in Berlin, Germany
1946 First US rocket (WAC Corporal) to reach edge of space fired from White Sands Missile Range New Mexico
2014 Royal Thai Armed Forces, led by General Prayut Chan-o-cha stage a coup in Thailand, suspending the kingdom’s constitution and taking control of the government, the 12th since the country’s first coup in 1932
Did You Know?
The U.S. town of Hallam, Nebraska, is wiped out by a powerful F4 tornado that broke a width record at an astounding 2.5 miles wide. It also kills one local resident.
Today in History in 2004
Would You Believe?
First modern sighting of the Loch Ness Monster by Aldie and John Mackay saw “something resembling a whale”
Today in History in 1933
May 23rd
1618 Second Defenestration of Prague: Two Catholic Lords Regent and their secretary are thrown out of a window and amazingly are not seriously injured by the 70 foot (21m) fall. Triggers the Thirty Years’ War.
1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals
1813 South American independence leader Simón Bolívar enters Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and is proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”)
1949 Federal Republic of [West] Germany created out of the American, British and French occupation zones
1958 Mao Zedong starts the “Great Leap Forward” movement in China
1998 The Good Friday Agreement is accepted in a referendum in Northern Ireland with 75% voting yes.