On This Day

April 22, 2013

1500 - Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil.

1509 - Henry VIII ascended to the throne of England upon the death of his father Henry VII.

1529 - Spain and Portugal divided the eastern hemisphere in Treaty of Saragosa.

1745 - The Peace of Fussen was signed, restoring the status quo of Germany.

1792 - U.S. President George Washington proclaimed American neutrality in the war in Europe.

1861 - Robert E. Lee was named commander of Virginia forces.

1864 - The U.S. Congress mandated that all coins minted as U.S. currency bear the inscription "In God We Trust".

1876 - The first official National League (NL) baseball game took place. Boston beat Philadelphia 6-5.

1889 - At noon, the Oklahoma land rush officially started as thousands of Americans raced for new, unclaimed land.

1898 - The first shot of the Spanish-American war occurred when the USS Nashville captured a Spanish merchant ship.

1914 - Babe Ruth made his pitching debut with the Baltimore Orioles.

1915 - At the Second Battle Ypres the Germans became the first country to use poison gas.

1915 - The New York Yankees wore pinstripes and the hat-in-the-ring logo for the first time.

1918 - British naval forces attempted to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle of Zeeburgge.

1930 - The U.S., Britain and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty, which regulated submarine warfare and limited shipbuilding.

1931 - Egypt signed the treaty of friendship with Iraq.

1931 - James G. Ray landed an autogyro on the lawn of the White House.

1944 - During World War II, the Allies launched a major attack against the Japanese in Hollandia, New Guinea.

1952 - An atomic test conducted in Nevada was the first nuclear explosion shown on live network television.

1954 - The U.S. Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings began.

1967 - Randy Matson set a new world record with a shot put toss of 71 feet, and 5 1/2 inches in College Station, TX.

1970 - The first "Earth Day" was observed by millions of Americans.

1976 - Barbara Walters became first female nightly network news anchor.

1987 - The American Physical Society said that the "Star Wars" missile system was "highly questionable" and would take ten years to research.

1993 - The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was dedicated in Washington, DC.

1997 - In Lima, Peru government commandos storm and capture the residence of the Japanese ambassador ending a 126-day hostage crisis. In the rescue 71 hostages were saved. Those killed: one hostage (of a heart attack), two soldiers, and all 14 rebels.

1999 - The Watson Family received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000 - Elian Gonzalez was reunited with his father. He had to be taken from his Miami relatives by U.S. agents in a predawn raid.

2000 - ABC-TV aired a small portion of the Clinton-DiCaprio interview.

2002 - Filippino President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ordered a state of emergency in the city of General Santos in response to a series of bombing attacks the day before. The attacks were blamed on Muslim extremists.

April 22, 2013

1348 - The first English order of knighthood was founded. It was the Order of the Garter.

1500 - Pedro Cabal claimed Brazil for Portugal.

1521 - The Comuneros were crushed by royalist troops in Spain.

1759 - The British seized Basse-Terre and Guadeloupe in the Antilies from France.

1789 - U.S. President George Washington moved into Franklin House, New York. It was the first executive mansion.

1789 - "Courier De Boston" was published for the first time. It was the first Roman Catholic magazine in the U.S.

1826 - Missolonghi fell to Egyptian forces.

1861 - Arkansas troops seized Fort Smith.

1872 - Charlotte E. Ray became the first black woman lawyer.

1895 - Russia, France, and Germany forced Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.

1896 - The Vitascope system for projecting movies onto a screen was demonstrated in New York City.

1900 - The word "hillbilly" was first used in print in an article in the "New York Journal." It was spelled "Hill-Billie".

1908 - U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed an act creating the U.S. Army Reserve.

1915 - The A.C.A. became the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA).

1920 - The Turkish Grand National Assembly had its first meeting in Ankara.

1921 - Charles Paddock set a record time in the 300-meter track event when he posted a time of 33.2 seconds.

1924 - The U.S. Senate passed the Soldiers Bonus Bill.

1940 - About 200 people died in a dance-hall fire in Natchez, MS.

1945 - The Soviet Army fought its way into Berlin.

1948 - Johnny Longden became the first race jockey to ride 3,000 career winners.

1950 - Chaing evacuated Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao and the communists.

1951 - The Associated Press began use of the new service of teletype setting.

1954 - Hank Aaron of the Milwaukee Braves hit his first major-league home run on this day.

1964 - Ken Johnson of the Houston Astros threw the first no-hitter for a loss. The game was lost 1-0 to the Cincinnati Reds due to two errors.

1967 - The Soyuz 1 was launched by Russia.

1968 - The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church.

1971 - The Soyuz 10 was launched.

1981 - The Soviet Union conducted an underground nuclear test at their Semipaltinsk (Kazakhstan) test site.

1982 - The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that consumer prices declined the previous month (March). It was the first decline in almost 17 years.

1985 - The Coca-Cola Company announced that it was changing its 99-year-old secret formula. New Coke was not successful, which resulted in the resumption of selling the original version.

1985 - The U.S. House rejected $14 million in aid to Nicaragua.

1988 - A U.S. federal law took effect that banned smoking on flights that were under two hours.

1988 - In Martinez, CA, a drain valve was left open at the Shell Marsh. More than 10,000 barrels of oil poured into the marsh adjoining Peyton Slough.

1988 - Kanellos Kanelopoulos set three world records for human-powered flight when he stayed in the air for 74 miles and four hours in his pedal-powered "Daedalus".

1989 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played his last regular season game in the NBA.

1996 - A New York civil-court jury ordered Bernhard Goetz to pay $43 million to Darrell Cabey. Cabey was paralyzed when he was shot in subway car in 1984.

1996 - An auction of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis' possessions began at Sotheby's in New York City.

1997 - An infertility doctor in California announced that a 63-year-old woman had given birth in late 1996. The child was from a donor egg. The woman is the oldest known woman to give birth.

1999 - In Washington, DC, the heads of state and government of the 19 NATO nations celebrated the organization's 50th anniversary.

2003 - U.S. President George W. Bush signed legislation that authorized the design change of the 5-cent coin (nickel) for release in 2004. It was the first change to the coin in 65 years. The change, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, was planned to run for only two years before returning to the previous design.

2004 - U.S. President George W. Bush eased sanctions against Libya in return for Moammar Gadhafi's agreement to give up weapons of mass destruction.

2005 - The first video was uploaded to YouTube.com.

April 24, 2013

1519 - Envoys of Montezuma II attended the first Easter mass in Central America.

1547 - Charles V's troops defeated the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the battle of Muhlburg.

1558 - Mary, Queen of Scotland, married the French dauphin, Francis.

1800 - The Library of Congress was established with a $5,000 allocation.

1805 - The U.S. Marines attacked and captured the town of Derna in Tripoli.

1833 - A patent was granted for first soda fountain.

1877 - Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire.

1877 - In the U.S., federal troops were ordered out of New Orleans. This was the end to the North's post-Civil War rule in the South.

1884 - Otto von Bismarck cabled Cape Town that South Africa was now a German colony.

1889 - The Edison General Electric Company was organized.

1897 - William Price became the first to be named White House news reporter.

1898 - Spain declared war on the U.S., rejecting America's ultimatum for Spain to withdraw from Cuba.

1915 - During World War I, the Ottoman Turkish Empire began the mass deportation of Armenians.

1916 - Irish nationalist launched the Easter Rebellion against British occupation forces. They were overtaken several days later.

1944 - The first B-29 arrived in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.

1948 - The Berlin airlift began to relieve the surrounded city.

1952 - Raymond Burr made his TV acting debut on the "Gruen Guild Playhouse" in an episode titled, "The Tiger."

1953 - Winston Churchill was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

1955 - "X-Minus One," a science fiction show, was first heard for the first time on NBC radio.

1961 - Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers struck out 18 batters becoming the first major-league pitcher to do so on two different occasions.

1961 - U.S. President Kennedy accepted "sole responsibility" following Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

1962 - MIT sent a TV signal by satellite for the first time.

1967 - Soviet astronaut Vladimir Komarov died when his craft crashed with a tangled parachute.

1967 - The newest Greek regime banned miniskirts.

1970 - The People's Republic of China launched its first satellite.

1973 - Albert Sabin reported that herpesviruses were factors in nine kinds of cancer.

1974 - David Bowie released "Diamond Dogs."

1981 - The IBM Personal Computer was introduced.

1989 - Thousands of students began striking in Beijing.

1990 - The space shuttle Discovery blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL. It was carrying the $1.5 billion Hubble Space Telescope.

1997 - The U.S. Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention. The global treaty banned the development, production, storage and use of chemical weapons.

2003 - A U.S. official reported the North Korea had claimed to have nuclear weapons.

April 25, 2013

1590 - The Sultan of Morocco launched his successful attack to capture Timbuktu.

1644 - The Ming Chongzhen emperor committed suicide by hanging himself.

1684 - A patent was granted for the thimble.

1707 - At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeated the Anglo-Portugese.

1792 - The guillotine was first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.

1831 - The New York and Harlem Railway was incorporated in New York City.

1846 - The Mexican-American War ignited as a result of disputes over claims to Texas boundaries. The outcome of the war fixed Texas' southern boundary at the Rio Grande River.

1859 - Work began on the Suez Canal in Egypt.

1860 - The first Japanese diplomats to visit a foreign power reached Washington, DC. They remained in the U.S. capital for several weeks while discussing expansion of trade with the United States.

1862 - Union Admiral Farragut occupied New Orleans, LA.

1864 - After facing defeat in the Red River Campaign, Union General Nathaniel Bank returned to Alexandria, LA.

1867 - Tokyo was opened for foreign trade.

1882 - French commander Henri Riviere seized the citadel of Hanoi in Indochina.

1898 - The U.S. declared war on Spain. Spain had declared war on the U.S. the day before.

1901 - New York became the first state to require license plates for cars. The fee was $1.

1915 - During World War I, Australian and New Zealand troops landed at Gallipoli in Turkey in hopes of attacking the Central Powers from below. The attack was unsuccessful.

1925 - General Paul von Hindenburg took office as president of Germany.

1926 - In Iran, Reza Kahn was crowned Shah and choose the name "Pehlevi."

1928 - A seeing eye dog was used for the first time.

1938 - "Your Family and Mine," a radio serial, was first broadcast.

1940 - W2XBS (now WCBS-TV) in New York City presented the first circus on TV.

1945 - U.S. and Soviet forces met at Torgau, Germany on Elbe River.

1945 - Delegates from about 50 countries met in San Francisco to organize the United Nations.

1952 - After a three-day fight against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment was annihilated on "Gloucester Hill," in Korea.

1953 - U.S. Senator Wayne Morse ended the longest speech in U.S. Senate history. The speech on the Offshore Oil Bill lasted 22 hours and 26 minutes.

1953 - Dr. James D. Watson and Dr. Francis H.C. Crick suggested the double helix structure of DNA.

1954 - The prototype manufacture of the first solar Battery was announced by the Bell Laboratories in New York City.

1957 - Operations began at the first experimental sodium nuclear reactor.

1959 - St. Lawrence Seaway opened to shipping. The water way connects the Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.

1961 - Robert Noyce was granted a patent for the integrated circuit.

1962 - The U.S. spacecraft, Ranger, crashed on the Moon.

1967 - Colorado Governor John Love signed the first law legalizing abortion in the U.S. The law was limited to therapeutic abortions when agreed to, unanimously, by a panel of three physicians.

1971 - The country of Bangladesh was established.

1974 - Portuguese dictator Antonio Salazar was overthrown in a military coup.

1976 - Portugal ratified a constitution. It was first revised on October 30, 1982.

1980 - In Iran, a commando mission to rescue hostages was aborted after mechanical problems disabled three of the eight helicopters involved. During the evacuation, a helicopter and a transport plan collided and exploded. Eight U.S. servicemen were killed. The mission was aimed at freeing American hostages that had been taken at the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. The event took place April 24th Washington, DC, time.

1982 - In accordance with Camp David agreements, Israel completed its Sinai withdrawal.

1983 - Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov invited Samantha Smith to visit his country after receiving a letter in which the U.S. schoolgirl expressed fears about nuclear war.

1983 - The Pioneer 10 spacecraft crossed Pluto's orbit, speeding on its endless voyage through the Milky Way.

1984 - In France, over one million people demonstrated to show they favored the decentralization of education.

1984 - David Anthony Kennedy, the son of Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room.

1985 - "Big River (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn)" opened at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on Broadway in New York City.

1987 - In Washington, DC, 100,000 people protested the U.S. policy in Central America.

1987 - Peter O'Toole opened in "Pygmalion" on Broadway.

1988 - In Israel, John "Ivan the Terrible" Demjanuk was sentenced to death as a Nazi war criminal.

1990 - Sandinista rule ended in Nicaragua.

1990 - The U.S. Hubble Space Telescope was placed into Earth's orbit. It was released by the space shuttle Discovery.

1992 - Islamic forces in Afghanistan took control of most of the capital of Kabul following the collapse of the Communist government.

1996 - The main assembly of the Palestine Liberation Organization voted to revoke clauses in its charter that called for an armed struggle to destroy Israel.

1998 - U.S. first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton on was questioned by Whitewater prosecutors on videotape about her work as a private lawyer for the failed savings and loan at the center of the investigation.

2003 - Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, the anti-apartheid leader and ex-wife of former President Nelson Mandela, was sentenced to four years in prison for her conviction on fraud and theft charges. She was convicted of 43 counts of fraud and 25 of theft of money from a women's political league.

2007 - The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 13,000 for the first time.

April 26, 2013

1478 - Pazzi conspirators attacked Lorenzo and killed Giuliano de'Medici.

1514 - Copernicus made his first observations of Saturn.

1607 - The British established an American colony at Cape Henry, Virginia. It was the first permanent English establishment in the Western Hemisphere.

1819 - The first Odd Fellows lodge in the U.S. was established in Baltimore, MD.

1865 - Joseph E. Johnston surrendered the Army of Tennessee to Sherman during the American Civil War.

1865 - John Wilkes Booth was killed by the U.S. Federal Cavalry.

1906 - In Hawaii, motion pictures were shown for the first time.

1921 - Weather broadcasts were heard for the first time on radio in St. Louis, MO.

1929 - First non-stop flight from England to India was completed.

1931 - New York Yankee Lou Gehrig hit a home run but was called out for passing a runner.

1931 - NBC premiered "Lum and Abner." It was on the air for 24 years.

1937 - German planes attacked Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War.

1937 - "LIFE" magazine was printed without the word "LIFE" on the cover.

1937 - "Lorenzo Jones" premiered on NBC radio.

1941 - An organ was played at a baseball stadium for the first time in Chicago, IL.

1945 - Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the head of France's Vichy government during World War II, was arrested.

1952 - Patty Berg set a new record for major women’s golf competition when she shot a 64 over 18 holes in a tournament in Richmond, CA.

1954 - Grace Kelly was on the cover of "LIFE" magazine.

1964 - The African nations of Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania.

1964 - The Boston Celtics won their sixth consecutive NBA title. They won two more before the streak came to an end.

1968 - Students seized the administration building at Ohio State University.

1982 - The British announced that Argentina had surrendered on South Georgia.

1983 - Dow Jones Industrial Average broke 1,200 for first time.

1985 - In Argentina, a fire at a mental hospital killed 79 people and injured 247.

1986 - The world’s worst nuclear disaster to date occurred at Chernobyl, in Kiev. Thirty-one people died in the incident and thousands more were exposed to radioactive material.

1998 - Auxiliary Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera was bludgeoned to death two days after a report he'd compiled on atrocities during Guatemala's 36-year civil war was made public.

2000 - Charles Wang and Sanjay Kumar purchased the NHL's New York Islanders.

2002 - In Erfurt, Germany, an expelled student killed 17 people at his former school. The student then killed himself.

April 28, 2013

0357 - Constantius II visited Rome for the first time.

1282 - Villagers in Palermo led a revolt against French rule in Sicily.

1635 - Virginia Governor John Harvey was accused of treason and removed from office.

1686 - The first volume of Isaac Newton's "Principia Mathamatic" was published.

1788 - Maryland became the seventh state to ratify the U.S. constitution.

1789 - A mutiny on the British ship Bounty took place when a rebel crew took the ship and set sail to Pitcairn Island. The mutineers left Captain W. Bligh and 18 sailors adrift.

1818 - U.S. President James Monroe proclaimed naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.

1896 - The Addressograph was patented by J.S. Duncan.

1902 - A revolution broke out in the Dominican Republic.

1910 - First night air flight was performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.

1914 - W.H. Carrier patented the design of his air conditioner.

1916 - The British declared martial law throughout Ireland.

1919 - The League of Nations was founded.

1920 - Azerbaijan joined the USSR.

1930 - The first organized night baseball game was played in Independence, Kansas.

1932 - The yellow fever vaccine for humans was announced.

1937 - The first animated-cartoon electric sign was displayed on a building on Broadway in New York City. It was created by Douglas Leight.

1945 - Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci were executed by Italian partisans as they attempted to flee the country.

1946 - The Allies indicted Tojo with 55 counts of war crimes.

1947 - Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia. The trip began in Peru and took 101 days to complete the crossing of the Pacific Ocean.

1952 - The U.S. occupation of Japan officially ended when a treaty with the U.S. and 47 other countries went into effect.

1953 - French troops evacuated northern Laos.

1957 - Mike Wallace was seen on TV for the first time. He was the host of "Mike Wallace Interviews."

1959 - Arthur Godfrey was seen for the last time in the final broadcast of "Arthur Godfrey and His Friends" on CBS-TV.

1965 - The U.S. Army and Marines invaded the Dominican Republic to evacuate Americans.

1967 - Muhammad Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army and was stripped of boxing title. He cited religious grounds for his refusal.

1969 - Charles de Gaulle resigned as president of France.

1969 - In Santa Rosa, CA, Charles M. Schulz's Redwood Empire Ice Arena opened.

1974 - The last Americans were evacuated from Saigon.

1977 - Christopher Boyce was convicted of selling U.S. secrets.

1985 - The largest sand castle in the world was completed near St. Petersburg, FL. It was four stories tall.

1988 - In Maui, HI, one flight attendant was killed when the fuselage of a Boeing 737 ripped open in mid-flight.

1989 - Mobil announced that they were divesting from South Africa because congressional restrictions were too costly.

1992 - The U.S. Agriculture Department unveiled a pyramid-shaped recommended-diet chart.

1994 - Former CIA official Aldrich Ames, who had given U.S. secrets to the Soviet Union and then Russia, pled guilty to espionage and tax evasion. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

1996 - U.S. President Clinton gave a 4 1/2 hour videotaped testimony as a defense witness in the criminal trial of his former Whitewater business partners.

1997 - A worldwide treaty to ban chemical weapons took effect. Russia and other countries such as Iraq and North Korea did not sign.

1999 - The U.S. House of Representatives rejected (on a tie vote of 213-213) a measure expressing support for NATO's five-week-old air campaign in Yugoslavia. The House also voted to limit the president's authority to use ground forces in Yugoslavia.

2000 - Jay Leno received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2001 - A Russian rocket launched from Central Asia with the first space tourist aboard. The crew consisted of California businessman Dennis Tito and two cosmonauts. The destination was the international space station.

April 29, 2013

1289 - Qala'un, the Sultan of Egypt, captured Tripoli.

1429 - Joan of Arc lead Orleans, France, to victory over Britain.

1661 - The Chinese Ming dynasty occupied Taiwan.

1672 - King Louis XIV of France invaded the Netherlands.

1813 - Rubber was patented by J.F. Hummel.

1852 - The first edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus was published.

1856 - A peace treaty was signed between England and Russia.

1858 - Austrian troops invaded Piedmont.

1861 - The Maryland House of Delegates voted against seceding from Union.

1862 - New Orleans fell to Union forces during the Civil War.

1864 - Theta Xi was founded in Troy, New York.

1879 - In Cleveland, OH, electric arc lights were used for the first time.

1913 - Gideon Sundback patented an all-purpose zipper.

1916 - Irish nationalists surrendered to British authorities in Dublin.

1918 - Germany's Western Front offensive ended in World War I.

1924 - An open revolt broke out in Santa Clara, Cuba.

1927 - Construction of the Spirit of St. Louis was completed for Lindbergh.

1941 - The Boston Bees agreed to change their name to the Braves.

1945 - The German Army in Italy surrendered unconditionally to the Allies.

1945 - In a bunker in Berlin, Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun were married. Hitler designated Admiral Karl Doenitz his successor.

1945 - The Nazi death camp, Dachau, was liberated.

1946 - Twenty-eight former Japanese leaders were indicted in Tokyo as war criminals.

1952 - IBM President Thomas J. Watson, Jr., informed his company's stockholders that IBM was building "the most advanced, most flexible high-speed computer in the world." The computer was unveiled April 7, 1953, as the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine.

1954 - Ernest Borgnine made his network television debut in "Night Visitor" on NBC-TV.

1961 - ABC’s "Wide World of Sports" premiered.

1974 - Phil Donahue’s TV show, "Donahue" moved to Chicago, IL.

1974 - U.S. President Nixon announced he was releasing edited transcripts of secretly made White House tape recordings related to the Watergate scandal.

1975 - The U.S. embassy in Vietnam was evacuated as North Vietnamese forces fought their way into Saigon.

1981 - Steve Carlton, of the Philadelphia Phillies, became the first left-handed pitcher in the major leagues to get 3,000 career strikeouts.

1984 - In California, the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor went online after a long delay due to protests.

1985 - Billy Martin was brought back, for the fourth time, to the position of manager for the New York Yankees.

1986 - Roger Clemens of the Boston Red Sox set a major-league baseball record by striking out 20 Seattle Mariner batters.

1988 - The Baltimore Orioles set a new major league baseball record by losing their first 21 games of the season.

1988 - Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev promised more religious freedom.

1990 - The destruction of the Berlin Wall began.

1992 - Exxon executive Sidney Reso was kidnapped outside his Morris Township, NJ, home by Arthur Seale. Seale was a former Exxon security official. Reso died while in captivity.

1992 - Rioting began after a jury decision to acquit four Los Angeles policemen in the Rodney King beating trial. 54 people were killed in 3 days.

1994 - Israel and the PLO signed an agreement in Paris which granted Palestinians broad authority to set taxes, control trade and regulate banks under self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1996 - Former CIA Director William Colby was missing and presumed drowned after an apparent boating accident in Maryland. Colby's body was later recovered.

1997 - Staff Sgt. Delmar Simpson, a drill instructor at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, was convicted of raping six female trainees. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison and was dishonorably discharged.

1997 - Astronaut Jerry Linenger and cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev went on the first U.S.-Russian space walk.

1998 - The U.S., Canada and Mexico end tariffs on $1 billion in NAFTA trade.

1998 - Brazil announced a plan to protect a large area of Amazon forest. The area was about the size of Colorado.

2002 - Kelsey Grammer and his production company, Grammnet Inc., were ordered to pay more than $2 million in unpaid commissions to his former talent agency.

2003 - Mr. T (Laurence Tureaud) filed a lawsuit against Best Buy Co. Inc., that claimed the store did not have permission to use his likeness in a print ad.

2009 - NATO expelled two Russian diplomats from NATO headquarters in Brussels over a spy scandal in Estonia. Russia's Foreign Ministry criticized the expulsions.

April 30, 2013

0030 - Jesus of Nazareth was crucified.

0313 - Licinius unified the whole of the eastern empire under his own rule.

1250 - King Louis IX of France was ransomed for one million dollars.

1527 - Henry VIII and King Francis of France signed the treaty of Westminster.

1725 - Spain withdrew from Quadruple Alliance.

1789 - George Washington took office as first elected U.S. president.

1803 - The U.S. purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million.

1812 - Louisiana admitted as the 18th U.S. state.

1849 - The republican patriot and guerrilla leader Giuseppe Garabaldi repulsed a French attack on Rome.

1864 - Work began on the Dams along the Red River. The work would allow Union General Nathaniel Banks' troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.

1889 - George Washington's inauguration became the first U.S. national holiday.

1900 - Hawaii was organized as an official U.S. territory.

1900 - Casey Jones was killed while trying to save the runaway train "Cannonball Express."

1930 - The Soviet Union proposed a military alliance with France and Great Britain.

1939 - The first railroad car equipped with fluorescent lights was put into service. The train car was known as the "General Pershing Zephyr."

1939 - Lou Gehrig played his last game with the New York Yankees.

1940 - Belle Martell was licensed in California by state boxing officials. She was the first American woman, prizefight referee.

1943 - The British submarine HMS Seraph dropped 'the man who never was,' a dead man the British planted with false invasion plans, into the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain.

1945 - Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide. They had been married for one day. One week later Germany surrendered unconditionally.

1945 - Arthur Godfrey began his CBS radio morning show "Arthur Godfrey Time." It ran until this day in 1972.

1947 - The name of Boulder Dam, in Nevada, was changed back to Hoover Dam.

1948 - The Organization of American States held its first meeting in Bogota, Colombia.

1953 - The British West Indian colonies agreed on the formation of the British Caribbean Federation that would eventually become a self-governing unit in the British Commonwealth.

1964 - The FCC ruled that all TV receivers should be equipped to receive both VHF and UHF channels.

1968 - U.S. Marines attacked a division of North Vietnamese in the village of Dai Do.

1970 - U.S. troops invaded Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas. The announcement by U.S. President Nixon led to widespread protests.

1972 - The North Vietnamese launched an invasion of the South.

1973 - U.S. President Nixon announced resignation of Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and other top aides.

1975 - Communists North Vietnamese troops entered the Independence Palace of South Vietnam in Saigon. 11 Marines lifted off of the U.S. Embassy were the last soldiers to evacuate.

1980 - Terrorists seized the Iranian Embassy in London.

1984 - U.S. President Reagan signed cultural and scientific agreements with China. He also signed a tax accord that would make it easier for American companies to operate in China.

1991 - An estimated 125,000 people were killed in a cyclone that hit Bangladesh.

1993 - Monica Seles was stabbed in the back during a tennis match in Hamburg, Germany. The man called himself a fan of second- ranked Steffi Graf. He was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and received a suspended sentence.

1997 - ABC aired the "coming out" episode of the sitcom "Ellen." The title character, played by Ellen DeGeneres, admitted she was a lesbian.

1998 - NATO was expanded to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The three nations were formally admitted the following April at NATO's 50th anniversary summit.

1998 - United and Delta airlines announced their alliance that would give them control of 1/3 of all U.S. passenger seats.

1998 - In the U.S., Federal regulators fined a contractor $2.25 million for improper handling of oxygen canisters on ValuJet that crashed in the Florida Everglades in 1996.

2002 - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was overwhelmingly approved for another five years as president.

May 2, 2013

1519 - Leonardo da Vinci died.

1670 - The Hudson Bay Company was founded by England's King Charles II.

1776 - France and Spain agreed to donate arms to American rebels fighting the British.

1797 - A mutiny in the British navy spread from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.

1798 - The black General Toussaint L’ouverture forced British troops to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.

1808 - The citizens of Madrid rose up against Napoleon.

1813 - Napoleon defeated a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen.

1853 - Franconi’s Hippodrome opened at Broadway and 23rd Street in New York City.

1863 - Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson was wounded by his own men in the battle of Chancellorsville, VA. He died 8 days later.

1865 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson offered $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

1885 - The Congo Free State was established by King Leopold II of Belgium.

1885 - The magazine "Good Housekeeping" was first published.

1887 - Hannibal W. Goodwin applied for a patent on celluloid photographic film. This is the film from which movies are shown.

1890 - The Oklahoma Territory was organized.

1902 - "A Trip to the Moon," the first science fiction film was released. It was created by magician George Melies.

1919 - The first U.S. air passenger service started.

1922 - WBAP-AM began broadcasting in north Texas.

1926 - In India, Hindu women gained the right to seek elected office.

1926 - U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua to put down a revolt and to protect U.S. interests. They did not depart until 1933.

1932 - jack Benny's first radio show debuted on NBC Radio.

1933 - Hitler banned trade unions in Germany.

1939 - Lou Gehrig set a new major league baseball record when he played in his 2,130th game. The streak began on June 1, 1925.

1941 - Hostilities broke out between British forces in Iraq and that country’s pro-German faction.

1941 - The Federal Communications Commission agreed to let regular scheduling of TV broadcasts by commercial TV stations begin on July 1, 1941. This was the start of network television.

1945 - Russians took Berlin after 12 days of fierce house-to-house fighting. The Allies announced the surrender of Nazi troops in Italy and parts of Austria.

1946 - Prisoners revolted at California's Alcatraz prison.

1954 - Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals set a new major league record when he hit 5 home runs against the New York Giants.

1960 - Caryl Chessman was executed. He was a convicted sex offender and had become a best selling author while on death row.

1965 - The "Early Bird" satellite was used to transmit television pictures across the Atlantic.

1970 - Student anti-war protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard took control of the campus.

1974 - Former U.S. Vice President Spiro T. Agnew was disbarred by the Maryland Court of Appeals.

1974 - The filming of "Jaws" began in Martha's Vineyard, MA.

1982 - The British submarine HMS Conqueror sank Argentina's only cruiser, the General Belgrano during the Falkland Islands War. More than 350 people died.

1993 - At Washington's National Gallery of Art, an exhibit of 80 paintings from the collection of Dr. Albert C. Barnes opened.

1993 - Authorities said that they had recovered the remains of David Koresh from the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, TX.

1994 - Nelson Mandela claimed victory after South Africa's first democratic elections.

1999 - In Panama, Mireya Moscoso de Grubar, of the Armulfista Party, was elected president.

2002 - It was reported that Phyllis Diller had retired from touring.

May 3, 2013

1568 - French forces in Florida slaughtered hundreds of Spanish.

1802 - Washington, DC, was incorporated as a city.

1855 - Macon B. Allen became the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.

1859 - France declared war on Austria.

1888 - Thomas Edison organized the Edison Phonograph Works.

1916 - Irish nationalist Padraic Pearse and two others were executed by the British for their roles in the Easter Rising.

1921 - West Virginia imposed the first state sales tax.

1926 - The revival of Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" opened in New York.

1926 - U.S. Marines landed in Nicaragua and stayed until 1933.

1926 - In Britain, trade unions began a general strike.

1927 - Francis E.J. Wilde of Meadowmere Park, NY, patented the electric sign flasher.

1933 - The U.S. Mint was under the direction of a woman for the first time when Nellie Ross took the position.

1937 - Margaret Mitchell won a Pulitzer Prize for "Gone With The Wind."

1944 - Wartime rationing of most grades of meats ended in the U.S.

1944 - Dr. Robert Woodward and Dr. William Doering produced the first synthetic quinine at Harvard University.

1945 - Indian forces captured Rangoon, Burma, from the Japanese.

1948 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities were legally unenforceable.

1952 - The first airplane landed at the geographic North Pole.

1966 - The game "Twister" was featured on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.

1968 - After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retook Dai Do complex in Vietnam. They found that the North Vietnamese had evacuated the area.

1971 - Anti-war protesters began four days of demonstrations in Washington, DC.

1971 - National Public Radio broadcast for the first time.

1971 - James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, was caught in a jailbreak attempt.

1986 - In NASA's first post-Challenger launch, an unmanned Delta rocket lost power in its main engine shortly after liftoff. Safety officers destroyed it by remote control.

1988 - The White House acknowledged that first lady Nancy Reagan had used astrological advice to help schedule her husband's activities.

1992 - Five days of rioting and looting ended in Los Angeles, CA. The riots, that killed 53 people, began after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

1997 - The "Republic of Texas" surrendered to authorities ending an armed standoff where two people were held hostage. The group asserts the independence of Texas from the U.S.

1998 - "The Sevres Road," by 18-century landscape painter Camille Corot, stolen from the Louvre in France.

1999 - Mark Manes, at age 22, was arrested for supplying a gun to Eric Harris and Dylan Kleibold, who later killed 13 people at Columbine High School in Colorado.

1999 - Hasbro released the first collection of toys for the Star Wars movie "Episode I: The Phantom Menace."

1999 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 11,000 for the first time.

2000 - The trial of two Libyans accused of killing 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 (over Lockerbie) opened.

2006 - In Alexandria, VA, Al-Quaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was given a sentence of life in prison for his role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11, 2001.

May 4, 2013

1471 - In England, the Yorkists defeated the Landcastrians at the battle of Tewkesbury in the War of the Roses.

1493 - Alexander VI divided non-Christian world between Spain and Portugal.

1626 - Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on Manhattan Island. Native Americans later sold the island (20,000 acres) for $24 in cloth and buttons.

1715 - A French manufacturer debuted the first folding umbrella.

1776 - Rhode Island declared its freedom from England two months before the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

1795 - Thousands of rioters entered jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.

1814 - Napoleon Bonaparte disembarked at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.

1863 - The Battle of Chancellorsville ended when the Union Army retreated.

1886 - Chichester Bell and Charles S. Tainter patented the gramophone. It was the first practical phonograph.

1905 - Belmont Park opened in suburban Long Island. It opened as the largest race track in the world.

1916 - Germany agreed to limit its submarine warfare after a demand from U.S. President Wilson.

1930 - Mahatma Gandhi was arrested by the British.

1932 - Al Capone entered the Atlanta Penitentiary federal prison for income-tax evasion.

1942 - The Battle of the Coral Sea commenced as American and Japanese carriers launched their attacks at each other.

1942 - The United States began food rationing.

1946 - A two-day riot at Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay ended. Five people were killed.

1954 - The first intercollegiate court tennis match was played in the U.S. It was between Yale and Princeton.

1961 - Thirteen civil rights activists, dubbed "Freedom Riders," began a bus trip through the South.

1964 - "Another World" premiered on NBC-TV.

1970 - The Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on students during an anti-Vietnam war protest at Kent State University. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded.

1979 - Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first woman prime minister.

1981 - The Federal Reserve Board raised its discount rate to 14%.

1987 - Live models were used for the first time in Playtex bra ads.

1989 - Oliver North, a former White House aide was convicted of shredding documents and two other crimes. He was acquitted of nine other charges stemming from the Iran-Contra affair. The three convictions were later overturned on appeal.

1994 - Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed a historic accord on Palestinian autonomy that granted self-rule in the Gaza Strip and Jericho.

1998 - Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was given four life sentences plus 30 years by a federal judge in Sacramento, CA. The sentence was under a plea agreement that spared Kaczynski the death penalty.

1999 - Several severe tornadoes hit the Midwest U.S. overnight. At least 45 people were killed.

1999 - Manuel Babbitt was executed for killing Leah Schendel in 1980. Babbitt had received a purple heart for his injuries in Vietnam while on death row.

2000 - Londoners elected their mayor for the first time.

2003 - Idaho Gem was born. He was the first member of the horse family to be cloned.

2010 - Pablo Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves and Bust" sold for $106.5 million.

May 5, 2013

1494 - Christopher Columbus sighted Jamaica on his second trip to the Western Hemisphere. He named the island Santa Gloria.

1798 - U.S. Secretary of War William McHenry ordered that the USS Constitution be made ready for sea. The frigate was launched on October 21, 1797, but had never been put to sea.

1809 - Mary Kies was awarded the first patent to go to a woman. It was for technique for weaving straw with silk and thread.

1814 - The British attacked the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, NY.

1821 - Napoleon Bonaparte died on the island of St. Helena, where he had been in exile.

1834 - The first mainland railway line opened in Belgium.

1862 - The Battle of Puebla took place. It is celebrated as Cinco de Mayo Day.

1865 - The Thirteenth Amendment was ratified, abolishing slavery in the U.S.

1886 - A bomb exploded on the fourth day of a workers' strike in Chicago, IL.

1891 - music Hall was dedicated in New York City. It was later renamed Carnegie Hall.

1892 - The U.S. Congress extended the Geary Chinese Exclusion Act for 10 more years. The act required Chinese in the U.S. to be registered or face deportation.

1901 - The first Catholic mass for night workers was held at the Church of St. Andrew in New York City.

1904 - The third perfect game of the major leagues was thrown by Cy Young (Boston Red Sox) against the Philadelphia Athletics. It was the first perfect game under modern rules.

1912 - Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda began publishing.

1916 - U.S. Marines invaded the Dominican Republic.

1917 - Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earned his flying certificate with the French Air Service.

1925 - John T. Scopes, a biology teacher in Dayton, TN, was arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.

1926 - Eisenstein's film "Battleship Potemkin" was shown in Germany for the first time.

1926 - Sinclair Lewis refused a 1925 Pulitzer for "Arrowsmith."

1936 - Edward Ravenscroft received a patent for the screw-on bottle cap with a pour lip.

1942 - General Joseph Stilwell learned that the Japanese had cut his railway out of China and was forced to lead his troops into India.

1945 - The Netherlands and Denmark were liberated from Nazi control.

1945 - A Japanese balloon bomb exploded on Gearhart Mountain in Oregon. A pregnant woman and five children were killed.

1955 - "Damn Yankees" opened on Broadway.

1955 - The Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) became a sovereign state.

1956 - Jim Bailey became the first runner to break the four-minute mile in the U.S. He was clocked at 3:58.5.

1961 - Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he made a 15 minute suborbital flight.

1966 - Willie Mays broke the National League record for home runs when he hit his 512th.

1978 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds registered his 3,000th major league hit.

1981 - Irish Republican Army hunger-striker Bobby Sands died at the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. It was his 66th day without food.

1987 - The U.S. congressional Iran-Contra hearings opened.

1991 - In New York, Carnegie Hall marked its 100th anniversary.

1994 - Michael Fay was caned in Singapore for vandalism. He received four lashes.

1997 - Dolores Hope received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1997 - Ivan Reitman received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000 - The final episode of "Boy Meets World" aired on ABC.

May 6, 2013

1527 - German troops began sacking Rome, bringing about the end of the Renaissance.

1529 - Babur defeated the Afghan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.

1576 - The peace treaty of Chastenoy ended the fifth war of religion.

1682 - King Louis XIV moved his court to Versailles, France.

1835 - James Gordon Bennett published the "New York Herald" for the first time.

1840 - The first adhesive postage stamps went on sale in Great Britain.

1851 - The mechanical refrigerator was patented by Dr. John Gorrie.

1851 - Linus Yale patented the clock-type lock.

1861 - Arkansas became the ninth state to secede from the Union.

1877 - Chief Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. troops in Nebraska.

1882 - The U.S. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The act barred Chinese immigrants from the U.S. for 10 years.

1889 - The Universal Exposition opened in Paris, France, marking the dedication of the Eiffel Tower. Also at the exposition was the first automobile in Paris, the Mercedes-Benz.

1910 - Kind Edward VII of England died. He was succeeded by his second son, George V.

1915 - Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run while playing for the Boston Red Sox.

1937 - The German airship Hindenburg crashed and burned in Lakehurst, NJ. Thirty-six people (of the 97 on board) were killed.

1941 - Joseph Stalin assumed the Soviet premiership.

1941 - Bob Hope gave his first USO show at California's March Field.

1942 - During World War II, the Japanese seized control of the Philippines. About 15,000 Americans and Filipinos on Corregidor surrendered to the Japanese.

1945 - Axis Sally made her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.

1946 - The New York Yankees became the first major league baseball team to travel by plane.

1954 - British runner Roger Banister broke the four minute mile.

1957 - U.S. Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Profiles in Courage".

1959 - The Pablo Picasso painting of a Dutch girl was sold for $154,000 in London. It was the highest price paid (at the time) for a painting by a living artist.

1960 - Britain's Princess Margaret married Anthony Armstrong Jones. They were divorced in 1978.

1960 - U.S. President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

1962 - The first nuclear warhead was fired from the Polaris submarine.

1981 - A jury of international architects and sculptors unanimously selected Maya Ying Lin's entry for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

1994 - The Chunnel officially opened. The tunnel under the English Channel links England and France.

1994 - Former Arkansas state worker Paula Jones filed suit against U.S. President Clinton. The case alleged that he had sexually harassed her in 1991.

1997 - Army Staff Sgt. Delmar G. Simpson was sentenced to 25 years in prison for raping six trainees at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

1997 - Four health-care companies agreed to a settlement of $600 million to hemophiliacs who had contracted AIDS from tainted blood between 1978-1985.

1999 - Britain's Labour Party won the largest number of seats in the first elections for Scotland's new Parliament and Wales' new Assembly.

1999 - A parole board in New York voted to release Amy Fisher. She had been in jail for 7 years for shooting her lover's wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, in the face.

2001 - Chandra Levy's parents reported her missing to police in Washington, DC. Levy's body was found on May 22, 2002 in Rock Creek Park.

2002 - "Spider-Man" became the first movie to make more than $100 million in its first weekend.

May 7, 2013

0558 - The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapsed. It was immediately rebuilt as ordered by Justinian.

1274 - The Second Council of Lyons opened in France to regulate the election of the pope.

1429 - The English siege of Orleans was broken by Joan of Arc.

1525 - The German peasants' revolt was crushed by the ruling class and church.

1663 - The first Theatre Royal was opened in London.

1763 - Indian chief Pontiac began all out war on the British in New York.

1789 - The first U.S. Presidential Inaugural Ball was held in New York City.

1800 - The U.S. Congress divided the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part became the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remained the Northwest Territory.

1847 - The AMA (American Medical Association) was organized in Philadelphia, PA.

1898 - The first Intercollegiate Trapshooting Association meet was held in New Haven, CT.

1912 - Columbia University approved final plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories.

1912 - The first airplane equipped with a machine gun flew over College Park, MD.

1915 - The Lusitania, a civilian ship, was sunk by a German submarine. 1,201 people were killed.

1926 - A U.S. report showed that one-third of the nation's exports were motors.

1937 - The German Condor Legion arrived in Spain to assist Franco’s forces.

1939 - Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the Rome-Berlin Axis.

1940 - Winston Churchill became British Prime Minister.

1942 - In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attacked each other with carrier planes. It was the first time in the history of naval warfare where two enemy fleets fought without seeing each other.

1943 - The last major German strongholds in North Africa, Tunis and Bizerte, fell to Allied forces.

1945 - Baseball owner Branch Rickey announced the organization of the United States Negro Baseball League. There were 6 teams.

1945 - Germany signed unconditional surrender ending World War II. It would take effect the next day.

1946 - Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. was founded. The company was later renamed Sony.

1951 - Russia was admitted to participate in the 1952 Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee.

1954 - French Colonial Forces surrendered to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu after 55 days of fighting.

1954 - The United States and the United Kingdom rejected the Soviet Union's bid to join NATO.

1958 - Howard Johnson set an aircraft altitude record in F-104.

1960 - Leonid Brezhnev became president of the Soviet Union.

1975 - U.S. President Ford declared an end to the Vietnam War.

1977 - Rookie Janet Guthrie set the fastest time on opening day of practice for the Indianapolis 500. Her time was 185.607.

1984 - A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action suit brought by Vietnam veterans who claimed they had suffered injury from exposure to the defoliant while serving in the armed forces.

1987 - Shelly Long, as Diane Chambers, made her last appearance as a regular on the TV show "Cheers."

1992 - A 203-year-old proposed constitutional amendment barring the U.S. Congress from giving itself a midterm pay raise was ratified as the 27th Amendment.

1994 - The Edvard Munch painting "The Scream" was recovered after being stolen 3 months earlier from an Oslo Museum. This version of "The Scream", one of four different versions, was painted on paper.

1996 - The trial of Serbian police officer Dusan Tadic opened in the Netherlands. He was later convicted on murder-torture charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

1997 - A report released by the U.S. government said that Switzerland provided Nazi Germany with equipment and credit during World War II. Germany exchanged for gold what had been plundered or stolen. Switzerland did not comply with postwar agreements to return the gold.

1998 - Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler Corp. for close to $40 billion. It was the largest industrial merger on record.

1998 - Residents of London voted to elect their own mayor for the first time in history. The vote would take place in May 2000.

1998 - Leeza Gibbons received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - A jury ruled that "The Jenny Jones Show" and Warner Bros. were liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure. He was killed by another guest on the show. The jury's award was $25 million.

1999 - Jerry Moss received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999 - In Belgrade, Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens were killed and 20 were wounded when a NATO plane mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy.

1999 - In Guinea-Bissau, the government of President João Bernardo Vieira was ousted in a military coup.

2000 - Russian President Vladimir V. Putin named First Deputy Premier Mikhail Kasyanov as premier.

2003 - In Washington, DC, General Motors Corp. delivered six fuel cell vehicles to Capitol Hill for lawmakers and others to test drive during the next two years.

2003 - Roger Moore collapsed during a matinee performance of the Broadway comedy "The Play What I Wrote." He finished the show after a 10-minute break. He was fitted with a pacemaker the following day.

May 8, 2013

1096 - Peter the Hermit and his army reached Hungary. They passed through without incident.

1450 - jack Cade's Rebellion-Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI.

1541 - Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River. He called it Rio de Espiritu Santo.

1794 - Antoine Lavoisier was executed by guillotine. He was the French chemist that discovered oxygen.

1794 - The United States Post Office was established.

1846 - The first major battle of the Mexican War was fought. The battle occurred in Palo Alto, TX.

1847 - The rubber tire was patented by Robert W. Thompson.

1879 - George Selden applied for the first automobile patent.

1886 - Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton invented what would later be called "Coca-Cola."

1904 - U.S. Marines landed in Tangier to protect the Belgian legation.

1914 - The U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.

1915 - H.P. Whitney's Regret became the first filly to win the Kentucky Derby.

1919 - The first transatlantic flight took-off by a navy seaplane.

1921 - Sweden abolished capital punishment.

1933 - Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.

1939 - clay Puett's electric starting gate was used for the first time.

1943 - The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.

1945 - U.S. President Harry Truman announced that World War II had ended in Europe.

1954 - Parry O'Brien became the first to toss a shot put over 60 feet. O'Brien achieved a distance of 60 feet 5 1/4 inches.

1956 - Alfred E. Neuman appeared on the cover of "Mad Magazine" for the first time.

1958 - U.S. President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green became the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.

1959 - Mike and Marian Ilitch founded "Little Caesars Pizza Treat".

1960 - Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union resumed.

1961 - New Yorkers selected a new name for their new National League baseball franchise. They chose the Mets.

1970 - Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City's Wall Street.

1973 - Militant American Indians who had held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.

1984 - The Soviet Union announced that they would not participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics Games in Los Angeles.

1984 - Joanie (Erin Moran) and Chachi (Scott Baio) got married on ABC-TV's "Happy Days."

1985 - "New Coke" was released to the public on the 99th anniversary of Coca-Cola.

1986 - Reporters were told that 84,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.

1997 - Larry King received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1998 - A pipe burst leaving a million residents without water in Malaysia's capital area. This added to four days of shortages that 2 million already faced.

1999 - The first female cadet graduated from The Citadel military college.

May 9, 2013

1429 - Joan of Arc defeated the besieging English at Orleans.

1502 - Christopher Columbus left Spain for his final trip to the Western Hemisphere.

1671 - Thomas "Captain" Blood stole the crown jewels from the Tower of London.

1754 - The first newspaper cartoon in America showed a divided snake "Join or die" in "The Pennsylvania Gazette."

1785 - Joseph Bramah patented the beer-pump handle.

1825 - The Chatham Theatre opened in New York City. It was the first gas-lit theater in America.

1901 - In Australia, the Duke of Cornwall and York declared the First Commonwealth Parliament open.

1915 - German and French forces fought the Battle of Artois.

1926 - Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett became the first men to fly an airplane over the North Pole.

1930 - A starting gate was used to start a Triple Crown race for the first time.

1936 - Fascist Italy took Addis Abba and annexed Ethiopia.

1936 - The first sheet of postage stamps of more than one variety went on sale in New York City.

1940 - Vivien Leigh debuted in America on stage in "Romeo and Juliet" with Lawrence Olivier.

1941 - The German submarine U-110 was captured at sea by Britain's Royal navy.

1945 - U.S. officials announced that the midnight entertainment curfew was being lifted immediately.

1946 - King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicated and was replaced by Umberto.

1955 - West Germany joined NATO.

1958 - Richard Burton made his network television debut in the presentation of "Wuthering Heights" on CBS-TV.

1960 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for sale an oral birth-control pill for the first time.

1961 - Jim Gentile (Baltimore Orioles) set a major league baseball record when he hit a grand slam home run in two consecutive innings. The game was against the Minnesota Twins.

1962 - A laser beam was successfully bounced off Moon for the first time.

1974 - The House Judiciary Committee began formal hearings on the Nixon impeachment.

1978 - The bullet-riddled body of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was found in an automobile in the center of Rome. The Red Brigades had abducted him.

1980 - A Liberian freighter hit the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay in Florida. 35 motorists were killed and a 1,400-foot section of the bridge collapsed.

1987 - Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers were married.

1994 - Nelson Mandela was chosen to be South Africa's first black president.

1996 - In video testimony to a courtroom in Little Rock, AR, U.S. President Clinton insisted that he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan in the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners.

2002 - In Bethlehem, West Bank, a deal was reached that would end the 38-day standoff at the Church of the Nativity. Thirteen suspected militants were to be deported to several different countries. The standoff had begun on April 2, 2002.

2002 - In Kaspiisk, Russia, 39 people were killed and at least 130 were injurde when a remote-controlled bomb exploded during a holiday parade.

2002 - In Bahrain, people were allowed to vote for representatives for the first time in nearly 30 years. Women were allowed to vote for the first time in the country's history.

May 10, 2013

1503 - Christopher Columbus discovered the Cayman Islands.

1676 - Bacon's Rebellion, which pits frontiersmen against the government, began.

1768 - The imprisonment of the journalist John Wilkes as an outlaw provoked violence in London. Wilkes was returned to parliament as a member for Middlesex.

1773 - The English Parliament passed the Tea Act, which taxed all tea in the U.S. colonies.

1774 - Louis XVI ascended the throne of France.

1775 - Ethan Allen and Colonel Benedict Arnold led an attack on the British Fort Ticonderoga and captured it from the British.

1794 - Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, was beheaded.

1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte won a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.

1840 - Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they had experienced in Missouri.

1857 - The Seepoys of India revolted against the British Army.

1865 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis was captured by Union troops near Irvinville, GA.

1869 - Central Pacific and Union Pacific Rail Roads meet in Promontory, UT. A golden spike was driven in at the celebration of the first transcontinental railroad in the U.S.

1872 - Victoria Woodhull became the first woman nominated for the U.S. presidency.

1876 - Richard Wagner’s "Centennial Inaugural March" was heard for the first time at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, PA.

1898 - A vending machine law was enacted in Omaha, NE. It cost $5,000 for a permit.

1908 - The first Mother's Day observance took place during a church service in Grafton, West Virginia.

1924 - J. Edgar Hoover was appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1927 - The Hotel Statler in Boston, MA. became the first hotel to install radio headsets in each of its 1,300 rooms.

1928 - WGY-TV in Schenectady, NY, began regular television programming.

1930 - The Adler Planetarium opened to the public in Chicago, IL.

1933 - The Nazis staged massive public book burnings in Germany.

1940 - Germany invaded Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

1941 - England's House of Commons was destroyed by a German air raid.

1941 - Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler's deputy, parachuted into Scotland on what he claimed was a peace mission.

1942 - U.S. forces in the Philippines began to surrender to the Japanese.

1943 - U.S. troops invaded Attu in the Aleutian Islands to expel the Japanese.

1960 - The U.S.S. Triton completed the first circumnavigation of the globe under water. The trip started on February 16.

1968 - Preliminary Vietnam peace talks began in Paris.

1969 - The National and American Football Leagues announced their plans to merge for the 1970-71 season.

1978 - Britain's Princess Margaret and the Earl of Snowdon announced they were divorcing after 18 years of marriage.

1982 - Elliott Gould made his dramatic television debut after 30 movies in 17 years. He starred in "The Rules of Marriage" on CBS-TV.

1986 - Navy Lt. Commander Donnie Cochran became the first black pilot to fly with the Blue Angels team.

1994 - The state of Illinois executed convicted serial killer John Wayne Gacy for the murders of 33 young men and boys.{C}

1994 - Nelson Mandela was sworn in as South Africa’s first black president.

1997 - An earthquake in northeastern Iran killed at least 2,400 people.{C}

1999 - China broke off talks on human rights with the U.S. in response to NATO's accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

1999 - The Cezanne painting "Still Life With Curtain, Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit" sold for 60.5 million.

2000 - 11,000 residents were evacuated in Los Alamos, NM, due to a fire that was blown into a canyon. The fire had been deliberately set to clear brush.

2001 - Boeing Co. announced that it would be moving its headquarters to Chicago, IL.

2001 - In Ghana, 121 people were killed in a stampede at a soccer game.

2002 - Robert Hanssen was sentenced to life in prison with no chance for parole. Hanssen, an FBI agent, had sold U.S. secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

2002 - Taiwan test fired a locally made Sky Bow II surface-to-air missile for the first time. They also fired three U.S.-made Hawk missiles.

2002 - Dr. Pepper announced that it would be introducing a new flavor, Red Fusion, for the first time in 117 years.

2011 - It was announced that Microsoft had closed a deal to purchase the internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion.

May 11, 2013

0330 - Constantinople, previously the town of Byzantium, was founded.

1573 - Henry of Anjou became the first elected king of Poland.

1647 - Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor.

1689 - French and English naval battle takes place at Bantry Bay.

1745 - French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.

1792 - The Columbia River was discovered by Captain Robert Gray.

1812 - British prime Minster Spencer Perceval was shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.

1816 - The American Bible Society was formed in New York City.

1857 - Indian mutineers seized Delhi from the British.

1858 - Minnesota was admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.

1860 - Giuseppe Garibaldi landed at Marsala, Sicily.

1889 - Major Joseph Washington Wham takes charge of $28,000 in gold and silver to pay troops at various points in the Arizona Territory. The money was stolen in a train robbery.

1894 - Workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company in Illinois went on strike.

1910 - Glacier National Park in Montana was established.

1927 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded.

1934 - A severe two-day dust storm stripped the topsoil from the great plains of the U.S. and created a "Dust Bowl." The storm was one of many.

1944 - A major offensive was launched by the allied forces in central Italy.

1947 - The creation of the tubeless tire was announced by the B.F. Goodrich Company.

1949 - Siam changed its name to Thailand.

1960 - Israeli soldiers captured Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.

1967 - The siege of Khe Sanh ended.

1985 - More than 50 people died when a flash fire swept a soccer stadium in Bradford, England.

1995 - The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was extended indefinitely. The treaty limited the spread of nuclear material for military purposes.

1996 - An Atlanta-bound ValuJet DC-9 caught fire shortly after takeoff from Miami and crashed into the Florida Everglades. All 110 people on board were killed.

1997 - Garry Kasparov, world chess champion, lost his first ever multi-game match. He lost to IBM's chess computer Deep Blue. It was the first time a computer had beat a world-champion player.

1998 - India conducted its first underground nuclear tests, three of them, in 24 years. The tests were in violation of a global ban on nuclear testing.

1998 - A French mint produced the first coins of Europe's single currency. The coin is known as the euro.

2001 - U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his decision to approve a 30-day delay of the execution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh had been scheduled to be executed on May 16, 2001. The delay was because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had failed to disclose thousands of documents to McVeigh's defense team. (Oklahoma)

May 12, 2013

1588 - King Henry III fled Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly entered the city.

1780 - Charleston, South Carolina fell to British forces.

1831 - Edward Smith became the first indicted bank robber in the U.S.

1847 - William Clayton invented the odometer.

1870 - Manitoba entered the Confederation as a Canadian province.

1881 - Tunisia, in North Africa became a French protectorate.

1885 - In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebelled against the Canadian government.

1888 - Charles Sherrill of the Yale track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast break in a foot race.

1926 - The airship Norge became the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1926 - In Britain, a general strike by trade unions ended. The strike began on May 3, 1926.

1932 - The infant body of Charles and Anna Lindbergh's son was found just a few miles from the Lindbergh home near Hopewell, NJ. {C}

1937 - Britain's King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1940 - The Nazi conquest of France began with the German army crossing Muese River.

1942 - The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of World War II and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the German army.

1943 - The Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during World War II.

1949 - The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.

1950 - The American Bowling Congress abolished its white males-only membership restriction after 34 years.

1957 - A.J. Foyt won his first auto racing victory in Kansas City, MO.

1965 - West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.

1970 - Ernie Banks, of the Chicago Cubs, hit his 500th home run.

1975 - U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez was seized by Cambodian forces in international waters.

1978 - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that they would no longer exclusively name hurricanes after women.

1982 - In Fatima, Portugal, security guards overpowered a Spanish priest armed with a bayonet who was trying to reach Pope John Paul II.

1982 - South Africa unveiled a plan that would give voting rights to citizens of Asian and mixed-race descent, but not to blacks.

1984 - South African prisoner Nelson Mandela saw his wife for the first time in 22 years.

1992 - Four suspects were arrested in the beating of trucker Reginald Denny at the start of the Los Angeles riots.

1999 - Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and named Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin as his successor.

2002 - Former U.S. President Carter arrived in Cuba for a visit with Fidel Castro. It was the first time a U.S. head of state, in or out of office, had gone to the island since Castro's 1959 revolution

2003 - In Texas, fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers went into hiding over a dispute with Republican's over a congressional redistricting plan.

2008 - In the U.S., the price for a one-ounce First-Class stamp increased from 41 to 42 cents.

May 12, 2013

1607 - Jamestown, Virginia, was settled as a colony of England.

1648 - Margaret Jones of Plymouth was found guilty of witchcraft and was sentenced to be hanged by the neck.

1779 - The War of Bavarian Succession ended.

1787 - Captain Arthur Phillip left Britain for Australia. He successfully landed eleven ships full of convicts on January 18, 1788, at Botany Bay. The group moved north eight days later and settled at Port Jackson.

1821 - The first practical printing press was patented in the U.S. by Samuel Rust.

1846 - The U.S. declared that war already existed with Mexico.

1854 - The first big American billiards match was held at Malcolm Hall in Syracuse, NY.

1861 - Britain declared its neutrality in the American Civil War.

1864 - The Battle of Resaca commenced as Union General Sherman fought towards Atlanta during the American Civil War.

1865 - The last land engagement of the American Civil War was fought at the Battle of Palmito Ranch in far south Texas, more than a month after Gen. Lee's surrender at Appomattox, VA.

1867 - Confederate President Jefferson Davis became a free man after spending two years in prison for his role in the American Civil War.

1873 - Ludwig M. Wolf patented the sewing machine lamp holder.

1880 - Thomas Edison tested his experimental electric railway in Menlo Park.

1888 - Slavery was abolished in Brazil.

1911 - The New York Giants set a major league baseball record. Ten runners crossed home plate before the first out of the game against St. Louis.

1912 - Royal Flying Corps was established in England.

1913 - Igor Sikorsky flew the first four engine aircraft.

1917 - Three peasant children near Fatima, Portugal, reported seeing a vision of the Virgin Mary.

1918 - The first airmail postage stamps were issued with airplanes on them. The denominations were 6, 16, and 24 cents.

1926 - In Warsaw, Joseph Pilsudski had President Wojciechowski arrested.

1927 - "Black Friday" occurred in Germany.

1940 - Winston Churchill made his first speech as the prime minister of Britain.

1949 - The first gas turbine to pump natural gas was installed in Wilmar, AR.

1954 - U.S. President Eisenhower signed into law the St. Lawrence Seaway Development Act.

1958 - French troops took control of Algiers.

1958 - U.S. Vice President Nixon's limousine was battered by rocks thrown by anti-U.S. demonstrators in Caracas, Venezuela.

1967 - Mickey Mantle hit his 500th homerun.

1968 - Peace talks between the U.S. and North Vietnam began in Paris.

1975 - Hailstones the size of tennis balls hit Wenerville, TN.

1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and seriously wounded in St. Peter's Square by Turkish assailant Mehmet Ali Agca.

1982 - The Chicago Cubs became the first major league baseball team to win 8,000 games.

1985 - Tony Perez became the oldest major league baseball player to hit a grand slam home run at the age of 42 and 11 months.

1985 - A confrontation between Philadelphia authorities and the radical group MOVE ended as police dropped an explosive onto the group's headquarters. 11 people died in the fire that resulted.

1996 - In Bangladesh 600 people were killed by a tornado.

1998 - India did a second round of nuclear tests. The first round had been done 2 days earlier. Within hours the U.S. and Japan imposed tough economic sanctions. India claimed that the tests were necessary to maintain India's national security.

1999 - In Moscow, the impeachment of Russian President Boris Yeltsin began.

May 14, 2013

1264 - King Henry III was captured by his brother in law Simon deMontfort at the Battle of Lewes in France.

1509 - In the Battle of Agnadello, French defeated Venitians in Northern Italy.

1610 - French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) was assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravillac.

1643 - Louis XIV became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.

1727 - Thomas Gainsborough was born. He was an English painter.

1787 - Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.

1796 - The first smallpox vaccination was given by Edward Jenner.

1804 - William Clark set off the famous expedition from Camp Dubois. A few days later, in St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis joined the group. The group was known as the "Corps of Discovery."

1811 - Paraguay gained independence from Spain.

1853 - Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk.

1862 - The chronograph was patented by Adolphe Nicole.

1874 - McGill University and Harvard met at Cambridge, MA, for the first college football game to charge admission.

1878 - The name Vaseline was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough.

1879 - Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Telephone Company of Europe.

1897 - "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Phillip Sousa was performed for the first time. It was at a ceremony where a statue of George Washington was unveiled.

1897 - Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph.

1904 - In St. Louis, the Olympic games were held. It was the first time for the games to be played in the U.S.

1913 - The Rockefeller Foundation was created by John D. Rockefeller with a gift of $100,000,000.

1935 - The Philippines ratified an independence agreement.

1940 - The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany.

1942 - The Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

1942 - "Lincoln Portrait" by Aaron Copland was performed for the first time by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

1942 - The British, while retreating from Burma, reached India.

1948 - Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the independent State of Israel as British rule in Palestine came to an end.

1955 - The Warsaw Pact, a Easter European mutual-defense treaty, was signed in Poland by eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union.

1961 - A bus carrying Freedom Riders was bombed and burned in Alabama.

1969 - Jacqueline Susann’s second novel, "The Love Machine," was published by Simon and Schuster.

1973 - Skylab One was launched into orbit around Earth as the first U.S. manned space station.

1975 - U.S. forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia. About 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the military operation.

1980 - U.S. President Carter inaugurated the Department of Health and Human Services.

1985 - The first McDonald's restaurant became the first fast-food business museum. It is located in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1988 - In the Andean village of Cayara, Peru's military was involved in a massacre of at least 26 peasants.

1992 - Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev addressed members of the U.S. Congress, appealing to them to pass a bill to aid the people of the former Soviet Union.

1996 - A tornado hit 80 villages in nothern Bangladesh. More than 440 people were killed.

1998 - The Associated Press marked its 150th anniversary.

1998 - The final episode of the TV series "Seinfeld" aired after nine years on NBC.

1999 - North Korea returned the remains of six U.S. soldiers that had been killed during the Korean War.

1999 - Jess Marlow received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2005 - The art exhibit "Gumby and Friends: The First 50 Years" opened at the Lynn House Gallery in Antioch, CA.

May 15, 2013

1602 - Cape Cod was discovered by Bartholomew Gosnold.

1614 - An aristocratic uprising in France ended with the treaty of St.Menehould.

1618 - Johannes Kepler discovered his harmonics law.

1702 - The War of Spanish Succession began.

1768 - Under the Treaty of Versailles, France purchased Corsica from Genoa.

1795 - Napoleon entered the Lombardian capital of Milan.

1849 - Neapolitan troops entered Palermo, and were in possession of Sicily.

1856 - Lyman Frank Baum, author of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was born.

1862 - The U.S. Congress created the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1911 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the dissolution of Standard Oil Company, ruling it was in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1916 - U.S. Marines landed in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.

1918 - Regular airmail service between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, began under the direction of the Post Office Department, which later became the U.S. Postal Service.

1926 - Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth were forced down in Alaska after a four-day flight over an icecap. Ice had begun to form on the dirigible Norge.

1926 - The New York Rangers were officially granted a franchise in the NHL. The NHL also announced that Chicago and Detroit would be joining the league in November.

1930 - Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess.

1940 - Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio began his historic major league baseball hitting streak of 56 games.

1942 - Gasoline rationing began in the U.S. The limit was 3 gallons a week for nonessential vehicles.

1948 - Israel was attacked by Transjordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon only hours after declaring its independence.

1951 - AT&T became the first corporation to have one million stockholders.

1957 - Britain dropped its first hydrogen bomb on Christmas Island in the Pacific Ocean.

1958 - Sputnik III, the first space laboratory, was launched in the Soviet Union.

1963 - The last Project Mercury space flight was launched.

1964 - The Smothers Brothers, Dick and Tom, gave their first concert in Carnegie Hall in New York City.

1970 - U.S. President Nixon appointed America's first two female generals.

1970 - Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State University in Mississippi, were killed when police opened fire during student protests.

1972 - Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, MD while campaigning for the U.S. presidency. Wallace was paralyzed by the shot.

1975 - The merchant ship U.S. Mayaguez was recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.

1980 - The first transcontinental balloon crossing of the United States took place.

1983 - In Boston,MA, the Madison Hotel was destroyed by implosion.

1988 - The Soviet Union began their withdrawal of its 115,000 troops from Afghanistan. Soviet forces had been there for more than eight years.

1990 - Vincent Van Gogh's "Portrait of Doctor Gachet" was sold for $82.5 million. The sale set a new world record.

1997 - The Space shuttle Atlantis blasted off on a mission to deliver urgently needed repair equipment and a fresh American astronaut to Russia's orbiting Mir station.

1999 - The Russian parliament was unable a attain enough votes to impeach President Boris Yeltsin.

May 16, 2013

1770 - Marie Antoinette, at age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

1866 - The U.S. Congress authorized the first 5-cent piece to be minted.

1868 - U.S. President Andrew Johnson was acquitted during the Senate impeachment, by one vote.

1879 - The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England set up the Afghan state.

1881 - In Germany the first electric tram for the public started service.

1888 - The first demonstration of recording on a flat disc was demonstrated by Emile Berliner.

1888 - The capitol of Texas was dedicated in Austin.

1910 - The U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1914 - The American Horseshoe Pitchers Association (AHPA) was formed in Kansas City, Kansas.

1920 - Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome.

1929 - The first Academy Awards were held in Hollywood.

1939 - The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians met at Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the first baseball game to be played under the lights in the American League.

1946 - "Annie Get Your Gun" opened on Broadway.

1946 - jack Mullin showed the world the first magnetic tape recorder.

1948 - The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece. It had been a week after he'd disappeared.

1960 - A Big Four summit in Paris collapsed due to the American U-2 spy plane incident.

1960 - Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California, demonstrated the first working laser.

1963 - After 22 Earth orbits Gordon Cooper returned to Earth, ending Project Mercury.

1965 - Spaghetti-O's went on sale.

1969 - Venus 5, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the planet Venus.

1971 - U.S. postage for a one-ounce first class stamp was increased from 6 to 8 cents.

1975 - Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1977 - Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling on top of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.

1985 - Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the NBA.

1987 - The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load.

1988 - A report released by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine was addictive in similar was as heroin and cocaine.

1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police do not have to have a search warrant to search discarded garbage.

1991 - Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

1992 - The Endeavour space shuttle landed safely after its maiden voyage.

1996 - Admiral Jeremy "Mike" Boorda, the nation's top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question.

1997 - In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko gave control of the country to rebel forces ending 32 years of autocratic rule.

2000 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated to run for U.S. Senator in New York. She was the first U.S. first lady to run for public office.

2003 - Adam Rich was placed on three years probation after he pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and being under the influence of a controlled substance. He was also ordered to take part ina 60-day treatment program and pay about $1,200 in fines.

May 17, 2013

1540 - Afghan chief Sher Khan defeated Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.

1630 - Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi saw the belts on Jupiter's surface.

1681 - Louis XIV sent an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.

1756 - Britain declared war on France, beginning the French and Indian War.

1792 - The New York Stock Exchange was founded at 70 Wall Street by 24 brokers.

1814 - Denmark ceded Norway to Sweden. Norway's constitution, which provided a limited monarchy, was signed.

1875 - The first Kentucky Derby was run at Louisville, KY.

1877 - The first telephone switchboard burglar alarm was installed by Edwin T. Holmes.

1881 - Frederick Douglass was appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, DC.

1926 - The U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires was damaged by bombs that were believed set by sympathizers of Sacco and Vanzetti.

1932 - The U.S. Congress changed the name "Porto Rico" to "Puerto Rico."

1939 - The first fashion to be shown on television was broadcast in New York from the Ritz-Carleton Hotel.

1940 - Germany occupied Brussels, Belgium and began the invasion of France.

1946 - U.S. President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.

1948 - The Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.

1954 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled for school integration in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. The ruling declared that racially segregated schools were inherently unequal.{C}

1956 - The first synthetic mica (synthamica) was offered for sale in Caldwell Township, NJ.

1973 - The U.S. Senate Watergate Committee began its hearings.

1975 - NBC TV bought the rights to show "Gone With the Wind." The one time rights cost NBC $5,000,000.

1980 - Rioting erupted in Miami's Liberty City neighborhood after an all-white jury in Tampa acquitted four former Miami police officers of fatally beating black insurance executive Arthur McDuffie. Eight people were killed in the rioting.

1985 - Bobby Ewing died on the season finale of "Dallas" on CBS-TV. He returned the following season.

1987 - Eric ‘Sleepy’ Floyd of the Golden State Warriors set a playoff record for points in a single quarter with 29.

1987 - An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.

1990 - Kelsey Grammer was sentenced to 30 days in jail for DWI.

1996 - U.S. President Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan's Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.

1997 - Rebel leader Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly Zaire.

1997 - Sylvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin were married in London.

1998 - New York Yankees pitcher David Wells became the 13th player in modern major league baseball history to throw a perfect game.

1999 - Eric Ford, a tabloid photographer, was sentenced to 6 months at a halfway house, 3 years probation and 150 hours of community service. The sentence stemmed from a charge that Ford had eavesdropped on a call between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman and then sold a recording of the conversation.

1999 - Alex Trebek received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2000 - Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and David Luker surrendered to police in Birmingham, AL. The two former Ku Klux Klan members were arrested on charges from the bombing of a church in 1963 that killed four young black girls.

2000 - Austria, the U.S. and six other countries agreed on the broad outline of a plan that would compensate Nazi-Era forced labor.

2000 - It was announced that Terra Networks SA and Lycos would be merging with the new name to be Terra Lycos. Terra made the deal happen with the purchase of $12.5 billion in stock.

2001 - The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp based on Charles M. Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip.

2006 - The U.S. aircraft carrier Oriskany was sunk about 24 miles off Pensacola Beach. It was the first vessel sunk under a Navy program to dispose of old warships by turning them into diving attractions. It was the largest man-made reef at the time of the sinking.

2007 - Trains crossed the border dividing North and South Korea for the first time since 1953.

May 18, 2013

1302 - The weaver Peter de Coningk led a massacre of the Flemish oligarchs.

1642 - Montreal, Canada, was founded.

1643 - Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, was granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king's will.

1652 - In Rhode Island, a law was passed that made slavery illegal in North America. It was the first law of its kind.

1792 - Russian troops invaded Poland.

1798 - The first Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.

1802 - Great Britain declared war on Napoleon's France.

1804 - Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed emperor by the French Senate.

1828 - Battle of Las Piedras ended the conflict between Uruguay and Brazil.

1896 - The U.S. Supreme court upheld the "separate but equal" policy in the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. The ruling was overturned 58 years later with Brown vs. Board of Education.

1897 - A public reading of Bram Stoker's new novel, "Dracula, or, The Un-dead," was performed in London.

1904 - Brigand Raizuli kidnapped American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.

1917 - The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service act, which called up soldiers to fight in World War I.

1926 - Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, CA. She reappeared a month later with the claim that she had been kidnapped.

1931 - Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.

1933 - The Tennessee Valley Authority was created.

1934 - The U.S. Congress approved an act, known as the "Lindberg Act," that called for the death penalty in interstate kidnapping cases.

1942 - New York ended night baseball games for the duration of World War II.

1944 - Monte Cassino, Europe's oldest Monastic house, was finally captured by the Allies in Italy.

1949 - Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America was incorporated

1951 - The United Nations moved its headquarters to New York City.

1953 - The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.

1974 - India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.

1980 - Mt. Saint Helens erupted in Washington state. 57 people were killed and 3 billion in damage was done.

1983 - The U.S. Senate revised immigration laws and gave millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.

1994 - Israel's three decades of occupation in the Gaza Strip ended as Israeli troops completed their withdrawal and Palestinian authorities took over.

1998 - The U.S. federal government and 20 states filed a sweeping antitrust case against Microsoft Corp., saying the computer software company had a "choke hold" on competitors which denied consumer choices by controlling 90% of the software market.

1998 - U.S. federal officials arrested more than 130 people and seized $35 million. This was the end to an investigation of money laundering being done by a dozen Mexican banks and two drug-smuggling cartels.

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