On This Day in History

16 May

1770
Marie-Antoinette married the future King Louis XVI of France.

1801
American politician William H. Seward—who is perhaps best known for his purchase of Alaska (1867) while serving as U.S. secretary of state (1861–69)—was born in Florida, New York.

1866
The U.S. Congress passed legislation that called for the creation of a five-cent piece composed of nickel and copper; the currency became known as the nickel.

1868
The first of two key votes was held in the Senate impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, who was ultimately acquitted of all charges.

1920
Joan of Arc, national heroine of France, was canonized as a saint by Pope Benedict XV.

1929
The first Academy Awards were presented; Janet Gaynor and Emil Jannings won for best actress and actor, respectively.

1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising suppressed
On this day in 1943, Nazi troops quelled the monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which Polish Jews, led by Mordecai Anielewicz and the Jewish Fighting Organization, resisted deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp.

1961
The military seized power in South Korea, overthrowing the Second Republic, as General Park Chung-Hee took over the government machinery, dissolved the National Assembly, and imposed a strict ban on political activity.

1966
American rock group the Beach Boys released their masterwork, Pet Sounds, a bittersweet pastiche of songs recalling the pangs of unrequited love and other coming-of-age trials.

1986
The action blockbuster Top Gun was released in American theatres, and it made Tom Cruise an international star.

2007
French politician Nicolas Sarkozy was sworn in as president of France; defeated at the polls in 2012, he became only the second French president to fail in a reelection bid since the foundation of the Fifth Republic in 1958.

17 May

1510
Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, one of the greatest painters of the Florentine Renaissance, died.

1792
Meeting on what is now Wall Street in New York City, 24 businessmen took the initial steps to forming the New York Stock Exchange.

1866
French composer Erik Satie, whose spare, unconventional, often witty style exerted a major influence on 20th-century music, was born in Honfleur.

1875
The first Kentucky Derby was run at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, and the winning horse was Aristides.

1900
L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was first published, and it became a classic of children's literature; the 1939 film adaptation is among the most beloved movies in American cinema.

1939
The first televised sporting event in the United States—a collegiate baseball game between Princeton and Columbia—aired on NBC.

1954
School segregation outlawed by U.S. Supreme Court
On this day in 1954, lawyer Thurgood Marshall scored a landmark victory as the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.

1996
U.S. President Bill Clinton signed Megan's Law, which required that law-enforcement officials notify local schools, day-care centres, and residents of the presence of registered sex offenders in their communities.

2004
Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage as it began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

jirqoadai wrote:1864, NewMarket VA. cadets hold the CSA line.

field of Lost shoes. A bitter sweet story of the bravery of these young men.

May 10 - May 20, 1969
battle of Dong Ap Bia
Hill 937
Hamburger Hill
Apache Snow
Dewey Canyon

PAVN 630 deaths

USA 72 deaths
3/187
2/501
1/506
9th Marines
3/5 CAV

treason by Life Magazine displaying 241 photos of dead troops implying they all died on Dong AP Bia when only five of them did in the June 27 issue.
treason by Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, Stephen Young in congress siting this battle as proof of their communistic tendencies.

18 May

1860
Abraham Lincoln became the Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency on the third ballot at the Republican National Convention in Chicago.

1896
The U.S. Supreme Court released its decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, and the judgment advanced the controversial “separate but equal” doctrine for assessing the constitutionality of racial segregation laws.

1899
The first of a series of international conferences that produced the Hague Convention began at The Hague in the Netherlands.

1933
The U.S. government established the Tennessee Valley Authority to control floods and produce electrical power along the Tennessee River and its tributaries.

1940
Brussels fell to the invading German army in World War II and was subjected to harsh terms of occupation.

1953
American aviator Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1956
Swiss climbers Fritz Luchsinger and Ernest Reiss made the first ascent of the Lhotse I mountain in the Himalayas.

1974
India detonated a nuclear weapon in the Rajasthan desert.

1980
Eruption of Mount St. Helens
On this day in 1980, following an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.1 on the Richter scale, Mount St. Helens in Washington erupted in one of the greatest volcanic explosions ever recorded in North America.

2004
American baseball player Randy Johnson became the oldest pitcher to throw a perfect game, for the Arizona Diamondbacks against the Atlanta Braves.

19 May

1536
Having been found guilty on charges of adultery, Anne Boleyn—the second wife of King Henry VIII of England and the mother of Queen Elizabeth I—was beheaded.

1571
Spanish explorer Miguel López de Legazpi established the city of Manila in the Philippines.

1643
During the Thirty Years' War, the French army—led by Louis II de Bourbon—defeated the Spanish in the Battle of Rocroi, ending Spain's military ascendancy in Europe.

1802
Napoleon created the Legion of Honour, the premier order of the French republic.

1884
Ringling Bros. Circus formed
The Ringling brothers opened a small circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin, on this day in 1884 and by the early 20th century had transformed it into the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the leading American circus

1890
Ho Chi Minh—founder of the Indochina Communist Party (1930) and its successor, the Viet Minh (1941), and president (1945–69) of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam)—was born in Hoang Tru, Vietnam, French Indochina.

1935
British archaeological scholar, military strategist, and author T.E. Lawrence, whose life inspired the epic film Lawrence of Arabia (1962), died at age 46 following a motorcycle accident.

1994
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis—who, as U.S. first lady, married to President John F. Kennedy, became known for her style and elegance—died in New York City.

2001
Apple Inc. opened its first two retail stores, in McLean, Virginia, and Glendale, California.

1941
Fallschirmjager landings on Crete

20 May

1784
The Netherlands yielded to Great Britain some of its holdings in India and Indonesia in a treaty signed as part of the Peace of Paris, a collection of treaties that concluded the American Revolution.

1862
U.S. Homestead Act signed
On this day in 1862, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which provided 160 acres of public land virtually free of charge to those who had lived on and cultivated the land for at least five years.

1873
Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis were granted a patent for using copper rivets to strengthen certain areas of trousers, notably pocket corners; the patent was credited with giving rise to blue jeans.

1882
Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy secretly formed the Triple Alliance, a treaty organization that provided for mutual protection against attacks by other European powers until Italy entered World War I.

1902
Cuba gained its independence from the United States, which had taken control of the island in 1899 after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War.

2002
East Timor officially became independent.

2015
David Letterman—who redefined American talk shows with his unconventional humour and innovative segments—stepped down as host of the Late Show with David Letterman.

""1796
Edward Jenner administered the first vaccination against smallpox.""

I'm surprised it dint kill everyone

Maybe Americans were a little tougher back then lol

21 May

1542
Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto, the first European to discover the Mississippi River, died and was buried in the river in Louisiana.

1856
During the small civil war known as Bleeding Kansas—a dispute over control of the new U.S. territory of Kansas under the doctrine of popular sovereignty—the town of Lawrence was sacked by a pro-slavery mob intent on destroying the “hotbed of abolitionism.”

1871
The Commune of Paris revolted against the French national government under Adolphe Thiers, beginning a period of violence known as “Bloody Week.”

1881
Clara Barton founded the American Association of the Red Cross (later the American Red Cross).

1927
First nonstop solo transatlantic flight made by Charles Lindbergh
American aviator Charles Lindbergh completed the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean on this day in 1927, traveling from New York to Paris in the monoplane Spirit of Saint Louis in about 33.5 hours.

1921
Soviet nuclear theoretical physicist and human rights advocate Andrey Sakharov, who won the 1975 Nobel Prize for Peace, was born in Moscow.

1932
American aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to pilot an airplane solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1972
Michelangelo's Pietà, a sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary supporting the body of the dead Christ, was attacked and badly damaged in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.

1991
Indian politician Rajiv Gandhi, who served as the country's prime minister (1984–89), was assassinated in a suicide bombing attack.

2017
After years of declining attendance—in part due to animal rights protests—the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus gave its final performance.