This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

May 28

Today is Menstrual Hygiene Day. Please make a note of it.

1588 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, heading for the English Channel. (It will take until May 30 for all ships to leave port.)

1644 – Bolton Massacre by Royalist troops under the command of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby.

1754 – French and Indian War: In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under the 22-year-old Lieutenant colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which relocates Native Americans.

1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.

1907 – The first Isle of Man TT race was held.

1934 – Near Callander, Ontario, Canada, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne; they will be the first quintuplets to survive infancy.

1936 – Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication.

1937 – The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., who pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the span.

Volkswagen (VW), the German automobile manufacturer is founded.

1951 – The British radio comedy program The Goon Show is broadcast on the BBC for the first time.

1958 – Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, heavily reinforced by Frank Pais Militia, overwhelm an army post in El Uvero.

1961 – Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed.

1969 - Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were arrested at their London home and charged with possession of cannabis.

1977 – In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 people inside.

Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers play together for the first time when they perform as part of Mike Howlett's band, Strontium 90.

1985 - Desert Island Discs radio presenter Roy Plomley died. He devised the BBC Radio series Desert Island Discs in 1941, and went on to present 1,791 editions of the show, which became one of the longest running radio shows in the UK.

1987 – West German pilot Mathias Rust, who was 18 years old, evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in the Red Square in Moscow, Russia. He is immediately detained and would not be released until August 3, 1988.

1995 – The Russian town of Neftegorsk is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that kills at least 2,000 people, half of the total population.

1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.

1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.

2002 – The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site. Cleanup duties officially end with closing ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, New York City.

2011 – Malta votes on the introduction of divorce. Welcome to the nineteenth century, Malta.

Births

1818 – P. G. T. Beauregard; 1888 – Jim Thorpe; 1908 – Ian Fleming; 1910 – T-Bone Walker; 1917 – Papa John Creach; 1922 – Lou Duva (boxing manager); 1933 – John Karlen ('Lacey''s husband on "Cagney & Lacey", "Dark Shadows"); 1936 – Betty Shabazz; 1944 – Rudy Giuliani; 1944 – Gladys Knight; 1944 – Sondra Locke; 1944 – Gary Stewart, Billy Vera; 1945 – Patch Adams (no, the real one); 1945 – John Fogerty; 1949 – Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics); Kamala, The Ugandan Giant (wrestler); Townsend Coleman (voice of "The Tick"); 1961 – Michelle Collins; 1962 - Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals); 1964 – Phil Vassar; 1968 – Kylie Minogue; 1969 – Rob Ford; 1971 – Marco Rubio; 1977 – Elisabeth Hasselbeck; 1985 – Colbie Caillat

Deaths

1843 – Noah Webster; 1849 – Anne Brontë; 1971 – Audie Murphy; 1998 – Phil Hartman; 2003 – Martha Scott; 2010 – Gary Coleman; 2014 – Maya Angelou; 2015 – Reynaldo Rey

[DanaC]

From the wiki page about the Bolton Massacre:

At the end of the Third English Civil War the Earl of Derby travelled north and was captured near Nantwich and given quarter. However, he was tried by court-martial at Chester on 29 September. His quarter was disallowed and he was condemned to death for treason (i.e. for communicating with King Charles II). His appeal for pardon was rejected and he escaped, but was recaptured by Captain Hector Schofield and on 15 October 1651, taken to Bolton where he reputedly spent his last hours at Ye Olde Man & Scythe public house, but more likely in a house on Churchgate [16] before being beheaded near the Market Cross on Churchgate.

Ye Olde Man and Scythe is still there. I've drunk there many times when I lived in Bolton. They have a skull behind the bar which they claim is that of Earle of Derby :p

[Gravdigr]

I've never drank with a skull.

(Drunk, or drank?)

[Gravdigr]

I never drunk no drank with no skull. There.

[DanaC]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

I've never drank with a skull.

(Drunk, or drank?)

I never drank
I've never drunk

[Gravdigr]

Thankee.

[Gravdigr]

May29

Today is the 150th day of the year.

1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. On his birthday, no less.

1727 – Peter II becomes Czar of Russia.

1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.

1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Between 300 and 500 United Irishmen are massacred by the British Army in County Kildare, Ireland.

1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

1886 – The pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.

1914 – The Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.

1919 – Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.

1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.

1940 – The first flight of the Vought F4U Corsair.

1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling single in history.

1945 – First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber.

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.

1971 - Three dozen Grateful Dead fans were treated for hallucinations caused by LSD after they unwittingly drank spiked apple juice served at a gig at San Francisco's Winterland.

1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

Skeletal remains are found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. Based on forensic evidence the remains were identified as Philip Kramer, former bassist with rock group Iron Butterfly, who had disappeared on his way home from work on February 12, 1995. Based on calls he made to police, his death was ruled as a probable suicide.

2001 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.

2008 – A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people, and killing a number of sheep.

2015 - Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch goes up for sale with an asking price of $100,000,000.

Births

1630 – Charles II of England; 1736 – Patrick Henry; 1874 – G. K. Chesterton; 1893 – Max Brand; 1903 – Bob Hope; 1914 – Stacy Keach, Sr., Tenzing Norgay; 1916 – Carl Story; 1917 – John F. Kennedy; 1921 – Clifton James; 1929 – Peter Higgs (Higgs Boson); 1939 – Al Unser; 1941 – Bob Simon; 1942 – Kevin Conway; 1945 – Gary Brooker; 1947 – Anthony Geary; 1948 – Nick Mancuso; 1953 – Danny Elfman; 1955 – John Hinckley Jr.; 1955 – Mike Porcaro; 1955 – Ken Schrader; 1956 – La Toya Jackson; 1958 – Annette Bening; 1958 – Wayne Duvall ('Homer Stokes' in "O Brother Where Art Thou"); 1959 – Rupert Everett; 1961 – Melissa Etheridge; 1967 – Noel Gallagher; 1975 – Mel B (Scary Spice); 1989 – Riley Keough (actress & Elvis Presley's granddaughter)

Deaths

1866 – Winfield Scott; 1911 – W. S. Gilbert (Gilbert & Sullivan); 1942 – John Barrymore; 1948 – Dame May Whitty; 1951 – Fanny Brice (Baby Snooks); 1953 – Man Mountain Dean (wrestler); 1979 – Mary Pickford; 1982 – Romy Schneider; 1997 – Jeff Buckley; 1998 – Barry Goldwater; 2006 – Steve Mizerak; 2008 – Harvey Korman; 2010 – Dennis Hopper; 2012 – Doc Watson

[Gravdigr]

May 30

Today is Memorial Day (United States).

70 - Roman emperor Titus breaches Jerusalem's Second Wall.

1431 - In Rouen, France, Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. She is ~19 years old.

1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour (no, not that one, a different one), a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.

1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife, Rachel, of bigamy.

1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time.

1883 – In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.

1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.

1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..

1942 – World War II: One thousand British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.

1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

1958 – Memorial Day: The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1966 – Launch of Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.

1968 - The Beatles begin recording what will become known as "The White Album".

1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.

1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.

2005 – American student Natalee Holloway disappears while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, and caused a media sensation in the United States.

2012 – Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.

Births

1846 – Peter Carl Fabergé; 1896 – Howard Hawks; 1902 – Stepin Fetchit; 1908 – Mel Blanc; 1909 – Benny Goodman; 1918 – Bob Evans; 1927 – Clint Walker; 1936 – Keir Dullea; 1939 – Michael J. Pollard; 1939 – Tim Waterstone (founded Waterstone's book stores); 1943 – Gale Sayers; 1944 – Meredith MacRae; 1953 – Colm Meaney; 1955 – Topper Headon (The Clash), Jake "The Snake" Roberts; 1958 – Ted McGinley; 1962 – Kevin Eastman (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles); 1963 – Shauna Grant (porn actress); 1964 – Wynonna Judd,Tom Morello; 1974 – CeeLo Green; 1975 – Marissa Mayer (CEO Yahoo); 1979 – Clint Bowyer

Deaths

1431 – Joan of Arc; 1593 – Christopher Marlowe; 1640 – Peter Paul Rubens; 1778 – Voltaire; 1911 – Milton Bradley; 1912 – Wilbur Wright; 1947 – Georg von Trapp (of the "The Sound of Music" von Trapps); 1953 – Dooley Wilson ('Sam' from "Casablanca"); 1960 – Boris Pasternak; 1967 – Claude Rains ('Capt. Renault' from "Casablanca"); 1986 – Perry Ellis; 1993 – Sun Ra; 2012 – John Fox, Andrew Huxley; 2015 – Beau Biden

[Gravdigr]

May 31

1279 BC – Ramesses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.

526 – A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch killing 250,000.

1859 – The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.

1864 – American Civil War: Overland Campaign: Battle of Cold Harbor: The Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee engages the Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade.

1879 – Gilmores Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

1889 – Johnstown Flood: Over 2,200 people die after a dam fails and sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

1909 – The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, convenes for the first time.

1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.

1929 – The first talking Mickey Mouse cartoon, "The Karnival Kid", is released.

1973 – The United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.

1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed.

1985 – United States–Canada tornado outbreak: Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.

1989 – A group of six members of the guerrilla group Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) of Peru, shoot dead eight transsexuals, in the city of Tarapoto.

2005 – Vanity Fair reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat.

2013 – The asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon make their closest approach to Earth for the next two centuries.

Births

1819 – Walt Whitman; 1852 – Julius Richard Petri (Petri dish); 1894 – Fred Allen; 1898 – Norman Vincent Peale; 1908 – Don Ameche; 1922 – Denholm Elliott; 1930 – Clint Eastwood; 1938 – Johnny Paycheck; 1939 – Terry Waite; 1943 – Sharon Gless, Joe Namath; 1948 – John Bonham; 1949 – Tom Berenger; 1950 – Gregory Harrison; 1955 – Tommy Emmanuel; 1960 – Chris Elliott; 1961 – Lea Thompson; 1962 – Corey Hart (he wears his sunglasses at night); 1964 – Darryl McDaniels (Run D.M.C.); 1965 – Brooke Shields; 1972 – Archie Panjabi; 1976 – Colin Farrell

Deaths

1809 – Joseph Haydn; 1983 – Jack Dempsey; 1996 – Timothy Leary; 2001 – Arlene Francis; 2013 – Jean Stapleton; 2015 – Slim Richey

[Gravdigr]

June 1

1495 – A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.

1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.

1792 – Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.

1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.

1812 – War of 1812: U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Fairfax Court House: The first land battle of the American Civil War after the Battle of Fort Sumter, producing the first Confederate combat casualty.

1916 – Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1918 – World War I: Western Front: Battle of Belleau Wood: Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord engage Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary is founded.

1939 – First flight of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber airplane.

1959 - The first edition of Juke Box Jury aired on the BBC.

1962 – Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.

1967 – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles, is released.

David Bowie releases his self titled debut studio album.

1980 – Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.

1981 - The first issue of the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! was published as a special pull-out by UK weekly music paper Sounds. AC/DC had the front cover.

2001 – Nepalese royal massacre: Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family including his father and mother, King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya.

2009 – General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.

2012 – United States President, Barack Obama, orders Cyber attacks of Stuxnet, against Iran's Natanz Nuclear Facility, code-named Operation Olympic Games.

Births

1637 – Jacques Marquette (namesake of Marquette University); 1801 – Brigham Young; 1825 – John Hunt Morgan; 1831 – John Bell Hood; 1889 – James Daugherty; 1890 – Frank Morgan; 1915 – John Randolph; 1921 – Nelson Riddle; 1926 – Andy Griffith, Marilyn Monroe; 1930 – Edward Woodward; 1933 – Charlie Wilson (Charlie Wilson's War); 1934 – Pat Boone; 1935 – Reverend Ike; 1937 – Morgan Freeman; 1939 – Cleavon Little ('Sheriff Bart' in "Blazing Saddles"); 1940 – René Auberjonois ('Odo'); 1946 – Brian Cox; 1947 – Jonathan Pryce, Ronnie Wood; 1948 – Powers Boothe, Tom Sneva; 1953 – David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn); 1961 – Mark Curry (Hangin' with Mr. Cooper); 1968 – Mathias Rust (landed a private plane in Red Square); 1969 – Teri Polo

Deaths

1868 – James Buchanan; 1927 – Lizzie Borden; 1948 – Sonny Boy Williamson I; 1965 – Curly Lambeau (founded the Green Bay Packers); 1968 – Helen Keller; 1980 – Arthur Nielsen (Nielsen ratings); 1981 – Carl Vinson (namesake of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)); 1999 – Christopher Cockerell (invented the hovercraft); 2000 – Tito Puente; 2001 – Hank Ketcham ("Dennis The Menace" creator); 2008 – Yves Saint Laurent; 2014 – Ann B. Davis ('Alice' on "The Brady Bunch")

[Gravdigr]

June 2

455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.

1763 – Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.

1886 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.

1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.

1910 – Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.

1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.

1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.

1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.

1976 - Wings set a new world record when they performed in front of 67,100 fans in Seattle, the largest attendance for an indoor crowd.

1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.

1981 - Prince made his live British debut at The Lyceum Ballroom, London, (he would not play the UK again for five years).

1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane's doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.

1989 - Rolling Stone Bill Wyman secretly married 19-year-old (some sources put her at 18) Mandy Smith. Wyman's 28-year-old son was best man. All other four Stones attended. The marriage lasted 17 months.

1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12 people.

1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.

1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was executed four years later.

2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!.

2012 – The former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Births

1731 – Martha Washington; 1740 – Marquis de Sade; 1840 – Thomas Hardy; 1904 – Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan); 1915 – Walter Tetley (voice of 'Sherman' in the Mr. Peabody cartoons); 1920 – Tex Schramm; 1926 – Milo O'Shea; 1930 – Pete Conrad (3rd man to walk on the Moon); 1937 – Sally Kellerman; 1941 – Stacy Keach; 1941 – Charlie Watts; 1943 – Charles Haid; 1944 – Marvin Hamlisch; 1948 – Jerry Mathers (the Beaver); 1953 – Craig Stadler; 1954 – Dennis Haysbert; 1955 – Dana Carvey; 1960 – Kyle Petty; 1972 – Wayne Brady; 1972 – Wentworth Miller ("Prison Break"); 1979 – Morena Baccarin; 1989 – Freddy Adu

Deaths

1941 – Lou Gehrig; 1969 – Leo Gorcey; 1970 – Bruce McLaren; 1977 – Stephen Boyd; 1987 – Sammy Kaye, Andrés Segovia; 1990 – Jack Gilford, Rex Harrison; 1996 – Ray Combs; 1998 – Junkyard Dog; 2001 – Imogene Coca; 2008 – Bo Diddley; 2009 – David Eddings; 2012 – Richard Dawson

[Gravdigr]

June 3

1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.

1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.

1781 – Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton.

1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

1885 – In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.

1888 – The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in The San Francisco Examiner.

1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.

1916 – The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

1942 – World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

1943 – In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.

1953 - Elvis Presley graduated from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis. He was the first member of his family to graduate high school.

1962 – At Paris' Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130 people.

1965 – The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

1969 – Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.

1970 - The Kinks' Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000 mile round trip from New York to London to record one word in a song. Davies had to change the word 'Coca- Cola' to 'Cherry Cola' on the bands forthcoming single 'Lola' due to an advertising ban at BBC Radio.

1973 – A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.

1979 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

1980 – The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak: Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages.

1983 - US session drummer Jim Gordon, murdered his mother by pounding her head with a hammer. A diagnosed schizophrenic, it was not until his trial in 1984 that he was properly diagnosed. Due to the fact that his attorney was unable to use the insanity defense, Gordon was sentenced to sixteen years-to-life in prison in 1984. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing "Layla" with Eric Clapton, Gordon worked with The Beach Boys, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and many other artists.

1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

1991 – Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

2012 – A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.

2012 – The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.

Births

1808 – Jefferson Davis; 1864 – Ransom E. Olds (founder Oldsmobile & REO Motor Car Co.); 1911 – Ellen Corby ('Grandma Walton'); 1917 – Leo Gorcey; 1924 – Colleen Dewhurst; 1924 – Jimmy Rogers (no, the black one); 1925 – Tony Curtis; 1926 – Allen Ginsberg; 1927 – Boots Randolph ("Yakety Sax"); 1929 – Chuck Barris; 1931 – Raúl Castro; 1936 – Larry McMurtry; 1942 – Curtis Mayfield; 1945 – Hale Irwin; 1946 – Tristan Rogers ('Robert Scorpio' on "General Hospital"); 1947 – Mickey Finn; 1950 – Suzi Quatro; 1950 – Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It For The Boy"), Robert Z'Dar ("Maniac Cop"); 1951 – Jill Biden; 1952 – Billy Powell; 1964 – James Purefoy; 1967 – Anderson Cooper; 1976 – Jamie McMurray

Deaths

1861 – Stephen A. Douglas; 1875 – Georges Bizet; 1899 – Johann Strauss II; 1955 – Barbara Graham; 1973 – Dory Funk; 1975 – Ozzie Nelson; 1987 – Will Sampson ('Chief Bromden' in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 1990 – Robert Noyce (co-founder Intel); 1991 – Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft; 2001 – Anthony Quinn; 2002 – Lew Wasserman; 2009 – David Carradine; 2011 – James Arness; 2011 – Jack Kevorkian; 2013 – Deacon Jones

[Gravdigr]

June 4

1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.

1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1825 – General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY during his visit to the United States.

1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.

1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

1939 – The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

1942 - Glenn Wallichs launched Capitol Records in the US. Wallichs was the man who invented the art of record promotion by sending copies of new releases to disc jockeys.

1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505: The first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.

1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night(<---read), inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.

1984 - Bruce Springsteen released the album, 'Born In The USA', which became the best-selling album of 1985 in the United States (and also Springsteen's most successful album ever). The album produced a record-tying string of seven Top 10 singles.

1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.

1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

1997 - Jeff Buckley's body was discovered floating in the Mississippi River. Buckley had disappeared when swimming on May 29th in Wolf River Harbor, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin. A roadie in Buckley's band, had remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, he looked up to see that Buckley had vanished.

1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2012 – The concert for Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee takes place outside Buckingham Palace in London.

2015 – An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing over 200 people.

Births

1907 – Rosalind Russell; 1910 – Christopher Cockerell; 1924 – Dennis Weaver; 1926 – Robert Earl Hughes (world's heaviest man, during his lifetime); 1928 – Ruth Westheimer; 1932 – John Drew Barrymore; 1936 – Bruce Dern; 1937 – Freddy Fender; 1937 – Gorilla Monsoon; 1939 – Henri Pachard (porn director, among other things); 1944 – Michelle Phillips; 1952 – Parker Stevenson; 1954 - Raphael Ravenscroft (saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street"; 1956 - Reeves Gabrels (The Cure); 1961 – El DeBarge; 1964 – Sean Pertwee (Bruce Wayne's butler/Man Friday 'Alfred' in "Gotham"); 1968 – Al B. Sure!, Scott Wolf; 1969 – Horatio Sanz; 1971 – Noah Wyle; 1975 – Angelina Jolie; 1978 – Robin Lord Taylor ('Oswald Cobblepot' (The Penguin) in "Gotham")

Deaths

1942 – Reinhard Heydrich; 1989 – Dik Browne (cartoonist, Hagar The Horrible & Hi and Lois); 1992 – Carl Stotz (founder of Little League Baseball); 1997 – Ronnie Lane; 2004 – Marvin Heemeyer (Granby, Colorado bulldozer rampage); 2007 – Bill France, Jr. (asshole); 2010 – John Wooden; 2013 – Joey Covington; 2014 – Don Zimmer

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June 5

Today is World Environment Day.

70 – Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem.

1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.

1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.

1900 – Second Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria.

1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day".

1933 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

1940 – World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renew the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red").

1941 – World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing.

1942 – World War II: The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

1944 – World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.

1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair".

1964 – DSV Alvin is commissioned.

1967 – The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border.

1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy dies the next day.

1975 – The Suez Canal re-opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.

The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC).

1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses.

1981 – The "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.

1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

1993 – Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide.

2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.

2012 – The last transit of Venus of the 21st century begins.

2013 – A building collapse in Philadelphia, PA kills six and wounds 14 other people.

Births

1850 – Pat Garrett; 1878 – Pancho Villa; 1883 – John Maynard Keynes; 1895 – William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy); 1898 – Federico García Lorca; 1899 – Otis Barton (designed the bathysphere); 1919 – Richard Scarry (illustrator); 1928 – Robert Lansing; 1934 – Bill Moyers; 1941 – Spalding Gray, Robert Kraft; 1947 – Tom Evans (Badfinger); 1947 – Freddie Stone; 1949 – Ken Follett; 1951 – Suze Orman; 1952 – Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden); 1953 – Kathleen Kennedy (co-founder Amblin Entertainment); 1956 – Kenny G; 1961 – Mary Kay Bergman (voice actress on South Park); 1962 – Jeff Garlin; 1964 – Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson book series); 1967 – Ron Livingston; 1969 – Brian McKnight; 1971 – Mark Wahlberg; 1979 – Pete Wentz

Deaths

1900 – Stephen Crane; 1910 – O. Henry; 1993 – Conway Twitty; 1998 – Jeanette Nolan; 1999 – Mel Tormé; 2002 – Dee Dee Ramone; 2004 – Ronald Reagan; 2012 – Ray Bradbury; 2015 – Tariq Aziz

[Gravdigr]

June 6

Ramadan begins today.

Today is Western Australia Day.

1508 – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friuli by Venetian troops.

1762 – Seven Years' War: British forces begin a siege of Havana, Cuba, and temporarily capture the city in the Battle of Havana.

1808 – Joseph Bonaparte, brother to Napoleon, is crowned King of Spain.

1833 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. President to ride on a train.

1844 – The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay, India are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.

1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle, Washington.

1892 – The Chicago "L" commuter rail system begins operation.

1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

1932 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon sold.

1933 – The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.

1934 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater

1942 – World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.

1944 - Operation Overlord commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

1946 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) is created with eleven teams.

1960 - Bing Crosby was presented with a Platinum disc to commemorate his 200 millionth record sold. The sales figures were a combined total of 2,600 recorded singles and 125 albums. Crosby's global lifetime sales on 179 labels in 28 countries totaled 400 million records.

1962 - The first Beatles recording session took place at Abbey Road studios. The group recorded four tracks, one of which was 'Love Me Do' the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.

1965 - The Rolling Stones released the single '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' in the US, which went on to give the band their first No.1.

1966 - Roy Orbison's first wife, Claudette, was killed when a truck pulled out of a side road and collided with the motorbike that she and her husband were riding on in Gallatin, Texas, she was 25.

1968 – Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.

1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives.

1982 – A British Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopter is destroyed in a friendly fire incident, resulting in the loss of four lives.

1984 – Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all time, is first released in the USSR.

1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

1997 – Prom Mom incident: While attending her senior prom in Lacey Township, New Jersey, Melissa Drexler gives birth in a bathroom stall, leaves the baby to die in a trash can and then returns to the prom.

2002 – Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2005 – In Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.

Births

1755 – Nathan Hale; 1756 – John Trumbull; 1799 – Alexander Pushkin; 1867 – David T. Abercrombie(founded Abercrombie & Fitch); 1868 – Robert Falcon Scott; 1917 – Kirk Kerkorian; 1923 – V. C. Andrews; 1936 – Levi Stubbs; 1939 – Gary U.S. Bonds; 1945 – David Dukes (the actor, not the racist); 1945 – Arthur Shawcross (the Genesee River Killer); 1947 – Robert Englund; 1954 – Harvey Fierstein; 1955 – Sandra Bernhard, 1955 – Sam Simon (developer, director, producer, writer The Simpsons); 1956 – Björn Borg; 1959 – Jimmy Jam; 1960 – Steve Vai; 1963 – Eric Cantor; 1967 – Paul Giamatti; 1972 – Natalie Morales; 1974 – Uncle Kracker

Deaths

1799 – Patrick Henry; 1865 – William Quantrill (Quantrill's Raiders); 1878 – Robert Stirling (invented the stirling engine); 1941 – Louis Chevrolet; 1961 – Carl Jung; 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy; 1976 – J. Paul Getty; 1979 – Jack Haley; 1991 – Stan Getz; 1997 – Magda Gabor (Zsa Zsa & Eva's older sister); 2002 – Robbin Crosby (Ratt); 2005 – Anne Bancroft, 2005 – Dana Elcar (MacGyver); 2006 – Billy Preston; 2010 – Marvin Isley (The Isley Brothers); 2013 – Esther Williams