May 7
558 The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapses. Its immediate rebuilding is ordered by Justinian.
1274 The Second Council of Lyons opens in France to regulate the election of the pope.
1429 Joan of Arc breaks the English siege of Orleans.
1525 The German peasants' revolt is crushed by the ruling class and church.
1763 Indian chief Pontiac begins his attack on a British fort in present-day Detroit, Michigan.
1800 Congress divides the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part will becomes the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remains the Northwest Territory.
1824 Beethoven's "Ninth Symphony" premiers in Vienna.
1847 The American Medical Association is formed in Philadelphia.
1862 Confederate troops strike Union troops at the Battle of Eltham's Landing in Virginia.
1864 The Battle of Wilderness ends with heavy losses to both sides.
1877 Indian chief Sitting Bull enters Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn.
1915 The German submarine U-20 torpedoes the passenger ship Lusitiania, sinking her in 21 minutes with 1,978 people on board.
1937 The German Condor Legion arrives in Spain to assist Fransico Franco's forces.
1942 In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attack each other with carrier-launched warplanes. It is the first time in the history of naval warfare where two fleets fought without seeing each other. Two crucial battles in 1942 marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific.
1943 The last major German strongholds in North Africa--Tunis and Bizerte--fall to Allied forces.
1945 Germany signs an unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II in Europe.
1952 In Korea, Communist POWs at Koje-do riot against their American captors.
1954 French troops surrender to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu.
1958 Howard Johnson sets an aircraft altitude record in F-104.
1960 Leonid Brezhnev becomes president of the Soviet Union.
Today in history
May 8
1450 Jack Cade's Rebellion--Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1541 Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo.
1559 An act of supremacy defines Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.
1794 The United States Post Office is established.
1846 The first major battle of the Mexican War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas.
1862 General 'Stonewall' Jackson repulses the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the Shenendoah Valley.
1864 Union troops arrive at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Confederates waiting for them.
1886 Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.
1895 China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki.
1904 U.S. Marines land in Tangier, North Africa, to protect the Belgian legation.
1919 The first transatlantic flight by a navy seaplane takes-off.
1933 Hahatma Gandhi begins a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1940 German commandos in Dutch uniforms cross the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.
1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends.
1945 The final surrender of German forces is celebrated as VE (Victory Europe) day.
1952 Allied fighter-bombers stage the largest raid of the war on North Korea.
1958 President Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.
1967 Boxer Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.
1984 The Soviet Union announces it will not participate in Summer Olympics planned for Los Angeles.
1995 Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.
May 9
1502 Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to New World.
1754 The first newspaper cartoon in America appears.
1813 U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison take Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.
1864 Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--"
1859 Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreats across the River Sesia in Italy.
1915 German and French forces fight the Battle of Artois.
1926 Explorer Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole.
1936 Fascist Italy captures the city of Addis Abba, Ethiopia and annexes the country.
1941 The German submarine U-110 is captured at sea along with its Enigma machine by the Royal Navy.
1946 King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicates his throne and is replaced by Umberto.
1962 A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.
1974 The House Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment.
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Cameraman Jenn
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 13280
- Joined: Thu Oct 19, 2006 11:33 pm
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I am not sure of the year but today marks the anniversary of Germany's surrender to Russia in WWII. Since I work with all Russian men we had cake today to celebrate! They of course wanted the traditional vodka shots but I told them that I didn't want them getting dui's on their test drives in customer's cars....could be bad for business.... 
Now if I could just find a way to wear live bees as jewelry all the time.....
www.fantasybedtimehour.com
www.fantasybedtimehour.com
May 10
1285 Philip III of Spain is succeeded by Philip IV ("the Fair").
1503 Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands.
1676 Bacon's Rebellion begins in the New World.
1773 To keep the troubled East India Company afloat, Parliament passes the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the American colonies.
1774 Louis XVI succeeds his father Louis XV as King of France.
1775 American troops capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.
1794 Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, is beheaded.
1796 Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.
1840 Mormon leader Joseph Smith moves his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.
1857 The Bengal Army in India revolts against the British.
1863 General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson succumbs to illness and wounds received during the Battle of Chancellorsville.
1865 Union cavalry troops capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irvinville, Georgia.
1869 The Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah.
1859 French emperor Napoleon III leaves Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.
1872 Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for U.S. president.
1917 Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic.
1924 J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
1928 WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming.
1933 Nazis begin burning books by "unGerman" writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front.
1940 German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line.
1940 Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.
1941 England's House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs.
1960 The USS Nautilus completes first circumnavigation of globe underwater.
1994 Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa's first black president.
May 11
1573 Henry of Anjou becomes the first elected king of Poland.
1689 French and English navies battle at Bantry Bay.
1690 In the first major engagement of King William's War, British troops from Massachusetts seize Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.
1745 French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.
1792 The Columbia River is discovered by Captain Robert Gray.
1812 British prime Minster Spencer Perceval is shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.
1857 Indian mutineers seize Delhi.
1858 Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi lands at Marsala, Sicily.
1862 Confederates scuttle the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.
1864 Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern.
1960 Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.
1967 The siege of Khe Sanh ends, the base is still in American hands.
May 12
254 St. Stephen I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1588 King Henry III flees Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly enters the city.
1641 The chief advisor to Charles I, Thomas Wentworth, is beheaded in the Tower of London
1780 Charleston, South Carolina falls to British forces.
1851 The Tule River War ends.
1863 With a victory at the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant closes in on Vicksburg.
1864 Union General Benjamin Butler attacks Drewry's Bluff on the James River.
1865 The last land battle of the Civil war occurs at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory.
1881 Tunisia, in North Africa become a French protectorate.
1885 In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebel against the Canadian government.
1926 The Airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.
1932 The body of Charles Lindbergh's baby is found.
1935 Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio by "Bill W.," a stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.," a heart surgeon.
1940 The Nazi conquest of France begins with the crossing Muese River.
1942 The Soviet Army launches its first major offensive of the war, taking Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine.
1943 Axis forces in North Africa surrender.
1949 The Berlin Blockade ends.
1969 Viet Cong sappers try unsuccessfully to overrun Landing Zone Snoopy in Vietnam.
1975 The U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez is seized by Cambodian forces.
May 13
1607 English colonists land near the James River in Virginia.
1648 Margaret Jones of Plymouth is found guilty of witchcraft and is sentenced to be hanged.
1779 The War of Bavarian Succession ends.
1846 The United States declares war on Mexico after fighting has already begun.
1861 Britain declares its neutrality in the American Civil War.
1864 The Battle of Resaca commences as Union General Sherman fights towards Atlanta.
1888 Slavery is abolished in Brazil.
1912 The Royal Flying Corps is established in England.
1913 Igor Sikorsky flies the first four-engine aircraft.
1944 Allied forces in Italy break through the German Gustav Line into the Liri Valley.
1958 French troops take control of Algiers.
1968 Peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam begin in Paris.
1981 Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt.
May 14
1264 King Henry III is captured by his brother-in-law, Simon de Montfort, at the Battle of Lewes.
1509 At the Battle of Agnadello, the French defeat the Venitians in Northern Italy.
1610 French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) is assassinated by François Ravillac, a fanatical monk.
1796 English physician Edward Jenner gives the first successful smallpox vaccination.
1804 Explorer William Clark sets off from St. Louis, Missouri.
1853 Gail Borden applies for a patent for condensed milk.
1863 Union General Nathanial Banks heads towards Port Hudson along the Mississippi River.
1897 Guglielmo Marconi sends first communication by wireless telegraph.
1897 "Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Phillip Sousa is performed for the first time in Philadelphia.
1935 A plebiscite in the Philippines ratifies an independence agreement.
1940 Holland surrenders to Germany.
1942 The British Army, in retreat from Burma, reach India.
1948 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion establishes the State of Israel.
1961 A bus carrying black and white civil rights activists is bombed and burned in Alabama.
1969 Three companies of the 101st Airborne Division fail to push North Vietnamese forces off Hill 937 in South Vietnam.
1973 The U.S. space station Skylab is launched.
1991 In South Africa, Winnie Mandela is sentenced to six years in prison for her part in the kidnapping and beating of three black youths and the death of a fourth.
May 15
756 Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.
1213 King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.
1602 English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.
1614 An aristocratic uprising in France ends with treaty of St. Menehould.
1618 Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.
1702 The War of Spanish Succession begins.
1730 Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.
1768 By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.
1795 Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.
1820 The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.
1849 Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.
1862 The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry's Bluff, Virginia.
1864 At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.
1886 Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.
1916 U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.
1918 Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France's highest military medal.
1930 Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.
1942 The United States begins rationing gasoline.
1958 Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.
1963 The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.
1968 U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.
1972 George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.
1975 The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia's Khmer Rouge.
1988 Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.
May 16
1770 Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France.
1863 At the Battle of Champion's Hill, Union General Ulysess S. Grant repulses the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.
1868 President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during Senate impeachment, by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross.
1879 The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England sets up the Afghan state.
1920 Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.
1928 The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood.
1943 A specially trained and equipped Royal Air Force squadron destroys two river dams in Germany.
1951 Chinese Communist Forces launch second step, fifth-phase offensive and gain up to 20 miles of territory.
1960 A Big Four summit in Paris collapses because of the American U-2 spy plane affair.
1963 After 22 Earth orbits, Gordon Cooper returns to Earth, ending the last mission of Project Mercury.
May 17
1540 Afgan chief Sher Khan defeats Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.
1630 Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi sees the belts on Jupiter's surface.
1681 Louis XIV sends an expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.
1756 Britain declares war on France.
1792 Merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street.
1814 Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden.
1863 Union General Ulysses Grant continues his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge.
1875 The first Kentucky Derby is run in Louisville.
1881 Frederick Douglass is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.
1940 Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium and begins the invasion of France.
1954 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education.
1973 The Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings.
May 18
526 St. John I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1643 Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, is granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king's will.
1652 A law is passed in Rhode Island banning slavery in the colonies but it causes little stir and seems unlikely to be enforced.
1792 Russian troops invade Poland.
1802 Britain declares war on France.
1804 Napoleon Bonaparte becomes the Emperor of France.
1828 The Battle of Las Piedras, between Uruguay and Brazil, ends.
1860 Abraham Lincoln is nominated for president.
1864 The fighting at Spotsylvania in Virginia, reaches its peak at the Bloody Angle.
1896 The Supreme Court's decision on Plessy v. Ferguson upholds the "separate but equal" policy in the United States.
1904 Brigand Raizuli kidnaps American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.
1917 The U.S. Congress passes the Selective Service act, calling up soldiers to fight World War I.
1931 Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashes his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He is picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.
1933 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.
1942 New York ends night baseball games for the rest of World War II.
1944 The Allies finally capture Monte Cassino in Italy.
1951 The United Nations moves its headquarters to New York city.
1969 Two battalions of the 101st Airborne Division assault Hill 937 but cannot reach the top because of muddy conditions.
1974 India becomes sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.
1980 After rumbling for two months, Mount Saint Helens, in Washington, erupts 3 times in 24 hours.
May 19
715 St. Gregory II begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1535 French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail for North America.
1536 Anne Boleyn is beheaded on Tower Green.
1568 Defeated by the Protestants, Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England where Queen Elizabeth imprisons her.
1588 The Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon, Spain.
1608 The Protestant states form the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists.
1635 Cardinal Richelieu of France intervenes in the great conflict in Europe by declaring war on the Hapsburgs in Spain.
1643 The French army defeats a Spanish army at Rocroi, France.
1780 Near total darkness descends on New England at noon. No explanation is found.
1856 Senator Charles Sumner speaks out against slavery.
1858 A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hameton executes unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.
1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's first attack on Vicksburg is repulsed.
1864 The Union and Confederate armies launch their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania, Virginia.
1921 Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system.
1935 The National Football League adopts an annual college draft to begin in 1936.
1964 U.S. diplomats find at least 40 microphones planted in the American embassy in Moscow.
1967 U.S. planes bomb Hanoi for the first time.
May 20
325 The Ecumenical council is inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea.
1303 A peace treaty is signed between England and France.
1347 Cola di Rienzo takes the title of tribune in Rome.
1520 Hernando Cortes defeats Spanish troops sent against him in Mexico.
1690 England passes the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.
1674 John Sobieski becomes Poland's first king.
1774 Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.
1775 North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.
1784 The Peace of Versailles ends a war between France, England, and Holland.
1799 Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d'Acre in Egypt.
1859 A force of Austrians collide with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.
1861 North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.
1862 President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1874 Levi Strauss begins marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.
1902 The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends.
1927 Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.
1930 The first airplane is catapulted from a dirigible.
1932 Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman fly solo across the Atlantic.
1939 Pan American Airways starts the first regular passenger service across the Atlantic.
1941 Germany invades Crete by air.
1942 Japan completes the conquest of Burma.
1951 During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first jet air ace in history.
1961 A white mob attacks civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama.
1969 In South Vietnam, troops of the 101st Airborne Division reach the top of Hill 937 after nine days of fighting entrenched North Vietnamese forces.
1970 100,000 people march in New York, supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.
May 21
996 Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.
1471 King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.
1506 Christopher Columbus dies.
1536 The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.
1620 Present-day Martha's Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.
1790 Paris is divided into 48 zones.
1832 The Democratic party holds its first national convention.
1856 Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
1863 The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins.
1881 The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.
1927 Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
1940 British forces attack German General Rommel's 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France.
1941 The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat.
1951 The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.
1961 Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
1970 The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
1991 In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
Wow, 80 years ago! Such a different time. It's been said that Lindbergh's achievement captivated the world in a way that rivalled even the moon landing of 1969 - maybe because there were fewer things in 1927 to distract the attention of the public.dlbpharmd wrote:May 21
1927 Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.
Don't know what that was about, but it's interesting that a governor can declare martial law. I thought only the federal gov't could do that. Just shows my ignorance of how things work in the U.S.1961 Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
May 22
1246 Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France.
1455 King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses.
1804 The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.
1856 Senator Preston Brooks of South Carolina strikes Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner's earlier condemnation of slavery.
1863 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins.
1868 The "Great Train Robbery" takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train's safe in Indiana.
1872 The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners.
1882 The United States formally recognizes Korea.
1908 The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent.
1939 Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a "Pact of Steel" forming the Axis powers.
1947 The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece.
1967 The children's program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood premiers.
1972 Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified.
1985 Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108.
1987 An Iraqi missile hits the American frigate USS Stark in the Persian Gulf.
1990 In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state.
May 23
1430 Burgundians capture Joan of Arc and sell her to the English.
1533 Henry VIII's marriage to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.
1618 The Thirty Years War begins.
1701 Captain William Kidd, the Scottish pirate, is hanged on the banks of the Thames.
1785 Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.
1788 South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify U.S. Constitution.
1861 Pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces clash in western Virginia.
1862 Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson takes Front Royal, Virginia.
1864 Union General Ulysses Grant attempts to outflank Confederate Robert E. Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia.
1900 Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.
1901 American forces capture Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo.
1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.
1934 Gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed by Texas Rangers.
1945 Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide after being captured by Allied forces.
1949 The Federal Republic of West Germany is proclaimed.
1960 Israel announces the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.
May 24
1543 Nicolaus Copernicus publishes proof of a sun-centered solar system. He dies just after publication.
1607 Captain Christopher Newport and 105 followers found the colony of Jamestown at the mouth of the James River on the coast of Virginia.
1610 Sir Thomas Gates institutes "laws divine moral and marshal, " a harsh civil code for Jamestown.
1624 After years of unprofitable operation, Virginia's charter is revoked and it becomes a royal colony.
1689 English Parliament passes the Act of Toleration, protecting Protestants. Roman Catholics are specifically excluded from exemption.
1738 The Methodist Church is established.
1764 Boston lawyer James Otis denounces "taxation without representation," calling for the colonies to unite in opposition to Britain's new tax measures.
1798 Believing that a French invasion of Ireland is imminent, Irish nationalists rise up against the British occupation.
1844 Samuel Morse taps out the first telegraph message.
1846 General Zachary Taylor captures Monterey.
1861 General Benjamin Butler declares slaves to be the contraband of war.
1863 Bushwackers led by Captain William Marchbanks attack a Federal militia party in Nevada, Missouri.
1878 The first American bicycle race is held in Boston.
1930 Amy Johnson becomes the first woman to fly from England to Australia.
1941 The British battleship Hood is sunk by the German battleship Bismarck. There are only three survivors.
1951 Willie Mays begins playing for the New York Giants.
1961 Civil rights activists are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi.