April 19
1539 Emperor Charles V reaches a truce with German Protestants at Frankfurt, Germany.
1689 Residents of Boston oust their governor, Edmond Andros.
1764 The English Parliament bans the American colonies from printing paper money.
1775 The American Revolution begins as fighting breaks out at Lexington, Massachusetts.
1782 The Netherlands recognizes the United States.
1794 Tadeusz Kosciuszko forces the Russians out of Warsaw.
1802 The Spanish reopen New Orleans port to American merchants.
1824 English poet Lord Byron dies of malaria at age 36 while aiding Greek independence.
1861 The Baltimore riots result in four Union soldiers and nine civilians killed.
1861 President Lincoln orders a blockade of Confederate ports.
1880 The Times war correspondent telephones a report of the Battle of Ahmed Khel, the first time news is sent from a field of battle in this manner.
1927 In China, Hankow communists declare war on Chiang Kai-shek.
1934 Shirley Temple appears in her first movie.
1938 General Francisco Franco declares victory in the Spanish Civil War.
1939 Connecticut finally approves the Bill of Rights.
1943 The Warsaw Ghetto uprising against Nazi rule begins.
1960 Baseball uniforms begin displaying player's names on their backs.
1971 Russia launches its first Salyut space station.
1977 Alex Haley receives a special Pulitzer Prize for his book Roots.
1982 NASA names Sally Ride to be the first woman astronaut.
1989 The battleship USS Iowa's number 2 turret explodes, killing sailors.
1993 The FBI ends a 51-day siege by storming the Branch Dividian religious cult headquarters in Waco, Texas.
1995 A truck bomb explodes in front of the federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
Today in history
April 20
1139 The Second Lateran Council opens in Rome.
1657 English Admiral Robert Blake fights his last battle when he destroys the Spanish fleet in Santa Cruz Bay.
1769 Ottawa Chief Pontiac is murdered by an Indian in Cahokia.
1770 Captain Cook discovers Australia.
1775 British troops begin the siege of Boston.
1792 France declares war on Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia.
1809 Napoleon defeats Austria at Battle of Abensberg, Bavaria.
1836 The Territory of Wisconsin is created.
1841 Edgar Allen Poe's first detective story is published.
1861 Robert E. Lee resigns from the U.S. Army.
1879 The first mobile home (horse-drawn) is used in a journey from London to Cyprus.
1916 Wrigley Field opens in Chicago.
1919 The Polish Army captures Vilno, Lithuania from the Soviets.
1940 The first electron microscope is demonstrated.
1942 Pierre Laval, the premier of Vichy France, in a radio broadcast, establishes a policy of "true reconciliation with Germany."
1945 Soviet troops begin their attack on Berlin.
1951 General MacArthur addresses a joint session of Congress after being relieved by President Truman.
1953 Operation Little Switch begins in Korea, the exchange of sick and wounded prisoners of war.
1962 The New Orleans Citizens Committee gives free one-way ride to blacks to move North.
1967 U.S. planes bomb Haiphong for first time during the Vietnam War.
1999 Two students enter Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and open fire with multiple firearms, killing 13 students and teachers, wounding 25 and eventually shooting themselves.
April 21
753 BC Traditional date of the foundation of Rome.
43 BC Marcus Antonius is defeated by Octavian near Modena, Italy.
1526 Mongol Emperor Babur annihilates the Indian Army of Ibrahim Lodi.
1649 The Maryland Toleration Act is passed, allowing all people freedom of worship.
1689 William III and Mary II are crowned joint king and queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.
1836 General Sam Houston defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas wins independence from Mexico.
1862 Congress establishes the U.S. Mint.
1865 Abraham Lincoln's funeral train leaves Washington.
1898 The Spanish-American War begins.
1910 Mark Twain dies at the age of 75.
1916 Bill Carlisle, the infamous 'last train robber,' robs a train in Hanna, Wyoming.
1914 U.S. Marines occupy Vera Cruz, Mexico. They will stay six months.
1918 German fighter ace Baron von Richthofen, "The Red Baron," is shot down and killed.
1943 President Roosevelt announces that several Doolittle pilots have been executed by Japanese.
1960 Brasilia becomes the capital of Brazil.
1961 The French army revolts in Algeria.
1966 Pfc. Milton Lee Olive is awarded the Medal of Honor, posthumously, for bravery during the Vietnam War.
1975 The last South Vietnam president, Nguyen Van Thieu, resigns.
1995 Federal authorities arrest Timothy McVeigh in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing.
April 22
296 St. Gaius ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
536 St. Agapitus I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil.
1509 Henry VIII ascends to the throne of England upon the death of his father, Henry VII.
1529 Spain and Portugal divide the eastern hemisphere in the Treaty of Saragosa.
1745 The Peace of Fussen is signed.
1792 President George Washington proclaims American neutrality in the war in Europe.
1861 Robert E. Lee is named commander of Virginia forces.
1889 The Oklahoma land rush officially starts at noon as thousands of Americans race for new, unclaimed land.
1898 In the first action of the Spanish-American War, the USS Nashville, takes on a Spanish ship.
1915 At the Second Battle of Ypres, the Germans use poison gas for the first time.
1918 British naval forces attempt to sink block-ships in the German U-boat bases at the Battle of Zeeburgge.
1931 Egypt signs treaty of friendship with Iraq.
1944 Allies launch major attack against the Japanese in Hollandia, New Guinea.
1954 The Senate Army-McCarthy hearings begin. They are broadcast on television.
1955 Congress orders all U.S. coins to bear the motto "In God We Trust."
1976 Barbara Walters becomes the first female nightly news anchor on network television.
1995 In Africa, Rwandan troops kill thousands of Hutu refugees in Kibeho.
April 23
1348 The first English order of knighthood is founded.
1500 Pedro Cabal claims Brazil for Portugal.
1521 The Comuneros are crushed by royalist troops in Spain.
1759 British forces seize Basse-Terre and Guadeloupe from France.
1789 President George Washington moves into Franklin House, New York.
1826 Missolonghi falls to Egyptian forces.
1856 Free Stater J.N. Mace in Westport, Kansas shoots pro-slavery sheriff Samuel Jones in the back.
1865 Union cavalry units continue to skirmish with Confederate forces in Henderson, North Carolina and Munsford Station, Alalbama.
1895 Russia, France, and Germany force Japan to return the Liaodong peninsula to China.
1896 Motion pictures premiere in New York City.
1915 The ACA becomes the National Advisory Council on Aeronautics (NACA), the forerunner of NASA.
1920 The Turkish Grand National Assembly has first meeting in Ankara.
1924 The U.S. Senate passes the Soldiers' Bonus Bill.
1945 The Soviet Army fights its way into Berlin.
1950 Chiang Kai-shek evacuates Hainan, leaving mainland China to Mao Zedong and the communists.
1954 The Army-McCarthy hearings begin.
1966 President Lyndon Johnson publicly appeals for more nations to come to the aid of South Vietnam.
1969 Sirhan Sirhan is sentenced to death for killing Senator Robert Kennedy.
1971 The Soviet Union launches Soyuz 10, becoming the first in Salyut 1 space station.
April 24
858 St. Nicholas I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.
1519 Envoys of Montezuma II attend the first Easter mass in Central America.
1547 Charles V's troops defeat the Protestant League of Schmalkalden at the battle of Muhlburg.
1558 Mary, Queen of Scotland, marries the French dauphin, Francis.
1792 Claude-Joseph Rouget de Lisle composes "La Marseilles". It will become France's national anthem.
1800 The Library of Congress is established in Washington, D.C. with a $5,000 allocation.
1805 U.S. Marines attack and capture the town of Derna in Tripoli from the Barbary pirates.
1833 A patent is granted for first soda fountain.
1877 Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
1884 Otto von Bismarck cables Cape Town, South Africa that it is now a German colony.
1898 Spain declares war on United States, rejecting an ultimatum to withdraw from Cuba.
1915 Turks of the Ottoman Empire begin massacring the Armenian minority in their country.
1916 Irish nationalists launch the Easter Uprising against British occupation.
1944 The first B-29 arrives in China, over the Hump of the Himalayas.
1948 The Berlin airlift begins to relieve surrounded city.
1953 Winston Churchill is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
1961 President John Kennedy accepts "sole responsibility" for the failed invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs.
1968 Leftist students take over Columbia University in protest over the Vietnam War.
1980 A rescue attempt of the U.S. hostages held in Iran fails when a plane collides with a helicopter in the Iranian desert.
1981 The IBM Personal Computer is introduced.
1989 Thousands of Chinese students strike in Beijing for more democratic reforms.
April 25
1590 The Sultan of Morocco launches a successful attack to capture Timbuktu.
1644 The Ming Chongzhen emperor commits suicide by hanging himself.
1707 At the Battle of Almansa, Franco-Spanish forces defeat the Anglo-Portugese forces.
1719 Daniel Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe is published in London.
1792 The guillotine is first used to execute highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier.
1859 Work begins on the Suez Canal in Egypt.
1862 Admiral Farragut occupies New Orleans, Louisiana.
1864 After facing defeat in the Red River Campaign, Union General Nathaniel Bank returns to Alexandria, Louisiana.
1867 Tokyo is opened for foreign trade.
1882 French commander Henri Riviere seizes the citadel of Hanoi in Indochina.
1898 The United States declares war on Spain.
1915 Australian and New Zealand troops land at Gallipoli in Turkey.
1925 General Paul von Hindenburg takes office as president of Germany.
1926 In Iran, Reza Kahn is crowned Shah and chooses the name "Pehlevi."
1926 Puccini's opera Turandot premiers at La Scala in Milan with Arturo Toscanini conducting.
1938 A seeing eye dog is used for the first time.
1945 U.S. and Soviet forces meet at Torgau, Germany on Elbe River.
1951 After a three day fight against Chinese Communist Forces, the Gloucestershire Regiment is annihilated on "Gloucester Hill," in Korea.
1953 The magazine Nature publishes an article by biologists Francis Crick and James Watson, describing the "double helix" of DNA.
1956 Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" goes to number one on the charts.
1959 The St. Lawrence Seaway--linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes--opens to shipping.
1960 The first submerged circumnavigation of the Earth is completed by a Triton submarine.
1962 A U.S. Ranger spacecraft crash lands on the Moon.
1971 The country of Bangladesh is established.
1980 President Jimmy Carter tells the American people about the hostage rescue disaster in Iran.
1982 In accordance with the Camp David agreements, Israel completes a withdrawal from the Sinai peninsula.
1990 Violeta Barrios de Chamorro begins a six year term as Nicaragua's president.
April 26
757 Stephen II ends his reign as Catholic Pope.
1478 Pazzi conspirators attack Lorenzo and kill Giuliano de'Medici.
1514 Copernicus makes his first observations of Saturn.
1564 William Shakespeare is baptized.
1607 The British establish a colony at Cape Henry, Virginia.
1865 Joseph E. Johnston surrenders the Army of Tennessee to Sherman.
1915 Second Lieutenant Rhodes-Moorhouse becomes the first airman to win the Victoria Cross after conducting a successful bombing raid.
1929 The first non-stop flight from England to India is completed.
1931 New York Yankee Lou Gehrig hits a home run but is called out for passing a runner, the mistake ultimately costs him the home run record.
1937 The ancient Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain is bombed by German planes.
1941 The first organ is played at a baseball stadium in Chicago.
1968 Students seize the administration building at Ohio State University.
1983 The Dow Jones Industrial Average breaks 1,200 for first time.
1986 The world's worst nuclear disaster occurs at the Chernobyl power plant in the Soviet Union.
1994 Nelson Mandela wins the presidency in South Africa's first multiracial elections.
April 27
1296 Edward I defeats the Scots at the Battle of Dunbar.
1509 Pope Julius II excommunicates the Italian state of Venice.
1565 The first Spanish settlement in Philippines is established in Cebu City.
1773 British Parliament passes the Tea Act.
1746 King George II wins the battle of Culloden.
1813 American forces capture York (present-day Toronto), the seat of government in Ontario.
1861 President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus.
1861 West Virginia secedes from Virginia after Virginia secedes from the Union.
1863 The Army of the Potomac begins marching on Chancellorsville.
1865 The Sultana, a steam-powered riverboat, catches fire and burns after one of its boilers explodes. At least 1,238 of the 2,031 passengers--mostly former Union POWs--are killed.
1909 The Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II, is overthrown.
1937 German bombers of the Condor Legion devastate Guernica, Spain.
1941 The Greek army capitulates to the invading Germans.
1950 South Africa passes the Group Areas Act, formally segregating races.
1961 The United Kingdom grants Sierra Leone independence.
1975 Saigon is encircled by North Vietnamese troops.
1978 The Afghanistan revolution begins.
1989 Protesting students take over Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.
April 28
357 Constantius II visits Rome for the first time.
1282 Villagers in Palermo lead a revolt against French rule in Sicily.
1635 Virginia Governor John Harvey is accused of treason and removed from office.
1760 French forces besieging Quebec defeat the British in the second battle on the Plains of Abraham.
1788 Maryland becomes the seventh state to ratify the constitution.
1789 The crew of the HMS Bounty mutinies against Captain William Bligh.
1818 President James Monroe proclaims naval disarmament on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain.
1856 Yokut Indians repel an attack on their land by 100 would-be Indian fighters in California.
1902 Revolution breaks out in the Dominican Republic.
1910 The first night air flight is performed by Claude Grahame-White in England.
1916 British declare martial law throughout Ireland.
1919 Les Irvin makes the first jump with an Army Air Corps parachute.
1920 Azerbaijan joins the Soviet Union.
1930 The first organized night baseball game is played in Independence, Kansas.
1932 A yellow fever vaccine for humans is announced.
1945 Benito Mussolini is killed by Italian partisans.
1946 The Allies indict Tojo on 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.
1953 French troops evacuate northern Laos.
1965 The U.S. Army and Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
1967 Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army and is stripped of boxing title.
1969 Charles de Gaulle resigns as president of France.
April 29
1289 Qala'un, the Sultan of Egypt, captures Tripoli.
1429 Joan of Arc leads French forces to victory over English at Orleans.
1624 Louis XIII appoints Cardinal Richelieu chief minister of the Royal Council of France.
1661 The Chinese Ming dynasty occupies Taiwan.
1672 King Louis XIV of France invades the Netherlands.
1813 Rubber is patented.
1852 The first edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus is published.
1856 Yokut Indians repel a second attack by the 'Petticoat Rangers,' a band of civilian Indian fighters at Four Creeks, California.
1858 Austrian troops invade Piedmont.
1859 As the French army races to support them and the Austrian army mobilizes to oppose them, 150,000 Piedmontese troops invade Piedmontese territory.
1861 The Maryland House of Delegates votes against seceding from Union.
1862 Forts Philip and Jackson surrender to Admiral Farragut outside New Orleans.
1913 Gideon Sundback of Hoboken patents all-purpose zipper.
1916 Irish nationalists surrender to the British in Dublin.
1918 America's WWI Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker, scores his first victory with the help of Captain James Norman Hall.
1924 Open revolt breaks out in Santa Clara, Cuba.
1927 Construction of the Spirit of St. Louis is completed.
1930 The film All Quiet on the Western Front, based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel Im Western Nichts Neues, premiers.
1945 The German Army in Italy surrenders unconditionally to the Allies.
1945 The Nazi concentration camp of Dachau is liberated by Allied troops.
1946 Former Japanese leaders are indicted in Tokyo as war criminals.
1975 The U.S. embassy in Vietnam is evacuated as North Vietnamese forces fight their way into Saigon.
1983 Harold Washington is sworn in as Chicago's first black mayor.
1992 Four Los Angeles police offices are acquitted of charges stemming from the beating of Rodney King. Rioting ensues.
April 30
313 Licinius unifies the whole of the eastern Roman Empire under his own rule.
1250 King Louis IX of France is ransomed.
1527 Henry VIII of England and King Francis of France sign treaty of Westminster.
1563 All Jews are expelled from France by order of Charles VI.
1725 Spain withdraws from the Quadruple Alliance.
1789 George Washington is inaugurated as the first U.S. president.
1803 The United States doubles in size through the Louisiana Purchase, which was sold by France for $15 million.
1812 Louisiana is admitted into the Union as a state.
1849 Giuseppe Garabaldi, the Italian patriot and guerrilla leader, repulses a French attack on Rome.
1864 Work begins on the Dams along the Red River, which will allow Union General Nathaniel Banks' troops to sail over the rapids above Alexandria, Louisiana.
1930 The Soviet Union proposes a military alliance with France and Great Britain.
1931 The George Washington Bridge, linking New York City and New Jersey, opens.
1943 The British submarine HMS Seraph drops '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 commits suicide in his bunker. Karl Donitz becomes his successor.
1968 U.S. Marines attack a division of North Vietnamese troops in the village of Dai Do.
1970 U.S. troops invade Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese Army base areas.
1972 The North Vietnamese launch an invasion of the South.
1973 Nixon announces the resignation of H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, and other top aides.
1975 North Vietnamese troops enter the Independence Palace of South Vietnam in Saigon ending the Vietnam War.
1980 Terrorists seize the Iranian Embassy in London.
May 1
408 Theodosius II succeeds to the throne of Constantinople.
1308 King Albert is murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share of the Habsburg lands.
1486 Christopher Columbus convinces Queen Isabella to fund expedition to the West Indies.
1805 The state of Virginia passes a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation.
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville begins as Union Gen. Joe Hooker starts his three-pronged attack against Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
1867 Reconstruction in the South begins with black voter registration.
1877 President Ruthoford B. Hayes withdraws all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.
1898 The U.S. Navy under Dewey defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.
1915 The luxury liner Lusitania leaves New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe.
1927 Adolf Hitler holds his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.
1931 The Empire State Building opens in New York.
1934 The Philippine legislature accepts a U.S. proposal for independence.
1937 President Franklin Roosevelt signs an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.
1941 The film Citizen Kane--directed and starring Orson Welles--opens in New York.
1944 The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, makes its first flight.
1945 Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escapes the Fuehrerbunker as the Red Army advances on Berlin.
1948 North Korea is established.
1950 Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry called Annie Allen.
1960 Francis Gary Powers' U-2 spy plane is shot down over Russia.
1961 Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba.
1968 In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continue their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.
1970 Students from Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.
1986 The Tass News Agency reports the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.
I'm a day late on this one, but...
in 1938, Buggs Bunny was introduced to the world.
He was in a cartoon short with Elmer Fudd.
Nowadays, Buggs is one of the most famous cartoon characters on Earth.
in 1938, Buggs Bunny was introduced to the world.
He was in a cartoon short with Elmer Fudd.
Nowadays, Buggs is one of the most famous cartoon characters on Earth.
Have you hugged your arghule today?
________________________________________
"For millions of years
mankind lived just like the animals.
Then something happened
that unleashed the power of our imagination -
we learned to talk."
________________________________________
If PRO and CON are opposites,
then the opposite of PROgress must be...
_______________________________________
It's 4:19...
gotta minute?
________________________________________
"For millions of years
mankind lived just like the animals.
Then something happened
that unleashed the power of our imagination -
we learned to talk."
________________________________________
If PRO and CON are opposites,
then the opposite of PROgress must be...
_______________________________________
It's 4:19...
gotta minute?
May 2
1670 The Hudson Bay Company is founded.
1598 Henry IV signs Treaty of Vervins, ending Spain's interference in France.
1668 Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle ends the War of Devolution in France.
1776 France and Spain agree to donate arms to American rebels fighting the British.
1797 A mutiny in the British navy spreads from Spithead to the rest of the fleet.
1798 The black General Toussaint L'ouverture forces British troops to agree to evacuate the port of Santo Domingo.
1808 The citizens of Madrid rise up against Napoleon.
1813 Napoleon defeats a Russian and Prussian army at Grossgorschen.
1863 Stonewall Jackson smashes Hooker's flank at Chancellorsville, Virginia.
1865 President Andrew Johnson offers a $100,000 reward for the capture of Confederate President
1885 King Leopold II of Belgium establishes the Congo Free State.
1890 The Territory of Oklahoma is created.
1919 The first U.S. air passenger service starts.
1923 Lieutenants Okaley Kelly and John Macready take off from New York for the West Coast on what will become the first successful nonstop transcontinental flight.
1941 Hostilities break out between British forces in Iraq and that country's pro-German faction.
1942 Admiral Chester J. Nimitz, convinced that the Japanese will attack Midway Island, visits the island to review its readiness.
1945 Russian forces take Berlin after 12 days of fierce house-to-house fighting.
1946 Prisoners revolt at California's Alcatraz prison.
1968 The U.S. Army attacks Nhi Ha in South Vietnam and begins a fourteen-day battle to wrestle it away from Vietnamese Communists.
1970 Student anti-war protesters at Ohio's Kent State University burn down the campus ROTC building. The National Guard takes control of campus.
May 3
495 Pope Gelasius asserts that his authority is superior to Emperor Enanstasius.
1568 French forces in Florida slaughter hundreds of Spanish.
1855 Macon B. Allen becomes the first African American to be admitted to the Bar in Massachusetts.
1859 France declares war on Austria.
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville rages for a second day.
1865 President Lincoln's funeral train arrives in Springfield, Illinois.
1926 U.S. Marines land in Nicaragua.
1952 The first airplane lands at the geographic North Pole.
1968 After three days of battle, the U.S. Marines retake Dai Do complex in Vietnam, only to find the North Vietnamese have evacuated the area.
1971 James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King's assassin, is caught in a jail break attempt.
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman prime minister of Great Britain.
1982 A British submarine sinks Argentina's only cruiser during the Falkland Islands War.
May 4
1471 In England, the Yorkists defeat the Landcastians at the battle of Tewkesbury.
1626 Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.
1715 A French manufacturer debuts the first folding umbrella.
1776 Rhode Island declares independence from England.
1795 Thousands of rioters enter jails in Lyons, France, and massacre 99 Jacobin prisoners.
1814 Napoleon Bonaparte disembarks at Portoferraio on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean.
1863 The Battle of Chancellorsville ends when Union Army retreats.
1864 Union General Ulysses S. Grant's forces cross the Rapidan River and meet Robert E. Lee's Confederate army.
1927 A balloon soars over 40,000 feet for the first time.
1930 Mahatma Gandhi is arrested by the British.
1942 The Battle of the Coral Sea commences.
1942 The United States begins food rationing.
1961 13 civil rights activists, dubbed Freedom Riders, begin a bus trip through the South.
1970 Ohio National Guardsmen open fire on student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding nine others.
May 5
1494 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.
1814 British attack the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.
1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.
1834 The first mainland railway line opens in Belgium.
1862 Union and Confederate forces clash at the Battle of Williamsburg, part of the Peninsula Campaign.Eyewitness to War
1862 Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.
1865 The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.
1886 A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers' strike in Chicago.
1912 Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing.
1916 U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic.
1917 Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earns a flying certificate with the French Air Service.
1920 Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Visetti are arrested for murder.
1935 American Jesse Owens sets the long jump record.
1942 General Joseph Stilwell learns that the Japanese have cut his railway out of China and is forced to lead his troops into India.
1945 Holland and Denmark are liberated from Nazi control.
1961 Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.
1968 U.S. Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam in support of attacking infantrymen.
May 6
1527 German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed.
1529 Babur defeats the Afgan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.
1682 King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France.
1856 U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.
1861 Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union.
1862 Henry David Thoreau dies of tuberculosis at age 44.
1864 In the second day of the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.
1877 Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska. Crazy Horse brought General Custer to his end.
1937 The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
1941 Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California's March Field.
1942 General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor to the Japanese.
1944 The Red Army besieges and captures Sevastopol in the Crimea.
1945 Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.
1954 British runner Roger Banister breaks the four minute mile.
1960 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1962 The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine.
1994 The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.