0597: Baptism of Ethelbert, King of the Jutes in Kent, England
1039: Death of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor
1070: Roquefort cheese discovered
1133: Coronation of Lothair II as Holy Roman Emperor
1260: Kublai made Ka-Khan
1365: Coronation of Charles IV as King of Burgundy
1381: Wat Tyler's Rebellion
1508: Coronation of Louis II as King of Hungary
1539: Hernando de Soto finds Juan Ortiz living with Florida Indians
1608: Death of St. Francis Caracciolo
1615: The fortress of Osaka, Japan, falls to shogun Ieyasu after a six
month siege.
1639: New Haven, Connecticut's government by Plantation Covenant ended
1647: Parliamentarian Army seizes King Charles I as a prisoner
1717: The Freemasons are founded in London.
1787: Mozart dug a grave for his pet starling. He was genuinely bummed
out about the bird's demise. Starlings today are regarded in the United States as common
outdoor birds, but in Europe, especially in Mozart's day, they were raised as pets and
taught to warble songs.
1794: British troops capture Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
1812: The Louisiana Territory was renamed the Missouri Territory.
1878: Turkey turned Cyprus over to the British.
1892: The Sierra Club was incorporated in San Francisco.
1896: Henry Ford wheeled his first car from a brick shed in Detroit,
and drove it around the darkened streets on a trial run.
1911: Gold is discovered in Alaska's Indian Creek
1940: The Allied military evacuation from Dunkirk, France, ended.
1942: The Battle of Midway began during World War Two.
1943: In Argentina, Juan Peron takes part in the military coup that
overthrows Ramon S. Castillo.
1944: The US Fifth Army entered Rome, beginning the liberation of the
Italian capital during World War Two.
1946: Juan Peron is installed as Argentina's president
1947: The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the
Taft-Hartley Act.
1954: French Premier Joseph Laniel and Vietnamese Premier Buu Loc
initialed treaties in Paris according "complete independence" to Vietnam.
1960: The Taiwan island of Quemoy is hit by 500 artillery shells fired
from the coast of Communist China.
1972: Black militant Angela Davis is found not guilty of murder,
kidnapping, and criminal conspiracy
1985: The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling striking down an
Alabama law providing for a daily minute of silence in public schools.
1986: Jonathan Jay Pollard, a former Navy intelligence analyst, pleaded
guilty in Washington to spying for Israel. (He is serving a life prison term.)
1987: The congressional Iran-Contra committees voted to grant limited
immunity to former National Security Council aide Oliver L. North, following an appeal by
independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh to reject immunity.
1988: Secretary of State George Shultz flew to Jordan, where he met
with King Hussein. Afterward, Shultz said the Jordanian monarch was reluctant to engage in
peace talks with Israel unless Israel agreed to give up land on the West Bank.
1989: A gas explosion in the Soviet Union engulfed two passing trains,
killing 645.
1989: Tiananmen Square massacre, at least hundreds of pro-democracy
students were killed and thousands wounded as Chinese troops swept demonstrators from the
square in Beijing.
"Jerome Robbins's Broadway" won best musical at the 43rd
annual Tony Awards; "The Heidi Chronicles" by Wendy Wasserstein won best play.
1990: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev closed out his U.S. visit in
northern California, where he met with former President Reagan and South Korean President
Roh Tae-woo and addressed students at Stanford University.
1991: The government of China announced the death of Jiang
Qing, the 77-year-old widow of Mao Tse-tung, saying she had committed suicide on May 14th.
1991: President Bush tapped former Democratic national chairman Robert S. Strauss to be the new US ambassador to the Soviet Union.
1992: President Bush held a news conference in which he said he
understood Americans' fascination with Ross Perot, but predicted that voters would
eventually ask, "How are you going to do it?"
1992: The US Postal Service announced the results of a nationwide vote
on the Elvis Presley stamp, saying more people preferred the "younger Elvis"
design.
1993: The Naxos label was issuing a lot of opera recordings. Next up:
Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" and Johann Strauss's "Die Fledermaus."
Naxos is a cut-rate label that manages it by hiring European orchestras that don't usually
get recording contracts.
1993: The UN Security Council agreed to send up to ten-thousand more UN
peacekeepers to six Bosnian cities to enforce Muslim havens.
1993: Rejecting allegations she was a "quota queen," Lani
Guinier expressed regret President Clinton had dropped her nomination to head the Justice
Department's civil rights division.
1994: President Clinton and British Prime Minister John Major paid
tribute to the lost airmen of World War Two at the American Cemetery in Cambridge,
England.
1995: At the Tony Awards, "Sunset Boulevard" won best
Broadway musical and "Love! Valour! Compassion!" by Terrence McNally was chosen
best play.
1996: Russian President Boris Yeltsin, campaigning for re-election,
indulged in a bit of onstage boogie at a pop concert for young voters.
1997: At the Oklahoma City bombing trial, prosecutors urged the jury to
sentence Timothy McVeigh to death, calling relatives of the victims to testify about their
agonizing loss.
1998: Americans aboard the shuttle Discovery arrived at the Russian
space station Mir to pick up US astronaut Andrew Thomas, who'd spent four months in orbit.
1998: A federal judge sentenced Terry Nichols to life in prison for his
role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
1999: While Congress was in recess, President Clinton bypassed the
Senate using a provision of the Constitution and appointed James C. Hormel, an openly gay
San Francisco businessman, as ambassador to Luxembourg.
1999: On the 10th anniversary of China's crackdown on the Tiananmen
Square protests, tens of thousands of people in Hong Kong held a candlelight vigil.
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2000: A powerful earthquake struck the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killing at least 100 people.
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2000: President Clinton and Russian President Putin ended their summit by conceding differences on missile defense, agreeing to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium and pledging early warning of missile and space launches.
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2000: "Copenhagen" was chosen best play, "Contact" best musical and "Kiss Me, Kate" best musical revival at the Tony Awards.
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