1886 – Coca-Cola is invented, According to legend, Dr. John Styth Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, produced the syrup in a brass pot in his backyard. It was first intended as a patent medicine. Today, Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most popular soft drinks and one of the most recognized trademarks.
0589 – Visigothic King Reccared summons the Third Council of Toledo, where he accepts the Catholic faith
1096 – Peter the Hermit and his army reached Hungary. They passed through without incident.
1348 – Ship from Bordeaux carrying the plague, lands in Melcombe Regis (now Weymouth), Dorset. The beginning of the Terrible Pestilence (Black Death) in England.
1360 – Treaty of Brétigny signed by English & French, ending the first phase of the Hundred Years’ War
1450 – Jack Cade’s Rebellion-Kentishmen revolted against King Henry VI.
1541 – Hernando de Soto reached the Mississippi River. He called it Rio de Espiritu Santo.
1639 – William Coddington founds Newport, Rhode Island
1657 – English Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell refuses the English crown
1660 – English parliament declares Charles Stuart to be King Charles II of England
1787 – First US prison reform society formed, the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons led by Dr. Benjamin Rush
1794 – Antoine Lavoisier was executed by guillotine. He was the French chemist that discovered oxygen.
1812 – US passes 1st foreign aid bill, authorizing up to $50K to assist victims of Caracas, Venezuela earthquake of March 26
1846 – The first major battle of the Mexican War was fought. The battle occurred in Palo Alto, TX. U.S. General Zachary Taylor beat back the Mexican forces.
1847 – The rubber tire was patented by Robert W. Thompson.
1879 – George Selden applied for the first automobile patent.
1886 – Coca-Cola is invented, According to legend, Dr. John Styth Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, produced the syrup in a brass pot in his backyard. It was first intended as a patent medicine. Today, Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most popular soft drinks and one of the most recognized trademarks.
1914 – The U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
1916 – German munitions bunker in Fort Douaumont explodes killing 679 German soldiers
1921 – Sweden abolished capital punishment.
1927 – The White Bird and its crew mysteriously disappear, French aviators, Charles Nungesser and François Coli, had taken off from Paris in their Levasseur PL.8 biplane in an attempt to make the first non-stop transatlantic flight. Their disappearance remains a mystery. Charles Lindbergh succeeded two weeks later.
1933 – Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1942 – Aircraft carrier USS Lexington sunk by Japanese air attack in Coral Sea
1943 – The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.
1945 – U.S. President Harry Truman announced that World War II had ended in Europe.
1946 – Estonian school girls Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel blow up the Soviet memorial that preceded the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn
1950 – President of the Republic of China Chiang Kai-shek asks US for weapons
1956 – Alfred E. Neuman appeared on the cover of “Mad Magazine” for the first time.
1959 – Mike and Marian Ilitch founded “Little Caesars Pizza Treat”.
1960 – Diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Soviet Union resumed.
1962 – Oskar Schindler and his wife Emilie Schindler are honored for saving 1200 Jews during WWII, in a ceremony on the Avenue of the Righteous, Jerusalem
1970 – Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City’s Wall Street.
1973 – In South Dakota, militant American Indians who had held the hamlet of Wounded Knee for 10 weeks surrendered.
1978 – Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climb Mount Everest without oxygen supply
1980 – World Health Organization announces smallpox has been eradicated
1984 – The Soviet Union announced that they would not participate in the 1984 Summer Olympics Games in Los Angeles.
1986 – Reporters were told that 84,000 people had been evacuated from areas near the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Soviet Ukraine.
1987 – Gary Hart quits US democratic presidential race due to affair with Donna Rice
1993 – 16 year old Keron Thomas disguises himself as a motorman & takes NYC subway train and 2,000 passengers on a 3 hour ride
1993 – The government of Bosnia-Herzegovina and rebel Bosnian Serbs signed an agreement for a nationwide cease-fire.
1996 – South Africa adopted a constitution that guaranteed equal rights for black and white people.
1998 – A pipe burst leaving a million residents without water in Malaysia’s capital area. This added to four days of shortages that 2 million already faced.
1999 – Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college (South Carolina)
2003 – The U.S. Senate unanimously endorsed adding seven former communist nations to NATO. The countries were Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
2008 – Dmitry Medvedev appoints Vladimir Putin as Russian Prime Minister
2012 – Dmitry Medvedev is confirmed as Russian Prime Minister by the State Duma, after being nominated by Vladimir Putin
2018 – Ebola outbreak declared in north-west Democratic Republic of Congo with 2 confirmed cases and 17 deaths
2018 – U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear accord with Iran and restored harsh sanctions.
2019 – UK goes a week without using a coal-fired power station for first time in 137 years due to use of more renewable energy
2020 – In the U.S., it was reported that the unemployment level had reached 14.7%. It was the highest level seen since the Great Depression.
2021 – Bombings outside a school in Kabul, Afghanistan, kill at least 50 people, mostly teenage girls, amid growing fears about US military withdrawal
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
