Home Today's History Lesson TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: MAY 18

TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON: MAY 18

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1927 – 45 people die in the United States’ worst school massacre, In the Bath school disaster, a disgruntled school board member set off several bombs at the Bath Consolidated School and other locations in Michigan.

332 – Roman Emperor Constantine the Great institutes free daily bread rations in Constantinople

1096 – Crusaders massacre Jews of Worm

1268 – The Principality of Antioch, a crusader state, falls to the Mamluk Sultan Baibars in the Battle of Antioch; Baibars’ destruction of the city of Antioch was so great as to permanently negate the city’s importance.

1302 – The weaver Peter de Coningk led a massacre of the Flemish oligarchs.

1498 – Vasco da Gama reaches the port of Calicut, India

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII of England, is beheaded after being convicted for adultery

1588 – The Spanish Armada sets sail for England; it is defeated by England the following August

1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd’s accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.

1631 – English colony Massachusetts Bay grants puritarian voting right

1643 – Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, was granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king’s will.

1652 – In Rhode Island, a law was passed that made slavery illegal in North America. It was the first law of its kind.

1792 – Russian troops invaded Poland.

1798 – The first Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.

1804 – Napoleon Bonaparte is appointed Emperor of the French, Even today, the French leader, a native of Corsica, is widely known for his successful military campaigns – and his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.

1828 – Battle of Las Piedras ended the conflict between Uruguay and Brazil.

1830 – Edwin Budding of England signs an agreement for manufacture of his invention, the lawn mower

1848 – The first German National Assembly gathers in Frankfurt, The assembly constituted the first freely elected parliament of Germany. It produced a constitution that provided the basis for today’s constitution of Germany (Grundgesetz)

1852 – Massachusetts rules all school-age children must attend school

1869 – The Public Credit Act is passed by Ulysses S. Grant, one of his first actions as President of the United States. The Act endorsed the payment of the national debt after the American Civil War in gold currency instead of greenbacks

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: a mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II resulted in the deaths of 1,389 people

1896 – The U.S. Supreme court upheld the “separate but equal” policy in the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. The ruling was overturned 58 years later with Brown vs. Board of Education.

1897 – A public reading of Bram Stoker’s new novel, “Dracula, or, The Un-dead,” was performed in London.

1904 – Brigand Raizuli kidnapped American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.

1910 – Passage of Earth through tail of Halley’s Comet causes near-panic

1917 – The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service act, which called up soldiers to fight in World War I.

1918 – TNT explosion in chemical factory in Oakdale PA kills 200

1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, CA. She reappeared a month later with the claim that she had been kidnapped.

1927 – 45 people die in the United States’ worst school massacre, In the Bath school disaster, a disgruntled school board member set off several bombs at the Bath Consolidated School and other locations in Michigan.  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1927-bombing-remains-americas-deadliest-school-massacre-180963355/

1931 – Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashed his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He was picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1934 – The U.S. Congress approved an act, known as the “Lindberg Act,” that called for the death penalty in interstate kidnapping cases.

1942 – New York ended night baseball games for the duration of World War II.

1944 – Monte Cassino, Europe’s oldest Monastic house, was finally captured by the Allies in Italy.

1944 – Expulsion of more than 200,000 Tartars from Crimea by Soviet Union begins, they are accused of collaborating with the Germans

1951 – The United Nations moved its headquarters to New York City.

1953 – The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.

1964 – 40 hidden microphones are discovered in the U S embassy in Moscow

1964 – Supreme Court rules unconstitutional to deprive naturalized citizens of citizenship if they return to home country for more than 3 years

1971 – President Nixon rejects the 60 demands of Congressional Black Caucus

1974 – India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.

1974 – Completion of the Warsaw radio mast, the tallest construction ever built at the time. It later collapses on August 8, 1991.

1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts, The eruption killed 57 people. A large part of the previously cone-shaped volcano was replaced by a massive crater; its summit is now some 1300 feet (400 meters) lower than before the eruption.

1983 – The U.S. Senate revised immigration laws and gave millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.

1991 – Northern Somalia declares independence from the rest of Somalia as the Republic of Somaliland however it is unrecognised by the international community.

1992 – The Archivist of the United States issues a proclamation to officially announce that the 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been ratified, despite more than 200 years for completion of the ratification process by the state legislatures.

1994 – Israel’s three decades of occupation in the Gaza Strip ended as Israeli troops completed their withdrawal and Palestinian authorities took over.

1998 – The U.S. federal government and 20 states filed a sweeping antitrust case against Microsoft Corp., saying the computer software company had a “choke hold” on competitors which denied consumer choices by controlling 90% of the software market.

1998 – U.S. federal officials arrested more than 130 people and seized $35 million. This was the end to an investigation of money laundering being done by a dozen Mexican banks and two drug-smuggling cartels.

2009 – The Sri Lankan Civil War ends, The 25-year conflict between the government and the separatist Tamil Tigers had claimed up to 100,000 lives. It ended with the Tigers’ defeat.

2010 – Police officer James Crooker is asked to leave the Red and Black Café in Portland, Oregon after co-owner John Langley claimed Crooker’s uniformed presence made him uncomfortable

2012 – Facebook Inc. held its initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ. The company was valued at $104 billion making it the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company.

2014 – Swiss voters reject a $25 per hour minimum wage

2018 – All of Chile’s 34 Roman Catholic bishops offer their resignation to Pope Francis in wake of child sex scandal

2018 – Santa Fe High School shooting; 17 year-old shooter kills 10 and injures 10 in Santa Fe, Texas

2020 – US President Donald Trump confirms he is taking controversial drug hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19

2022 – Amid a nationwide US baby formula shortage, President Joe Biden invokes the Defense Production Act, requiring suppliers to fulfil orders to baby formula manufacturers first

REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com

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