1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, was dedicated by Chief Justice William Howard Taft.
1416 – Jerome of Prague was burned as a heretic by the Church.
1431 – Hundred Years’ War: 19 year old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France
1527 – The University of Marburg was founded in Germany.
1536 – King Henry VIII of England married his 3rd wife, Jane Seymour, 11 days after he had his 2nd wife, Anne Boleyn executed.
1539 – Hernando de Soto, the Spanish explorer, landed in Florida with 600 soldiers to search for gold.
1631 – The Treaty of Fontainebleau signed between Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria, and the Kingdom of France, establishing a secret alliance between them during the Thirty Years’ War.
1783 – The first daily newspaper was published in the U.S. by Benjamin Towner called “The Pennsylvania Evening Post”
1806 – Future US President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson’s wife of bigamy
1814 – The First Treaty of Paris was declared, which returned France to its 1792 borders.
1822 – George Wilson and Joe LaRoche betray a planned slave revolt organized by Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina, confirming an earlier warning from Peter Prioleau. 35 Black people are later hanged.
1848 – Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo between US and Mexico comes into force, giving New Mexico, California and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado to the US in return for $15 million
1868 – “Decoration Day”, later called Memorial Day is first observed in Northern US states
1883 – Twelve people were trampled to death in New York City in a stampede when a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing occurred.
1906 – Hersheypark, founded by Milton S. Hershey for the exclusive use of his employees, is opened
1911 – The first Indianapolis 500 is held – Ray Harroun won the first running of the 500-mile automobile race, which is today one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events.
1913 – Treaty of London signed by the Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and the victorious Balkan League (Serbia, Greece, Kingdom of Bulgaria, and Montenegro) bringing an end to the First Balkan War
1921 – The U.S. Navy transferred the Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of the Interior.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, was dedicated by Chief Justice William Howard Taft.
1937 – Memorial Day Massacre: Chicago Police Department shoot and kill 10 unarmed demonstrators during the “Little Steel Strike” in the United States
1943 – American forces secured the Aleutian island of Attu from the Japanese during World War II.
1958 – Unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean conflicts were buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
1959 – Iraq withdraws from the Baghdad Pact (Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom)
1961 – The Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo, is assassinated – El Jefe had been the Dominican Republic’s President for 31 years. Despite the assassination, the intended removal of the dictatorship in the Caribbean country failed as the ruler’s son, Ramfis Trujillo, soon stepped into his father’s shoes.
1962 – Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is premiered – The work was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which had been destroyed in World War II. It juxtaposes the traditional Latin Mass for the Dead with war poems by Wilfred Owen.
1967 – The Republic of Biafra is proclaimed – The short-lived state consisted of Nigeria’s Eastern Region. Its secession sparked the Nigerian Civil War, which lasted until 1970 and resulted in the region’s re-integration into Nigeria.
1971 – Mariner 9, the American deep space probe blasted off on a journey to Mars.
1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout Britain.
1983 – Peru’s President Fernando Belaunde Terry declared a state of emergency and suspended civil rights after bombings by leftist rebels.
1991 – Supreme Court rules prosecutors can be sued for legal advice they give police & can be held accountable
1997 – Jesse K. Timmendequas was convicted in Trenton, NJ, of raping and strangling a 7-year-old neighbor, Megan Kanka. The 1994 murder inspired “Megan’s Law,” requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in.
2011 – Germany abandons nuclear energy – The government’s decision followed the nuclear meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima power plant and years of hands-on protests and activism by Germany powerful anti-nuclear movement.
2012 – New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the Portion Cap Rule. The proposed amendment to the city health code would have required that food service establishments limit the size of sugary beverages to 16 ounces. On June 26, 2014, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that the New York City Board of Health had exceeded the scope of its regulatory authority.
2012 – A number of nations including Germany, Turkey and Canada, expel Syrian diplomats following the Houla massacre
2016 – Former Chad dictator Hissène Habré convicted of crimes against humanity by the Extraordinary African chambers, 1st ex-head of state convicted of the charge
2017 – Large suicide bomb in the diplomatic quarter of Kabul, Afghanistan kills more than 150 and injures 400
2019 – Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards signs new anti-abortion, making it the fifth southern US state to ban abortion when fetal heartbeat detected
REFERENCE: history.net, onthisday.com, thepeopleshistory.com, timeanddate.com, scopesys.com, on-this-day.com
