TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 11
330 Constantinople (Byzantium) becomes the capital of the Roman Empire
1189 Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and 100,000 crusaders depart Regensburg for the Third Crusade
1751 Pennsylvania Hospital founded by Dr. Thomas Bond and Benjamin Franklin
1573 Henry of Anjou becomes the first elected king of Poland.
1690 In the first major engagement of King William’s War, British troops from Massachusetts seize Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.
1812 British Prime Minster Spencer Perceval is shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.
1857 Indian mutineers seize Delhi.
1858 Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.
1862 Confederates scuttle the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.
1910 Glacier National Park in Montana was established.
1934 A huge dust storm is spotted moving from the Midwest. The dust storm was 1,500 miles long, 900 miles across and two miles high, covering almost one-third of the country.
1952 Following President Truman’s seizure of the steel mills last month, the case on the legality is now before the Supreme Court. Does the president have powers to seize private industries in national emergencies, in this case due to a strike in the steel mills.
1960 Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.
1967 The Siege of Khe Sanh ends with the base is still in American hands.
1981 The musical Cats is premiered
1985 56 football fans die in a stadium fire
During a match against Lincoln City, the wooden stands at Valley Parade football ground went up in flames. The exits were locked. A burning cigarette thrown into a waste bin has been determined as the probable cause of the disaster.
1995 In New York City, more than 170 countries decide to extend the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty indefinitely and without conditions.
1997 IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov, the reigning world champion, in a six game chess match (2 for blue, 1 for Kasparov, and 3 ties).
1998 India conducted its first underground nuclear tests, three of them, in 24 years. The tests were in violation of a global ban on nuclear testing.
2001 U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announced his decision to approve a 30-day delay of the execution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh had been scheduled to be executed on May 16, 2001. The delay was because the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had failed to disclose thousands of documents to McVeigh’s defense team
2005 Suicide bombers set off multiple explosions throughout Iraq. The blasts in various different cities injured over one hundred people and killed over seventy people.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
