TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 21
996 Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.
1471 King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.
1790 Paris is divided into 48 zones.
1792 Mount Unzen on Japan’s Shimabara Peninsula, erupts creating a tsunami, killing about 15,000; Japan’s deadliest volcanic eruption
1832 The Democratic party holds its first national convention.
1856 Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.
1881 Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters as part of the International Federation of Red Cross Societies.
1924 Leopold and Loeb two wealthy University of Chicago students murder a 14-year-old boy Bobby Franks believing they could commit the perfect crime. They were caught because a pair of eyeglasses found near the body had an unusual hinge mechanism only bought by 3 people in Chicago and one of those was Nathan Leopold.
1935 In Germany people are rallying behind Adolf Hitler as he tells the world he will stop building up arms only if Germany is recognized as an equal in Europe and by the world. He also stated Jews and non-Aryan will be subject to duty in the new Germany.
1947 28 acquitted of lynching a black man after taking him from the county jail in South Carolina for stabbing a white taxi driver after the defense council who criticized northern interference and demanded acquittal to show the north it should stay out of South Carolina and let us run our counties he also said he is dead and more like him should be dead.
1961 Governor John Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.
1968 The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion while heading back to Naval Base Norfolk from the Azores is heard from for the last time. The Scorpion and her crew of 99 was officially declared lost on June 5th, 1968. (The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.)
1970 The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.
1979 Violent clashes follow the lenient sentencing for Harvey Milk’s murderer
Milk, the first openly gay U.S. politician, had been shot and killed together with San Francisco Mayor George Moscone. The assassin, Dan White, was convicted of voluntary manslaughter only, triggering the White Night Riots.
1986 President Reagan vetoed a resolution blocking arms sales to Saudi Arabia stating the Saudi’s have helped in the war on terrorism and are vital to our strategic, political and economic interests in the middle east.
1991 In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.
1998 After shooting and killing his parents the day before student Kipland “Kip” Kinkel a 15-year-old student takes a .22 caliber rifle, a .22 caliber handgun, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol to Thurston High School in Springfield, Ore., where he murders two classmates, Ben Walker and Mikael Nicklauson, and injured 25 others.
1998 In Miami, FL, five abortion clinics were hit by an butyric acid-attacker.
2009 Eleven people accused of being witches were burned to death in Kenya. Villagers formed a mob and attacked the elderly people, eventually killing the eight women and three men who were all over the age of eighty.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
