TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 31
1279 BC Ramesses II, also known as Ramesses the Great becomes Pharaoh of Ancient Egypt (19th Dynasty)
0070 Rome captures 1st wall of the city of Jerusalem
1578 Martin Frobisher sails from Harwich, England, to Frobisher Bay, Canada. Eventually mines fools gold, famously used to pave the streets of London.
1634 US colony Massachusetts Bay annexes Maine colony
1678 The Godiva procession, commemorating Lady Godiva’s legendary ride while naked, becomes part of the Coventry Fair.
1790 The first U.S. Copyright Law was enacted, protecting books, maps, and other original materials.
1859 Big Ben rings out over the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, England for the first time.
1879 New York’s Madison Square Garden opens its doors for the first time.
1884 Dr John Harvey Kellogg patents “flaked cereal”
1889 Heavy rains caused the South Fork Dam to collapse, sending 20 million tons of water into Johnstown, Pa. Over 2,200 people were killed and the town was nearly destroyed.
1902 The Boer War ends with the Treaty of Vereeniging.
1907 Taxis 1st began running in NYC
1909 The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) holds its first conference.
1913 The 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for direct election of senators, is ratified.
1955 The Supreme Court orders that states must end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.”
1955 Construction begins on Soviet cosmodrome launch facilities
1957 The House for Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convicts the playwright Arthur Miller of contempt of Congress for refusing to reveal the names of alleged Communist writers with whom he had attended five or six meetings in New York.
1961 South Africa became an independent republic.
1962 Former Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel.
1970 7.75 Ancash earthquake off coast of Peru kills 66-70,000 and sets off world’s deadliest avalanche
1974 Israel & Syria sign an agreement concerning Golan Heights
1977 The almost 800 miles long Trans Alaska Oil Pipeline is completed connecting oil fields in northern Alaska to the sea port of Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska in southern Alaska.
1985 41 Tornados in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York & Canada kill 88 & injure more than 1,000
2005 Deep Throat reveals himself Former FBI agent Mark Felt admitted that he was the most important informant in the 1970’s Watergate scandal
2010 Nine people are dead after an Israeli navy commando attacks a flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats on their way to Gaza to provide aid and supplies for the area.
2013 The widest tornado ever recorded hits El Reno, Oklahoma The storm had a width of 4.2 km (2.6 mi).
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
