TODAY’S HISTORY LESSON – MAY 8
1450 Jack Cade’s Rebellion–Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
1541 Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo.
1559 An act of supremacy defines Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.
1794 The United States Post Office is established.
1794 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, the father of modern chemistry, was guillotined during the Reign of Terror.
1846 The first major battle of the Mexican War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas.
1886 Coca-Cola is invented According to legend, Dr. John Styth Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, produced the syrup in a brass pot in his backyard. It was first intended as a patent medicine. Today, Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most popular soft drinks and one of the most recognized trademarks.
1914 The U.S. Congress passed a Joint Resolution that designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.
1921 Sweden abolished capital punishment.
1933 Mahatma Gandhi—actual name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—begins a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.
1943 The Germans suppressed a revolt by Polish Jews and destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto.
1945 V-E Day: WWII ends in Europe after Germany signs an unconditional surrender
1958 President Dwight Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.
1967 Boxer Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.
1970 Construction workers broke up an anti-war protest on New York City’s Wall Street.
1973 The 10-week Wounded Knee occupation ended when members of the American Indian Movement surrendered.
1978 David Berkowitz, a.k.a. the “Son of Sam,” plead guilty to killing six people in New York City.
1988 Stella Nickell who put cyanide in Excedrin capsules including her husbands and five additional bottles of Excedrin she placed on store shelves in the Seattle area is convicted of the murder of her husband and Susan Snow who had taken one of these capsules and died instantly by a Seattle, Washington, jury.
1999 The Citadel in South Carolina graduated its first female cadet, Nancy Mace.
** history.net, onthisday.com, infoplease.com, timeanddate.com, thepeoplehistory.com, on-this-day.com **
