IOPList.Org

Robert Hanssen,
FBI agent turned Russian spy,
is sentenced to life in prison





2002
May 10



On May 10, 2002, Robert Hanssen, a former FBI agent who intermittently
sold state secrets to Russia over the course of two decades, receives his
sentencing for espionage: life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"I apologize for my behavior. I am shamed by it," said Hanssen. "I have opened
the door for calumny against my totally innocent wife and children.
I have hurt so many deeply."

Hanssen, who began working with Soviet military intelligence in 1979, was
arrested in 2001 after an ex-KGB officer revealed information to the FBI that
identified him as a double agent. He took a plea bargain, which reduced the
21 counts against him to 15, guaranteed his wife a portion of his pension and
ownership of their Virginia home and took the possibility of the death penalty
off the table. In return, Hanssen agreed to provide federal investigators with
detailed accounts of his years as a spy.

Special Agent Van Harp, then head the FBI’s Washington Field Office, referred
to Hanssen's sentencing as the “closure to the darkest chapter in the history
of the FBI.” Hanssen had provided the Russians with classified materials,
including the identity of three K.G.B. officers who were spying on the behalf
of the U.S., details about American nuclear operations, and information about
the existence of a secret tunnel that the U.S. government dug under the
Soviet Embassy in Washington in order to eavesdrop. Among the most
significant revelations that Hanssen shared with Russia was the identity of a
high-ranking mole for the U.S., the Russian General Dmitri Polyakov, who for
eight ensuing years may have provided the U.S. with false or deceptive intelligence.

Rather than being an ideological turncoat, it’s believed that Hanssen’s motivations
were monetary. He received over $1.4 million in assets from Russia, including
$800,000 that was deposited into a Russian bank, two Rolex watches and
approximately $600,000 in the form of diamonds and cash. Hanssen was the
third agent in FBI history to be charged with espionage.




ALSO ON THIS DAY



SPORTS
1970
Photographer captures soaring
Stanley Cup champion Bobby Orr in iconic image

On May 10, 1970, 40 seconds into overtime of Game 4 of the Stanley Cup final,
Boston Bruins star Bobby Orr slips the winning goal past St. Louis Blues goaltender
Glenn Hall. After scoring, Orr leaps into the air before landing flat and sliding
into his teammates’ embrace. The ... read more





CIVIL WAR
1865
Confederate President Jefferson Davis
captured by Union forces

Jefferson Davis, president of the fallen Confederate government, is captured
with his wife and entourage near Irwinville, Georgia, by a detachment of
Union General James H. Wilson’s cavalry. On April 2, 1865, with the Confederate
defeat at Petersburg, Virginia imminent, General ... read more


AFRICA
1994
Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first
Black president, is inaugurated

In South Africa, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela is sworn in as the first Black
president of South Africa. In his inaugural address, Mandela, who spent
27 years of his life as a political prisoner of the South African government,
declared that “the time for the healing of the wounds ... read more





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1980
Government gives Chrysler $1.5 billion loan

On May 10, 1980, United States Secretary of the Treasury G. William Miller
announces the approval of nearly $1.5 billion dollars in federal loan guarantees
for the nearly bankrupt Chrysler Corporation. At the time, it was the largest
rescue package ever granted by the U.S. ... read more


GREAT BRITAIN
1940
Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of Britain

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, is called to replace Neville Chamberlain
as British prime minister following the latter’s resignation after losing a confidence
vote in the House of Commons. In 1938, Prime Minister Chamberlain signed the
Munich Agreement with Nazi ... read more





WESTWARD EXPANSION
1869
Transcontinental railroad completed,
unifying United States

On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads
meet in Promontory, Utah, and drive a ceremonial last spike into a rail line that
connects their railroads. This made transcontinental railroad travel possible for
the first time in U.S. history. ... read more





U.S. PRESIDENTS
1877
Rutherford B. Hayes has first phone
installed in White House

On May 10, 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes has the White House’s first
telephone installed in the mansion's telegraph room. President Hayes embraced
the new technology, though he rarely received phone calls. In fact, the
Treasury Department possessed the only other direct ... read more


EXPLORATION
1996
Eight climbers die on Mt. Everest

Eight climbers die on Mount Everest during a storm on May 10, 1996. It was
the worst loss of life ever on the mountain on a single day. Author Jon Krakauer,
who himself attempted to climb the peak that year, wrote a best-selling book
about the incident, Into Thin Air, which was ... read more


CRIME
1924
J. Edgar Hoover begins his 48-year tenure
as FBI director

J. Edgar Hoover is named acting director of the Bureau of Investigation
(now the FBI) on May 10, 1924. By the end of the year he was officially
promoted to director. This began his 48-year tenure in power, during
which time he personally shaped American criminal justice in the ... read more





CHINA
1990
China releases 211 prisoners arrested
during Tiananmen Square protests

The government of the People’s Republic of China announces that it is
releasing 211 people arrested during the massive protests held in
Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. Most observers viewed the
prisoner release as an attempt by the communist government of China to ... read more





CIVIL WAR
1863
Confederate general Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson dies

The South loses one of its boldest generals on May 10, 1863, when
39-year-old Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson dies of pneumonia a week
after his own troops accidentally fired on him during the
Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia. In the first two years of the war,
Jackson ... read more


AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1775
Second Continental Congress assembles as
Americans capture Fort Ticonderoga

On May 10, 1775, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold lead a successful
attack on Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New York, while the
Second Continental Congress assembles in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Congress faced the task of conducting a war already
in progress. Fighting had ... read more


19TH CENTURY
1871
Treaty of Frankfurt am Main ends Franco-Prussian War

The humiliating defeat of Louis Napoleon’s Second Empire of France is
made complete on May 10, 1871, when the Treaty of Frankfurt am Main
is signed, ending the Franco-Prussian War and marking the decisive entry
of a newly unified German state on the stage of European power ... read more

Dust storm sweeps from
Great Plains across Eastern states






1934
May 11



On May 11, 1934, a massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from
across the parched Great Plains region of the United States as far east as
New York, Boston and Atlanta.

At the time the Great Plains were settled in the mid-1800s, the land was covered
by prairie grass, which held moisture in the earth and kept most of the soil from
blowing away even during dry spells. By the early 20th century, however, farmers
had plowed under much of the grass to create fields. The U.S. entry into World War I
in 1917 caused a great need for wheat, and farms began to push their fields to
the limit, plowing under more and more grassland with the newly invented tractor.
The plowing continued after the war, when the introduction of even more powerful
gasoline tractors sped up the process. During the 1920s, wheat production increased
by 300 percent, causing a glut in the market by 1931.

That year, a severe drought spread across the region. As crops died, wind began to
carry dust from the over-plowed and over-grazed lands. The number of dust storms
reported jumped from 14 in 1932 to 28 in 1933. The following year, the storms
decreased in frequency but increased in intensity, culminating in the most severe
storm yet in May 1934. Over a period of two days, high-level winds caught and
carried some 350 million tons of silt all the way from the northern Great Plains to
the eastern seaboard. According to The New York Times, dust “lodged itself in the
eyes and throats of weeping and coughing New Yorkers,” and even ships some
300 miles offshore saw dust collect on their decks.

The dust storms forced thousands of families from Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma,
Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico to uproot and migrate to California, where they
were derisively known as “Okies”—no matter which state they were from. These
transplants found life out West not much easier than what they had left, as work
was scarce and pay meager during the worst years of the Great Depression.

Another massive storm on April 15, 1935–known as “Black Sunday”–brought even
more attention to the desperate situation in the Great Plains region, which reporter
Robert Geiger called the “Dust Bowl.” That year, as part of its New Deal program,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration began to enforce federal regulation
of farming methods, including crop rotation, grass-seeding and new plowing methods.
This worked to a point, reducing dust storms by up to 65 percent, but only the
end of the drought in the fall of 1939 would truly bring relief.





ALSO ON THIS DAY



19TH CENTURY
1858
Minnesota enters the Union

Minnesota enters the Union as the 32nd state on May 11, 1858. Known
as the “Land of 10,000 Lakes,” Minnesota is the northern terminus of the
Mississippi River’s traffic and the westernmost point of the inland waterway
that extends through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence ... read more


WORLD WAR II
1987
Butcher of Lyon,” former Nazi Gestapo chief,
charged with war crimes

Klaus Barbie, the former Nazi Gestapo chief of German-occupied
Lyon, France, goes on trial in Lyon more than four decades after the
end of World War II. He was charged with 177 crimes against humanity.
As chief of Nazi Germany’s secret police in Lyon,
Barbie sent 7,500 French ... read more





CRIME
1812
British prime minister Spencer Perceval
assassinated

In London, Spencer Perceval, prime minister of Britain since 1809, is shot
to death by deranged businessman John Bellingham in the lobby of the
House of Commons. Bellingham, who was inflamed by his failure to obtain
government compensation for war debts incurred in Russia, gave ... read more


WORLD WAR I
1919
Germans prepare to protest Versailles Treaty terms

During the second week of May 1919, the recently arrived German delegation
to the Versailles Peace Conference, convened in Paris after the end of the
First World War, pore over their copies of the Treaty of Versailles, drawn up
in the months preceding by representatives of their ... read more


VIETNAM WAR
1961
President Kennedy orders more troops to South Vietnam

President Kennedy approves sending 400 Special Forces troops and 100
other U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam. On the same day, he orders
the start of clandestine warfare against North Vietnam to be conducted by
South Vietnamese agents under the direction and training of the ... read more





VIETNAM WAR
1969
Bloody 10-day battle at “Hamburger Hill” begins

Hamburger Hill was the scene of an intense and controversial battle during
the Vietnam War. Known to military planners as Hill 937
(a reference to its height in meters), the solitary peak is located in the
dense jungles of the A Shau Valley of Vietnam,
about a mile from the ... read more





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1997
Deep Blue defeats Garry Kasparov in chess match

On May 11, 1997, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov resigns after 19 moves
in a game against Deep Blue, a chess-playing computer developed by scientists
at IBM. This was the sixth and final game of their match, which Kasparov lost
two games to one, with three draws. Kasparov, a ... read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1981
Reggae star Bob Marley dies at 36

In what would prove to be the next to the last concert of his tragically short life,
Bob Marley shared the bill at Madison Square Garden with the hugely popular
American funk band The Commodores. With no costumes, no choreography
and no set design to speak of, “The reggae star ... read more





SPORTS
1985
Fire kills 50 at soccer stadium

Fifty people die in a fire in the grandstand at a soccer stadium in Bradford, England,
on May 11, 1985. The wooden roof that burned was scheduled to be replaced
by a steel roof later that same week. Bradford was playing Lincoln City on the
afternoon of May 11. Many fans were ... read more





CRIME
1949
Evidence found against French serial killer
known as “The Queen of Poisoners”

The body of Leon Besnard is exhumed in Loudun, France, by authorities searching
for evidence of poison. For years, local residents had been suspicious of his
wife Marie, as they watched nearly her entire family die untimely and mysterious
deaths. Law enforcement officials finally ... read more





CIVIL WAR
1864
Confederate Cavalry General J.E.B. Stuart
is mortally wounded

A dismounted Union trooper fatally wounds J.E.B. Stuart, one of the most
well-known generals of the South, at the Battle of Yellow Tavern, just six miles
north of Richmond, Virginia. The 31-year-old Stuart died the next day. During
the 1864 spring campaign in Virginia, Union ... read more


INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1947
B.F. Goodrich Co. announces
development of tubeless tire

On May 11, 1947, the B.F. Goodrich Company of Akron, Ohio, announces it
has developed a tubeless tire, a technological innovation that would make
automobiles safer and more efficient. The culmination of more than three
years of engineering, Goodrich’s tubeless tire effectively ... read more

Kidnapped Lindbergh baby
found dead





1932
May 12



The body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found on May 12, 1932,
more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell,
New Jersey, mansion.

Lindbergh, who became the first worldwide celebrity five years earlier when he
flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic, and his wife Anne discovered a
ransom note in their 20-month-old child’s empty room on March 1. The kidnapper
had used a ladder to climb up to the open second-floor window and had left muddy
footprints in the room. In barely legible English, the ransom note demanded $50,000.

The crime captured the attention of the entire nation. The Lindbergh family was
inundated by offers of assistance and false clues. Even Al Capone offered his help
from prison, though it of course was conditioned on his release. For three days,
investigators had found nothing and there was no further word from the kidnappers.
Then, a new letter showed up, this time demanding $70,000.

It wasn’t until April 2 that the kidnappers gave instructions for dropping off the money.
When the money was finally delivered, the kidnappers indicated that little baby Charles
was on a boat called Nelly off the coast of Massachusetts. However, after an exhaustive
search of every port, there was no sign of either the boat or the child.

On May 12, a renewed search of the area near the Lindbergh mansion turned up the
baby’s body. He had been killed the night of the kidnapping and was found less than
a mile from the home. The heartbroken Lindberghs ended up donating the home to
charity and moved away.

The kidnapping looked like it would go unsolved until September 1934, when a marked
bill from the ransom turned up. Suspicious of the driver who had given it to him, the
gas station attendant who had accepted the bill wrote down his license plate number.
It was tracked back to a German immigrant, Bruno Hauptmann. When his home was
searched, detectives found $13,000 of Lindbergh ransom money.

Hauptmann claimed that a friend had given him the money to hold and that he had no
connection to the crime. The resulting trial again was a national sensation. Famous
writers Damon Runyan and Walter Winchell covered the trial. The prosecution’s case
was not particularly strong. The main evidence, apart from the money, was testimony
from handwriting experts that the ransom note had been written by Hauptmann and
his connection with the type of wood that was used to make the ladder.

Still, the evidence and intense public pressure was enough to convict Hauptmann.
In April 1936 he was executed in the electric chair.

Kidnapping was made a federal crime in the aftermath of this high-profile crime.






ALSO ON THIS DAY


U.S. PRESIDENTS
1903
Teddy Roosevelt’s trip to San Francisco
is captured on film

On May 12, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt’s trip to San Francisco is captured
on moving-picture film, making him one of the first presidents to have an official
activity recorded in that medium. READ MORE: 7 Little-Known Legacies of Teddy Roosevelt 
A cameraman named H.J. ... read more





COLD WAR
1949
Soviet Union lifts its 11-month blockade
against West Berlin

On May 12, 1949, an early crisis of the Cold War comes to an end when the
Soviet Union lifts its 11-month blockade against West Berlin. The blockade
had been broken by a massive U.S.-British airlift of vital supplies to West Berlin’s
two million citizens. At the end of World War ... read more





SPORTS
1957
Race car driver A.J. Foyt gets first pro victory

On May 12, 1957, race car driver A.J. Foyt (1935- ) scores his first professional
victory, in a U.S. Automobile Club (USAC) midget car race in Kansas City, Missouri.
A tough-as-nails Texan, Anthony Joseph Foyt, Jr. raced midget cars—smaller
vehicles designed to be driven in races ... read more





VIETNAM WAR
1961
Lyndon B. Johnson visits South Vietnam

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with South Vietnamese President
Ngo Dinh Diem in Saigon during his tour of Asian countries. Calling Diem the
“Churchill of Asia,” he encouraged the South Vietnamese president to view himself
as indispensable to the United States and promised ... read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1963
Bob Dylan walks out on “The Ed Sullivan Show”

By the end of the summer of 1963, Bob Dylan would be known to millions who
watched or witnessed his performances at the March on Washington, and millions
more who did not know Dylan himself would know and love his music thanks to
Peter, Paul and Mary’s smash-hit cover version of ... read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1907
Celebrated actress Katharine Hepburn is born

On May 12, 1907, Katharine Hepburn, who due to her performances in such films
as The Philadelphia Story and On Golden Pond, will become one of the most
celebrated actresses of the 20th century, is born in Hartford, Connecticut.
The daughter of New England intellectuals who ... read more





1970S
1975
American freighter ship Mayaguez
seized by Cambodian navy

The American freighter Mayaguez is captured by communist government forces
in Cambodia, setting off an international incident. The U.S. response to the affair
indicated that the wounds of the Vietnam War still ran deep. On May 12, 1975,
the U.S. freighter Mayaguez and its 39-man ... read more





AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1780
Americans suffer worst defeat of revolution
at Charleston

After a siege that began on April 2, 1780, Americans suffer their worst defeat of
the revolution on May 12, 1780, with the unconditional surrender of
Major General Benjamin Lincoln to British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton
and his army of 10,000 at Charleston, South ... read more

U.S. Congress declares war on Mexico







1846
May 13




On May 13, 1846, the U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of
President James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas.

Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the
latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. But in 1844, President John Tyler restarted
negotiations with the Republic of Texas, culminating with a Treaty of Annexation. The
treaty was defeated by a wide margin in the Senate because it would upset the slave
state/free state balance between North and South and risked war with Mexico, which
had broken off relations with the United States. But shortly before leaving office and
with the support of President-elect Polk, Tyler managed to get the joint resolution passed
on March 1, 1845. Texas was admitted to the Union on December 29.

While Mexico didn’t follow through with its threat to declare war, relations between the
two nations remained tense over border disputes, and in July 1845, President Polk ordered
troops into disputed lands that lay between the Neuces and Rio Grande rivers. In November,
Polk sent the diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to seek boundary adjustments in return for
the U.S. government’s settlement of the claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico and also to
make an offer to purchase California and New Mexico. After the mission failed, the
U.S. army under Gen. Zachary Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande, the river
that the state of Texas claimed as its southern boundary.

Mexico, claiming that the boundary was the Nueces River to the northeast of the Rio Grande,
considered the advance of Taylor’s army an act of aggression and in April 1846 sent troops
across the Rio Grande. Polk, in turn, declared the Mexican advance to be an invasion of U.S. soil,
and on May 11, 1846, asked Congress to declare war on Mexico, which it did two days later.

After nearly two years of fighting, peace was established by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
signed on February 2, 1848. The Rio Grande was made the southern boundary of Texas, and
California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States. In return, the United States paid
Mexico the sum of $15 million and agreed to settle all claims of U.S. citizens against Mexico.






ALSO ON THIS DAY



CRIME
1981
Pope John Paul II shot

Near the start of his weekly general audience in Rome’s St. Peter’s Square,
Pope John Paul II is shot and seriously wounded while passing through the
square in an open car. The assailant, 23-year-old escaped Turkish murderer
Mehmet Ali Agca, fired four shots, one of which hit the ... read more





GREAT BRITAIN
1568
Mary Queen of Scots defeated

At the Battle of Langside, the forces of Mary Queen of Scots are defeated by a
confederacy of Scottish Protestants under James Stewart, the regent of her son,
King James VI of Scotland. During the battle, which was fought out in the
southern suburbs of Glasgow, a cavalry charge ... read more


COLONIAL AMERICA
1607
Jamestown settlers arrive

Some 100 English colonists arrive along the east bank of the James River in Virginia
to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America.
Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across
the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, ... read more


SPORTS
1973
Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court
face off in first “Battle of the Sexes”

On May 13, 1973, during the early years of the women’s liberation movement, tennis
stars Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court face off in a $10,000 winner-take-all challenge
match. The 55-year-old Riggs, a tennis champion from the late 1930s and '40s who
was notoriously skeptical of ... read more





CRIME
1985
A raid is set for MOVE headquarters

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, police begin evacuating people from their Osage Avenue
homes in order to prepare for an operation against MOVE, a Black separatist group
that had assembled a large arsenal. By the end of the botched confrontation,
11 people were dead and 61 homes ... read more





COLD WAR
1958
Vice President Nixon is attacked

During a goodwill trip through Latin America, Vice President Richard Nixon’s car is
attacked by an angry crowd and nearly overturned while traveling through
Caracas, Venezuela. The incident was the dramatic highlight of a trip characterized
by Latin American anger over some of ... read more






WORLD WAR I
1915
Edith Wharton writes of the war’s effect on France

“Since leaving Paris yesterday we have passed through streets and streets of such
murdered houses, through town after town spread out in its last writhings,” the
celebrated novelist Edith Wharton writes on May 13, 1915, from the town of Nancy,
in the Argonnes region of France. ... read more


GREAT BRITAIN
1940
Churchill announces:
“I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”
On May 13, 1940, as Winston Churchill takes the helm as Great Britain’s new prime
minister, he assures Parliament that his new policy will consist of nothing less than
“to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that
God can give us; to wage ... read more

A three-year-old's brutal murder
begins an unusual investigation







1948
May 14



Three-year-old June Devaney, recovering from pneumonia at Queen’s Park Hospital
in Blackburn, England, is kidnapped from her bed. Nurses discovered her missing at
1:20 a.m. the next day, and police were immediately summoned to investigate.
Two hours later, her body was found with multiple skull fractures. The medical
examiner determined that Devaney had been raped and then swung headfirst
into a wall.

Two significant clues were found in the children’s ward that would prove helpful
in catching the killer: footprints on the freshly cleaned floor and a water bottle
that had been moved. Although there were several fingerprints on the bottle,
police were able to account for all but one set. These prints also failed to match
any of those in the police’s database of known criminals.

Investigators fingerprinted over 2,000 people who had access to the hospital.
Still, they couldn’t find a match. Detective Inspector John Capstick then went
even further: He decided that every man in the town of Blackburn, a city with
more than 25,000 homes, would be fingerprinted.

A procedure such as this would be impossible in the United States where
Fourth Amendment protections prevent searches without probable cause.
But the plan went into effect in Blackburn on May 23, with police assurances
that the collected prints would be destroyed afterward. Two months later, the
police had collected over 40,000 sets of prints yet still had not turned up a match.
Checking against every registry they could find, authorities determined that
there were still a few men in town who hadn’t provided their prints.

On August 11, police caught up with one of these men, Peter Griffiths. His footprints
matched the ones found at the scene. When his fingerprints also came back a
match, he confessed to the awful crime, blaming it on alcohol.





ALSO ON THIS DAY




MIDDLE EAST
1948
State of Israel proclaimed

On May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency Chairman David Ben-Gurion
proclaims the State of Israel, establishing the first Jewish state in 2,000 years.
Ben-Gurion became Israel’s first premier. In the distance, the rumble of guns
could be heard from fighting that broke out ... read more





SPACE EXPLORATION
1973
America’s first space station, Skylab,
is launched

Skylab, America’s first space station, is successfully launched into an orbit
around the earth. Eleven days later, U.S. astronauts Charles Conrad,
Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz made a rendezvous with Skylab, repairing
a jammed solar panel and conducting scientific experiments ... read more





INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1796
Early smallpox vaccine is tested

Edward Jenner, an English country doctor from Gloucestershire, administers the
world’s first vaccination as a preventive treatment for smallpox, a disease that
had killed millions of people over the centuries. While still a medical student,
Jenner noticed that milkmaids who had ... read more


SPORTS
1904
First American Olympiad opens
in St. Louis, Missouri

The Third Olympiad of the modern era, and the first Olympic Games to be held in
the United States, opens in St. Louis, Missouri. The 1904 Games were actually
initially awarded to Chicago, Illinois, but were later given to St. Louis to be staged
in connection with the St. Louis ... read more





EXPLORATION
1804
Lewis and Clark depart to
explore the Northwest

May 14, 1804: One year after the United States doubled its territory with the
Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark expedition leaves St. Louis, Missouri,
on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the
Pacific Ocean. Even before the U.S. government ... read more


U.S. PRESIDENTS
1999
President Clinton apologizes to
Chinese leader for embassy bombing

On May 14, 1999, President Bill Clinton apologizes directly to Chinese President
Jiang Zemin on the phone for the accidental NATO bombing of the Chinese
embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, that had taken place six days earlier.
Clinton promised an official investigation into the ... read more





ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1998
Frank Sinatra dies

On May 14, 1998, the legendary singer, actor and show-business icon
Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, at the age of 82. Sinatra
emerged from an Italian-American family in Hoboken, New Jersey, to
become the first modern superstar of popular music, with an ... read more





1990S
1991
Two trains crash in Japan,

killing more than 40
On May 14, 1991, two diesel trains carrying commuters crash head-on,
killing 42 people and injuring over 400 more near Shigaraki, Japan. This
was the worst rail disaster in Japan since a November 1963 Yokohama
crash killed 160 people. Shigaraki, a town near Kyoto, is famous for ... read more


COLD WAR
1955
The Warsaw Pact is formed

The Soviet Union and seven of its European satellites sign a treaty establishing
the Warsaw Pact, a mutual defense organization that put the Soviets in command
of the armed forces of the member states. The Warsaw Pact, so named because
the treaty was signed in Warsaw, included ... read more





AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1787
Constitutional Convention delegates
begin to assemble

On May 14, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention begin to assemble in
Philadelphia to confront a daunting task: the peaceful overthrow of the new American
government as defined by the Article of Confederation. Although the convention
was originally supposed to begin on ... read more

Soviets begin withdrawal from Afghanistan








1988
May 15




More than eight years after they intervened in Afghanistan to support the procommunist
government, Soviet troops begin their withdrawal. The event marked the beginning of the
end to a long, bloody, and fruitless Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

In December 1979, Soviet troops first entered Afghanistan in an attempt to bolster the
communist, pro-Soviet government threatened by internal rebellion. In a short period of
time, thousands of Russian troops and support materials poured into Afghanistan. Thus
began a frustrating military conflict with Afghan Muslim rebels, who despised their own
nation’s communist government and the Soviet troops supporting it. During the next eight
years, the two sides battled for control in Afghanistan, with neither the Soviets nor the
rebels ever able to gain a decisive victory.

For the Soviet Union, the intervention proved extraordinarily costly in a number of ways.
While the Soviets never released official casualty figures for the war in Afghanistan, U.S.
intelligence sources estimated that as many as 15,000 Russian troops died in Afghanistan,
and the economic cost to the already struggling Soviet economy ran into billions of dollars.
The intervention also strained relations between the Soviet Union and the United States
nearly to the breaking point. President Jimmy Carter harshly criticized the Russian action,
stalled talks on arms limitations, issued economic sanctions, and even ordered a boycott of
the 1980 Olympics held in Moscow.

By 1988, the Soviets decided to extricate itself from the situation. Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev
saw the Afghan intervention as an increasing drain on the Soviet economy, and the Russian
people were tired of a war that many Westerners referred to as “Russia’s Vietnam.” For Afghanistan,
the Soviet withdrawal did not mean an end to the fighting, however. The Muslim rebels
eventually succeeded in establishing control over Afghanistan in 1992.





ALSO ON THIS DAY




21ST CENTURY
2009
GE finally initiates cleanup
of polluted Hudson River

After decades of environmental damage and legal wrangling,
General Electric finally begins its government-mandated efforts
to clean the Hudson River on May 15, 2009. One of America's largest
and most prestigious corporations, GE had dumped harmful
chemicals into the river for ... read more






ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1982
“Ebony And Ivory” begins a seven-week
run at #1 on the pop charts

Without the black keys, the white keys on a piano would pretty much
be stuck playing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and “Do Re Mi.”  If you
want anything more interesting than that—if you want a song like
“Yesterday,” for instance—you’re going to have to get the two sets of keys ... read more






WORLD WAR II
1941
First Allied jet-propelled aircraft flies

On May 15, 1941, the jet-propelled Gloster-Whittle E 28/39 aircraft
flies successfully over Cranwell, England, in the first test of an Allied
aircraft using jet propulsion. The aircraft’s turbojet engine, which
produced a powerful thrust of hot air, was devised by Frank Whittle, ... read more






NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY
1756
The Seven Years' War begins

The Seven Years' War, a global conflict known in America as
the French and Indian War, officially begins when England
declares war on France. However, fighting and skirmishes
between England and France had been going on in North America
for years. In the early 1750s, French ... read more


CRIME
1972
Alabama governor George Wallace shot

During an outdoor rally in Laurel, Maryland, George Wallace, the
governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate, is shot by
21-year-old Arthur Bremer. Three others were wounded, and Wallace
was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
The next day, while fighting for his life ... read more






Madeline Albright
WOMEN’S HISTORY
1937
Madeleine Albright, America's first
female secretary of state, is born

Madeleine Albright, America’s first female secretary of state, is born
Marie Jana Korbelova on May 15, 1937, in Prague, Czechoslovakia
(now the Czech Republic). The daughter of Czech diplomat Josef Korbel,
Albright fled to England with her family after the Nazis occupied ... read more






WORLD WAR II
1942
Legislation creating the
Women’s Army Corps becomes law

On May 15, 1942, a bill establishing a women’s corps in the U.S. Army
becomes law, creating the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAACs) and
granting women official military status. In May 1941, Representative
Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts, the first congresswoman ever from ... read more






U.S. PRESIDENTS
1942
Ronald Reagan applies for
transfer to Army Air Force

On May 15, 1942, Lieutenant Ronald Reagan, a cavalry officer, applies
for reassignment to the Army Air Force, where he would eventually put
his thespian background to use on World War II propaganda films. The
transfer was approved on June 9, 1942, and Reagan was given a job as ... read more






U.S. PRESIDENTS
1800
President John Adams orders
federal government to Washington, D.C.

On May 15, 1800, President John Adams orders the federal government
to pack up and leave Philadelphia and set up shop in the nation’s new
capital in Washington, D.C. After Congress adjourned its last meeting
in Philadelphia on May 15, Adams told his cabinet to make sure Congress ... read more


CRIME
1976
A young woman and her
married lover kill her family

Patricia Columbo and Frank DeLuca are arrested for the brutal slaying
of Columbo’s parents and brother in Elk Grove, Illinois. Twenty-year-old
Columbo had left her family home two years earlier to live with DeLuca,
a 36-year-old married man. The pair later killed Frank, Mary and ... read more






INVENTIONS & SCIENCE
1942
Seventeen states put
gasoline rationing into effect

On May 15, 1942, gasoline rationing began in 17 Eastern states as an
attempt to help the American war effort during World War II. By the end
of the year, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ensured that mandatory
gasoline rationing was in effect in all 48 states. America had been ... read more

U.S.-Soviet summit meeting collapses
after U-2 spy plane shot down






1960
May 16



In the wake of the Soviet downing of an American U-2 spy plane on
May 1, 1960, Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev lashes out at the
United States and President Dwight D. Eisenhower at a Paris summit
meeting between the two heads of state. Khrushchev’s outburst angered
Eisenhower and doomed any chances for successful talks or
negotiations at the summit.

On May 1, the Soviets shot down a CIA spy plane and captured the
pilot, Gary Francis Powers. The United States issued public denials
that the aircraft was being used for espionage, claiming instead that
it was merely a weather plane that had veered off course. The Soviets
thereupon triumphantly produced Powers, large pieces of wreckage
from the plane, and Powers’ admission that he was working for the
CIA. The incident was a public relations fiasco for Eisenhower, who
was forced to admit that the plane had indeed been spying on Russia.

Tensions from the incident were still high when Eisenhower and Khrushchev
arrived in Paris to begin a summit meeting on May 16. Khrushchev wasted
no time in tearing into the United States, declaring that Eisenhower would
not be welcome in Russia during his scheduled visit to the Soviet Union
in June. He condemned the “inadmissible, provocative actions” of the
United States in sending the spy plane over the Soviet Union, and
demanded that Eisenhower ban future flights and punish those responsible
for this “deliberate violation of the Soviet Union.” When Eisenhower
agreed only to a “suspension” of the spy plane flights, Khrushchev left
the meeting in a huff. According to U.S. officials, the president was
“furious” at Khrushchev for his public dressing-down of the United States.
The summit meeting officially adjourned the next day with no further
meetings between Khrushchev and Eisenhower. Eisenhower’s planned
trip to Moscow in June was scrapped.

The collapse of the May 1960 summit meeting was a crushing blow to
those in the Soviet Union and the United States who believed that a
period of “peaceful coexistence” between the two superpowers was on
the horizon. During the previous few years, both Eisenhower and
Khrushchev had publicly indicated their desire for an easing of Cold War
tensions, but the spy plane incident put an end to such talk, at least
for the time being.






ALSO ON THIS DAY



1980S
1985
Discovery of Ozone Hole announced

In the scientific journal Nature on May 16, 1985, three scientists
from the British Antarctic Survey announce their detection of
abnormally low levels of ozone over the South Pole. Their discovery,
commonly known as the Ozone Hole, became a palpable example
of mankind's ability ... read more






ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2014
Pioneering TV journalist
Barbara Walters signs off

On May 16, 2014, broadcast journalist and TV personality Barbara Walters
retires from ABC News and as co-host of the daytime program “The View.”
In a landmark career that spanned some 50 years on air, the 84-year-old
Walters blazed a trail for women in TV news. On Walter’s May ... read more






FRANCE
1770
French dauphin, Louis,
marries Marie Antoinette

At Versailles, Louis, the French dauphin, marries Marie Antoinette, the
daughter of Austrian Archduchess Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor
Francis I. France hoped their marriage would strengthen its alliance with
Austria, its longtime enemy. In 1774, with the death of King ... read more


FRANCE
1968
Worker protests mount in France

In France, the May 1968 crisis escalates as a general strike spreads
to factories and industries across the country, shutting down newspaper
distribution, air transport and two major railroads. By the end of the
month, millions of workers were on strike, and France seemed to be ... read more






WORLD WAR II
1943
Warsaw Ghetto uprising ends

In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising comes to an end as Nazi
soldiers gain control of Warsaw’s Jewish ghetto, blowing up the last
remaining synagogue and beginning the mass deportation of the
ghetto’s remaining dwellers to the Treblinka extermination camp.
Shortly after the ... read more






ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1929
First Academy Awards ceremony

On May 16, 1929, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands
out its first awards, at a dinner party for around 250 people held in the
Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, California. The brainchild
of Louis B. Mayer, head of the powerful MGM film studio, ... read more





SPORTS
1980
Basketball great, Magic Johnson,
plays center as a rookie, wins championships

On May 16, 1980, Los Angeles Lakers point guard Earvin “Magic” Johnson
steps in for injured center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and scores 42 points,
leading the Lakers to a four games-to-two series win over the
Philadelphia 76ers for their first championship since 1972.
In 1979, Magic ... read more






U.S. PRESIDENTS
1868
Senate acquits President Andrew Johnson
of high crimes and misdemeanors

On May 16, 1868, the U.S. Senate votes against impeaching President
Andrew Johnson and acquits him of committing “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
He would not be fully acquitted of all charges until 10 days later,
on May 26, 1868.  In February 1868, the House of Representatives ... read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1717
Satirical writer, Voltaire,
is imprisoned in the Bastille

Writer Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, is imprisoned
in the Bastille on May 16, 1717. The outspoken writer was born to
middle-class parents, attended college in Paris, and began to study law.
However, he quit law to become a playwright and made a name for himself ... read more


CRIME
1975
A nurse stabs expectant mother to death,
steals unborn baby

Norma Jean Armistead checks herself into Kaiser Hospital in
Los Angeles, California, with a newborn that she claims to have given
birth to at home. Some staff members were already aware that
Armistead, a nurse at the hospital, had a pregnancy listed on her
medical charts the ... read more






AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1777
Georgia Patriot Button Gwinnett
is fatally wounded in duel

On May 16, 1777, British-born Georgia Patriot and signer of the
Declaration of Independence Button Gwinnett receives a bullet
wound in a duel with his political rival, Georgia city Whig
Lachlan McIntosh. Three days later, Gwinnett died as a result
of the gangrenous wound. ... read more


WORLD WAR I
1918
U.S. Congress passes Sedition Act

On May 16, 1918, the United States Congress passes the Sedition Act,
a piece of legislation designed to protect America’s participation in
World War I. Along with the Espionage Act of the previous year, the
Sedition Act was orchestrated largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United ... read more

LAPD raid leaves six SLA members dead




The six people killed May 17, 1974, in the shootout and fire at
1466 E. 54th St. in Los Angeles.
Top row: Camilla Hall, 29; William Wolfe, 23; Donald DeFreeze, 30.
Bottom row: Angela Atwood, 25; Nancy Ling Perry, 26 ; Patricia Soltysik, 29.


1974
May 17




In Los Angeles, California, police surround a home in Compton where the leaders of
the terrorist group known as the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) are hiding out.
The SLA had kidnapped Patricia Hearst, of the fabulously wealthy Hearst family
publishing empire, months earlier, earning headlines across the country. Police found
the house in Compton when a local mother reported that her kids had seen a bunch of
people playing with an arsenal of automatic weapons in the living room of the home.

The LAPD’s 500-man siege on the Compton home was only the latest event in a short,
but exceedingly bizarre, episode. The SLA was a small group of violent radicals who quickly
made their way to national prominence, far out of proportion to their actual influence.
They began by killing Oakland’s superintendent of schools in late 1973 but really burst
into society’s consciousness when they kidnapped Hearst the following February.

Months later, the SLA released a tape on which Hearst said that she was changing her name
to Tania and joining the SLA. Shortly thereafter, a surveillance camera in a bank caught
Hearst carrying a machine gun during an SLA robbery. In another incident, SLA member
General Teko was caught trying to shoplift from a sporting goods store, but escaped when
Hearst sprayed the front of the building with machine gun fire.

Although law enforcement officials began talking about the SLA as if they were a well-established
paramilitary terrorist organization, the SLA had only a handful of members, most of who were
disaffected middle class youths.

On May 17, Los Angeles police shot an estimated 1,200 rounds of ammunition into the tiny
Compton home as six SLA members shot back. Teargas containers thrown into the hideout
started a fire, but the SLA refused to surrender. Autopsy results showed that they continued
to fire back even as smoke and flames were searing their lungs; they clearly chose suicide
and martyrdom over jail. Randolph Hearst, Patty’s father, remarked that the massive attack
had turned “dingbats into martyrs.” The raid left six SLA members dead, including leader
Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque. Patty Hearst was not inside the home at the time.
She was not found until September 1975.

Patty Hearst was put on trial for armed robbery and convicted, despite her claim that she had
been coerced, through repeated rape, isolation, and brainwashing, into joining the SLA.
Prosecutors believed that she actually orchestrated her own kidnapping because of her prior
involvement with one of the SLA members. Despite any real proof of this theory, she was convicted
and sent to prison. President Carter commuted Hearst’s sentence after she had served almost
two years. Hearst was pardoned by President Clinton in January 2001.




ALSO ON THIS DAY




GAY RIGHTS
2004
First legal same-sex marriage
performed in Massachusetts

Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, of Malden, Massachusetts, marry at
Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts, becoming the first legally married same-sex
partners in the United States. Over the course of the day, 77 other same-sex
couples tied the knot across the state, ... read more






ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1965
The FBI Laboratory weighs in on
the “dirty” lyrics of “Louie Louie”

Based on outcry from parents who bought into what may have started as an idle rumor,
the FBI launched a formal investigation in 1964 into the supposedly pornographic
lyrics of the song “Louie, Louie.” That investigation finally neared its conclusion on
May 17, 1965, when the FBI ... read more






U.S. PRESIDENTS
1973
Televised Watergate hearings begin

In Washington, D.C., the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities,
headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, begins televised hearings on the escalating
Watergate scandal. One week later, Harvard law professor Archibald Cox was sworn
in as special ... read more






EXPLORATION
1970
Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl
sails papyrus boat

On May 17, 1970, Norwegian ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl and a multinational crew set
out from Morocco across the Atlantic Ocean in Ra II, a papyrus sailing craft modeled
after ancient Egyptian sailing vessels. Heyerdahl was attempting to prove his theory
that Mediterranean ... read more






CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
1954
Brown v. Board of Ed is decided

May 17, 1954: In a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down
an unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial
segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision,
which brought an end to ... read more






NATIVE AMERICAN HISTORY
1885
Apache leader Geronimo flees Arizona reservation,
setting off panic

For the second time in two years, the Apache leader Geronimo breaks out of an
Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers. A famous medicine
man, Geronimo achieved national fame by being the last American Indian to
surrender formally to the United States. For ... read more






ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
1873
Writer Dorothy Richardson,
pioneer of stream of consciousness, is born

Influential English writer Dorothy Richardson, whose stream-of-consciousness
style will influence James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, is born on May 17, 1873.
Richardson, though seldom read today, was widely read and discussed in
her own time. The daughter of a grocer who went ... read more


ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY
2000
Final episode of “Beverly Hills, 90210” airs

Donna Martin (Tori Spelling) and David Silver (Brian Austin Green) finally
say their vows, and on-and-off couple Kelly Taylor (Jennie Garth) and
Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) reunite, as the curtain closes on the teen drama
series Beverly Hills, 90210 after 10 seasons.
The final ... read more






AMERICAN REVOLUTION
1769
George Washington criticizes
“taxation without representation”

On May 17, 1769, George Washington launches a legislative salvo at
Great Britain’s fiscal and judicial attempts to maintain its control over the
American colonies. With his sights set on protesting the British policy of
“taxation without representation,” Washington brought a ... read more


WORLD WAR II
1943
The Memphis Belle flies its 25th
bombing mission

On May 17, 1943, the crew of the Memphis Belle, one of a group of
American bombers based in Britain, becomes one of the first B-17 crews
to complete 25 missions over Europe and return to the United States.
The Memphis Belle performed its 25th and last mission, in a ... read more