May 13

1515 – Mary Tudor, Queen of France and Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk are officially married at Greenwich.

1780 – The Cumberland Compact is signed by leaders of the settlers in early Tennessee.

1787 – Captain Arthur Phillip leaves Portsmouth, England, with eleven ships full of convicts (the "First Fleet") to establish a penal colony in Australia.

1861 – American Civil War: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom issues a "proclamation of neutrality" which recognizes the breakaway states as having belligerent rights.

The Great Comet of 1861 is discovered by John Tebbutt of Windsor, New South Wales, Australia.

1862 – The USS Planter, a steamer and gunship, steals through Confederate lines and is passed to the Union, by a southern slave, Robert Smalls, who later was officially appointed as captain, becoming the first black man to command a United States ship.

1880 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.

1912 – The Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the Royal Air Force, is established in the United Kingdom.

1939 – The first commercial FM radio station in the United States is launched in Bloomfield, Connecticut. The station later becomes WDRC-FM.

1950 – The first round of the Formula One World Championship is held at Silverstone.

1954 – The original Broadway production of "The Pajama Game" opens and runs for another 1,063 performances.

1958 – The trademark Velcro is registered.

Ben Carlin becomes the first (and only) person to circumnavigate the world by amphibious vehicle, having travelled over 17,000 kilometres (11,000 mi) by sea and 62,000 kilometres (39,000 mi) by land during a ten-year journey.

1963 – The U.S. Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland is decided.

1972 – The Troubles: A car bombing outside a crowded pub in Belfast sparks a two-day gun battle involving the Provisional IRA, Ulster Volunteer Force and British Army. Seven people are killed and over 66 injured.

1985 – Police release a bomb on MOVE headquarters in Philadelphia to end a stand-off, killing 11 MOVE members and destroying the homes of 250 city residents.

1989 – Large groups of students occupy Tiananmen Square and begin a hunger strike.

1994 – Johnny Carson makes his last television appearance on Late Show with David Letterman.:sniff:

1995 – Alison Hargreaves, a 33-year-old British mother, becomes the first woman to conquer Everest without oxygen or the help of sherpas.

2000 – In Enschede, The Netherlands, a fireworks factory explodes, killing 22 people, wounding 950, and resulting in approximately €450 million in damage.

2012 – 49 dismembered bodies are discovered by Mexican authorities on Mexican Federal Highway 40.

2014 – An explosion at an underground coal mine in south-western Turkey kills 301 miners.

Births

1914 – Joe Louis; 1922 – Bea Arthur; 1923 – Red Garland; 1931 – Jim Jones; 1939 – Harvey Keitel; 1941 – Ritchie Valens; 1943 – Mary Wells; 1945 – Magic Dick; 1949 – Franklyn Ajaye; 1950 – Danny Kirwan, Stevie Wonder; 1952 – John Kasich; 1961 – Dennis Rodman; 1964 – Stephen Colbert; 1966 – Lee Altus, Darius Rucker; 1967 – Chuck Schuldiner; 1969 – Buckethead; 1977 – Samantha Morton; 1986 – Lena Dunham

Deaths

1884 – Cyrus McCormick (co-founded International Harvester); 1961 – Gary Cooper; 1972 – Dan Blocker; 1975 – Bob Wills; 1977 – Mickey Spillane (the mobster, not the author); 1988 – Chet Baker; 1999 – Gene Sarazen; 2000 – Paul Bartel; 2001 – Jason Miller (Father Damian in "The Exorcist"); 2005 – Eddie Barclay; 2012 – Donald "Duck" Dunn

Cool story. I never heard this one.

I also found that one interesting. I've read about him before, but, I keep forgetting.

They could make that into a screenplay and a decent movie if they threw a little background story in there too, and maybe a love interest.

It's like an episode of Horatio Hornblower.

There was a love interest, his wife and family.

May 14

1607 – Jamestown, Virginia is settled as an English colony.

1787 – In Philadelphia, delegates convene a Constitutional Convention to write a new Constitution for the United States; George Washington presides.

1796 – Edward Jenner administers the first smallpox inoculation.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition departs from Camp Dubois and begins its historic journey by traveling up the Missouri River.

1897 – "The Stars and Stripes Forever" is first performed in public near Willow Grove Park, in Philadelphia.

1925 – Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs Dalloway" is published.

1939 – Lina Medina becomes the youngest confirmed mother in medical history at the age of five.

1973 – Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched.

1988 – Carrollton bus collision: A drunk driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton, Kentucky, United States hits a converted school bus carrying a church youth group. Twenty-seven die in the crash and ensuing fire.

Births

1727 – Thomas Gainsborough; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peace; 1885 – Otto Klemperer; 1921 – Richard Deacon; 1925 – Oona O'Neill (daughter of Eugene Oneill, wife of Charlie Chaplin); 1932 – Richard Estes; 1936 – Bobby Darin; 1943 – Jack Bruce; 1944 – George Lucas; 1951 – Robert Zemeckis; 1952 – Michael Fallon; 1953 – Tom Cochrane; 1961 – Tim Roth (Mr. Orange); 1962 – Ian Astbury:devil:, C.C. DeVille, Danny Huston; 1964 – James M. Kelly (Shuttle astronaut), Eric Peterson; 1966 – Mike Inez; 1967 – Tony Siragusa; 1969 – Cate Blanchett; 1971 – Sofia Coppola; 1979 – Dan Auerbach; 1983 – Frank Gore, Amber Tamblyn; 1984 – Mark Zuckerberg; 1986 – Clay Matthews; 1989 – Rob Gronkowski

Deaths

1610 – Henry IV of France; 1643 – Louis XIII of France; 1919 – Henry J. Heinz; 1925 – H. Rider Haggard; 1968 – Husband E. Kimmel; 1970 – Billie Burke; 1976 – Keith Relf; 1982 – Hugh Beaumont (Ward Cleaver); 1987 – Rita Hayworth; 1992 – Lyle Alzado; 1993 – William Randolph Hearst, Jr.; 1997 – Harry Blackstone Jr.; 1998 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Frank Sinatra; 2003 – Wendy Hiller, Robert Stack; 2004 – Anna Lee (Lila Quartermaine on "General Hospital"; 2015 – B.B. King:notworthy

May 15

1536 – Anne Boleyn, Queen of England, stands trial in London on charges of treason, adultery and incest. She is condemned to death.

1602 – Bartholomew Gosnold becomes the first recorded European to see Cape Cod.

1718 – James Puckle, a London lawyer, patents the world's first machine gun, the Puckle gun.

1776 – American Revolution: The Virginia Convention instructs its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

1793 – Diego Marín Aguilera flies a glider for "about 360 meters", at a height of 5–6 meters, during one of the first attempted manned flights.

1800 – King George III of the United Kingdom survives an assassination attempt by James Hadfield, who is later acquitted by reason of insanity.

1836 – Francis Baily observes "Baily's beads" during an annular eclipse.

1905 – Las Vegas, Nevada is founded when 110 acres (0.45 km2), in what later would become downtown, are auctioned off.

1928 – Walt Disney character Mickey Mouse premieres in his first cartoon, Plane Crazy.

1940 – McDonald's opens its first restaurant in San Bernardino, California.

1941 – First flight of the Gloster E.28/39 the first British and Allied jet aircraft.

1948 – Following the expiration of The British Mandate for Palestine, the Kingdom of Egypt, Transjordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invade Israel thus starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

1953 – The first pinewood derby is held.

1958 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 3.

1960 – The Soviet Union launches Sputnik 4.

1963 – Project Mercury: The launch of the final Mercury mission, Mercury-Atlas 9 with astronaut Gordon Cooper on board. He becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space, and the last American to go into space alone.

1970 – President Richard Nixon appoints Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington the first female United States Army Generals.

1972 – In Laurel, Maryland, Arthur Bremer shoots and paralyzes Alabama Governor George Wallace while he is campaigning to become President.

1988 – Soviet war in Afghanistan: After more than eight years of fighting, the Soviet Army begins to withdrawal 115,000 troops from Afghanistan.

2006 – Cloud Gate was formally dedicated in Chicago's Millennium Park.

Births

1567 – Claudio Monteverdi; 1856 – L. Frank Baum; 1902 – Richard J. Daley; 1905 – Joseph Cotten; 1905 – Abraham Zapruder; 1909 – James Mason; 1918 – Eddy Arnold; 1931 – Ken Venturi; 1936 – Wavy Gravy, Ralph Steadman; 1937 – Madeleine Albright; 1940 – Roger Ailes, Lainie Kazan; 1945 – Jerry Quarry; 1948 – Brian Eno; 1951 – Dennis Frederiksen; 1952 – Chazz Palminteri; 1956 – Dan Patrick; 1969 – Emmitt Smith; 1976 – Ryan Leaf; 1981 – Jamie-Lynn Sigler; 1987 – Andy Murray

Deaths

1886 – Emily Dickinson; 1948 – Edward J. Flanagan (founded Boys Town); 1967 – Edward Hopper; 2003 – June Carter Cash; 2007 – Jerry Falwell

Wow - the Puckle gun is fascinating. I heartily recommend the wiki page yo've linked to. Really interesting. I hadn't heard of it before (probably because it didn't make into regular usage in the British forces).

Based your recommendation, Dana, I've added a link to to the Wiki article about the Puckle gun itself.

:D

Nice one, Grav.

Weaponry from this period is really interesting. There's a link on that wiki page to an older design for a repeating firearm that was much lesslike a 'machine gun' but actually allowed for faster firing. Trouble was it was way expensive to make, and way to sensitive to adverse conditions. basically, the slightest damp on the powdr woud totally bollox the gun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalthoff_repeater

No good for mainstream army use, because of the way firearms were mass produced and distributed. Basically - for largescale use, the separate coponents were each mass produced and then assembled, but with something like the Kalthoff repeater, the tolerance for any size or shape variation was so tiny, it just woldn't have worked on that scale. For the standard musket there would still have been problems mixing and matching components, but they had greater tolerance for variation, so far fewer rejected components. Also, much more reliable in adverse weather conditions. Even so, there are countless examples of inadequate guns, and rejected components.

:lol2:

May 16

1843 – The first major wagon train heading for the Pacific Northwest sets out on the Oregon Trail with one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri.

1866 – The U.S. Congress eliminates the half dime coin and replaces it with the five cent piece, or nickel.

1868 – United States President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.

1888 – Nikola Tesla delivers a lecture describing the equipment which will allow efficient generation and use of alternating currents to transmit electric power over long distances.

1891 – The International Electrotechnical Exhibition opens in Frankfurt, Germany, and will feature the world's first long distance transmission of high-power, three-phase electric current (the most common form today).

1916 – The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the French Third Republic sign the secret wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement partitioning former Ottoman territories such as Iraq and Syria.

1919 – A naval Curtiss NC-4 aircraft commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.

1929 – In Hollywood, the first Academy Awards are awarded.

1951 – The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights begin between Idlewild Airport (now John F Kennedy International Airport) in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, operated by El Al Israel Airlines.

1960 – Theodore Maiman operates the first optical laser (a ruby laser), at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California.

1975 – Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1988 – A report by the Surgeon General of the United States C. Everett Koop states that the addictive properties of nicotine are similar to those of heroin and cocaine.

1991 – Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom addresses a joint session of the United States Congress. She is the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

Births

1801 – William H. Seward (Seward's Folly); 1824 – Levi P. Morton; 1861 – H. H. Holmes (serial killer); 1905 – Henry Fonda; 1912 – Studs Terkel; 1913 – Woody Herman; 1919 – Liberace; 1921 – Harry Carey, Jr.; 1928 – Billy Martin; 1931 – Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague on The Andy Griffith Show); 1944 – Danny Trejo; 1946 – Roger Earl (Foghat); 1947 – Darrell Sweet (Nazareth); 1953 – Pierce Brosnan; 1955 – Olga Korbut; 1959 – Mare Winningham; 1964 – John Salley; 1964 – Boyd Tinsley (violinist for DMB); 1965 – Krist Novoselic; 1966 – Janet Jackson; 1969 – David Boreanaz, Tucker Carlson; 1970 – Gabriela Sabatini; 1986 – Megan Fox

Deaths

1920 – Levi P. Morton; 1953 – Django Reinhardt; 1955 – James Agee; 1956 – H. B. Reese (created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1957 – Eliot Ness; 1984 – Andy Kaufman; 1984 – Irwin Shaw; 1990 – Sammy Davis Jr., Jim Henson; 2000 – Bodacious (American rodeo bull); 2010 – Ronnie James Dio:devil:; 2012 - Chuck Brown ("the Godfather of Go-go"); 2013 – Dick Trickle (snicker)

May 17

1536 – The annulment of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn’s marriage.

1590 – Anne of Denmark is crowned Queen of Scotland.

1673 – Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River.

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange is formed under the Buttonwood Agreement.

1875 – Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby.

1943 – World War II: the Dambuster Raids by No. 617 Squadron RAF on German dams.

1954 – The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.

1967 – Six-Day War: President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt demands dismantling of the peace-keeping UN Emergency Force in Egypt.

1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

1974 – The Troubles: Thirty-three civilians are killed and 300 injured when the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) detonates four car bombs in Dublin and Monaghan, Republic of Ireland. It is the deadliest attack of the Troubles and the deadliest terrorist attack in the Republic's history. There are allegations that British state forces were involved.

Police in Los Angeles raid the Symbionese Liberation Army's headquarters, killing six members, including Camilla Hall.

1983 – The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds), in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.

1987 – An Iraqi Dassault Mirage F1 fighter jet fires two missiles into the U.S. Navy warship USS Stark, killing 37 and injuring 21 of her crew.

1995 – Shawn Nelson steals a tank from a military installation and goes on a rampage in San Diego resulting in a 25-minute police chase. Nelson is killed by an officer after the tank got stuck on a concrete barrier.

2004 – The first legal same-sex marriages in the U.S. are performed in the state of Massachusetts.

2006 – The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef.

2015 – At least nine people are killed and 18 injured, some by law enforcement and others in gunfire exchanges, in a shootout between rival biker gangs in Waco, Texas.

Births

1866 – Erik Satie; 1868 – Horace Elgin Dodge; 1931 – Marshall Applewhite (Heaven's Gate cult leader); 1934 – Ronald Wayne (co-founder Apple Inc); 1936 – Dennis Hopper; 1942 – Taj Mahal (the musician, not the tomb); 1942 – Al White (jive talker on "Airplane!"); 1944 – Jesse Winchester; 1949 – Bill Bruford; 1956 – Sugar Ray Leonard, Bob Saget; 1958 – Paul Di'Anno (Iron Maiden); 1959 – Jim Nantz; 1961 – Enya; 1962 – Craig Ferguson; 1965 – Trent Reznor; 1966 – Qusay Hussein (Saddam's boy); 1967 – Paul D'Amour (Tool); 1973 – Sasha Alexander (NCIS, Rizzoli & Isles); 1973 – Josh Homme; 1976 – Kandi Burruss

Deaths

1510 – Sandro Botticelli; 1829 – John Jay; 1875 – John C. Breckinridge; 1879 – Asa Packer (founder Lehigh University); 1886 – John Deere; 1911 – Frederick August Otto Schwarz (FAO Schwarz); 1985 – Abe Burrows; 1992 – Lawrence Welk; 1996 – Johnny "Guitar" Watson; 2004 – Tony Randall; 2005 – Frank Gorshin (The Riddler); 2011 – Harmon Killebrew; 2012 – Donna Summer; 2013 – Alan O'Day (Undercover Angel); 2013 – Ken Venturi; 2014 – Miss Beazley (GWBush's Scottish Terrier)

May 18

1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.

1756 – The Seven Years' War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.

1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people.

1910 – The Earth passes through the tail of Comet Halley.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.

1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1958 – An F-104 Starfighter sets a world speed record of 1,404.19 mph (2,259.82 km/h).

1980 – Mount St. Helens erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

1983 – In Ireland, the government launches a crackdown, with the leading Dublin pirate Radio Nova being put off the air.

1990 – In France, a modified TGV train achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).

2005 – A second photo from the Hubble Space Telescope confirms that Pluto has two additional moons, Nix and Hydra.

Births

1048 – Omar Khayyám; 1822 – Mathew Brady; 1850 – Oliver Heaviside (Kennelly-Heaviside Layer); 1897 – Frank Capra; 1911 – Big Joe Turner; 1912 – Richard Brooks, Perry Como; 1920 – Pope John Paul II; 1922 – Kai Winding; 1928 – Pernell Roberts; 1931 – Don Martin (cartoonist Mad Magazine); 1943 – Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka; 1946 – Reggie Jackson; 1947 – Gail Strickland (The Drowning Pool); 1949 – Rick Wakeman; 1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo); 1952 – George Strait (King George); 1955 – Chow Yun-fat; 1970 – Tina Fey; 1975 – Jack Johnson; 1993 – Jessica Watson

Deaths

1808 – Elijah Craig (May God bless and keep him); 1911 – Gustav Mahler; 1927 – Andrew Kehoe (mass murderer - Bath School Disaster, Bath, Michigan); 1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune; Harry Randall Truman (American owner and caretaker of Mount St. Helens Lodge); 1988 – Daws Butler (voice of Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry Hound); 1990 – Jill Ireland; 1992 – Skip Stephenson; 1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr.; 1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery ("Bewitched"); 2009 – Wayne Allwine (voice of Mickey Mouse for 32 years - yes, I sang the song as I typed 'Mickey Mouse'); 2012 – Peter Jones; 2012 – Alan Oakley (designed the Raleigh Chopper); 2013 – Steve Forrest; 2014 – Jerry Vale

May 19

1499 – Catherine of Aragon is married by proxy to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Catherine is 13 and Arthur is 12.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of Henry VIII of England, is beheaded for adultery, treason, and incest.

1780 – New England's Dark Day: A combination of thick smoke and heavy cloud cover causes complete darkness to fall on Eastern Canada and the New England area of the United States at 10:30 A.M.

1845 – Captain Sir John Franklin and his ill-fated Arctic expedition depart from Greenhithe, England. The entire expedition, 129 men, is lost.

1848 – Mexican–American War: Mexico ratifies the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo thus ending the war and ceding California, Nevada, Utah and parts of four other modern-day U.S. states to the United States for US$15 million.

1897 – Oscar Wilde is released from Reading Gaol.

1943 – World War II: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt set Monday, May 1, 1944 as the date for the Normandy landings ("D-Day"). It would later be delayed over a month due to bad weather.

1962 – A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's rendition of "Happy Birthday".

1984 – Michael Larson, a contestant on the television game show Press Your Luck exploits a bug in the prize board, and wins over US$110,000.

Births

1795 – Johns Hopkins; 1861 – Nellie Melba (Melba Toast, Peach Melba); 1870 – Albert Fish (serial killer); 1890 – Ho Chi Minh; 1925 – Pol Pot; 1925 – Malcolm X; 1928 – Colin Chapman (founded Lotus); 1934 – Jim Lehrer; 1935 – David Hartman; 1939 – Dick Scobee; 1941 – Nora Ephron; 1945 – Pete Townshend; 1946 – André the Giant; 1947 – Steve Currie; 1948 – Grace Jones; 1949 – Dusty Hill (ZZTop); 1949 – Archie Manning; 1951 – Joey Ramone; 1953 – Jimmy Thackery; 1953 – Victoria Wood; 1954 – Phil Rudd (AC/DC); 1956 – Steven Ford; 1959 – Nicole Brown Simpson; 1968 – Kyle Eastwood (one of Clint's boys)

Deaths

1536 – Anne Boleyn; 1795 – Josiah Bartlett (signatory of the Declaration of Independence); 1864 – Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1935 – T. E. Lawrence; 1946 – Booth Tarkington; 1971 – Ogden Nash; 1994 – Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis; 2014 – Jack Brabham

May 20

526 – An earthquake kills about 250,000 people in what is now Syria and Antiochia.

1498 – Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovers the sea route to India when he arrives at Kozhikode (previously known as Calicut), India.

1570 – Cartographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

1609 – Shakespeare's sonnets are first published in London, perhaps illicitly, by the publisher Thomas Thorpe.

1631 – The city of Magdeburg in Germany is seized by forces of the Holy Roman Empire and most of its inhabitants massacred, in one of the bloodiest incidents of the Thirty Years' War.

1861 – American Civil War: The state of Kentucky proclaims its neutrality, which will last until September 3 when Confederate forces enter the state.

The State of North Carolina secedes from the Union.

1873 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a U.S. patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.

1883 – Krakatoa begins to erupt; the volcano explodes three months later, killing more than 36,000 people.

1891 – History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

1899 – The first traffic ticket in the US: New York City taxi driver Jacob German was arrested for speeding while driving 12 miles per hour on Lexington Street.

1916 – The Saturday Evening Post publishes its first cover with a Norman Rockwell painting (Boy with Baby Carriage).

1920 – Montreal radio station XWA broadcasts the first regularly scheduled radio programming in North America.

1927 – Treaty of Jeddah: The United Kingdom recognizes the sovereignty of King Ibn Saud in the Kingdoms of Hejaz and Nejd, which later merge to become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

At 07:52 Charles Lindbergh takes off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world's first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He touched down at Le Bourget Field in Paris at 22:22 the next day.

1932 – Amelia Earhart takes off from Newfoundland to begin the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.

1940 – The Holocaust: The first prisoners arrive at a new concentration camp at Auschwitz.

1969 – The Battle of Hamburger Hill in Vietnam ends.

1983 – First publications of the discovery of the HIV virus that causes AIDS in the journal Science by Luc Montagnier.

1989 – The Chinese authorities declare martial law in the face of pro-democracy demonstrations, setting the scene for the Tiananmen Square massacre.

2013 – An EF5 tornado strikes the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, killing 24 people and injuring 377 others.

Births

1768 – Dolley Madison; 1799 – Honoré de Balzac; 1818 – William Fargo (co-founded Wells Fargo & AmEx); 1908 – James Stewart; 1913 – William Redington Hewlett (co-founded Hewlett-Packard); 1915 – Moshe Dayan; 1919 – George Gobel; 1925 – Alexei Tupolev (designed the Tu-144); 1936 – Anthony Zerbe; 1942 – Carlos Hathcock; 1944 – Joe Cocker; 1946 – Cher; 1946 – Dave Despain; 1958 – Ron Reagan, Jane Wiedlin; 1959 – Bronson Pinchot; 1960 – Tony Goldwyn; 1966 – Mindy Cohn ('Natalie' on "The Facts of Life", voice of 'Velma' on "Scooby Doo"); 1968 – Timothy Olyphant (Sheriff Bullock in "Deadwood"); 1971 – Tony Stewart; 1972 – Busta Rhymes

Deaths

1506 – Christopher Columbus; 1989 – Gilda Radner; 1996 – Jon Pertwee (Dr. Who); 2009 – Lucy Gordon; 2011 – Randy Savage; 2012 – Robin Gibb, Ken Lyons, Eugene Polley (invented the TV remote control); 2013 – Ray Manzarek

May 21

1502 – The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese explorer João da Nova.

1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned six and a half years later.

1863 – Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.

1881 – The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.

1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).

1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag.

1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1976 – The Yuba City bus disaster occurs in Martinez, California. Twenty-nine are killed making it the deadliest road accident in U.S. history.

1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is released in theaters.

1981 – Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.

1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.

2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.

2014 – The National September 11 Museum opens to the public.

Births

1878 – Glenn Curtiss; 1898 – Armand Hammer; 1901 – Sam Jaffe; 1904 – Robert Montgomery, Fats Waller; 1916 – Harold Robbins; 1917 – Raymond Burr; 1921 – Andrei Sakharov; 1923 – Ara Parseghian; 1924 – Peggy Cass; 1941 – Ronald Isley (The Isley Bros.); 1948 – Leo Sayer; 1951 – Al Franken; 1952 – Mr. T; 1959 – Nick Cassavetes; 1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer; 1966 – Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy on "House"); 1967 – Chris Benoit; 1972 – The Notorious B.I.G.

Deaths

1542 – Hernando de Soto; 1952 – John Garfield; 1965 – Geoffrey de Havilland (designed the de Havilland Mosquito); 1988 – Sammy Davis, Sr.; 1995 – Les Aspin; 1996 – Lash LaRue; 2000 – Sir John Gielgud; 2003 – Alejandro de Tomaso; 2013 – Leonard Marsh (co-founded Snapple)

May 22

1762 – Trevi Fountain in Rome is officially completed and inaugurated by Pope Clemens XIII.

1804 – The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially began, as the Corps of Discovery departed from St. Charles, Missouri.

1807 – A grand jury indicts former Vice President of the United States Aaron Burr on a charge of treason.

1826 – HMS Beagle departs on its first voyage.

1849 – Future U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, making him the only U.S. President to ever hold a patent.

1885 – Prior to burial in the Panthéon, the body of Victor Hugo was exposed under the Arc de Triomphe during the night.

1897 – The Blackwall Tunnel under the River Thames is officially opened.

1915 – Lassen Peak erupts with a powerful force, and is the only mountain other than Mount St. Helens to erupt in the contiguous US during the 20th century.

Three trains collide in the Quintinshill rail disaster near Gretna Green, Scotland, killing 227 people and injuring 246; the accident is found to be the result of non-standard operating practices during a shift change at a busy junction.

1968 – The nuclear-powered submarine the USS Scorpion sinks with 99 men aboard 400 miles southwest of the Azores.

1969 – Apollo 10's lunar module flies within 8.4 nautical miles (16 km) of the moon's surface.

1980 – Namco releases the highly influential arcade game Pac-Man.

2004 – The U.S. town of Hallam, Nebraska is wiped out by a powerful F4 tornado (part of the May 2004 tornado outbreak sequence) which kills one resident, and becomes the widest tornado on record at 2.5 miles (4.0 km) wide.

2008 – The Late-May 2008 tornado outbreak sequence unleashes 235 tornadoes, including an EF4 and an EF5 tornado, between May 22 and May 31, 2008. The tornadoes strike 19 states and one Canadian province.

2010 – Air India Express Flight 812, a Boeing 737, goes over a cliff and crashes upon landing at Mangalore, India, killing 158 of the 166 people on board. It is the worst crash involving a Boeing 737.

2011 – An EF5 tornado strikes Joplin, Missouri, killing 162 people and wreaking $2.8 billion worth in damage—the costliest and seventh-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history.

2015 – The Republic of Ireland becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

Births

1783 – William Sturgeon (invented the electromagnet and electric motor); 1813 – Richard Wagner; 1844 – Mary Cassatt; 1859 – Arthur Conan Doyle; 1907 – Laurence Olivier; 1914 – Sun Ra; 1922 – Quinn Martin; 1928 – T. Boone Pickens; 1930 – Harvey Milk; 1939 – Paul Winfield; 1940 – Bernard Shaw; 1942 – Ted Kaczynski (Unabomber); 1943 – Tommy John; 1950 – Bernie Taupin; 1959 – Morrissey; 1970 – Naomi Campbell; 1972 – Max Brooks ("World War Z"); 1979 – Maggie Q; 1980 – Lucy Gordon; 1986 – Julian Edelman; 1987 – Novak Djokovic

Deaths

337 – Constantine the Great; 1802 – Martha Washington; 1885 – Victor Hugo; 1967 – Langston Hughes; 1990 – Rocky Graziano; 1998 – John Derek; 2005 – Thurl Ravenscroft

I sense a tornado theme for May 22.

May 23

1430 – Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians while leading an army to raise the Siege of Compiègne.

1701 – After being convicted of piracy and of murdering William Moore, Captain William Kidd is hanged in London, England.

1934 – The American bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are ambushed by police and killed in Bienville Parish, Louisiana.

1939 – The U.S. Navy submarine USS Squalus sinks off the coast of New Hampshire during a test dive, causing the death of 24 sailors and two civilian technicians. The remaining 32 sailors and one civilian naval architect are rescued the following day.

1945 – World War II: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS), commits suicide while in Allied custody.

1958 – The satellite Explorer 1 ceases transmission.

1995 – The first version of the Java programming language is released.

2004 – Part of Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport's Terminal 2E collapses, killing four people and injuring three others.

2010 – Jamaican police begin a manhunt for drug lord Christopher Coke, after the United States requested his extradition, leading to three days of violence during which at least 73 gunmen, policemen and bystanders are killed.

2013 – The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapses in Mount Vernon, Washington.

2014 – Seven people, including the perpetrator, are killed and another 14 injured in a killing spree near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara.

2015 – At least 46 people are killed as a result of floods caused by a tornado in Texas and Oklahoma.

If anyone could explain to me how a tornado can cause a flood, I'd be interested to hear them out.

Births

1707 – Carl Linnaeus; 1820 – James Buchanan Eads; 1824 – Ambrose Burnside; 1883 – Douglas Fairbanks; 1910 – Scatman Crothers, Artie Shaw; 1912 – John Payne; 1928 – Rosemary Clooney; 1931 – Barbara Barrie; 1933 – Joan Collins; 1934 – Robert Moog (invented the Moog synthesizer); 1936 – Charles Kimbrough (anchorman on "Murphy Brown"); 1942 – Zalman King; 1946 – Michael Morrison (porn actor); 1954 – Marvin Hagler; 1956 – Buck Showalter; 1958 – Mitch Albom, Drew Carey; 1961 – Karen Duffy ('Duff', MTV vj); 1963 – Wally Dallenbach Jr.; 1973 – Maxwell; 1974 – Jewel, Ken Jennings

Deaths

1701 – William Kidd; 1868 – Kit Carson; 1906 – Henrik Ibsen; 1934 – Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker; 1937 – John D. Rockefeller; 1945 – Heinrich Himmler; 1975 – Moms Mabley; 1981 – George Jessel; 1986 – Sterling Hayden; 1994 – Joe Pass; 1999 – Owen Hart; 2002 – Sam Snead

It explains it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_T...rnado_outbreak

I didn't include that link, because it contains no explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood, that I could find.

I saw the words 'tornado', and 'flood'.

If the explanation is in there, and I somehow did not see it, please show it to me, because I have now read that page twice, and still have yet to see an explanation of how a tornado can cause a flood.

I got the impression that it was more a matter of the same storm causing the tornado as caused the flood - also that water from the river got caught up in the tornado and dumped onto a town - but I may have misunderstood.

May 24

1607 – One hundred English settlers disembark in Jamestown, the first English colony in America.

1626 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan.

1798 – The Irish Rebellion of 1798 led by the United Irishmen against British rule begins.

1830 – "Mary Had a Little Lamb" by Sarah Josepha Hale is published.

1844 – Samuel Morse sends the message "What hath God wrought" (a biblical quotation, Numbers 23:23) from the Old Supreme Court Chamber in the United States Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Maryland, to inaugurate the first telegraph line.

1883 – The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.

1921 – The trial of Sacco and Vanzetti opens.

1930 – Amy Johnson lands in Darwin, Northern Territory, becoming the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia (she left on May 5 for the 11,000 mile flight).

1935 – The first night game in Major League Baseball history is played in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1940 – Igor Sikorsky performs the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.

1941 – World War II: In the Battle of the Atlantic, the German Battleship Bismarck sinks then-pride of the Royal Navy, HMS Hood, killing all but three crewmen.

1962 – Project Mercury: American astronaut Scott Carpenter orbits the Earth three times in the Aurora 7 space capsule.

1970 – The drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the Soviet Union.

1976 – The London to Washington, D.C., Concorde service begins.

2000 – Israeli troops withdraw from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.

2001 – The Versailles wedding hall disaster in Jerusalem, Israel kills 23 and injures over 200. The disaster was caught on a camcorder.

Births

1686 – Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit; 1819 – Queen Victoria; 1879 – H. B. Reese (created Reese's Peanut Butter Cups); 1938 – Tommy Chong; 1941 – Bob Dylan; 1943 – Gary Burghoff ('Radar' on MASH); 1944 – Patti LaBelle; 1945 – Priscilla Presley; 1947 – Waddy Wachtel; 1952 – Sybil Danning; 1953 – Alfred Molina; 1955 – Rosanne Cash; 1958 – Chip Ganassi; 1962 – Héctor Camacho; 1966 – Ricky Craven; 1967 – Eric Close, Heavy D; 1974 – Will Sasso

Deaths

1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus; 1963 – Elmore James; 1965 – Sonny Boy Williamson II; 1974 – Duke Ellington; 2008 – Dick Martin

I'm not going to think about this anymore...

...because I am fucking confused.

May 25

Today is National Missing Children's Day.

Today is also Towel Day.

240 BC – First recorded perihelion passage of Halley's Comet.

1865 – In Mobile, Alabama, 300 are killed when an ordnance depot explodes.

1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.

1914 – The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.

1925 – Scopes Monkey Trial: John T. Scopes is indicted for teaching Charles Darwin's theory of evolution in Tennessee.

1935 – Jesse Owens of Ohio State University breaks three world records and ties a fourth at the Big Ten Conference Track and Field Championships in Ann Arbor, Michigan

1950 – A Chicago Surface Lines streetcar crashes into a fuel truck, killing 33 people.

1953 – At the Nevada Test Site, the United States conducts its first and only nuclear artillery test.

The first public television station in the United States officially begins broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston, in Texas.

1955 – In the United States, a night-time F5 tornado strikes the small city of Udall, Kansas, killing 80 and injuring 273. It is the deadliest tornado to ever occur in the state and the 23rd deadliest in the U.S.

1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy announces before a special joint session of the Congress his goal to initiate a project to put a "man on the Moon" before the end of the decade.

1962 – The Old Bay Line, the last overnight steamboat service in the United States, goes out of business.

1968 – The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis is dedicated.

1977 – Star Wars is released in theaters.

Chinese government removes a decade old ban on the works of William Shakespeare.

1979 – American Airlines Flight 191, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10, crashes during takeoff at O'Hare International Airport killing all 271 on board and two people on the ground.

1979 – Etan Patz, six years old, disappears from the street just two blocks away from his home in New York City, prompting an international search for the child, and causing U.S. President Ronald Reagan to designate May 25 as National Missing Children's Day (in 1983).

1982 – HMS Coventry is sunk during the Falklands War.

1986 – Hands Across America takes place.

2001 – Erik Weihenmayer, 32 years old, of Boulder, Colorado, becomes the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

2002 – China Airlines Flight 611 disintegrates in mid-air and crashes into the Taiwan Strait. All 225 people on board are killed.

2011 – Oprah Winfrey airs her last show, ending her twenty-five-year run of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

2012 – The Space X 'Dragon' becomes the first commercial spacecraft to successfully rendezvous with the International Space Station.

Births

1803 – Ralph Waldo Emerson; 1889 – Igor Sikorsky; 1897 – Gene Tunney; 1903 – Binnie Barnes; 1921 – Hal David; 1925 – Jeanne Crain; 1926 – Claude Akins; 1927 – Robert Ludlum; 1929 – Beverly Sills; 1936 – Tom T. Hall; 1939 – Dixie Carter; 1943 – Jessi Colter; 1943 – Leslie Uggams; 1944 – Frank Oz; 1947 – Karen Valentine; 1955 – Connie Sellecca; 1958 – Paul Weller; 1963 – Mike Myers; 1969 – Anne Heche; 1970 – Octavia Spencer; 1973 – Demetri Martin; 1976 – Cillian Murphy; 1978 – Brian Urlacher; 1994 – Aly Raisman

Deaths

1899 – Rosa Bonheur; 1919 – Madam C. J. Walker; 1990 – Vic Tayback; 2007 – Charles Nelson Reilly

Dang, I've heard of towel day ut didn't know it was today.

-15 Hoopy Frood quotient

lol

Hands Across America

I remember that

[quote]1895 – The playwright, poet, and novelist Oscar Wilde is convicted of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons" and sentenced to serve two years in prison.[/QUOTE

Two years hard labour. It broke him physically and mentally.

May 27

1703 – Tsar Peter the Great founds the city of Saint Petersburg.

1849 – The Great Hall of Euston station in London is opened.

1883 – Alexander III is crowned Tsar of Russia.

1896 – The F4-strength 1896 St. Louis–East St. Louis tornado hits in St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois, killing at least 255 people and causing $2.9 billion in damage (1997 US dollars ($38.70 in 1896 dollars)).

1907 – Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco.

1919 – The NC-4 aircraft arrives in Lisbon after completing the first transatlantic flight.

1927 – The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.

1930 – The 1,046 feet (319 m) Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opens to the public.

1933 – The Walt Disney Company releases the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?"

1937 – In California, the Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic, creating a vital link between San Francisco and Marin County, California.

1940 – World War II: In the Le Paradis massacre, 99 soldiers from a Royal Norfolk Regiment unit are shot after surrendering to German troops; two survive.

1941 – World War II: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk in the North Atlantic killing almost 2,100 men.

1958 – The F-4 Phantom II makes its first flight.

1962 – The Centralia, Pennsylvania mine fire is ignited in the town's landfill above a coal mine. As of 2015, the fire continues to burn. It has burned for more than 53 years. At its current rate, it could burn for over 250 more years.

1965 – Vietnam War: American warships begin the first bombardment of National Liberation Front targets within South Vietnam.

1967 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy is launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter Caroline.

1975 – Dibbles Bridge coach crash near Grassington, in North Yorkshire, England, kills 33 – the highest ever death toll in a road accident in the United Kingdom.

1995 - In Culpeper, Virginia, the actor Christopher Reeve is paralyzed from the neck down after falling from his horse in a riding competition.

1997 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that Paula Jones can pursue her sexual harassment lawsuit against President Bill Clinton while he is in office.

1998 – Oklahoma City bombing: Michael Fortier is sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the terrorist plot.

Births

1794 – Cornelius Vanderbilt; 1819 – Julia Ward Howe; 1837 – Wild Bill Hickok; 1894 – Dashiell Hammett; 1909 – Dolores Hope (wife of Bob Hope); 1911 – Hubert Humphrey; 1911 – Vincent Price; 1912 – John Cheever, Sam Snead; 1915 – Herman Wouk; 1922 – Christopher Lee; 1923 – Henry Kissinger, Sumner Redstone; 1925 – Tony Hillerman; 1935 – Lee Meriwether; 1936 – Louis Gossett, Jr.; 1939 – Don Williams; 1945 – Bruce Cockburn; 1948 – Pete Sears; 1955 – Richard Schiff; 1957 – Siouxsie Sioux; 1961 – Peri Gilpin; 1964 – Adam Carolla; 1965 – Todd Bridges )'Willis' on "Diff'rent Strokes"); 1968 – Jeff Bagwell; 1970 – Joseph Fiennes; 1971 – Paul Bettany; 1971 – Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes; 1975 – André 3000; 1975 – Jamie Oliver

Deaths

1831 – Jedediah Smith; 1840 – Niccolò Paganini; 1949 – Robert Ripley (Believe it, or not); 1960 – James Montgomery Flagg; 1964 – Jawaharlal Nehru; 1969 – Jeffrey Hunter; 1992 – Uncle Charlie Osborne; 2006 – Paul Gleason; 2011 – Jeff Conaway; 2011 – Gil Scott-Heron; 2012 – Johnny Tapia; 2013 – Bill Pertwee

May 28

Today is Menstrual Hygiene Day. Please make a note of it.

1588 – The Spanish Armada, with 130 ships and 30,000 men, sets sail from Lisbon, Portugal, heading for the English Channel. (It will take until May 30 for all ships to leave port.)

1644 – Bolton Massacre by Royalist troops under the command of James Stanley, 7th Earl of Derby.

1754 – French and Indian War: In the first engagement of the war, Virginia militia under the 22-year-old Lieutenant colonel George Washington defeat a French reconnaissance party in the Battle of Jumonville Glen in what is now Fayette County in southwestern Pennsylvania.

1830 – U.S. President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act which relocates Native Americans.

1892 – In San Francisco, John Muir organizes the Sierra Club.

1907 – The first Isle of Man TT race was held.

1934 – Near Callander, Ontario, Canada, the Dionne quintuplets are born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne; they will be the first quintuplets to survive infancy.

1936 – Alan Turing submits "On Computable Numbers" for publication.

1937 – The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially opened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., who pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the span.

Volkswagen (VW), the German automobile manufacturer is founded.

1951 – The British radio comedy program The Goon Show is broadcast on the BBC for the first time.

1958 – Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement, heavily reinforced by Frank Pais Militia, overwhelm an army post in El Uvero.

1961 – Peter Benenson's article The Forgotten Prisoners is published in several internationally read newspapers. This will later be thought of as the founding of the human rights organization Amnesty International.

1964 – The Palestine Liberation Organization is formed.

1969 - Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull were arrested at their London home and charged with possession of cannabis.

1977 – In Southgate, Kentucky, the Beverly Hills Supper Club is engulfed in fire, killing 165 people inside.

Sting, Stewart Copeland and Andy Summers play together for the first time when they perform as part of Mike Howlett's band, Strontium 90.

1985 - Desert Island Discs radio presenter Roy Plomley died. He devised the BBC Radio series Desert Island Discs in 1941, and went on to present 1,791 editions of the show, which became one of the longest running radio shows in the UK.

1987 – West German pilot Mathias Rust, who was 18 years old, evades Soviet Union air defenses and lands a private plane in the Red Square in Moscow, Russia. He is immediately detained and would not be released until August 3, 1988.

1995 – The Russian town of Neftegorsk is hit by a 7.6 magnitude earthquake that kills at least 2,000 people, half of the total population.

1996 – U.S. President Bill Clinton's former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, Jim McDougal and Susan McDougal, and the Governor of Arkansas Jim Guy Tucker, are convicted of fraud.

1999 – In Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work, Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece The Last Supper is put back on display.

2002 – The last steel girder is removed from the original World Trade Center site. Cleanup duties officially end with closing ceremonies at Ground Zero in Manhattan, New York City.

2011 – Malta votes on the introduction of divorce. Welcome to the nineteenth century, Malta.

Births

1818 – P. G. T. Beauregard; 1888 – Jim Thorpe; 1908 – Ian Fleming; 1910 – T-Bone Walker; 1917 – Papa John Creach; 1922 – Lou Duva (boxing manager); 1933 – John Karlen ('Lacey''s husband on "Cagney & Lacey", "Dark Shadows"); 1936 – Betty Shabazz; 1944 – Rudy Giuliani; 1944 – Gladys Knight; 1944 – Sondra Locke; 1944 – Gary Stewart, Billy Vera; 1945 – Patch Adams (no, the real one); 1945 – John Fogerty; 1949 – Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics); Kamala, The Ugandan Giant (wrestler); Townsend Coleman (voice of "The Tick"); 1961 – Michelle Collins; 1962 - Roland Gift (Fine Young Cannibals); 1964 – Phil Vassar; 1968 – Kylie Minogue; 1969 – Rob Ford; 1971 – Marco Rubio; 1977 – Elisabeth Hasselbeck; 1985 – Colbie Caillat

Deaths

1843 – Noah Webster; 1849 – Anne Brontë; 1971 – Audie Murphy; 1998 – Phil Hartman; 2003 – Martha Scott; 2010 – Gary Coleman; 2014 – Maya Angelou; 2015 – Reynaldo Rey

From the wiki page about the Bolton Massacre:

Ye Olde Man and Scythe is still there. I've drunk there many times when I lived in Bolton. They have a skull behind the bar which they claim is that of Earle of Derby :p

I've never drank with a skull.

(Drunk, or drank?)

I never drunk no drank with no skull. There.

I never drank
I've never drunk


:)

Thankee.

May29

Today is the 150th day of the year.

1453 – Fall of Constantinople: Ottoman armies under Sultan Mehmed II Fatih capture Constantinople after a 53-day siege, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660 – English Restoration: Charles II is restored to the throne of England, Scotland and Ireland. On his birthday, no less.

1727 – Peter II becomes Czar of Russia.

1790 – Rhode Island becomes the last of the original United States' colonies to ratify the Constitution and is admitted as the 13th U.S. state.

1798 – United Irishmen Rebellion: Between 300 and 500 United Irishmen are massacred by the British Army in County Kildare, Ireland.

1848 – Wisconsin is admitted as the 30th U.S. state.

1886 – The pharmacist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, which appeared in The Atlanta Journal.

1914 – The Ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.

1919 – Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity is tested (later confirmed) by Arthur Eddington and Andrew Claude de la Cherois Crommelin.

1935 – First flight of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter aeroplane.

1940 – The first flight of the Vought F4U Corsair.

1942 – Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and John Scott Trotter and his Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling single in history.

1945 – First combat mission of the Consolidated B-32 Dominator heavy bomber.

1953 – Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on Tenzing Norgay's (adopted) 39th birthday.

1971 - Three dozen Grateful Dead fans were treated for hallucinations caused by LSD after they unwittingly drank spiked apple juice served at a gig at San Francisco's Winterland.

1999 – Space Shuttle Discovery completes the first docking with the International Space Station.

Skeletal remains are found by photographers looking for old car wrecks to shoot at the bottom of Decker Canyon near Malibu, California. Based on forensic evidence the remains were identified as Philip Kramer, former bassist with rock group Iron Butterfly, who had disappeared on his way home from work on February 12, 1995. Based on calls he made to police, his death was ruled as a probable suicide.

2001 – The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the disabled golfer Casey Martin can use a cart to ride in tournaments.

2008 – A doublet earthquake, of combined magnitude 6.1, strikes Iceland near the town of Selfoss, injuring 30 people, and killing a number of sheep.

2015 - Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch goes up for sale with an asking price of $100,000,000.

Births

1630 – Charles II of England; 1736 – Patrick Henry; 1874 – G. K. Chesterton; 1893 – Max Brand; 1903 – Bob Hope; 1914 – Stacy Keach, Sr., Tenzing Norgay; 1916 – Carl Story; 1917 – John F. Kennedy; 1921 – Clifton James; 1929 – Peter Higgs (Higgs Boson); 1939 – Al Unser; 1941 – Bob Simon; 1942 – Kevin Conway; 1945 – Gary Brooker; 1947 – Anthony Geary; 1948 – Nick Mancuso; 1953 – Danny Elfman; 1955 – John Hinckley Jr.; 1955 – Mike Porcaro; 1955 – Ken Schrader; 1956 – La Toya Jackson; 1958 – Annette Bening; 1958 – Wayne Duvall ('Homer Stokes' in "O Brother Where Art Thou"); 1959 – Rupert Everett; 1961 – Melissa Etheridge; 1967 – Noel Gallagher; 1975 – Mel B (Scary Spice); 1989 – Riley Keough (actress & Elvis Presley's granddaughter)

Deaths

1866 – Winfield Scott; 1911 – W. S. Gilbert (Gilbert & Sullivan); 1942 – John Barrymore; 1948 – Dame May Whitty; 1951 – Fanny Brice (Baby Snooks); 1953 – Man Mountain Dean (wrestler); 1979 – Mary Pickford; 1982 – Romy Schneider; 1997 – Jeff Buckley; 1998 – Barry Goldwater; 2006 – Steve Mizerak; 2008 – Harvey Korman; 2010 – Dennis Hopper; 2012 – Doc Watson

May 30

Today is Memorial Day (United States).

70 - Roman emperor Titus breaches Jerusalem's Second Wall.

1431 - In Rouen, France, Joan of Arc is burned at the stake. She is ~19 years old.

1536 – King Henry VIII of England marries Jane Seymour (no, not that one, a different one), a lady-in-waiting to his first two wives.

1539 – In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.

1806 – Future U.S. President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson had accused Jackson's wife, Rachel, of bigamy.

1868 – Decoration Day (the predecessor of the modern "Memorial Day") is observed in the United States for the first time.

1883 – In New York City, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge is going to collapse causes a stampede that crushes twelve people.

1911 – At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ends with Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp becoming the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.

1922 – The Lincoln Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C..

1942 – World War II: One thousand British bombers launch a 90-minute attack on Cologne, Germany.

1948 – A dike along the flooding Columbia River breaks, obliterating Vanport, Oregon within minutes. Fifteen people die and tens of thousands are left homeless.

1958 – Memorial Day: The remains of two unidentified American servicemen, killed in action during World War II and the Korean War respectively, are buried at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery.

1966 – Launch of Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body.

1968 - The Beatles begin recording what will become known as "The White Album".

1971 – Mariner program: Mariner 9 is launched to map 70% of the surface, and to study temporal changes in the atmosphere and surface, of Mars.

1972 – The Angry Brigade goes on trial over a series of 25 bombings throughout the United Kingdom.

2005 – American student Natalee Holloway disappears while on a high school graduation trip to Aruba, and caused a media sensation in the United States.

2012 – Former Liberian president Charles Taylor is sentenced to 50 years in prison for his role in atrocities committed during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

2013 – Nigeria passes a law banning same-sex marriage.

Births

1846 – Peter Carl Fabergé; 1896 – Howard Hawks; 1902 – Stepin Fetchit; 1908 – Mel Blanc; 1909 – Benny Goodman; 1918 – Bob Evans; 1927 – Clint Walker; 1936 – Keir Dullea; 1939 – Michael J. Pollard; 1939 – Tim Waterstone (founded Waterstone's book stores); 1943 – Gale Sayers; 1944 – Meredith MacRae; 1953 – Colm Meaney; 1955 – Topper Headon (The Clash), Jake "The Snake" Roberts; 1958 – Ted McGinley; 1962 – Kevin Eastman (co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles); 1963 – Shauna Grant (porn actress); 1964 – Wynonna Judd,Tom Morello; 1974 – CeeLo Green; 1975 – Marissa Mayer (CEO Yahoo); 1979 – Clint Bowyer

Deaths

1431 – Joan of Arc; 1593 – Christopher Marlowe; 1640 – Peter Paul Rubens; 1778 – Voltaire; 1911 – Milton Bradley; 1912 – Wilbur Wright; 1947 – Georg von Trapp (of the "The Sound of Music" von Trapps); 1953 – Dooley Wilson ('Sam' from "Casablanca"); 1960 – Boris Pasternak; 1967 – Claude Rains ('Capt. Renault' from "Casablanca"); 1986 – Perry Ellis; 1993 – Sun Ra; 2012 – John Fox, Andrew Huxley; 2015 – Beau Biden

May 31

1279 BC – Ramesses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.

455 – Emperor Petronius Maximus is stoned to death by an angry mob while fleeing Rome.

526 – A devastating earthquake strikes Antioch killing 250,000.

1859 – The clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, which houses Big Ben, starts keeping time.

1864 – American Civil War: Overland Campaign: Battle of Cold Harbor: The Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee engages the Army of the Potomac under Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade.

1879 – Gilmores Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and is opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

1889 – Johnstown Flood: Over 2,200 people die after a dam fails and sends a 60-foot (18-meter) wall of water over the town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania.

1909 – The National Negro Committee, forerunner to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, convenes for the first time.

1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.

1929 – The first talking Mickey Mouse cartoon, "The Karnival Kid", is released.

1973 – The United States Senate votes to cut off funding for the bombing of Khmer Rouge targets within Cambodia, hastening the end of the Cambodian Civil War.

1977 – The Trans-Alaska Pipeline System is completed.

1985 – United States–Canada tornado outbreak: Forty-one tornadoes hit Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ontario, leaving 76 dead.

1989 – A group of six members of the guerrilla group Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) of Peru, shoot dead eight transsexuals, in the city of Tarapoto.

2005 – Vanity Fair reveals that Mark Felt was Deep Throat.

2013 – The asteroid 1998 QE2 and its moon make their closest approach to Earth for the next two centuries.

Births

1819 – Walt Whitman; 1852 – Julius Richard Petri (Petri dish); 1894 – Fred Allen; 1898 – Norman Vincent Peale; 1908 – Don Ameche; 1922 – Denholm Elliott; 1930 – Clint Eastwood; 1938 – Johnny Paycheck; 1939 – Terry Waite; 1943 – Sharon Gless, Joe Namath; 1948 – John Bonham; 1949 – Tom Berenger; 1950 – Gregory Harrison; 1955 – Tommy Emmanuel; 1960 – Chris Elliott; 1961 – Lea Thompson; 1962 – Corey Hart (he wears his sunglasses at night); 1964 – Darryl McDaniels (Run D.M.C.); 1965 – Brooke Shields; 1972 – Archie Panjabi; 1976 – Colin Farrell

Deaths

1809 – Joseph Haydn; 1983 – Jack Dempsey; 1996 – Timothy Leary; 2001 – Arlene Francis; 2013 – Jean Stapleton; 2015 – Slim Richey

June 1

1495 – A monk, John Cor, records the first known batch of Scotch whisky.

1533 – Anne Boleyn is crowned Queen of England.

1792 – Kentucky is admitted as the 15th state of the United States.

1796 – Tennessee is admitted as the 16th state of the United States.

1812 – War of 1812: U.S. President James Madison asks the Congress to declare war on the United Kingdom.

1861 – American Civil War: Battle of Fairfax Court House: The first land battle of the American Civil War after the Battle of Fort Sumter, producing the first Confederate combat casualty.

1916 – Louis Brandeis becomes the first Jew appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

1918 – World War I: Western Front: Battle of Belleau Wood: Allied Forces under John J. Pershing and James Harbord engage Imperial German Forces under Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

1922 – The Royal Ulster Constabulary is founded.

1939 – First flight of the German Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter-bomber airplane.

1959 - The first edition of Juke Box Jury aired on the BBC.

1962 – Adolf Eichmann is hanged in Israel.

1967 – Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, by The Beatles, is released.

David Bowie releases his self titled debut studio album.

1980 – Cable News Network (CNN) begins broadcasting.

1981 - The first issue of the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! was published as a special pull-out by UK weekly music paper Sounds. AC/DC had the front cover.

2001 – Nepalese royal massacre: Crown Prince Dipendra of Nepal shoots and kills several members of his family including his father and mother, King Birendra of Nepal and Queen Aiswarya.

2009 – General Motors files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.

2012 – United States President, Barack Obama, orders Cyber attacks of Stuxnet, against Iran's Natanz Nuclear Facility, code-named Operation Olympic Games.

Births

1637 – Jacques Marquette (namesake of Marquette University); 1801 – Brigham Young; 1825 – John Hunt Morgan; 1831 – John Bell Hood; 1889 – James Daugherty; 1890 – Frank Morgan; 1915 – John Randolph; 1921 – Nelson Riddle; 1926 – Andy Griffith, Marilyn Monroe; 1930 – Edward Woodward; 1933 – Charlie Wilson (Charlie Wilson's War); 1934 – Pat Boone; 1935 – Reverend Ike; 1937 – Morgan Freeman; 1939 – Cleavon Little ('Sheriff Bart' in "Blazing Saddles"); 1940 – René Auberjonois ('Odo'); 1946 – Brian Cox; 1947 – Jonathan Pryce, Ronnie Wood; 1948 – Powers Boothe, Tom Sneva; 1953 – David Berkowitz (Son of Sam), Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn); 1961 – Mark Curry (Hangin' with Mr. Cooper); 1968 – Mathias Rust (landed a private plane in Red Square); 1969 – Teri Polo

Deaths

1868 – James Buchanan; 1927 – Lizzie Borden; 1948 – Sonny Boy Williamson I; 1965 – Curly Lambeau (founded the Green Bay Packers); 1968 – Helen Keller; 1980 – Arthur Nielsen (Nielsen ratings); 1981 – Carl Vinson (namesake of the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70)); 1999 – Christopher Cockerell (invented the hovercraft); 2000 – Tito Puente; 2001 – Hank Ketcham ("Dennis The Menace" creator); 2008 – Yves Saint Laurent; 2014 – Ann B. Davis ('Alice' on "The Brady Bunch")

June 2

455 – Sack of Rome: Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks

1692 – Bridget Bishop is the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Found guilty, she is hanged on June 10.

1763 – Pontiac's Rebellion: At what is now Mackinaw City, Michigan, Chippewas capture Fort Michilimackinac by diverting the garrison's attention with a game of lacrosse, then chasing a ball into the fort.

1835 – P. T. Barnum and his circus start their first tour of the United States.

1886 – U.S. President Grover Cleveland marries Frances Folsom in the White House, becoming the only president to wed in the executive mansion.

1896 – Guglielmo Marconi applies for a patent for his wireless telegraph.

1910 – Charles Rolls, a co-founder of Rolls-Royce Limited, becomes the first man to make a non-stop double crossing of the English Channel by plane.

1919 – Anarchists simultaneously set off bombs in eight separate U.S. cities.

1924 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.

1953 – The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, who is crowned Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Her Other Realms and Territories & Head of the Commonwealth, the first major international event to be televised.

1962 – During the 1962 FIFA World Cup, police had to intervene multiple times in fights between Chilean and Italian players in one of the most violent games in football history.

1967 – Luis Monge is executed in Colorado's gas chamber, in the last pre-Furman execution in the United States.

1976 - Wings set a new world record when they performed in front of 67,100 fans in Seattle, the largest attendance for an indoor crowd.

1979 – Pope John Paul II starts his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a Communist country.

1981 - Prince made his live British debut at The Lyceum Ballroom, London, (he would not play the UK again for five years).

1983 – After an emergency landing because of an in-flight fire, twenty-three passengers aboard Air Canada Flight 797 are killed when a flashover occurs as the plane's doors open. Because of this incident, numerous new safety regulations are put in place.

1989 - Rolling Stone Bill Wyman secretly married 19-year-old (some sources put her at 18) Mandy Smith. Wyman's 28-year-old son was best man. All other four Stones attended. The marriage lasted 17 months.

1990 – The Lower Ohio Valley tornado outbreak spawns 66 confirmed tornadoes in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio, killing 12 people.

1995 – United States Air Force Captain Scott O'Grady's F-16 is shot down over Bosnia while patrolling the NATO no-fly zone.

1997 – In Denver, Timothy McVeigh is convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. He was executed four years later.

2004 – Ken Jennings begins his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!.

2012 – The former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

Births

1731 – Martha Washington; 1740 – Marquis de Sade; 1840 – Thomas Hardy; 1904 – Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan); 1915 – Walter Tetley (voice of 'Sherman' in the Mr. Peabody cartoons); 1920 – Tex Schramm; 1926 – Milo O'Shea; 1930 – Pete Conrad (3rd man to walk on the Moon); 1937 – Sally Kellerman; 1941 – Stacy Keach; 1941 – Charlie Watts; 1943 – Charles Haid; 1944 – Marvin Hamlisch; 1948 – Jerry Mathers (the Beaver); 1953 – Craig Stadler; 1954 – Dennis Haysbert; 1955 – Dana Carvey; 1960 – Kyle Petty; 1972 – Wayne Brady; 1972 – Wentworth Miller ("Prison Break"); 1979 – Morena Baccarin:heartpump; 1989 – Freddy Adu

Deaths

1941 – Lou Gehrig; 1969 – Leo Gorcey; 1970 – Bruce McLaren; 1977 – Stephen Boyd; 1987 – Sammy Kaye, Andrés Segovia; 1990 – Jack Gilford, Rex Harrison; 1996 – Ray Combs; 1998 – Junkyard Dog; 2001 – Imogene Coca; 2008 – Bo Diddley; 2009 – David Eddings; 2012 – Richard Dawson

June 3

1539 – Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain.

1608 – Samuel de Champlain completes his third voyage to New France at Tadoussac, Quebec.

1621 – The Dutch West India Company receives a charter for New Netherland.

1781 – Jack Jouett begins his midnight ride to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature of an impending raid by Banastre Tarleton.

1839 – In Humen, China, Lin Tse-hsü destroys 1.2 million kg of opium confiscated from British merchants, providing Britain with a casus belli to open hostilities, resulting in the First Opium War.

1885 – In the last military engagement fought on Canadian soil, the Cree leader, Big Bear, escapes the North-West Mounted Police.

1888 – The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, is published in The San Francisco Examiner.

1889 – The first long-distance electric power transmission line in the United States is completed, running 14 miles (23 km) between a generator at Willamette Falls and downtown Portland, Oregon.

1916 – The National Defense Act is signed into law, increasing the size of the United States National Guard by 450,000 men.

1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

1942 – World War II: Japan begins the Aleutian Islands Campaign by bombing Unalaska Island.

1943 – In Los Angeles, California, white U.S. Navy sailors and Marines clash with Latino youths in the Zoot Suit Riots.

1953 - Elvis Presley graduated from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis. He was the first member of his family to graduate high school.

1962 – At Paris' Orly Airport, Air France Flight 007 overruns the runway and explodes when the crew attempts to abort takeoff, killing 130 people.

1965 – The launch of Gemini 4, the first multi-day space mission by a NASA crew. Ed White, a crew member, performs the first American spacewalk.

1969 – Melbourne–Evans collision: off the coast of South Vietnam, the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne cuts the U.S. Navy destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half.

1970 - The Kinks' Ray Davies was forced to make a 6,000 mile round trip from New York to London to record one word in a song. Davies had to change the word 'Coca- Cola' to 'Cherry Cola' on the bands forthcoming single 'Lola' due to an advertising ban at BBC Radio.

1973 – A Soviet supersonic Tupolev Tu-144 crashes near Goussainville, France, killing 14, the first crash of a supersonic passenger aircraft.

1979 – A blowout at the Ixtoc I oil well in the southern Gulf of Mexico causes at least 3,000,000 barrels (480,000 m3) of oil to be spilled into the waters, the second-worst accidental oil spill ever recorded.

1980 – The 1980 Grand Island tornado outbreak: Seven tornadoes hit Grand Island, Nebraska, which take five lives, 357 single-family homes, 33 mobile homes, 85 apartments, 49 businesses and cause $300 million in damages.

1983 - US session drummer Jim Gordon, murdered his mother by pounding her head with a hammer. A diagnosed schizophrenic, it was not until his trial in 1984 that he was properly diagnosed. Due to the fact that his attorney was unable to use the insanity defense, Gordon was sentenced to sixteen years-to-life in prison in 1984. A Grammy Award winner for co-writing "Layla" with Eric Clapton, Gordon worked with The Beach Boys, John Lennon, George Harrison, Frank Zappa and many other artists.

1989 – The government of China sends troops to force protesters out of Tiananmen Square after seven weeks of occupation.

1991 – Mount Unzen erupts in Kyūshū, Japan, killing 43 people, all of them either researchers or journalists.

2012 – A plane carrying 153 people on board crashes in a residential neighborhood in Lagos, Nigeria, killing everyone on board and 10 people on the ground.

2012 – The pageant for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II takes place on the River Thames.

Births

1808 – Jefferson Davis; 1864 – Ransom E. Olds (founder Oldsmobile & REO Motor Car Co.); 1911 – Ellen Corby ('Grandma Walton'); 1917 – Leo Gorcey; 1924 – Colleen Dewhurst; 1924 – Jimmy Rogers (no, the black one); 1925 – Tony Curtis; 1926 – Allen Ginsberg; 1927 – Boots Randolph ("Yakety Sax"); 1929 – Chuck Barris; 1931 – Raúl Castro; 1936 – Larry McMurtry; 1942 – Curtis Mayfield; 1945 – Hale Irwin; 1946 – Tristan Rogers ('Robert Scorpio' on "General Hospital"); 1947 – Mickey Finn; 1950 – Suzi Quatro; 1950 – Deniece Williams ("Let's Hear It For The Boy"), Robert Z'Dar ("Maniac Cop"); 1951 – Jill Biden; 1952 – Billy Powell; 1964 – James Purefoy; 1967 – Anderson Cooper; 1976 – Jamie McMurray

Deaths

1861 – Stephen A. Douglas; 1875 – Georges Bizet; 1899 – Johann Strauss II; 1955 – Barbara Graham; 1973 – Dory Funk; 1975 – Ozzie Nelson; 1987 – Will Sampson ('Chief Bromden' in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"); 1990 – Robert Noyce (co-founder Intel); 1991 – Katia Krafft, Maurice Krafft; 2001 – Anthony Quinn; 2002 – Lew Wasserman; 2009 – David Carradine; 2011 – James Arness; 2011 – Jack Kevorkian; 2013 – Deacon Jones

June 4

1760 – Great Upheaval: New England planters arrive to claim land in Nova Scotia, Canada, taken from the Acadians.

1792 – Captain George Vancouver claims Puget Sound for the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1825 – General Lafayette, a French officer in the American Revolutionary War, speaks at what would become Lafayette Square, Buffalo, NY during his visit to the United States.

1876 – An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrives in San Francisco, via the First Transcontinental Railroad only 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.

1896 – Henry Ford completes the Ford Quadricycle, his first gasoline-powered automobile, and gives it a successful test run.

1912 – Massachusetts becomes the first state of the United States to set a minimum wage.

1919 – Women's rights: The U.S. Congress approves the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees suffrage to women, and sends it to the U.S. states for ratification.

1939 – The Holocaust: The MS St. Louis, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, in the United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.

1940 – World War II: The Dunkirk evacuation ends: British forces complete evacuation of 338,000 troops from Dunkirk in France. To rally the morale of the country, Winston Churchill delivers, only to the House of Commons, his famous "We shall fight on the beaches" speech.

1942 - Glenn Wallichs launched Capitol Records in the US. Wallichs was the man who invented the art of record promotion by sending copies of new releases to disc jockeys.

1944 – World War II: A hunter-killer group of the United States Navy captures the German submarine U-505: The first time a U.S. Navy vessel had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century.

1974 – During Ten Cent Beer Night(<---read), inebriated Cleveland Indians fans start a riot, causing the game to be forfeited to the Texas Rangers.

1984 - Bruce Springsteen released the album, 'Born In The USA', which became the best-selling album of 1985 in the United States (and also Springsteen's most successful album ever). The album produced a record-tying string of seven Top 10 singles.

1986 – Jonathan Pollard pleads guilty to espionage for selling top secret United States military intelligence to Israel.

1989 – The Tiananmen Square protests are violently ended in Beijing by the People's Liberation Army, with at least 241 dead.

1997 - Jeff Buckley's body was discovered floating in the Mississippi River. Buckley had disappeared when swimming on May 29th in Wolf River Harbor, while wearing boots, all of his clothing, and singing the chorus of 'Whole Lotta Love' by Led Zeppelin. A roadie in Buckley's band, had remained on shore. After moving a radio and guitar out of reach of the wake from a passing tugboat, he looked up to see that Buckley had vanished.

1998 – Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2012 – The concert for Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee takes place outside Buckingham Palace in London.

2015 – An explosion at a gasoline station in Accra, Ghana, killing over 200 people.

Births

1907 – Rosalind Russell; 1910 – Christopher Cockerell; 1924 – Dennis Weaver; 1926 – Robert Earl Hughes (world's heaviest man, during his lifetime); 1928 – Ruth Westheimer; 1932 – John Drew Barrymore; 1936 – Bruce Dern; 1937 – Freddy Fender; 1937 – Gorilla Monsoon; 1939 – Henri Pachard (porn director, among other things); 1944 – Michelle Phillips; 1952 – Parker Stevenson; 1954 - Raphael Ravenscroft (saxophone on Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street"; 1956 - Reeves Gabrels (The Cure); 1961 – El DeBarge; 1964 – Sean Pertwee (Bruce Wayne's butler/Man Friday 'Alfred' in "Gotham"); 1968 – Al B. Sure!, Scott Wolf; 1969 – Horatio Sanz; 1971 – Noah Wyle; 1975 – Angelina Jolie; 1978 – Robin Lord Taylor ('Oswald Cobblepot' (The Penguin) in "Gotham")

Deaths

1942 – Reinhard Heydrich; 1989 – Dik Browne (cartoonist, Hagar The Horrible & Hi and Lois); 1992 – Carl Stotz (founder of Little League Baseball); 1997 – Ronnie Lane; 2004 – Marvin Heemeyer (Granby, Colorado bulldozer rampage); 2007 – Bill France, Jr. (asshole); 2010 – John Wooden; 2013 – Joey Covington; 2014 – Don Zimmer

June 5

Today is World Environment Day.

70 – Titus and his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem in the Siege of Jerusalem.

1817 – The first Great Lakes steamer, the Frontenac, is launched.

1851 – Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery serial, Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, starts a ten-month run in the National Era abolitionist newspaper.

1883 – The first regularly scheduled Orient Express departs Paris.

1900 – Second Boer War: British soldiers take Pretoria.

1917 – World War I: Conscription begins in the United States as "Army registration day".

1933 – The U.S. Congress abrogates the United States' use of the gold standard by enacting a joint resolution (48 Stat. 112) nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold.

1940 – World War II: After a brief lull in the Battle of France, the Germans renew the offensive against the remaining French divisions south of the River Somme in Operation Fall Rot ("Case Red").

1941 – World War II: Four thousand Chongqing residents are asphyxiated in a bomb shelter during the Bombing of Chongqing.

1942 – World War II: The United States declares war on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania.

1944 – World War II: More than 1000 British bombers drop 5,000 tons of bombs on German gun batteries on the Normandy coast in preparation for D-Day.

1963 – The British Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, resigns in a sex scandal known as the "Profumo affair".

1964 – DSV Alvin is commissioned.

1967 – The Six-Day War begins: Israel launches surprise strikes against Egyptian air-fields in response to the mobilisation of Egyptian forces on the Israeli border.

1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, a U.S. presidential candidate, is shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, by Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian. Kennedy dies the next day.

1975 – The Suez Canal re-opens for the first time since the Six-Day War.

The United Kingdom holds its first country-wide referendum on remaining in the European Economic Community (EEC).

1976 – The Teton Dam in Idaho, United States, collapses.

1981 – The "Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that five people in Los Angeles, California, have a rare form of pneumonia seen only in patients with weakened immune systems, in what turns out to be the first recognized cases of AIDS.

1989 – The Tank Man halts the progress of a column of advancing tanks for over half an hour after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

1993 – Portions of the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, UK, fall into the sea following a landslide.

2001 – Tropical Storm Allison makes landfall on the upper-Texas coastline as a strong tropical storm and dumps large amounts of rain over Houston. The storm causes $5.5 billion in damages, making Allison the costliest tropical storm in U.S. history.

2012 – The last transit of Venus of the 21st century begins.

2013 – A building collapse in Philadelphia, PA kills six and wounds 14 other people.

Births

1850 – Pat Garrett; 1878 – Pancho Villa; 1883 – John Maynard Keynes; 1895 – William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy); 1898 – Federico García Lorca; 1899 – Otis Barton (designed the bathysphere); 1919 – Richard Scarry (illustrator); 1928 – Robert Lansing; 1934 – Bill Moyers; 1941 – Spalding Gray, Robert Kraft; 1947 – Tom Evans (Badfinger); 1947 – Freddie Stone; 1949 – Ken Follett; 1951 – Suze Orman; 1952 – Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden); 1953 – Kathleen Kennedy (co-founder Amblin Entertainment); 1956 – Kenny G; 1961 – Mary Kay Bergman (voice actress on South Park); 1962 – Jeff Garlin; 1964 – Rick Riordan (Percy Jackson book series); 1967 – Ron Livingston; 1969 – Brian McKnight; 1971 – Mark Wahlberg; 1979 – Pete Wentz

Deaths

1900 – Stephen Crane; 1910 – O. Henry; 1993 – Conway Twitty; 1998 – Jeanette Nolan; 1999 – Mel Tormé; 2002 – Dee Dee Ramone; 2004 – Ronald Reagan; 2012 – Ray Bradbury; 2015 – Tariq Aziz

June 6

Ramadan begins today.

Today is Western Australia Day.

1508 – Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, is defeated in Friuli by Venetian troops.

1762 – Seven Years' War: British forces begin a siege of Havana, Cuba, and temporarily capture the city in the Battle of Havana.

1808 – Joseph Bonaparte, brother to Napoleon, is crowned King of Spain.

1833 – Andrew Jackson becomes the first U.S. President to ride on a train.

1844 – The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) is founded in London.

1882 – More than 100,000 inhabitants of Bombay, India are killed when a cyclone in the Arabian Sea pushes huge waves into the harbour.

1889 – The Great Seattle Fire destroys all of downtown Seattle, Washington.

1892 – The Chicago "L" commuter rail system begins operation.

1912 – The eruption of Novarupta in Alaska begins. It is the second largest volcanic eruption of the 20th century.

1932 – The Revenue Act of 1932 is enacted, creating the first gas tax in the United States, at a rate of 1 cent per US gallon sold.

1933 – The first drive-in theater opens, in Camden, New Jersey, United States.

1934 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the Securities Act of 1933 into law, establishing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

1939 – Judge Joseph Force Crater, known as the "Missingest Man in New York", is declared legally dead.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Force_Crater

1942 – World War II: Battle of Midway. U.S. Navy dive bombers sink the Japanese cruiser Mikuma and four Japanese carriers.

1944 - Operation Overlord commences with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of Normandy in France. The allied soldiers quickly break through the Atlantic Wall and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history.

1946 – The National Basketball Association (NBA) is created with eleven teams.

1960 - Bing Crosby was presented with a Platinum disc to commemorate his 200 millionth record sold. The sales figures were a combined total of 2,600 recorded singles and 125 albums. Crosby's global lifetime sales on 179 labels in 28 countries totaled 400 million records.

1962 - The first Beatles recording session took place at Abbey Road studios. The group recorded four tracks, one of which was 'Love Me Do' the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.

1965 - The Rolling Stones released the single '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' in the US, which went on to give the band their first No.1.

1966 - Roy Orbison's first wife, Claudette, was killed when a truck pulled out of a side road and collided with the motorbike that she and her husband were riding on in Gallatin, Texas, she was 25.

1968 – Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: Robert F. Kennedy, Democratic Party senator from New York and brother of 35th President John F. Kennedy, dies from gunshot wounds inflicted on June 5.

1971 – A midair collision between a Hughes Airwest Douglas DC-9 jetliner and a United States Marine Corps McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II jet fighter near Duarte, California, claims 50 lives.

1982 – A British Army Air Corps Gazelle helicopter is destroyed in a friendly fire incident, resulting in the loss of four lives.

1984 – Tetris, one of the best-selling video games of all time, is first released in the USSR.

1985 – The grave of "Wolfgang Gerhard" is opened in Embu, Brazil; the exhumed remains are later proven to be those of Josef Mengele, Auschwitz's "Angel of Death". Mengele is thought to have drowned while swimming in February 1979.

1997 – Prom Mom incident: While attending her senior prom in Lacey Township, New Jersey, Melissa Drexler gives birth in a bathroom stall, leaves the baby to die in a trash can and then returns to the prom.

2002 – Eastern Mediterranean event. A near-Earth asteroid estimated at ten meters in diameter explodes over the Mediterranean Sea between Greece and Libya. The resulting explosion is estimated to have a force of 26 kilotons, slightly more powerful than the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

2005 – In Gonzales v. Raich, the United States Supreme Court upholds a federal law banning cannabis, including medical marijuana.

Births

1755 – Nathan Hale; 1756 – John Trumbull; 1799 – Alexander Pushkin; 1867 – David T. Abercrombie(founded Abercrombie & Fitch); 1868 – Robert Falcon Scott; 1917 – Kirk Kerkorian; 1923 – V. C. Andrews; 1936 – Levi Stubbs; 1939 – Gary U.S. Bonds; 1945 – David Dukes (the actor, not the racist); 1945 – Arthur Shawcross (the Genesee River Killer); 1947 – Robert Englund; 1954 – Harvey Fierstein; 1955 – Sandra Bernhard, 1955 – Sam Simon (developer, director, producer, writer The Simpsons); 1956 – Björn Borg; 1959 – Jimmy Jam; 1960 – Steve Vai; 1963 – Eric Cantor; 1967 – Paul Giamatti; 1972 – Natalie Morales; 1974 – Uncle Kracker

Deaths

1799 – Patrick Henry; 1865 – William Quantrill (Quantrill's Raiders); 1878 – Robert Stirling (invented the stirling engine); 1941 – Louis Chevrolet; 1961 – Carl Jung; 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy; 1976 – J. Paul Getty; 1979 – Jack Haley; 1991 – Stan Getz; 1997 – Magda Gabor (Zsa Zsa & Eva's older sister); 2002 – Robbin Crosby (Ratt); 2005 – Anne Bancroft, 2005 – Dana Elcar (MacGyver); 2006 – Billy Preston; 2010 – Marvin Isley (The Isley Brothers); 2013 – Esther Williams

Just now saw this.

rgb, music history is absolutely fine, and welcomed. As is anything else I may omit, or, overlook.

Additions/corrections from anyone/everyone are always welcome.

:welcome: to the Cellar, btw.

June 7

1099 – First Crusade: The Siege of Jerusalem begins.

1654 – Louis XIV is crowned King of France.

1776 – Richard Henry Lee presents the "Lee Resolution" to the Continental Congress. The motion is seconded by John Adams and will lead to the United States' Declaration of Independence.

1832 – Asian cholera reaches Quebec, brought by Irish immigrants, and kills about 6,000 people in Lower Canada.

1866 – One thousand eight hundred Fenian raiders are repelled back to the United States after they looted and plundered around Saint-Armand and Frelighsburg, Quebec.

1892 – Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.

Homer Plessy is arrested for refusing to leave his seat in the "whites-only" car of a train; he lost the resulting court case, Plessy v. Ferguson.

1893 – Mohandas Gandhi commits his first act of civil disobedience.

1906 – Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania is launched from the John Brown Shipyard, Glasgow (Clydebank), Scotland.

1909 – Mary Pickford makes her screen debut at the age of 16.

1938 – The Douglas DC-4E makes its first test flight.

Second Sino-Japanese War: The Chinese Nationalist government creates the 1938 Yellow River flood to halt Japanese forces. 500,000 to 900,000 civilians are killed.

1964 - During their first ever US tour The Rolling Stones were booed off stage at a gig in San Antonio, Texas. Some performing monkeys, who had been the act before the Stones, were brought back on stage for another performance. :lol2:

1965 – The Supreme Court of the United States hands down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israeli soldiers enter Jerusalem.

1969 - British supergroup Blind Faith, featuring Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Rick Grech and Steve Winwood made their live debut at a free concert in London's Hyde Park.

1971 – The United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1975 – The inaugural Cricket World Cup begins in England.

1977 - Led Zeppelin played the first of six sold out nights at Madison Square Garden, in New York City during their 11th and final North American tour, playing a 3 hour set. Tickets cost $8.50 - $10.50.

1981 – The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera.

1982 – Priscilla Presley opens Graceland to the public; the bathroom where Elvis Presley died five years earlier is kept off-limits.

1991 – Mount Pinatubo erupts, generating an ash column 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) high.

1995 – The long-range Boeing 777 enters service with United Airlines.

2012 - Bob Welch, an early member of Fleetwood Mac who enjoyed a successful solo career with hits such as 'Ebony Eyes,' was found dead after an apparent suicide at his home in Nashville. He was 66.

Births

1778 – Beau Brummell; 1837 – Alois Hitler (Adolf's father); 1848 – Paul Gauguin; 1894 – Alexander P. de Seversky (co-designed the P-47 Thunderbolt); 1905 – James J. Braddock; 1909 – Virginia Apgar (developed the Apgar test), Jessica Tandy; 1911 – Brooks Stevens (designed the Wienermobile); 1917 – Dean Martin; 1940 – Tom Jones; 1946 – Jenny Jones; 1952 – Liam Neeson; 1955 – William Forsythe, Tim Richmond; 1956 – L.A. Reid; 1958 – Prince; 1962 – Michael Cartellone; 1965 – Mick Foley; 1967 – Dave Navarro; 1974 – Bear Grylls (How many bears could Bear Grylls grill, if Bear Grylls did grill bears?); 1975 – Allen Iverson; 1978 – Bill Hader; 1981 – Anna Kournikova:heartpump; 1990 – Iggy Azalea

Deaths

1329 – Robert the Bruce; 1866 – Chief Seattle; 1937 – Jean Harlow; 1954 – Alan Turing; 1966 – Jean Arp; 1970 – E. M. Forster; 1988 – Vernon Washington; 1992 – Bill France Sr.; 2008 – Jim McKay; 2012 – Bob Welch; 2015 – Christopher Lee

And just because I think it bears repeating:

1964 - During their first ever US tour The Rolling Stones were booed off stage at a gig in San Antonio, Texas. Some performing monkeys, who had been the act before the Stones, were brought back on stage for another performance.

:lol2:

They got booed in Philly for wearing team shirts they got at the previous stop in Washington.

Whoops.

June 8

Today is World Oceans Day.

793 – Vikings raid the abbey at Lindisfarne in Northumbria, commonly accepted as the beginning of Norse activity in the British Isles.

1042 – Edward the Confessor becomes King of England, one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England.

1783 – Laki, a volcano in Iceland, begins an eight-month eruption which kills over 9,000 people and starts a seven-year famine. The Laki eruption and its aftermath caused a drop in global temperatures, as sulfur dioxide was spewed into the Northern Hemisphere. This caused crop failures in Europe and may have caused droughts in India. The eruption has been estimated to have killed over six million people globally.

1856 – A group of 194 Pitcairn Islanders, descendants of the mutineers of HMS Bounty, arrives at Norfolk Island, commencing the Third Settlement of the Island.

1861 – American Civil War: Tennessee secedes from the Union.

1912 – Carl Laemmle incorporates Universal Pictures.

1948 – Milton Berle hosts the debut of Texaco Star Theater.

1949 – George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is published.

1953 – An F5 tornado hits Beecher, Michigan, killing 116, injuring 844, and destroying 340 homes.

The United States Supreme Court rules that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.

1966 – An F-104 Starfighter collides with XB-70 Valkyrie prototype no. 2, destroying both aircraft during a photo shoot near Edwards Air Force Base. Joseph A. Walker, a NASA test pilot, and Carl Cross, a United States Air Force test pilot, are both killed.

1967 – Six-Day War: The USS Liberty incident occurs, killing 34 and wounding 171.

1982 – Bluff Cove Air Attacks during the Falklands War: Fifty-six British servicemen are killed by an Argentine air attack on two landing ships, RFA Sir Galahad and RFA Sir Tristram.

1984 – Homosexuality is declared legal in the Australian state of New South Wales.

1992 – The first World Ocean Day is celebrated, coinciding with the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

1995 – The downed U.S. Air Force pilot Captain Scott O'Grady is rescued by U.S. Marines in Bosnia.

2004 – The first Venus Transit in well over a century takes place, the previous one being in 1882.

2007 – Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, is hit by the State's worst storms and flooding in 30 years resulting in the death of nine people and the grounding of a trade ship, the MV Pasha Bulker.

2008 - Rolling Stone Magazine published a list of the Top 50 guitar songs of all time. No.5 was 'Brown Sugar' by The Rolling Stones, No.4 , ‘You Really Got Me’ by The Kinks, No.3, ‘Crossroads’, by Cream, No.2 ‘Purple Haze’, by Jimi Hendrix and No.1 ‘Johnny B Goode’, Chuck Berry.

2009 – Two American journalists are found guilty of illegally entering North Korea and sentenced to 12 years of penal labour.

Births

1810 – Robert Schumann; 1867 – Frank Lloyd Wright; 1910 – C. C. Beck (cartoonist, co-creator Captain Marvel); 1918 – Robert Preston; 1921 – LeRoy Neiman; 1924 – Lyn Nofziger; 1925 – Barbara Bush; 1927 – Jerry Stiller ('Frank Costanza' on "Seinfeld"); 1933 – Joan Rivers; 1936 – James Darren; 1939 – Bernie Casey; 1940 – Nancy Sinatra; 1942 – Chuck Negron; 1944 – Boz Scaggs; 1951 – Bonnie Tyler; 1955 – Tim Berners-Lee, Griffin Dunne; 1957 – Scott Adams (creator 'Dilbert'); 1958 – Keenen Ivory Wayans; 1965 – Rob Pilatus (lip syncer); 1966 – Julianna Margulies; 1970 – Kwame Kilpatrick; 1977 – Kanye West (Sixth Magnitude Asshole); 1978 – Maria Menounos; 1979 – Derek Trucks

Deaths

632 – Muhammad; 1809 – Thomas Paine; 1845 – Andrew Jackson; 1874 – Cochise; 1876 – George Sand; 1924 – George Mallory; 1969 – Robert Taylor; 1982 – Satchel Paige; 2000 – Jeff MacNelly )cartoonist, creator of "Shoe"); 2006 – Robert Donner; 2013 – Angus MacKay

June 9

53 – The Roman emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia.

68 – The Roman emperor Nero commits suicide. Apparently he just couldn't stand Claudia any longer.

1650 – The Harvard Corporation, the more powerful of the two administrative boards of Harvard, is established. It is the first legal corporation in the Americas.

1732 – James Oglethorpe is granted a royal charter for the colony of the future U.S. state of Georgia.

1856 – Five hundred Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa for the Mormon Trail.

1862 – American Civil War: Stonewall Jackson concludes his successful Shenandoah Valley Campaign with a victory in the Battle of Port Republic; his tactics during the campaign are now studied by militaries around the world.

1915 – William Jennings Bryan resigns as Woodrow Wilson's Secretary of State over a disagreement regarding the United States' handling of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

1928 – Charles Kingsford Smith completes the first trans-Pacific flight in a Fokker Trimotor monoplane, the Southern Cross.

1934 – Donald Duck makes his debut in The Wise Little Hen.

1946 – Thailand's King Ananda Mahidol is found shot dead in his bedroom, Bhumibol Adulyadej ascends the throne. He is currently the world's longest reigning monarch.

1953 – The Flint–Worcester tornado outbreak sequence kills 94 people in Massachusetts.

1954 – McCarthyism: Joseph Welch, special counsel for the United States Army, lashes out at Senator Joseph McCarthy during hearings on whether Communism has infiltrated the Army giving McCarthy the famous rebuke, "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

1959 – The USS George Washington is launched. It is the first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine.

1967 – Six-Day War: Israel captures the Golan Heights from Syria.

1968 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson declares a national day of mourning following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

1973 – Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, achieving the first American Triple Crown victory in a quarter-century, and lowering the track and world record times for 1½ mile distance races to 2:24.

1994 - After an argument TLC singer Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes set fire to her boyfriend's Atlanta mansion, worth $2 million (£1.176 million), burning it to the ground. She was charged with arson and fined $10,000 (£5,882) with five years probation.

Births

1672 – Peter the Great; 1891 – Cole Porter; 1915 – Les Paul; 1916 – Robert McNamara; 1931 – Jackie Mason; 1934 – Jackie Wilson; 1939 – Dick Vitale; 1941 – Jon Lord; 1956 – Patricia Cornwell; 1961 – Michael J. Fox, Aaron Sorkin; 1963 – Johnny Depp; 1973 – Tedy Bruschi; 1981 – Natalie Portman

Deaths

68 – Nero; 1870 – Charles Dickens; 1958 – Robert Donat; 1981 – Allen Ludden; 2014 – Rik Mayall

Danger, Danger, Will Robinson, reading this thread will cause a time warp resulting in you to losing hours wandering the internet!! :haha:

June 10

Today is Portugal Day, celebrating the death of Luís de Camões, who wrote Os Lusíadas, Portugal's national epic poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements. Camões was an adventurer who lost one eye fighting in Ceuta, wrote the poem while traveling, and survived a shipwreck in Cochinchina (a region of present-day Vietnam). According to popular folklore, Camões saved his epic poem by swimming with one arm while keeping the other arm above water. Since his date of birth is unknown, his date of death is celebrated as Portugal's National Day.

671 – Emperor Tenji of Japan introduces a water clock (clepsydra) called Rokoku. The instrument, which measures time and indicates hours, is placed in the capital of Ōtsu.

1190 – Third Crusade: Frederick I Barbarossa drowns in the river Saleph while leading an army to Jerusalem.

1596 – Willem Barents and Jacob van Heemskerk discover Bear Island.

1692 – Salem witch trials: Bridget Bishop is hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, Massachusetts, for "certaine Detestable Arts called Witchcraft & Sorceries".

1854 – The first class of United States Naval Academy students graduate.

1886 – Mount Tarawera in New Zealand erupts, killing 153 people and burying the famous Pink and White Terraces. Eruptions continue for 3 months creating a large, 17 km long fissure across the mountain peak.

1912 – The Villisca axe murders were discovered in Villisca, Iowa.

1935 – Dr. Robert Smith takes his last drink, and Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio, United States, by him and Bill Wilson.

1944 – In baseball, 15-year-old Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds becomes the youngest player ever in a major-league game.

1947 – Saab produces its first automobile.

1963 – Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex (see Gender pay gap). It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program.

1964 – United States Senate breaks a 75-day filibuster against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, leading to the bill's passage.

1967 – The Gateway Arch, in St. Louis, Missouri, opens to the public.

1977 – James Earl Ray, assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr., escapes from Brushy Mountain State Prison in Petros, Tennessee. He is recaptured three days later.

The Apple II, one of the first personal computers, goes on sale.

Joe Strummer and Nicky Headon from The Clash were each fined £5 ($8.50) by a London court for spray-painting The Clash on a wall.

1986 - Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead went into a five day diabetic coma, resulting in the band withdrawing from their current tour.

1990 – British Airways Flight 5390 lands safely at Southampton Airport after a blowout in the cockpit causes the captain to be partially sucked from the cockpit. There are no fatalities.

1991 – Eleven-year-old Jaycee Lee Dugard is kidnapped in South Lake Tahoe, California; she would remain a captive until 2009.

1997 – Before fleeing his northern stronghold, Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot orders the killing of his defense chief Son Sen and 11 of Sen's family members.

2003 – The Spirit rover is launched, beginning NASA's Mars Exploration Rover mission.

Births

1895 – Hattie McDaniel; 1910 – Howlin' Wolf; 1915 – Saul Bellow; 1922 – Judy Garland; 1925 – Nat Hentoff; 1928 – Maurice Sendak; 1941 – Mickey Jones, Jürgen Prochnow; 1951 – Dan Fouts; 1953 – John Edwards; 1955 – Andrew Stevens; 1959 – Eliot Spitzer; 1961 – Kelley Deal, Kim Deal, Maxi Priest; 1963 – Jeanne Tripplehorn; 1964 – Jimmy Chamberlin; 1965 – Elizabeth Hurley:heartpump; 1968 – Bill Burr; 1971 – Bobby Jindal; 1982 – Tara Lipinski; 1992 – Kate Upton

Deaths

323 BC – Alexander the Great; 1190 – Frederick I; 1692 – Bridget Bishop; 1909 – Edward Everett Hale; 1946 – Jack Johnson; 1963 – Timothy Birdsall (British cartoonist); 1967 – Spencer Tracy; 1971 – Michael Rennie ('Klaatu in "The Day The Earth Stood Still"); 1973 – William Inge; 1976 – Adolph Zukor (co-founded Paramount Pictures); 1988 – Louis L'Amour; 1996 – Jo Van Fleet; 2002 – John Gotti; 2003 – Donald Regan; 2004 – Ray Charles; 2005 – Curtis Pitts (designed the Pitts Special); 2016 – Gordie Howe

June 11

Today, in the United Kingdom, is the Queen's Official Birthday.

1184 BC – Trojan War: Troy is sacked and burned, according to calculations by Eratosthenes.

1509 – Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon.

1770 – British explorer Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.

1776 – The Continental Congress appoints Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston to the Committee of Five to draft a declaration of independence.

1919 – Sir Barton wins the Belmont Stakes, becoming the first horse to win the U.S. Triple Crown.

1920 – During the U.S. Republican National Convention in Chicago, U.S. Republican Party leaders gathered in a room at the Blackstone Hotel to come to a consensus on their candidate for the U.S. presidential election, leading the Associated Press to first coin the political phrase "smoke-filled room".

1935 – Inventor Edwin Armstrong gives the first public demonstration of FM broadcasting in the United States at Alpine, New Jersey.

1949 - Hank Williams, Sr. made his debut at the 'Grand Ole Opry' in Nashville and received an unprecedented total of six encores.

1955 – Eighty-three spectators are killed and at least 100 are injured after an Austin-Healey and a Mercedes-Benz collide at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the deadliest ever accident in motorsports.

1960 - Drummer Tommy Moore made the fateful decision to quit The Beatles and return to his job of driving a forklift at Garston bottle works.

1962 – Frank Morris, John Anglin and Clarence Anglin allegedly become the only prisoners to escape from the prison on Alcatraz Island.

1963 – American Civil Rights Movement: Governor of Alabama George Wallace defiantly stands at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending that school. Later in the day, accompanied by federalized National Guard troops, they are able to register.

Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns himself with gasoline in a busy Saigon intersection to protest the lack of religious freedom in South Vietnam.

John F. Kennedy addresses Americans from the Oval Office proposing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that would revolutionize American society.

1966 - European radio stations mistakenly reported that The Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey was dead. Actually, it was guitarist Pete Townshend who had been injured in a car accident a few days earlier.

1970 – After being appointed on May 15, Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington officially receive their ranks as U.S. Army Generals, becoming the first females to do so.

1971 – The U.S. Government forcibly removes the last holdouts to the Native American Occupation of Alcatraz, ending 19 months of control.

1987 – Diane Abbott, Paul Boateng and Bernie Grant are elected as the first black Parliamentarians in Great Britain.

1993 – The film "Jurassic Park" is released in the United States, becoming the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of "Titanic" in 1997.

1998 – Compaq Computer pays US$9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation.

2001 – Timothy McVeigh is executed for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.

2002 – Antonio Meucci is acknowledged as the first inventor of the telephone by the United States Congress.

Sir Paul McCartney marries Heather Mills at St. Salvator Church, Ireland.

2003 - Adam Ant was arrested after going berserk and stripping down in a London cafe. The former 1980's pop star had thrown stones at neighbours' homes, smashing windows before going to the nearby cafe.

2004 – Cassini–Huygens makes its closest flyby of the Saturn moon Phoebe.

2005 - Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin founding member and guitarist, was awarded an OBE in the Queen of England's Birthday Honours list.

2011 - Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side Of The Moon, re-entered the Billboard Album chart at No. 47, and reached the milestone of 1,000 weeks on Billboard's charts. The album which was released in 1973 has done consistently well reaching No.1 on more than one occasion.

Births

1864 – Richard Strauss; 1888 – Bartolomeo Vanzetti (of Sacco & Vanzetti); 1910 – Jacques Cousteau; 1913 – Vince Lombardi; 1915 – Magda Gabor (older sister to Zsa Zsa & Eva); 1925 – William Styron; 1930 – Charles Rangel; 1932 – Athol Fugard; 1933 – Gene Wilder; 1937 – Chad Everett; 1939 – Christina Crawford (author of 'Mommie Dearest', daughter of Joan Crawford), Jackie Stewart; 1943 – Henry Hill; 1945 – Adrienne Barbeau; 1947 – Richard Palmer-James; 1949 – Frank Beard (the unbeared member of ZZ Top); 1950 – Graham Russell (Air Supply); 1952 – Donnie Van Zant; 1954 – Johnny Neel (Allman Bros.); 1956 – Joe Montana; 1959 – Hugh Laurie; 1965 – Manuel Uribe (third heaviest man ever recorded); 1969 – Peter Dinklage; 1982 – Marco Arment (co-creator Tumblr); 1986 – Shia LaBeouf

Deaths

1879 – William, Prince of Orange; 1920 – William F. Halsey, Sr. (father of Fleet Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey, Jr.); 1941 – Daniel Carter Beard (Boy Scouts of America); 1979 – John Wayne:blackr:; 1999 – DeForest Kelley ('Dr. McCoy' in "Star Trek"); 2001 – Timothy McVeigh; 2003 – David Brinkley; 2014 – Ruby Dee; 2015 – Jim Ed Brown; 2015 – Ornette Coleman; 2015 – Dusty Rhodes

When that album first came out, my buddy would pick out a victim, and convince them to listen on the headphones. Since they were stoned (like everyone else) they would invariably be drifting away... until the alarm clocks. :lol:

That one is definitely headphone material.:hedfone:

June 12

Today is Loving Day in the United States.

1381 – Peasants' Revolt: In England, rebels arrive at Blackheath.

1550 – The city of Helsinki, Finland (belonging to Sweden at the time) is founded by King Gustav I of Sweden.

1899 – New Richmond tornado: The eighth deadliest tornado in U.S. history kills 117 people and injures around 200 in New Richmond, Wisconsin. The New Richmond Tornado is generally assumed to have been an F5 tornado, with winds in excess of 261 mph.

1939 – The Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown, New York.

1940 – World War II: Thirteen thousand British and French troops surrender to Major General Erwin Rommel at Saint-Valery-en-Caux.

1942 – Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday, during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands.

1944 – American paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division:devil: secure the town of Carentan.

1963 – Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi by a Ku Klux Klan member.

1964 – Anti-apartheid activist and African NAt'l Congress leader Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison for sabotage in South Africa.

1967 – The United States Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia declares all U.S. state laws which prohibit interracial marriage to be unconstitutional.

Venera program: Venera 4 is launched (it will become the first space probe to enter another planet's atmosphere and successfully return data).

1972 – The fast food restaurant chain Popeyes is founded in Arabi, Louisiana.

1978 – David Berkowitz, the "Son of Sam" killer in New York City, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings.

1979 – Bryan Allen wins the second Kremer prize for a man powered flight across the English Channel in the Gossamer Albatross.

1987 – Cold War: At the Brandenburg Gate U.S. President Ronald Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

1991 – Russians elect Boris Yeltsin as the president of the republic.

1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman are murdered outside her home in Los Angeles, California.

1996 – In Philadelphia, a panel of federal judges blocks a law against indecency on the internet.

Births

1806 – John A. Roebling (designed the Brooklyn Bridge); 1914 – William Lundigan; 1916 – Irwin Allen; 1919 – Uta Hagen; 1924 – George H. W. Bush; 1928 – Vic Damone; 1929 – Anne Frank; 1930 – Jim Nabors; 1931 – Rona Jaffe; 1933 – Eddie Adams; 1941 – Marv Albert, Chick Corea; 1949 – Roger Aaron Brown; 1951 – Bun E. Carlos; 1951 – Brad Delp; 1953 – Rocky Burnette; 1957 – Timothy Busfield; 1960 – Mark Calcavecchia; 1973 – Jennifer Jo Cobb
; 1974 – Jason Mewes; 1977 – Kenny Wayne Shepherd

Deaths

1963 – Medgar Evers; 1980 – Milburn Stone ('Doc Adams' on "Gunsmoke"); 1983 – Norma Shearer; 1994 – Nicole Brown Simpson, Ronald Goldman; 2002 – Bill Blass; 2003 – Gregory Peck; 2007 – Don Herbert ('Mr. Wizard'); 2013 – Jason Leffler

Damn, that only leaves 364 hating days. :haha:

Well, this is a leap year...:D