history at a glance

TODAY is Sunday May 7 the 127th day of the year. There are 238 days left in the year. Highlights in history on this date:

1928 – The Jinan incident begins with Japanese forces killing the Chinese negotiating team in

Jinan, China, and going on to kill over 2,000 Chinese civilians in the following days. 1937 – Spanish Civil War: The German Condor Legion, equipped with Heinkel He 51 biplanes,

arrives in Spain to assist Francisco Franco’s forces. 1940 – The Norway Debate in the British House of Commons begins, and leads to the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston Churchill three days later. 1942 – During the Battle of the Coral Sea, United States Navy aircraft carrier aircraft attack and sink the Imperial Japanese Navy light aircraft carrier Shoho. The battle marks the first time in the naval history that two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships. 1945 – World War II: General Alfred Jodl signs unconditional surrender terms at Reims, France,

ending Germany’s participation in the war. The document takes effect the next day. 1946 – Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with around

20 employees. 1948 – The Council of Europe is founded during the Hague Congress. 1952 – The concept of the integrated circuit, the basis for all modern computers, is first

published by Geoffrey Dummer. 1954 – Indochina War: The Battle of Dien Bien Phu ends in a French defeat and a Vietnamese

victory (the battle began on March 13). 1960 – Cold War: U-2 Crisis of 1960: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announces that his

nation is holding American U-2 pilot Gary Powers. 1964 – Pacific Air Lines Flight 773, a Fairchild F-27 airliner, crashes near San Ramon, California, killing all 44 aboard; the FBI later reports that a cockpit recorder tape indicates that the pilot and co-pilot had been shot by a suicidal passenger. 1992 – The Space Shuttle Endeavour is launched on its first mission, STS-49. 1992 – Three employees at a McDonald’s Restaurant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada, are brutally murdered and a fourth permanently disabled after a botched robbery. It is the first “fast-food murder” in Canada. 1994 – Edvard Munch’s iconic painting The Scream is recovered undamaged after being stolen

from the National Gallery of Norway in February. 1998 – Mercedes-Benz buys Chrysler for US$40 billion USD and forms DaimlerChrysler in the

largest industrial merger in history. 1999 – Pope John Paul II travels to Romania becoming the first pope to visit a predominantly

Eastern Orthodox country since the Great Schism in 1054. 1999 – Kosovo War: In Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, three Chinese citizens are killed and 20

wounded when a NATO aircraft bombs the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. 1999 – In Guinea-Bissau, President João Bernardo Vieira is ousted in a military coup. 2000 – Vladimir Putin is inaugurated as president of Russia. 2002 – A China Northern Airlines MD-82 plunges into the Yellow Sea, killing 112 people. 2004 – American businessman Nick Berg, is beheaded by Islamic militants. The act is recorded

on videotape and released on the Internet. 2007 – Israeli archaeologists discover the tomb of Herod the Great south of Jerusalem. 2009 – Over 100 New Zealand Police officers begin a 40-hour siege of a lone gunman in

Napier, New Zealand. 2013 – Twenty-seven people are killed and more than 30 injured, when a tanker truck crashes

and explodes outside Mexico City.