TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS FRIDAY, MAY 27, the 147th day of 2022. There are 218 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY:
On this date in 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, unanimously struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, a key component of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” legislative program.
In 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge in Baltimore, ruled that President Abraham Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus (Lincoln disregarded the ruling).
In 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, California, was opened to pedestrian traffic (vehicles began crossing the next day).
In 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France with a loss of some 2,000 lives, three days after the Bismarck sank the HMS Hood with the loss of more than 1,400 lives. Amid rising world tensions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed an “unlimited national emergency” during a radio address from the White House.
In 1942, Doris “Dorie” Miller, a cook aboard the USS West Virginia, became the first African American to receive the Navy Cross for displaying “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1957, the single “That’ll Be the Day” by Buddy Holly’s group The Crickets was released by Brunswick Records. In 2020, protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody rocked Minneapolis for a second night, with some people looting stores and setting fires. Protests spread to additional cities; and hundreds of people blocked a Los Angeles freeway and shattered windows of California Highway Patrol cruisers. The U.S. surged past a milestone in the coronavirus pandemic, with the confirmed death toll topping 100,000.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is 99. Author John Barth is 92. Actor Louis Gossett Jr. is 86. Actor Bruce Weitz is 79. Former Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) is 78. Singer Bruce Cockburn is 77. South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is 75. Singer Siouxsie Sioux (The Creatures, Siouxsie and the Banshees) is 65. Rock singer-musician Neil Finn (The Finn Brothers) is 64. Actor Dondré Whitfield is 53. Actor Paul Bettany and rock singer-musician Brian Desveaux (Nine Days) are 51. Country singer Jace Everett is 50. Actor Jack McBrayer is 49. Rappers Andre 3000 (Outkast) and Jadakiss, and TV chef Jamie Oliver are 47. Actor Darin Brooks is 38. Actor-singer Chris Colfer is 32.