This Day in History

On May 26, 1868, the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson ended with his acquittal on the remaining charges.

On this date:

In 1647, Alse (Alice) Young was hanged in Hartford, Connecticut, in the first recorded execution of a “witch” in the American colonies.

In 1805, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned king of Italy in Milan.

In 1897, the Gothic horror novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker was first published in London.

In 1918, the Democratic Republic of Georgia declared its independence. (Georgia was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1921, and did not reclaim its independence until 1991.)

In 1938, the House Un-American Activities Committee was established by Congress.

In 1940, Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of some 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II.

In 1954, explosions rocked the aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors. (The initial blast was blamed on leaking catapult fluid ignited by the flames of a jet.)

In 1960, U.N. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge accused the Soviets during a meeting of the Security Council of hiding a microphone inside a wood carving of the Great Seal of the United States that had been presented to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow. (The U.S. withdrew from the treaty in 2002.)

In 1978, Resorts Casino Hotel, the first legal U.S. casino outside Nevada, opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

In 1981, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.

In 1998, the U.S. Supreme Court made it far more difficult for police to be sued by people hurt during high-speed chases. The Supreme Court ruled that Ellis Island, historic gateway for millions of immigrants, was mainly in New Jersey, not New York.

Ten years ago: Oscar-winning movie director Sydney Pollack died in Los Angeles at age 73.