This Day in History

On May 18, 1980, the Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or miss- ing.

On this date:

In 1863, the Siege of Vicksburg began during the Civ- il War, ending July 4 with a Union victory.

In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Plessy v. Ferguson, endorsed “separate but equal” racial segregation, a concept renounced 58 years later by Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

In 1910, Halley’s Comet passed by earth, brushing it with its tail.

In 1911, composer-conduc- tor Gustav Mahler died in Vi- enna, Austria, at age 50.

In 1920, Pope John Paul II was born Karol Wojtyla in Wadowice, Poland.

In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

In 1934, Congress ap- proved, and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed, the so- called “Lindbergh Act,” pro- viding for the death penalty in cases of interstate kidnapping.

In 1944, during World War II, Allied forces occupied Monte Cassino in Italy after a four-month struggle with Axis troops.

In 1953, Jacqueline Cochran, 47, became the first woman to break the sound bar- rier as she piloted a Canadair F-86 Sabre jet over Rogers Dry Lake, California.

In 1967, Tennessee Gov. Buford Ellington signed a measure repealing the law against teaching evolution that was used to prosecute John T. Scopes in 1925.

In 1973, Harvard law pro- fessor Archibald Cox was appointed Watergate special prosecutor by U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson.

In 1981, the New York Native, a gay newspaper, carried a story concerning rumors of “an exotic new disease” among homosexuals; it was the first published report about what came to be known as AIDS.

Ten years ago: Grilled by skeptical lawmakers, Interi- or Secretary Ken Salazar acknowledged his agency had been lax in overseeing offshore drilling activities, and that might have contributed to the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A suicide bomber detonated his vehicle near a U.S. convoy in Afghanistan, killing 18 people, including six troops – five from the U.S., one from Canada.