This Day in History

On May 28, 1912, the Sen- ate Commerce Committee issued its report on the Titanic disaster that cited a “state of absolute unpreparedness,” improperly tested safety equipment and an “indiffer- ence to danger” as some of the causes of an “unnecessary tragedy.”

On this date:

In 1533, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cran- mer, declared the marriage of England’s King Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn valid.

In 1863, the 54th Massa- chusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of freed blacks, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

In 1908, British author Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond as well as “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” was born in Lon- don.

In 1918, American troops fought their first major battle during World War I as they launched an offensive against the German-held French village of Cantigny; the Amer- icans succeeded in capturing the village.

In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could begin crossing the just-opened Gold- en Gate Bridge in California. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain. In Nazi Germany, Volkswagen was founded by the German Labour Front.

In 1957, National League owners gave permission for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants to move to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In 1959, the U.S. Army launched Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squir- rel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight which both primates survived.

In 1964, the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization was issued at the start of a meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Jerusa- lem.

In 1977, 165 people were killed when fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.

In 1987, to the embarrass- ment of Soviet officials, Mathi- as Rust, a young West German pilot, landed a private plane in Moscow’s Red Square without authorization. (Rust was freed by the Soviets the following year.)

In 2003, President George W. Bush signed a 10-year, $350 billion package of tax cuts, saying they already were “adding fuel to an economic recovery.”