TODAY IN HISTORY

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT

May 26, 1917

A tornado in central Illinois killed 101 people, mostly in the MattoonCharleston area.

ALSO ON THIS DATE 1897

The Gothic horror novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker was first published in London.

1940

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

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.)

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.)