TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Tuesday, May 30, the 150th day of 2017. There are 215 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History On May 30, 1922, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. was dedicated in a ceremony attended by President Warren G. Harding, Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Robert Todd Lincoln.
On this date • In 1431, Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rouen (roo-AHN’), France.
• In 1536, England’s King Henry VIII married his third wife, Jane Seymour, 11 days after the king’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was beheaded for treason and adultery.
• In 1883, 12 people were trampled to death in a stampede sparked by a rumor that the recently opened Brooklyn Bridge was in danger of collapsing.
• In 1911, the first Indy 500 took place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; the winner was Ray Harroun, who drove a Marmon Wasp for more than 6 1/2 hours at an average speed of 74.6 mph and collected a prize of $10,000.
• In 1937, ten people were killed when police fired on steelworkers demonstrating near the Republic Steel plant in South Chicago.
• In 1943, during World War II, American troops secured the Aleutian island of Attu from Japanese forces.
• In 1958, unidentified American service members killed in World War II and the Korean War were interred in the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery.
• In 1966, NASA launched Surveyor 1, a probe that made a soft landing on the moon three days later. The Beatles single “Paperback Writer” was released in the United States by Capitol Records.
• In 1971, the American space probe Mariner 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a journey to Mars.
• In 1982, Spain became NATO’s 16th member.
• In 1997, Jesse K. Timmendequas (tih-MEHN’-deh-kwahs) was convicted in Trenton, New Jersey, of raping and strangling a sevenyear-old neighbor, Megan Kanka, whose 1994 murder inspired “Megan’s Law,” requiring that communities be notified when sex offenders move in. (Timmendequas received a sentence of death that was later commuted to life in prison after New Jersey abolished capital punishment.)
• In 2002, a solemn, wordless ceremony marked the end of the agonizing cleanup at ground zero in New York, 8 1/2 months after 9/11.
Ten years ago The Taliban claimed responsibility for shooting down a Chinook helicopter over southern Afghanistan, killing five U.S. soldiers, a Canadian and a Briton. Abdul Rahman Maadha al-Amry, a Saudi being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison since 2002, was found dead, an apparent suicide.
Five years ago A gunman in Seattle fatally shot four people inside a cafe and a fifth victim in a carjacking before killing himself. The National September 11 Memorial and Museum marked the 10th anniversary of the end of cleanup operations at the site with a tribute to recovery workers and first responders. Kicking off her first trip abroad in nearly a quartercentury, Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (ahng sahn soo chee) offered encouragement to impoverished migrants in neighboring Thailand.
One year ago President Barack Obama challenged Americans on Memorial Day to fill the silence from those who died serving their country with love and support for families of the fallen, “not just with words but with our actions.”