Today in History
Today’s highlight:
On May 26, 1981, 14 people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.
On this date:
1864: President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure creating the Montana Territory.
1868: The impeachment trial of President Andrew
Johnson ended with his acquittal on the remaining charges.
1938: The House Unamerican Activities
Committee was established by Congress.
1940: Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of some 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II.
1971: Don Mclean recorded his song “American Pie” at The Record Plant in New York City (it was released the following November by United Artists Records).
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.
1978: Resorts Casino Hotel, the first legal U.S. casino outside Nevada, opened in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
1994: Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were married in the Dominican Republic. The marriage, however, ended in 1996.
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 also ruled that Ellis Island, historic gateway for millions of immigrants, was mainly in New Jersey, not New York.
2004: Nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing,
Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the attack. Nichols later received 161 consecutive life sentences.
2005: President George W. Bush received Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas at the White House; Bush called Abbas a courageous democratic reformer and bolstered his standing at home with $50 million in assistance.
2009: President Barack Obama nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ten years ago: BP launched its latest bid to plug the gushing well in the Gulf of Mexico by force-feeding it heavy drilling mud, a maneuver known as a “top kill” which proved unsuccessful. TV personality Art Linkletter died in Los Angeles at age 97.
Five years ago: Challenging Hillary Rodham Clinton from the left, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders formally kicked off his Democratic presidential bid in Burlington, Vermont, with a pitch to liberals to join him in a “political revolution” to transform the nation’s economy and politics.
One year ago: A tornado leveled a motel and tore through a mobile home park near Oklahoma City, killing two people and injuring more than two dozen others. Bart Starr, the Hall of Fame quarterback who led the Green Bay Packers to victories in the first two Super Bowl games, died in Birmingham, Alabama at the age of 85.