TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, May 30. This is Memorial Day.
Today’s highlight:
On May 30, 1989, student protesters in Beijing erected a “Goddess of Democracy” statue in Tiananmen Square (the statue was destroyed in the Chinese government’s crackdown).
On this date:
In 1431, Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
In 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.
In 1935, Babe Ruth played in his last major league baseball game for the Boston Braves. (Ruth announced his retirement three days later).
In 1937, 10 people were killed when police fired on steelworkers demonstrating near the Republic Steel plant in South Chicago.
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 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army opened fire at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 26 people. Two attackers died; the third was captured.
In 2002, a solemn, wordless ceremony marked the end of the agonizing cleanup at Ground Zero in New York, 8½ months after 9/11.
In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden’s son, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, died at age 46 of brain cancer.
In 2020, tense protests over the death of George Floyd and other police killings of Black people grew across the country; racially diverse crowds held mostly peaceful demonstrations in dozens of cities, though many later descended into violence, with police cars set ablaze. A rocket ship built by Elon Musk’s Spacex took off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral to carry two Americans to the International Space Station; it ushered in a new era of commercial space travel.
Ten years ago: A gunman in Seattle fatally shot four people inside a cafe and a fifth victim in a carjacking before killing himself.
Five years ago: The Pentagon scored an important success in a test of its oft-criticized missile defense program, destroying a mock warhead over the Pacific Ocean with an interceptor. Kathy Griffin appeared in a brief video holding what looked like President Trump’s bloody, severed head; the comic ended up apologizing, saying she had gone way too far.
One year ago: A restrictive voting bill in Texas that was on the verge of reaching Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk failed to pass after Democrats walked out of the House chamber before a midnight deadline. (After months of Democratic protests, the Republican-controlled legislature would enact sweeping changes in the state’s election code in August.) Helio Castroneves joined the exclusive club of four-time Indianapolis 500 winners, holding off Alex Palou to win the 105th running of the race in front of 135,000 fans; it was the biggest crowd at any sports event in the world since the pandemic began 18 months earlier.