DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Saturday, May 28, the 148th day of 2022. There are 217 days left in the year.
On this date in:
1863: The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of freed Blacks, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War. In 1892, the Sierra Club was organized in San Francisco.
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 Americans succeeded in capturing the village.
1934: The Dionne quintuplets – Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne – were born to Elzire Dionne at the family farm in Ontario, Canada.
1937: Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain.
1940: During World War II, the Belgian
army surrendered to invading German forces.
1959: The U.S. Army launched Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight that both primates survived.
1964: The charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization was issued at the start of a meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Jerusalem.
1972: Edward, the Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, died in Paris at age 77.
1977: Fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky, killing 165 people.
1987: To the embarrassment of Soviet officials, Mathias 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.)
1998: Comic actor Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night Live” and “Newsradio” fame was shot to death at his home in Encino, California, by his wife, Brynn, who then killed herself.
2020: People torched a Minneapolis police station that the department was forced to abandon amid spreading protests over the death of George Floyd. Protesters in New York defied a coronavirus prohibition on public gatherings, clashing with police; demonstrators blocked traffic and smashed vehicles in downtown Denver before police used tear gas to disperse the crowd. At least seven people were shot as gunfire erupted during a protest in Louisville, Kentucky, to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, a Black woman who was fatally shot by police in her home in March.
Singer Gladys Knight is 78. Singer Billy Vera is 78. Singer John Fogerty is 77. Country singer Phil Vassar is 58. Singer Chris Ballew of Presidents of the United States of America is 57. Singer Kylie Minogue is 54. Rapper Chubb Rock is 54. Actor Justin Kirk
(“Weeds”) is 53. Talk show host Elisabeth Hasselbeck (“Fox and Friends,” “The View”) is 45. R&B singer Jaheim is 45. Actor Jake Johnson
(“New Girl”) is 44. Actor Monica Keena
(“Dawson’s Creek,” “Undeclared”) is 43. Actor Alexa Davalos (“Clash of the Titans” “The Chronicles of Riddick”) is 40. Actor Megalyn Echikunwoke (“24”) is 40. Singer Colbie Caillat is 37. Actor Carey Mulligan (“The Great Gatsby”) is 37.