Today in history
Today is Wednesday, May 30, the 150th day of 2018. There are 215 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 30, 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.
On this date:
In 1381, the Peasants’ Revolt against economic injustice erupted in England during the reign of King Richard II; the king and his men, initially caught off-guard, were able to crush the rebellion several weeks later.
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 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 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 1968, the Beatles began recording their “White Album” at EMI Recording Studios in London, starting with the original version of “Revolution 1.”
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 1996, Britain’s Prince Andrew and the former Sarah Ferguson were granted an uncontested decree ending their 10year marriage.
Ten years ago: A construction crane snapped and smashed into an apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, killing two workers in New York City’s second such tragedy in 2 1/2 months. Diplomats from 111 nations meeting in Dublin, Ireland, formally adopted a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs. (The United States and other leading cluster bomb makers — Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan — boycotted the talks.) Lorenzo Odone, whose parents’ battle to save him from the rare nerve disease ALD inspired “Lorenzo’s Oil,” died in Fairfax, Virginia, a day after his 30th birthday.
Five years ago: Syria’s President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Lebanese television that he was “confident of victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory. Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year- old from Bayside Hills, New York, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “knaidel,” a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th version of the competition.