Today in history
Today is Thursday, May 31, the 151st day of 2018. There are 214 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 31, 1921, a race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as white mobs began looting and leveling the affluent black district of Greenwood over reports a black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator; hundreds are believed to have died. On this date:
In 1578, the Christian catacombs of ancient Rome were accidentally discovered by workers digging in a vineyard along the Via Salaria.
In 1669, English diarist Samuel Pepys (peeps) wrote the final entry of his journal, blaming his failing eyesight for his inability to continue.
In 1790, President George Washington signed into law the first U. S. copyright act.
In 1889, some 2,200 people in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, perished when the South Fork Dam collapsed, sending 20 million tons of water rushing through the town.
In 1916, during World War I, British and German fleets fought the naval Battle of Jutland off Denmark; there was no clear- cut victor, although the British suffered heavier losses.
In 1935, movie studio 20th Century Fox was created through a merger of the Fox Film Corp. and Twentieth Century Pictures.
In 1949, former State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss went on trial in New York, charged with perjury (the jury deadlocked, but Hiss was convicted in a second trial).
In 1962, former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel a few minutes before midnight for his role in the Holocaust.
In 1977, the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, three years in the making despite objections from envi- ronmentalists and Alaska Natives, was completed. ( The first oil began flowing through the pipeline 20 days later.)
In 1985, 88 people were killed, more than 1,000 injured, when 41 tornadoes swept through parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Ontario, Canada, during an 8-hour period.
In 1994, the United States announced it was no longer aiming longrange nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
In 2005, breaking a silence of 30 years, former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as “Deep Throat,” the secret Washington Post source during the Watergate scandal.
Ten years ago: Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven blasted into orbit, carrying a giant Japanese lab addition to the international space station.
Five years ago: A tornado in the Oklahoma City metro area claimed eight lives, including those of storm chasers Tim Samaras, his son, Paul, and Carl Young; 13 people died in flash flooding. Four firefighters searching for people in a blazing Houston motel and restaurant were killed when part of the structure collapsed. Actress Jean Stapleton, who played Archie Bunker’s far better half, the sweetly naive Edith, in TV’s groundbreaking 1970s comedy “All in the Family,” died in New York at age 90.
One year ago: President Donald Trump welcomed Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc (nuh-WEE’-ihn SOO’an FOOK) to the White House for talks focusing on the American trade deficit. A suicide attacker struck the fortified heart of the Afghan capital Kabul with a massive truck bomb that killed more than 150 people. CBS announced that Scott Pelley was being removed as anchor of “The CBS Evening News” after six years.