TODAY IN HISTORY
Today is Monday, May 16.
Today’s highlight:
On May 16, 1943, the nearly monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising came to an end as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the Great Synagogue.
On this date:
In 1770, Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.
In 1866, Congress authorized minting of the first five-cent piece, also known as the “Shield nickel.”
In 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented. “Wings” won “best production,” while Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor were named best actor and best actress.
In 1939, the federal government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, New York.
In 1957, federal agent Eliot Ness, who organized “The Untouchables” team that took on gangster Al Capone, died in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, at age 54.
In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, by physicist Theodore Maiman.
In 1966, China launched the Cultural Revolution, a radical as well as deadly reform movement aimed at purging the country of “counter-revolutionaries.”
In 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
In 1990, death claimed entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. in Los Angeles at age 64 and “Muppets” creator Jim Henson in New York at age 53.
In 1997, President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed Black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis.
In 2007, anti-war Democrats in the Senate failed in an attempt to cut off funds for the Iraq war.
In 2016, President Barack Obama called on the nation to support law enforcement officers as he bestowed the Medal of Valor on 13 who risked their lives.
Ten years ago: Gen. Ratko Mladic went on trial at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. (Mladic would be convicted on 10 counts and sentenced to life in prison.)
Five years ago: The White House issued a furious denial after a report that President Donald Trump personally appealed to FBI Director James Comey to abandon the bureau’s investigation into National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
One year ago: Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City flattened three buildings and killed more than 40 people; the attack was the deadliest in the latest round of violence between Israel and Hamas. Hamas launched rockets from civilian areas in Gaza toward civilian areas in Israel; one slammed into a synagogue in the southern city of Ashkelon hours before evening services for the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, but no injuries were reported.