THIS WEEK IN HISTORY
Sunday, May 12
1780: Under siege for more than a month, American forces suffered their worst defeat of the Revolutionary War when they surrendered Charleston, South Carolina, to the British.
1932: The body of toddler Charles Lindbergh Jr., son of the famous aviator, was discovered near the family’s estate. He had been kidnapped from his bedroom March 1, and a ransom of $50,000 had been paid. Richard Hauptmann was later arrested and convicted of the crime, then executed.
1982: A Spanish priest, the Rev. Juan María Fernándezy Krohn, attempted to kill Pope John Paul II in Fatima, Portugal. The assailant stabbed the pope with a bayonet, but the assassination attempt was unsuccessful.
2015: A train bound for New York City derailed in Philadelphia, killing eight and injuring more than 200. The train was found to have been traveling at twice the speed limit for the stretch of track carrying it.
2022: The number of U.S. deaths due to COVID-19 reached 1 million.
Monday, May 13
1846: The United States declared war on Mexico. Texas had been admitted to the union the previous year, and the two nations could not agree on the location of the new state’s southern border.
1864: On land formerly of Gen. Robert Lee’s estate, Arlington National Cemetery interred its first soldier.
1908: At the Governors’ Conference on the Conservation of Natural Resources, a meeting that made conservation issues a more public priority, President Theodore Roosevelt said in his address, “the occasion for the meeting lies in the fact that the natural resources of our country are in danger of exhaustion if we permit the old wasteful methods of exploiting them longer to continue.” 1973: In the first Battle of the Sexes tennis match, Bobby Riggs defeated Margaret Court, 6-2, 6-1.
1981: Mehmet Ali Agca shot Pope John Paul II in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. The pope was wounded but survived. Agca was subdued, convicted and sentenced to life in prison, then pardoned by Italy in 2000.
1985: The Philadelphia Police Department bombed a residential building in an attempt to force out members of the
Black activist organization MOVE, for whom police had warrants for charges ranging from parole violation to illegal possession of firearms and making terroristic threats. The bombing and resulting fire killed 11 people, including children, and destroyed 61 homes.
Tuesday, May 14
1607: The first permanent English settlement in North America is founded, first as James Fort and later as Jamestown in the colony of Virginia.
1804: The expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left on its westward mission to survey the Northwest. 1948: Israel declared itself an independent Jewish state after the British withdrawal from what was then known as Palestine. Almost immediately, the 1948 Arab-Israeli War began.
2021: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that mRNA vaccines for COVID-19 made by Pfizer and Moderna reduced the risk of infection by approximately 94%.
2022: A mass shooting perpetrated by Payton Gendron killed 10 people, all Black, and injured three at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Gendron pleaded guilty to all state charges including murder and hate-motivated terrorism.
Wednesday, May 15
1800: President John Adams ordered the federal government to move from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C.
1940: The first McDonald’s restaurant was opened in San Bernardino, California, by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald.
1988: The Soviet Union began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, where it had supported a pro-communist government against Muslim rebels in the Soviet-Afghan War since 1979.
Thursday, May 16
1866: Congress authorized creation of the five-cent coin, the nickel.
1920: Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV, elevating her to sainthood.
1929: The first Academy Awards ceremony took place. “Wings” won the award for Outstanding Picture, Emil Jannings the award for Best Actor and Janet Gaynor the award for Best Actress.
1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended. The resistance from Jewish prisoners in the ghetto began less than a month earlier after it was ordered that the remaining prisoners be transported to death camps in Nazi Germany-occupied Poland. 1966: The iconic Beach Boys album “Pet Sounds” was released. Bob Dylan’s iconic album “Blonde on Blonde” was also scheduled to be released on this date, but delays pushed back that album’s release into the summer.
1975: Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Mount Everest.
1988: A report from U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop said nicotine is addictive, comparing it to other addictive substances like alcohol, heroin and cocaine.
Friday, May 17
1954: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Brown v. Board of Education that state laws segregating schools were unconstitutional.
1973: The televised U.S. Senate hearings investigating the Watergate scandal began.
1974: The Los Angeles Police threw tear gas into a home in Compton to try to force six members of the Symbionese Liberation Army to come out, but the canisters started a fire. All six members of the SLA were killed in either the shootout that followed or the fire.
1990: The World Health Organization removed homosexuality from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. 2004: Tanya McCloskey and Marcia Kadish became the first legally married same-sex couple in the United States during a morning ceremony in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Saturday, May 18
1896: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that segregation laws with accommodations that were “separate but equal” were constitutional.
1917: Needing to raise a force larger than the army of volunteers the United States had, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Selective Service Act to build the American armed forces through conscription to aid the Allies during World War I.
1980: After nearly two months of activity, Mount St. Helens erupted in southern Washington. The eruption killed 57 people, destroyed or damaged 200 homes and two bridges, and deposited immeasurable amounts of ash across 11 states.
– William Cain, USA TODAY Network