TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Saturday, May 27, the 147th day of 2017. There are 218 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History On May 27, 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County was opened to pedestrian traffic (vehicles began crossing the next day).
On this date • In 1896, 255 people were killed when a tornado struck St. Louis, Mo., and East St. Louis, Ill.
• In 1933, the Chicago World’s Fair, celebrating “A Century of Progress,” officially opened. Walt Disney’s Academy Awardwinning animated short “The Three Little Pigs” was first released.
• In 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France with a loss of some 2,000 lives, three days after the Bismarck sank the HMS Hood with the loss of more than 1,400 lives.
• In 1942, Doris “Dorie” Miller, a cook aboard the USS West Virginia, became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross for displaying “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.
• In 1962, a dump fire in Centralia, Penn., ignited a blaze in underground coal deposits that continues to burn to this day.
• In 1977, the punk rock single “God Save the Queen,” the Sex Pistols’ sardonic salute to Queen Elizabeth II, was released by Virgin Records.
• In 1998, Michael Fortier, the government’s star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after apologizing for not warning anyone about the deadly plot. (Fortier was freed in Jan. 2006.)
On May 28 • In 1892, the Sierra Club was organized in San Francisco.
• In 1912, the Senate Commerce Committee issued its report on the Titanic disaster that cited a “state of absolute unpreparedness,” improperly tested safety equipment and an “indifference to danger” as some of the causes of an “unnecessary tragedy.”
• In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed a button in Washington signaling that vehicular traffic could begin crossing the just-opened Golden Gate Bridge in California.
• In 1957, National League owners gave permission for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants baseball teams to move to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
On May 29 • In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire.
• In 1660, Britain’s King Charles II was restored to the throne on his 30th birthday after nine years in exile.
• In 1765, Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act before Virginia’s House of Burgesses.
• In 1932, World War I veterans began arriving in Washington to demand cash bonuses they weren’t scheduled to receive until 1945.
• In 1953, Mount Everest was conquered as Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tensing Norgay of Nepal became the first climbers to reach the summit.
• In 1977, Janet Guthrie became the first woman to race in the Indianapolis 500, finishing in 29th place (the winner was A.J. Foyt).
• In 1987, a jury in Los Angeles acquitted “Twilight Zone” movie director John Landis and four associates of involuntary manslaughter in the movie-set deaths of actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le and 6-year-old Renee Shin-Yi Chen, who were killed by a falling helicopter.
• In 1999, Discovery became the first space shuttle to dock with the International Space Station. Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s first civilian president in 15 years, ending a string of military regimes.