On this date

1859 — French acrobat Charles Blondin walked back and forth on a tightrope above the gorge of Niagara Falls as thousands of spectators watched.

1865 — Eight people, including Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd, were convicted by a military commission of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. (Four defendants, including Surratt, were executed; Mudd was sentenced to life in prison, but was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson in 1869.)

1892 — Small frogs rained down on Moseley, England, south of Birmingham. (According to an account quoted in the U.S. Agriculture Department’s Monthly Weather Review for May 1917, the frogs, described as “almost white in color,” were found “scattered about several gardens” and had “evidently been absorbed in a small waterspout” during a storm.)

1908 — The Tunguska Event took place in Russia as an asteroid exploded above Siberia, leaving 800 square miles of scorched or blown-down trees.

1923 — The Rome News and the Tribune-Herald merged to form the Rome News-Tribune.

1936 — The Civil War novel “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell was first published by The Macmillan Co. in New York.

1949 — “The Missouri Waltz” became the official state song of Missouri.

1952 — “The Guiding Light,” a popular radio program, began a 57-year television run on CBS.

1963 — Pope Paul VI was crowned the 262nd head of the Roman Catholic Church.

1966 — The National Organization for Women was founded in Washington, D.C. 1977 — President Jimmy Carter announced he had decided against production of the Rockwell B-1 bomber, saying it was too costly. (However, the B-1 was later revived by President Ronald Reagan.)

1985 — Thirty-nine American hostages from a hijacked TWA jetliner were freed in Beirut after being held 17 days.

Thought for today ‘I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate.’ Sir Arthur Wing Pinero English dramatist (1855-1934)