TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Sunday, May 16, the 136th day of 2021. There are 229 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight

On May 16, 1939, the federal government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, N.Y.

On this date

In 1770, Marie Antoinette, 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

In 1868, at the U.S. Senate impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, 35 out of 54 senators voted to find Johnson guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” over his attempted dismissal of Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, falling one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to convict; the trial ended 10 days later after two other articles of impeachment went down to defeat as well.

In 1943, the nearly monthlong Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the Great Synagogue.

In 1960, the first working laser was demonstrated at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu 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 1984, comedian Andy Kaufman died in Los Angeles at age 35.

In 1988, the U.S. Supreme Court, in California v. Greenwood, ruled that police could search discarded garbage without a search warrant. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine.

In 1990, Sammy Davis Jr. died in Los Angeles at age 64 and “Muppets” creator Jim Henson died in New York at age 53.

In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress as she lauded U.s.-british cooperation in the Persian Gulf War.

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.

Today’s birthdays

Former U.S. Sen. and Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker is 90. Actor Danny Trejo is 77. Actor Bill Smitrovich is 74. Actor Pierce Brosnan is 68. Actor Debra Winger is 66. Olympic gold medal gymnast Olga Korbut is 65. Olympic gold medal marathon runner Joan Benoit Samuelson is 63. Actor Mare Winningham is 62. Singer Janet Jackson is 55. Actor David Boreanaz is 52. Political commentator Tucker Carlson is 52. Actor Tracey Gold is 52. International Tennis Hall of Famer Gabriela Sabatini is 51. Actor Khary Payton is 49. Actor Tori Spelling is 48. Actor Megan Fox is 35.