Today in History
Today is Tuesday, May 30, the 150th day of 2023. There are 215 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History:
On May 30, 1989, student protesters in Beijing erected a “Goddess of Democracy” statue in Tiananmen Square (the statue was destroyed in the Chinese government’s crackdown).
On this date:
• In 1431, Joan of Arc, condemned as a heretic, was burned at the stake in Rouen (roo-ahn’), France.
• In 1922, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated in a ceremony attended by President Warren G. Harding, Chief Justice William Howard Taft and Robert Todd Lincoln.
• In 1935, Babe Ruth played in his last major league baseball game for the Boston Braves, leaving after the first inning of the first of a double-header against the Philadelphia Phillies, who won both games (Ruth announced his retirement three days later).
• In 1937, ten people were killed when police fired on steelworkers demonstrating near the Republic Steel plant in South Chicago.
• In 1958, unidentified American service members killed in World War II and the Korean War were interred in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery.
• In 1968, the Beatles began recording their “White Album” at EMI Recording Studios in London, starting with the original version of “Revolution 1.”
• In 1971, the American space probe Mariner 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy on a journey to Mars.
• In 1972, three members of the Japanese Red Army opened fire at Lod Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, killing 26 people. Two attackers died; the third was captured.
• In 1994, Mormon Church president Ezra Taft Benson died in Salt Lake City at age 94.
• In 2002, a solemn, wordless ceremony marked the end of the agonizing cleanup at ground zero in New York, 8 1/2 months after 9/11.
• In 2015, Vice President Joe Biden’s son, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, died at age 46 of brain cancer.
• In 2020, tense protests over the death of George Floyd and other police killings of Black people grew across the country; racially diverse crowds held mostly peaceful demonstrations in dozens of cities, though many later descended into violence, with police cars set ablaze.
Ten years ago: Syria’s President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Lebanese television that he was “confident of victory” in his country’s civil war, and he warned Damascus would retaliate for any future Israeli airstrike on his territory. Arvind Mahankali (Ahr’-vihnd MAH’HAHN-KAHL’-EE), a 13-year-old from Bayside Hills, New York, won the Scripps National Spelling Bee by correctly spelling “knaidel,” a small mass of leavened dough, to win the 86th version of the competition.
Five years ago: Harvey Weinstein was indicted in New York on rape and criminal sex act charges, furthering the first criminal case stemming from sexual misconduct allegations against the former movie mogul. Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko stunned colleagues by appearing at a news conference in Kiev less than a day after police in the Ukrainian capital said he’d been assassinated; authorities said his death was staged to foil a plot on his life by Moscow’s security services.a senior House Republican, Trey Gowdy, said there was no evidence that the FBI planted a “spy” on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, as Trump had alleged. Reality TV star Kim Kardashian West visited the White House to appeal to Trump on behalf of a woman serving a life sentence for drug offenses. (Days later, Trump granted clemency for Alice Marie Johnson, freeing her from prison.) Gaza’s Hamas rulers said they had agreed to a cease-fire with Israel to end the largest flareup of violence between the two sides since a 2014 war.
One year ago: After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 elementary school students and two teachers, President Joe Biden said the “Second Amendment was never absolute” and that there may be some bipartisan support to tighten restrictions on the kind of high-powered weapons used by the gunman.