DAILY ALMANAC
Today is Friday, May 26, the 146th day of 2023. There are 219 days left in the year
. On this date in:
1864: President Abraham Lincoln signed a measure creating the Montana Territory.
1865: Confederate forces west of the Mississippi surrendered in New Orleans.
1938: The House Un-american Activities Committee was established by Congress.
1940: Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of some 338,000 Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, began during World War II.
1954: Explosions rocked the aircraft carrier USS Bennington off Rhode Island, killing 103 sailors. (The initial blast was blamed on leaking catapult fluid ignited by the flames of a jet.)
1971: Don Mclean recorded his song “American Pie” at The Record Plant in New York City (it was released the following November by United Artists Records).
1972: President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty in Moscow. (The U.S. withdrew from the treaty in 2002.)
1981: Fourteen people were killed when a Marine jet crashed onto the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off Florida.
1994: Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley were married in the Dominican Republic. (The marriage ended in 1996.)
2004: Nearly a decade after the Oklahoma City bombing, Terry Nichols was found guilty of 161 state murder charges for helping carry out the attack. (Nichols later received 161 consecutive life sentences.)
2009: President Barack Obama nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. California’s Supreme Court upheld the Proposition 8 gay marriage ban but said the 18,000 same-sex weddings that had taken place before the prohibition passed were still valid.
2011: Ratko Mladic, the brutal Bosnian Serb general suspected of leading the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, was arrested after a 16-year manhunt. (Mladic was extradited to face trial in The Hague, Netherlands; he was convicted in 2017 on genocide and war crimes charges and is serving a life sentence.)
Sportscaster Brent Musburger is 84. Drummer Garry Peterson of The Guess Who is 78. Singer Stevie Nicks is 75. Actor Pam Grier is 74. Actor Philip Michael Thomas (“Miami Vice”) is 74. Country singer Hank Williams Jr. is 74. Actor
Margaret Colin is 65. Singer Dave Robbins (Blackhawk) is 64. Actor
Doug Hutchison (“The Green Mile”) is 63. Actor
Genie Francis (“General Hospital”) is 61. Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait is 61. Singer Lenny Kravitz is 59. Actor Helena Bonham Carter is 57. Drummer Phillip Rhodes of The Gin Blossoms is 55. Actor
Joseph Fiennes (“Shakespeare in Love”) is 53. Singer Joey Kibble of Take 6 is 52. Singer Lauryn Hill is 48.