1712 – A slave revolt broke out in New York City.

1798 – The territory of Mississippi was organized.

1862 – Union General Ulysses S. Grant defeated Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh, TN.

1864 – The first camel race in America was held in Sacramento, California.

1888 – P.F. Collier published a weekly periodical for the first time under the name “Collier’s.”

1922 – U.S. Secretary of Interior leased Teapot Dome naval oil reserves in Wyoming.

1927 – The first long-distance TV transmission was sent from Washington, DC, to New York City. The audience saw an image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover.

1930 – The first steel columns were set for the Empire State Building.

1933 – Prohibition ended in the United States.

1940 – Booker T. Washington became the first black to be pictured on a U.S. postage stamp.

1943 – British and American armies linked up between Wadi Akarit and El Guettar in North Africa to form a solid line against the German army.

1945 – The Japanese battleship Yamato, the world’s largest battleship, was sunk during the battle for Okinawa. The fleet was headed for a suicide mission.

1948 – The musical “South Pacific” by Rogers and Hammerstein debuted on Broadway.

1948 – The United Nations’ World Health Organization began operations.

1953 – The Big Four met for the first time in 2 years to seek an end to their air conflicts.

1953 – IBM unveiled the IBM 701 Electronic Data Processing Machine. It was IBM’s first commercially available scientific computer.

1957 – The last of New York City’s electric trolleys completed its final run from Queens to Manhattan.

1963 – At the age of 23, Jack Nicklaus became the youngest golfer to win the Green Jacket at the Masters Tournament.

1963 – Yugoslavia proclaimed itself a Socialist republic.

1963 – Josip Broz Tito was proclaimed to be the leader of Yugoslavia for life.

1966 – The U.S. recovered a hydrogen bomb it had lost off the coast of Spain.

1967 – Israel reported that they had shot down six Syrian MIGs.

1969 – The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously struck down laws prohibiting private possession of obscene material.

1970 – John Wayne won his first and only Oscar for his role in “True Grit.” He had been in over 200 films.

1971 – U.S. President Nixon pledged to withdraw 100,000 more men from Vietnam by December.

1980 – The U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Iran and imposed economic sanctions in response to the taking of hostages on November 4, 1979.

1983 – Specialist Story Musgrave and Don Peterson made the first Space Shuttle spacewalk.

1983 – The Chinese government canceled all remaining sports and cultural exchanges with the U.S. for 1983.

1985 – In Goteborg, Sweden, China swept all of the world table tennis titles except for men’s doubles.

1985 – In Sudan, Gen. Swar el-Dahab took over the Presidency while President Gaafar el-Nimeiry was visiting the U.S. and Egypt.

1985 – The Soviet Union announced a unilateral freeze on medium-range nuclear missiles.

1987 – In Oklahoma a 16-month-old baby was killed by a pit bull. On the same day a 67-year-old man was killed by another pit bull in Dayton, OH.

1988 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to final terms of a Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan. Soviet troops began leaving on May 16, 1988.

1988 – In Fort Smith, AR, 13 white supremacists were acquitted on charges for plotting to overthrow the U.S. federal government.

1989 – A Soviet submarine carrying nuclear weapons sank in the Norwegian Sea.

1990 – In the U.S., John Poindexter was found guilty of five counts at his Iran-Contra trial. The convictions were later reversed on appeal.

1990 – At Cincinnati’s Contemporary Arts Center a display of Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs went on display. On the same day the center and its director were indicted on obscenity charges. The charges resulted in acquittal.

1994 – Civil war erupted in Rwanda between the Patriotic Front rebel group and government soldiers. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the months that followed.

1998 – Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono, won a special election to serve out the remainder of her husband’s congressional term.

1999 – Yugoslav authorities sealed off Kosovo’s main border crossings to prevent ethnic Albanians from leaving.

2000 – U.S. President Clinton signed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act of 2000. The bill reversed a Depression-era law and allows senior citizens to earn money without losing Social Security retirement benefits.

2002 – The Roman Catholic archdiocese announced that six priests from the Archdiocese of New York were suspended over allegations of sexual misconduct.

2006 – The Boeing X-37 conducted its first flight as a test drop at Edwards Air Force Base, CA.

2009 – Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison for ordering killings and kidnappings by security forces.

According to recent reports, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is pressuring the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to block an important equal pay initiative that collects wage data from corporations. Without this data, it will be even harder to identify and stop pay discrimination that especially harms women. Right now, the OMB is deciding whether to kill the equal pay data collection instituted by the Obama Administration—and this is our moment to make our voices heard. Sign Our Letter: Tell the Office of Management and Budget to Keep the Pay Data Collection By signing our letter, you will join thousands of equal pay advocates who are sending a strong message to OMB in support of equal pay. Women often don’t know they are being paid less than the men who work beside them. This is exactly what happened to Lilly Ledbetter. She had no idea her male co-workers were all being paid more than she was until she received an anonymous note about it. That’s why we need the equal pay data collection — so corporations have an incentive to close the wage gaps in their workforces and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has the tools it needs to identify and stop pay discrimination. Women shouldn’t have to rely on anonymous notes to have the information they need to fight for equal pay. Please add your name now! The Office of Management and Budget needs to know we support equal pay and that we are watching. Thanks for joining We the Resistance’s fight to achieve equal pay. In solidarity, Emily Martin General Counsel and Vice President for Workplace Justice National Women’s Law Center   We the Resistance is our fight to protect our rights and freedoms and to defend the most vulnerable among us through powerful collective action. Every conversation you have with a loved one about the issues important to you, every call you make to Congress, every rally you attend is a part of that resistance. Join us—sign on to the We The Resistance manifesto.

1199 – English King Richard I was killed by an arrow at the siege of the castle of Chaluz in France.

1607 – An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport arrived at the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico for supplies before continuing on their journey. On May 14, they went ashore and founded Jamestown, Virginia, as the first permanent English colony in America.

1652 – Jan van Riebeeck established a settlement at Cape Town, South Africa.

1789 – The first U.S. Congress began regular sessions at the Federal Hall in New York City.

1814 – Granted sovereignty in the island of Elba and a pension from the French government, Napoleon Bonaparte abdicates at Fountainebleau. He was allowed to keep the title of emperor.

1830 – Joseph Smith and five others organized the Mormon Church in western New York.

1830 – Relations between the Texans and Mexico reached a new low when Mexico would not allow further emigration into Texas by settlers from the U.S.

1862 – The American Civil War Battle of Shiloh began in Tennessee.

1865 – At the Battle of Sayler’s Creek, a third of Lee’s army was cut off by Union troops pursuing him to Appomattox.

1875 – Alexander Graham Bell was granted a patent for the multiple telegraph, which sent two signals at the same time.

1896 – The first modern Olympic Games began in Athens, Greece.

1903 – French Army Nationalists were revealed for forging documents to guarantee a conviction for Alfred Dryfus.

1909 – Americans Robert Peary and Matthew Henson claimed to be the first men to reach the North Pole.

1916 – Charlie Chaplin became the highest-paid film star in the world when he signed a contract with Mutual Film Corporation for $675,000 a year. He was 26 years old.

1917 – The U.S. Congress approved a declaration of war on Germany and entered World War I on the Allied side.

1924 – Four planes left Seattle on the first successful flight around the world.

1927 – William P. MacCracken, Jr. earned license number ‘1’ when the Department of Commerce issued the first aviator’s license.

1931 – “Little Orphan Annie” debuted on the NBC Blue network.

1938 – The United States recognized the German conquest of Austria.

1941 – German forces invaded Greece and Yugoslavia.

1945 – “This is Your FBI” debuted on ABC radio.

1953 – Iranian Premier Mossadegh demanded that the shah’s power be reduced.

1957 – Trolley cars in New York City completed their final runs.

1959 – Hal Holbrook opened in the off-Broadway presentation of “Mark Twain Tonight.”

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorized the use of ground troops in combat operations in Vietnam.

1967 – In South Vietnam, 1,500 Viet Cong attacked Quangtri and freed 200 prisoners.

1981 – A Yugoslav Communist Party official confirmed reports of intense ethnic riots in Kosovo.

1983 – The U.S. Veteran’s Administration announced it would give free medical care for conditions traceable to radiation exposure to more than 220,000 veterans who participated in nuclear tests from 1945 to 1962.

1985 – William J. Schroeder became the first artificial heart recipient to be discharged from the hospital.

1987 – Dennis Levine began a two-year jail term for insider trading.

1987 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 2,400 for the first time.

1987 – Sugar Ray Leonard took the middleweight title from Marvin Hagler.

1988 – Mathew Henson was awarded honors in Arlington National Cemetery. Henson had discovered the North Pole with Robert Peary.

1997 – Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) announced that he would retire from the National Hockey League (NHL) following the playoffs of the current season.

1998 – Citicorp and Travelers Group announced that they would be merging. The new creation was the largest financial-services conglomerate in the world. The name would become Citigroup.

1998 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 9,000 points for the first time.

1998 – Federal researchers in the U.S. announced that daily tamoxifen pills could cut breast cancer risk among high-risk women.

1998 – Pakistan successfully tested medium-range missiles capable of attacking neighboring India.