1535 – French explorer Jacques Cartier set sail for North America.

1536 – Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after she was convicted of adultery.

1568 – After being defeated by the Protestants, Mary the Queen of Scots, fled to England where she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth.

1588 – The Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon, bound for England.

1608 – The Protestant states formed the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists.

1643 – Delegates from four New England colonies met in Boston to form a confederation.

1643 – The French army defeated a Spanish army at Rocroi, France.

1796 – The first U.S. game law was approved. The measure called for penalties for hunting or destroying game within Indian territory.

1847 – The first English-style railroad coach was placed in service on the Fall River Line in Massachusetts.

1856 – U.S. Senator Charles Sumner spoke out against slavery.

1857 – The electric fire alarm system was patented by William F. Channing and Moses G. Farmer.

1858 – A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hameton executed unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.

1864 – The Union and Confederate armies launched their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania in Virginia.

1906 – The Federated Boys’ Clubs, forerunner of the Boys’ Clubs of America, were organized.

1911 – The first American criminal conviction that was based on fingerprint evidence occurred in New York City.

1912 – The Associated Advertising Clubs of America held its first convention in Dallas, TX.

1921 – The U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.

1926 – Thomas Edison spoke on the radio for the first time.

1926 – Benito Mussolini announced that democracy was deceased. Rome became a fascist state.

1926 – In Damascus, Syria, French shells killed 600 people.

1928 – The first frog-jumping jubilee held in Calaveras County, CA.

1935 – T.E. Lawrence “Lawrence of Arabia” died from injuries in a motorcycle crash in England.

1935 – The National Football League (NFL) adopted an annual college draft to begin in 1936.

1943 – Winston Churchill told the U.S. Congress that his country was pledging their full support in the war against Japan.

1958 – Canada and the U.S. formally established the North American Air Defense Command.

1964 – The U.S. State Department reported that diplomats had found about 40 microphones planted in the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

1967 – The Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the United States and Britain that banned nuclear weapons from outer space.

1974 – Erno Rubik invented the puzzle what would later become known as the Rubik’s Cube.

1967 – U.S. planes bombed Hanoi for the first time.

1981 – The Empire State Building was designated a New York City Landmark.

1988 – In Jacksonville, FL, Carlos Lehder Rivas was convicted of smuggling more than three tons of cocaine into the United States. Rivas was the co-founder of Colombia’s Medellin drug cartel.

1989 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average passed 2,500 for the first time. The close for the day was 2,501.1.

1992 – U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the CBS sitcom “Murphy Brown” for having its title character decide to bear a child out of wedlock.

1992 – In Massapequa, NY, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by Amy Fisher. Fisher was her husband Joey’s teen-age lover.

1992 – The 27th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect. The amendment prohibits Congress from giving itself midterm pay raises.

1993 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed about 3,500 (3,500.03) for the first time.

1998 – In Russia, strikes broke out over unpaid wages.

1998 – Bandits stole three of Rome’s most important paintings from the National Gallery of Modern Art.

1999 – “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” was released in the U.S. It set a new record for opening day sales at 28.5 million.
Today in Star Wars History

2000 – The bones of the most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton went on display in Chicago.

2003 – It was announced that Worldcom Inc. would pay investors $500 million to settle civil fraud charges over its $11 billion accounting scandal.

2003 – Hundreds of Albert Einstein’s scientific papers, personal letters and humanist essays were make available on the Internet. Einstein had given the papers to the Hebrew Universtiy of Jerusalem in his will.

2005 – “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” brought in 50.0 million in its opening day.

2013 – The Yahoo board approved the $1.1 billion purchase of the blogging site Tumblr.

Before World War II and the Holocaust, American law made very little distinction between refugees forced to flee their countries due to persecution, and immigrants seeking a better life. After the war, the United States and the international community used a series of directives, organizations, and laws to help displaced European refugees, including Holocaust survivors, immigrate to new countries. Although refugees gained legal status under postwar international law, the scope of these laws was narrow and limited at first, before expanding to their current form.

KEY FACTS

• 1) In 1921 and 1924, the US Congress passed immigration laws that severely limited the number and “national origin” of new immigrants. These laws did not change in the 1930s, as desperate Jewish refugees attempted to immigrate from Nazi Germany.
• 2) After World War II, the American people continued to oppose increased immigration. With President Truman’s encouragement, Congress passed limited legislation to aid European displaced persons, including Holocaust survivors.
• 3) The United Nations’ 1951 Refugee Convention granted legal protection to refugees but placed limitations on qualifying for refugee status. The United States did not sign the 1951 Refugee Convention but did sign the 1967 United Nations Refugee Protocol, which removed those geographical and time limitations.

After World War I, America became an isolationist nation. In December 1920, in the context of this isolationism, the international influenza pandemic, and a postwar economic recession, the US House of Representatives voted to end all immigration to the United States for one year. The vote was bipartisan and was not close (293-41). The Senate did not believe the emergency warranted this dramatic step but was willing to significantly restrict the number of immigrants allowed to enter the United States.

Congress began negotiating a new immigration bill, which would set quotas for the first time on the number of immigrants from each country who could enter the United States. At the last minute, the Senate rejected the House’s proposed amendment, which would have made a distinction between immigrants and refugees by exempting immigrants who could prove they were escaping political or racial persecution. Had this amendment been enacted, the American response to the refugee crisis in the 1930s may have been quite different.

On May 19, 1921, President Warren Harding signed the Quota Act of 1921 (also known as the “Emergency Quota Act”). The 1921 quotas were enforced on Ellis Island, not at US consulates abroad. State Department officials could advise a potential immigrant on the probability that he/she would be allowed to enter due to health or economic status, but entry decisions were made upon disembarking in the United States. This led to so-called “midnight races,” where passenger ships raced to reach the United States as soon as possible at the beginning of each month when new portions of the quota were opened. Ships that arrived at 11 p.m. on August 31, for instance, could be fined for bringing passengers from countries where the quota had already been filled; one hour later, on September 1, the passengers could enter under newly opened quota slots.

For the complete article … encyclopedia.ushmm.org

image:  nps.gov

1862 – During the American Civil War, General David Hunter, Union commander of the Department of the South, issued orders freeing the slaves in South Carolina, Florida and Georgia. He did so without congressional or presidential approval. The orders were countermanded by President Abraham Lincoln ten days later.

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Proclamation by the President