0996 – Sixteen year old Otto III was crowned the Roman Emperor.

1471 – King Henry VI was killed in the tower of London. Edward IV took the throne.

1536 – The Reformation was officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.

1542 – Hernando de Soto died along the Mississippi River while searching for gold.

1602 – Martha’s Vineyard was first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.

1688 – The English poet Alexander Pope was born.

1790 – Paris was divided into 48 zones.

1819 – Bicycles were first seen in the U.S. in New York City. They were originally known as “swift walkers.”

1832 – In the U.S., the Democratic Party held its first national convention.

1840 – New Zealand was declared a British colony.

1856 – Lawrence, Kansas was captured by pro-slavery forces.

1863 – The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, LA, began.

1881 – The American branch of the Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton.

1881 – The United States Lawn Tennis Association was formed in New York City.

1891 – Peter Jackson and Jim Corbett fought for 61 rounds only to end in a draw.

1904 – Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) was founded.

1906 – Louis H. Perlman received his patent for the demountable tire-carrying rim.

1922 – The cartoon, “On the Road to Moscow,” by Rollin Kirby won a Pulitzer Prize. It was the first cartoon awarded the Pulitzer.

1924 – Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a “thrill killing” committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb. The killers were students at the University of Chicago.

1927 – Charles A. Lindberg completed the first solo nonstop airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip began May 20.

1929 – The first automatic electric stock quotation board was used by Sutro and Company of New York City.

1929 – William Henry Storey registered the trademark for the board game Sorry! in the U.K. (U.K. number 502898)

1934 – Oskaloosa, IA, became the first city in the U.S. to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1947 – Joe DiMaggio and five of his New York Yankee teammates were fined $100 because they had not fulfilled contract requirements to do promotional duties for the team.

1956 – The U.S. exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean over Bikini Atoll.

1961 – Governor Patterson declared martial law in Montgomery, AL.

1968 – The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, was last heard from. The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.

1970 – The National Guard was mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.

1980 – The movie “The Empire Strikes Back” was released.

1982 – The British landed in the Falkland Islands and fighting began.

1991 – In Madras, India, the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a bouquet of flowers that contained a bomb.

1998 – An expelled student, Kipland Kinkel, in Springfield, OR, killed 2 people and wounded 25 others with a semi-automatic rifle. Police also discovered that the boy had killed his parents before the rampage.

1998 – Microsoft and Sega announced that they are collaborating on a home video game system.

1998 – In Miami, FL, five abortion clinics were hit by an butyric acid-attacker.

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0325 – The Ecumenical council was inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea, Asia Minor.

1303 – A peace treaty was signed between England and France over the town of Gascony.

1347 – Cola di Rienzo took the title of tribune in Rome.

1506 – In Spain, Christopher Columbus died in poverty.

1520 – Hernando Cortez defeated Spanish troops that had been sent to punish him in Mexico.

1690 – England passed the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.

1674 – John Sobieski became Poland’s first King.

1774 – Britain’s Parliament passed the Coercive Acts to punish the American colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior

1775 – North Carolina became the first colony to declare its independence. This is the date that is on the George state flag even though the date of this event has been questioned.

1784 – The Peace of Versailles ended a war between France, England, and Holland.

1830 – The fountain pen was patented by H.D. Hyde.

1861 – North Carolina became the eleventh state to secede from the Union.

1861 – During the American Civil War, the capital of the Confederacy was moved from Montgomery, AL, to Richmond, VA.

1873 – Levi Strauss began marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.

1875 – The International Bureau of Weights and Measures was established.

1899 – Jacob German of New York City became the first driver to be arrested for speeding. The posted speed limit was 12 miles per hour.

1902 – The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ended.

1902 – Cuba gained its independence from Spain.

1916 – Norman Rockwell’s first cover on “The Saturday Evening Post” appeared.

1926 – The U.S. Congress passed the Air Commerce Act. The act gave the Department of Commerce the right to license pilots and planes.

1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from New York to cross the Atlantic for Paris aboard his airplane the “Spirit of St. Louis.” The trip took 33 1/2 hours.

1930 – The first airplane was catapulted from a dirigible.

1932 – Amelia Earhart took off to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She became the first woman to achieve the feat.

1933 – “Charlie Chan” was heard for the final time on the NBC Blue radio network, after only six months on the air.

1939 – The first telecast over telephone wires was sent from Madison Square Garden to the NBC-TV studios at 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan. The event was a bicycle race.

1939 – The first regular air-passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean began with the take-off of the “Yankee Clipper” from Port Washington, New York.

1941 – Germany invaded Crete by air.

1942 – Japan completed the conquest of Burma.

1961 – A white mob attacked the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, AL. The event prompted the federal government to send U.S. marshals.

1969 – U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, which was referred to as Hamburger Hill.

1970 – 100,000 people marched in New York supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.

1978 – Mavis Hutchinson, at age 53, became the first woman to run across America. It took Hutchinson 69 days to run the 3,000 miles.

1980 – The submarine Nautilus was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior.

1982 – TV’s “Barney Miller” was seen for the last time on ABC-TV.

1985 – The Dow Jones industrial average broke the 1300 mark for the first time. The Dow closed at 1304.88.

1985 – The FBI arrested U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer John Walker. Walker had begun spying for the Soviet Union in 1968.

1985 – Radio Marti was launched.

1990 – The Hubble Space Telescope sent back its first photographs.

1993 – The final episode of “Cheers” was aired on NBC-TV.

1996 – The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Colorado measure banning laws that would protect homosexuals from discrimination.

1999 – At Heritage High School in Conyers, GA, a 15-year-old student shot and injured six students. He then surrendered to an assistant principal at the school.

2010 – Scientists announced that they had created a functional synthetic genome.

2010 – Five paintings worth 100 million Euro were stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

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Burning Buildings, Liberty City Riot, 1980Fair use image

The 1980 race riots in Miami’s Liberty City and Overtown neighborhoods was sparked after the acquittal of four White Miami-Dade police officers who beat a Black motorcyclist to death then attempted to hide the crime. On May 17, 1980, the mostly-Black neighborhood erupted in violence after an all-white, all-male Tampa jury didn’t find sufficient evidence to convict the cops.

The incident that sparked the rioting occurred on December 17, 1979 when Arthur McDuffie, a U.S. Marine veteran and businessman, was riding his Kawasaki motorcycle through the neighborhood. The Miami-Dade officers gave chase claiming McDuffie was going 80-plus miles per hour. Officers said after McDuffie lost control of his bike he sped off on foot. According to the officers’ initial reports, McDuffie was involved in a scuffle with the cops with a reported six to eight officers present at the scene.

Later testimony by Officer Charles Veverka revealed that the cops struck McDuffie with nightclubs and their fists until he lay still. Veverka also said that one of the cops ran over McDuffie’s bike with their car to make it appear he had a bad wreck. Another officer, William Hanlon, claims he was the cop who choked McDuffie to the ground while officer Alex Marrero struck him with a heavy-duty flashlight.

The cops who testified in exchange for immunity were given lesser charges, save for Hanlon, who says he was the cop who ran over the motorbike. Mark Meier, another officer who testified against the defendants in the Tampa trial, said that McDuffie actually surrendered at one point. Two other officers, Herbert Evans, Jr. and Ubaldo Del Toro, were charged as accessories to the crime but both walked as well. On May 8, the judge in the case acquitted Del Toro and said that state prosecutors failed to make a case despite the testimonies.

On May 17, the jury acquitted the remaining cops, leading to the riots. Liberty City residents began rioting and burning cars, while reportedly attacking whites in the street. Gov. Bob Graham called in the National Guard. In three days of rioting, 17 were reported dead and over 1,000 arrested. The area was declared a disaster zone. Then President Jimmy Carter came to Miami and asked the community to quell the tension and take action before he would approve much needed federal assistance.

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

1866 – The U.S. Congress authorized the first 5-cent piece to be minted.

1868 – U.S. President Andrew Johnson was acquitted during the Senate impeachment, by one vote.

1879 – The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England set up the Afghan state.

1881 – In Germany, the first electric tram for the public started service.

1888 – The first demonstration of recording on a flat disc was demonstrated by Emile Berliner.

1888 – The capitol of Texas was dedicated in Austin.

1910 – The U.S. Bureau of Mines was authorized by the U.S. Congress.

1914 – The American Horseshoe Pitchers Association (AHPA) was formed in Kansas City, Kansas.

1920 – Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome.

1929 – The first Academy Awards were held in Hollywood.

1939 – The Philadelphia Athletics and the Cleveland Indians met at Shibe Park in Philadelphia for the first baseball game to be played under the lights in the American League.

1946 – “Annie Get Your Gun” opened on Broadway.

1946 – Jack Mullin showed the world the first magnetic tape recorder.

1948 – The body of CBS News correspondent George Polk was found in Solonika Bay in Greece. It had been a week after he’d disappeared.

1960 – A Big Four summit in Paris collapsed due to the American U-2 spy plane incident.

1960 – Theodore Maiman, at Hughes Research Laboratory in California, demonstrated the first working laser.

1963 – After 22 Earth orbits Gordon Cooper returned to Earth, ending Project Mercury.

1965 – Spaghetti-O’s were sold for the first time.

1969 – Venus 5, a Russian spacecraft, landed on the planet Venus.

1971 – U.S. postage for a one-ounce first class stamp was increased from 6 to 8 cents.

1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1977 – Five people were killed when a New York Airways helicopter, idling on top of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, toppled over, sending a huge rotor blade flying.

1985 – Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the NBA.

1987 – The Bobro 400 set sail from New York Harbor with 3,200 tons of garbage. The barge travelled 6,000 miles in search of a place to dump its load. It returned to New York Harbor after 8 weeks with the same load.

1988 – A report released by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop declared that nicotine was addictive in similar was as heroin and cocaine.

1988 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that police do not have to have a search warrant to search discarded garbage.

1991 – Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the U.S. Congress.

1992 – The Endeavour space shuttle landed safely after its maiden voyage.

1996 – Admiral Jeremy “Mike” Boorda, the nation’s top Navy officer, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after some of his military awards were called into question.

1997 – In Zaire, President Mobutu Sese Seko gave control of the country to rebel forces ending 32 years of autocratic rule.

2000 – U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was nominated to run for U.S. Senator in New York. She was the first U.S. first lady to run for public office.

2003 – Adam Rich was placed on three years probation after he pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of driving under the influence and being under the influence of a controlled substance. He was also ordered to take part ina 60-day treatment program and pay about $1,200 in fines.

2005 – Sony Corp. unveiled three styles of its new PlayStation 3 video game machine.

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