1264 – King Henry III was captured by his brother in law Simon deMontfort at the Battle of Lewes in France.

1509 – In the Battle of Agnadello, French defeated Venitians in Northern Italy.

1607 – An expedition led by Captain Christopher Newport went ashore at Jamestown, Virginia. The group had arrived at the location the day before. This became the first permanent English colony in America.

1610 – French King Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) was assassinated by a fanatical monk, François Ravillac.

1643 – Louis XIV became King of France at age 4 upon the death of his father, Louis XIII.

1727 – Thomas Gainsborough was born. He was an English painter.

1787 – Delegates began gathering in Philadelphia for a convention to draw up the U.S. Constitution.

1796 – The first smallpox vaccination was given by Edward Jenner.

1804 – William Clark set off the famous expedition from Camp Dubois. A few days later, in St. Louis, Meriwether Lewis joined the group. The group was known as the “Corps of Discovery.”

1811 – Paraguay gained independence from Spain.

1853 – Gail Borden applied for a patent for condensed milk.

1862 – The chronograph was patented by Adolphe Nicole.

1874 – McGill University and Harvard met at Cambridge, MA, for the first college football game to charge admission.

1878 – The name Vaseline was registered by Robert A. Chesebrough.

1879 – Thomas Edison incorporated the Edison Telephone Company of Europe.

1897 – “The Stars and Stripes Forever” by John Phillip Sousa was performed for the first time. It was at a ceremony where a statue of George Washington was unveiled.

1897 – Guglielmo Marconi made the first communication by wireless telegraph.

1913 – The Rockefeller Foundation was created by John D. Rockefeller with a gift of $100,000,000.

1935 – The Philippines ratified an independence agreement.

1940 – The Netherlands surrendered to Nazi Germany.

1942 – The Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) was established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

1942 – “Lincoln Portrait” by Aaron Copland was performed for the first time by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

1942 – The British, while retreating from Burma, reached India.

1948 – Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion proclaimed the independent State of Israel as British rule in Palestine came to an end.

1955 – The Warsaw Pact, a Easter European mutual-defense treaty, was signed in Poland by eight communist bloc countries including the Soviet Union.

1961 – A bus carrying Freedom Riders was bombed and burned in Alabama.

1967 – Mickey Mantle hit his 500th homerun.

1969 – Jacqueline Susann’s second novel, “The Love Machine,” was published by Simon and Schuster.

1973 – Skylab One was launched into orbit around Earth as the first U.S. manned space station.

1975 – U.S. forces raided the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and recaptured the American merchant ship Mayaguez. All 40 crew members were released safely by Cambodia. About 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in the military operation.

1980 – U.S. President Carter inaugurated the Department of Health and Human Services.

1985 – Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s restaurant became the first fast-food business museum. It is located in Des Plaines, Illinois.

1988 – In the Andean village of Cayara, Peru’s military was involved in a massacre of at least 26 peasants.

1992 – Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev addressed members of the U.S. Congress, appealing to them to pass a bill to aid the people of the former Soviet Union.

1996 – A tornado hit 80 villages in nothern Bangladesh. More than 440 people were killed.

1998 – The Associated Press marked its 150th anniversary.

1998 – The final episode of the TV series “Seinfeld” aired after nine years on NBC.

1999 – North Korea returned the remains of six U.S. soldiers that had been killed during the Korean War.

1999 – Jess Marlow received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2005 – The art exhibit “Gumby and Friends: The First 50 Years” opened at the Lynn House Gallery in Antioch, CA.

on-this-day.com

On May 12, 1972, Mexican-American labor organizer and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez begins a hunger strike. The strike, which he undertook in opposition to an Arizona law severely restricting farm workers’ ability to organize, lasted 24 days and drew national attention to the …read more

New York City passes the nation’s first anti-spitting law to combat tuberculosis, imposing fines and jail time. By 1910, more than 2,500 arrests are made—despite backlash from protesters, yep, spitting on anti-spitting signs.

Source: history.com

88 – King Henry III fled Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly entered the city.

1780 – Charleston, South Carolina fell to British forces.

1847 – William Clayton invented the odometer.

1870 – Manitoba entered the Confederation as a Canadian province.

1881 – Tunisia, in North Africa became a French protectorate.

1885 – In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebelled against the Canadian government.

1888 – Charles Sherrill of the Yale track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast break in a foot race.

1926 – The airship Norge became the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1926 – In Britain, a general strike by trade unions ended. The strike began on May 3, 1926.

1937 – Britain’s King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1940 – The Nazi conquest of France began with the German army crossing Muese River.

1942 – The Soviet Army launched its first major offensive of World War II and took Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine from the German army.

1943 – The Axis forces in North Africa surrendered during World War II.

1949 – The Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.

1950 – The American Bowling Congress abolished its white males-only membership restriction after 34 years.

1957 – A.J. Foyt won his first auto racing victory in Kansas City, MO.

1965 – West Germany and Israel exchanged letters establishing diplomatic relations.

1970 – Ernie Banks, of the Chicago Cubs, hit his 500th home run.

1975 – U.S. merchant ship Mayaguez was seized by Cambodian forces in international waters.

1978 – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that they would no longer exclusively name hurricanes after women.

1982 – South Africa unveiled a plan that would give voting rights to citizens of Asian and mixed-race descent, but not to blacks.

1984 – South African prisoner Nelson Mandela saw his wife for the first time in 22 years.

1999 – Russian President Boris Yeltsin dismissed Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and named Interior Minister Sergei Stepashin as his successor.

2002 – Former U.S. President Carter arrived in Cuba for a visit with Fidel Castro. It was the first time a U.S. head of state, in or out of office, had gone to the island since Castro’s 1959 revolution.

2003 – In Texas, fifty-nine Democratic lawmakers went into hiding over a dispute with Republican’s over a congressional redistricting plan.

2008 – In the U.S., the price for a one-ounce First-Class stamp increased from 41 to 42 cents.

2015 – It was announced that Verizon would be acquiring AOL.