The first major wagon train to the northwest departs from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.

Although U.S. sovereignty over the Oregon Territory was not clearly established until 1846, American fur trappers and missionary groups had been living in the region for decades, to say nothing of the Native Americans who had settled the land centuries earlier. Dozens of books and lectures proclaimed Oregon’s agricultural potential, piquing the interest of white American farmers. The first overland migrants to Oregon, intending primarily to farm, came in 1841 when a small band of 70 pioneers left Independence, Missouri. They followed a route blazed by fur traders, which took them west along the Platte River through the Rocky Mountains via the easy South Pass in Wyoming and then northwest to the Columbia River. In the years to come, pioneers came to call the route the Oregon Trail.

In 1842, a slightly larger group of 100 pioneers made the 2,000-mile journey to Oregon. The next year, however, the number of emigrants skyrocketed to 1,000. The sudden increase was a product of a severe depression in the Midwest combined with a flood of propaganda from fur traders, missionaries, and government officials extolling the virtues of the land. Farmers dissatisfied with their prospects in Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee, hoped to find better lives in the supposed paradise of Oregon.

On this day in 1843, some 1,000 men, women, and children climbed aboard their wagons and steered their horses west out of the small town of Elm Grove, Missouri. The train comprised more than 100 wagons with a herd of 5,000 oxen and cattle trailing behind. Dr. Elijah White, a Presbyterian missionary who had made the trip the year before, served as a guide.

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Source: history.com

On May 22, 1981, police staking out a bridge over the Chattahoochee River near Atlanta, Georgia, hear a loud splash, and begin chasing Wayne Williams as he attempts to drive away in a station wagon. After questioning him about his involvement in the unprecedented string of child murders in Atlanta over the two previous years, Williams was released. He was arrested one month later, on June 21, 1981.

In a spree that began in July 1979, 29 Black children and young men disappeared or were killed in the Atlanta area. The only clue detectives had to go on was that many of the bodies had the same rare yellow-green nylon fiber on them, leading investigators to believe that all of the killings were connected.

As they desperately searched for the manufacturer of the fiber, a newspaper reported on the significance of the fiber evidence. Fearing that he was on the verge of being discovered, the killer then began dumping the bodies of his victims in the Chattahoochee River. This, in turn, inspired the police surveillance that ensnared Williams on May 22.

The rare fiber was eventually identified as a yarn that was sold to a Georgia carpet company, West Point Pepperell, which used it to make a line called Luxaire. The color of the fibers found on the bodies, including Nathaniel Cater, matched Luxaire English Olive; this was the type of carpet found in Williams’ home.

Experts estimated that one in approximately 8,000 Atlanta area homes contained Luxaire English Olive carpet. Prosecutors used this probability, along with fiber and hair evidence from Williams’ car and dog, to establish the fact that it was an extremely small chance that anyone other than Williams could be the killer. Adding to the already damning evidence against him, the killings immediately stopped after Williams was arrested.

On February 27, 1982, the jury found Wayne Williams guilty of the murders of Cater and Jimmy Ray Payne, and he was sentenced to life in prison. After the verdict, the Atlanta police department closed 22 other cases, but Williams was never tried, or charged, for those crimes. 

Source: history.com

Challenging the South’s failure to enforce the Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregation of public buses was unconstitutional, foot soldiers of the Civil Rights Movement began the Freedom Rides. The Freedom Riders rode interstate buses across the South and drew national attention to their cause because of the violence that often erupted against them. You can visit the cities where the Freedom Riders stopped on their journey and discover the impact of the rides on the Civil Rights Movement and the country.          

Resource: civilrightstrail.com … Stanley Nelson … internet … pinterest

 

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.

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.

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

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.