This Day in History: 05/27/1941 - Bismarck Sunk - HISTORY

In This Day in History video clip: On May 27, 1941, the British navy sinks the German battleship Bismarck in the North Atlantic near France. The German death toll was more than 2,000. On February 14, 1939, the 823-foot Bismarck was launched at Hamburg.

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The inauguration of the first Afghan President, Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, US declaring war, and Pearl Harbor. What do all of these things have in common? All of these events occurred on December 7th. It was on December 7th, 1941 that 353 Japanese bombers attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, destroying 19 ships, 188 aircraft and killing over 2,000 Americans. It was this act that drove the United States into World War II. In 2002, Saddam Hussein made his formal statement denying any possession of weapons of mass destruction while just two years later, in 2004, Hamid Karzai was elected the first President of Afghanistan. December 7, 1917 was also an important date because it was on this day when America declared war on the Austria-Hungary Empire, which marked the US entrance into the First World War. Watch the This Day in History video to find out more.

Find out what happened throughout history on November 26 by watching this video of This Day in History. On November 26, 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt checked on the progress of the Panama Canal. This was the first international trip by a sitting U.S. President. On November 26, 1922, English archeologists entered the tomb of King Tut for the first time in Egypt. They were the first visitors of the tomb in over 3,000 years. On November 26, 2000, Florida Governor Catherine Harris certified George W. Bush as the winner of that states electoral votes. Lastly, on November 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a bill making Thanksgiving the last Thursday in November. It is still celebrated on that day today.

In This Day in History 1915: German submarine sinks video clip: On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans.

In This Day in History video clip - May 5, 1961: The first American in space - Cape Canaveral, Florida, Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. is launched into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to travel into space. The suborbital flight, which lasted 15 minutes and reached a height of 116 miles into the atmosphere, was a major triumph for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Edwin Drake struck oil on September 27 in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in this video clip from This Day In History. This would become the first successful oil well drilled in America. Russ Mitchell recaps other events occurring on this day as well. The Mariner 2 was launched by the US on September 27 to fly past Venus, and MIT researchers announced that they made a breakthrough in biotechnology by implanting a synthetic gene into a living cell. Also, a series of volcanic eruptions tore the Indonesian island of Krakatau apart.

This Day in History - May 15, 1937, Madeleine Albright was born. Madeleine Albright, during the Clinton administration was the first female United States Secretary of State. Born a Jew in Czechoslovakia, Albright converted to Christianity to escape the German Nazis. To find out more about Albright, check out this video clip.