Also on this day
Lead Story
1431
At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy.
Joan was born in 1412, the daughter of a tenant farmer at Domremy, on the borders of the duchies of Bar and Lorraine. In 1415, the Hundred...
American Revolution
1806
On this day in 1806, Revolutionary war veteran and future President Andrew Jackson kills Charles Dickinson in a duel.
Born in the Waxhaws area along the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, Andrew Jackson was the last president to be a veteran of the American Revolution and the first president...
Automotive
1911
On this day in 1911, Ray Harroun drives his single-seater Marmon Wasp to victory in the inaugural Indianapolis 500, now one of the world’s most famous motor racing competitions.
The Indiana automobile dealer Carl Fisher first proposed building a private auto testing facility in 1906, in order to address car...
Civil War
1862
On this day, the Confederates abandon the city of Corinth, Mississippi. After the epic struggle at Shiloh, Tennessee, in April 1862, the Confederate army, under the command of P.T. Beauregard, concentrated at Corinth, while the Union army, under Henry Halleck, began a slow advance from the Shiloh battlefield toward the...
Cold War
1990
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev arrives in Washington, D.C., for three days of talks with President George Bush. The summit meeting centered on the issue of Germany and its place in a changing Europe.When Gorbachev arrived for this second summit meeting with President Bush, his situation in the Soviet Union was...
Crime
1997
Jonathan Levin, a popular 31-year-old English teacher, is stabbed and shot to death in his Upper West Side apartment in New York City. The son of Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin, Jonathan was known by many to be wealthy. When he did not show up for work, investigators searched his...
Disaster
1927
On this day in 1927, the Kentucky River peaks during a massive flood that kills 89 people and leaves thousands homeless. Torrential rains caused this unprecedented flood.
An account from the Mountain Eagle newspaper out of Whitesburg, Kentucky, in Letcher County, provides a detailed look at the disaster:
The flood hit...
General Interest
1806
In Logan County, Kentucky, future president Andrew Jackson participates in a duel, killing Charles Dickinson, a lawyer regarded as one of the best pistol shots in the area.The proud and volatile Jackson, a former senator and representative of Tennessee, called for the duel after his wife Rachel was slandered as...
1967
After suffering through years of suppression under Nigeria’s military government, the breakaway state of Biafra proclaims its independence from Nigeria.In 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. Six years later, the Muslim Hausas in northern Nigeria began massacring the Christian Igbos in the region, prompting tens of thousands of Igbos to...
1971
The U.S. unmanned space probe Mariner 9 is launched on a mission to gather scientific information on Mars, the fourth planet from the sun. The 1,116-pound spacecraft entered the planet’s orbit on November 13, 1971, and circled Mars twice each day for almost a year, photographing the surface and analyzing...
Hollywood
2008
On this day in 2008, the film version of HBO’s iconic comedy series Sex and the City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, premieres in more than 3,200 theaters around the country and goes on to become a big box-office success.
The Sex and the City TV series, which debuted some 10 years...
Literary
1593
Playwright Christopher Marlowe, 29, is killed in a brawl over a bar tab on this day.
Marlowe, born two months before William Shakespeare, was the son of a Canterbury shoemaker. A bright student, he won scholarships to prestigious schools and earned his B.A. from Cambridge in 1584. He was nearly denied...
Music
1963
On May 30, 1963, a New Jersey teenager named Lesley Goremakes her first appearance on American Bandstand singing her hit-to-be, “It’s My Party”.
Lesley Gore (née Lesley Sue Goldstein) was just a few weeks past her own 17th birthday when she performed one of the greatest teen-drama songs of all time...
Old West
1899
On this day, the amateur bandit Pearl Hart and her boyfriend hold up an Arizona stagecoach.
Little is known about Pearl Hart’s early life. She was born in Petersborough, Ontario, in 1871, and moved to Toronto as a child. She eloped when she was 16, but her husband abused...
Presidential
1806
On this day in 1806, future President Andrew Jackson kills a man who accused him of cheating on a horse race bet and then insulted his wife, Rachel. Contemporaries described Jackson, who had already served in Tennessee’s Senate and was practicing law at the time of the duel, as...
1922
Former President William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall on this day in 1922. At the time, Taft was serving as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Taft remains the only former president ever to hold a seat on the Supreme Court. He served...
Sports
1911
On May 30, 1911, the inaugural Indianapolis 500 is run at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indiana. The 200-lap, two-and-a-half mile race has since become a Memorial Day weekend tradition. With the exception of a break in 1917 and 1918 for World War I and from 1942 to 1945 for...
Vietnam War
1966
In the largest raids since air attacks on North Vietnam began in February 1965, U.S. planes destroy five bridges, 17 railroad cars, and 20 buildings in the Thanh Hoa and Vinh areas (100 and 200 miles south of Hanoi, respectively). Others planes hit Highway 12 in four places north of...
1969
South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu, concluding a four-day visit to South Korea, tells reporters at a news conference that he would “never” agree to a coalition government with the National Liberation Front (NLF). Regarding the role of the NLF in possible elections, Thieu said, “If the communists are willing...
World War I
1913
On this day in 1913, a peace treaty is signed ending the First Balkan War, in which the newly aligned Slavic nations of Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece had driven Turkish forces out of Macedonia, a territory of the Ottoman Empire located in the tumultuous Balkans region of southeastern Europe.
After...
World War II
1942
On this day in 1942, a thousand-plane raid on the German city of Cologne is launched by Great Britain. Almost 1,500 tons of bombs rain down in 90 minutes, delivering a devastating blow to the Germans’ medieval city as well as its morale.
Air Marshal A.T. (later Sir Arthur) Harris, commander...