May 15- 1841: The first wagon train of settlers that will reach California begins the 1,730 mile voyage from Independence, MO. 1869: The National Women’s Suffrage Association is formed in New York by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 1951: The American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) becomes the first US corporation with one million stockholders when car salesman Brady Denton buys seven shares of stock for $1,078. 2010: Jessica Watson, age 16, sails into the harbor in Sydney, Australia, becoming the youngest person to sail solo around the world non-stop and unassisted.
May 16- 1868: US President Andrew Johnson, who had taken office after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, escapes removal from office by one vote. Charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors” and impeached by the House of Representatives, the Senate finds him guilty by a vote of 35-19, one vote short of the 2/3 required for removal by the US Constitution. He would remain in office to finish his term when a subsequent vote ten days later on two additional counts results in the same margin. 1929: The first Academy Awards ceremony is held in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, CA. Emil Jannings was named Best Actor, Janet Gaynor won the Best Actress award, and the silent film “Wings” was voted as Best Picture. 1985: Michael Jordan of the NBA’s Chicago Bulls receives the Rookie of the Year award. 2014: Barbara Walters retires from ABC News at the age of 84, ending a broadcasting career that spanned more than 60 years!
May 17- 1804: The first Kentucky Derby is run at the Louisville Jockey Club in Louisville, KY. Jockey Oliver Lewis rides Aristides to victory in 2:37.75. The horse’s owner received a purse of $2,850! 1939: The first baseball game is televised, as Princeton defeats Columbia 2-1. 1954: The US Supreme Court issues its decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, voting unanimously (9-0) to overturn its decision from 1896 which allowed “separate but equal” segregated public schools. 1973: The US Senate Watergate Committee holds its first hearing, which is televised nationally.
May 18- 1804: Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed Emperor of France by the French Senate. 1860: Abraham Lincoln is nominated for president by the Republican Party convention in Chicago, IL. 1980: Mount St. Helens erupts in southwestern Washington state; the resulting landslide killed 57 people, caused over $1 billion in damage, and reduced the mountain’s height from 9,677 feet to 8,364 feet! 2012: An Initial Public Offering (IPO) on Wall Street for Facebook raises $16 billion in capital, the most ever for a technology company and third most all-time behind only Visa and General Motors!
May 19- 1865: CSA President Jefferson Davis is captured in Georgia by a Union Army cavalry unit. Reports that he was disguised as a woman to elude detection were (apparently) greatly exaggerated in northern newspapers. 1897: English writer Oscar Wilde is released from prison after serving a two year sentence (at hard labor) for his conviction of “gross indecency.” 1994: Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis) died in her New York City apartment after a recent diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. After a funeral service in New York, she was buried alongside her late husband in Arlington National Cemetery outside of Washington, DC. 1995: The world’s youngest doctor, Balamurali Ambati, age 17, graduated from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York, NY.
May 20- 1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive a patent for the first blue jeans with copper rivets. 1899: Jacob German, a New York taxi driver, is the first person arrested for speeding, pulled over by a policeman (on a bicycle) and charged for traveling 12 miles per hour. (A taxi in New York going 12 mph? IMPOSSIBLE!) 1946: Cherilyn Sarkisian is born in El Centro, CA. She would become world famous, known simply by her abbreviated first name, Cher. 1990: The Hubble Space Telescope sends its first photograph down to Earth.
On the right is part of the first image taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s (HST) Wide Field/Planetary Camera. It is shown with a ground-based picture from Las Campanas, Chile, Observatory of the same region of the sky. Retrieved from time.com. Ground Image: E. Persson (Las Campanas Observatory, Chile)/Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington; Hubble Image: NASA, ESA, and STScI.
May 21- 1832: The first nominating convention of the Democratic Party opens in Baltimore, MD. They would nominate incumbent president Andrew Jackson who would win re-election in November. 1927: American pilot Charles Lindbergh lands his plane (“Spirit of St, Louis”) in Paris, France, completing the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. 1932: And not to be outdone, exactly five years later aviatrix Amelia Earhart lands her plane in Derry, Northern Ireland, becoming the first woman to accomplish the same feat! 1981: Reggae musician Bob Marley is honored at a state funeral on the island of Jamaica, and buried near his place of birth in Nine Mile.
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