This Day In History

After 10 days and 10 bloody assaults, Hill 937 in South Vietnam is finally captured by U.S. and South Vietnamese troops on this day in 1969. The Americans who fought there cynically dubbed Hill 937 this because the battle and its high casualty rate reminded them of a meat grinder

Read More|Comment

On this day in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court hands down an unanimous decision in this court case, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. The historic decision, which brought an end to federal tolerance of racial segregation, specifically dealt with a young African American girl who had been denied admission to her local elementary school in Topeka, Kansas, because of the color of her skin

Read More|Comment

On this day in 1972, this governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate, is shot by 21-year-old Arthur Bremer. Three others were wounded, and he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down. The next day, while fighting for his life in a hospital, he won major primary victories in Michigan and Maryland

Read More|Comment

On this day in 1998, this legendary singer, actor and show-business icon dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, at the age of 82. In addition to his great musical success, he appeared in 58 films; one of his earliest was Anchors Aweigh (1945)

Read More|Comment

On May 13, 1607, some 100 English colonists arrive along the west bank of the James River in Virginia to found this settlement, the first permanent English settlement in North America. Dispatched from England by the London Company, the colonists had sailed across the Atlantic aboard the Susan Constant, Godspeed, and Discovery

Read More|Comment

The South loses one of its boldest and most colorful generals on this day, when 39-year-old Thomas J. Jackson dies of pneumonia a week after his own troops accidentally fired on him during the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia

Read More|Comment

On this day in 1950, this author publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. With this book, he introduced a branch of self-help psychology called Dianetics, which quickly caught fire and, over time, morphed into a belief system boasting millions of subscribers: Scientology

Read More|Comment

On the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, armed members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) surrender to federal authorities, ending their 71-day siege of this site of the infamous massacre of 300 Sioux by the U

Read More|Comment

On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, this British ocean liner 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

Read More|Comment

On this day in 1937, this German airship, the largest dirigible ever built, explodes as it arrives in Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people died in the fiery accident that has since become iconic, in part because of the live radio broadcast of the disaster

Read More|Comment