On this day in 1927, this American pilot lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, successfully completing the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first ever nonstop flight between New York to Paris. His single-engine monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, had lifted off from Roosevelt Field in New York 33 1/2 hours before
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
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
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
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). Playing a cocky Italian-American soldier who meets a violent death in From Here to Eternity (1953), co-starring Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift, he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
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
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. In the first two years of the war, Jackson terrorized Union commanders and led his army corps on bold and daring marches
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
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.S. 7th Cavalry in 1890. - This Day in History
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. The attack aroused considerable indignation in the United States, but Germany defended the action, noting that it had issued warnings of its intent to attack all ships, neutral or otherwise, that entered the war zone around Britain
