Friday, May 27, 2005

Friday, May 27

This Day In History

  • 1647   The first recorded American execution of a ''witch'' took place in Massachusetts.
  • 1896   A tornado struck St. Louis and East St. Louis, Ill., killing 255 people.
  • 1926   The people of Hannibal, MO erected the first statue of literary characters. The bronze figures of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer were hoisted above a red granite base.
  • 1935   The Supreme Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act.
  • 1937   The Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, Calif., was opened to the public.
  • 1941   The German battleship Bismarck sank off France, with a loss of 2,300 lives.
  • 1963   The album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,'' which featured the song ''Blowin' in the Wind,'' was released.
  • 1994   Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after spending two decades in exile.
  • 1995   Actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed when he was thrown from his horse during a jumping event in Charlottesville, Va.
  • 1996   Russian President Boris Yeltsin negotiated a cease-fire to the war in Chechnya in his first meeting with the rebels' leader.
  • 1997   The Supreme Court ruled Paula Jones could pursue her sex harassment lawsuit against President Clinton while he was in office.
  • 1998   Michael Fortier, the government's star witness in the Oklahoma City bombing case, was sentenced to 12 years in prison after apologizing for not warning anyone about the deadly plot.
  • 1999   A U.N. tribunal indicted Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity, holding the Yugoslav president personally responsible for the horrors in Kosovo.
Happy Birthday To
  • 1794   Cornelius Vanderbilt (capitalist: established ferry service between Manhattan & Staten Islands; turned a NY railroad into $$$; died Jan 4, 1877)
  • 1837   Wild Bill (James Butler) Hickok (U.S. Marshall, frontiersman, army scout, gambler, legendary marksman; shot [from behind] and killed Aug 2, 1876 while playing poker holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights [known since as the ‘dead man’s hand’])
  • 1911   Hubert Humphrey (38th vice president of the U.S.; died Jan 13, 1978)
  • 1911   Vincent (Leonard) Price
  • 1923   Henry (Alfred) Kissinger (Nobel Peace Prize-winner [1973]; U.S. Secretary of State: Nixon Administration; political consultant: NBC News)
  • 1935   Lee Ann Meriwether (Miss America [1955]; actress: Barnaby Jones, Batman)
  • 1936   Lou Gossett Jr. (Academy Award-winning actor: An Officer and a Gentleman [1982]; Emmy Award winner: Roots-Part Two [1977]; Sadat, Enemy Mine, Iron Eagle series)

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