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On May 12th...

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1496 King Gustavus I of Sweden was born.

1551 San Marcos University opened in Lima, Peru.

1670 King Augustus II of Poland was born.

1689 England and the Netherlands formed the League of Augsburg.

1733 Maria Theresa was crowned Queen of Bohemia.

1789 The Society of St. Tammany was formed by Revolutionary War veterans.

1807 Comte de Rochambeau, French General in the American Revolution, died.

1812 Author Edward Lear was born.

Florence Nightingale1820 Florence Nightingale, founder of modern nursing, was born.

1850 American politician Henry Cabot Lodge was born.

1864 The Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse (Virginia) was fought.
1864 Confederate General Jeb Stuart died.

1870 Manitoba became a province of Canada.

1873 Oscar II of Sweden-Norway was crowned King of Sweden.

1880 Polar explorer Lincoln Ellsworth was born.

1881 Tunisia became a French protectorate.

1884 Composer Bedrich Smetana died.

1901 Businessman Max Kohl was born.

1902 Antracite coal miners in Pennsylvania went on strike.

1907 Actress Katharine Hepburn was born.

1908 Wireless radio broadcasting was patented by Nathan B. Stubblefield.

1910 Chemist Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin was born.

1917 Charles Borel rode Omar Khayyam to victory in the Kentucky Derby.

1918 Cosmetics company founder Mary Kay Ash was born.

1925 Baseball player Yogi Berra was born.
1925 Poet Amy Lowell died.

1926 Umberto Nobile flew over the North Pole.

1929 Pianist Burt Bacharach was born.

1932 The body of Charles Lindbergh's kidnapped son was found.

1936 Talk show host Tom Snyder was born.

1937 Comedian George Carlin was born.

1948 Musician Steve Winwood was born.

1949 The Soviet blockade of West Berlin ended.

1950 Actor Bruce Boxleitner was born.
1950 Musician Billy Squier was born.

1958 The United States and Canada signed an agreement to establish what is now the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD).

1962 Actor Emilio Estevez was born.

1963 A United Arab Republic DC-3 en route to Alexandria, Egypt, exploded in the air minutes after taking off from Cairo, killing all 34 persons aboard.
1963 Betty Miller became the first woman to fly solo across the Pacific Ocean (Santa Monica, California, to Brisbane, Australia).

1966 Busch Stadium opened in St. Louis, Missouri, with the Cardinals beating the Braves 4-3 in 12 innings.
1966
Actor Stephen Baldwin was born.

1967 Stokely Carmichael resigned as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

1968 Skateboarder Tony Hawk was born.

1969 Actress Kim Fields was born.

1970 Six blacks were killed during racial rioting in Augusta, Georgia.
1970 The U. S. Senate confirmed Harry A. Blackmun's nomination to the Supreme Court.
1970 Nobel Prize-winning poet Nelly Leonie Sachs died.

1975 The U. S. merchant ship Mayaguez was seized by Cambodian forces.

1977 Pink Floyd performed the world's first quadrophonic concert in London, England.

1980 The first non-stop trans-North American balloon flight ended when Maxie and Kristian Anderson landed the Kitty Hawk at Sainte-Félicité, Quebec, Canada.

1982 A Spanish Traditionalist priest was stopped just before he attempted to attack Pope John Paul II with a bayonet in Fatima, Portugal.

1983 Julie Lynne Hayek (Miss California) was crowned Miss USA.

1989 The last graffiti-covered subway car in New York City, New York, was retired.

1992 Actor Robert Reed died.

1993 The last new episode of "Knot's Landing" was aired by CBS-TV.
1993 The last new episode of "Cheers" was aired by NBC-TV.

2000 Racecar driver Adam Petty was killed in a crash during practice at New Hampshire.

2001 Singer Perry Como died.
2001 Aircraft designer Alexei Tupolev died.

2002 Former U. S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba for a five-day visit with Fidel Castro.

2003 The Al Qaeda bombings of three Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, residential compounds housing foreigners killed 26 persons.

2008 A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck Sichuan, China, killing over 87,000 people, injuring 374,643, and leaving up to 11 million homeless.

2017 Mauno Koivisto, former President of Finland, died.

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SKC Films Library >> On This Day

This page was last updated on May 26, 2018.