On This Day in History 5/31
1433 – Sigismund was crowned emperor of Rome.
1854 – The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed by the U.S. Congress.
1859 – The Philadelphia Athletics were formally organized to play the game of Town Ball.
1859 – In London, Big Ben went into operation.
1870 – E.J. DeSemdt patented asphalt.
1879 – New York’s Madison Square Garden opened.
1880 – The first U.S. national bicycle society was formed in Newport, RI. It was known as the League of American Wheelman.
1884 – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented “flaked cereal.”
1889 – In Johnstown, PA, more than 2,200 people died after the South Fork Dam collapsed.
1900 – U.S. troops arrived in Peking to help put down the Boxer Rebellion.
1902 – The Boer War ended between the Boers of South Africa and Great Britain with the Treaty of Vereeniging.
1907 – The first taxis arrived in New York City. They were the first in the United States.
1909 – The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) held its first conference.
1910 – The Union of South Africa was founded.
1913 – The 17th Amendment went into effect. It provided for popular election of U.S. senators.
1915 – A German zeppelin made an air raid on London.
1927 – Ford Motor Company produced the last “Tin Lizzie” in order to begin production of the Model A.
1929 – In Beverly, MA, the first U.S. born reindeer were born.
1941 – The first issue of “Parade: The Weekly Picture Newspaper” went on sale.
1943 – “Archie” was aired on the Mutual Broadcasting System for the first time.
1947 – Communists seized control of Hungary.
1955 – The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that all states must end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed.”
1961 – South Africa became an independent republic.
1962 – Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel. Eichmann was a Gestapo official and was executed for his actions in the Nazi Holocaust.
1970 – An earthquake in Peru killed tens of thousands of people.
1974 – Israel and Syria signed an agreement on the Golan Heights.
1977 – The trans-Alaska oil pipeline was finished after 3 years of construction.
1979 – Zimbabwe proclaimed its independence.
1994 – The U.S. announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
1995 – Bob Dole singled out Time Warner for “the marketing of evil” in movies and music. Dole later admitted that he had not seen or heard much of what he had been criticizing.
2003 – In North Carolina, Eric Robert Rudolph was captured. He had been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for five years for several bombings including the 1996 Olympic bombing.
