FRIDAY MAY 18
1642, the city of Montreal in Canada was founded.
1652, Rhode Island prohibits holding blacks or whites in slavery for more than 10 years — the first American law regulating slavery.
1798, The first Secretary Of The Navy, Benjamin Stoddert, was appointed.
1804, the French Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte emperor.
1896, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed racial segregation in Plessy v. Ferguson, which okayed “separate but equal” public facilities for whites and blacks. The ruling was overturned 58 years later in Brown v. Board Of Education.
1910, Halley’s Comet, as seen from Earth, moved across the sun.
1911, Gustav Mahler died like Beethoven, in Vienna and in the middle of a thunderstorm. Mahler was 50 and had suffered from heart disease. His last word was “Mozart.”
1914, The Mariner became the first steamboat with cargo to pass through the Panama Canal.
1934, Congress approved the “Lindbergh Act,” after the kidnapping and murder of aviator Charles Lindbergh‘s baby, which called for the death penalty in cases of interstate kidnapping.
1951, the United Nations moved into its permanent home on the east side of Manhattan.
1980, Washington’s Mount St. Helens volcano exploded after being dormant for over 100 years. The blast, which was 500 times as powerful as the Hiroshima atom bomb, left 57 people dead or missing.
1982, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church whose members are known as Moonies, was convicted in New York of tax evasion.
1998, the federal government filed an antitrust case against Microsoft, saying the computer software company’s “choke hold” on competitors denied consumers choices.
1998, the series finale of Murphy Brown aired on CBS.
SATURDAY MAY 19
1884, the first Ringling Brothers circus was performed.
1921, Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which set national immigrant quotas.
1925 Malcolm X is born. He dies in 1965.
1946 Actor and professional wrestler Andre The Giant (The Princess Bride) is born. He dies in 1993.
1962, Marilyn Monroe sang a breathless, seductive “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1964, the State Department revealed that 40 hidden microphones had been found in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
1965 FBI Agents visit the Wand Records offices to investigate the lyrics to the song “Louie Louie.”
1967, the U.S.S.R. ratified a treaty with the U.S. and Britain banning nuclear weapons in space.
1970, future U.S. vice president Al Gore married Mary Elizabeth “Tipper” Aitcheson.
1977 The movie Smokey & The Bandit, starring Burt Reynolds, Sally Field, and Jackie Gleason, opens.
1987, Hill Street Blues last aired on NBC.
1992, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibits Congress from giving itself mid-term pay raises, was ratified.
1992, Mary Jo Buttafuoco was shot and seriously wounded by teenager Amy Fisher, who was having an affair with Buttafuoco’s husband Joey.
1992 In San Francisco, Vice President Dan Quayle denounces the “poverty of values” in America’s inner cities, and criticizes the TV show Murphy Brown for its title character giving birth out of wedlock.
1993, the White House fired the entire staff of its travel office, leading to the controversy dubbed Travelgate.
1994 Jacqueline Onassis dies at age 64.
1994 The Food & Drug Administration approves the first genetically-engineered tomato.
1994, Eighteen-year-old tennis star Jennifer Capriati checked into a drug rehab center.
1997 Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker are married.
1997, NBC sportscaster Marv Albert was charged with assault, for allegedly biting a woman several times, and forcible sodomy. The attack in a Virginia hotel room was against a woman with whom Albert had had previous sexual encounters. He eventually pleaded guilty to lesser charges and served no jail time.
1998, Bandits stole three of Rome’s most important paintings, two by Van Gogh and one by Cezanne, from the National Gallery Of Modern Art.
SUNDAY MAY 20
1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which opened millions of acres of free land to settlers in the West.
1908 Actor James Stewart (Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, It’s A Wonderful Life, Harvey, Rear Window,Vertigo) is born.
1916, Norman Rockwell‘s artwork appeared on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post for the first time. The image was of a boy having to care for his infant sibling, pushing the baby carriage while his friends ran off to play baseball. Rockwell’s final Post cover appeared in 1963.
1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, aboard The Spirit Of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France. He landed 33-1/2 hours later.
1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland bound for Ireland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic. She landed 13-1/2 hours later.
1939, Regular transatlantic air service began when the Pan American plane Yankee Clipper took off from Port Washington, New York, bound for Europe.
1969, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces captured Apbia Mountain, referred to as “Hamburger Hill” by the Americans, following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
1978, Fifty-three-year-old Mavis Hutchinson made it to New York City to become the first woman to run across America. The 3,000-mile trek took her 69 days. She ran an average of 45 miles each day.
1989 Actress-comedienne Gilda Radner (Saturday Night Live) dies at age 42.
1993, After 11 years, the last episode of Cheers aired. Over 80 million people tuned in.
1995, After the Oklahoma City bombing, President Bill Clinton announced that the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House would be permanently closed to vehicles to avoid terrorist threats.
1997, Roseanne aired its last episode after nine seasons.
1998, In Beverly Hills, California, Hollywood royalty bid farewell, in a private, invitation-only funeral, to Frank Sinatra, who had died almost a week earlier at age 82.