May 31
1790 - The first U.S. Copyright Law was enacted, protecting books, maps and other original materials.
1859 - The Big Ben clock tower in London went into operation, chiming for the first time.
1889 - Heavy rains caused the South Fork Dam to collapse, sending 20 million tons of water into Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Over 2,200 people were killed and the town was nearly completely destroyed.
1911 - The hull of the Titanic was launched in Belfast. At a ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, "Not even God himself could sink this ship."
1913 - The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was declared in effect.
1916 - British and German fleets fought the Battle of Jutland off Denmark during World War I.
1921 - A race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as white mobs began looting and leveling the affluent Black district of Greenwood over reports a Black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator; hundreds are believed to have died.
1949 - Former State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss went on trial in New York, charged with perjury (the jury deadlocked, but Hiss was convicted in a second trial).
1961 - South Africa became an independent republic as it withdrew from the British Commonwealth.
1962 - Former Nazi Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for his role in the Holocaust.
1970 - A 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Peru killed more than 67,000 people.
1977 - The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, three years in the making despite objections from environmentalists and Alaska natives, was completed. (The first oil began flowing through the pipeline 20 days later.)
1989 - House Speaker Jim Wright, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would resign. (Tom Foley later succeeded him.)
1994 - The United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
2003 - Eric Rudolph, suspected in bombings at a Birmingham. Ala., abortion clinic and at the Atlanta Olympics, was arrested outside a grocery store in Murphy, N.C. (He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four life terms.)
2004 - Alberta Martin, age 97, one of the last widows of a U.S. Civil War veteran, died. She had married Confederate veteran William Martin in 1927 when she was 21 and he was 81.
2005 - Former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as "Deep Throat," the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
2009 - Dr. George Tiller, a rare provider of late-term abortions, was shot and killed at a Wichita, Kansas, church. (Gunman Scott Roeder was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years.)
2009 - Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, died in Southampton, England at age 97.
2010 - Nine people are dead after an Israeli navy commando attacks a flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats on their way to Gaza to provide aid and supplies for the area.
2012 - Democrat John Edwards’ campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial when jurors in Greensboro, North Carolina, acquitted him on one of six charges but were unable to decide whether he’d misused money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president. (Prosecutors declined to retry Edwards on the five unresolved counts.)
2012 - President Barack Obama welcomed his predecessor back to the White House for the unveiling of the official portraits of former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush.
2014 - Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan, was freed by the Taliban in exchange for five Afghan detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Bergdahl, who’d gone missing in June 2009, later pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades by walking away from his post in Afghanistan; his sentence included a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank and a fine, but no prison time.)
2021 - China’s ruling Communist Party announced that all couples would be allowed to have three children instead of two.
Birthdays
26 - Normani Hamilton (singer)
30 - Anna Maria Sieklucka (actress)
31 - Farrah Abraham (reality star)
32 - Phillipa Soo (actress)
37 - Jordy Nelson (football player)
38 - Yael Grobglas (actress)
40 - Jonathan Tucker (actor0
40 - Casey James (singer)
45 - Eric Christian Olsen (actor)
46 - Colin Farrell (actor)
47 - Merle Dandridge (actor)
55 - Phil Keoghan (TV host)
57 - Brooke Shields (actress)
58 - DMC (rapper)
59 - Hugh Dillon (actor)
60 - Corey Hart (singer)
61 - Lea Thompson (actress)
62 - Chris Elliott (actor/comedian)
64 - Roma Maffia (actress)
65 - Kyle Secor (actor)
72 - Gregory Harrison (actor)
72 - Tom Berenger (actor)
77 - Bernard Goldberg (broadcast journalist)
79 - Joe Namath (football player)
79 - Sharon Gless (actress)
82 - Augie Meyers (singer)
84 - Peter Yarrow (singer)
92 - Clint Eastwood (actor/director)
=========================================
Today in Sports History - May 31
1879 - New York City's first Madison Square Garden opened.
1937 - More than 61,000 are in attendance at the Polo Grounds to see the Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the New York Giants 10-3 to end Carl Hubbell's record 24-game win streak.
1983 - The Philadelphia 76ers sweep the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA championship.
1987 - The Edmonton Oilers defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in seven games to win the Stanley Cup.
2008 - Usain Bolt sets a new world record in the men's 100 meter dash with a time of 9.72 seconds, breaking the old record of 9.74 set by fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell in 2007. (Bolt still holds the world record at 9.58 seconds.)
2019 - A longtime city employee opened fire in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, killing 12 people on three floors before police shot and killed him; officials said DeWayne Craddock had resigned by email hours before the shooting.
2020 - Tens of thousands of protesters again took to the streets across America, with peaceful demonstrations against police killings overshadowed by unrest; officials deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers and enacted strict curfews in major cities.
2021 - Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open before her second-round match and said she would be taking a break from competition; she said she experienced “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media, and that she had “suffered long bouts of depression.” (Osaka had been fined for skipping the postmatch news conference after her first-round victory.)
1790 - The first U.S. Copyright Law was enacted, protecting books, maps and other original materials.
1859 - The Big Ben clock tower in London went into operation, chiming for the first time.
1889 - Heavy rains caused the South Fork Dam to collapse, sending 20 million tons of water into Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Over 2,200 people were killed and the town was nearly completely destroyed.
1911 - The hull of the Titanic was launched in Belfast. At a ceremony, a White Star Line employee claimed, "Not even God himself could sink this ship."
1913 - The 17th Amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of U.S. senators, was declared in effect.
1916 - British and German fleets fought the Battle of Jutland off Denmark during World War I.
1921 - A race riot erupted in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as white mobs began looting and leveling the affluent Black district of Greenwood over reports a Black man had assaulted a white woman in an elevator; hundreds are believed to have died.
1949 - Former State Department official and accused spy Alger Hiss went on trial in New York, charged with perjury (the jury deadlocked, but Hiss was convicted in a second trial).
1961 - South Africa became an independent republic as it withdrew from the British Commonwealth.
1962 - Former Nazi Gestapo official Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for his role in the Holocaust.
1970 - A 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Peru killed more than 67,000 people.
1977 - The Trans-Alaska Pipeline, three years in the making despite objections from environmentalists and Alaska natives, was completed. (The first oil began flowing through the pipeline 20 days later.)
1989 - House Speaker Jim Wright, dogged by questions about his ethics, announced he would resign. (Tom Foley later succeeded him.)
1994 - The United States announced it was no longer aiming long-range nuclear missiles at targets in the former Soviet Union.
2003 - Eric Rudolph, suspected in bombings at a Birmingham. Ala., abortion clinic and at the Atlanta Olympics, was arrested outside a grocery store in Murphy, N.C. (He later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to four life terms.)
2004 - Alberta Martin, age 97, one of the last widows of a U.S. Civil War veteran, died. She had married Confederate veteran William Martin in 1927 when she was 21 and he was 81.
2005 - Former FBI official W. Mark Felt stepped forward as "Deep Throat," the secret Washington Post source that helped bring down President Richard M. Nixon during the Watergate scandal.
2009 - Dr. George Tiller, a rare provider of late-term abortions, was shot and killed at a Wichita, Kansas, church. (Gunman Scott Roeder was later convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 50 years.)
2009 - Millvina Dean, the last survivor of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic, died in Southampton, England at age 97.
2010 - Nine people are dead after an Israeli navy commando attacks a flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats on their way to Gaza to provide aid and supplies for the area.
2012 - Democrat John Edwards’ campaign finance fraud case ended in a mistrial when jurors in Greensboro, North Carolina, acquitted him on one of six charges but were unable to decide whether he’d misused money from two wealthy donors to hide his pregnant mistress while he ran for president. (Prosecutors declined to retry Edwards on the five unresolved counts.)
2012 - President Barack Obama welcomed his predecessor back to the White House for the unveiling of the official portraits of former President George W. Bush and former first lady Laura Bush.
2014 - Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the only American soldier held prisoner in Afghanistan, was freed by the Taliban in exchange for five Afghan detainees from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Bergdahl, who’d gone missing in June 2009, later pleaded guilty to endangering his comrades by walking away from his post in Afghanistan; his sentence included a dishonorable discharge, a reduction in rank and a fine, but no prison time.)
2021 - China’s ruling Communist Party announced that all couples would be allowed to have three children instead of two.
Birthdays
26 - Normani Hamilton (singer)
30 - Anna Maria Sieklucka (actress)
31 - Farrah Abraham (reality star)
32 - Phillipa Soo (actress)
37 - Jordy Nelson (football player)
38 - Yael Grobglas (actress)
40 - Jonathan Tucker (actor0
40 - Casey James (singer)
45 - Eric Christian Olsen (actor)
46 - Colin Farrell (actor)
47 - Merle Dandridge (actor)
55 - Phil Keoghan (TV host)
57 - Brooke Shields (actress)
58 - DMC (rapper)
59 - Hugh Dillon (actor)
60 - Corey Hart (singer)
61 - Lea Thompson (actress)
62 - Chris Elliott (actor/comedian)
64 - Roma Maffia (actress)
65 - Kyle Secor (actor)
72 - Gregory Harrison (actor)
72 - Tom Berenger (actor)
77 - Bernard Goldberg (broadcast journalist)
79 - Joe Namath (football player)
79 - Sharon Gless (actress)
82 - Augie Meyers (singer)
84 - Peter Yarrow (singer)
92 - Clint Eastwood (actor/director)
=========================================
Today in Sports History - May 31
1879 - New York City's first Madison Square Garden opened.
1937 - More than 61,000 are in attendance at the Polo Grounds to see the Brooklyn Dodgers defeat the New York Giants 10-3 to end Carl Hubbell's record 24-game win streak.
1983 - The Philadelphia 76ers sweep the Los Angeles Lakers to win the NBA championship.
1987 - The Edmonton Oilers defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in seven games to win the Stanley Cup.
2008 - Usain Bolt sets a new world record in the men's 100 meter dash with a time of 9.72 seconds, breaking the old record of 9.74 set by fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell in 2007. (Bolt still holds the world record at 9.58 seconds.)
2019 - A longtime city employee opened fire in a municipal building in Virginia Beach, Virginia, killing 12 people on three floors before police shot and killed him; officials said DeWayne Craddock had resigned by email hours before the shooting.
2020 - Tens of thousands of protesters again took to the streets across America, with peaceful demonstrations against police killings overshadowed by unrest; officials deployed thousands of National Guard soldiers and enacted strict curfews in major cities.
2021 - Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open before her second-round match and said she would be taking a break from competition; she said she experienced “huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media, and that she had “suffered long bouts of depression.” (Osaka had been fined for skipping the postmatch news conference after her first-round victory.)
