Today in History: May 31

1433: Sigismund is crowned emperor of Rome.

1678: The Godiva procession, commemorating Lady Godiva’s legendary ride while naked, becomes part of the Coventry Fair.

1862: At the Battle of Fair Oaks, Union General George B. McClellan defeats Confederates outside of Richmond.

1879: New York’s Madison Square Garden opens its doors for the first time.

1889: Johnstown, Pennsylvania is destroyed by a massive flood.

1900: U.S. troops arrive in Peking to help put down the Boxer Rebellion.

1902: The Boer War ends with the Treaty of Vereeniging.

1909: The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) holds its first conference.

1913: The 17th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing for direct election of senators, is ratified.

1915: A German zeppelin makes an air raid on London.

1916: British and German fleets fight in the Battle of Jutland.

1928: The first flight over the Pacific takes off from Oakland.

1941: An armistice is arranged between the British and the Iraqis.

1955: The Supreme Court orders that states must end racial segregation "with all deliberate speed."

1962: Adolf Eichmann, the former SS commander, is hanged near Tel Aviv, Israel.

1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono record "Give Peace a Chance."

1974: Israel and Syria sign an agreement on the Golan Heights.

1979: Zimbabwe proclaims its independence.

1988: President Ronald Reagan arrives in Moscow, the first American president to do so in 14 years.

Today in History: May 30

1416: Jerome of Prague is burned as a heretic by the Church.

1431: Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by the English.

1527: The University of Marburg is founded in Germany.

1539: Hernando de Soto lands in Florida with 600 soldiers in search of gold.

1783: The first American daily newspaper, The Pennsylvania Evening Post, begins publishing in Philadelphia.

1814: The First Treaty of Paris is declared, returning France to its 1792 borders.

1848: William Young patents the ice cream freezer.

1854: The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise.

1859: The Piedmontese army crosses the Sesia River and defeats the Austrians at Palestro.

1862: Union General Henry Halleck enters Corinth, Mississippi.

1868: Memorial Day begins when two women place flowers on both Confederate and Union graves.

1889: The brassiere is invented.

1912: U.S. Marines are sent to Nicaragua to protect American interests.

1913: The First Balkan War ends.

1921: The U.S. Navy transfers the Teapot Dome oil reserves to the Department of the Interior.

1942: The Royal Air Force launches the first 1,000 plane raid over Germany.

1971: NASA launches Mariner 9, the first satellite to orbit Mars.

Today in History: May 29

1453: Constantinople falls to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire.

1660: Charles II is restored to the English throne, succeeding the short-lived Commonwealth.

1721: South Carolina is formally incorporated as a royal colony of England.

1790: Rhode Island becomes last of the original thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution.

1848: Wisconsin becomes the thirtieth state.

1849: A patent for lifting vessels is granted to Abraham Lincoln.

1862: Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard retreats to Tupelo, Mississippi.

1911: The first running of the Indianapolis 500.

1913: The premier of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) in Paris causes rioting in the theater.

1916: U.S. forces invade the Dominican Republic.

1922: Ecuador becomes independent.

1922: The U.S. Supreme Court rules organized baseball is a sport not subject to antitrust laws.

1942: The German Army completes its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet Union.

1951: C. F. Blair becomes the first man to fly over the North Pole in single engine plane.

1953: Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.

1974: President Richard Nixon agrees to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.

1990: Boris Yeltsin is elected the president of Russia.