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.

Today in History: May 28

585BC: A solar eclipse interrupts a battle outside of Sardis in western Turkey between Medes and Lydians. The battle ends in a draw.

1805: Napoleon is crowned in Milan, Italy.

1830: Congress authorizes Indian removal from all states to the western Prairie.

1863: The 54th Massachusetts, a regiment of African-American recruits, leaves Boston, headed for Hilton Head, South Carolina.

1859: The French army launches a flanking attack on the Austrian army in Northern France.

1871: The Paris commune is suppressed by troops from Versailles.

1900: Britain annexes the Orange Free State in South Africa.

1940: Belgium surrenders to Germany.

1953: Melody, the first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor, premiers.

1961: Amnesty International, a human rights organization, is founded.

Today in History: May 27

1564: John Calvin, one of the dominant figures of the Protestant Reformation, dies in Geneva.

1647: Achsah Young becomes the first woman known to be executed as a witch in Massachusetts.

1668: Three colonists are expelled from Massachusetts for being Baptists.

1813: Americans capture Fort George, Canada.

1907: The Bubonic Plague breaks out in San Francisco.

1919: A U.S. Navy seaplane completes the first transatlantic flight.

1929: Colonel Charles Lindbergh marries Anne Spencer Murrow.

1935: The Supreme Court declares President Franklin Roosevelt’s National Recovery Act unconstitutional.

1937: San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge opens.

1941: The German battleship Bismarck is sunk by British naval and air forces.

1942: German General Rommel begins a major offensive in Libya with his Afrika Korps.

1944: American General MacArthur lands on Biak Island in New Guinea.

1960: A military coup overthrows the democratic government of Turkey.

1969: Construction begins on Walt Disney World in Florida.

1972: President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Communist Party chief Leonid Brezhnev sign an arms reduction agreement.

1999: The international war crimes tribunal indicts Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic for war atrocities.

Today in History: May 25

585 BC: Thales of Greece makes the first known prediction of a solar eclipse.

1085: Alfonso VI takes Toledo, Spain from the Muslims.

1787: The Constitutional convention opens at Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.

1810: Argentina declares independence from Napoleonic Spain.

1851: Jose Justo de Urquiza of Argentina leads a rebellion against Juan Manuel de Rosas, his former ally.

1911: Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico, resigns his office.

1914: The British House of Commons passes Irish Home Rule.

1925: John Scopes is indicted for teaching Darwinian theory in school.

1935: Jesse Owens sets six world records in less than an hour in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

1946: Jordan gains independence from Britain.

1953: The first atomic cannon is fired in Nevada.

Today in History: May 23

1430: Burgundians capture Joan of Arc and sell her to the English.

1533: Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is declared null and void.

1618: The Thirty Years War begins.

1701: Captain William Kidd, the Scottish pirate, is hanged on the banks of the Thames.

1785: Benjamin Franklin announces his invention of bifocals.

1788: South Carolina becomes the eighth state to ratify U.S. Constitution.

1861: Pro-Union and pro-Confederate forces clash in western Virginia.

1862: Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson takes Front Royal, Virginia.

1864: Union General Ulysses Grant attempts to outflank Confederate Robert E. Lee in the Battle of North Anna, Virginia.

1900: Civil War hero Sgt. William H. Carney becomes the first African American to receive the Medal of Honor, thirty-seven years after the Battle of Fort Wagner.

1901: American forces capture Filipino rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo.

1915: Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.

1934: Gangsters Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are killed by Texas Rangers.

1945: Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, commits suicide after being captured by Allied forces.

1949: The Federal Republic of West Germany is proclaimed.

1960: Israel announces the capture of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Argentina.

Today in History: May 22

1246: Henry Raspe is elected anti-king by the Rhenish prelates in France.

1455: King Henry VI is taken prisoner by the Yorkists at the Battle of St. Albans, during the War of the Roses.

1804: The Lewis and Clark Expedition officially begins as the Corps of Discovery departs from St. Charles, Missouri.

1856: U.S. Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina beats Senator Charles Sumner with a cane for Sumner’s earlier condemnation of slavery, which included an insult to Brooks’ cousin, Senator Andrew Butler.

1863: Union General Ulysses S. Grant’s second attack on Vicksburg fails and a siege begins.

1868: The "Great Train Robbery" takes place as seven members of the Reno Gang make off with $98,000 in cash from a train’s safe in Indiana.

1872: The Amnesty Act restores civil rights to Southerners.

1882: The United States formally recognizes Korea.

1908: The Wright brothers register their flying machine for a U.S. patent.

1939: Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini sign a "Pact of Steel" forming the Axis powers.

1947: The Truman Doctrine brings aid to Turkey and Greece.

1967: The children’s program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood premiers.

1972: Ceylon becomes the Republic of Sri Lanka as its constitution is ratified.

1985: Baseball player Pete Rose passes Hank Aaron as National League run scoring leader with 2,108.

1990: In the Middle East, North and South Yemen merge to become a single state.

1992: Johnny Carson’s final appearance on The Tonight Show on NBC, after 30 years as the program’s host.

2004: An EF4 tornado with a record-setting width of 2.5 miles wipes out Hallam, Nebraska, killing 1 person.

2004: Farenheit 9-11, directed by Michael Moore, becomes the first documentary ever to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

2010: Following a 200-year search for the tomb of Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus his remains are reburied in Frombork Cathedral

2011: An EF5 tornado kills at least 158 people in Joplin, Missouri, the largest death toll from a tornado since record-keeping began in 1950.

2015: The Republic of Ireland, long known as a conservative, predominantly Catholic country, becomes the first nation in the world to legalize gay marriage in a public referendum.

Today in History: May 21

996: Sixteen year old Otto III is crowned the Roman Emperor.

1471: King Henry VI is killed in the Tower of London. Edward IV takes the throne.

1506: Christopher Columbus dies.

1536: The Reformation is officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.

1620: Present-day Martha’s Vineyard is first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.

1790: Paris is divided into 48 zones.

1832: The Democratic party holds its first national convention.

1856: Lawrence, Kansas is captured and sacked by pro-slavery forces.

1863: The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, Louisiana, begins.

1881: The American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton.

1927: Charles Lindbergh lands in Paris completing the first solo air crossing of the Atlantic.

1940: British forces attack German General Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division at Arras, slowing his blitzkrieg of France.

1941: The first U.S. ship, the S.S. Robin Moor, is sunk by a U-boat.

1951: The U.S. Eighth Army counterattacks to drive the Communist Chinese and North Koreans out of South Korea.

1961: Governor Patterson declares martial law in Montgomery, Alabama.

1970: The U.S. National Guard mobilizes to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.

1991: In Madras, India, a suicide bomber kills the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi.

Today in History: May 20

325: The Ecumenical council is inaugurated by Emperor Constantine in Nicea.

1303: A peace treaty is signed between England and France.

1347: Cola di Rienzo takes the title of tribune in Rome.

1520: Hernando Cortes defeats Spanish troops sent against him in Mexico.

1690: England passes the Act of Grace, forgiving followers of James II.

1674: John Sobieski becomes Poland’s first king.

1774: Parliament passes the Coercive Acts to punish the colonists for their increasingly anti-British behavior. The acts close the port of Boston.

1775: North Carolina becomes the first colony to declare its independence.

1784: The Peace of Versailles ends a war between France, England, and Holland.

1799: Napoleon Bonaparte orders a withdrawal from his siege of St. Jean d’Acre in Egypt.

1859: A force of Austrians collides with Piedmontese cavalry at the village of Montebello, in northern Italy.

1861: North Carolina becomes the last state to secede from the Union.

1862: President Lincoln signs the Homestead Act, providing 250 million acres of free land to settlers in the West.

1874: Levi Strauss begins marketing blue jeans with copper rivets.

1902: The U.S. military occupation of Cuba ends.

1927: Charles Lindbergh takes off from New York for Paris.

1930: The first airplane is catapulted from a dirigible.

1932: Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Ireland, to become the first woman fly solo across the Atlantic.

1939: Pan American Airways starts the first regular passenger service across the Atlantic.

1941: Germany invades Crete by air.

1942: Japan completes the conquest of Burma.

1951: During the Korean War, U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first jet air ace in history.

1961: A white mob attacks civil rights activists in Montgomery, Alabama.

1969: In South Vietnam, troops of the 101st Airborne Division reach the top of Hill 937 after nine days of fighting entrenched North Vietnamese forces.

1970: 100,000 people march in New York, supporting U.S. policies in Vietnam.

Today in History: May 19

715: St. Gregory II begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

1535: French explorer Jacques Cartier sets sail for North America.

1536: Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, is headed on Tower Green.

1568: Defeated by the Protestants, Mary, Queen of Scots, flees to England where Queen Elizabeth imprisons her

1588: The Spanish Armada sets sail from Lisbon, Spain.

1608: The Protestant states from the Evangelical Union of Lutherans and Calvinists.

1635: Cardinal Richelieu of France intervenes in the great conflict in Europe by declaring war on the Hapsburgs in Spain.

1780: Near total darkness on New England at noon. No explanation is found.

1856: Senator Charles Sumner speaks out against slavery.

1858: A pro-slavery band led by Charles Hameton executes unarmed Free State men near Marais des Cygnes on the Kansas-Missouri border.

1863: Union General Ulysses S. Grant’s first attack on Vicksburg is repulsed.

1864: The Union and Confederate armies launch their last attacks against each other at Spotsylvania, Virginia.

1921: Congress sharply curbs immigration, setting a national quota system.

1935: The National Football League adopts an annual college to draft to begin in 1936.

1964: U.S. diplomats find at least 40 microphones planted in the American embassy in Moscow.

1967: U.S. planes bomb Hanoi for the first time

Today in History: May 18

526: St. John I ends his reign as Catholic Pope.

1643: Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII, is granted sole and absolute power as regent by the Paris parliament, overriding the late king’s will.

1652: A law is passed in Rhode Island banning slavery in the colonies but it causes little stir and seems unlikely to be enforced.

1792: Russian troops invade Poland.

1802: Britain declares war on France.

1804: Napoleon Bonaparte becomes the Emperor of France.

1828: The Battle of Las Piedras, between Uruguay and Brazil, ends.

1860: Abraham Lincoln is nominated for president.

1864: The fighting at Spotsylvania in Virginia, reaches its peak at the Bloody Angle.

1896: The Supreme Court’s decision on Plessy v. Ferguson upholds the "separate but equal" policy in the United States.

1904: Brigand Raizuli kidnaps American Ion H. Perdicaris in Morocco.

1917: The U.S. Congress passes the Selective Service act, calling up soldiers to fight World War I.

1931: Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara crashes his plane in the Pacific Ocean while trying to be the first to cross the ocean nonstop. He is picked up seven hours later by a passing ship.

1933: President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Tennessee Valley Authority Act.

1942: New York ends night baseball games for the rest of World War II.

1944: The Allies finally capture Monte Cassino in Italy.

1951: The United Nations moves its headquarters to New York City.

1969: Two battalions of the 101st Airborne Division assault Hill 937 but cannot reach the top because of muddy conditions.

1974: India becomes sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb.

1980: After rumbling for two months, Mount Saint Helens, in Washington, erupts 3 times in 24 hours.

Today in History: May 17

1540: Afgan chief Sher Khan defeats Mongul Emperor Humayun at Kanauj.

1630: Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi sees the belts on Jupiter’s surface.

1681: Louis XIV sends and expedition to aid James II in Ireland. As a result, England declares war on France.

1756: Britain declares war on France.

1792: Merchants form the New York Stock Exchange at 70 Wall Street.

1814: Denmark cedes Norway to Sweden.

1863: Union General Ulysses Grant continues his push towards Vicksburg at the Battle of the Big Black River Bridge.

1875: The first Kentucky Derby is run in Louisville.

1881: Frederick Douglass is appointed recorder of deeds for Washington, D.C.

1940: Germany occupies Brussels, Belgium and begins the invasion of France.

1954: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules for school integration in Brown v. Board of Education.

1973: The Senate Watergate Committee begins its hearings.

1987: In the Persian Gulf the American guided missile frigate USS Stark is struck by 2 Exocet missiles fired by an Iraqi aircraft; only one detonates, but 37 sailors are killed and 21 are wounded. Whether the launch was deliberate or a mistake is still debated.

Today in History: May 16

1770: Marie Antoinette marries future King Louis XVI of France.

1863: At the Battle of Champion’s Hill, Union General Ulysess S. Grant repulses the Confederates, driving them into Vicksburg.

1868: President Andrew Johnson is acquitted during Senate impeachment, by one vote, cast by Edmund G. Ross.

1879: The Treaty of Gandamak between Russia and England sets up the Afghan state.

1920: Joan of Arc is canonized in Rome.

1928: The first Academy Awards are held in Hollywood.

1943: A specially trained and equipped Royal Air Force squadron destroys two river dams in Germany.

1951: Chinese Communist Forces launch second step, fifth-phase offensive and gain up to 20 miles of territory.

1960: A Big Four summit in Paris collapses because of the American U-2 spy plane affair.

1963: After 22 Earth orbits, Gordon Cooper returns to Earth, ending the last mission of Project Mercury.

Today in History: May 15

756: Abd-al-Rahman is proclaimed emir of Cordoba, Spain.

1213: King John submits to the Pope, offering to make England and Ireland papal fiefs. Pope Innocent III lifts the interdict of 1208.

1602: English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovers Cape Cod.

1614: An aristocratic uprising in France ends with treaty of St. Menehould.

1618: Johannes Kepler discovers his harmonics law.

1702: The War of Spanish Succession begins.

1730: Following the resignation of Lord Townshend, Robert Walpole becomes the sole minister in the English cabinet.

1768: By the Treaty of Versailles, France purchases Corsica from Genoa.

1795: Napoleon enters the Lombardian capital of Milan in triumph.

1820: The U.S. Congress designates the slave trade a form of piracy.

1849: Neapolitan troops enter Palermo, Sicily.

1862: The Union ironclad Monitor and the gunboat Galena fire on Confederate troops at the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia.

1864: At the Battle of New Market, Virginia Military Institute cadets repel a Union attack.

1886: Emily Dickinson dies in Amherst, Mass., where she had lived in seclusion for the previous 24 years.

1916: U.S. Marines land in Santo Domingo to quell civil disorder.

1918: Pfc. Henry Johnson and Pfc. Needham Roberts receive the Croix de Guerre for their services in World War I. They are the first Americans to win France’s highest military medal.

1930: Ellen Church becomes the first airline stewardess.

1942: The United States begins rationing gasoline.

1958: Sputnik III is launched by the Soviet Union.

1963: The last Project Mercury space flight, carrying Gordon Cooper, is launched.

1968: U.S. Marines relieve army troops in Nhi Ha, South Vietnam after a fourteen-day battle.

1972: George Wallace is shot by Arthur Bremer in Laurel, Maryland.

1975: The merchant ship Mayaguez is recaptured from Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.

1988: Soviets forces begin their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Today in History: May 13

1607: English colonists land near the James River in Virginia.

1648: Margaret Jones of Plymouth is found guilty of witchcraft and is sentenced to be hanged.

1779: The War of Bavarian Succession ends.

1846: The United States declares war on Mexico after fighting has already begun.

1861: Britain declares its neutrality in the American Civil War.

1864: The Battle of Resaca commences as Union General Sherman fights towards Atlanta.

1888: Slavery is abolished in Brazil.

1912: The Royal Flying Corps is established in England.

1913: Igor Sikorsky flies the first four-engine aircraft.

1944: Allied forces in Italy break through the German Gustav Line into the Liri Valley.

1958: French troops take control of Algiers.

1968: Peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam begin in Paris.

1981: Pope John Paul II survives an assassination attempt.

Today in History: May 12

254: St. Stephen I begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

1588: King Henry III flees Paris after Henry of Guise triumphantly enters the city.

1641: The chief advisor to Charles I, Thomas Wentworth, is beheaded in the Tower of London

1780: Charleston, South Carolina falls to British forces.

1851: The Tule River War ends.

1863: With a victory at the Battle of Raymond, Mississippi, Union General Ulysses S. Grant closes in on Vicksburg.

1864: Union General Benjamin Butler attacks Drewry’s Bluff on the James River.

1865: The last land battle of the Civil war occurs at Palmito Ranch, Texas. It is a Confederate victory.

1881: Tunisia, in North Africa become a French protectorate.

1885: In the Battle of Batoche, French Canadians rebel against the Canadian government.

1926: The Airship Norge becomes the first vessel to fly over the North Pole.

1932: The body of Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found.

1935: Alcoholics Anonymous is founded in Akron, Ohio by "Bill W.," a stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.," a heart surgeon.

1940: The Nazi conquest of France begins with the crossing Muese River.

1942: The Soviet Army launches its first major offensive of the war, taking Kharkov in the eastern Ukraine.

1943: Axis forces in North Africa surrender.

1949: The Berlin Blockade ends.

1969: Viet Cong sappers try unsuccessfully to overrun Landing Zone Snoopy in Vietnam.

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

Today in History: May 11

1573: Henry of Anjou becomes the first elected king of Poland.

1689: French and English navies battle at Bantry Bay.

1690: In the first major engagement of King William’s War, British troops from Massachusetts seize Port Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) from the French.

1745: French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army at Fontenoy.

1792: The Columbia River is discovered by Captain Robert Gray.

1812: British prime Minster Spencer Perceval is shot by a bankrupt banker in the lobby of the House of Commons.

1857: Indian mutineers seize Delhi.

1858: Minnesota is admitted as the 32nd U.S. state.

1860: Giuseppe Garibaldi lands at Marsala, Sicily.

1862: Confederates scuttle the CSS Virginia off Norfolk, Virginia.

1864: Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart is mortally wounded at Yellow Tavern.

1960: Israeli soldiers capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires.

1967: The siege of Khe Sanh ends, the base is still in American hands.

Today in History: May 10

1285: Philip III of Spain is succeeded by Philip IV ("the Fair").

1503: Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands.

1676: Bacon’s Rebellion begins in the New World.

1773: To keep the troubled East India Company afloat, Parliament passes the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the American colonies.

1774: Louis XVI succeeds his father Louis XV as King of France.

1775: American troops capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British.

1794: Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, is beheaded.

1796: Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy.

1840: Mormon leader Joseph Smith moves his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.

1857: The Bengal Army in India revolts against the British.

1863: General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson succumbs to illness and wounds received during the Battle of Chancellorsville.

1865: Union cavalry troops capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irvinville, Georgia.

1869: The Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah.

1859: French emperor Napoleon III leaves Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy.

1872: Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for U.S. president.

1917: Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic.

1924: J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

1928: WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming.

1933: Nazis begin burning books by "unGerman" writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author ofAll Quiet on the Western Front.

1940: German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France’s "impenetrable" Maginot Line.

1940: Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister.

1941: England’s House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs.

1960: The USS Nautilus completes first circumnavigation of globe underwater.

1994: Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa’s first black president.

Today in History: May 9

1502: Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to New World.

1754: The first newspaper cartoon in America appears.

1813: U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison take Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.

1864: Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: "They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–"

1859: Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreats across the River Sesia in Italy.

1915: German and French forces fight the Battle of Artois.

1926: Explorer Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole.

1936: Fascist Italy captures the city of Addis Abba, Ethiopia and annexes the country.

1941: The German submarine U-110 is captured at sea along with its Enigma machine by the Royal Navy.

1946: King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicates his throne and is replaced by Umberto.

1962: A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.

1974: The House Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment.

Today in History: May 8

1450: Jack Cade’s Rebellion–Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.

1541: Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo.

1559: An act of supremacy defines Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.

1794: The United States Post Office is established.

1846: The first major battle of the Mexican War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas.

1862: General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson repulses the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the Shenendoah Valley.

1864: Union troops arrive at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Confederates waiting for them.

1886: Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.

1895: China cedes Taiwan to Japan under Treaty of Shimonoseki.

1904: U.S. Marines land in Tangier, North Africa, to protect the Belgian legation.

1919: The first transatlantic flight by a navy seaplane takes-off.

1933: Mahatma Gandhi—actual name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—begins a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.

1940: German commandos in Dutch uniforms cross the Dutch border to hold bridges for the advancing German army.

1942: The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends.

1945: The final surrender of German forces is celebrated as VE (Victory Europe) day.

1952: Allied fighter-bombers stage the largest raid of the war on North Korea.

1958: President Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.

1967: Boxer Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.

1984: The Soviet Union announces it will not participate in Summer Olympics planned for Los Angeles.

1995: Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.

Today in History: May 7

558: The dome of the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople collapses. Its immediate rebuilding is ordered by Justinian.

1274: The Second Council of Lyons opens in France to regulate the election of the pope.

142: Joan of Arc breaks the English siege of Orleans.

1525: The German peasants’ revolt is crushed by the ruling class and church.

1763: Indian chief Pontiac begins his attack on a British fort in present-day Detroit, Michigan.

1800: Congress divides the Northwest Territory into two parts. The western part will becomes the Indiana Territory and the eastern section remains the Northwest Territory.

1824: Beethoven’s "Ninth Symphony" premiers in Vienna.

1847: The American Medical Association is formed in Philadelphia.

1862: Confederate troops strike Union troops at the Battle of Eltham’s Landing in Virginia.

1864: The Battle of Wilderness ends with heavy losses to both sides.

1877: Indian chief Sitting Bull enters Canada with a trail of Indians after the Battle of Little Big Horn.

1915: The German submarine U-20 torpedoes the passenger ship Lusitiania, sinking her in 21 minutes with 1,978 people on board.

1937: The German Condor Legion arrives in Spain to assist Fransico Franco’s forces.

1942: In the Battle of the Coral Sea, Japanese and American navies attack each other with carrier-launched warplanes. It is the first time in the history of naval warfare where two fleets fought without seeing each other. Two crucial battles in 1942 marked the turning point of the war in the Pacific.

1943: The last major German strongholds in North Africa–Tunis and Bizerte–fall to Allied forces.

1945: Germany signs an unconditional surrender, effectively ending World War II in Europe.

1952: In Korea, Communist POWs at Koje-do riot against their American captors.

1954: French troops surrender to the Vietminh at Dien Bien Phu.

1958: Howard Johnson sets an aircraft altitude record in F-104.

1960: Leonid Brezhnev becomes president of the Soviet Union.

Teachers Decry Exclusion From Bailout Funds For Salaries

Winifred ogbebo 

The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) has expressed outrage over what it described as the systematic exclusion of members in the payment of salaries from the 2015 federal government bailout funds given to state governments.

A statement made available to LEADERSHIP yesterday in Abuja, by the national leadership of the union, signed by the secretary general, Obong I.J.Obong, said it rejects the segregational treatment meted out to teachers by some governors in favour of other workers in their various states.

The union said it would not stand aloof and watch the continuous maltreatment and gross insensitivity towards teachers’ plights by some state governments.

The union recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari, upon assumption of office, offered bailout funds to state governments to enable them offset backlog of salaries arrears owed workers.

Part of the statement read, “It is equally on record that teachers were the most affected having been owed months of salaries. Therefore it is unacceptable and highly callous for state governments not to place teachers on priority list at the commencement of salary payment from the federal government bailout funds.”

Calling on state governments still owing teachers’ arrears of salaries to urgently offset same and ensure that teachers were given priority attention whenever such funds were given to state governments in future, the union demanded for equity and fairness in the management of the bailout funds meant for workers’ salaries.

The statement added, “We are, indeed, alarmed by the ICPC report that state governments mismanaged and in some cases, diverted their bailout funds to other areas different from what they were meant for. It is therefore our view that such state governments be adequately sanctioned to check such untoward behaviour in future. They should also be forced to source funds and pay their teachers and, indeed all workers in line with the spirit and intendment of the bailout funds.

“At this critical stage of our national challenges, state governments should desist from actions that will further cause avoidable suffering of teachers and great strain on our educational system, but work to advance their social, economic and political well-being.”

source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523661/teachers-decry-exclusion-bailout-funds-salaries-2

Kwara State Govt. To Stakeholders - Relieve LGs Of Teachers' Salaries

Abdullahi Olesin 

The Kwara State governor, Alh Abdulfatah Ahmed, has called on stakeholders in the education sector to map out strategies for taking basic education teachers’ salaries off local government councils in the country.

Ahmed made the call when the executive secretary of the Universal Basic Education Commission, Alhaji Dikko Sulyman and his management team visited him at the Government House, Ilorin.

Ahmed noted that local government councils lack capacities to finance the payment of basic education teachers’ salaries, especially with the decline in allocations from the federation account.

He also called for the adjustment of the present revenue allocation formula which favours the federal government at the expense of the state and local government tiers.

He equally called for the convocation of a national summit on how to reform education at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

“It is important that a strong summit is held to improve the availability of school infrastructure; accessibility and the quality of teachers. It has to be taken from a national perspective”, he said.

He expressed concern about the quality of teachers produced by the Colleges of Education designed to serve the basic education level, stressing that the curricular at the Colleges of Education level were not designed for basic education level.

According to him, the curriculum of the defunct Grade Two Teachers Colleges was better designed to teach pupils at the primary unlike what prevails now.

The executive secretary of UBEC, Alhaji Dikko Suleiman said the commission has initiated a number of infrastructure development programmes in the basic education level across the state.

These, he said, included the renovation of dilapidated school structure, two electronic libraries, and seven Almajiri schools among others.

He commended Kwara State government for the prompt repayment of its counterpart funding for the projects.

source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523708/relieve-lgs-teachers-salaries-ahmed-tells-stakeholders

NOUN Grants 100% Waiver To Prison Inmates

Winifred ogbebo 

The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has granted a 100 per cent waiver to prison inmates desiring education across the country.

The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abdalla Uba Adamu, who revealed this in Abuja while hosting the Vice Chancellor of the Nigerian Turkish Nile University, Prof. Huseyin Sert, stated that the waiver, which before now was pegged at 50 per cent, would enable the inmates have unfettered access to quality education and also encourage others to take advantage of this initiative to acquire education.

Adamu, who cited lack of meaningful social support system for inmates to acquire education in the country, said, “Having suffered abandonment by relatives, emotional and physical confinement, prison inmates would see such gesture from NOUN as a measure meant to reduce the burden on them and to provide the platform to improve and make themselves better citizens.”

A press release signed by the Director, Media and Publicity of the institution, Malam Ibrahim Sheme, said the vice-chancellor further explained that NOUN, being a single mode institution charged with the responsibility of adding lifelong value to those yearning for quality education, would also explore the option of taking education to young girls.

source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523694/noun-grants-100-waiver-prison-inmates

UNILORIN Conducts professional initiation for 48 Newly Qualified Medical Doctors

By Abdullahi Olesin

The University of Ilorin has conducted professional initiation for 48 newly qualified medical doctors.

Speaking at the 32nd professional initiation of the Batch ‘B’ of the 2016 medical graduates, the Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), Dr Abdulmumin Ibrahim, who was represented by the director, Kwara State Hospital Services, Dr Zinat Saadu, tasked the new medics on the principles of firmness, fairness, justice and mercy in the discharge of their responsibilities.

The MDCN boss said, “your profession is service to humanity… above all, in whatever you do, whatever you say, say so with honour and dignity. In life, it is not how much money you make that matters; it is not how much connection you have that matters, it is not even how many degrees you earn that matters, but what matters ultimately, is what happiness you have given to the next person.”

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, Prof. AbdulGaniyu Ambali (OON), represented by the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Prof. (Mrs.) N.Y.S. Ijaiya, observed that medicine was not an easy discipline.

Lamenting the huge disparity in the ratio of medical doctors to the over 170 million Nigerians, the Vice-Chancellor said, “Nigerians need as many doctors as they can get. So, as tough as the course is, we still need more doctors to man our hospitals, This is the reason why we are happy today that we are contributing more doctors to the medical facilities of Nigeria and to humanity.”

Also speaking,the Provost, College of Health Sciences, Prof. AbdulWahab Johnson, commended the new medics “for successfully passing through the difficult ‘landmines’ of medical training of our College and emerging at the ‘end of the tunnel’ unscathed.”

The Provost hailed the unprecedented commitment of the VC, Prof. Ambali, towards ensuring the growth and sustaining the development of the College.

The Provost acknowledged the graduating class as the “Primus Inter Pares” or first among equals, as, according to him, “they are “undoubtedly unique in their own way for their avowed battle against mediocrity, quiet diplomacy, constructive unionism and a penchant for wanting to leave indelible legacies.”

Source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523557/unilorin-inducts-48-new-medical-doctors

List of secondary schools in order of performance - WAEC

Today in History: May 6

1527: German troops begin sacking Rome. Libraries are destroyed, the Pope is captured and thousands are killed.

1529: Babur defeats the Afgan Chiefs in the Battle of Ghagra, India.

1682: King Louis XIV moves his court to Versailles, France.

1856: U.S. Army troops from Fort Tejon and Fort Miller prepare to ride out to protect Keyesville, California, from Yokut Indian attack.

1861: Arkansas becomes the ninth state to secede from the Union.

1862: Henry David Thoreau dies of tuberculosis at age 44.

1864: In the second day of the Battle of Wilderness between Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Confederate Gen. James Longstreet is wounded by his own men.

1877: Chief Crazy Horse surrenders to U.S. troops in Nebraska.Crazy Horse brought General Custer to his end.

1937: The dirigible Hindenburg explodes in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey.

1941: Bob Hope gives his first USO show at California’s March Field.

1942: General Jonathan Wainwright surrenders Corregidor to the Japanese.

1944: The Red Army besieges and captures Sevastopol in the Crimea.

1945: Axis Sally makes her final propaganda broadcast to Allied troops.

1954: British runner Roger Banister breaks the four minute mile.

1960: President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.

1962: The first nuclear warhead is fired from a Polaris submarine.

1994: The Channel Tunnel linking England to France is officially opened.

Today in History: May 5

1494: Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.

1814: British attack the American forces at Ft. Ontario, Oswego, New York.

1821: Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.

1834: The first mainland railway line opens in Belgium.

1862: Union and Confederate forces clash at the Battle of Williamsburg, part of the Peninsula Campaign.

1862: Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeat troops sent by Napoleon III in the Battle of Puebla.

1865: The 13th Amendment is ratified, abolishing slavery.

1886: A bomb explodes on the fourth day of a workers’ strike in Chicago.

1912: Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing.

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

1917: Eugene Jacques Bullard becomes the first African-American aviator when he earns a flying certificate with the French Air Service.

1920: Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are arrested for murder.

1935: American Jesse Owens sets the long jump record.

1942: General Joseph Stilwell learns that the Japanese have cut his railway out of China and is forced to lead his troops into India.

1945: Holland and Denmark are liberated from Nazi control.

1961: Alan Shepard becomes the first American in space.

1965: 173rd Airborne Brigade arrives in Bien Hoa-Vung, Vietnam, the first regular U.S. Army unit deployed to that country.

1968: U.S. Air Force planes hit Nhi Ha, South Vietnam in support of attacking infantrymen.

1969: Pulitzer Prize awarded to Norman Mailer for his ‘nonfiction novel’ Armies of the Night, an account of the 1967 anti-Vietnam War march on the Pentagon.

1987: Congress opens Iran-Contra hearings.

2000: The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align – Earth’s moon is also almost in this alignment – leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a ‘grand confluence’ occurs about once in every century.

UNILAG Senates Gives Directives To SUG Members To Evict Hostel

By Taiwo Ogunmola-Omilani 

The University of Lagos Senate has directed members of the Student Union Government (SUG) to vacate their halls of residence in the school due to the recent crisis in the campus.

This was contained in an internal memo signed by the Deputy Dean of the school, Dr. J.O Agunsoye.

The memo titled, “Eviction from Hall of Residence” reads, “The University Senate has directed that you vacate your bed spaces in the halls of residence.

“Consequently, failure to comply with this directive will attract disciplinary action.”

The names of the SUG members of the school include: Muhammed Olaniyan from the Accounting Department (Jaja Hall), Adebayo Emmanuel, Department of Marine Science, Miss Fabuyi from Faculty of Law (Moremi Hall).

LEADERSHIP gathered that the SUG members were given automatic accommodation in the hostels by the school authority.

The students, according to the memo, would commence second semester examination on Monday, 9th of May 2016 after their agreement to comply with the rules and regulations of the school.

It would be recalled that students of the University of Lagos (UNILAG) recently boycotted lectures and other academic activities to protest the epileptic power and water supply to their hostels.

Source: http://www.leadership.ng/news/523502/unilag-senate-evicts-sug-members-hostel