This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann
“In the summer of 1776 our Founding Fathers sought to
secure our independence and our liberties that remain the
foundation of our nation today.” Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA)
May 18-24, 2026
May 18
1652 – Rhode Island enacts the first law declaring slavery illegal.
1896 – The Supreme Court affirmed race separation in Plessy v Ferguson. Homer Plessy was arrested in New Orleans for sitting in a “whites only” railroad car. The Supreme Court ruled that separate facilities were constitutional as long as they are equal. Justice John Harlan was the lone dissenter on the Court.
1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while swimming near Venice, California. She showed up a month later in Senora, Mexico, saying she had been kidnapped. Watch a video of McPherson’s speech on prohibition.
1927 – Andrew Kehoe blew up Bath Consolidated School in Michigan, killing 38 children and 2 teachers after killing his wife and setting their home on fire. Kehoe died in a second bombing later that day aimed at the school’s superintendent.
1953 – Jacqueline Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier, flying an F-86 Sabre fighter plane. She set more than 200 aviation records. Cochran died in 1980 at age 74.
1967 – Tennessee Gov. Ellington repealed the “Monkey Law,” which was upheld in the 1925 Scopes Trial. The Butler Act prohibited teachers from denting the Biblical story of creation.
1980 – Mt. Saint Helens erupted in the state of Washington. The eruption caused the deaths of 57 people and $3 billion in damage. Watch a USGS video of the eruption. Mt. Saint Helens eruption
1983 – The Senate revised U.S immigration laws, gives millions of illegal aliens legal status under an amnesty program.
2010 – A Portland, Oregon, police officer was asked to leave the Red & Black Café by the co-owner who felt uncomfortable having a uniformed officer in his vegan restaurant. The café closed down in 2015.
May 19
1848 – Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, giving Texas to the U.S. and ending the Mexican-American War.
1862 – The Homestead Act was signed into law by President Lincoln, providing up to 160 acres of free land for settlement of West. A total of 1.6 million people claimed 420,000 square miles of government land.
1884 – The Ringling Brothers circus premiered in Wisconsin. The circus was started by the five Ringling Brothers. Ringling Brothers Circus merged with Barnum and Bailey Circus in 1907. The circuses closed in 2017.
1913 – The California Alien Land Law passed, forbidding “aliens ineligible for citizenship” from owning agricultural land. The bill was primarily directed at Japanese immigrants.
1921 – Congress sharply curbed immigration through the Emergency Quota Act by setting a national quota system. Based on the quota formula, the number of immigrants fell from about 800,000 in 1920 to about 300,000 in 1921-1922.
1999 – Rosie O’Donnell and Tom Selleck had an uncomfortable verbal conversation concerning gun control on Rosie O’Donnell’s talk show. Watch a video of Selleck being a total gentleman.
2005 – “Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith” brought in $50 million on its opening day. By comparison, “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace” brought in a (then) record $28.5 million when it opened on this day in 1999. Star Wars: The Force Awakens brought in $529 million on its opening day in 2015.
2018 – American actress Meghan Markle married Prince Harry, youngest son of England’s Princess Diana and Prince Charles. The banished couple and their children live somewhere in California.
May 20
1874 – Levi Strauss marketed blue jeans with copper rivets at the price of $13.50 a dozen.
1916 – The Saturday Evening Post featured its first Norman Rockwell painting on the cover, entitled “Boy with Baby Carriage,” for which Rockwell was paid $75. Rockwell painted 321 covers over the next 47 years.
1926 – Congress passes the Air Commerce Act, which licenses pilots and planes.
1927 – Charles Lindbergh took off from New York to cross the Atlantic Ocean in the “Spirit of St. Louis.” He landed in Paris the following afternoon on the first solo transatlantic flight.
1932 – Amelia Earhart left Newfoundland to become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean when she landed in Ireland the following day. She scheduled her flight to coincide with the 5th anniversary of Lindbergh’s flight.
1939 – The first regular airmail and passenger service across the Atlantic Ocean begins when the “Yankee Clipper” took off from Port Washington, New York for Marseilles, France.
1959 – Ford won the battle with Chrysler to call its new car “Falcon.” Ford produced the Falcon from 1960 to 1970. Watch the 1961 Ford Falcon commercial featuring the Peanuts gang.
1985 – The FBI arrested John A. Walker, Jr. His brother, son, and friend were all recruited in the spy ring. They were all convicted of spying for USSR. John would have been eligible for parole, but he died in prison in 2014 at age 77.
2013 – Yahoo purchased Tumblr, a social networking website created by David Karp in 2007, for $1.1 billion.
2015 – David Letterman hosted the “Late Show with David Letterman” for the last time after 33 years on TV. Letterman is 79 years old.
May 21
1881 – The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton in Washington, DC. Barton, who served as a nurse in the Civil War, led the Red Cross for 23 years. She died in 1912 at age 90.
1918 – The House of Representatives passed the 19th Amendment allowing women to vote. It wasn’t signed into law until 1920. The bill was first introduced in Congress in 1878. By contrast, black men got the right to vote in 1870.
1924 – Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb kidnapped 13-year-old Bobby Franks for fun. Franks was murdered by teenagers Leopold and Loeb, and both were sentenced to life in prison. Loeb was killed in prison in 1936. Leopold was paroled in 1958 and died in 1971 at age 66.
1956 – The U.S. detonates the first airborne hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean over Bikini Atoll. A B-2 bomber dropped the bomb from 55,000 feet and it detonated at 15,000 feet. The resulting explosion was estimated to be four miles in diameter. Watch a newsreel report of the historic test.
1998 – An expelled student, Kipland Kinkel, killed 2 people and wounded 25 others in Springfield, Oregon, with a semi-automatic rifle. Police also discovered that he killed his parents before the rampage. The 43-year old is currently serving a 111-year sentence at the Oregon Correctional Institution.
2013 – Microsoft announced the release of Xbox One. Global sales are estimated at 58 million units.
May 22
1807 – Former Vice President Aaron Burr was tried for treason in Richmond, Virginia. It was alleged that Burr plotted to annex Spanish territories in Louisiana and part of Mexico to establish an independent territory. Burr was acquitted for lack of evidence that he acted on his plot. Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.
1872 – The Amnesty Act removed voting and office-holding restrictions to secessionists who participated in the Civil War, except for 500 military officers. Congress passed the original restrictive act in May 1866.
1946 – The first U.S. rocket (WAC Corporal) to reach the edge of space was fired from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
1967 – “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” premieres on PBS and airs until 2001. Fred Rogers died in 2003 at age 74. Watch the show’s opening scene.
1977 – Janet Guthrie set the fastest time on the second weekend of qualifying, becoming the first woman to earn a starting spot in the Indianapolis 500 since its inception in 1911.
1985 – U.S. sailor Michael L. Walker, the 22-year-old son of spy John Walker, Jr., was arrested for spying for USSR. He was convicted of spying and served 15 years of a 25-year sentence. He was released from prison in 2000 and was on probation until 2010. His father, spy John Walker, died in prison in 2014 at age 77.
1992 – Johnny Carson made his final appearance after 30 years as host of the Tonight Show. Carson died in 2005 at age 79. Heeeeere’s Johnny in his own words. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVPl4eMEuC0
2011 – An EF5 Tornado struck Joplin, Missouri, killing 161 people, making it the single deadliest U.S. tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950. Then-Vice President Joe Biden visited Joplin, expressing sympathy for the 161,000 people who died.
May 23
1923 – A team of police officers, led by Texas Ranger Cordell Walker, ambushed bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow near their hide-out in Black Lake, Louisiana, killing them both. Watch a narrated black and white video of the aftermath.
1939 – The USS Squalus submarine sank in the Gulf of Maine, drowning 26 sailors. The 33 remaining crew members were rescued from a depth of 243 feet by divers using the newly developed Heliox air systems (helium and oxygen). The divers were later awarded the Medal of Honor.
1963 – NBC purchased the TV rights to the 1963 AFL championship football game for $926,000. (By contrast, ESPN acquired the rights to Monday Night Football in 2021 and paid $2.7 billion to air regular season games over 11 years.)
1992 – In Lisbon, Portugal, the U.S. and four former Soviet republics signed an agreement to implement the START missile reduction treaty that had been agreed to by the Soviet Union before it was dissolved.
2018 – NFL owners approved a new national anthem policy requiring football players to stand if they choose to be on the field for the pre-game ceremonies.
May 24 – Memorial Day, Remember America’s Fallen
1883 – President Chester A. Arthur and Governor (and next president) Grover Cleveland opened the Brooklyn Bridge, which spans the East River. The bridge took 14 years to build, used 600 workers, and cost $15 million. That’s about $600 million in today’s money.
1916 – U.S. pilot Lt. Col. William Thaw II shot down a German Fokker during World War I, becoming the first American to engage in aerial combat in a war.
1935 – The Cincinnati Reds played the Philadelphia Phillies in the first major league baseball game at night. President Franklin Roosevelt threw the switch to turn on the floodlights.
1954 – IBM announced that the vacuum tube “electronic” brain could perform 10 million operations an hour. The Exascale Supercomputer can perform 1 quintillion calculations per second.
1976 – In the Paris Wine Tasting, dubbed the Judgment of Paris, wine testers rated wines from California higher than French wines, challenging the idea of France being the foremost producer of the world’s best wines.
1981 – Bobby Unser won, lost, and won the controversial Indianapolis 500 auto race. Race officials issued a penalty against Unser for illegally passing under a caution, but reversed their decision on appeal. Mario Andretti won second place. Watch the controversial move by Unser.
2000 – A Democrat Party event for Al Gore in Washington brought in $26.5 million. The amount set a new record, which had just been set the previous month by Republicans for Texas Governor George W. Bush. By contrast, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton raised $1.14 billion by September 2016 from Democrats and Clinton super-PACs.
2009 – Hélio Castroneves won the Indy 500 auto race for the 3rd time (2001 and 2002). He won “Dancing with the Stars” (Season 5) in 2007. (Castroneves won the Indy 500 again in 2021.) Watch him win Dancing with the Stars and decide which win he enjoyed most.
2016 – Bill Cosby was ordered to stand trial in a sexual assault case. In April 2018, he was convicted on three counts of indecent assault after a mistrial was declared in June of 2017. Cosby, now 88 years old, was serving a 3-10 year sentence in prison until his sentence was overturned in June of 2021.
Image from: www.usatoday.com