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 25-31, 2026
May 25
1787 – The Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia with George Washington presiding.
1928 – Amelia Earhart (as a passenger) was the first woman to fly across Atlantic Ocean.
1935 – Babe Ruth hit his final homerun, his 714th, and set a record that would stand for 39 years. Hank Aaron broke Ruth’s record in 1974 and Barry Bonds broke Aaron’s record in 2007. Albert Pujols hit the 703rd homeruns in 2022. These are the only players to hit more than 700 homeruns in their career.
1961 – President J. F. Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on Moon before the end of decade. Apollo 11 landed on the moon July 21, 1969. Watch Kennedy’s speech at Rice University. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QftPu3nCp-M
1964 – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Griffin v County School Board of Prince Edward County (Virginia) that closing schools to avoid desegregation was unconstitutional. In what was known as “Massive Resistance” U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd (D-VA) declared a strategy of closing Virginia schools to circumvent the Brown v Board of Education ruling of 1954 and block integration.
1977 – The original “Star Wars” movie was released, taking in $1.5 million on the opening weekend.
1983 – The “Return of the Jedi” movie (Star Wars 3) was released. It set a new opening weekend box office record of over $23 million. By contrast, the Star Wars movie, “The Rise of Skywalker,” grossed $205 million on the opening weekend.
1986 – In “Hands Across America,” 7 million people held hands across 4,152 miles from Long Beach, California, to Battery Park in New York to raise money for local charities. Watch the official video.
2006 – In Houston, former Enron Corp. chiefs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of conspiracy and fraud for the downfall of Enron.
2012 – The SpaceX Dragon became the first private commercial spacecraft to dock with the International Space Station (ISS). Dragon has made 20 flights to the ISS. On April 27, 2022, Elon Musk’s company set a new record for flights to the ISS in just 16 hours.
May 26
1637 – The battle between the Pequot Indians and a military force of settlers at Mystic, Connecticut, killed 500 Indians. Many other members of the Indian tribe were captured and sold as slaves in the West Indies, destroying the Pequot Nation.
1647 – Alse Young became the first person executed as a witch in the American colonies when she was hanged in Hartford, Connecticut.
1857 – The U.S. slave Dred Scott and his family were freed by owner Henry Taylor Blow three months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Dred Scott’s bid for freedom. Scott died the following year at age 63.
1896 – Dow Jones (Charles Dow and Edward Jones) began reporting on the average of 12 selected industrial stocks. It closed is 40.94. General Electric is the only original industrial stock.
1911 – The first Indianapolis 500 auto race was run. Ray Harroun won the inaugural race in 6 hours and 42 minutes. The 2023 Indy 500 lasted less than half that time. Watch the original footage.
1924 – President Calvin Coolidge signed the Johnson-Reed Act, a law restricting immigration and excluding immigrants from Asia.
1927 – The Ford Motor Company produced the last (and 15 millionth) Model T Ford (Tin Lizzie) and began producing the Model A.
1946 – Manhattan Project scientists Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann filed for a secret patent in the U.S. for the H-Bomb.
1972 – President Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev signed the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) accord.
1994 – Michael Jackson, age 35, married Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley, age 26. They divorced in 1996. Michael died in 2009 at age 50. Lisa Marie died in 2023 at age 54.
2020 – Twitter put warning labels on President Trump’s tweets about alleged “inaccuracies.”
May 27
1692 – The Court of Oyer and Terminer was established by the Governor of Massachusetts to hear the excessive amount of accusations of witchcraft.
1873 – The first Preakness Stakes race was won by Survivor by 10 lengths in 2:43. The Preakness is the second jewel of the Triple Crown, between the Kentucky Derby (first run in 1875) and the Belmont Stakes (first run in 1867). The term “Triple Crown” was first used when Gallant Fox won all three races in 1930.
1930 – The 1,046-foot Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opened to the public. Watch a short video about the building.
1937 – San Francisco Bay’s Golden Gate Bridge opened to pedestrian traffic. It opened to vehicular traffic the following day.
1969 – Construction began on Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The theme park opened in October 1971.
2020 – The American COVID death toll reached 100,000, which is equal to the number of servicemen and women killed in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan combined. In May 2023, the CDC reported 1,128,903 Americans had died from COVID. As of May 11, 2023, the CDC no longer tracks aggregate COVID cases and deaths.
May 28
1830 – President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act which allowed for the removal of Indians from tribal lands to federal territory west of the Mississippi River. The forcible removal of about 60,000 Indians became known as the Trail of Tears.
1863 – The first black regiment (54th Massachusetts) left Boston to fight in the Civil War.
1928 – Dodge Brothers Inc. was sold to the Chrysler Corporation. Both founding Dodge brothers, John and Horace, died in 1920. Their widows sold the company to Dillon, Reed & Company in 1925 for $146 million, the largest cash transaction in history to date.
1929 – Warner Brothers debut the movie “On With The Show” in New York City. It was the first all-color talking picture.
1959 – Space monkeys Able and Baker flew 300 miles into space on the Jupiter missile, becoming the first animals safely retrieved from a space mission. Able died in 1959 and Baker died in 1984 at the age of 27.
1972 – White House “plumbers” broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate Hotel during the Nixon administration. The scandal eventually led to President Nixon’s resignation in 1974.
1996 – President Bill Clinton’s former business partners in the Whitewater land deal, James and Susan McDougal, and Arkansas Governor Jim Guy Tucker, were all convicted of fraud. James McDougal died in 1998 at age 58 while in solitary confinement, Susan McDougal, now 70, was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001, and Jim Guy Tucker, who died in 2025 at age 81, was sentenced to four years of probation.
1997 – Linda Finch completed Amelia Earhart’s attempted around-the-world flight in a restored 1930s Electra 10E. Watch an interview about the historic flight recreation.
2016 – Harambe, a 17-year-old Lowland Gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo, was shot and killed by zoo staff after dragging around a 3-year-old boy who fell into its enclosure. Watch the frantic moments after the child falls in a CBS report. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kdisic-mGk
May 29
1677 – The Treaty of Middle Plantation established peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Indians.
1765 – Patrick Henry delivers his historic speech against the Stamp Act, answering a cry of “Treason!” with, “If this be treason, make the most of it!”
1851 – Sojourner Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Truth died in 1883 at age 86.
1916 – The official flag of the U.S. president was adopted after President Woodrow Wilson signs Executive Order #2390.
1942 – Bing Crosby recorded Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas,” the greatest selling song of all time.
1977 – Janet Guthrie becomes the first woman to drive in the Indianapolis 500. AJ Foyt won it for a record fourth time. Al Unser, Rick Mears, Hélio Castroneves have also won four times. Watch a NASCAR video about Guthrie.
2015 – The Obama administration removed Cuba from the state-sponsors of terrorism list. The Trump administration returned Cuba to the list in January 2021.
May 30
1806 – Future president Andrew Jackson killed Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accused Jackson of cheating on a horse race and insulting his wife.
1822 – Two slaves betrayed fellow slave Denmark Vesey in a slave revolt conspiracy. Charleston, South Carolina, authorities charged 131 men with conspiracy. In total, 67 men were convicted and 35 were hanged, including Denmark Vesey.
1868 – Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) was first observed when two women in Columbus, Mississippi, place flowers on both Confederate and Union graves.
1896 – The first automobile accident occurred when Henry Wells hit a bicyclist in New York City.
1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC was dedicated and opens to the public. A commission to plan a monument was first proposed in 1867, shortly after Lincoln’s death. Construction began in 1914. Watch actual footage of the dedication (no sound). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETbwURxpUBc
1932 – Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
1958 – The remains of unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean War were buried in Arlington National Cemetery. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier sarcophagus was placed above the grave of World War I soldiers that was built in 1921.
1970 – Baseball All-Star Game voting was returned to the fans. From 1958 to 1969 baseball mangers, players, and coaches made the All-Star selections.
1987 – North American Philips Company unveiled the compact disc video.
1991 – The Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors can be sued for legal advice they give police and can also be held accountable.
2020 – The SpaceX rocket successfully launched astronauts from Florida to rendezvous with the International Space Station. It was the first manned launch from the U.S. since the last Space Shuttle mission in 2011.
May 31
1868 – The first Memorial Day parade was held in Ironton, Ohio.
1884 – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patented “flaked cereal.” The cereal was created by accident by the doctor and his brother at a sanitarium.
1917 – “Darktown Strutters Ball,” written by Shelton Brooks and recorded by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, was released as the first jazz record. See still photos and listen to the original recording.
1935 – Babe Ruth grounded out in his final at bat. When he retired, Ruth held the record for the most home runs as a batter and the most strikeouts as a pitcher.
1955 – The Supreme Court ordered that all states must end racial segregation “with all deliberate speed” in a separate ruling a year after Brown v Board of Education.
1989 – The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Jim Wright (D-TX), resigned. He was the first Speaker of the House to resign because of a scandal. Wright was accused of ethics violations for using the bulk sale of his book “Reflections of a Public Man” to circumvent the maximum limit on annual outside earned income.
2003 – Eric Robert Rudolph was captured in North Carolina. He had been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list for five years for several bombings, including the 1996 Olympic bombing. He was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. Security guard Richard Jewell was initially a suspect. Jewell died in 2007 at age 44. Rudolph is now 59 years old.
2012 – The New York District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. announced a 184-count indictment against Abacus Federal Savings Bank for mortgage fraud. After a four-month trial in 2015, the bank and its officers were acquitted on all charges. Abacus, a Chinese-American owned bank, was the only bank indicted after the 2008 sub-prime banking crisis. It was the subject of a 2017 documentary, “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.”
Image from: indianapolismotorspeedway.com