This Week in History: May 26-June 1, 2025

This Week in History
by Dianne Hermann

“The secret to happiness is freedom.
The secret to freedom is courage.” Carrie Jones

May 26-June 1, 2025

May 26

1637 – The battle between the Pequot Indians and a military force of settlers at Mystic, Connecticut, kills 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 becomes 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 are 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) begins 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 is 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 signs the Johnson-Reed Act, a law restricting immigration and excluding immigrants from Asia.

1927 – The Ford Motor Company produces the last (and 15 millionth) Model T Ford / Tin Lizzie and begins producing the Model A.

1946 – Manhattan Project scientists Klaus Fuchs and John von Neumann file for a secret patent in the U.S. for the H-Bomb.

1972 – President Nixon and Soviet General Secretary Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) accord.

1994 – Michael Jackson, age 35, marries Elvis’ daughter Lisa Marie Presley, age 26. They divorced in 1996. Michael died in 2009 at age 50. Lisa Marie died in January 2023 at age 54.

2020 – Twitter puts warning labels on President Trump’s tweets about alleged “inaccuracies.”


May 27

1692 – The Court of Oyer and Terminer is established by the Governor of Massachusetts to hear the excessive amount of accusations of witchcraft.

1873 – The first Preakness Stakes race is 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, opens to the public. Watch a short video about the building.

1937 – San Francisco Bay’s Golden Gate Bridge opens to pedestrian traffic. It opened to vehicular traffic the following day.

1969 – Construction begins on Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The theme park opened in October 1971.

2020 – The American COVID death toll reaches 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 signs 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) leaves Boston to fight in the Civil War.

1928 – Dodge Brothers Inc. is 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 fly 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” break 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, are all convicted of fraud. James McDougal died in 1998 at age 58 while in solitary confinement, Susan McDougal, now 69, was pardoned by Bill Clinton in 2001, and Jim Guy Tucker, who died in January at age 81, was sentenced to four years of probation.

1997 – Linda Finch completes Amelia Earhart’s attempted around-the-world flight in a restored 1930s Electra 10E. Watch an interview about the historic flight recreation. Around-the-world flight

2016 – Harambe, a 17-year-old Lowland Gorilla in the Cincinnati Zoo, is 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 and interviews with zoo officials.

May 29

1677 – The Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes 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 addresses 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 is adopted after President Woodrow Wilson signs Executive Order #2390.

1942 – Bing Crosby records 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. Watch a NASCAR video about Guthrie.

2015 – The Obama administration removes 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 kills Charles Dickinson in a duel after Dickinson accuses Jackson of cheating on a horse race and insulting his wife.

1822 – Two slaves betray 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) is first observed when two women in Columbus, Mississippi, place flowers on both Confederate and Union graves.

1896 – The first automobile accident occurs when Henry Wells hits a bicyclist in New York City.

1922 – The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC is 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).

1932 – Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.

1958 – The remains of unidentified soldiers killed in World War II and the Korean War are 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 is returned to the fans. From 1958 to 1969 baseball mangers, players, and coaches made the All-Star selections.

1987 – North American Philips Company unveils the compact disc video.

1991 – The Supreme Court rules that prosecutors can be sued for legal advice they give police and can also be held accountable.

2020 – The SpaceX rocket successfully launches 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 is held in Ironton, Ohio.

1884 – Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patents “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, is released as the first jazz record. See still photos and listen to the original recording.

1935 – Babe Ruth grounds 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 orders 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), resigns. 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 is 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 life in prison without parole. Security guard Richard Jewell was initially a suspect. Jewell died in 2007 at age 44. Rudolph is now 58 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.”


June 1

1657 – The first Quakers arrive in New Amsterdam (now New York City).

1660 – Mary Dyer is hanged for defying a law banning Quakers from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

1789 – The first U.S. congressional act becomes law. The law regulated the time and manner of administering oaths of office.

1813 – Capt. John Lawrence utters the future Navy motto “Don’t give up the ship” after being mortally wounded during a battle between his U.S. Navy vessel Chesapeake and the British gunship Shannon. (Note: After his death, Lawrence’s crew gave up the ship to the British.)

1880 – The U.S. census exceeds 50 million people (50,155,783).

1890 – The U.S. census exceeds 60 million people (62,622,250). The population based on the 2025 census report estimates is about 342 million people.

1908 – John Krohn begins his walk around the perimeter of the U.S. pushing a wheelbarrow. Krohn started westbound from Portland, Maine, walking 9,024 miles in 357 days. He wore out 11 pairs of shoes, 112 pairs of socks, and 5 wheels on the wheelbarrow. He wrote a book about his experiences called “The Walk of Colonial Jack.”

1936 – The Queen Mary arrives in New York, completing its maiden voyage. The ship departed Southampton, England, on May 27th. Watch a silent video of its arrival in New York.

1963 – Alabama’s Democrat Governor George Wallace vows to defy an injunction that ordered the integration of the University of Alabama. On June 11th Wallace stood at the school’s entrance in a symbolic attempt to block integration. In his January 1963 inaugural address, he promised, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

2007 – Jack Kevorkian is released from prison after serving eight years of his 10-25 year prison term for second-degree murder in the 1998 death of Thomas Youk, 52, of Oakland County, Michigan. Kevorkian died in 2011 at age 83.

2008 – NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander becomes the first spacecraft to scoop up Martian soil. Watch a report and animation of the Mars Lander.

Image from: npr.org

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