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 4-10, 2026
May 4
1780 – The American Academy of Arts & Science was founded by the Massachusetts legislature when 62 people sign the charter, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock. Its purpose was “to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.” The Academy is headquartered in Cambridge.
1893 – Cowboy Bob Pickett, the son of former slaves, invented the rodeo sport of bulldogging. Pickett died in 1932 at age 69 after being kicked in the head by a horse.
1904 – Construction on the Panama Canal was taken over by the United States from France, who started the project in 1881. The 48-mile-long canal was completed in 1914.
1959 – The first Grammy Awards were held. Perry Como and Ella Fitzgerald won as best male and female vocalists. Henry Mancini won album of the year for “The Theme from Peter Gunn.”
1970 – Four students were killed and nine were injured on the campus of Kent State when Ohio National Guard troops fired on students protesting the Vietnam War. John Filo, a university photojournalism student, took the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of 14-year-old runaway Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of 20-year-old student Jeffrey Miller. Watch a History.com video of the incident.
1998 – A federal judge in Sacramento, California, gave “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences plus 30 years after Kaczynski accepts a plea agreement sparing him from the death penalty. He mailed 16 bombs from 1978 to 1995 that killed or injured 23 people. He enrolled at Harvard at age 16 and ultimately earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Michigan. He died in prison in 2023 at age 81 of an apparent suicide.
2013 – Harper Lee filed a lawsuit against her literary agent over the copyright of her Pulitzer Prize winning book “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Rights to the book were returned to Lee, who died in 2016 at age 89.
May 5
1809 – Mary Kies was the first woman issued a U.S. patent. It was for a technique of weaving straw with silk and thread in making hats.
1893 – In the wake of the Panic of 1893, the New York Stock Exchange crashed, leading to the Depression of 1893. This is why the subsequent stock market crash of 1929 is called the Great Depression.
1925 – John T. Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in Tennessee. Scopes is tried, convicted, and fined $100. His conviction was overturned on a technicality by the Tennessee Supreme Court.
1943 – Postmaster General Frank C. Walker developed the Postal Delivery Zone System.
1961 – Alan Shepard became the first American in space when he was launched aboard Freedom 7. (John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth.) Shepard went to the moon on Apollo 14 in 1971. Shepard died in 1998 at age 74. Watch a 10-minute biography.
1979 – Voyager 1 passed Jupiter. It was launched by NASA in September 1977. In 2012 Voyager I passed into interstellar space. The probe continues to send information back to earth.
2018 – A Florida man died when his E-cigarette explodes. It was the first death attributed to a vaping product.
May 6
1833 – Blacksmith and inventor John Deere made its first steel plow. His company was founded in 1837.
1882 – Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. The act, signed by President Chester A. Arthur, placed a moratorium on Chinese immigration to the U.S. for 10 years.
1937 – The Dirigible Hindenburg explodeed in flames at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Although 36 people were killed, 62 passengers survived the crash. Watch a newsreel of the historic tragedy.
1941 – Bob Hope performed in his first USO show at California’s March Field. Hope headlined a total of 57 tours during every war from World War II to Operation Desert Shield in 1991. Hope died in 2003 at age 100.
1957 – Senator John F. Kennedy was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for book “Profiles in Courage.” In 2008, Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorenson acknowledged that he wrote most of the book.
1981 – A jury of international architects and sculptors unanimously select Maya Ying Lin’s entry for the design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. It is the second most visited monument in Washington, after the Lincoln Memorial. Watch a 2008 talk by Lin about the memorial.
1996 – The body of former CIA director William Colby was found washed up on a riverbank in southern Maryland, eight days after he disappeared in an apparent boating accident. He was 47 years old.
2013 – Wal-Mart became (and still remains) the largest company by revenue on the Fortune 500 list.
May 7
1847 – The American Medical Association (AMA) organized in Philadelphia. It’s now headquartered in Chicago.
1912 – Columbia University approved plans for awarding the Pulitzer Prize in several categories. The award was established by Joseph Pulitzer as part of his will. The first prize was awarded in 1917.
1915 – The Lusitania ocean liner was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland. The ship was on its way from New York to England. About 1,200 lives were lost. This event subsequently led to the U.S. declaring war against Germany and entering WWI.
1942 – In the Battle of the Coral Sea, American and Japanese navies attacked each other with carrier planes. It was the first time in the history of naval warfare where two enemy fleets fight without seeing each other.
1975 – President Ford declared an end to the “Vietnam Era.”
1984 – A $180 million out-of-court settlement was announced in the Agent Orange class-action lawsuit brought by Vietnam veterans who claimed they suffered injuries from exposure to the defoliant while serving in the armed forces.
1992 – A Constitutional amendment barring mid-term congressional raises was ratified. James Madison first proposed in 1789 what later became the 27th Amendment.
1992 – The U.S. Space Shuttle Endeavour (STS-49) launched on its maiden voyage. It was built to replace the Challenger, which was destroyed in a launch accident in January 1986.
1999 – A jury found “The Jenny Jones Show” and Warner Brothers liable in the shooting death of Scott Amedure after the show purposely deceives Jonathan Schmitz into appearing on a secret same-sex crush episode. Schmitz killed Amedure days after the show’s taping. A jury awarded Amedure’s family $25 million. Schmitz was sentenced to 25-50 years in prison. He was paroled in August 2017. Watch the never-aired episode and interviews.
2013 – The Dow Jones industrial average closed over 15,000 for the first time. The Dow is now over 49,000.
May 8
1792 – The U.S. established the military draft.
1861 – Richmond, Virginia, located 100 miles south of Washington, DC, was named the capital of the Confederacy.
1879 – George Selden filed the first patent for a gasoline-driven automobile. The witness for his patent was bank teller, and future camera entrepreneur, George Eastman. In 1903, Selden filed a patent infringement suit against Henry Ford and four other car makers. Although Selden won the case, Ford prevailed on appeal in 1911. Selden then focused on his truck company.
1886 – Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta sold Coca-Cola for the first time. The carbonated soft drink, invented by John Pemberton, actually contained cocaine.
1919 – Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate the Armistice of World War I, which later results in the creation of an international Remembrance Day. It is now known as Veterans Day in the U.S.
1945 – President Harry Truman announced victory in Europe and that World War II has ended.
1958 – President Eisenhower ordered the National Guard out of Little Rock, Arkansas, as Ernest Green, one of the Little Rock nine, became the first black person to graduate from an Arkansas public school. In 1957, Governor Guy Faubus refused to comply with the 1954 Brown v Board of Integration Supreme Court decision and ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent the nine students from entering Little Rock High School.
1973 – A group of about 200 American Indians holding the South Dakota town of Wounded Knee for 71 days surrendered after protesting corruption and treaty violations.
1987 – Democrat presidential candidate Gary Hart quit the race after his affair with Donna Rice was revealed.
1994 – The Colorado Silver Bullets, an all-female pro baseball team, played their first game. They played their last game in 1997. Watch a report about the team.
1999 – Nancy Mace became the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college. Mace (R) was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2017.
2014 – Snapchap (mobile messaging app) settled with the FTC on complaints that it deceived consumers about promises that messages would disappear and misrepresented its security measures. A breach allowed hackers to compile a list of 4.6 million Snapchat usernames and passwords.
May 9
1754 – The first political cartoon in America, “Join, or Die,” was printed in Benjamin Franklin’s newspaper. It is also called the Gadsden flag, named for the South Carolina delegate to the Continental Congress and general in the Continental Army who designed the flag.
1913 – The 17th Amendment passed, providing for the election of senators by popular vote instead of selection by the state legislators.
1926 – Americans Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. They circled the North Pole to verify their location and take photos.
1934 – The first of many “Black Blizzard” storms hit the Midwest. Watch a video description of what caused the Dust Bowl.
1946 – “NBC’s Hour Glass” premieres as the first hour-long variety show on TV. The show lasted until March of 1947. No videos of the shows exist. Audio recordings of the show are archived in the Library of Congress.
1950 – A 5-pound bear cub was rescued during a New Mexico forest fire and named Smokey the Bear. Smokey died in 1976 at the National Zoo in Washington and buried in New Mexico. Watch a video of the history of Smokey.
1996 – In video testimony at a courtroom in Little Rock, Arkansas, President Clinton insisted that he had nothing to do with a $300,000 loan in the criminal case against his former Whitewater partners. Fourteen of Clinton’s friends and business associates were convicted or pleaded guilty to various charges related to the Whitewater land scandal. Clinton avoided any prosecution.
2005 – The liberal commentary website The Huffington Post was launched by Arianna Huffington.
May 10
1752 – Benjamin Franklin tested the lightning rod. He never filed for a patent on any of his inventions. He said, “As we benefit from the inventions of others, we should be glad to share our own … freely and gladly.”
1775 – The 2nd Continental Congress named George Washington as the supreme commander.
1869 – The Golden Spike was driven, completing the Transcontinental Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah. It marked the meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. Immediately after the ceremony, the Golden Spike was removed to keep it from being stolen. It was replaced with a regular iron spike.
1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He remained the FBI director until his death in 1972.
1969 – The National and American Football Leagues announce their plans to merge for the 1970-71 season.
2003 – A series of tornados began and lasted until May 10th. The same storm system produced over 400 tornadoes, caused 50 deaths, and led to over $4 billion in damages. The tornado outbreak covered the Great Plaines and eastern U.S.
2011 – It was announced that Microsoft closed a deal to purchase the Internet phone service Skype for $8.5 billion.
2013 – Crane operators in New York City hoist the final pieces of the spire atop One World Trade Center (formerly called the Freedom Tower), making it the tallest building in the U.S. and the 4th tallest building in the world. Watch it from ground level.
Image from: history collection.com