May 29
1167 Frederick Barbarossa is decisively defeated by the combined cities of the Lombard League at the Battle of Legnano.
1453 After a two month siege Constantinople, the capital of the once-powerful Christian Roman Empire, falls to the Ottoman Empire. The defense of the city is led by Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus while the attack is led by the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II. The conquest of Constantinople marks the end of the Byzantine Empire.
1500 Death: Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Diaz, who had discovered the Cape of Good Hope, drowns during a voyage.
1630 Birth: King Charles II, British monarch 1660-85.
1660 The Restoration: On his 30th birthday, Charles II enters London to be restored as King of England. "In 1660, parliament accepted the restoration of the monarchy after the collapse of the Commonwealth (along with Charles II's promise in the form of the 'Declaration of Breda' to establish a general amnesty and freedom of conscience). Already King in Scotland since 1651, Charles (1660-85) was proclaimed King of England on 8 May 1660. When a new Westminster parliament was elected, no representatives from Scotland were requested - the Cromwellian Union lapsed. Charles's desire to become absolute caused him to favour Catholicism for his subjects as most consistent with absolute monarchy. In 1672, he issued the Declaration of Indulgence, suspending all penal laws against Catholics and Dissenters. His plans to restore Catholicism in Britain led to war with the Netherlands between 1672-74, in support of Louis XIV of France. In 1673, parliament forced Charles to withdraw the Indulgence and accept a Test Act excluding all Catholics from office, and in 1684 to end the Dutch war. Charles dissolved parliament again in 1681, and Louis XIV then supported Charles financially."
1736 Birth: Patrick Henry, American revolutionary patriot. "...Patrick Henry of Virginia, one of the great figures of the revolutionary generation, was both typical of his age and an enigma. He was first a failure as a planter and storekeeper, but then a brilliant success as a lawyer and politician. In the events that led to the Revolution he took a radical stance, most famously in his denunciation of George III after the passage of the Stamp Act. He opposed the tariffs imposed by the Townshend Acts and the British attempt to collect them by using the Royal Navy and naval courts-martial to apprehend and punish smugglers. He stood in the vanguard of those calling for united action by all the colonies against British "tyranny." In the Continental Congress he backed such actions as the general boycott of British goods and the raising of a Continental army. He was a firebrand demanding national independence, as seen in his Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech at an extralegal session of the Virginia Assembly in March 1775. He took the lead in raising troops to overthrow the royal governor. During the war and its immediate aftermath he was five times governor of Virginia. Yet after the war Henry urged restoration of the property and rights of Loyalists, arguing that they would make good citizens of the new Republic, and he bitterly opposed the Constitution as a threat to the liberties of the people and the rights of the states. Actually, Henry had seen the union of the rebellious colonies as a marriage of convenience, a kind of defensive alliance to protect already achieved liberties. He believed that once the war had been won a strong central authority was no longer needed..."
1765 Patrick Henry, who is one day to become the first US state governor, introduces seven resolutions in the House of Burgesses in Virginia attacking the right of Britain to tax the colonies by the Stamp Act.
1790 Rhode Island becomes the 13th state of the United States, the last of the original colonies to ratify the constitution.
1826 Birth: Ebenezer Butterick, inventor of the tissue paper dress pattern.
1827 Admiral Sir Isaac Coffin's Lancasterian School, the first nautical school in the US, opens in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
1844 The first dark horse candidate is born at the Democratic Convention in Baltimore, Maryland. With the political rush of support for James K. Polk, after just seven ballots, Mr. Polk's name appears to break the deadlock. Polk will win the nomination on the ninth ballot and, eventually, the US Presidency.
1848 Wisconsin becomes the 30th state of the United States following approval by the territory's citizens.
1865 Reconstruction: President Andrew Johnson issues a proclamation giving a general amnesty to all who took part in the rebellion against the United States.
1880 Birth: Oswald Spengler, author; The Decline of the West. "...The basic idea and essential components of The Decline of the West are not difficult to understand or delineate. (In fact, it is the work's very simplicity that was too much for his professional critics.) First, though, a proper understanding requires a recognition of Spengler's special approach to history. He himself called it the "physiogmatic" approach -- looking things directly in the face or heart, intuitively, rather than strictly scientifically. Too often the real meaning of things is obscured by a mask of scientific-mechanistic "facts." Hence the blindness of the professional "scientist-type" historians, who in a grand lack of imagination see only the visible...There is much in Spengler's thinking that permits one to characterize him as a kind of "proto-Nazi": his call for a return to Authority, his hatred of "decadent" democracy, his exaltation of the spirit of "Prussianism," his idea of war as essential to life. However, he never joined the National Socialist party, despite the repeated entreaties of such NS luminaries as Gregor Strasser and Ernst Hanfstängl. He regarded the National Socialists as immature, fascinated with marching bands and patriotic slogans, playing with the bauble of power but not realizing the philosophical significance and new imperatives of the age. Of Hitler he supposed to have said that what Germany needed was a hero, not a heroic tenor. Still, he did vote for Hitler against Hindenburg in the 1932 election. He met Hitler in person only once, in July 1933, but Spengler came away unimpressed..."
1900 Boer War: The Battle of Doornkop commences.
1900 The Trademark 'Escalator' is registered by the Otis Elevator Company.
1910 An airplane races a train, from Albany, New York to New York City, winning the $10,000 prize for aviator Glenn Curtiss.
1912 Fifteen women are dismissed from their jobs at the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for dancing the Turkey Trot while on the job.
1914 In the St Lawrence River, 300 km from Quebec City, a shallow river fog contributes to the collision of the CP Liner Empress of Ireland and a Norwegian coal ship, The Storstad. The liner sinks in 25 minutes drowning 1,024 passengers.
1916 A US President's flag is adopted. See Also: Oct 25, 1945. "...President Wilson ordered the adoption of a single design to be used by both services: blue with the coat of arms from the Presidential seal (rather than that from the national coat of arms) with a white star in each corner. The Presidential eagle looked toward the fly, facing the talon with the arrows, rather than toward the hoist like the eagle in the national arms. The crest was portrayed with the cloud puffs and stars in arcs rather than in a circular pattern. The eagle, arrows, stars, and clouds were shown in all white, with black stitching for the details; the beak and legs, olive branch, shield, and rays of the crest were shown in color. The flag was authorized in two sizes: 10.2 by 16 feet and 3.6 by 5.13 feet. The latter was the standard size for boat flags. A flag of this same smaller size, made of embroidered silk with gold and silver fringe, red, white, and blue cord and tassels, and gilt spread eagle finial served as the President's color prescribed by the Army."
1917 Birth: John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, in Brookline, Massachusetts.
1918 WW1: The Soviet government passes a resolution on the introduction of mobilization for the Red Army. (Polyakov)
1919 Charles Strite patents the pop-up toaster.
1932 Death: Paul Ehrlich, biologist, writer, 1908 Nobel Prize in medicine for his work in immunology. In 1910, Dr. Paul Ehrlich and his Japanese associate Dr. Sahachiro Hata announced the discovery of Salversan (606) to the world as a "chemical bullet" for the treatment of syphilis. Note: The above painting depicts Ehrlich and Hata at Frankfurt's Institute of Experimental Therapy, Germany.
1932 Bonus Marchers: At the height of the Great Depression, the so-called 'Bonus Expeditionary Force,' a group of 1,000 WW1 veterans seeking cash payments for their veterans' bonus certificates, arrive in Washington, DC. One month later, other veteran groups will spontaneously make their way to the nation's capital, swelling the Bonus Marchers to nearly 20,000 strong, most of them unemployed veterans in desperate financial straits. Camping in vacant government buildings and in open fields made available by District of Columbia Police Chief Pelham D. Glassford, they demand passage of the veterans' payment bill introduced by Representative Wright Patman. While awaiting a vote on the issue, the veterans will conduct themselves in an orderly and peaceful fashion, and on June 15 the Patman bill will pass in the House of Representatives. However, two days later, its defeat in the Senate will infuriate the marchers, who will refuse to return home. In an increasingly tense situation, the federal government will provide money for the protesters' trip home, but 2,000 refuse the offer and continue to protest. On 28 July, President Herbert Hoover will order the army, under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, to evict them forcibly. MacArthur's men will set their camps on fire, and the veterans will be driven from the city. Hoover, increasingly regarded as insensitive to the needs of the nation's many poor, will be much criticized by the public and press for the severity of his response.
1933 Congressman McFadden makes a violent attack on the Jews of America in a speech in the US Congress. Rabbi Lee J. Levinger has characterized this speech as the first evidence of political anti-Semitism in the United States (Anti-Semitism: Yesterday and Tomorrow, 1936). Note: Two assassination attempts by gunfire are made on McFadden's life. He later dies a few hours after attending a banquet. Rumors will persist that he was poisoned. (Larson)
1933 A manifesto calling for a worldwide action to save German Jews is published by Lord Cecil, David Lloyd George, General Jan Smuts, Sir Herbert Samuel, Chaim Weizmann, Peter Warburg, M. Rotenburg and Nahum Sokolow. (Edelheit)
1934 Zionist headquarters in Lvov (Lemberg), Poland, is bombed.
1935 Chancellor Schuschnigg rejects Austrian union with Germany.
1938 The Hungarian government passes its first law specifically restricting the number of Jews in the liberal professions, administration, commerce and industry to 20 percent. (Atlas)
1939 President of the Hungarian Senate, Count Julius Karolyi, resigns in opposition to his country's new anti-Jewish laws.
1940 WW2: Arthur Seyss-Inquart takes office as Reich Commissioner for Holland.
1940 WW2: The French begin allowing their troops to be evacuated from Dunkirk, even sending several ships of their own to assist.
1940 WW2: German forces capture Ostend and Ypres in Belgium and Lille in France.
1941 Holocaust: In Paris, thousands of foreign-born Jews are seized and interned. At the same time, thousands of Polish and German-born Jews, who had fought against the Germans in the French Foreign Legion during 1940, are deported to the slave labor camps in the Sahara Dessert (see March 22). (Atlas)
1942
1942 Holocaust: All Jews in France, even the French-born, are prohibited access to all public places, squares, restaurants, cafes, libraries, public baths, gardens and sports grounds. (Atlas)
1945 WW2: Admiral Ozawa replaces Admiral Toyoda as commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet.
1946 Nuremberg War Crimes Trials: Ernst Friedrich Christoph Saukel testifies. "...During that year it had become extremely difficult for me to meet the demands of the various employers of labor represented in the Central Planning Board. At no time did I issue directives or even recommendations to "shanghai." In this conference I merely used that word as reminiscent of my days as a seaman, in order to defend myself against those who demanded workers of me, and in order to make it clear to the gentlemen how difficult my task had become, particularly in 1944. Actually, a very simple situation is at the root of this. According to German labor laws and according to my own convictions, the "Arbeitsvermittlung" (procurement of labor) -the old word for "Arbeitseinsatz" (allocation of labor)-was a right of the State; and we, myself included, scorned private methods of recruitment. In 1944 Premier Laval, the head of the French government, told me that he was also having great difficulties in carrying out the labor laws where his own workers were concerned. In view of that, and in agreement with one of my collaborators, Dr. Didier, conferences were held in the German Embassy-the witness Hildebrandt, I believe, is better able to give information about that-with the head of the collaborationist associations, that is to say, associations among the French population which advocated collaboration with Germany. During these conferences at the German Embassy these associations stated that in their opinion official recruitment in France had become very difficult. They said that they would like to take charge of that and would like to provide recruiting agents from their own ranks and also provide people from among their members who would go to Germany voluntarily. Recruitment was not to take place through official agencies but in cafes. In these cafes, of course, certain expenses would be necessary which would have to be met; and the recruiting agents would have to be paid a bonus, or be compensated by a glass of wine or some gin. That way of doing things, naturally, did not appeal to me personally; but I was in such difficulties in view of the demands put to me that I agreed, without- intending, of course, that the idea of "shanghai" with its overseas suggestions and so forth should be seriously considered..."
1946 The British and Americans agree to end the taking of war reparations from their zones in Germany and agree to unite their administrations to share costs; the first definitive step toward the creation of a divided Germany.
1968 The UN Security Council passes a resolution imposing mandatory sanctions on white-ruled Rhodesia.
1978 The 13-cent postage stamp becomes the 15-cent postage stamp when new US rates to mail letters go into effect.
1990 Renegade communist Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian republic in the third round of balloting by the Russian parliament.
1991 Scientists from Emory University discover the gene that causes fragile-X syndrome, an untreatable mental retardation.
1993 US federal health officials announce that an unidentified disease with no known cause has taken 10 lives on or near the Navajo Reservation in the southwestern United States.
1995 The last three bodies entombed in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City are recovered.
1995 Death: Margaret Chase Smith, the first woman representative and senator (R-Maine), at 97. Note: Smith was the first woman to not only serve in both houses, but to be elected to each in her own right, not having been appointed after the death of a male predecessor.
1996 In Israel's first selection of a prime minister by direct vote, Benjamin Netanyahu defeats Shimon Peres to become leader of Israel, with a margin of victory less than one percent.
1997 Laurent Kabila takes office as president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Zaire, promising to hold elections in April 1999 and bury the legacy of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
1997 Lieutenant Kelly Flinn, the Air Force's first female B-52 bomber pilot, is discharged following an investigation stemming from adultery charges against her. The same day, the Army relieves Brigadier General Stephen Xenakis of his command of the Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center at Fort Gordon, Gworgia, because of an apparently 'improper relationship' with a civilian nurse who is caring for his wife.
1998 Death: Barry Goldwater, the former Arizona senator and Republican presidential contender, in Paradise Valley at the age of 89.
1999 The space shuttle Discovery completes the first-ever docking with the international space station, returning to earth after repairs are completed.
2000 The Indonesian government places former President Suharto under house arrest on charges of corruption and abuse of power.
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