Fri, May 28

2009—Jonathan Trappe crosses the English Channel suspended from a cluster of 54 multicolored balloons.

1987—W. German Mathias Rust, 19, lands a rented Cessna in Red Square.

1986—The Energy Dept. calls off a search for a high-level nuclear waste dump which had been considering a site in southwestern New Hampshire.

1972—Third time’s a charm for Nixon’s “Plumbers,” finally breaking into DNC HQ in the Watergate Hotel.

1962—The stock market plummets 5.7 percent, the worst drop since 1929.

1959—The U.S. Army sends Able and Baker, two monkeys, into space.

1946—The Pentagon begins working on a long-range bomber to be powered by a nuclear reactor; 15 years and $8 billion later it’s declared impractical.

1871—In Père Lachaise cemetery, French soldiers restore proper order by massacring 147 Communards.

1868—“I like an Indian better dead than living,” Delegate James M. Cavenaugh [D-Mont.] tells Congress, “I have never…seen a good Indian…except…a dead Indian.”

1830—Andy Jackson says all Indians must move west of the Mississippi.

1754—Tanacharison, scout for Lieutenant Colonel George Washington, murders the wounded Joseph Coulon de Jumonville near Fort Necessity. The French and Indian War ensues.

1291—The Templars lose Acre;Holy Land Crusades end, a century after Richard I’s slaughter of 2,600 captives.

Leave a Comment