This Week in History

USPA NEWS - “Decoration Day”, later called Memorial Day is first observed in Northern US states, Psy’s “Gangnam Style” becomes the first video to reach 2 billion views on YouTube, the first pay telephone service in the United States is installed, and Henry Ford takes his first Ford through the streets of Detroit. All this and so much more happened this week in history.

May 30 (1431) Nineteen year old Joan of Arc is burned at the stake by an English-dominated tribunal in Rouen, France. (1626) An explosion at the Wanggongchang Gunpowder Factory in Beijing destroys part of the city and kills 20,000 people. (1868) “Decoration Day”, later called Memorial Day is first observed in Northern US states. (1896) First car accident occurs. Henry Wells hits a cyclist in New York City. (1942) World War II: 1,047 bombers bomb Cologne in RAF’s raid. (1971) Thirty six hospitalized during Grateful Dead concert, after drinking LSD laced apple juice. (1975) European Space Agency (ESA) forms. (1987) North American Philips Company unveils compact disc video. (1997) Betty Shabazz, widow of Malcolm X, is burned after her 12-year old grandson sets fire to their apartment. She dies three weeks later. (2019) Two new studies find eating processed foods leads to an early death and ill health published in “British Medical Journal.”

May 31 (1884) Dr. John Harvey Kellogg patents “flaked cereal”. (1916) Battle of Jutland: Largest naval battle of World War I between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet, which killed 8,645 in an inconclusive battle but strategic British victory. German fleet never puts to sea again in WWI. (1935) 7.7 magnitude earthquake destroys Quetta in Balochistan, British India (now Pakistan) killing an estimated 40,000 people. (1947) Communists seize power in Hungary. (1968) Movie star James (Jimmy) Stewart retires from the US Air Force after 27 years of service. (1969) John Lennon and Yoko Ono record “Give Peace a Chance” in a Montreal hotel, during their second “bed-in” for peace. (1976) The Who set the record for the loudest concert of all time, 120 decibels at 50 metres, at The Valley in Charlton, London, England. (1977) Trans Alaska oil pipeline completed. (2013) First tornado chaser to be killed by a tornado. Tim Samara and two others killed by El Reo tornado in Oklahoma, the widest ever recorded at 2.6 miles (4.2 km). (2014) Psy’s “Gangnam Style” becomes the first video to reach 2 billion views on YouTube.

June 1 (1495) First written record of Scotch Whiskey appears in Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, Friar John Cor is the distiller. (1813) Captain John Lawrence utters Navy motto “Don’t give up the ship”. (1869) Thomas Edison granted his first patent for the Electric vote Recorder (U.S. Patent 90,646). (1880) The first pay telephone service in the United States is installed in New Haven, Connecticut. (1918) World War I: Canadian ace Billy Bishop downs six aircraft over a three-day span, including German ace Paul Bilik, reclaiming his top scoring title from James McCudden. (1962) SS officer Adolf Eichmann is executed in Israel after being found guilty of war crimes. (1974) Arab oil ministers decide to end most restrictions on exports of oil to the United States, but continue embargo against the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa and Rhodesia. (1979) Los Angeles passes its first homosexual rights bill. (2016) Switzerland’s Gotthard Base Tunnel is completed. It is the world’s longest at 57km and most expensive tunnel costing €11 billion. (2021) Prehistoric carvings, between 4,000 and 5,000 years old depicting deer, found in Scotland for the first time at Kilmartin Glen, Argyll.

June 2 (1857) James Gibbs of Virginia, patents the chain-stitch single-thread sewing machine. (1875) Alexander Graham Bell makes first sound transmission. (1896) Italian engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi applies for the first ever patent for a system of wireless telegraphy in the United Kingdom. (1924) President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as Snyder Act), declaring all Native Americans to be American citizens. (1928) Kraft, building on the original 1918 design, rolls out Velveeta cheese. (1953) Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London, England. (1979) John Paul II becomes first Pope to visit a Communist country (Poland). (1981) Barbara Walters famously asks Katharine Hepburn “If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?” (1994) Indonesian censors ban Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List”. (1997) Timothy McVeigh found guilty of 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168.

June 3 (1540) Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto crosses the Appalachian Mountains. He is the first European to do so. (1871) Jesse James and his gang rob Obocock Bank in Corydon, Iowa, of $15,000. (1938) German law on “Entartete Art” legalizes art robbery. (1946) The first bathing suit displayed in Paris. (1961) President John F. Kennedy and Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev meet in Vienna. (1965) First US space walk made by NASA astronaut Ed White during the Gemini 4 mission (23 minutes). (1979) Ixtoc I rig in the Gulf of Mexico blows, spilling 3 million barrels of oil in one of the worst oil spills in history. (1981) Pope John Paul II released from hospital after assassination attempt. (1989) Leaking pipe in Asha, USSR, causes two trains to catch fire, 460 die. (2018) Dead whale found with 17 pounds (80 pieces) of plastic in its stomach in Songkhla province, Thailand.

June 4 (1896) Henry Ford takes his first Ford through the streets of Detroit. (1917) American men begin registering for the draft. (1942) Battle of Midway begins. It is Japan’s first major defeat in WWII. (1945) US, Soviet Union, Britain and France agree to divide up occupied Germany. (1973) A patent for the ATM is granted to Don Wetzel, Tom Barnes and George Chastain. (1984) DNA is successfully cloned from an extinct animal. (1990) Dr. Jack Kevorkian assists an Oregon woman to commit suicide, beginning a national debate over the right to die. (1998) Terry Nichols is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing. (2012) US drone attack kills 15 militants in Pakistan, including high ranking al-Qaeda official, Abu Yahya al-Libi. (2019) Deforestation of the Amazon forest in Brazil the fastest for a decade as 740 square kilometers cleared in 30 days according to Brazilian space research institute.

June 5 (1876) Bananas become popular in the US, at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. (1937) Henry Ford initiates a 32 hour work week. (1941) World War II: At least 4,000 people who hid in a tunnel die after a Japanese air attack on the Chinese city of Chongqing. (1964) Rolling Stones first US concert tour (with Bobby Goldsboro and Bobby Vee) debuts in San Bernadino, California. (1968) Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan shoots Robert F. Kennedy three times, who dies the next day, and wounds five others at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. (1975) Egyptian president Anwar Sadat reopens Suez Canal (closed since 1967). (1981) AIDS Epidemic officially begins when US Centers for Disease Control reports on pneumonia affecting five homosexual men in Los Angeles. (1988) Kay Cottee sails into Sydney as the first woman to circle the globe alone. (1991) Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev receives his 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. (2019) Average person ingests 50,000 pieces of microplastic a year and breathes in similar amount according to first-ever study published in journal “Environmental Science and Technology”.

Thank you for reading my article. These are merely my thoughts and insights based on the facts. I use only verified sources. No fake news here. I write about a variety of subjects, mainly things I want to research and know more about. You can check out my website – Small Village Life at smallvillagelife.com, where I share useful articles and news.

Wendy writes for the United States Press Agency and is a former columnist with the Fulton County Expositor, Wauseon, Ohio.