Category: Today

On May 25, 1810, citizens of Buenos Aires expelled Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros starting the Argentine War of Independence.

On May 25, 1925, John T. Scopes was indicted for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which made it unlawful to teach evolution in any state-funded school. The Scopes Trial — formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial — drew intense national publicity, as reporters flocked to Dayton, Tennessee, to cover the big-name lawyers representing each side. William Jennings Bryan, three-time presidential candidate for the Democrats, argued for the prosecution, while Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, spoke for Scopes. Scopes was found guilty, but the verdict was overturned on a technicality and he went free.

On May 24, 1775, John Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress. Hancock’s involvement with Samuel Adams and his radical group, the Sons of Liberty, won the wealthy merchant the dubious distinction of being one of only two Patriots (the other being Sam Adams) that the Redcoats marching to Lexington in April 1775 to confiscate Patriot arms were ordered to arrest. When British General Thomas Gage offered amnesty to the colonists holding Boston under siege, he excluded those same two men from his offer.

On May 23, 1788, South Carolina became the 8th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

Other May 23 events include:

* 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar entered Mérida, where he was proclaimed El Libertador (“The Liberator”), leading the invasion of Venezuela.

* 1900: Sergeant William Harvey Carney became the first African American to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism in a Civil War battle fought 37 years prior, in 1863.

* 1958: Birthday of American comedian and game show host Drew Carey.

French economist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Frédéric Passy was born on May 20, 1822. English economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill was born exactly 16 years earlier.

On May 20, 2002, Portugal recognized the independence of East Timor, formally ending 23 years of Indonesian rule and three years of provisional UN administration. Portugal was the former colonizer of East Timor until 1976.

On May 19, 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from Reading Prison. His “Ballad of Reading Gaol” would later become a classic, and his only great work following his imprisonment.

On May 17, 1973, televised hearings regarding the Watergate scandal began in the United States Senate.

On May 16, 1843, one thousand pioneers from Elm Grove, Missouri, set off for the Pacific Northwest, blazing what became known as the “Oregon Trail.”

On May 15, 1776, the Virginia Convention instructed its Continental Congress delegation to propose a resolution of independence from Great Britain, paving the way for the United States Declaration of Independence.

On May 14, 1787, delegates convened a Constitutional Convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to write a new Constitution for the United States. George Washington presided over the convention.

On the same day in 1887, Lysander Spooner — author of the pamphlets titled “The Constitution of No Authority” — died.

On May 13, 1888, Brazil abolished slavery with the passage of the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”).