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.
Category: Today
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.
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Portugal, Timor, May 20
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.
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May 19, Oscar Wilde
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.
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May 17 Watergate
On May 17, 1973, televised hearings regarding the Watergate scandal began in the United States Senate.
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May 16 events
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.”