On May 21, 1979, the White Night riots erupted in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.
On May 21, 1981, Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O’Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.
On May 20, 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte reinstated slavery in the French colonies, revoking its abolition in the French Revolution.
On May 20, 1927, Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, at 7:52 am, on the world’s first solo non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. He would touch down at 10:22 pm the next day at Le Bourget Field in Paris.
On May 20, 1932, Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to begin the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot, landing in Ireland the next day.
On May 20, 1953, Gen. Henri Navarre assumed command of French Union Forces in Vietnam, decaring, “Now we can see [success in Vietnam] clearly, like light at the end of a tunnel.”
On May 20, 1995, President Bill Clinton permanently closed the two-block stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to all non-pedestrian traffic as a security measure, calling the move “a responsible security step necessary to preserve our freedom, not part of a long-term restriction of our freedom.”
On May 19, 1795, Josiah Bartlett, a New Hampshire Patriot and signatory of the Declaration of Independence who also served as the state’s governor and Supreme Court chief justice, died.
On May 19, 1897, Oscar Wilde was released from jail after two years of hard labor. In 1891, the Marquess of Queensbury denounced Wilde as a homosexual. Wilde, who was involved with the marquess’ son, sued for libel but lost when evidence supported the marquess’ allegations. Because homosexuality was a crime in England, Wilde was arrested. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but a second jury sentenced him to two years. After his release, Wilde fled to Paris and began writing The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). Wilde died just three years after his release.
On May 19, 1935, T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, died as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident six days earlier. Sent to join the Arabian army of Hussein’s son Faisal as a liaison officer in 1916, Lawrence proving a gifted military strategist, helping the Arabs launch an effective guerrilla war against the Ottoman Turks. After the war, he lobbied hard for independence for Arab countries, appearing at the Paris peace conference in Arab robes.
On May 18, 1989, a crowd of protesters, estimated to number more than one million, marched through the streets of Beijing calling for a more democratic political system. Less than a month later, Chinese troops would forcibly remove protesters from Tiananmen Square, killing an estimated 2,500 and injuring as many as 10,000.
On May 18, 1917, six weeks after the United States formally entered the First World War, the U.S Congress passed the Selective Service Act, giving the president the power to conscript soldiers. Of the almost 4.8 million Americans who eventually served in the war, some 2.8 million were drafted.
On May 18, 1652, Rhode Island passed the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.
On May 17, 1792, the New York Stock Exchange was formed.
On May 17, 1954, in a major civil rights victory, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional.
On May 17, 1973, the U.S. Senate’s televised hearings into the Watergate scandal began.
On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to legalize same-sex marriage.
On May 16, 1717, writer Francois-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, was imprisoned in the Bastille for nearly a year when his epic poem, La Henriade, infuriated the government.
On May 16, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising ended. During the uprising, some 300 hundred German soldiers were killed, while thousands of Warsaw Jews who perished. Virtually all the former ghetto residents who survived the battle were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp and were murdered by the end of the war.
On May 16, 1918, Congress passed the Sedition Act of 1918, making criticism of the government a criminal offense. Specifically verboten was the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language” about the U.S. government, its flag, or its armed forces or language that could cause others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt. Those convicted of violating the act received sentences of imprisonment for 5 to 20 years. The act was repealed on December 13, 1920.
On May 16, 1966, the Communist Party of China issued the “May 16 Notice,” beginning the Cultural Revolution.