May 22
1849: Abraham Lincoln was issued a patent for an invention to lift boats over obstacles in a river, the only patent ever issued to a U.S. president.
1869: Montana’s first recorded earthquake occurred in Helena.
1906: The Wright brothers were granted U.S. patent number 821,393 for their “Flying-Machine.”
1960: The strongest earthquake ever recorded, magnitude 9.5, hit southern Chile.
1990: Microsoft released the Windows 3.0 operating system.
May 23
1995: The first version of the Java programming language was released.
2013: The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed in Mount Vernon, Washington.
May 24
1830: Mary Had a Little Lamb by Sarah Josepha Hale was published in Boston.
1844: Samuel Morse sent the message “What hath God wrought” from the old Supreme Court chamber in the U.S. Capitol to his assistant, Alfred Vail, in Baltimore, Md., to inaugurate the first telegraph line.
1883: The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic after 14 years of construction.
1911: Born this day: Barbara West, English survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic (died 2007).
1940: Igor Sikorsky performed the first successful single-rotor helicopter flight.
May 25
1909: Actress Mary Pickford made her screen debut in Two Memories by D.W. Griffith.
1925: John T. Scopes was indicted in Dayton, Tenn., for teaching Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
1950: A Chicago street car crashed into a fuel truck, killing 34 people.
1953: The first public television station in the United States officially began broadcasting as KUHT from the campus of the University of Houston.
1961: President John F. Kennedy announced to a special joint session of Congress that it was his goal to put a man on the moon before 1970.
1968: The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Mo., was dedicated.
1977: The movie Star Wars was released.
May 26
1828: Feral child Kaspar Hauser was discovered wandering the streets of Nuremberg, Germany.
1864: Montana was organized as a U.S. territory.
1897: Dracula, a novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, was published.
1907: Iconic U.S. actor John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. (Died 1979.)
1938: The U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee began its first session.
1949: Born this day: Ward Cunningham, U.S. computer programmer, developed the first wiki
1977: Mountain climber George Willig of Queens, New York, climbed the south tower of the World Trade Center.
May 27
1789: First lady Martha Washington arrived at the new presidential residence in Philadelphia.
1927: The Ford Motor Company ceased manufacture of the Ford Model T and began to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
1930: The 1,046-feet-tall Chrysler Building in New York City, the tallest man-made structure at the time, opened to the public.
1933: The Walt Disney Company released the cartoon Three Little Pigs, with its hit song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”
1967: The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy was launched by Jacqueline Kennedy and her daughter, Caroline.
1986: Dragon Quest, the game credited as setting the template for role-playing video games, was released in Japan.
May 28
1892: John Muir organized the Sierra Club in San Francisco, Calif.
1934: The Dionne quintuplets were born to Oliva and Elzire Dionne near Callander, Ontario, Canada. They became the first quintuplets to survive infancy.
1937 German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen was founded.
1944: Born this day: Patricia Quinn, Irish actress (Rocky Horror Picture Show)
1945: Born this day: John Fogerty, U.S. singer-songwriter, guitarist, and producer (Creedence Clearwater Revival).
1999: Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper was put back on display in Milan, Italy, after 22 years of restoration work.