May 29
1736: Patrick Henry (“Give me liberty or give me death”) was born in Hanover County, Virginia.
1790: Rhode Island ratified the U.S. Constitution.
1848: Wisconsin was admitted as the 30th U.S. state.
1886: Pharmacist John Pemberton placed his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, in The Atlanta Journal.
1913: Igor Stravinsky’s ballet score The Rite of Spring received its premiere performance in Paris, France. The unconventional music provoked a riot.
1954: The first of the annual Bilderberg conferences took place at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, Netherlands.
1961: Born this day: Melissa Etheridge, U.S. singer-songwriter, guitarist, and activist, and John Miceli, drummer with Meat Loaf.
May 30
1868: Decoration Day (the predecessor of Memorial Day) was observed in the United States for the first time.
1899: Old West outlaw Pearl Hart, a woman, committed the last recorded stagecoach robbery, 30 miles southeast of Globe, Ariz.
1911: At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the first Indianapolis 500 ended, and Ray Harroun in his Marmon Wasp became the first winner of the 500-mile auto race.
1922: The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
May 31
1790: The United States enacted its first copyright statute, the Copyright Act of 1790.
1879: Gilmore’s Garden in New York was renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and opened to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.
1927: The last Ford Model T rolled off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
1929: The first talking Mickey Mouse cartoon, “The Karnival Kid,” was released.
June 1
1792: Kentucky was admitted as the 15th state of the United States.
1796: Tennessee was admitted as the 16th state of the United States.
1813: In a sea battle near Boston, Mass., James Lawrence, the mortally-wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, gave his final order: “Don’t give up the ship!”
1844: Julia Gardner married President John Tyler at the White House. He became the first president to marry while in office.
1916: Louis Brandeis became the first Jew appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, by President Woodrow Wilson.
1948: LP records were first demonstrated in Hollywood, Calif.
1974: The Heimlich maneuver for rescuing choking victims was published in the journal Emergency Medicine.
1980: Cable News Network (CNN) began broadcasting.
2009: General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the fourth largest U.S. bankruptcy in history.
June 2
1692: Bridget Bishop became the first person to go to trial in the Salem witch trials in Salem, Mass.
1835: P. T. Barnum began his first circus tour of the United States.
1896: Guglielmo Marconi applied for a patent for his newest invention, the radio.
1979: Pope John Paul II started his first official visit to his native Poland, becoming the first Pope to visit a communist country.
2004: Ken Jennings began his 74-game winning streak on the syndicated game show Jeopardy!.
June 3
1940: Franz Rademacher proposed plans to make Madagascar the “Jewish homeland,” an idea that had first been considered by 19th century journalist Theodor Herzl.
1968: Valerie Solanas, the author of SCUM Manifesto, tried to assassinate artist Andy Warhol by shooting him three times.
1988: Theodore Farabee, 43, of Libby, Mont., published his book A.D. 30: The Historian’s Account in which challenged many Christian traditions.
June 4
1876: An express train called the Transcontinental Express arrived in San Francisco, Calif., via the first transcontinental railroad, 83 hours and 39 minutes after leaving New York City.
1917: The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded.
1944: Born this day: Roger Ball, Scottish saxophonist and songwriter (Average White Band), and Michelle Phillips, U.S. singer-songwriter and actress (The Mamas & the Papas).