May 11
Nationwide railway strike begins in Pullman, Ill. and 260,000 railroad workers ultimately joined the strike to protest wage cuts by the Pullman Palace Car Co.. – 1894.
A massive storm sends millions of tons of topsoil flying from across the parched Great Plains region of the United States to as far east as New York, Boston, and Atlanta. This storm is one of the worst, and far reaching storms of the Dust Bowl. – 1934.
May 12
The dead body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s baby is found more than two months after he was kidnapped from his family’s Hopewell, N.J., mansion. Lindbergh, who became the first worldwide celebrity five years earlier when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis across the Atlantic Ocean, and his wife, Anne, discovered a ransom note in their 20-month-old child’s empty room March 1. The ransom note demanded $50,000 in barely literate English. – 1932.
May 13
The U.S. Congress overwhelmingly votes in favor of U.S. president James K. Polk’s request to declare war on Mexico in a dispute over Texas. Under the threat of war, the United States had refrained from annexing Texas after the latter won independence from Mexico in 1836. – 1846.
May 14
One year after the United States doubled its territory with the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition leaves St. Louis, Mo., on a mission to explore the Northwest from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. – 1804.
In Tel Aviv, Jewish Agency chairman David Ben-Gurion proclaims the State of Israel, which establishes the first Jewish state in 2,000 years. – 1948.
Skylab, America’s first space station, is successfully launched into an orbit around the earth. – 1973.
May 15
The Seven Years War, a global conflict known in America as the French and Indian War, officially begins when England declares war on France. However, fighting and skirmishes between England and France had been going on in North America for many years. – 1756.
May 16
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out its first awards (Oscars), at a dinner party for approximately 250 individuals held in the Blossom Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Calif.. – 1929.
May 17
U.S. Supreme Court outlaws segregation in public schools. – 1954.
Marcia Kadish, 56, and Tanya McCloskey, 52, of Malden, Mass., marry at Cambridge City Hall in Massachusetts, to become the first legally-married same-sex partners in the United States. Over the course of the day, 77 other same-sex couples tied the knot across the state, and hundreds more applied. – 2004.