May 20
The U.S. Congress passes the Homestead Act which allows adults over the age of 21, male and female, to claim 160 acres of land from the public domain. Eligible persons had to cultivate the land and improve it by building a barn or house, and live on the claim for five years, at which time the land became theirs with a $10. filing fee. – 1862.
San Francisco businessman Levi Strauss and Reno, Nev., tailor Jacob Davis are given a patent to create work pants reinforced with metal rivets, which marks the birth of one of the world’s most famous garments: Blue jeans. – 1873.
The Railway Labor Act took effect today. It was the first federal legislation protecting workers’ rights to form unions. – 1926.
May 21
In Washington, D.C., humanitarians Clara Barton and Adolphus Solomons found the American National Red Cross, an organization established to provide humanitarian aid to victims of wars and natural disasters. – 1881.
Connecticut becomes the first state to pass a law regulating motor vehicles by limiting their speed to 12 mph in cities and 15 mph on country roads. – 1901.
American pilot Charles A. Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget Field in Paris, to successfully complete the first solo, nonstop transatlantic flight and the first nonstop flight between New York to Paris, which took 33½ hours. – 1927.
May 22
A massive wagon train, made up of 1,000 settlers and 1,000 head of cattle, sets off down the Oregon Trail from Independence, Mo., known as the “Great Emigration.” -1843.
Civil Service Retirement Act of 1920 gives federal workers a pension. – 1920.
May 23
An estimated 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, strike in the Philadelphia area. Among the issues: 60-hour work weeks, including night hours, for the children. – 1903.
Famed fugitives, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, are killed in a police ambush near Sailes, La.. A contingent of officers from Texas and Louisiana set up along the highway, waiting for Bonnie and Clyde to appear, and then unload a two-minute fusillade of 167 bullets at their car, to kill the criminal couple. – 1934.
Ten thousand strikers at Toledo, Ohio’s Auto-Lite plant repel police who have come to break up their strike for union recognition. The next day, two strikers are killed and 15 wounded when National Guard machine gun units open fire. Two weeks later the company recognized the union and agreed to a five percent raise. – 1934.
A tsunami caused by an earthquake off the coast of Chile moves across the Pacific Ocean and kills 61 in Hilo, Hawaii. The massive 8.5-magnitude quake kills 180 In Japan and thousands in Chile. – 1960.
May 24
After 14 years of construction and the deaths of 27 workers, the Brooklyn Bridge over New York’s East River opens. Newspapers call it “the eighth wonder of the world.” – 1883.
A referee’s call disallowed an apparent goal for Peru in a soccer match between Peru and Argentina, a qualifying game for the 1964 Olympics. The stadium crowd went wild and the resulting panic and crowd-control measures taken causes a stampede in which more than 300 fans were killed and another 500 were injured in the violent melee that followed at National Stadium in Lima, Peru. – 1964.
Nearly 2,300 members of the United Rubber Workers, on strike for 10 months against five Bridgestone-Firestone plants, agree to return to work without a contract. They had been fighting demands for 12-hour shifts and wage increases tied to productivity gains – 1995.
May 25
With George Washington presiding, the Constitutional Convention formally convenes on this day in 1787. The convention faced a daunting task: The peaceful overthrow of the new American government as it had been defined by the Articles of Confederation. – 1787.
American Airlines Flight 191, with 271 aboard, raises its nose during the initial stage of the takeoff and an engine under the left wing breaks off with its pylon assembly and falls to the runway at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Moments later, the aircraft crashes into an open field about a half-mile from its takeoff point, and kills all 271 aboard and two employees at a nearby repair garage. It was the worst domestic air crash in U.S. history. – 1979.
May 26
One hundred thousand steel workers and miners in mines owned by steel companies strike in seven states. The Memorial Day Massacre, in which 10 strikers were killed by police at Republic Steel in Chicago, took place four days later, May 30. – 1937.