May 30 At Rouen in English-controlled Normandy, France, Joan of Arc, the peasant girl who became the savior of France, is burned at the stake for heresy. – 1431. Former U.S. president William Howard Taft dedicates the Lincoln Memorial on the Washington Mall. At the time, Taft was serving as
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
There were smiles, cheers, and a few tears, when Aurora’s longest-serving teacher was feted. Mayor of Aurora, Richard Irvin joined the students and staff members of Holy Angels School to bid farewell to Laura Waegner, 79, who has taught at the school for the past 54 years. Her first year
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. Japanese mountaineer, Junko Tabei, becomes the first woman to reach the summit
May 9 U.S. president Woodrow Wilson issues a presidential proclamation that officially establishes the first National Mother’s Day holiday to celebrate America’s mothers. – 1914. May 10 Thanks to an army of thousands of Chinese and Irish immigrants, who laid 2,000 miles of track, the Nation’s first transcontinental railway line
May 2 General Motors Corporation (GM), which will become the world’s largest automotive firm, acquires Chevrolet Motor Company. – 1918. Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks, is killed by U.S. forces during a raid on his compound hideout in Pakistan. – 2011. May 3 Four
April 25 The New York Times declares the struggle for an eight-hour work-day to be “un-American” and calls public demonstrations for the shorter hours “labor disturbances brought about by foreigners.” Other publications declare that an eight-hour work-day day would bring about “loafing and gambling, rioting, debauchery, and drunkenness.” – 1886.
April 18 Missouri is hit by a string of deadly tornadoes and 151 residents die, including 99 in the town of Marshfield. – 1880. At 5:13 a.m., an earthquake estimated at close to 8.0 on the Richter scale strikes San Francisco, Calif. and kills hundreds of residents when it topples
April 11 Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France and one of the greatest military leaders in history, abdicates the throne, and, in the Treaty of Fontainebleau, is banished to the Mediterranean island of Elba. – 1814. Approximately 25,000 marchers in Watsonville, Calif. show support for United Farm Workers organizing campaign among
Saturday, April 6, the Aurora and Fox Valley community are invited to Aurora Central Catholic High School, 1255 N. Edgelawn Dr. (corner Edgelawn & Indian Trail), Aurora, 8 a.m.-noon, for the “75th Kiwanis Pancake Day.” The Kiwanis Club of Aurora in its 108 th year presents this annual breakfast event
April 4 Only 31 days after assuming office, William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, dies of pneumonia at the White House. – 1841. Just after 6 p.m. April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony outside his second-story room
March 28 Martin Luther King, Jr., leads a march of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn.. Violence during the march persuades him to return the following week to Memphis, where he was assassinated. – 1968. At 4 a.m. the worst accident in the history of the U.S. nuclear power industry
March 21 U.S. president Jimmy Carter informs a group of U.S. athletes that, in response to the December 1979 Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, the United States will boycott the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. It marked the only time that the United States boycotted the Olympic Games. – 1980. March 22
March 14 The Federal Bureau of Investigation institutes the “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list in an effort to publicize particularly dangerous fugitives. The creation of the program arose out of a wire service news story in 1949 about the toughest guys the FBI wanted to capture. The story drew so
March 7 Twenty-nine-year-old Alexander Graham Bell receives a patent for his revolutionary new invention, the telephone. – 1876. More than 3,000 unemployed auto workers, led by the Communist Party of America, brave the cold in Dearborn, Mich. to demand jobs and relief from Henry Ford. The marchers got too close
February 29 Hattie McDaniel wins Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Mammy, in Gone with the Wind at the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards. McDaniel was the first African American to be honored with an Oscar. – 1940. March 1 In Salem Village in the
February 22 Spanish minister Do Luis de Onis and U.S. secretary of state John Quincy Adams sign the Florida Purchase Treaty, in which Spain agrees to cede the remainder of its old province of Florida to the United States. – 1819. In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic
February 15 Toy store owner and inventor Morris Michtom places two stuffed bears in his shop window and advertises them as Teddy bears. Michtom earlier had petitioned U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt for permission to use his nickname, Teddy. The president agreed and, before long, other toy manufacturers began turning out
February 8 Following the Russian rejection of a Japanese plan to divide Manchuria and Korea into spheres of influence, Japan launches a surprise naval attack against Port Arthur, a Russian naval base in China. The Russian fleet was decimated. – 1904. A severe blizzard in New England finally subsides, and
February 1 The Collar Laundry Union forms in Troy, N.Y.; raises earnings for female laundry workers from $2. to $14. a week. – 1864. The first portion of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, is published. Today, the OED is
