Trending
By The Associated Press
Today in History
Today is Thursday, May 27, the 147th day of 2021. There are 218 days left in the year.
Todayís Highlight in History:
On May 27, 1941, the British Royal Navy sank the German battleship Bismarck off France with a loss of some 2,000 lives, three days after the Bismarck sank the HMS Hood with the loss of more than 1,400 lives. Amid rising world tensions, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed an ìunlimited national emergencyî during a radio address from the White House.
On this date:
In 1861, Chief Justice Roger Taney, sitting as a federal circuit court judge in Baltimore, ruled that President Abraham Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus (Lincoln disregarded the ruling).
In 1896, 255 people were killed when a tornado struck St. Louis, Missouri, and East St. Louis, Illinois.
In 1933, the Chicago Worldís Fair, celebrating ìA Century of Progress,î officially opened. Walt Disneyís Academy Award-winning animated short ìThe Three Little Pigsî was first released.
In 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, unanimously struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, a key component of President Franklin D. Rooseveltís ìNew Dealî legislative program.
In 1937, the newly completed Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County, California, was opened to pedestrian traffic (vehicles began crossing the next day).
In 1942, Doris ìDorieî Miller, a cook aboard the USS West Virginia, became the first African-American to receive the Navy Cross for displaying ìextraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safetyî during Japanís attack on Pearl Harbor.
In 1964, independent Indiaís first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died.
In 1968, the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. OíBrien, upheld the conviction of David OíBrien for destroying his draft card outside a Boston courthouse, ruling that the act was not protected by freedom of speech.
In 1993, five people were killed in a bombing at the Uffizi museum of art in Florence, Italy; some three dozen paintings were ruined or damaged.
In 1994, Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia to the emotional cheers of thousands after spending two decades in exile.
-- -- --