Today In History. What Happened This Day In History
A Timeline Of Events That Occurred On This Day In History
A chronological timetable of historical events that occurred on this day in history. Historical facts of the day in the areas of military, politics, science, music, sports, arts, entertainment and more. Discover what happened today in history.
Today in History
May 10
| 1285 | Philip III of Spain is succeeded by Philip IV ("the Fair"). | |
| 1503 | Christopher Columbus discovers the Cayman Islands. | |
| 1676 | Bacon's Rebellion begins in the New World. | |
| 1773 | To keep the troubled East India Company afloat, Parliament passes the Tea Act, taxing all tea in the American colonies. | |
| 1774 | Louis XVI succeeds his father Louis XV as King of France. | |
| 1775 | American troops capture Fort Ticonderoga from the British. | |
| 1794 | Elizabeth, the sister of King Louis XVI, is beheaded. | |
| 1796 | Napoleon Bonaparte wins a brilliant victory against the Austrians at Lodi bridge in Italy. | |
| 1840 | Mormon leader Joseph Smith moves his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri. | |
| 1857 | The Bengal Army in India revolts against the British. | |
| 1863 | General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson succumbs to illness and wounds received during the Battle of Chancellorsville. | |
| 1865 | Union cavalry troops capture Confederate President Jefferson Davis near Irvinville, Georgia. | |
| 1869 | The Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads meet in Promontory, Utah. | |
| 1859 | French emperor Napoleon III leaves Paris to join his troops preparing to battle the Austrian army in Northern Italy. | |
| 1872 | Victoria Woodhull becomes first woman nominated for U.S. president. | |
| 1917 | Allied ships get destroyer escorts to fend off German attacks in the Atlantic. | |
| 1924 | J. Edgar Hoover is appointed head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. | |
| 1928 | WGY-TV in Schenectady, New York, begins regular television programming. | |
| 1933 | Nazis begin burning books by "unGerman" writers such as Heinrich Mann and Erich Maria Remarque, author of All Quiet on the Western Front. | |
| 1940 | German forces begin a blitzkrieg of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, skirting France's "impenetrable" Maginot Line. | |
| 1940 | Winston Churchill succeeds Neville Chamberlain as British Prime Minister. | |
| 1941 | England's House of Commons is destroyed during the worst of the London Blitz: 550 German bombers drop 100,000 incendiary bombs. | |
| 1960 | The USS Nautilus completes first circumnavigation of globe underwater. | |
| 1994 | Nelson Mandela is sworn in as South Africa's first black president. | |
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Born on May 10 |
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| 1730 | George Ross, signer of the Declaration of Independence. | |
| 1813 | Montgomery Blair, lawyer. | |
| 1838 | John Wilkes Booth, actor, assassin of President Abraham Lincoln. | |
| 1886 | Karl Barth, Swiss theologian. | |
| 1899 | Fred Astaire (Frederick Austerlitz), American dancer and actor. | |
| 1902 | David O. Selznick, film producer (Gone with the Wind, Rebecca). | |
| 1908 | Carl Albert, U.S. politician. | |
| 1920 | Richard Adams, English novelist (Watership Down). | |
| 1937 | Arthur Kopit, American playwright. | |
| 1944 | Judith Jamison, American ballerina. | |
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