Today in History

The Australian aircraft carrier Melbourne slices the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in half off the shore of South Vietnam.

Senator Joseph McCarthy charges that there are communists working in the CIA and atomic weapons plants.

Elizabeth II is crowned queen of England at Westminster Abbey.

Jamaican-born track star Herb McKenley sets a new world record for the 400 yard dash.

Italian citizens vote by referendum for a republic.

Allied “shuttle bombing” of Germany begins, with bombers departing from Italy and landing in the Soviet Union.

The American aircraft carriers Enterprise, Hornet and Yorktown move into their battle positions for the Battle of Midway.

Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek captures Peking, China, in a bloodless takeover.

The United States grants full citizenship to American Indians.

Barbara Pym (Mary Crampton), English novelist (Less Than Angels, Quartet in Autumn).

Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, becomes the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways. Tragically, he becomes Britain’s first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane breaks up in midair.

Johnny Weissmuller, American gold-winning Olympic swimmer who portrayed Tarzan in films.

Robert Morris Page, physicist, inventor of pulse radar.

Grover Cleveland becomes the first American president to wed while in office.

The first baseball game under electric lights is played in Fort Wayne, Indiana.