Today in History

Osama Bin Laden is killed in Abbottabad Pakistan by US Navy SEALS in Operation Neptune Spear.

The Tass News Agency reports the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident.

Students from Kent State University riot in downtown Kent, Ohio, in protest of the American invasion of Cambodia.

In the second day of battle, U.S. Marines, with the support of naval fire, continue their attack on a North Vietnamese Division at Dai Do.

Fidel Castro announces there will be no more elections in Cuba.

Francis Gary Powers’ U-2 spy plane is shot down over Russia.

Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize for her book of poetry called Annie Allen.

North Korea is established.

Martin Bormann, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, escapes the Führerbunker as the Red Army advances on Berlin.

The Messerschmitt Me 262, the first combat jet, makes its first flight.

The film Citizen Kane—directed by and starring Orson Welles—opens in New York.

Bobbie Ann Mason, American writer (Shiloh and Other Stories, In Country).

President Franklin Roosevelt signs an act of neutrality, keeping the United States out of World War II.

The Philippine legislature accepts a U.S. proposal for independence.

The Empire State Building opens in New York.

Adolf Hitler holds his first Nazi meeting in Berlin.

Terry Southern, novelist and screenwriter (Dr. Strangelove, Easy Rider).

Joseph Heller, American author best known for Catch-22, originally published in 1961.

Glenn Ford, actor (The Blackboard Jungle, 1955).

The British luxury liner Lusitania leaves New York Harbor for a voyage to Europe. A week later it would be torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.

Kate Smith, singer famous for her rendition of “God Bless America.”

The U.S. Navy under Commodore George Dewey defeats the Spanish fleet at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines.

Mark Clark, U.S. Army general during World War II.

James Graham, inventor of the first naval aircraft-carrying ship and first man to film a total eclipse of the sun.

President Rutherford B. Hayes withdraws all Federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

Reconstruction in the South begins with black voter registration.

The Battle of Chancellorsville begins as Union General Joe Hooker starts his three-pronged attack against Confederate General Robert E. Lee.

Louis-Marie-Hilaire Bernigaud, French chemist, inventor of rayon.

Mother (Mary Harris) Jones, reformer and labor organizer.

The state of Virginia passes a law requiring all freed slaves to leave the state, or risk either imprisonment or deportation.

Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington.

Benjamin Henry Latrobe, architect of the U.S. Capitol.

Philippus Paracelsus, Swiss physician, alchemist, astrologer and “father of toxicology.”

Christopher Columbus convinces Queen Isabella to fund expedition to the West Indies.

King Albert is murdered by his nephew John, because he refused his share of the Habsburg lands.

Theodosius II succeeds to the throne of Constantinople.