Today in History

Jacques Chirac is elected president of France.

The Soviet Union announces it will not participate in Summer Olympics planned for Los Angeles.

Boxer Muhammad Ali is indicted for refusing induction in U.S. Army.

President Dwight Eisenhower orders the National Guard out of Little Rock as Ernest Green becomes the first black to graduate from an Arkansas public school.

Beth Henley, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright (Crimes of the Heart).

The final surrender of German forces is celebrated as VE (Victory Europe) day.

The Battle of the Coral Sea between the Japanese Navy and the U.S. Navy ends.

Peter Benchley, novelist (Jaws, The Deep).

Thomas Pynchon, novelist (Gravity’s Rainbow).

Mahatma Gandhi—actual name Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi—begins a hunger strike to protest British oppression in India.

Gary Snyder, beat poet.

Theodore Sorensen, advisor to John F. Kennedy.

Sloan Wilson, American author (The man in the Gray Flannel Suit, A Summer Place).