Today in History

Boris Yeltsin is elected the president of Russia.

President Richard Nixon agrees to turn over 1,200 pages of edited Watergate transcripts.

John Hinckley Jr., attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan.

Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay become the first men to reach the top of Mount Everest.

C. F. Blair becomes the first man to fly over the North Pole in single-engine plane.

The German Army completes its encirclement of the Kharkov region of the Soviet Union.

The U.S. Supreme Court rules organized baseball is a sport not subject to antitrust laws.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (1961-1963).

U.S. forces invade the Dominican Republic.

The premier of the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring) in Paris causes rioting in the theater.

The Indianapolis 500 is run for the first time.

T.H. White, British writer (The Sword in the Stone).

Bob Hope, comedian and actor.

Josef von Sternberg, film director (Blue Angel).

Oswald Spengler, German philosopher of history and author of The Decline of the West.

G.K. Chesterton, English writer.

Confederate general P.G.T. Beauregard retreats to Tupelo, Mississippi.

A patent for lifting vessels is granted to Abraham Lincoln.

Wisconsin becomes the thirtieth state.

Rhode Island becomes the last of the original thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution.

Patrick Henry, American revolutionary and governor of Virginia.

South Carolina is formally incorporated as a royal colony of England.

Charles II is restored to the English throne, succeeding the short-lived Commonwealth.

Charles II, king of England (1660-1685).

Constantinople falls to Muhammad II, ending the Byzantine Empire.