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).

The first transatlantic flight by a navy seaplane takes-off.

Mary Lou Williams, jazz pianist and composer.

Roberto Rossellini, Italian film director.

U.S. Marines land in Tangier, North Africa, to protect the Belgian legation.

Edmund Wilson, American critic and essayist.

Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States (1945-1953).

Union troops arrive at Spotsylvania Court House to find the Confederates waiting for them.

General ‘Stonewall’ Jackson repulses the Federals at the Battle of McDowell, in the Shenendoah Valley.

The first major battle of the Mexican War is fought at Palo Alto, Texas.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American pianist.

Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss philanthropist, founder of the Red Cross and YMCA, first recipient (jointly) of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The United States Post Office is established.

Miguel Hidalgo, Mexican nationalist.

Alain Rene Lesage, French writer (The Adventures of Gil Blas, Turcaret).

An act of supremacy defines Queen Elizabeth I as the supreme governor of the church of England.

Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi River which he calls Rio de Espiritu Santo.

Jack Cade’s Rebellion–Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.