May 21
Today's:

0996 - Sixteen year old Otto III was crowned the Roman Emperor.

1471 - King Henry VI was killed in the tower of London. Edward IV took the throne.

1536 - The Reformation was officially adopted in Geneva, Switzerland.

1542 - Hernando de Soto died along the Mississippi River while searching for gold.

1602 - Martha's Vineyard was first sighted by Captain Bartholomew Gosnold.

1688 - The English poet Alexander Pope was born.

1790 - Paris was divided into 48 zones.

1819 - Bicycles were first seen in the U.S. in New York City. They were originally known as "swift walkers."

1832 - In the U.S., the Democratic Party held its first national convention.

1840 - New Zealand was declared a British colony.

1856 - Lawrence, Kansas was captured by pro-slavery forces.

1863 - The siege of the Confederate Port Hudson, LA, began.

1881 - The American branch of the Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton.

1881 - The United States Lawn Tennis Association was formed in New York City.

1891 - Peter Jackson and Jim Corbett fought for 61 rounds only to end in a draw.

1906 - Louis H. Perlman received his patent for the demountable tire-carrying rim.

1922 - The cartoon, "On the Road to Moscow," by Rollin Kirby won a Pulitzer Prize. It was the first cartoon awarded the Pulitzer.

1924 - Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a "thrill killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb. The killers were students at the University of Chicago.

1927 - Charles A. Lindberg completed the first solo nonstop airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip began May 20.

1929 - The first automatic electric stock quotation board was used by Sutro and Company of New York City.

1934 - Oskaloosa, IA, became the first city in the U.S. to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1947 - Joe DiMaggio and five of his New York Yankee teammates were fined $100 because they had not fulfilled contract requirements to do promotional duties for the team.

1956 - The U.S. exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean over Bikini Atoll.

1961 - Governor Patterson declared martial law in Montgomery, AL.

1968 - The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, was last heard from. The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.

1970 - The National Guard was mobilized to quell disturbances at Ohio State University.

1980 - The movie "The Empire Strikes Back" was released.

1982 - The British landed in the Falkland Islands and fighting began.

1991 - In Madras, India, the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a bouquet of flowers that contained a bomb.

1998 - An expelled student, Kipland Kinkel, in Springfield, OR, killed 2 people and wounded 25 others with a semi-automatic rifle. Police also discovered that the boy had killed his parents before the rampage.

1998 - Microsoft and Sega announced that they are collaborating on a home video game system.

1998 - In Miami, FL, five abortion clinics were hit by an butyric acid-attacker. Today's: