Sir Thomas More’s resignation as Lord Chancellor on May 16, 1532, did not provoke a riot in the streets or a dramatic rupture in the Tudor court—but it marked, with grave finality, the moment when one of England’s most brilliant minds stepped away from…
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The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, the first such trial in American history, was a highly contentious and politically charged event that culminated in his acquittal on May 16, 1868. Johnson, who ascended to the presidency following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, quickly found himself…
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On May 15, 1911, the United States Supreme Court delivered one of the most consequential antitrust decisions in American history, ruling in Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States that John D. Rockefeller’s oil empire had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and…
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On May 15, 1536, Anne Boleyn—Queen of England, second wife of Henry VIII, and mother of the future Elizabeth I—stood trial at the Tower of London. The charges were staggering: adultery, incest, and high treason. The outcome was foreordained. Condemned by a hand-picked jury…
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On May 15, 1940, in San Bernardino, California, Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s restaurant, marking the birth of what would become a global fast-food empire. This pioneering establishment, known then as “McDonald’s Bar-B-Q,” was initially a carhop drive-in with an expansive menu of…
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On May 14, 1610, France lost the king who had ended its religious wars and gained a child monarch who inherited both his throne and his unfinished work. Henry IV, the first Bourbon king of France, was assassinated in Paris by François Ravaillac, a…
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In a bizarre legal footnote to American religious history—and a final echo of the spectral hysteria that once gripped colonial New England—the last case resembling a witchcraft trial in the United States began not in the 17th century, but in 1878. Nearly two centuries…
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The 1948 Arab-Israeli War, also known as the War of Independence or Nakba , depending on one’s perspective, erupted immediately following the declaration of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, and lasted until early 1949. It marked the culmination of decades of tensions between…
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On May 13, 1862, Robert Smalls turned the logic of slavery against the Confederacy. Smalls was 23 years old, enslaved in Charleston, South Carolina, and working aboard the Planter, a Confederate transport steamer used to move troops, supplies, ammunition, and artillery through Charleston Harbor.…
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On May 13, 1981, as Pope John Paul II greeted the crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square, Mehmet Ali Ağca emerged from the throng, brandishing a handgun. In a matter of seconds, shots rang out, shattering the tranquility of the moment and plunging the square…
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