| In 1647, Massachusetts Bay banned Jesuit priests from the colony on penalty of death. The English Puritans who settled the colony feared the Jesuits because France and England were engaged in a bitter struggle for control of North America and that Jesuit missionaries had converted large numbers of Indians in Canada to Catholicism. Although no Jesuit was executed for defying the ban, the legacy of anti-Catholicism in Massachusetts survived for generations. |
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| It was on this date, May 26, 1647, that the first witch was hanged in America for the crime of witchcraft. Alse Young was arrested, tried for this capital offense in Windsor, Connecticut, and hanged at Meeting House Square in Hartford, on what is now the site of the Old State House. |
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| From Meriwether Lewis' journal: "In the after part of the day I also walked out and ascended the river hills which I found sufficiently fortiegueing. On arriving to the summit one of the highest points in the neighbourhood I thought myself well repaid for any labour; as from this point I beheld the Rocky Mountains for the first time, I could only discover a few of the most elivated points above the horizon." |
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| In 1857, Robert Mushet, an English metallurgist, received a U.S. patent for a method of manufacturing steel which improved the Bessemer process for making steel that would be more malleable. His process added manganese in the form of spiegeleisen, an alloy of iron and manganese derived from a Prussian iron ore consisting essentially of a double carbonate or iron and manganese. The softness or hardness of the steel could be regulated by diminishing or increasing the proportion of the triple compound of iron, carbon and manganese. He chose to use the alloy of the Prussian ore because it was more free of sulphur, phosphorus and silicon. Mushet also discovered tungsten steel, an alloy with about 8% tungsten. |
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| The first vote, on article eleven which charged Johnson with bringing disrespect to Congress and its policies on Reconstruction, was held on May 16. The vote on the article was one vote short (35 to 19) of the two thirds majority needed for conviction. The trial was then recessed for ten days. On May 26 the Senate also failed by the same margin (35 to 19) to convict Johnson on articles two and three. At this point the Senate voted to adjourn without considering the remaining articles. |
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| One hundred and eight people attended the first meeting in 1879, and the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) was born. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the AIA's Congressional Charter, which was later renewed under the administration of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. |
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| Chicago's Ed Walsh hurls a rain-shortened 5-inning no-hitter against New York. In a steady drizzle, New York is down 4-1 when Manager Clark Griffith lifts starter Al Orth and inserts himself. Hoping to have the game washed out, Griffith loads the bases and then serves a cripple to Walsh, who drives in two runs. The Sox figure two can play that game and, Billy Sullivan, who was on first with a walk, loafs home from 3rd and is tagged out. Umpire Jack Sheridan threatens a forfeiture if the shenanigans continue. Chicago scores two more in the 6th before rain washes out the game and the Sox win 8-1. |
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| Cardinal slugger Walton Cruise becomes the first slugger to hit a ball out of Braves Field when he parks one in the "Jury Box", the 25-cent stands in right field past the 402 foot mark. The next ball hit out of the park will come in 1921, when Cruise does it again, this time as a Brave. |
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| In the Tigers' 8-1 win over the White Sox, Ty Cobb becomes the first to collect 1,000 career extra base hits. He will finish with 1,139. |
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| On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford watched the fifteen millionth Model T Ford roll off the assembly line at his factory in Highland Park, Michigan. Since his "universal car" was the industrial success story of its age, the ceremony should have been a happy occasion. Yet Ford was probably wistful that day, too, knowing as he did that the long production life of the Model T was about to come to an end. He climbed into the car, a shiny black coupe, with his son, Edsel, the president of the Ford Motor Company. Together, they drove to the Dearborn Engineering Laboratory, fourteen miles away, and parked the T next to two other historic vehicles: the first automobile that Henry Ford built in 1896, and the 1908 prototype for the Model T. |
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| The race was to begin on March 3, 1928 in Los Angeles and finish near the end of May in New York City. The contestant with the least elapsed time was to recieve the first prize of $25,000. The race would be run in laps, following Highway 66 from its Los Angeles and continue to Oklahoma. The runners would then pass over the Mississippi River at St. Louis, go to Chicago, to New York State's Route 17, and finish in New York City. More than 20,000 spectators watched as the 55 survivors left for the final lap into New York City. Payne was the winner by over 15 hours when the coast-to-coast marathon ended in Madison Square Garden on May 26, 1928. It took five pairs of rubber-soled canvas shoes to cover 3, 422.3 miles. |
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| In 1931, a microfilm camera was patented by New York City banker, George L. McCarthy. He developed the first practical commercial microfilm use in the 1920's and was issued a patent in 1925 for his Checkograph machine, designed to make permanent film copies of all bank records to deter fraud. That device used motion picture film and a conveyor belt to photographchecks before they were returned to bank customers. In 1928 Eastman Kodak bought his invention and began to market it with McCarthy as president of Kodak's Recordak Division. With a perfected 35mm microfilm camera, Recordak in 1935 expanded and began filming and publishing the New York Times on microfilm. |
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| The Dunkirk evacuation began to save the British Expeditionary Force trapped by advancing German armies on the northern coast of France. Boats and vessels of all shapes and sizes ferried 200,000 British and 140,000 French and Belgian soldiers across the English Channel by June 2. |
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| In 1937, Philadelphia radio mogul, A. Atwater Kent offered to pay up to $25,000 for the restoration of the house. Renovation began. In the historic house, three hidden fireplaces were uncovered, the front stairway and dormer were replaced and the door leading from the kitchen to the back of the house was restored. The most notable change, however, was to the front of the house. The doorway in the front of the building was moved from the western to the eastern corner and a new window was installed. Construction was completed and all eight rooms of the house were open to the public on Flag Day, June 14, 1937. Atwater Kent then purchased the two adjacent properties to the west of the Betsy Ross House to develop a "civic garden." The entire property, including the historic house and courtyard, were given to the city of Philadelphia in 1941. |
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| In late May, whilst serving in the Mediterranean as part of Force H along with HMS Renown and the cruiser HMS Sheffield, she was called upon to search for the Bismarck in the Atlantic. On 26 May, her scout planes found the battleship. In the second attack, her torpedo planes hit Bismarck, damaging rudder machinery, making the enemy battleship virtually unmanoeuvrable, and allowing other British warships to close and sink her on the morning of May 27. |
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| Following its release as a single in 1950, "The Third Man Theme" spent eleven weeks at number one on Billboard's U.S. Best Sellers in Stores chart, from April 23 to July 8 . Its success led to a trend in releasing film theme music as singles. A guitar version by Guy Lombardo also sold strongly, and four other versions charted in the U.S. during 1950. |
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| An automobile accident in Oklahoma in January 1948 put Les out of action again for a year and a half; as an alternative to amputation, his right arm had to be set at a permanent right angle suitable for guitar playing. After his recovery, he teamed up with his soon-to-be second wife, a young country singer/guitarist named Colleen Summers whom he renamed Mary Ford, and reeled off a long string of spectacular multi-layered pop discs for Capitol, making smash hits out of jazz standards like "How High the Moon" and "Tiger Rag." |
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| The lyrics were written by a steel guitar player from Nashville named Tommy Durden. He was inspired by a newspaper story about a man who killed himself and left behind a note saying only, "I walk a lonely street." Another Nashville songwriter named Mae Boren Axton wrote the music, and Elvis' manager Tom Parker arranged for Elvis to receive a songwriting credit in exchange for singing it. |
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| In a singular performance, Harvey Haddix of the Pirates pitches a perfect game against Milwaukee for 12 innings, only to lose in the 13th. Felix Mantilla opens the last inning by reaching base on an error. A sacrifice and an intentional walk to Hank Aaron brings up Joe Adcock, who hits one out of the park in right-CF for an apparent 3-0 victory. Aaron pulls a "Merkle," leaving the field, and Adcock passes him on the basepaths. Both are called out as Mantilla scores. Lew Burdette goes all 13 innings for his 8th win, scattering 12 hits. As a consequence of the baserunning in the 13th, the Braves leave an National League-record one runner on base. Haddix's gem makes him the 9th pitcher to lose a no-hitter in extra innings; A combined effort of three Reds pitcher, on May 26, 1956, was the last. Making Haddix's effort even more remarkable is the fact that the Braves hitter knew what was coming. In 1993, Bob Buhl admitted that the Braves pitchers were stealing the signs from Smoky Burgess, who could not crouch down all the way. They would place a towel on the bullpen fence in such a way to signal fastball or breaking ball. |
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| USAF B-58 Hustler flown from Carswell Air Force Base, Tex., to Le Bourget, Paris, in record 6 hours 15 minutes, covering distance from New York to Paris in 3 hours 20 minutes. This flight commemorated the 34th anniversary of Charles A. Lindbergh's transatlantic crossing on May 20-21, 1927, and the opening of the 24th Paris International Air Show. |
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| Six months after "Stranger on the Shore" hit #1 in England, it went to #1 in the US, where Billboard named it the #1 single for the year 1962. It topped the charts there for 7 weeks. This was the first song by a British artist to top the US charts. |
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| In 1969, the Apollo 10 astronauts returned to Earth after a successful eight-day dress rehearsal for the first manned moon landing. Apollo 10 mission, launched May 18 , was a complete staging of the Apollo 11 mission without actually landing on the Moon. The mission was the second to orbit the Moon and the first to travel to the Moon with the entire Apollo spacecraft configuration. Astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene Cernan descended inside the Lunar Module to within 14 kilometers of the lunar surface (achieving the closest approach to the Moon before Apollo 11 landed two months later). Apollo 10 splashed down at 12:52 pm on May 26, less than 4 miles (6.4 km) from the target point and the recovery ship. |
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| The first round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) ends with President Richard M. Nixon and General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev signing the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty , the SALT Accord and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms. The ABM Treaty provides that the United States and Soviet Union may each have only two ABM deployment areas, which are restricted and located in such a way that they cannot provide the basis for a nationwide ABM defense. Each country thus agrees to leave unchallenged the penetration capability of the other's retaliatory missile forces. |
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| This "Frankenstein" was one of the most famous instrumental Rock songs. It got its title because of the intense editing that went into the song; it became a monster when it was pieced together in the studio. This was edited down to a manageable single in a long, arduous process. Edgar had band members perform over and over in an attempt to get it right. It was originally released as the B-side of a song called "Hangin' Around." The sides were flipped when disc jockeys realized this was the hit. Winter's band used to be called White Trash. By the time this was released, they were known as The Edgar Winter Group. |
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| The Beatles themselves participated in selecting the songs for inclusion, as well as the colours and pictures. The colour blue was chosen in tribute to one of their favorite football teams. Even though the group had had success with cover versions of songs, most notably with "Twist and Shout," which made #2 on the Billboard charts, only songs composed by The Beatles themselves were included. |
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| Beatlemania was a Broadway musical revue focused on the life and music of The Beatles. It ran from 1977 to 1979 for a total of 1006 performances. It won the 1978 Tony Award for "Best Lighting Design" by designer Jules Fisher. |
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| George Willig (aka "the human fly" or "the spiderman") is a mountain-climber from Queens, New York, United States, who climbed the South Tower (2 WTC) of the World Trade Center on 26 May 1977. At the time, it was the third tallest building in the world (behind 1 WTC and the Sears Tower). It took him 3.5 hours to scale the tower. New York City Mayor Abraham Beame fined him $1.10, one cent for each of the skyscraper's 110 stories. The stunt paved the way for appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Good Morning America, The Merv Griffin Show, and ABC's Wide World of Sports. He also got jobs as a stuntman on The Six Million Dollar Man, Trauma Center, and Hollywood Beat. |
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| Because of the decline in tourism, the city suffered economically in the mid-twentieth century. This trend reversed after 1976, when New Jersey voters approved a referendum to allow casino gambling in Atlantic City to restore the city's prosperity and yield revenue for educational and social programs. The first casino opened in 1978. Soon afterward, Atlantic City became the eastern seaboard's gambling mecca and witnessed sharp economic growth. |
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| Freddie Perren had produced and co-written million-selling hits by the Jackson 5, the Miracles, and the Sylvers, among others. Through him, the duo inked a deal with Polydor Records. Their first Polydor single, "Shake Your Groove Thing," went gold peaking at number four R&B and number five pop in late 1978. The creamy ballad "Reunited" seemed an unlikely follow-up to the disco-oriented "Shake." The naysayers watched in shock as "Reunited" earned platinum status, holding on to the number one spot for four weeks on both the R&B and pop charts during spring 1979. |
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| "Let's Hear It for the Boy" was featured in the movie Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon. It was one of 2 #1 US hits on the Footloose soundtrack. "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins is the other. Dean Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the movie and co-wrote this song with Tom Snow. The song was inspired by a scene in the movie where Kevin bacon tries to teach Christopher Penn how to dance, and Penn is having a hard time. |
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| Schmidt was the NL's premier power hitter in the 1970s and 1980s, failing to hit 30 homers only three times in his 16 full major-league seasons. Schmidt won the NL home run crown a record eight times, led the NL five times in slugging and RBI four, and is seventh on the all-time home run list. He also won eleven Gold Gloves and was named to the same number of All-Star squads. |
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| Madonna mentions many glamorous actors and actresses in the lyrics, including Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire and Jean Harlow. Some of the mentions are a little forced: "They had style, they had grace, Rita Hayworth gave good face." This was included on Madonna's album I'm Breathless, which was "inspired by" the movie Dick Tracy. Madonna starred in the movie with Warren Beatty. |
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| I've got it! I've got it! ... I don't got it. Texas OF Jose Canseco has a fly ball off the bat of Cleveland's Carlos Martinez bounce off his head and into the stands for a home run. The Indians defeat the Rangers, 7-6. |
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| Denise Martin, a summer and winter wilderness guide based in Waskesiu, is the only Canadian woman ever to reach the North Pole. In 1997, she and American Mattie McNair led the first ever all-women's expedition to the pole. Twenty British women ranging in age from 20 to 54 completed the journey in relay fashion, with a fresh team of four shuttled in by aircraft every two to three weeks. From mid April until the team reached its destination on May 26 - Martin's 31st birthday - the women were forced to ski around wide leads and traverse the narrower ones as the polar ice cap broke into massive sheets of floating ice. Occasionally, they had to wait for an ice pan they were floating upon to drift close enough to the next one before hopping onto it. | |
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1647 Massachusetts disallows priest
access to colony
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1647 First recorded American execution of a "witch" took place
in Massachusetts
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1805 Lewis & Clark first see Rocky Mountains
More ...
1857 Robert Mushet received a patent for methods
of manufacturing steel
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1868 President Andrew Johnson avoids impeachment
by 1 vote
More ...
1896 First American intercollegiate bicycle race,
Manhattan Beach NY
1906 Archaeological Institute of America chartered
More ...
1907 Chicago White Sox Ed Walsh no-hits New York
Highlanders, 8-1 in 5 inning game
More ...
1917 Walt Cruise hit first homerun out of Braves
Field
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1925 Tigers' Ty Cobb is first to collect 1,000
extra-base hits
More ...
1927 Ford Motor Company manufactures its 15 millionth
Model T automobile
More ...
1928 Andrew Payne ran 3,422 miles in 84 days
to win the Bunion Derby
More ...
1931 Microfilm camera patented
More ...
1940 The Dunkirk evacuation begins
More ...
1941 American Flag House (Betsy Ross' Home) given
to city of Philadelphia
More ...
1941 Ark Royal airplane sights German battleship
Bismarck
More ...
1946 Patent filed in US for H-Bomb
1950 "The Third Man Theme" by Guy Lombardo
topped the charts
More ...
1951 "How High the Moon" by Les Paul
& Mary Ford topped the charts
More ...
1956 "Heartbreak Hotel" by Elvis Presley
topped the charts
More ...
1959 Harvey Haddix pitches 12 perfect innings,
loses in 13th
More ...
1961 USAF bomber flies the Atlantic in a record
of just over 3 hours
More ...
1962 "Stranger on the Shore" by Acker
Bilk topped the charts
More ...
1969 The Apollo 10 returned to Earth
after a successful 8-day moon landing rehearsal
More ...
1972 Nixon & Brezhnev signs SALT accord
More ...
1973 "Frankenstein" by the Edgar Winter
Group topped the charts
More ...
1973 Beatles' "The Beatles 1967-1970"
album goes #1
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1977 "Beatlemania" opens in Winter Garden
Theater on Broadway
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1977 George Willig climbs NYC World Trade Center
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1978 First legal gambling casino opens in Atlantic
City
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1979 "Reunited" by Peaches & Herb
topped the charts
More ...
1983 Los Angeles Lakers set NBA playoff game record
of fewest free throws
1984 "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Denice
Williams topped the charts
More ...
1984 Frisbee is kept aloft for 1,672 seconds in
Philadelphia
1990 Philadelphia Phillies retire Mike Schmidt's
uniform #20
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1990 "Vogue" by Madonna topped the charts
More ...
1993 Long fly ball by Indians' Carlos Martinez
bounces off Jose Canseco's head
More ...
1994 President Bill Clinton left for Paris to
sign a new agreement between NATO and Russia.
1997 First all female (20 British women) team
reaches North Pole
More ...