Today In History...

   In 1430 Joan of Arc is captured by the Burgundians, who sold her to the

           English.

   In 1533 The marriage of England's King Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon is

           declared null and void.

   In 1701 Captain William Kidd is hanged in London after he was convicted of

           piracy and murder.

   In 1785 Benjamin Franklin writes in a letter that he had invented bifocals,

           making it unnecessary to carry two pairs of glasses.

   In 1788 South Carolina becomes the 8th state to ratify the U.S.

           constitution.

   In 1873 Canada establishes the North West Mounted Police.

   In 1876 Joe Borden of Boston pitches the first National League no-hitter.

   In 1895 The New York Public Library opens with an agreement combining the

           city's existing Astor and Lenox libraries.

   In 1903 Nelson Jackson begins the first transcontinental automobile trip,

           driving his Winton from San Francisco to New York.

   In 1908 A dirigible explodes over San Francisco Bay, 16 passengers fall,

           but none are killed.

   In 1915 Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary in World War I.

   In 1934 Bank robbers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow are shot to death in a

           police ambush in Bienville, Louisiana.

   In 1937 Industrialist John D. Rockefeller dies in Ormond Beach, Florida.

   In 1944 During World War II, Allied forces bogged down in Anzio began a

           major breakout offensive.

   In 1945 Nazi official Heinrich Himmler commits suicide while imprisoned in

           Luneburg, Germany.

   In 1950 The film "Annie Get Your Gun" opens.

   In 1953 Oklahoma's record high May temperature of 110 degrees is set

           at Hollis.

   In 1960 Israel announces it had captured former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann

           in Argentina.

   In 1977 The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeals of former Nixon

           White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman and former

           Attorney General John Mitchell in connection with their Watergate

           convictions.

   In 1984 The surgeon general reports that smokers may cause disease in

           others nearby.

   In 1985 Thomas Patrick Cavanagh, an aerospace engineer who admitted trying

           to sell "stealth" bomber secrets to the Soviet Union, is sentenced

           in Los Angeles to life in prison.

   In 1986 President Reagan agrees to join "Hands Across America." to help

           raise millions of dollars for the nation's hungry and homeless.

   In 1987 The Soviets announce they are giving up commercial whaling.

   In 1989 An estimated one million people in Beijing and tens of thousands in

           other Chinese cities march to demand that Premier Li Peng resign.

   In 1990 The Soviet Union unveils an economic-reform program that included

           plans for a national referendum.

   In 1990 Neil Bush, son of President George Bush, denies any wrongdoing as a

           director of a failed Denver savings-and-loan in testimony before

           Congress.

   In 1991 The U.S. Supreme Court, 5-4, upholds regulations barring federally

           subsidized family planning clinics from discussing abortion with

           pregnant women.

   In 1992 The U.S. and four former Soviet republics sign an agreement in

           Lisbon, Portugal, to implement the START missle reduction treaty.

   In 1993 A jury in Baton Rouge, LA, acquitted Rodney Peairs of manslaughter

           in the shooting death of Yoshi Hattori, a Japanese exchange student

           he'd mistaken for an intruder.

   In 1994 Funeral services are held at Arlington National Cemetery for former

           first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

   In 1994 "Pulp Fiction," directed by Quentin Tarantino, wins the Golden Palm

           for best film at the 47th Cannes Film Festival.

   In 1995 James Nichols, whose brother and a friend were charged in the

           Oklahoma bombing, is released from federal custody; the nine-story

           hulk of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is demolished.

   In 1995 Leland William Modjeski, a 37-year-old graduate student, is shot and

           wounded on the White House lawn after scaling a fence with an

           unloaded gun.

   In 1996 The House approves, by a vote of 281-144, to raise the minimum wage

           by 90 cents an hour.

   In 1997 Iran elects a moderate president, Mohammad Khatami, over hard-liners

           in the ruling Muslim clergy.

   In 1998 British Protestants and Irish Catholics of Northern Ireland approve

           a peace accord.

   In 1999 Social Democrat Johannes Rau wins election as Germany's president.

   In 1999 Wrestler Owen Hart, aka "The Blue Blazer," dies when he fell 78 feet

           from a cable as he was being lowered into the ring at a World

           Wrestling Federation show in Kansas City.

   In 2000 Presidential candidate George W. Bush says he will slash America's

           nuclear arsenal as part of a broad national security review that

           would call for a missile-defense system.

   In 2001 The U.S. Senate passes an 11-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut bill.

   In 2003 Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agrees to submit the 

           U.S.-backed "road map" for peace to the Israeli Cabinet. 

   In 2004 A large section of roof of a new passenger terminal at Paris' 

           Charles de Gaulle airport collapses, killing four people.