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1776 â Rhode Island becomes the first American colony to renounce allegiance to King George III.
1871 â The National Association, the first professional baseball league, opens its first season in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
1927 â The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is incorporated.
1953 â Ernest Hemingway wins the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea.
1959 â The 1st Annual Grammy Awards are held.
1961 â American civil rights movement: The "Freedom Riders" begin a bus trip through the South.
1970 â Vietnam War: Kent State shootings: The Ohio National Guard, sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, opens fire killing four unarmed students and wounding nine others. The students were protesting the Cambodian Campaign of the United States and South Vietnam.
1972 â The Don't Make A Wave Committee, a fledgling environmental organization founded in Canada in 1971, officially changes its name to "Greenpeace Foundation".
1973 â The 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago is topped out at 1,451 feet (442 m) as the world's tallest building.
1913 â Raja Harishchandra, the first full-length Indian feature film, is released, marking the beginning of the Indian film industry.
1921 â Ireland is partitioned under British law by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland.
1948 â The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Shelley v. Kraemer that covenants prohibiting the sale of real estate to blacks and other minorities are legally unenforceable.
1978 â The first unsolicited bulk commercial email (which would later become known as "spam") is sent by a Digital Equipment Corporation marketing representative to every ARPANET address on the west coast of the United States.
1979 â The Conservative Party wins the United Kingdom general election.<13> The following day, Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female British Prime Minister.
1707 â The Act of Union joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain takes effect.
1807 â The Slave Trade Act 1807 takes effect, abolishing the slave trade within the British Empire.
1866 â The Memphis Race Riots begin. Over three days, 46 blacks and two whites were killed. Reports of the atrocities influenced passage of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
1886 â Rallies are held throughout the United States demanding the eight-hour work day, culminating in the Haymarket affair in Chicago, in commemoration of which May 1 is celebrated as International Workers' Day in many countries.
1894 â Coxey's Army, the first significant American protest march, arrives in Washington, D.C.
2009 â Same-sex marriage is legalized in Sweden.
1789 â On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington takes the oath of office to become the first President of the United States.
1803 â Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
1885 â Governor of New York David B. Hill signs legislation creating the Niagara Reservation, New York's first state park, ensuring that Niagara Falls will not be devoted solely to industrial and commercial use.
1897 â J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announces his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle, over 1,800 times smaller than a proton (in the atomic nucleus), at a lecture at the Royal Institution in London.
1905 â Albert Einstein completes his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich.
1939 â NBC inaugurates its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address.
1945 â World War II: Führerbunker: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide after being married for less than 40 hours. Soviet soldiers raise the Victory Banner over the Reichstag building.
1961 â K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, is commissioned.
1945 â Dachau concentration camp is liberated by United States troops.
1992 â Riots in Los Angeles begin, following the acquittal of police officers charged with excessive force in the beating of Rodney King. Over the next three days 63 people are killed and hundreds of buildings are destroyed.
1997 â The Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993 enters into force, outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons by its signatories.
2015 â A baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and the Chicago White Sox sets the all-time low attendance mark for Major League Baseball. Zero fans were in attendance for the game, as the stadium was officially closed to the public due to the 2015 Baltimore protests.
1945 â Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci are shot dead by Walter Audisio, a member of the Italian resistance movement.
1945 â The Holocaust: Nazi Germany carries out its final use of gas chambers to execute 33 Upper Austrian socialist and communist leaders in Mauthausen concentration camp.
1948 â Igor Stravinsky conducts the premiere of his American ballet, Orpheus at the New York City Center.
1967 â Vietnam War: Boxer Muhammad Ali refuses his induction into the United States Army and is subsequently stripped of his championship and license.
1970 â Vietnam War: US President Richard Nixon formally authorizes American combat troops to take part in the Cambodian campaign.
1973 â The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number one on the US Billboard chart, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.
1986 â High levels of radiation resulting from the Chernobyl disaster are detected at Forsmark Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden, leading Soviet authorities to publicly announce the accident.
2004 â CBS News releases evidence of the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse. The photographs show rape and abuse from the American troops over Iraqi detainees.
1994 â South Africa begins its first multiracial election, which is won by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.
Still waiting for the American National Congress. It's a matter of time, only. When all exploited people detest the fata-morgana of democracy the majority will not be black by skin but by kin through suffering.
1933 â Nazi Germany issues the Law Against Overcrowding in Schools and Universities limiting the number of Jewish students able to attend public schools and universities.
1953 â Francis Crick and James Watson publish "Molecular Structure of Nucleic Acids: A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid" describing the double helix structure of DNA. Their work was largely based on the earlier efforts of Rosalind Franklin.
1954 â The first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories.
2014 â The Flint water crisis begins when officials at Flint, Michigan switch the city's water supply to the Flint River, leading to lead and bacteria contamination.
1800 â The United States Library of Congress is established when President John Adams signs legislation to appropriate $5,000 to purchase "such books as may be necessary for the use of Congress".
1933 â Nazi Germany begins its persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses by shutting down the Watch Tower Society office in Magdeburg.
1990 â STS-31: The Hubble Space Telescope is launched from the Space Shuttle Discovery.
1864 â The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act of 1864 that permitted the inscription In God We Trust be placed on all coins minted as United States currency.
1970 â The first Earth Day is celebrated.
2016 â The Paris Agreement is signed, an agreement to help fight global warming.
