May 15
1800: President John Adams ordered government offices to relocate from Philadelphia to the newly constructed city of Washington, in the federal District of Columbia.
1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed an act establishing the Department of Agriculture.
1940: Brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald opened the first McDonald’s fast-food restaurant, in San Bernardino, California.
May 16
1770: Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15. 1929: The first Academy Awards were presented. “Wings” won the award for Outstanding Picture.
1966: The Chinese Communist Party issued the May 16 Notification, a document that criticized “counterrevolutionary revisionists” within the party and marked the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
2022: The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 reached 1 million.
May 17
1792: The Buttonwood Agreement, a document codifying rules for securities trading, was signed by 24 New York stockbrokers, marking the formation of the New York Stock Exchange.
1875: The first Kentucky Derby was held; the race was won by Aristides, ridden by jockey Oliver Lewis.
1954: A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision, which held that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal and therefore unconstitutional.
May 18
1652: Rhode Island became the first American colony to pass a law abolishing African slavery.
1863: The Siege of Vicksburg began during the Civil War, ending July 4 with a Union victory.
1910: Halley’s Comet passed by earth, brushing it with its tail.
1980: The Mount St. Helens volcano in Washington state exploded, leaving 57 people dead or missing.
May 19
1536: Anne Boleyn, the second wife of England’s King Henry VIII, was beheaded after being convicted of adultery.
1921: Congress passed, and President Warren G. Harding signed, the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for immigrants.
1962: Film star Marilyn Monroe sang “Happy Birthday to You” to President John F. Kennedy during a Democratic fundraiser at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
1994: Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died in New York at age 64.
May 20
1862: President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, which was intended to encourage settlements west of the Mississippi River by making federal land available for farming.
1916: The Saturday Evening Post published its first Norman Rockwell cover; the illustration shows a scowling boy dressed in his Sunday best, dutifully pushing a baby carriage past a couple of boys wearing baseball uniforms.
1927: Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field on Long Island, New York, aboard the Spirit of St. Louis on his historic solo flight to France.
May 21
1471: King Henry VI of England died in the Tower of London at age 49.
1881: Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
1927: Charles A. Lindbergh landed his Spirit of St. Louis monoplane near Paris, completing the first solo airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 33 1/2 hours.
1932: Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean as she landed in Northern Ireland, about 15 hours after leaving Newfoundland.
