This Week in History

MAY 11

1997 – IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue, defeated Garry Kasparov, the reigning world champion, in a six-game chess match.

May 12

Coleen Lane was born.

Elise Heeran was born.

1932 – The body of Charles and Anne Lindbergh’s kidnapped baby was found.

1943 – Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.

May 13

Lynn Heeran was born. 

1940 – Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.”

1981 – Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca as he drove through a crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Rome.

May 14

Tricia Davey was born.

Tim Harkins was born.

Bernadette O’Brien was born.

Maureen Hayes was born.

Ginna Siegrist was born.

1904 – The Olympic Games were held in the United States for the first time, in St. Louis, Missouri.

1998 – Frank Sinatra died at the age of 82.

May 15

Courtney Donahue was born.

1940 – Nylon stockings went on sale for the first time in the U.S.

May 16

1770 – Marie Antoinette married the future King Louis XVI of France.

1975 – Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to summit Mount Everest.

May 17

Martin Tubridy was born.

John Hynes was born.

Bernadette Marie Hyland was born.

Julie Jackson was born.

Margaret Daly was born. 

1792 – The New York Stock Exchange was established when a group of 24 brokers and merchants met by a tree on what is now Wall Street and signed the Buttonwood Agreement.  Lou Pastina was not there.

1954 – The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against segregation in schools in Brown v. Board of Education.