May 31
1889
The South Fork Dam in Pennsylvania collapsed, causing the Johnstown Flood and killing more than 2,000 people. The dam was once the largest earth dam in the US and created the largest man-made lake of the time, Lake Conemaugh. It was part of an extensive canal system that fell into disuse and neglect as railroads replaced the canal as a means of transporting goods. Once the dam collapsed, All of the water from Lake Conemaugh rushed forward at 40 miles per hour, sweeping away everything in its path. One of the American Red Cross’s first major relief efforts took place in the aftermath of the Johnstown flood. Clara Barton arrived five days later to lead the relief. It took five years to rebuild Johnstown, which again endured deadly floods in 1936 and 1977.
1930
Best known to his many fans as San Francisco Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan, actor and Oscar-winning filmmaker Clint Eastwood was born in San Francisco, California. After four years in the Army Special Services, Eastwood went to Hollywood, where he got his start in a string of B-movies. In 1992, he hit the jackpot when he starred in, directed and produced the darkly unconventional Western Unforgiven. The film won four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Gene Hackman), Best Film Editing, Best Director and Best Picture, both for Eastwood. Eastwood’s second set of statuettes for Best Director and Best Picture came for Million Dollar Baby in 2005.
2005
W. Mark Felt’s family ended 30 years of speculation, identifying Felt, the former FBI assistant director, as “Deep Throat,” the secret source who helped unravel the Watergate scandal. Felt's admission, made in an article in Vanity Fair magazine, took legendary reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who had promised to keep their source’s identity a secret until his death, by surprise. Tapes show that President Nixon himself had speculated that Felt was the secret informant as early as 1973.
June 1
1980
CNN (Cable News Network), the world’s first 24-hour television news network and the brainchild of Robert “Ted” Turner, made its debut. The network signed on from its headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, with a lead story about the attempted assassination of civil rights leader Vernon Jordan. CNN went on to change the notion that news could only be reported at fixed times throughout the day. At the time of CNN’s launch, TV news was dominated by three major networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—and their nightly 30-minute broadcasts. Initially available in less than two million U.S. homes, today CNN is seen in more than 90 million American households and over 370 million households and hotel rooms internationally.
1990
At a superpowers summit meeting in Washington, D.C., U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev signed a historic agreement to end production of chemical weapons and begin the destruction of both nations’ sizable reserves of them. According to the agreement, on-site inspectors from both countries would observe the destruction process. The treaty was part of an effort to discourage smaller nations from stockpiling and using the lethal weapons. The United States and Russia began destroying their chemical weapons arsenals in the early 1990s. In 1993, the U.S., Russia, and 150 other nations signed a comprehensive treaty banning chemical weapons. The U.S. Senate ratified the treaty in 1997.
2008
A massive morning fire at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park and studio backlot in Universal City, California destroyed a trove of irreplaceable recordings by some of the greatest American musical artists, thousands of archived digital and video film copies and King Kong Encounter, one of the park’s most popular attractions. An investigation revealed the fire began when a worker used a blowtorch to warm asphalt shingles. The worker left before checking if all spots had cooled. In 2019, the New York Times said anywhere from 120,000 to 175,000 master recordings—including those by Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong Chuck Berry. Aretha Franklin, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails and more—were destroyed in the fire.
June 2
1886
President Grover Cleveland became the first sitting president to marry in the White House when he married Frances Folsom, a young woman 27 years his junior. Frances was the daughter of a former law partner and Cleveland’s legal ward; Cleveland had literally known her since she was born. When she was 11, Frances’ father died and Cleveland became her legal guardian, remaining close friends with her mother. In another White House first, Frances and Cleveland’s second daughter Esther became the first child born to a president in a White House bedroom.
1924
President Calvin Coolidge signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act, conferring citizenship on all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the country. Before the Civil War, citizenship was often limited to Native Americans of one-half or less Indian blood. In the Reconstruction period, progressives sought to accelerate the granting of citizenship to friendly tribes, though state support for these measures was often limited. In 1888, most Native American women married to U.S. citizens were conferred with citizenship, and in 1919 Native American veterans of WWI were offered citizenship. The privileges of citizenship, however, were largely governed by state law, and the right to vote was often denied to Native Americans in the early 20th century.
1997
Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. Army soldier, was convicted on 15 counts of murder and conspiracy for his role in terrorist bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb exploded, collapsing the north face of the nine-story building. When the rescue effort finally ended two weeks later, the death toll stood at 168 people, including 19 young children. In December 2000, McVeigh asked a federal judge to stop all appeals of his convictions and to set a date for his execution by lethal injection at the U.S. Penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana. McVeigh’s execution, in June 2001, was the first federal death penalty to be carried out since 1963.
June 3
1937
American socialite Wallis Warfield Simpson, a divorced American socialite, married the duke of Windsor—formerly King Edward VIII of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. By 1934, the pair had fallen deeply in love but Simpson was still married to Ernest Simpson, an English-American businessman who lived with Mrs. Simpson near London. The royal family disapproved of Edward’s married mistress, but the king was intent on marrying her. Mrs. Simpson obtained a preliminary decree of divorce, presumably with the intent of marrying the king, precipitating a major scandal in bot the US and the UK. Edward VIII’s 325-day reign came to an end when he abdicated his thrown to be able to marry the American.
1943
A group of U.S. sailors marched through downtown Los Angeles, carrying clubs and other makeshift weapons and attacking anyone wearing a “zoot suit”—the baggy wool pants, oversized coats and porkpie hats favored by many young men of color at the time. Over the next week, the so-called Zoot Suit Riots spread throughout the city. Negative sentiments towards those wearing the "zoot suit" grew out of racial tensions and the rationing of wool during WW2. One was deemed unpatriotic if wearing the style. The riots finally calmed when military officials banned all military personnel from L.A. and called on military police to patrol the city. The L.A. City Council subsequently passed a resolution prohibiting the wearing of zoot suits on city streets.
1965
120 miles above the Earth, Major Edward H. White II opened the hatch of the Gemini 4 and stepped out of the capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to walk in space. Attached to the craft by a 25-foot tether and controlling his movements with a hand-held oxygen jet-propulsion gun, White remained outside the capsule for just over 20 minutes. The Gemini space flights were the first to involve multiple crews, and the extended duration of the missions provided valuable information about the biological effects of longer-term space travel. When the Gemini program ended in 1966, U.S. astronauts had also perfected rendezvous and docking maneuvers with other orbiting vehicles, a skill that would be essential during the three-stage Apollo moon missions.
June 4
1919
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, granting women the right to vote, is passed by Congress. By the beginning of the 20th century, the role of women in American society was changing drastically; women were working more, receiving a better education, bearing fewer children, and several states had authorized female suffrage. In 1913, the National Woman’s party organized the voting power of these enfranchised women to elect congressional representatives who supported woman suffrage. The 19th Amendment, which stated that “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification.
1944
U.S. Navy hunter-killer group organized around USS Guadalcanal and lead by U.S. Navy Capt. Daniel V. Gallery captured the German U-505 submarine. This was the first time that the U.S. Navy had captured an enemy vessel at sea since the 19th century. After the surrendered German survivors were picked up from the U-boat, Lt. (junior grade) Albert L. David led a group of nine men down the hatch of the U-505, salvaging the U-boat and recovering invaluable code books and papers that were used by Allied forces to help in code-breaking. David was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. The submarine salvage was kept secret to prevent the Germans from knowing of the Allies' codebreaking activities.
2003
Martha Stewart was indicted for securities fraud and obstruction of justice. Stewart, CEO and chairwoman of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc., was tipped by her broker that ImClone’s stock was going to drop after the company’s owner received inside information that the FDA was going to decline to review an application for the company’s cancer drug. She shed her nearly 4,000 ImClone shares one day before the FDA decision was announced. Stewart was sentenced to five months at a West Virginia minimum-security federal prison. She served out the sentence in 2004, and then served five months of house arrest and two years of probation. Stewart resigned from her company’s board, keeping the title of founding editorial director.
June 5
1933
The United States went off the gold standard, a monetary system in which currency is backed by gold, when Congress enacted a joint resolution nullifying the right of creditors to demand payment in gold. The United States had been on a gold standard since 1879, except for an embargo on gold exports during World War I, but bank failures during the Great Depression of the 1930s frightened the public into hoarding gold, making the policy untenable. On April 5, FDR ordered all persons to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve by May 1 for the set price of $20.67 per ounce. By May 10, the government had taken in $300 million of gold coin and $470 million of gold certificates.
1968
Senator Robert Kennedy was shot at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles after winning the California presidential primary. Immediately after he announced to his cheering supporters that the country was ready to end its fractious divisions, Kennedy was shot several times by 24-year-old Palestinian Sirhan Sirhan, who believed Kennedy was “instrumental” in the oppression of Palestinians. He was pronounced dead a day later. The summer of 1968 was a tempestuous time in American history. Both the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement were peaking. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in the spring, igniting riots across the country. Kennedy was perceived by many to be the only person in American politics capable of uniting the people.
2004
Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, died after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. Reagan, who was also a well-known actor and served as governor of California, was a popular president known for restoring American confidence after the problems of the 1970s, and helping to defeat communism. He retired to his California ranch, Rancho del Cielo, after his second term. His announcement in 1994 that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease was greeted with great sadness by many across the country. He wrote, in an open letter to the American people, "I now begin the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life. I know that for America there will always be a bright dawn ahead."
June 6
1933
Eager motorists parked their automobiles on the grounds of Camden Drive-In, the first-ever drive-in movie theater, located on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken, New Jersey. The drive-in theatre was the brainchild of Richard Hollingshead. The popularity of the drive-in spiked after World War II and reached its heyday in the late 1950s to mid-60s, with some 5,000 theaters across the country. Since then, however, the rising price of real estate, especially in suburban areas, combined with the growing numbers of walk-in theaters and the rise of video rentals to curb the growth of the drive-in industry. Today, fewer than 500 drive-in theaters survive in the United States.
1971
Twenty-three years after its 1948 premiere, The Ed Sullivan Show had its final broadcast. Sunday nights, 8:00 pm, CBS. Ask almost any American born in the 1950s or earlier what television program ran in that timeslot on that network, and they’ll probably know the answer. Sullivan’s variety show was the premiere television showcase for entertainers of all stripes, including borscht-belt comedians, plate-spinning vaudeville throwbacks and, most significantly, some of the biggest and most current names in rock and roll. Gladys Knight and the Pips were the musical guests on the final episode of The Ed Sullivan Show, which was cancelled shortly after its rerun broadcast.
2013
The Guardian and The Washington Post published the first of a series of reports put together from documents leaked by an anonymous source. The material exposed a government-run surveillance program that monitored the communications records of not just criminals or potential terrorists, but law-abiding citizens as well. Three days later the source unmasked himself as Edward Snowden, a National Security Agency contractor. Snowden was charged with theft of government property, unauthorized communication of national defense information and willful communication of classified communications intelligence. Facing up to 30 years in prison, Snowden left the country, originally traveling to Hong Kong and then to Russia, to avoid being extradited to the U.S.