Today is Thursday, May 25th, the 146th day of 2024. There are 220 days left this year.
Today’s History Highlights:
On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a black man, died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about nine and a half minutes while he was handcuffed and pleading that he couldn’t breathe. Floyd’s death, captured on video by a bystander, sparked protests around the world, some of which turned violent, and led to a reexamination of racial justice and policing in the United States.
On this date:
In 1787, the Constitutional Convention began in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State Capitol (Independence Hall) after a quorum of delegates was present.
In 1946, Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom with King Abdullah I proclaimed as its new monarch.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress, “I believe that this Nation should do everything in its power to accomplish the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court, in Griffin v. Prince Edward County Board of Education, ordered a Virginia county to reopen public schools that had been closed to avoid the 1954 desegregation ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
In 1968, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was opened by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall.
The first Star Wars film was released in 1977 by 20th Century Fox.
In 1979, an American Airlines DC-10 crashed shortly after taking off from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, killing 273 people.
In 2008, NASA’s Phoenix Mars rover arrived on Mars to search for evidence of water, and confirmed the presence of water ice at the landing site.
In 2011, a Salt Lake City judge sentenced street preacher Brian David Mitchell to life in prison for the kidnapping and rape of Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 years old when she was abducted in 2002.
In 2012, the private company SpaceX made history when it docked its Dragon spacecraft with the International Space Station.
In 2016, actor Johnny Depp’s wife, Amber Heard, filed for divorce in Los Angeles after 15 months of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences.
In 2018, Harvey Weinstein was charged in New York with rape and another sex offense in the first of a series of allegations against him. (Weinstein was convicted of two felony counts in 2020, but an appeals court overturned the conviction in 2024.)
In 2022, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos, who massacred 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde the previous day, had warned in online messages sent minutes before the attack that he had shot his grandmother and intended to shoot up the school.
Today’s birthdays: Actress Anne Robinson is 95. Former White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen is 90. Actor Sir Ian McKellan is 85. Country singer Jessi Colter is 81. Actor and singer Leslie Uggams is 81. Film director and Muppet performer Frank Oz is 80. Actress Karen Valentine is 77. Actor Jacki Weaver is 77. Rock singer Klaus Meine of The Scorpions is 76. Actor Patti D’Urbanville is 73. Playwright Eve Ensler is 71. Musician Cindy Cashdollar is 69. Actor Connie Sellecca is 69. Rock singer and musician Paul Weller is 66. Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar is 64. Actor and comedian Mike Myers is 61. Actor Matt Borlenghi is 57. Actor Joseph Reitman is 56. Rock musician Glenn Drover is 55. Actors Lindsay and Sydney Greenbush (TV’s “Little House on the Prairie”) are 54. Actor and comedian Jamie Kennedy is 54. Actor Octavia Spencer is 54. Actor Justin Henry is 53. Rapper Daz Dillinger is 51. Actor Molly Sims is 51. Actor Erinn Hayes is 48. Actor Cillian Murphy is 48. Actor Ethan Suplee is 48. Rock musician Todd Whitener is 46. Actor Corbin Allred is 45. Actor and singer Lauren Frost is 39.
