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May 18, 2007
Today in History: May 17th
From: The New York Times on the Web - Learning Center:
1792 The New York Stock Exchange was founded by brokers meeting under a tree on what is now Wall Street.
1940 The Nazis occupied Brussels, Belgium, during World War II.
1946 President Harry S. Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened strike by engineers and trainmen.
1954 the Supreme Court issued its landmark Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka ruling, which declared that racially segregated public schools were inherently unequal. (Go to article.)
1987 An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S. Navy frigate Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors. Iraq and the United States called the attack a mistake.
1996 President Bill Clinton signed a measure requiring neighborhood notification when sex offenders move in. Megan's Law was named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, who was raped and killed in 1994.
2000 Two former Ku Klux Klansmen were arrested on murder charges in the 1963 church bombing in Birmingham, Ala., that killed four black girls. (Thomas E. Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry were later convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Cherry died in 2004.)
To read about more events happening on May 17th, click here.
Posted by d-nadler at May 18, 2007 02:18 PM