15th May: Today In History

Today is Monday, May 15th, the 135th day of 2017. There are 230 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlights in History:

Events:

1942:  President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a measure creating the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, whose members came to be known as WACs. Wartime gasoline rationing went into effect in 17 Eastern states, limiting sales to three gallons a week for non-essential vehicles.

1776, Virginia authorized its delegation to the Continental Congress to support independence from Britain.

1862:  President Abraham Lincoln signed an act establishing the Department of Agriculture.

1911:  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Standard Oil Co. was a monopoly in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and ordered its breakup.

1930:  Registered nurse Ellen Church, the first airline stewardess, went on duty aboard an Oakland-to-Chicago flight operated by Boeing Air Transport (a forerunner of United Airlines).

1955:  The United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France signed the Austrian State Treaty, which re-established Austria’s independence.

1963:   Astronaut L. Gordon Cooper blasted off aboard Faith 7 on the final mission of the Project Mercury space program.

1967:  The U.S. Supreme Court, in its unanimous In re Gault decision, ruled that juveniles accused of crimes were entitled to the same due process afforded adults. American realist painter Edward Hopper died in New York at age 84.

1970:  Just after midnight, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green, two black students at Jackson State College in Mississippi, were killed as police opened fire during student protests.

1972:  Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed by Arthur H. Bremer while campaigning for president in Laurel, Maryland. (Bremer served 35 years for attempted murder.)

1975:  U.S. forces invaded the Cambodian island of Koh Tang and captured the American merchant ship Mayaguez, which had been seized by the Khmer Rouge. (All 39 crew members had already been released safely by Cambodia; some 40 U.S. servicemen were killed in connection with the operation.)

1988:  The Soviet Union began the process of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, more than eight years after Soviet forces entered the country.

1991:  Edith Cresson was appointed by French President Francois Mitterrand (frahn-SWAH’ mee-teh-RAHN’) to be France’s first female prime minister.

Birthdays:

Actress-singer Anna Maria Alberghetti is 81.

Counterculture icon Wavy Gravy is 81.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is 80.

Singer Trini Lopez is 80.

Singer Lenny Welch is 79.

Actress-singer Lainie Kazan is 75.

Actress Gunilla Hutton is 75.

Country singer K.T. Oslin is 75.

Former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is 69.

Singer-songwriter Brian Eno is 69.