16th May: Today In History

Today is Tuesday, May 16th, the 136th day of 2017. There are 229 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

Events:

1868:  The U.S. Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its first ballot on the eleven articles of impeachment against him.

1770:  Marie Antoinette, age 14, married the future King Louis XVI of France, who was 15.

1866:  Congress authorized minting of the first five-cent piece, also known as the “Shield nickel.”

In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized by Pope Benedict XV.

In 1939, the federal government began its first food stamp program in Rochester, New York.

1946:  The Irving Berlin musical “Annie Get Your Gun,” starring Ethel Merman as Annie Oakley, opened on Broadway.

1957:  Federal agent Eliot Ness, who organized “The Untouchables” team that took on gangster Al Capone, died in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, at age 54.

1966:  China launched the Cultural Revolution, a radical as well as deadly reform movement aimed at purging the country of “counter-revolutionaries.”

1975:  Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest.

1977:  A New York Airways helicopter idling atop the Pan Am Building in midtown Manhattan toppled over, killing four passengers who were waiting to board and sending debris falling to the street below, killing a fifth person.

1988:  The U.S. Supreme Court, in California v. Greenwood, ruled that police can search discarded garbage without a search warrant. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report declaring nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine.

1992:  The space shuttle Endeavour completed its maiden voyage with a safe landing in the California desert.

1997:  President Bill Clinton publicly apologized for the notorious Tuskegee experiment, in which government scientists deliberately allowed black men to weaken and die of treatable syphilis.

Birthdays:

U.S. Rep John Conyers, D-Mich., is 88.

Former U.S. Senator and Connecticut Governor Lowell Weicker is 86.

Jazz musician Billy Cobham is 73.

Actor Danny Trejo is 73.

Actor Bill Smitrovich is 70.

Actor Pierce Brosnan is 64.

Actress Debra Winger is 62.

Olympic gold medal gymnast Olga Korbut is 62.

Olympic gold medal marathon runner Joan Benoit Samuelson is 60.

Quotes Of  The Day:

Let Today be the day you learn the grace of letting go and the power of moving on.

The people that are still with you at the end of the day, those are the ones worth keeping.