The Miracle of Dunkirk
On June 4, 1940, over 338,000 Allied troops were evacuated from the beaches of Dunkirk after being cut off and surrounded there for weeks.
Government
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Only Presidential White House Wedding
On June 2, 1886, President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the White House, making him the only US president to be married in the executive mansion.
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Rhode Island Becomes 13th State
On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island became the last of the original 13 colonies to ratify the US Constitution. The vote was close, but it brought the smallest state into the new nation as the 13th state.
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Founding of the Sierra Club
On May 28, 1892, John Muir and a small group of California conservationists founded the Sierra Club in San Francisco. Their goal was practical as well as poetic: bring people into the mountains, then organize them to protect the wild places they had come to love.
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Minnesota Becomes 32nd State
On May 11, 1858, Minnesota entered the Union as the 32nd state. Known today as the “North Star State,” Minnesota grew from fur-trade outposts, river forts, farms, forests, and iron mines into one of the Upper Midwest’s most diverse economies.
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Nelson Mandela’s Historic Election
On May 9, 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa’s first black president. After decades of apartheid, prison, protest, and negotiation, the vote marked a turning point few South Africans had believed they would live to see.
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Workers’ Memorial Day
On April 28, 1971, a major new federal law took effect that changed how workplace safety was enforced in the United States. That date is now observed as Workers’ Memorial Day, a time to remember those lost at work and to renew the effort to prevent future tragedies.
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Holocaust Memorial Museum Dedicated
On April 22, 1993, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in Washington, DC — a building so deliberately unsettling in its design that its…
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Happy 100th Birthday Queen Elizabeth II
On April 21, 1926, at 2:40 in the morning, a baby girl was born at 17 Bruton Street in London’s upscale Mayfair neighborhood — and almost no one expected her to ever wear a crown. That child, Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, would go on to become the longest-reigning monarch in British history.
