Today in History

Today is Tuesday, May 28, the 149th day of 2024. There are 217 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

On May 28, 1934, the Dionne quintuplets — Annette, Cecile, Emilie, Marie and Yvonne — were born to Elzire Dionne at the family farm in Ontario, Canada.

On this date:

In 1863, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, made up of freed Black men, left Boston to fight for the Union in the Civil War.

In 1918, American troops fought their first major battle during World War I as they launched an offensive against the German-held French village of Cantigny; the Americans succeeded in capturing the village.

In 1937, Neville Chamberlain became prime minister of Britain.

In 1940, during World War II, the Belgian army surrendered to invading German forces.

In 1959, the U.S. Army launched Able, a rhesus monkey, and Baker, a squirrel monkey, aboard a Jupiter missile for a suborbital flight which both primates survived.

In 1964, the charter of the Palestine Liberation Organization was issued at the start of a meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Jerusalem.

In 1972, Edward, the Duke of Windsor, who had abdicated the English throne to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, died in Paris at age 77.

In 1977, 165 people were killed when fire raced through the Beverly Hills Supper Club in Southgate, Kentucky.

In 1987, to the embarrassment of Soviet officials, Mathias Rust, a young West German pilot, landed a private plane in Moscow’s Red Square without authorization. (Rust was freed by the Soviets the following year.)

In 1998, comic actor Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night Live” and “NewsRadio” fame was shot to death at his home in Encino, California, by his wife, Brynn, who then killed herself.