TODAY IN WORLD HISTORY
Today is Wednesday, May 25, the 146th day of 2016. There are 220 days left in the year.
Today’s Highlight in History On May 25, 1916, the Chicago Tribune published an interview with Henry Ford in which the automobile industrialist was quoted as saying, “History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s dam is the history we make today.”
On this date
• In 1787, the Constitutional Convention began at the Pennsylvania State House (Independence Hall) in Philadelphia after enough delegates had shown up for a quorum.
• In 1810, Argentina began its revolt against Spanish rule with the forming of the Primera Junta in Buenos Aires.
• In 1935, Babe Ruth hit his last three career home runs — nos. 712, 713 and 714 — for the Boston Braves in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. (The Pirates won, 11-7.)
• In 1946, Transjordan (now Jordan) became a kingdom as it proclaimed its new monarch, Abdullah I.
• In 1959, the U.S. Supreme Court, in State Athletic Commission v. Dorsey, struck down a Louisiana law prohibiting interracial boxing matches. (The case had been brought by Joseph Dorsey Jr., a black professional boxer.)
• In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told Congress: “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”
• In 1968, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis was dedicated by Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Interior Secretary Stewart Udall.
• In 1977, the first “Star Wars” film (retroactively designated “Episode IV: A New Hope”) was released by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
• In 1979, 273 people died when an American Airlines DC-10 crashed just after takeoff from Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. Six-year-old Etan Patz disappeared while on his way to a school bus stop in lower Manhattan.
• In 1981, daredevil Dan Goodwin, wearing a Spiderman costume, scaled the outside of Chicago’s Sears Tower in 7 1/2 hours.
• In 1986, an estimated 7 million Americans participated in “Hands Across America” to raise money for the nation’s hungry and homeless.
• In 1992, Jay Leno made his debut as host of NBC’s “Tonight Show,” succeeding Johnny Carson.
Ten years ago President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a White House news conference in which they acknowledged making costly mistakes in Iraq, but vowed to keep troops there until the fragile new government took hold.
Five years ago
President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron confronted complex security debates over Afghanistan, Libya and economic growth during Obama’s state visit to London. A judge in Salt Lake City sentenced street preacher Brian David Mitchell to life in prison for kidnapping and raping Elizabeth Smart, who was 14 at the time of her abduction in 2002. A judge in Tucson, Arizona, ruled that Jared Lee Loughner, the man accused of wounding U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killing six in a shooting rampage, was mentally incompetent to stand trial.