Today is Sunday, May 16, the 136th day of 1999. There are 229
days left in the year.
- On this day in 1988, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a
report saying nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin
and cocaine.
- In 1770, 14-year-old Marie Antoinette married 15-year-old future
King Louis XVI of France.
- In 1817, Mississippi River steamboat service began.
- In 1862, Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir built the first automobile.
- In 1866, Charles Elmer Hires invented root beer.
- In 1866, Congress authorized the 5-cent piece called a nickel.
- In 1868, by one vote, the Senate failed to impeach President Andrew
Johnson.
- In 1869, baseball's first all-pro team, the Cincinnati Reds, played
their first baseball game.
- In 1891, Geo. A. Hormel & Co. introduced Spam.
- In 1929, the first Academy Awards were given.
- In 1920, Joan of Arc was canonized in Rome.
- In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled bootleggers must pay income tax.
- In 1938, the first animal breeding society was organized in New
Jersey.
- In 1939, food stamps were first issued.
- In 1941, the Germans made their last major air attack on Britain.
- In 1943, Jewish resistance in the Warsaw ghetto ended after 30
days of fighting.
- In 1960, a Big Four summit in Paris collapsed when the Soviet Union
charged the U.S. with spying.
- In 1963, Astronaut Gordon Cooper completed 22 orbits in Faith 7,
ending Project Mercury.
- In 1965, Spaghetti-O's were first sold.
- In 1969, the U.S. nuclear submarine "Guitarro" sank in San
Francisco Bay. Venera 5 landed on Venus and returned information on
its atmosphere.
- In 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to
reach the summit of Mount Everest.
- In 1983, Lebanon's Parliament and the Israeli Knesset approved a
U.S.-sponsored accord for the withdrawal of foreign troops,
including Israeli soldiers, from Lebanon.
- In 1985, Michael Jordan was named Rookie of the Year in the National
Basketball Association.
- In 1987, the "Bobro 400," a barge carrying 3,200 tons of garbage,
set sail from New York, beginning an 8-week search for a dumping
site. The search was unsuccessful.
- In 1988, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop released a report saying
nicotine was addictive in ways similar to heroin and cocaine.
- In 1989, Soviet president Mikhail S. Gorbachev and Chinese leader
Deng Xiaoping ended a 30-year rift when they formally met in
Beijing.
- In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II addressed the U.S. Congress, the first
British monarch to do so.
- In 1992, the space shuttle "Endeavour" completed its maiden voyage.
- In 1995, Japanese police arrested cult leader Shoko Asahara and
charged him with the nerve-gas attack on Tokyo's subways two months
earlier.
*Happy Birthday*
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- Actor Pierce Brosnan is 47.
- Actress Tracey Gold is 30.
- singer Janet Jackson is 33.
- Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Olga Korbut is 44.
- Tennis player Gabriella Sabatini is 29.
- Actress Tori Spelling is 26.
- Author/journalist Studs Terkel is 87.