1876 – First telephone call: Alexander Graham Bell says, “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” to his assistant Thomas Watson.
1903 – Harry Gammeter of Cleveland patents multigraph duplicating machine.
1913 – William Knox becomes the first in American Bowling Congress history to bowl 300 during a tournament.
1922 – KLZ-AM in Denver, Colorado, begins radio transmissions.
1933 – A 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Long Beach, California kills 120 and destroys 70 school buildings.
1937 – Benny Goodman unofficially crowned the “King of Swing” at New York City’s Paramount Theater as his band plays before an exuberant sell-out crowd filled with teenagers.
1941 – Lee MacPhail, Brooklyn Dodgers general manager, predicts all players will wear batting helmets.
1952 – Military coup led by General Fulgencio Batista in Cuba intervened in the election that was scheduled June 1, establishing a de facto military dictatorship.
1959 – Dorothy Comiskey Rigney sells her 54% share of Major League Baseball’s Chicago White Sox to Bill Veeck for a reported $27 million.
1963 – Infielder Pete Rose debuts with Cincinnati at spring training in Tampa, Florida. He has hits in his first 2 at-bats.
1964 – Simon and Garfunkel record the first version of “The Sound of Silence” at Columbia Studios in New York City.
1969 – James Earl Ray pleads guilty to the murder of Martin Luther King Jr.
1980 – Willard Scott becomes the weather forecaster on the Today Show.
1985 – Dallas coach Dick Motta becomes the fourth NBA coach to win 700 regular season games as the Mavericks defeated the New Jersey Nets 126-117. He joined Red Auerbach, Jack Ramsay and Gene Shue.
1991 – Eddie Sutton is first coach to lead four schools into the NCAA basketball tournament.
1997 – The PalmPilot, developed by Jeffrey Hawkins, is released.
2000 – NASDAQ composite stock market index peaks at 5,132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom.
2010 – Carlos Slim becomes the first Mexican and person from an emerging economy to top Forbes’ Richest Person list with net worth of $53.5 billion.
2020 – Russian lower house of Parliament passes legislation to allow Vladimir Putin to hold the office of President for life.
2023 – Xi Jinping appointed to a historic third term as President of China. Office had previously been restricted to two terms.
Author: Sonny Jones
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