1875 – 1st Kentucky Derby: Oliver Lewis aboard Aristides wins in 2:37.75.
1897 – The first successful submarine that can run submerged for any considerable distance and combines electric and gasoline engines is launched in the USA by its designer John Phillip Holland.
1900 – “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” is first published by L. Frank Baum with illustrations by William Wallace Denslow in Chicago.
1915 – National Baptist Convention chartered.
1925 – Cleveland Indians Tris Speaker gets his 3,000 hit.
1938 – Radio quiz show “Information Please” debuts on NBC Blue Network.
1944 – General Eisenhower sets D-Day for June 5th.
1946 – US President Harry Truman seizes control of nation’s railroads to delay a strike.
1954 – US Supreme Court unanimously rules on Brown v Topeka Board of Education, reverses 1896 “separate but equal” Plessy v Ferguson decision.
1959 – Sam Snead sets PGA record for 36 holes at 122.
1961 – Fidel Castro offers to exchange Bay of Pigs prisoners for 500 bulldozers.
1970 – Hank Aaron becomes 9th player to get 3,000 hits.
1975 – NBC paid $5M for rights to show “Gone with the Wind” one time.
1985 – Les Anderson catches record 87 lb 4 oz Chinook Salmon off Alaska.
1992 – LPGA Championship Women’s Golf, Bethesda CC: Betsy King wins her 5th major title, 11 strokes ahead of runners-up JoAnn Carner, Liselotte Neumann, and Karen Noble.
1993 – “Chattahochee” single released by Alan Jackson (CMA Award Single of the Year, Billboard Song of the Year, 1993)
1998 – New York Yankees pitcher David Wells tosses a perfect game in a 4-0 win against the Minnesota Twins at Yankee Stadium, NY.
2006 – The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico to be an artificial reef.
2015 – Gun fight between rival bike gangs and police in Waco, Texas leaves 9 dead and 18 injured. 170 later arrested for organized crime.
2018 – Michigan State University will pay $500 million in claims to 300 survivors of sexual abuse involving Larry Nassar, largest sexual abuse case in sports history.
2020 – Barack Obama criticizes the US government’s handling of the pandemic during an online address to graduates, saying officials “aren’t even pretending to be in charge.”