History for May 18

History for May 18 - On-This-Day.com:
Frank Capra 1897 - Film director ("It's a Wonderful Life"), Robert Meredith Willson 1902 - Composer, songwriter, conductor, playwright, Perry Como 1912 - Singer, television personality


Pope John Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyla) 1920, Reggie Jackson 1946 - Baseball player, Yannick Noah 1960 - Tennis player


1642 - Montreal, Canada, was founded.


1896 - The U.S. Supreme court upheld the "separate but equal" policy in the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. The ruling was overturned 58 years later with Brown vs. Board of Education.


1917 - The U.S. Congress passed the Selective Service act, which called up soldiers to fight in World War I.


1926 - Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson vanished while visiting a beach in Venice, CA. She reappeared a month later with the claim that she had been kidnapped.


1934 - The U.S. Congress approved an act, known as the "Lindberg Act," that called for the death penalty in interstate kidnapping cases.


1953 - The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.


1980 - Mt. Saint Helens erupted in Washington state. 57 people were killed and 3 billion in damage was done.


2012 - Facebook Inc. held its initial public offering and began trading on the NASDAQ. The company was valued at $104 billion making it the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company.