History for May 21

History for May 21 - On-This-Day.com:
Plato 427 B.C., Glenn Hammond Curtiss 1878, Armand Hammer 1898


Raymond Burr 1917, Andrei Sakharov 1921 - Soviet physicist, he came to be regarded as the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, Soviet antiwar activist, Mr. T (Lawrence Tero Tureaud) 1952


1542 - Hernando de Soto died along the Mississippi River while searching for gold.


1881 - The American branch of the Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton.


1922 - The cartoon, "On the Road to Moscow," by Rollin Kirby won a Pulitzer Prize. It was the first cartoon awarded the Pulitzer.


1924 - Fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks was murdered in a "thrill killing" committed by Nathan Leopold Jr. and Richard Loeb. The killers were students at the University of Chicago.


1927 - Charles A. Lindberg completed the first solo nonstop airplane flight across the Atlantic Ocean. The trip began May 20.


1956 - The U.S. exploded the first airborne hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean over Bikini Atoll.


1968 - The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, was last heard from. The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.


1982 - The British landed in the Falkland Islands and fighting began.