2017
American singer-songwriter and guitarist Chuck Berry, who was a leading and influential performer in rhythm-and-blues and rock-and-roll music, died at age 90.
2012
Tongan King Tupou V died and was succeeded by his younger brother, Crown Prince Lavaka, who took the name Tupou VI.
1974
Seven member countries of OPEC lifted a five-month oil embargo against the United States.
1965
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov, after passing through an air lock on the spacecraft Voskhod 2, became the first man to walk in space.
1964
Speed skater Bonnie Blair, one of the most successful American women athletes in Olympic competition, was born in Cornwall, New York.
1936
Politician F.W. de Klerk—who, as president of South Africa (1989–94), brought the apartheid system of racial segregation to an end and negotiated a transition to majority rule in his country—was born.
1932
American writer John Updike—whose novels, short stories, and poems are known for their realistic but subtle depiction of “American, Protestant, small-town, middle-class” life—was born.
1906
The first monoplane, constructed by the Romanian inventor Trajan Vuia, made a flight of 12 metres (40 feet).
1902
Italian operatic tenor Enrico Caruso, one of the first musicians to document his voice on the gramophone, made his first phonograph recording.
1871
The Commune of Paris, an insurrection of Parisians against the French government, began, lasting until May 28.
1869
Neville Chamberlain, who was British prime minister from May 28, 1937, to May 10, 1940, and whose name is identified with the policy of appeasement toward Adolf Hitler’s Germany, was born.
1837
American politician Grover Cleveland, who was the only U.S. president to serve two discontinuous terms (1885–89 and 1893–97), was born.
1766
The British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act of 1765 after violent protests from American colonists, including a group known as the Sons of Liberty.
