Thursday, April 29, 2010

Looking Back -- May 1970

May 1 – Demonstrations against the trial of the New Haven Nine, Bobby Seale, and Ericka Huggins draw 12,000.  

May 1 – President Richard Nixon orders U.S. forces to cross into neutral Cambodia, threatening to widen the Vietnam War, sparking nationwide riots and leading to the Kent State Shootings.

May 4 – Kent State shootings: Four students at Kent State University in Ohio are killed and 9 wounded by Ohio State National Guardsmen, at a protest against the incursion into Cambodia.

May 6 – Arms Crisis in the Republic of Ireland: Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney are dismissed as members of the Irish Government, for accusations of their involvement in a plot to import arms for use by the Provisional IRA in Northern Ireland.

May 8 – Hard Hat riot: Unionized construction workers attack about 1,000 students and others protesting the Kent State shootings near the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street and at New York City Hall.

May 8 – The Beatles release their 12th and final album, Let It Be.

May 9 – In Washington, D.C., 100,000 people demonstrate against the Vietnam War.

May 11 – Henry Marrow is murdered in a violent hate crime in Oxford, North Carolina.

May 11 – An F5 tornado hits downtown Lubbock, Texas, the first to hit a downtown district of a major city since Topeka, Kansas in 1966; 28 are killed.

May 14 – In the second day of violent demonstrations at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi, state law enforcement officers fire into the demonstrators, killing 2 and injuring 12.

May 17 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II, to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

May 23 – A fire occurs in the Britannia Bridge over the Menai Strait in north Wales, contributing to its partial destruction and amounting to approximately £1,000,000 worth of fire damage.

May 24 – The scientific drilling of the Kola Superdeep Borehole begins in the USSR.

May 26 – The Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 becomes the first commercial transport to exceed Mach 2.

May 27 – A British expedition climbs the south face of Annapurna I.

May 31 – The 1970 Ancash earthquake causes a landslide that buries the town of Yungay, Peru; more than 47,000 people are killed.

May 31 – The 1970 FIFA World Cup is inaugurated in Mexico.

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