10 May 2023 (MIA)

1497 – Amerigo Vespucci allegedly leaves Cádiz for his first voyage to the New World.

1503 – Christopher Columbus visits the Cayman Islands and names them Las Tortugas after the numerous turtles there.

1655 – England, with troops under the command of Admiral William Penn and General Robert Venables, annexes Jamaica from Spain.

1773 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act, designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.

1774 – Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette become King and Queen of France.

1837 – Panic of 1837: New York City banks fail, and unemployment reaches record levels.

1857 – Indian Rebellion of 1857: In India, the first war of Independence begins. Sepoys mutiny against their commanding officers at Meerut.

1872 – Victoria Woodhull becomes the first woman nominated for President of the United States.

1877 – Romania declares itself independent from the Ottoman Empire following the Senate adoption of Mihail Kogălniceanu’s Declaration of Independence. Recognized on March 26, 1881 after the end of the Romanian War of Independence.

1924 – J. Edgar Hoover is appointed the Director of the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation, and remains so until his death in 1972.

1933 – Censorship: In Germany, the Nazis stage massive public book burnings.

1940 – World War II: Winston Churchill is appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1941 – World War II: Rudolf Hess parachutes into Scotland to try to negotiate a peace deal between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.

1948 – The Republic of China implements “temporary provisions” granting President Chiang Kai-shek extended powers to deal with the Communist uprising; they will remain in effect until 1991.

1954 – Bill Haley & His Comets release “Rock Around the Clock”, the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts.

1969 – Vietnam War: The Battle of Dong Ap Bia begins with an assault on Hill 937. It will ultimately become known as Hamburger Hill.

1975 – Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder in Japan.

1981 – François Mitterrand wins the presidential election and becomes the first Socialist President of France in the French Fifth Republic.

1989 – Alpinists Dimitar Ilievski (35) from Bitola, Viktor Groshelj (36) from Ljubljana and Stipe Bozic (37) from Split surmounted the highest peak in the world, Mount Everest. Ilievski died on the way down the mountain.

1994 – Nelson Mandela is inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president.

1997 – The Maeslantkering, a storm surge barrier in the Netherlands that is one of the world’s largest moving structures, is opened by Queen Beatrix.

2002 – F.B.I. agent Robert Hanssen is sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for selling United States secrets to Moscow for $1.4 million in cash and diamonds.

2008 – An EF4 tornado strikes the Oklahoma-Kansas state line, killing 21 people and injuring over 100.

2012 – The Damascus bombings were carried out using a pair of car bombs detonated by suicide bombers outside of a military intelligence complex in Damascus, Syria, killing 55 people and injuring 400 others

2013 – The Freedom Tower becomes the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

2017 – US President Donald Trump shares classified information about ISIS plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office.

2018 – China announces plans for the world’s largest weather-control mechanism, rain-inducing machines for the Tibetan Plateau (area the size of Alaska).

2018 – Mahathir Mohamad is sworn in as the seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia, the world’s oldest leader at 92.

2020 – Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 rise above 4 million with death toll above 270,000, according to Johns Hopkins.

2021 – US F.D.A. authorizes the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds.

2021 – World Health Organization classifies the Indian COVID-19 variant B.1.617 as a variant of global concern.

2022 – US reports highest rate of gun-related deaths in 24 years in 2020, according to the CDC, with firearm homicides increasing 35% to 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people nationwide.