On May 17, 1974, 500 members of LAPD surround a home in the suburb of Compton and kill 6 members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, including the group's leader, in a fierce shootout. Patricia Hearst, a celebrity member of the SLA who joined after they kidnapped her 4 months earlier, is not present. Officials portrayed the SLA as a well-organized and equipped paramilitary/terrorist organization. In reality, they are a handful of antisocial middle class youths, nevertheless well armed and violent. Autopsies found their lungs had been seared when police launched teargas cannisters that set the house on fire, yet they continued to fight. Billionaire Randolph Hearst, Patty's father, later said the siege "turned dingbats into martyrs." On May 17, 1885, Apache leader Geronimo and about 130 followers, including 42 men, escape their reservation at San Carlos, Arizona. It is the second time Geronimo orchestrates an escape since his submission to white authority in 1877, but this one stems from a misunderstanding. In protest of the ban on alcohol on the reservation, the Apache stage a "corn beer festival," assuming the Army will negotiate concessions to the ban rather than take action against such a large group. But an Army miscommunication delays their response and Geronimo, fearing something wicked is afoot, leads his followers into the Arizona desert. They do not surrender until September 1886, after learning that many of the Apache who stayed behind, including members of Geronimo's family, had been relocated to Florida. By this time, only 38 of the original escapees remained.
I know it was by hanging; was there ever anything reported about 'why'? Hadn't he just performed and was in the middle of a tour?
On May 20, 1498, Vasco da Gama, in command of a 4-ship fleet, arrives in Calicut, India, becoming the first European to reach India via the Atlantic Ocean. da Gama's fleet left Lisbon, Portugal the previous June and sailed around the Cape of Good Hope to India. He was greeted warmly at first, but Muslim merchants seeing the Portuguese as competitors undermined da Gama's good will with the king, and he departed in 1499. Two subsequent expeditions failed to warm relations, and the Portuguese eventually colonized Calicut. da Gama was appointed viceroy in 1524, but died on the voyage to India.
The Portuguese expeditions are fascinating. They were methodical in approach each going a little further down the coast of Africa. Prince Henry the Navigator sponsored the project and if Portugal wasn’t so small and poor it could have made quite a bigger mark. Magellan was a Portuguese in fact. Interesting that at the same time the Portuguese were exploring African waters the Chinese were withdrawing from exploration. In 1475 (I think) a Chinese expedition went to the African coast of the Indian Ocean. It was larger than any of the Portuguese. Unfortunately for them the emperor at the time decided to stop all exploration and destroyed the fleets to focus on Chinese internal affairs.
On May 21, 1956, the US greatly escalates the nuclear arms race with the successful airdrop of a hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, about 2600 miles west of Hawaii. The bomb detonates with a destructive force estimated at greater than 15 megatons (equivalent to more than 15 million pounds of TNT). The Russians had successfully airdropped a bomb over Siberia the year before, but it is estimated at less than 2 megatons. The Hiroshima bomb, by comparison, was about .014 megatons. On May 21, 1542, Hernando de Soto dies on the banks of the Mississippi River, in present day north Louisiana. de Soto had arrived in the New World in 1539, landing on the western shore of present-day Florida with an expedition of 600 troops, 200 horses, and support. de Soto hoped to find riches equivalent to previous expeditions in South America, but the North American natives have not developed concentrated civilizations like the Incas or Aztecs. He pillages his way through the scattered tribes of gulf coast natives, and reputedly becomes the first European to cross the Mississippi River in 1541. He dies of a fever a year later, his troops reportedly sinking his body in the river to prevent its being found by natives, who had been told de Soto was a god. On May 21, 1924, 14-year old Bobby Franks of Chicago is stabbed to death. His murder brings about one of the most sensational criminal trials of the early 20th century. The murder is quickly traced to Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb (Franks' cousin), two wealthy, exceptionally intelligent (both had already graduated from college) teenaged homosexuals who were obsessed with committing "the perfect crime." After spending weeks planning the murder, they kidnapped and stabbed Franks to death, disposed of his body in a pre-selected swampy area, mailed a ransom letter to throw investigators off the scent, and disposed of other evidence in various places. Their book intelligence did not, apparently, translate to criminal activities; Franks' body was found within a day of the murder, and other evidence led to the arrest of Leopold and Loeb. Leopold's wealthy father hired famed attorney Clarence Darrow to defend the pair; he made little effort to refute their guilt but successfully argued against the death penalty. Loeb was killed in prison in 1936, Leopold was paroled in 1958 and died in 1971.
