Today in history:
On May 14, 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition, organized to explore the Louisiana Territory as well as the Pacific Northwest, began its journey near present-day Hartford, Illinois.
Also on this date:
In 1607, Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, was established by members of the Virginia Company.
In 1796, English physician Edward Jenner successfully inoculated 8-year-old James Phipps against smallpox by using cowpox matter. (Smallpox would be declared the first fully eradicated human disease in 1980.)
In 1948, the independent state of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv by David Ben-Gurion, who became its first prime minister.
In 1955, representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union, signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland. (The pact was dissolved in 1991.)
In 1961, Freedom Rider civil rights activists were attacked by violent mobs in Anniston and Birmingham, Alabama.
In 1973, NASA launched Skylab, the first American space station, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In 2022, an 18-year-old white supremacist wearing body armor opened fire in a supermarket in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people before being taken into custody. (The gunman, Payton Gendron, was sentenced to life in prison without parole in February 2023.)
